An armored figure, wrapped in a blood red cloth, sat nervously beside Caesar's empty throne, his head held high. He held his plumed helmet under his arm, and in the other, a curved, shiny blade with a wooden handle.
He awaited the return of rest of the scouts. Things were finally running on schedule, now that Caesar was dead. He hated himself for thinking it, but the great Emperor's death was a fortuitous occurrence, at least for the purposes of winning this war.
The sound of footsteps brought him to attention. Three younger men, in their wolf-pelts, ran into the tent.
"Ave, Lucius," said one of them.
"Is everyone prepared?" he asked, snorting.
"Yes," said the scout, nodding quickly.
"The cohorts are in position?"
"All fourteen senior centurions and their cohorts are standing by and awaiting your order."
Lucius walked over to the scout who had spoken, and then turned and walked over to the farthest one.
"How have the enemy reacted?"
"The NCR are still fortified. Their strength is the same as we'd predicted. They probably have maybe three thousand men total, including Rangers. They've brought no further reinforcements in the last week."
"Good."
"Frumentarius Ilus also reports that a large number of chemical-addict raiders are planning on attacking the NCR base at Camp McCarran."
Lucius felt some of his uncertainty fade away.
"You mean the Fiends? The Fiends are going to attack McCarran? Are you sure?"
"Yes. Ilus has infiltrated Vault 3 and heard their leader, Motor Runner, say this."
Lucius sat still and quietly, thinking to himself. The NCR garrison at McCarran should be weak from all the men transferred to the dam and Forlorn Hope. If the raiders take it, they would have nowhere to retreat or regroup.
The scouts stood firm, not letting their nervousness show. One of them gently spoke up.
"Some of the centurions are worried that the NCR's defenses are deceptively weak. Many of them think that the attack looks too easy."
"I don't have any reason to believe that the enemy is planning a repeat of Boulder City. All the major targets are important installations. They couldn't possibly blow them up… and you've carefully scouted all approaches for traps, correct?"
"We've found a small number of mines, and our engineers disabled them. Other than that, the routes to our major targets appear clear. But some officers are worried at the relative lack of NCR movement."
There was nothing to worry about. And if there was, then Lanius could worry about it. It was nice to know that he'd decided to lead from the front, as usual, and that there existed the potential of the big idiot to remove himself from the picture.
"Do not worry," Lucius told the scout. "Tell the centurions not to worry. If the Republic is planning something, we'll deal with it swiftly and flexibly. If the first wave fails, the second wave will react accordingly."
"Yes sir. They will know this."
"Excellent. Proceed immediately."
The scouts nodded, and then left the command tent.
The silence that had hung in the air during the morning was quickly broken. From one side of the enormous concrete structure, there suddenly arose the thunder of thousands of footsteps on the earth. Bloodthirsty cries of excitement and rage filled the air as the might of the Legion surged forward to claim the enormous relic from the rotten complacency of the New California Republic.
High on the towers overlooking either side of the dam were the stalkers, the Centurion's nightmare, who silently watched as their enemy ran toward them. They shouldered their rifles, breathing slowly and peering through their black sunglasses from under their red berets.
They moved their crosshairs over plumed helmets, and then squeezed the triggers, in order to produce the conditions of confusion and fear that allowed them to defeat their foe 4 years ago. The sounds of their bullets were drowned out by the Legionary's screaming, and few noticed that their brutal commanders fell dead.
An older man behind a wall of sandbags, facing the Legion attack, looked through his binoculars at the advancing mob. Sgt. Gorobets had ordered his men to hold their fire until they were only 200 meters away. He knew that they would cross that distance quickly, and hoped that the accurate, consistent fire of the two platoons at this first line of defense, along with that of the ranger squad, would cause them to falter and retreat into their own ranks.
Far ahead, he heard the ragged sound of fire from the Legion. Bullets and buckshot began peppering the NCR cover. He ducked down, then looked over at Ranger Hanlon and nodded.
"Fire, boys," he said. He heard "open fire" from Hanlon, who stood beside him.
His units fired, the air on front of them shredded by lead. Legionaries in the front ranks began dropping quickly, savaged by the intense barrage. Many of the bolder men who had moved ahead of their column were hit with 4 or 5 bullets, and died instantly, trampled underfoot by the men behind them.
Many of the troopers hurriedly emptied the clips of their service rifles, not taking care to preserve ammunition. Many of the green troops fired high, under-estimating their sighting, and pockmarked the dirt a quarter mile away.
Legion fire continued to hit their cover. Gorobets saw one private to the right of him drop his weapon and fall, several bullet holes in his head and neck. He disregarded it and continued to pick out individual Legionaries with his bolt-action rifle. He took a dark pleasure in shooting them in the legs, and then watching other Legionaries kick the wounded ones out of the way. As he recalled seeing his men slowly dying on crosses near Cottonweed Cove, his guilt melted away.
As the Legion ranks closed, their lines became more ragged, with some Legionaries outpacing others, some falling behind, and many falling dead. Their fire was becoming more accurate as they came to about 50 meters. The NCR fire was quieting, due to deaths and people running out of ammunition.
"Grenade!" Shouted one man as he pulled the pin on his fragmentation grenade and threw it toward the Legion. Several other troopers followed.
Legionaries shied away from the thrown explosives, some of them ducking, some of them using wounded comrades as shields. The detonations perforated many of them with shrapnel. One grenade sailed back toward the troopers' cover, thankfully bouncing off of it and exploding harmlessly.
Spears began striking all around Gorobets, oddly silent compared to everything else. Most of them became embedded in the sandbags, but at least one man had his arm pierced, and was unable to lift his rifle. Gorobets got his attention with a gentle kick, his voice drowned out by the noise, and then motioned for him to retreat. The soldier crouched and ran to the second defensive line, but was shot through the back, and fell quickly.
Gorobets made out a Legionary in sunglasses and a wolf hood, armed with a rifle, crouched along the side of the dam. He quickly brought up his own rifle and shot the man in the chest. A howling Decanus next to him suffered a large hole in the face from Hanlon's oversized revolver.
The first Legionaries began to jump over the sandbags. Several of the frightened NCR troopers shot them point-blank. Those who were out of ammunition were themselves shot to death, or were slashed brutally by the Legionary's machetes. The troopers were rapidly killed or forced to retreat.
Gorobets knew that the first line of defense had fallen. He looked to his right. Hanlon was gone. He got up to make a run for the exit, when a bullet hit him in the back of his left thigh.
Spinning around, he observed a large Centurion moving swiftly toward him, holding up a revolver. The man saw his beret.
"You are filth. You and your sneaking brethren will be nothing but food for the crows."
The larger man took the sergeant's rifle and threw it aside, and then grabbed the soldier's neck with thick, calloused fingers. In a split second, Gorobets pulled a steel combat knife from its sheath and stabbed it into the Centurion's neck. The Centurion let go and his hands went to his neck. Gorobets had a brief moment to watch the man stagger around, blood soaking his uniform, before a buckshot load blasted apart the skull of the steadfast 1st Recon sniper.