"Sir, we have civilians back here!"
Turning, the Paladin's HUD outlined a knot of human shapes huddled in the next room. Scribe Foster looked up at his commanding officer. "What do we do, sir?"
The paladin looked down at the pathetic knot of settlers. How had they survived so long, with no weapons, no resources? Sympathy and empathy were not virtues prized by the brotherhood of steel, but could he justify leaving these pitiful survivors to be slaughtered by raiders?
"Get them moving, we can't leave them here or they'll be skinned alive. They'll have to keep up with us until we reach a defensible position where we can turn and fight. Initiate Roach, Geas, get them up."
The two initiates began to drag the frightened settlers to their feet, and began pushing them towards the rear exit, where Knight Vane was keeping watch. Scribe Foster leant down to help an old man crouched alone in a corner, away from the others. So far, he hadn't made any effort to move at all. He was swathed in a ragged shawl, and what was visible of his face behind a tangled mess of matted hair was showing signs of malignant melanoma from over exposure to radiation.
"On your feet old timer, come on..." coaxed the scribe, offering a hand. The old man shuffled away, head downcast, like a beaten animal. Foster snagged his bony shoulder, and pulled.
As he did, the shawl fell away, revealing a withered torso. The scribe drew back in horror from the decaying mass of the old man's chest, well on the way to ghoulification. The old man gave a death-rattle hiss through his empty gums and glared up with wild, glazed eyes. Foster didn't notice the metallic cylinder in the man's gnarled hands.
"Shit, he's a ghoul!"
An explosion interrupted Foster's panicked shout, the homemade bomb hidden under the old man's shawl launching a deadly hail of shrapnel that ripped Foster apart.
Knight Vane reacted first, as she gave an angry shout of denial and raised her laser rifle. The old man went down in a hail of red light that blasted him into ash. The other civilians screamed, and one of the young men threw himself at Initiate Roach with a concealed switchblade. Before the Paladin could react, the whole squad had opened fire and turned the building into a charnel house of screams and bursts of laser fire.
Brotherhood fire discipline ensured the shooting stopped as suddenly as it had started. In the silence, the squad could hear the sounds of the approaching raiders outside, whoops and roars of animal rage mixed with vile slurs and threats. The Paladin's HUD now showed only the surviving members of his team, standing over a carpet of scorched corpses.
The Paladin took stock of the situation, quickly, as he was trained to do, ignoring the reek of burned skin, flesh and hair, and the sharp tang of ozone.
A crackle of gunfire from outside, and the ringing clang of a 38. round plinking off the shoulder of his T-60 armour made the decision for him. "We can't stay here, move, quickly. Knight Vane, you're on point."
The Paladin looked down at the dead civilians, his power armour HUD displaying the rapidly cooling corpses and a readout displaying Foster's absent life signs.
"Ad Victoriam, brother."