Mojave wasteland

2276, February, 1st

12:12 A.M.

Chapter 1: A Surprise Attack at Dawn

"Calvin wake up, you're on guard duty."

"Good, 'cause I can barely sleep with all that gunfire happening a mile up the road."

"Well that ain't our problem cause orders say to stay here and defend our post not go up the road and shoot up some fiends."

"Okay, okay I'm going." Calvin said as he closed the door behind himself.

Calvin slowly walked up the boards on the side of the house that would lead to the top of it and there he knew he would have to wait there until morning because he always got last shift. Once Calvin was on top of the house he sat there behind the sandbags and smirked at the thought of legion attacking them because him and his squad were positioned a couple miles away from where a real attack could take place, Hoover Dam.

Morning couldn't have come any sooner, Calvin thought as he saw the sun rising above the horizon that lay in front of him. Calvin thought he saw movement over the horizon but that couldn't be because they were miles away from the nearest trading post and the fiends that were up the road largely stayed to their side because they knew better than to mess with a squad of NCR troopers. Quickly grabbing the binoculars from the table in front of him Calvin held them up to his eyes to see who could possibly be heading to their outpost. "Shit!" was all Calvin could think of before he jumped off the building and ran inside to alert the others. "Tim, John, Klein get your asses out here now!" Amidst the confusion the squad of NCR soldiers got their weapons and put on their uniforms and armor.

Running out of the door Calvin darted across the road and took cover behind a boulder while Tim scrambled up the ladder to the tower in the center of the outpost. Klein and John were the last out of the house and they took cover behind the stone wall that was roughly ten yards left of the house but they still had the advantage of being on top of the through his binoculars Tim could clearly see what was a large group of about 20 something legion soldiers coming up the hill that led to the outpost. Tim picked up his light machine gun that had already been placed in the tower started to unload his weapon upon the oncoming horde of legion soldiers. The legion soldiers who by now were fully aware of what was going on now took cover behind the vast amount boulders that were at the bottom of the hill. Klein broke cover and took but 10 steps before he collapsed to a gunshot wound. John saw Klein was in serious trouble out in the open but he couldn't risk pulling him back into cover for fear of taking a bullet too. "Fuck it!" John ran to the middle of the street with bullets whistling overhead and dust kicking up from the ground in front of him, Tim bravely dragged Klein's body back behind cover. Once in safety John could barely hear Klein talking. "*cough*... *cough* you actually pulled me back... thanks, is it bad?" Klein could barely say.

"Ummmm..." John looked down to see that the bullet had been caught in Klein's vest but there was going to be some broken ribs. With bullets still flying all around them John got out of cover and quickly slid across the road and rushed inside and started to search for it…..

Things weren't going to well for Tim who had attracted most of the attention of the legion soldiers who had largely lost many of their numbers due to Tim's LMG which had now gone dry. With bullets pinging off of the steel table he propped up from in front of himself he couldn't hear John and Klein firing so he feared the worst had happened and if that were so, he thought to himself then they would swarm him any minute when they realise that there was no more firing coming toward them from the front. But as soon as it appeared all hope was gone he heard the loudest explosion he'd ever heard in his life... then the firing stopped. Tim stood up to see that Calvin, and John were fine but he worried for Klein who was clutching his side while he walked back into the barracks.

"Klein think you have the energy to call this into HQ?" Calvin asked Klein.

"Yeah, just *cough*... give me a moment to catch my breath." Klein said as got into the chair in front of the radio. Tim opened the door and got inside then questioned John.

"What did you do back there!?"

"I saved our asses is what I did!" John quickly barked back to Tim.

"Yeah, but with what?" Tim said with his arms outstretched.

"I might've hid something into my locker." John said with a guilty look on his face now staring at the ground.

"What was it?" Tim said staring intently at John who was now sweating more than he already was.

"I might've hid a... grenade that I found in our last patrol at that military base." John said scratching the back of his head.

"Well you wont have to face punishment if that's what you're worried about, but i'll need some time to think about how I'll tell command about this."

"Tim!" Klein broke the silence

"What is it Klein?" Tim turned his towards Klein who was now messing with dials on the radio.

"There's no connection to the other outpost or even HQ."

"I'm sure it'll clear up at noon." Tim responded to Klein who looked even worse than he already did.

"John, Calvin go clear those bodies off of the main road, and when you're done with that I wan't you to patrol the area we don't want to get counter attacked after this, That's an order men, Go!" Tim ordered. As the two soldiers now got to their feet and left the only two left in the room were Klein and Tim. "What happened to you Klein?" Tim said with a distraught voice."I ran out of cover and got shot trying to run here to call for help." Klein said with a raspy voice. "You should go back to the other room and rest. I'll be here when they get back." Tim responded in a comforting manner which reassured Klein that everything was going to be alright. Klein got up from his chair and proceeded to stumble into the other room across the hall and fell into his cot and with that he fell asleep hoping the pain that was radiating from his side would just stop. Tim wondered what he should do now that he had a wounded man and a radio that didn't work. Heck, I'll give it a try thought Tim who walked to the radio and turned it on then put the microphone to his mouth and requested that somebody send in support, Tim didn't know if his messaged was at all heard from any of the other stations so Tim started to walk away without giving it a second thought. Just then the radio crackled. A voice came through, tinny and punctuated by static; "We're... ...sending... he's on his way... Repeat, on his way...there, Just hold on-..." and then the radio was emitting an all too familiar static noise. Tim dashed to the radio system and turned the mic on,"Who's on there way?" Tim quickly said without hesitation. There was no response from the radio. "Damn radio!" Tim shouted at the radio and with all his anger Tim slammed his fist onto the table nearly knocking the radio off the table. "We're... ... Sending in... ... A ... ... Ranger... ..his name ...is ... ..." And with that the radio crackled once more and sparks shot out the back where the wires were already fringed and the battery thought to himself of about who was this ranger that was being sent here.