The Second Battle of Hoover Dam, Part 2: War is Hell.
Hoover Dam Interior
July 19th, 2281
20:01 p.m.
Inside Hoover, the corridors were narrow, but well-lit. Already the sounds of battle could be heard. The familiar sounds of gunshots and men screaming and dying reached the ragtag band as they rounded a corner, pressing even deeper into the dam's structure. The trek towards the control room was a nervous one, as the anticipation of a Legion soldier or gruesome battle was upon them constantly. Rex, padding along at the head of the group, growled constantly as they moved, the scent of enemies and blood thick in the air. After what seemed an eternity of walking, the Courier's Pip-Boy let out a soft beeping. Looking down, he confirmed what he already knew.
"The control room's just up ahead." he muttered, craning to look further down the corridor. In front of him, the narrow corridor stretched open into a much wider area, but he could see no entrance to the room from where he stood. Moving slowly forward, he stepped out into the open, and was met immediately by two NCR patrolmen in salvaged power armor. They were outfitted identically, with some semblance of the NCR's emblem painted hastily across their chests and carrying flamers in hand. Carter shifted his carbine behind him and stepped forward, raising his hands in the universal gesture of surrender.
The one on the left reacted instantly. "Halt! No one is allowed into the control room, except under explicit orders from the general."
Even with his voice distorted by the mask, this dude sounded pissed.
"Especially not you Courier." He practically spat the last word, bringing his face to within inches of Carter's own.
Carter was unperturbed, staring coolly back from behind his own mask. "What, you boys still mad about Helios One?" he asked, a teasing lilt to his voice. "I told your superiors it was all just a big misunderstanding. I had no clue what the hell "Archimedes" was. And by the time I did, it was too late to stop it."
The Heavy Trooper moved suddenly, his fist flying straight into Carter's gut. Though his reinforced Combat Armor took the worst of the blow, it still hurt. A lot. A sharp cough escaped the Courier's lips as he sank to one knee. Behind him Rex's growling grew louder. Carter stretched out a hand between man and dog, preventing any sudden actions.
"Fuck. You. You Wasteland shit." the man snarled, bending his head down to the Courier's level.
"Yeah." Carter coughed again as he raised his head, making it sound suspiciously like laugh. "Fuck me. The guy who's saved your army's ass so many times that I should probably be the fuckin general. I'm here to help, you dunce."
The Trooper moved to strike another blow, but Carter was quicker, springing to his feet and lunging forwards in one smooth motion. The trooper loosed a gasp of surprise as Carter's momentum carried them both into the steel door of the control room with a resounding clang!, a 10mm pistol glinting in the Dam's overhead lighting as the Courier pushed it against the man's throat, right into the gap between chestplate and helmet. His left arm simultaneously pinned the man to the door and prevented him from raising the nozzle of his Flamer, leaving him no recourse should he wish to continue living. To his right, the other Trooper, and his companions hesitated.
"The fuck are you doin, Carter?!" Cass screeched, her eyes darting between the Courier and the other heavy trooper. Behind her, Rex growled menacingly at the armored man, as his hands brought the nozzle of the flamer up a tad. "You just said we were here to help!"
The Rose's words, however, fell on deaf ears.
"You know, I've tried really fucking hard to get along with the NCR. I helped some of your people out here and there because I liked them or I thought they were good people, but all this bullshit is really starting to wear on me. You and all your goddamn commanding officers come to me for help with supplies or training soldiers or finding lost Rangers, and then turn around and pretend like I'm the scum of the fucking earth. Do you know badly I could have fucked you? How quickly I could have snapped my fingers and completely destroyed the NCR? I could have turned Freeside into a fucking war zone with three little words in the King's ear. I could've sat idly by and let Camp Forlorn Hope wither and die and then get swallowed up by Caesar. I could have let that bomb blow up half of McCarran. Hell, I could have killed your fucking president. Really, how fucking poorly does an organization have to be run to ask a goddamn Mojave Express courier to prevent assassination attempts on their president? I've seen about enough of the New California Republic to last me a lifetime. If you somehow live through this, you can go and tell your fucking general I'm taking the Mojave out of the hands of you bumbling fucks. Vegas is better off without you."
From behind him, the sounds of fighting intensified. A harsh battlecry sounded far too close for comfort, but was cut short by the thundering of a gun.
"Legion!" Boone announced to the group as he leapt into cover behind an angle in the wall, reloading his hunting rifle as he went. ED-E floated into the space he had vacated, its zapper firing rapidly at the oncoming Legionnaires, but it would not last long on its own. Rex leapt into the fray with a bark, taking one of the men in the throat and downing him in a spray of blood.
"Take care of that." Carter snarled, pushing the Trooper towards the din with the barrel of his pistol before accessing the room's control panel. Even before the door was fully opened, the Courier rushed headlong into the room, tapping a few buttons on the console before inserting the override chip into the required port. Yes Man's smiling face immediately appeared on-screen.
"Hey! Nice to see you again!"
"Can the pleasantries, Smiley." Carter snapped. "I'm not in the mood. What are my options?"
"At your request, I can either reroute the dam's power to Mr. House's bunker at Fortification Hill or overload everything and make the dam completely unusable! It's all up to you!"
"I'll take the Securitron army, please and thank you."
Yes Man's face flickered briefly.
"Alright! Now all you have to do is flip the switch to the generators and the Securitrons will bust right out of that bunker and attack the Legion! Isn't teamwork great?"
"Hurry it up!" came Cass's voice from behind him, her sentence punctuated with shotgun fire.
"Yeah, it's fucking awesome." Carter agreed with the AI. "Now where's the switch?"
"It's in a generator room at the end of the corridor. I've already marked the location on your Pip-Boy, so just go flip that switch and everything will be all set!"
"Oh, you mean just fight our way through the seemingly endless fucking parade of Legion soldiers so we can flip the one goddamn switch that can provide energy to Fortification Hill?"
"Yup! That's all you have to do! Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be fine. It's not like if you don't do this all our plans will have been for nothing. I'm sure we can work around it somehow. Good luck!"
Sometimes Carter really fucking hated that robot.
"How's it lookin, Cass?" he roared over the din as he sprinted back towards the entrance.
"Like a goddamn barbecue. Those Heavy Troopers are roasting them alive." she noted, as the sound of flames and screams floated around the bend. "But I'm guessing either they'll run out of fuel, or…"
"Run out of Legionnaires to grill." the Courier finished for her. At which point they might turn around and grill me. Not exactly the ideal situation.
Carter craned his neck outside, looking through the carnage for a way out. It didn't take him long to find. Directly across from the control room, a smaller, but similar-looking doorway. He didn't know where it went, but as long as it didn't go straight to hell, it didn't really matter.
"Cass! Across!" he yelled, pointing towards the door. "Get it open! I'll get the others."
Immediately, they set off about their tasks. Moving behind Boone, Carter tapped him twice on the shoulder, pointed two fingers at his own eyes, and then towards Cass and the door. It was Boone who had taught him the silent communication used by First Recon. At times like this, it proved invaluable. Unfortunately, Rex and ED-E responded only to verbal commands.
"Rex! Here, boy! ED-E! Command protocol: Follow!"
The familiar forms soon were soon visible around the corner, bounding and floating, respectively to his side. With the gang all here, Carter moved towards the open door, but kept his eyes down the corridor, waiting for his chance. The screams had ceased not all that long ago, and the Courier was guessing he had really pissed off that Ranger with his little speech. As it turned out his suspicions were soon confirmed as one of the Power Suit twins came stomping down the hall. Raising his pistol, Carter squeezed off a quick succession of rounds, aiming for the hose that connected tank to flamer nozzle. Whether he hit his mark or not the Courier would never know, as the flaming repartee shot down the hall. Carter pressed himself inside the doorframe, the heat from the flames threatening to cook him inside his armor.
"Cass! Dynamite!" he yelled, one hand outstretched for an explosive.
"Wha-?"
"Fucking now, Cass!" Carter roared as the heat intensified. His arm curled back towards his body, thinking better of his hastily assembled plan. "Just throw it!"
The Rose did as she was bid, hurling a stick of dynamite straight past Carter's face and into the hallway. Carter moved to slam the door as quickly as possible, but the effect was instantaneous: the loud, fiery explosion threw the door wide open again. The Courier was sent hurtling through the air, flames licking at his exposed fingers as he was hurled bodily onto a steel table and onto the floor. Overhead, objects floated and crashed all around him, a cacohpony of sound that sent his ears ringing and head spinning. Even after the tumult had finally died, Carter simply lay for a few moments, too stunned to even move.
"Fuck. Me." the Courier groaned, pushing an overturned chair off of his chest. World still twirling crazily, he gathered himself in an attempt to stand that just made everything else worse. He lurched drunkenly to the side, nearly falling back onto the floor as he called out names.
"Boone! Cass! Rex!"
His entire body felt like it had been hit with a sledgehammer. Even though his limbs seemed to be working just fine, it was difficult to stand, let alone walk. As he made to grab the wall, his fingers protested, crying out in pain. Carter recoiled immediately, fearing burns or worse.
"Shit!" he cried, shaking his hands in a vain attempt to stop the pain. "Where the fuck are you guys?"
"Here." Boone's steely tones from somewhere towards his right, just barely audible through his most likely perforated eardrums. Wedged between a collection of chairs and an overturned card table, the ex-sniper looked none-too-happy, his trusty hunting rifle several arm's lengths away. Placing his still-screaming hands under the table, Carter heaved it off of his friend, and was rewarded with stabs of pain in his right leg. With a pained gasp, he made a grab for his thigh, and was immediately met with the sensation of warm, oozing blood between his fingers.
"Goddammit. Must've been shrapnel." he mused, thinking back on the vendor's assurances that the armor was "100 % bulletproof". Of course, that wasn't exactly an unpopular claim amongst armor vendors. Back on his feet, Boone took a glance at the wound.
"You can walk. That's good."
"Yeah, until the adrenaline wears off. Get some Med-X and cloth. In my pack."
Boone complied, rifling around for a few moments in the Courier's bag before dropping the necessary medication into the Courier's hand.
"No cloth. Found a shirt, though."
"That'll do." the Courier assured him, grabbing the materials. "Keep a look out." Carter injected the solution into his arm before ripping the shirt into strips and tying them around the wound. The shirt was a bit grimy, but he would worry about that later.
"Alright. Let's find everyone else and get the fuck out of here."
"Don't bother." came a familiar voice, closely followed by the cocking of a shotgun.
"We found you already…." Cass drawled, leveling the shotgun at Carter's chest. For a brief moment, only stunned silence fell filled the small room. Then suddenly, the sound of Rex growling came, accompanied by ED-E's soft hum. They materialized as if from nowhere, on either side of Cass. She looked unperturbed.
Carter raised a hand slowly.
"Cass…. what the…"
"Shut up. I don't wanna hear you talkin unless it's to tell me what the hell that was back there. You told me we were here to fight Legion, and support the NCR. Instead, we're blowing them up. And you!"
She looked at Boone.
"1st fuckin Recon my ass. You really still goin along with this after that?"
Boone was, as usual, silent. But he didn't move. Carter took the opening.
"What the hell do you want from me, Cass?"
"A fucking explanation. And if it ain't satisfactory, I might just shoot you anyway."
"We're sitting ducks in this room!"
"So make it quick." Cass was not fucking around.
"You heard the speech." Carter began. "I'm liberating Vegas. No NCR. No Legion. Independence. It's gonna be a hell of a party."
"You lied to us, you prick. You know what the Republic means to us, to the Mojave, the good it could do….."
"Yeah." Carter breathed. "I know what it could do. And I know what it's done. And I'm not impressed."
Boone's grip on him tightened ominously.
"Caesar's a despot and an egomaniacal, power-hungry prick. I don't agree with him or his philosophies, but he was right about one thing: the NCR is weak, fragmented, and filled with people just as eager for power as him. There are some good people like Hanlon in a position to actually do something, but their own organization fucking hamstrings them. Better Vegas is left to its own devices. Maybe something good can come of it."
Cass was silent, but her gun did not waver.
"Both of you're either with me or against me. We've come this far together, but if this is the fucking tipping point, so be it. My mind's made up. Just remember that if you're gonna try and kill me, I have you outnumbered."
He extricated himself from Boone's grip, and began hobbling towards the door, half-anticipating a gunshot in the back. None came.
Then Boone was beside him again. "We're with you. For this at least."
"Well la-di-fucking-da. Let's go press this switch." Carter retorted through gritted teeth, already hobbling towards the exit.
As luck, or perhaps coincidence, would have it, they encountered no more resistance on their way to the generator room. Rushing it, it took only a few moments for Carter to flip the switch on the wall, and send the machines sputtering into life as lights flooded the room, illuminating the dust-covered generators.
"So why the hell didn't the NCR turn these things on before? Couldn't have been because it was difficult."
"Must've been the Legionnaires waiting to tear them limb-from-limb." came Cass's voice from near the partially open door. Sudden gunshots clipped the end of her sentence. "Speaking of which…"
Carter sighed heavily. "Oh, of fuckin course. They're goddamn roaches."
"More like fish in a barrel." Boone breathed, sighting down his scope over Cass's shoulder. Two quick shots resulted in an equal number of deaths.
The Whiskey Rose flinched hard, ducking away from the sniper. "Can you not do that right in my fucking ear?"
"Move." Boone growled, his focus unbroken.
Cass complied, a hand to her ear as Carter set his non-human companions in motion with a few verbal commands. Opening the door wide as Boone reloaded, he loosed ED-E and Rex on their unfortunate victims.
Screams echoed down the hallway as he pulled Cass to her feet.
"Come on, you'll live."
"Yeah, as a fucking deaf person! He's out of his goddamn mind!"
"No, he just…. really doesn't like the Legion."
That was probably the understatement of the century.
"Boone, hang here and cover us for a bit. I'll wave you up when its clear. Come on, Cowgirl Deafie." Carter said, pulling the still-recovering Cass along with him into the sound-filled corridor.
The pair pushed until they caught up with Rex and ED-E, squeezing off rounds at the Legion soldiers who continued to materialize in the confines of the dam.
"Can't wait to put these bastards down for good." Carter growled as they plunged ahead, forging towards the door to the surface. Bullets flew around them as Legion and NCR soldiers fought and killed and died. Carter shot indiscriminately, putting down any other being that dared to cross his path, regardless of uniform. The thoughtless slaughter opened a path, and JCarter took his chance, sprinting back towards the control room and the door to the Dam's other side. Leaving the chaos of the dam's interior behind, it was strangely quiet as they emerged into the Wasteland, where night had fallen. The quiet was eerie, almost deafening after the horrific sounds below them. Panting softly, Carter paused, looking upwards towards Caesar's stronghold at Fortification Hill. Faintly, the familiar sounds of fighting could be heard. Explosions lit the sky like fireworks. Here and there flames licked at the sky like thirsty tongues. The Securitrons were doing exactly what Yes Man had claimed they would. In a few more minutes, the Legion would be broken. Though a vague sense of disappointment hung over him, Carter relished the sight. After all the shit Caesar had tried to strongarm him into doing, it would have been nice to put the bullet in the dictator himself, and he knew that Boone shared his sentiments. Watching the hill burn would have to be satisfaction enough, but even that could not be done for long. Before him stood the gates to the Legion's advance camp, where the Legate himself had a tent and troops under his command.
Truthfully, Carter was surprised they hadn't already seen the Legate on the battlefield. With the way that the Legion and even Caesar himself deified the man, you would've thought Lanius would be unafraid to take point himself. But war, it seemed, showed the true colors of all men. Even Lanius was not eager to die, it seemed. Unfortunately for him, Carter no longer held such a fear. Getting shot in the head did that to a man.
"Thumbs down, you son of a bitch." Boone whispered next to him, the burning Legion camp reflected in his sunglasses. Even with the moon in the sky, he still wore the shades.
Cass was quieter, simply shifting her shotgun in hand. "Its almost over."
"So let's finish it."