CH2
Mojave Solstice
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The morning sun rose across the desert of the Mojave, winds whistled across this barren wasteland bringing with it the gusts of dusts across the hundreds of miles of sand and rock, shrubs which survived the years seemed peaceful, if not for the occasional animal or wastelander that may pass through.
From the barren sunbaked prior irradiated earth we arrive at the small town of Goodsprings, inside the house of a man named Dr Mitchells, he worked tentatively on the condition of the stranger who was now lying upon the bed in his home. The young man had been pulled from the pod that was now lying in the middle of town, it was amazing to find someone who could survive such an impact, his body should have been boiled inside of the pod from the heat alone, but it seemed like some sort of advanced material or shock absorbers had been installed inside to resist such factors.
Whatever the reasons for the survival of the boy, he was alive and in better health than any man alive, Mitchells had seen many things, and what was with this boy was that he possessed strength, good muscular build for a 17 year old. In terms of the young man's intelligence had yet to be seen, a quick psychological evaluation would have to be done before he made his decision.
For the marine in the bed, his day was just about to begin...
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Vance felt his head clear up as he regained consciousness, he could hear the odd creaking of a fan overhead, which didn't make much sense as there hadn't been any ceiling fans except in old movies. He cracked his eyes open to be greeted by a dull light from just above, the room was dark, it was strange to be here, the air smelled like slightly decayed wood, his sense of smell was much higher of course, and thankfully his neural implants could regulate them, so he passed it off and then focused on his surroundings.
He attempted to get unto his sides and then was greeted by the face of a stranger; he was an old looking man, silvering moustache and hair, what was left of his hair at least. He seemed to be relieved that Vance was okay, at least from what Vance could read from his body language.
"Good to see you finally wake up; you took a damn impressive fall." The man said scratching some notes on a clipboard.
"What happened? And where did all my gear go?" Vance said as he noted the missing MKV Vindicator armour.
"Your gear is on the dresser across the room you can retrieve it once I've completed my examination of you and properly evaluated you psychologically, it's just standard procedure." The old man replied.
"Okay, could I get your name then?" Vance asked.
"I'm Doctor Mitchells of Goodsprings you're our first guest in a while." The doc said.
"Good to know and I'm Corporal Vance of the 81st helldiver's division of the UCAF." Vance introduced.
The doctor perplexed, this was new.
"UCAF, 81st, umm I would know what to say about those things you just mentioned, as far as I've heard there was only the NCR and Caesar's legion…"
"What?" Vance said in surprise.
"Yes, as far as I've known and probably many others here in the Mojave there's only been those two major powers in the Mojave and probably the strange Mr House in the Vegas strip." Doc Mitchells stated.
Vance ran through his neural commands and ran a proxy on his current whereabouts, the place soon came up with nothing, no UCAF signals, no UCAF emergency beacons, but there was a marker point, which made him realise that something else had made it with him, he'd have to go looking for it later. He cleared his head and found that Mitchells was looking at him with concern.
"You spaced out there fella, you sure you're okay?" He asked.
"I'm fine; I just was a little bit in shock." Vance replied.
"I can imagine, you did technically fall from the skies at some insane level of speed and whatever it is you came down here on." Mitchells said as he ticked off some more checkboxes and then began.
"Okay, this is a basic psychological examination; I've gone over everything I could possibly cover. SO let's just run you through this and I'll see you on your way." He said brining up a stand with what looked like ink blots, Vance identified that it was a Rorschach.
"All right. I'm going to say a word. I want you to say the first thing that comes to mind."
Vance nodded and the doc began.
"Dog."
Vance replied. "Feed."
"House."
Vance responded with. "Renovate."
"Night."
Vance replied critically. "Dream."
"Bandit."
Vance replied immediately. "Vaporise."
"Light."
Vance responded thoughtfully. "Inspiration."
"Mother."
Vance paused and then replied. "Regret."
Doc Mitchells then went on. "Okay. Now I've got a few statements. I want you to tell me how much they sound like something you'd say."
"Conflict just ain't in my nature."
Vance replied with.
"I disagree respectfully." (+1 for martial honour if it was there)
"I ain't given to relying on others for support."
Vance's response was.
"I'd have to agree on that."
"I'm always fixing to be the centre of attention."
Vance thought that one through and replied.
"Disagree."
"I'm slow to embrace new ideas."
Vance replied directly.
"Disagree."
"I charge in to deal with my problems head-on."
Vance finished with.
"Strongly agree."
Doc wrote down the details of Vance and his psychological status, which wasn't much of course. He then proceeded to go and bring the Rorschach forward and finally began the last questions.
"Almost done here. What do you say you have a look at this? Tell me what you see."
The doc brought down the first ink blot and Vance examined it.
"A shadow in a doorframe."
The next ink blot came down and Vance observed the unique shape of it.
"I'm don't think it's appropriate to say what I see right now."
"Fair enough." The last ink blot image came down.
"A light in the darkness."
The doc folded the Rorschach back up and moved it away.
"Okay, looks as if you're psychologically stable, I better not keep you waiting any longer, I'm sure you'd like to get going as soon as possible." Mitchells said as he opened up the dresser where Vance's gear was on.
Vance got up and went over to the dresser and began to suit up. Doc Mitchells commented.
"That suit of yours is something impressive and terrifying I must admit, nothing like it any of us had ever seen. And of course the etched markings of that skull on the visor made many of us consider you possibly dangerous, but Victor was sure that you wouldn't do anything."
"Who's Victor?" Vance asked getting his leg pads attached and his top torso Nano-weave skin suit secured to his body.
"Victor's our local robot, he's a Securitron, he seemed determined to get you out, he even carried you here with half the town following, it was a strange sight, usually Victor didn't do anything much but it around for a while outside of his shack. But this was the first time he actually interacted with the town." Mitchells said.
"Was Victor also the one who got me out of the suit?" Vance asked.
"Yes why?" Mitchells replied curiously.
"Just curious…" Vance replied getting his armoured shoulder guards attached.
Vance's helldiver armour is a MKV Vindicator class, it can be named differently according to altercations within designs, Vance decided to make his suit listed as an Impulse class suit, and the suit is rather light compared to many other variations, only due to his age he was issued with a suit that was about 3/4th the weight of the average helldiver armour, but he was still a helldiver.
The MKV impulse was stripped of any extra armour plating and given basic combat suit design for shock absorbing impacts, it was supposed to have a jetpack, stealth field and a hologram projector attached to the add-ons of the suit but it didn't he couldn't receive these additions since he just managed to get into the pod without them. He might find the additions if he could locate the source of the UCAF signal there might be extra gear left behind.
He latched on his last joints and then booted his suit. His neural interface ran a check on the BIOS and once the suit cleared the interface he got up and tested his movements and then went over to Doc Mitchells. He was standing at the door and was looking at the young marine with amazement.
"How can you move like that?"
"I've had experience." Vance replied.
"Okay then, I might want to tell you before you leave, that if you need help with any aid, just come and see me, and Trudy, our unofficial mayor, if you'd consider her position would like to see you if you go along to the Prospector, it's the bar down by the main road." Mitchells said.
"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." Vance said.
"So long boy." Mitchells said as Vance exited.
Vance's triangular helmet piece came down and filtered out the sun's blinding glare, he could see the sight before him, a place in ruins. Well somewhat intact except the few houses that looked like they'd be better off in a garbage compactor. He could see the destroyed homes and the standing ones which were slightly eroded.
Trees around here were dead, those which were still somewhat alive had things growing off of them, the grass around some places were patchy and other places barren, the whole area was strange. He hadn't been to any place that was much like this, and from what he could see, the place really wasn't like the UCAF, no colony was like this, mostly utilitarian in UCAF housing or Spartan in design.
He strode down the path to what had to be the most probable location for his crash site, the massive crater located in the centre of the town nearby two sturdy buildings that he could relate to an old Union film which was made in 2233 about colonials and the first settlers on many new worlds, they were like ranchers but even older in design.
He found that his crater had still some attention drawn to it, a young woman with a dog was standing at the crater looking at the outlines of his HEV, and what looked like another old man with working overalls picking his way through his a stick at the HEV pod as if it would catch on fire. A couple of other people who looked like they had something better to do were there as well, they stood there with what looked like a two headed cow.
As Vance reached the crater the woman who was standing there noticed him and said.
"Hold it. So you're our new arrival? You don't look like many other people who tend to pass through here, but then again, whoever else comes to Goodsprings, aside from the occasional trade caravan."
She then introduced herself.
"Sorry about the rant. I'm Sunny Smiles, and welcome stranger, I guess you're here to grab your stuff?" She asked.
"Yeah." Vance replied rather dully.
Sunny didn't seem to impressed that he was being so boring, but she'd rather not keep the man waiting. Vance went over to the side of his pod and opened it up, he found that no one had gone and touched his things, he began to remove his gear from the pod, ARs, pistols, ammo and plenty of explosives and survival equipment, he made sure to begin attaching his extra gear into place so he could leave more space to carry the other things in his inventory.
Knives and daggers, his wrist blades, grappling soles, LLV-G9 gear, and 8 rolls of M80 HE bayonet mines, TAC pad for his wrist, and of course not to forget the DS-VT Jetpack, he loaded his gear up and hefted what was supposed to be 240kgs of weight with ease. He just needed to locate someplace to drop all of his things at and prepare a private base of operations. It was a tactical choice considering that he hadn't many places to go to being new here. He decided to ask Sunny Smiles.
"Sunny, I'm curious, but you wouldn't happen to know of anything about accommodations here do you?" He asked.
"I wouldn't know, you'd have to ask about that with Trudy, she usually organises housing for people in Goodsprings, I'm just here as a guard, you can find her inside the bar." She said motioning to her shouldered rifle and holstered pistol.
"Thanks." Vance said as he went over to the Prospector.
The marine went to the Prospector while being eyed by the strange old man who started chatting about something behind his back. Upon entering into the Prospector Vance was greeted by an interesting sight, the interior of the building looked much older than the outside and even had what looked like decayed sections of wall hanging off. He could assume that there wasn't much to fix these buildings around Goodsprings.
He took a left into a bar where 4 people were present 2 at the counter and 1 at table drinking something while reading what looked like a book, or a scraped bit of paper put together. Aside from the patrons the bartender was at her radio banging on it to get it going.
"Son of a-."
She paused at the sight of the helldiver and then recomposed herself to say.
"Welcome stranger, I don't know what to say aside from that."
"Well I think it would be helpful if you could direct me to a place where I might be able to find some shelter. I'd like to lie low for a while, whilst I get my bearings." Vance replied.
"Well I guess there are a few places that you might be able to go. If you want to lie low, you can go to the abandoned shack at the outskirts of the town, but I want to warn you that there's a reason for it being abandoned, a lot of unfriendly things live near there, but if you want, you can take the place for yourself." She said.
"Any other locations?" He asked.
She put her hand on her chin and thought about what else he might want to know. "Well let's see, there's the cave near the town as well, but there's a radscorpion using it for a home, and then there's Victor's shack which is located on the other side of town. As far as a home, there's no place else." She finished with a shrug.
Vance nodded and replied.
"Thanks for the help. Before I go, is there anyone who might know anything about the region? I happen to be rather new here."
"Well you can go see Sunny about experience in the wastes, she'll give you help on making local medicine and survival skills and a few hints on surviving out here, but you look like you could handle yourself." She replied.
"That's all I needed to know, I'll see you around." He said before departing.
Upon exiting the bar he found himself wondering where to go and what to do. He figured that he could speak to Sunny a little later; he had things to go get from his pod. He went over to the outskirts of town, he activated his TAC map. He found that the signal of the UCAF pod wasn't too far away, about 2kms from the west of the town near a small depression in the landscape.
He proceeded to get moving, he headed west exactly where he needed to go, he'd check out the abandoned shelter later, he had to find the drop pod. He set out across the barren desert of the Mojave. He wasn't sure, but he could recall something about this on the UCAF records of Earth, but this didn't look much like Earth that the UCAF had left over 300+ years ago.
He strode over a nearby hill and downwind to a number of dead trees and dry shrubs, he passed through without bothering to hide himself, he probably wouldn't have cared anyway, his armour was a dead giveaway without stealth fields. He was covered in dull grey and black armour with white stripes and a large triangle shaped pyramid visor which glowed in the sunlight.
He went in a straight line. It wasn't long before he bumped into something. As he travelled the distance to the signal, he found that he was rather alone, which made him wonder where the hell all the animals were, if this was anything like a normal M class world usually animals were present amongst the natural environment. Of course that might not have been true, so he just assumed that this wasn't a normal world.
And well as luck would have it, he did find something that he could tell was fauna, and rather aggressive towards him. He picked up the movement of 4 individuals on his sensors and then brought his AR carbine up as his computers marked them as hostiles. He began a search for the targets and found them, 4 large hog sized pink skinned mole like beings.
He couldn't tell what the hell they were, but they were closing the distance, Vance brought out his M5 hunting pistol and whipped it forwards and fired in 4 successive bursts, the corpse of all 4 rolled to the ground as they died. He stopped to examine his kills, but he decided that if anything else was out here, it would probably show up on his scanners.
He didn't holster his pistol; he kept it out and scanned for any other targets. He continued on the path to the UCAF signal, as he closed the distance to the signal he noticed a minor increase in activity, his HUD showed movement from around him, a few insects at a distance, and some feral dogs.
He kept moving until he reached the site of the signal, the drop pod was located exactly on his sensor inside the ditch. There wasn't much to be seen here, he dropped over a ledge of a small ridge to reach the drop pod. He found the area relatively barren; the fires created by the impact of the pod seemed to frighten most of the animals in the region away from the site.
He found the opening to the pod, the switch located on the outer hull next to the door controls; it seemed a little darkened from the re-entry but fine in all likeness. He hit the switch and lowered the front door down; inside he could see all that he needed. This was just like the Founding Day back at the colonies.
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In a few hours he had begun to get his things from the pod, one warthog, one Racoon two wheeled assault bike and enough crates of ammo and spare materials to build a tank. There was also a MVF-Type 5 that had been left inside before the emergency drop. The equipment would help a lot for him in the long run.
He began to follow the directions given by Trudy; the Goodsprings cave wasn't far from where he was. He went to work and unpacked the Warthog and loaded up all of his supplies, he marked the location of the cave and kicked the warthog into action. The roar of the LRV soon filled the usually wind swept region; the hog kicked up dirt as it tore across the uneven earth and bounded towards the cave.
He ended up on the road for a short time before he stopped at the turn and turned towards a rather dubious looking rock face nearby; he stopped short by a few meters and then got out. He looked down at the entrance it was well hidden a few plants and rocks concealed the entrance; the only thing it didn't hide was the bodies that were at the cave mouth.
He pulled out an AA-S88, an 8 gauge auto shotgun, it wasn't usually a weapon that the UCAF allowed for the marines to use, but helldivers had full access to as many weapons as they wanted. The sturdy heavy 8 gauge shotgun felt even in his hands, no man would dare step into the way of this thing, unless you'd happen to be a covenant elite zealot or master combatant.
He loaded the 24 round drum and activated his visor screen to see what sort of scorpion he'd be faced with. Chances were it wasn't possible to be that big, he'd seen large animals before and it wasn't hard to take large animals down. Upon entering the dark cave he found himself stepping into a damp environment.
Moisture from nearby water sources seemed to have had an underground leak as the soak earth beneath his feet rippled from his steps. He hoped that the scorpion didn't hear him before even arrived. He listened carefully and heard chitter of something nearby; it was probably the scorpion as his designator labelled the being hostile.
It estimated that the scorpion was roughly 30 feet away, he crouched and then slowly turned the corner, he then saw what the scorpion was, and it was definitely large, 10 feet in length and had some rather fierce looking claws and one large stinger. He brought his shotgun to bear and fired in a quick 3 burst upon the scorpion, now the 8 gauge was enough to rip elites apart with ease, and this bug didn't have shields, the mess of the scorpion flew in all directions.
The scorpion exploded in a shower of gore as its tail flew apart from the rest of the body as limbs came off and the torso blew out. The size of the scorpion was about 1/3rd of its original size. The yellow coloured gore covered his visor; it was shortly followed by an auto micro wiper from the suit's computer which wiped off the mess.
He picked off the parts of the bug from his armour and began to examine the insect up closely, the thing was definitely a scorpion even the bio data on his computer identified it as a scorpion, but it also began a genetic scan of the material, and it compiled some side data while Vance began to clear the body of the scorpion out.
It took a few hours of work, but the cave was now cleared of any remains of the insect, there was no trace of the unfortunate bodies of its victims either, which would relieve the community of Goodsprings that they'd never have to face the menacing creature for the rest of their lives. Vance got to work on his new cave, and removed the cave fungus growing and dug out a place to put them, he left them in a box to grow and study at a later date.
In the meantime he unloaded his gear inside the cave and began to prepare a schematic of his base, he'd have to put walls up, probably from the drop-pod and the shuttle, he'd use whatever he needed to get his hands on to secure his base of operations. He got ready to head back to the drop pod to scavenge the pod itself to reinforce his new base.
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Not long after getting the pod and disassembling it, Vance took all parts back to the cave, he had spent most of the day getting every piece he could and he had to admit it was a rather dubious task. The sheer size and components of the pod were hard to put into the warthog all at once so he made about 6 more trips before he had his things together.
Now building a construct inside of a cave was something he hadn't tried before, he had been shown how to construct basic fortifications and strategic positions and posts, but nothing like what he had in mind for something this size. He began by clearing the whole cave of stalactites and stalagmites. He didn't need anything to block his construction, as soon as he removed the obstructions he levelled the ground with crushed rocks and sand, he compressed them with a water and limestone mix that was available in the cave.
The damp ground wouldn't be too much trouble for Vance, the metal reinforced structure of the pod would be enough to layer the ground, and it was resistant to drops from orbit it was most likely going to survive water. Vance spent the afternoon and the night building his base, he set the sheets of iridium and titanium alloys and then used a plasma torch to weld them.
After completing his base Vance packed his equipment unto makeshift racks that he built himself and constructed rooms, he'd like his base to be able to house himself and others and possibly guests. The base was of basic construction, only lacking in certain areas that would make it a true base that he could be proud of. But that would have to wait; he checked his time and realized it was roughly 1AM he spent all of the evening constructing his home.
He went to the cave entrance and quickly finished some rather important details, he wanted his vehicle to get into the cave so he had drilled a large enough hole and placed a sliding square reinforced door to seal off entrance, but also as cover for the cave he built a dome of rocks into a mouth for an extended entrance, it would serve to conceal the actual entrance from outsiders.
Vance then finally decided to hit the sack. The cool night's air was refreshing but not the time for Vance to be waiting. Vance got inside and then sealed the doors shut and headed into his barracks and took up one of his beds, the warm gel layer blanket auto conditioned to keep at the body's exact comfort while the person slept.
Vance slept through the night wondering what the others were up to. He hadn't heard any other communications on his scanners except the radio stations of the locals, he had no interest into classical music of the dead age, some bands of the more rebellious and revolutionary musicians but nothing that was of true interest for him.
His mind drifted in between the lines of recollections of memories of a pleasant time and his life as a UCAF shock trooper and then helldiver. Then the war on his homeworld and the destruction of so much, he'd seen slaughters of whole colonies and vicious genocide of the human race at the hands of those with such self-determined belief that would wish to destroy everything in the name of god.
The very thought made his blood freeze and boil, he was still a UCAF shock trooper and he was still a solider and he was a helldiver from Callistan the blood born of Callistan would never break their vow, their sacred oath to bring end to such cruel ideologies in the name of self-interest and self-obsession and arrogance to others.
As much as he thought about it the more he realized, he was still fighting for something, and in this new place in this new world, he was going to do as he had done before. And with purpose he might find something worth fighting for, until he would be rescued or killed, it didn't matter, once a helldiver always a helldiver.
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Once morning came, Vance woke as he normally would, ready to get into shape, he bounded outside of his bunk room and began warm ups inside the barracks. He stretched and jogged until he was well and truly awake. He then got into gear, starting up the basic controls of his suit he worked himself over and got to routine.
Getting his MREs out he fed on carb laden preserved food and starch just like every damned shock trooper loved about the morning before they began their patrols. Anyone else he would have commented this to out loud would have probably agree with him, life was hell out in the front, and here it seemed too peaceful, but looks can be deceiving.
He saw the scorpion and it made him wonder if anything else might be that big would be more challenging, if so then he'd be happy to go and blast he living crap out of it. He hurried over and gathered his guns; he loaded his AR, DMR, and M5 magnum. He made sure that he was ready for any task at hand.
He got into his warthog and opened up his cave, the entrance let him out into the Mojave wastes and he soon found himself ready to go on an adventure, or go into town and locate Sunny Smiles, Trudy had her reasons for telling him to go see her. He hit the accelerator and sent dust into the air; he makes sure that the doors close behind him as he drives off towards town.
Upon arriving in town the people were damned surprised, Trudy inside her bar hadn't ever heard of the roar of the engine of a vehicle as a matter of fact none of the people in town have. Except the old securitron, the machine had its optics upon the sight of the warthog LRV as it rolled into town at surprising speeds.
The people of Goodsprings come out to see for themselves what rolled into town, Sunny popped out thinking it was a raiding party of Fiends. But as they watched the dust cloud roll into town they covered themselves from the mini storm as it finally rolled in. The townspeople watched in surprise as the dust cleared, the armoured figure on the top stepped down and then asked.
"So what's there to do?" He asked cheerily.
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That's all folks, I've got too much damn things to get done and I've been sick with Golden Staph, it hurts people it really hurts. If there's any questions ask them later. Message me or comment, I really need ideas!