"You're late." Hsu snapped as Nathan arrived at Rally Point Tango.
"I met Hildern on the way." Nathan snapped back.
"Understood. I'll give him a piece of my mind when we get back. He knows better than to interfere with a military op. Why did he do that?" Hsu wondered out loud. That's going to bother him for the op. Nathan rolled his eyes. 0230. 30 minutes behind schedule. Fuck!
"Radio check." Hsu spoke through his radio. Colonel Hsu was the only person who carrier a Ranger Radio. Everyone else wore a helmet, including Colonel Moore.
"Tango, check." Gorobets voice crackled into Nathan's earpiece.
"Utah, check." Betsy's voice crackled as soon after.
"Violet, check." Boone's voice crackled.
"Bravo, check." Moore's voice followed.
"Alpha, check." Hsu said. "All teams ins positions. Set mission timer… Now." Nathan tapped his screen on his Pip-Boy 3000. The Brotherhood and The Followers had modified it a little. Made it more suitable for military work. 0000 flooded into Nathan's HUD. After the Brotherhood became friendly with the NCR again. (The Mojave Chapter at least). The NCR military's hardware received numerous upgrades. Rangers now know of the HUD feature that was always in the helmets beforehand, but never knew about. The HUD feature requires a small energy cell to power of course, but it is still useful. The HUD came with two main visual features. A Low-light setting and a thermal imaging setting. Next was the gas filter and helmet seal options. Those only work when the helmet is snapped shut and electronically synched to the LAPD Riot Gear unit. Thanks to the Brotherhood, the Ranger armor is now essentially a light power armor! The Followers on the hand focused on the new design of the NCR's Battle Dress Uniform. The Brown rags of the old days never helped much with protecting a trooper. In fact, that BDU was adopted to combat the high casualty rate that the NCR faced in the early days of combating the Legion while Caesar was alive. Now that Caesar is dead and Lanius rendered incapable of ever fighting again; the NCR readopted its more expensive BDU. The new BDU was more reminiscent of a WWII American Army Fatigue. In fact, the design came from one of the museum ruins found in the Boneyard. The building had survived with its storage closet intact, and inside was all the World War 2 exhibits. The NCR Brass loved the BDU because it was light enough for the troopers to be agile and cheap enough to mass produce. The BDU was technically not new anymore. The Mojave was the only place where the new BDU was not issued out due to the supply lines being cut by Caesar's Legion so often.
"Radio silence." Hsu whispered as he raised his Service Rifle. "Hayes, take point." Lt. Hayes moved forward and tapped the button on his borrowed Ranger helmet. Due to the NCR taking on so many enemies at the same time, Veteran Rangers and Patrol Rangers are in short supply. The only thing not in short supply was some of the equipment. Ranger Black armor and kit are only supplied to Rangers. But the Brass is much more flexible with the Helmet situation when it comes to night ops. Nathan pressed his left hand to his temple. The visor glowed a light gray color. His surroundings lit up and were outlined by the helmet. Thank you, Knight Lorenzo. McNamara was hard to convince on his standing towards helping the NCR. But over time, he came to see that the NCR were good people with a few spoiled apples. He lent some scribes for support on the condition that the NCR never pry into what kind of tech the Brotherhood has hidden away in their bunker. Kimball agreed immediately and rushed to meet the Elder immediately. Afterwards, there was a large ceremony that was held in Novac to commemorate the Brotherhood becoming a contractor for the NCR. Now Brotherhood Knights and Paladins can be hired by NCR citizens for odd jobs. Bounty hunting is especially popular among the Brotherhood. There was even a scoreboard for all the kills and even elder McNamara sometimes took part in the competition. Veronica couldn't thank Nathan enough with this turn of events.
Hayes held his fist up. The team stopped and moved into the covering positions. They had drilled this multiple times. Even Nathan was starting to get a hang of it. Hsu pointed and McGee and Jenkins and waved the two forward. McGee moved two steps forward and Jenkins slowly walked to take cover behind a tree. Hayes held up two fingers and pointed. McGee tapped twice on his Pip-Boy 2000 (which was starting to become standard issue thanks to Lorenzo and Torres.) Two red triangles lit up the grey-blue on Nathan's HUD. Very shortly after, the two triangles disappeared. Hayes's fingers went down and he waved his hand forward. Time to move. Thank you, First Recon. With all the Pre-War tech coming back online thanks to the restoration efforts of the Brotherhood and the Followers the NCR military was starting to become reminiscent of the Pre-War United States Military. Nathan wondered: Is this how they really fought all their engagements? Nah. Can't be. They didn't fight like this in Anchorage. Not according to the terminal entries and virtual simulations. But what if their tech and tactics also changed dramatically after Anchorage? Nathan shrugged. Who knows? He thought. The slope broke into a flat field of tall grass which was paying hell with the low-light setting of the helmet visor. It strained his eyes, but Nathan could make out the basic shapes. He blinked twice and the helmet's visor began to outline every detail in various colors. Green for basic objects such as buildings, trees, etc. Yellow for friendlies and red for hostiles. Wait, why are there hostiles? The Red shape in front of Nathan grew larger and closer. A loud and guttural growl came from it. Nathan lowered his carbine and drew his sidearm. He tapped his thumb on the VATS function of his Pip-Boy. The adrenaline made things seem much slower. He turned to see what the helmet had already located. Six targets. All moving incredibly fast. Too fast for dogs. Legion? Unlikely. What are they? Nathan tapped the temple on his helmet. His visual became a blue-red mixture imaging. Now he saw the threat clearly: Nightcrawlers. Six of them. Nathan turned to the once closest to him. Torso. Head. He turned and found a red shape leaping towards an upright red shape. Nightcrawler and soldier. Better be careful. Torso. Things were starting to speed up again. Nathan was running out of time. Third target. Rear legs. Fourth. Torso. Fifth. Head. Sixth. Head. The VATS mods ended and Nathan held up his pistol and tapped the trigger twice. He heard a yelp and a loud rattling sound. The others are pissed, fuck! Nathan turned his body and dodged a Nightcrawler that had tried to leap onto him. The mutt landed on its feet and turned towards Nathan. Nathan kicked its snout and fired twice. Nathan brought the pistol to bear and lined up the sight and fired. Red shape turned blue. Five shots. Reload. It seemed almost mechanical in how Nathan was functioning currently. Nathan tapped the trigger. The Nightcrawler yelped and fell with its snout digging into the ground. Nathan turned and aimed his pistol. No targets left. The troopers had killed two Nightcrawlers without Nathan's help.
"Four targets. Hmm. Getting slow." Nathan muttered.
An hour later, Hsu's team arrived at Rally Point Yankee. Moore was fuming again.
"You're late." She growled.
"Hey, we're here. That's what counts right? We ran into a few problems on the way in." Hsu shot back.
"The longer we sit here the better chance that a Legion Explorer discovers our position!" Moore snapped.
"We're here. You haven't been discovered. What's the problem?" Hsu pressed. Moore sighed.
"Fine. Bravo front and center!" Moore hissed. The Misfits and three heavy support units moved into covering positions. The Misfits were outfitted with Marksman Carbines for longer ranges of support. The Heavy gunners held exactly what Heavy gunners should have: miniguns.
"Alpha, take up positions!" Hsu began. "Make sure to mark any sighted tangos." Nathan moved forward and crouched behind a tree. In the distance his grey-blue visor was a large blot of white. Probably a campfire. The location was perfect for the Legion. Caves that wound all around the mountain would provide ample areas to hide. There were many caves in construction throughout 2077, expanding the original complex to a much larger extent. God knows how many caves have added since the Great War from survivors and tribals. But the location was also perfect for the NCR. The steep mountain made it difficult to move around in. The best way not to get lost in the thick woods and forests that had grown around site would be to take one of the roads. There are a total of five roads that lead straight down the mountain. Three are covered First Recon with the other two being cleared by Alpha and Bravo.
"Alpha, forward. Bravo stay close." Hsu ordered. Nathan crept forward. The blot in his visor grew bigger and moved constantly. Definitely a campfire. Hsu pointed at Hayes and pointed two fingers at the campfire. Hayes crept up and put out the fire. There must have been tent or something that wasn't seen before. Suddenly, there was red triangle and before anyone could take him out he shouted.
"Intruders!—" He was cut off abruptly. Courtesy of First Recon.
"Fuck!" Hsu growled. "Hold position! Make ready for tangos." The standard procedure for engaging Legionaries was to wait. All members of the Legion are traned extensively in hand-to-hand combat. In order to conduct such a style of combat. They need to get close. Once any crimson gets within firing range, NCR rifleman can just open up on them. Simple, rudimentary, but effective. They waited. Nathan braced the stock of his carbine against his shoulder. The HUD synched to his scope and provided him a full feed of what the scope saw. Nothing. No red. No triangles. No targets.
"Where are they?" McGee asked.
"Don't know." Nathan responded. This went on for twenty minutes.
"Dammit!" Hsu muttered. The Legion had forced his hand, NCR would have to go into the caves without knowing who or what was in there.