Chapter 4 – Impeccable timing – [Posted: 17/08/18]
A/N: Scratch that last part, a nine hour trek seems a bit too long so it'll be around 4-5 hours.
After passing long stretches of grassland and forests and one other suburb, they came across a red rocket gas station. Just as they approached, Codsworth announced, "Sir, I'm detecting motion at the gas station."
A bark was heard in the distance and they saw a large German Shepard trot towards them. They felt no fear from the canine as the dog's tongue was sticking out like a sore thumb, while wagging its tail furiously. Nate knelt down and the German Shepard slowed down to smell his held out hand. The dog sniffed it once and licked it, walking even closer to Nate's body.
Nora also knelt down and vigorously massaged the dog's head while cooing, "Aww you adorable little thing. You lose your owner, you poor thing?"
The dog whined like as if it understood Nora. Nora felt her heart break into two. Nate knew what he had to say.
"How about coming with us?"
A loud bark was hard.
"Okay, then. Let's stick together." Nate rubbed his head before going further into the Red Rocket station. Unfortunately, nothing useful for their current situation was found but it was a nice find to see the Red Rocket had an extensive workshop and toolset. He was still inspecting the room when he heard several barks outside. He grabbed a nearby tire iron and walked towards the disturbance.
"Nora, what's wrong?"
"I don't know… he just started barking towards the gas station."
He activated his own detectors and found several red lines on his compass. But oddly he didn't see anything.
"Codsworth do you see anything?"
"I do detect motion but my visuals show nothing, sir."
Nate swore he started hearing a small rumbling and he heard the dog start growling, crouching in a pouncing position.
The dog lunged in front of Nate and intercepted an object that popped out of the ground. The ugliest rodent he has ever seen was twitching inside those powerful canine jaws.
Auto pilot mode activated and he shouted at Nora, "Jump on those cars quickly." Nora didn't question him and reached the nearest car, just in the nick of time, before a pair of teeth clenched in the location her foot was at.
Nate managed to lift his right leg in time to dodge the bite of another rodent right before he jumped. The dog was too quick for the rodents as he ran circles around them. Five rodents were currently sniffing around the ground, obviously looking for them. What they forgot to account for was the ever vigilant Codsworth. He blasted two of rodents with flames and sliced one in half with his buzz saw. Nora was about to discharge her weapon when Nate shouted, "Wait!", as he jumped down and smashed his tire iron on one of rodents. The skull caved in and immediately stopped moving. This seemed to have enraged the last remaining rodent, the same who nearly bit off his right foot. "Don't waste your bullets."
A tense stand-off between man and beast lasted a second before the beast lunged at the man. He blocked the rodent by holding the tire iron in between its mouth. The small animal had surprising strength but not enough to tank a left hook to the face. It tumbled slightly to Nate's right and before the rodent could orientate itself, a grey flash appeared before its eyes.
They waited for a few seconds before the all-clear sign was given when the dog walked up to them, placing a rodent between their feet. Nora couldn't stop herself from letting out squeal of delight.
"Codsworth, how much produce have you stocked up over the years?"
"I'm afraid none for now as we simply use the produce as fertiliser and remove the parts with the most concentration of radiation." apologised Codsworth, "However, the next harvesting is coming up in a few days so we'll definitely have enough for 21 people."
"Well maybe everyone will appreciate some meat in the meantime. Codsworth, could you bring these back for us?" asked Nate.
"Oh no, I'm not leaving you folk to fend for yourself against this untamed land.
"We can take care of ourselves Codsworth", replied Nora amicably, handing the rodents with their tails all typed up together.
"Then I shall leave with haste and return in a jiffy."
Dog barked at the robot for stealing his gift but Nate and Nora distracted him with soothing head rubs.
"What do you think about the name Dogmeat, Dogmeat?" asked Nate as he finished rubbing Dogmeat's head. Two enthusiastic woofs was his reply.
Nora simply stared at her husband with a raised eyebrow and replied, "Because he brought us meat?"
"…doesn't sound great when you put it like that"
"Honey, I keep telling you to leave the jokes to me. You're lucky Codsworth wasn't here to witness that"
"He would've loved it"
Thus, they continued their excursion with the newest member of the family.
Codsworth would return a few hours later, apologising profusely for his tardiness. It appeared the only refrigeration available was in the vault. Nate asked if he met Jonas along the way but Codsworth did not. Maybe he went back to his house.
Codsworth catching up to them was the most eventful part of the trip. More dilapidated suburbs and forests to come.
They saw the edge of Concord finally when the sun was nearing the horizon. Maybe partaking in this trip was hasty on their part but they pushed on. But as they got closer to Concord, they heard the sound of gun shots. Nate gave Nora a look and they both pulled out their guns. The gunfire stopped as they reached the first building but that wasn't enough to make them less cautious.
Nate looked around the corner of a general store when he saw the first humans other than his Sanctuary Hill neighbours. They appeared to be wearing various leather armour pieces and had haircuts that shouted Delinquents.
They were situated at the end of the street, standing around the back of the Concord chapel and had set up two bonfires.
"Are they… putting bodies into the fire," questioned Nate. Codsworth focused his three eyes at them and confirmed Nate's conjecture.
"I say, those bodies have to be the most diseased and famished humans I have ever seen"
One of the humans started shooting his flamer at the piles, increasing their intensity and size.
Eventually, they all moved through the side pathways towards the front of the chapel. Similar smoke trails could be seen rising in that direction. Their time to move out.
They travelled a few buildings to the side, flanking them. The approaching night time was a boon in their endeavour to evade their possibly hostile friends.
They observed a group of around 15 raiders spread around the area in front of the Chapel entrance. Most were hiding behind some cover.
"Alright fuckfaces, we have you surrounded. Give us the old bitch and we'll let you all leave alive with one hand for wasting our goddamn time!" shouted one of the delinquents, "If we have to waste these explosives then none of you are leaving this place alive."
His reply was a red beam hitting his cover, specifically the area around the speaker's head. The speaker nearly turned as red as the beam as he shouted out, "Blow it up boys!"
Two of his men chucked something at the chapel door, blowing a large hole into the entrance. They all ran in while shooting towards the balcony where the mystery sniper was at. Three beams shot at the incoming invaders from the windows on the same floor, killing one and injury the left arm of another.
Nate noted that three of them were still in the front, particularly the one with the flamer. While the other two were still shooting towards the balcony, the one with the flamer shot us flames up in the air wildly.
"Hahaha! I can't wait to cook your asses with my flamer, I haven't had Minuteman flesh in since… oh I don't know a few days ago hahaha!"
Nate saw enough to determine his next action. He continued forward, sticking to the walls of the adjacent buildings until he was in range. He put his fist up, signalling behind him to stop. Kneeling on the floor, he aimed for several longs seconds while waiting for just the right moment.
The man with the flamer blasted forward as his fuel tank behind him exploded with fury, releasing enough force and shrapnel to injure the two men beside him.
They continued forward, eventually reaching the front of the chapel. A head popped over the balcony fence and shouted, "Hey! Up here! On the balcony!"
"I've got a group of settlers inside! The raiders are steadily climbing up! Grab that Laser Musket and help us! Please!" The man rushed back inside after pleading for help.
An energy weapon with a… crank? He picked it up and pocketed the power cells. One crank powered the chamber half way while two fully filled it to the brim. Neat.
"Alright Nora, standard building invasion procedures. You ready?"
"Ready"
Nate nodded and entered the wide open entrance, followed quickly by Nora and Dogmeat with a reluctant Codsworth right behind her.
What followed was a systemic method of careful sneaking, strategic timing behind covers and swift justice on these "raiders" that allowed them to reach the top floor. By Nate's count, they killed five while the defenders killed three. The rest were holed up in various rooms of the top floor. Resulting in a stalemate.
"I don't know who the fuck you are but just know you aren't the only ones with backup. The boss man himself is coming to drag the old bitch himself back to base!" shouted the original raider speaker in one of the rooms.
Nate, Nora and the rest were situated on the room adjacent to the stares. Nate thought through several possible strategies before confirming everyone's location with the Pip-Boy.
"Codsworth, think you can burst that saw through the wall for me."
"For you sir! Anything."
"Wait for my mark then. Think you and Dogmeat can handle the other two in that room over there." A nod and bark later, they initiated there plan.
Codsworth chain smashed through the wall, slicing the neck of an unfortunate raider. The other raider panicked and chucked an explosive at the wall. The resulting explosion caused him to look away, yet he couldn't help but face towards the sound of a door slamming open. He would never see the face of his killer.
Nora's operation was just as smooth as Nora opened the door but moved back quickly, avoiding becoming a pincushion as the door was shot at. Dogmeat's low positioning and speed caught them off guard as he miraculously pulled a raider down onto the ground with his leg still in its mouth. The other raider shocked at the situation quickly recovered and aimed his gun at the dog. But he couldn't shoot his without injuring his colleague so he ran over to bash the dog in the head. He was halfway in when he collapsed with a bleeding head and Dogmeat made quick work of the downed raider's neck.
Silence entered the floor, with only foots stepping closer to their barricaded door. Preston and his two remaining soldiers aimed their guns at the door. While the remaining settlers hid behind whatever they could while pointing their guns at the door, albeit with tremors that threatened to cause friendly fire.
"Hey! It's us from outside. Everyone's dead"
Preston released his held breath and order his soldiers to remove the stacked furniture from the door. He opened the door and shouted, "Come on! In here!"
At that moment, he knew he should've been more suspicious of these strangers but his gut was feeling fine.
Colonial dusters paired together with a tricorn hats from the cowboy days were not what they expected from energy weapon enthusiasts. The dark-skinned men who greeted them on the balcony stepped forward and held his hand out to Nate and Nora.
"Man I don't know who you guys are but your timing is impeccable. Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minuteman", said Preston as he shook their hands vigorously
"Nate Murphy… we're from Vault 111. Glad to help" replied Nate.
"Never heard of Vault 111 but regardless, we could use some more good will. As you can see, we're in a bit of a mess here."
"Depends what you're asking for, but we'll try our best"
"That's more than we could hope for. A month ago, there were 21 of us. Yesterday there were 10. Now, we're down to 7. Our ghoul guide died in Lexington so we barely made it out of there and now this mess."
"Ghouls?" asked Nora.
"Surely you saw some of them on the way here, pretty sure the raiders were burning them up front from what I saw."
"Sorry, I meant what are ghouls?"
"Wow, ya'll don't have ghouls around your area? Ghouls are… irradiated people. Many are just like you and me, seriously messed up looking but they're still people. But most are feral with mushed brains and they'll tear you to pieces as they swarm you from every direction, just like radroaches"
"Radroaches, you mean those giant cockroach?" asked Nate.
"I don't know what a cockroach is but these suckers are big mean insects that crawl towards you and jump at you with their pincers"
"Sounds about right"
"Sorry friends but back on topic, I doubt that's the last of them and Concord isn't safe anymore. But I don't think we could survive another attack while on the go. We need to end it here and we've got an idea."
"Their leader did say reinforcements were coming"
"Then we really do have no time, Sturges? Tell him."
The man sitting in front of the computer finally stopped typing on the terminal and swivelled his chair to their direction. He explained, "There's a crashed vertibird on the roof. Old school. Pre-war. You might've seen it on the way."
Nate nodded and Sturges continued, "Well, looks like one of its passengers left behind a seriously sweet goody. We're talking a full suit of cherry T-45 Power Armor."
"Military issue?"
"Oh yeah, with a capitals. Not only that, but the minigun in that crashed vertibird should be good to go once you rip it off. With that, those bastards will regret chasing after us in hell. You dig?"
"That's some serious protection there, but I remember power armour needed power replacements constantly though.."
"Yeah we knew that so I spent all night finding our solution," Sturges swivelled back to the terminal and clicked a button, "and I just found it. You ain't the only one impeccable timing."
Preston continued, "What you'll need is an old pre-war standardized fusion core. And Sturges here just opened the path to it down below. Maybe our luck's finally turning around. Curtis, Kat, scavenge whatever useful from those raiders." The man and woman in similar clothing saluted and walked away. "I'm going back on lookout. Good luck"
"Bypassing security mainframes isn't exactly my forte but I guess tinkering for hours on a terminal works just the same as a weapon."
"Codsworth?"
"On it sir"
"Amazing… how did you manage to get a Mr Handy to follow you around? You must have some crazy hacking skills man." questioned Sturges.
"Well he was sort of a recent purchase", replied Nate, "Wouldn't have bought him if not for Nora". Nora winked at Nate, "Aww you're welcome honey."
"I see he wasn't your only 'purchase'," Sturges looked at Dogmeat sitting in front of an old woman while she was massaging his scalp, "Better take your dog away from Mama Murphy before she steals him"
Nora walked up to Dogmeat while Nate continued conversing with Sturges. She started observing the other people in the room. Firstly there was the kindly- looking elderly woman and an Asian couple. Are they are couple?. Instead of being in each other comfort, one was sitting against a desk with his head between his knees and his hands on top of his head. While the woman was staring at her with narrowed eyes and folded arms from across the room. They are definitely stressed out.
"I'm glad you found such wonderful owners. You weren't what I was expecting but oh, so much better." Said the Mama Murphy.
"Oh so he's your dog? Poor thing was all alone around our neighbourhood"
"Oh no no, I just knew seeing the dog meant we were on the right path"
"Right.. path?"
"Though I'm afraid… raiders aren't the only burden we've forced upon your shoulders," whispered Mama Murphy with decreasing volume as she struggled to keep her eyes awake. "Without chems, the sight makes.. me so.. tired". She tilted her head back on the ruined sofa and started softly snoring.
Nora was just downright confused by this old lady, she seemed nice but felt like a gear was out of place in her head. She looked at Dogmeat and said, "Maybe she's talking about more of those ghouls?" A confused whine followed her question.
Nora stood up and started offering her water bottle to everyone, reassuring them of its purity. Sturges was thankful but the Asian couple downright refused, except it was the lady who downright refused and the man didn't budge from his spot to even look at her.
Sturges whistled at her to come forward to him and Nate.
"Yeah sorry about them, they've been through a lot this whole journey, "whispered Sturges," I don't know if I should say but they lost someone very important to them in the Quincy attack, straight up messed from the very beginning"
Both Nate and Nora felt very empathetic for them. At that moment, Codsworth came through the door with the fusion core in his manipulators.
"Huzzah! Let's not tarry any further; this power armour needs a juice refill"
Nate handed his shoulder bag and weapons to Nora and walked to the roof with Codsworth. Dogmeat elected to stay behind with Nora.
The power armour was just as impressive looking as the ones in the war, and with no hint of rust whatsoever across the surface of the armour. He unlocked the chamber and got into the suit, Perfect fit, with Codsworth plugging in the fusion core. His PipBoy fit just right into a chamber on the arm and connected with the power armour's processors. What displayed through his helmet was constant view of his vital signs and diagnostics on the various parts of the Power Armour.
He took one big step, feeling the weight hit the somehow still standing roof. Okay, nice and steady, just like how Jeffrey instructed. He took another one and another one until he finally reached the crashed vertibird. Pulling the minigun was quite difficult but he managed to eventually become a walking tank with a weapon to match.
Just in the nick of time as his helmet display started showing multiple faint red lines converging to his spot.
"Nora! Preston!" shouted Nate, he couldn't see them but he knew he was definitely on the balcony somewhere, "We've got company"
"I can't see them through this darkness", stated Preston, "Curtis, Kate, get in your positions now! Nate, think you can fit through the doors?"
"I won't need to"
The sight of a T-45 jumping down from a 4 story building was a sight everyone would never forget, especially the mini-earthquake that soon followed. A certain Mr Handy floated down while shouting, "Geronimo!"
Shit… I thought Jeff said I wouldn't feel a fall, resigned Nate, feeling the impact especially on his knees.
He walked over to the destroyed barricade of the flaming raider. Surprisingly, one of the victims of the exploding flamer tank awoke. He saw a huge hulking abomination of metal looming over him, and the ambient lighting from the bonfires increased the intimidation factor significantly. Despite having a nasty gash on his leg, he still tried to run off away in the distance while screaming. He didn't even take five steps before a red beam hit him in the back, halting his tactical retreat.
At that moment, the raider reinforcements were at the end of the street, going in and out of the buildings, throwing furniture and the like out on the streets or on their balcony.
That won't stop his minigun, thought Nate as he laid suppressive fire all over the place while slowly approaching them with minutemen support fire. Nate aimed at the cars on the streets to deny the raiders any possible ideas, in addition to increasing the visibility of the streets. It was going swell until the minigun just stopped working.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no"
Ten seconds of silence was all it took for him to hear, "CHARGE!"
Nate gritted his teeth, throwing the minigun on the gun. He positioned himself into a boxing stance, ready to swing his hydraulically enhanced strength at the blitzing raiders when he heard a loud roar coming from behind the raiders. Suddenly a metal grate flew into the air, crashing into a building's top floor window.
The end of the street was still relatively dark but Nate knew what the situation wasn't improving.
The raiders closest to the unknown creature let loose a barrage of bullets, prompting the rest of them to also aim at the end of the street. Another roar burst into their ear drums, causing the closest raiders to feel a small concussion. That lapse in reaction cost them their lives.
Bodies started flying into the air like ragdolls occurred and someone yelled out, "Deathclaw!"
A/N: I'm sorry if you were hoping for a full recount of the raider slaughter but I don't think I have it in me to write an entertaining action scene with Nate and Nora going 'pew pew' and raiders going 'pew pew' back at them.
Also I was conflicted about bringing in the deathclaw. There wasn't a definitive answer on why there was a deathclaw in Concord. The best one I read was that there is a sprawling and extensive sewer system, like F3 subway system.
