(Paradise Falls)

The Wanderer had never liked the place, the slavers were obviously a reason to dislike the place themselves but their taste, ugh, just dirt, blood and skulls, typical raider bullshit. It used to be some shopping plaza, ironic (as many things are in the wasteland) that all that's changed (besides the terrible choice in décor) is the stock. Human beings and ghouls were paraded around a crowd as though they were brahmin; it was a mournful sight, well less mournful due to the fact that most of the slaves were actually raiders and Enclave remnants, courtesy of the Wanderer himself. Some were suspended in cages, others chained in lines, waiting for one of the repulsive buyers to make the highest offer.

"Good sirs and madams it is with great pleasure and pride that I now unveil a particularly stunning catch, pun intended" A tall African American man wearing a red suit addressed to the crowd. The Wanderer recognised him as Eulogy Jones, the leader of the slavers of Paradise Falls, he hated to admit it but Eulogy actually shared quite a likeness with himself. Eulogy tore a patchy blanket of one of the cages to reveal a completely armed Jackal pointing an alien atomizer at Eulogy's head; if the Wanderer had a camera to capture the moment his life would have been complete.

"I am quite stunning aren't I?" Jackal chucked as he kicked open the cage door. Every slaver in the entire area had a gun trained on Jackal within seconds, the only sound that could be heard was the slow clapping of the Wanderer as he strolled out of the crowd of perspective slave purchasers and up onto the make shift stage constructed in front of Eulogy's 'pad'.

"Well, I think I'd like to start the bidding at, hmm a song and a dance maybe? No? How about an alien corpse, got plenty of them." The Wanderer chuckled as he reached Jackal's side, examining him as though he was seriously inspecting a purchase. "Well Eulogy you do drive a hard bargain don't you? Okay my final offer." The Wanderer clicked his fingers and behind every single slaver a person wearing Chinese stealth armour appeared and put a knife to their throat. With another click over forty slavers hit the floor with blood pouring out of their necks. All that remained was the Wanderer and Eulogy, and approximately forty of the Wanderer's mercs.

"What the hell, are you doing you goddamn lunatic!" Eulogy spat, moving forward until Jackal forcefully put his atomizer against his head. "I thought we had a deal, we hit the raiders and you leave us be!"

"Quite so, and it's been very lucrative for both of us hasn't it? But sadly Mr Jones I'm afraid your… Services are no longer required, oh don't look so glum! Tell you what consider this your early retirement, and no other slavers to share the remaining loot with, lucky you! So I'm just going to go and my boys are going to lock you in for a bit until we have some distance between us, I just came to pick up one of your… Upstanding clients." Without another word the Wanderer and his mercs walked out after taking a snivelling bastard in a white suit with them. With the only door barred the confused clients along with an equally confused Eulogy Jones simply decided to wait until the crazy people left and it was safe to do the same.

(Minefield)

The Wanderer sat in a lawn chair with the tied up and gagged client and a pair of binoculars looking at Paradise Falls, the Wanderer put his index and middle finger to his ear and simply said.

"Do it." And two seconds later a magnificent column of purple light crashed down on Paradise falls. Jones, raider slaves and clients alike burned in an instant leaving nothing but black smudges among the ash and rubble of what used to be Paradise Falls, the shockwave travelled far slightly shaking the precarious half destroyed building that the Wanderer observed from. With a smile he cut the client loose and with a cheery tone said "now you run along and tell everybody you see… or you'll be next okay?" The Wanderer laughed as he heard the sound of the pathetic little man running and screaming. "Nothing quite like a little trip to the local market."

"This is GNR with an urgent news broadcast. You remember Paradise Falls children? Of course you do, well you're not going to in a few weeks seeing as the entire place has been wiped of the map, according a lone survivor the Lone Wanderer AKA Mr 101 after having ordered the killing of most of the slaver populous then ordered a gigantic orbital laser strike on the compound which resulted in its complete destruction. Okay little tip for you riotous ruffians out there, don't fuck with Mr 101, you may get a laser strike hitting you in the ass one morning. Seriously 101 I'm all for a little wasteland justice but isn't that a little harsh?"

(Bridge)

Bigsley was surprised at how well the death ray worked; even at minimal capacity it completely obliterated Paradise Falls. Bigsley felt a sense of accomplishment as the window monitor zoomed in on the destruction of the slavers, after this it would be the raiders, then the supermutants and then the people of the wasteland could have a little breather before the next catastrophe hit them like a sack of bricks.

"Was that really necessary?" Elliot asked as he watched the destruction on the opposite side of the captain's chair.

"Slaver are quite simply put, assholes, even if we did try to offer a peaceful solution they would have just fought or found some other way to screw over the people." Bigsley plainly responded. "Now we're rid of them and that survivor has spread the word of an extremely volatile Wanderer with an orbital laser, should give other trouble makers something to think about, eh?"

(Fort Independence)

Casdin was beside himself, orbital laser strikes? From a local! This wouldn't stand; the Brotherhood of steel is the only group wise enough to have such technology. Casdin may have had respect for the Wanderer but now he knew that this waste rat was playing with the kind of tech that could make the Brotherhood, and himself, truly great. There was no time to wait for the reinforcements from Lost Hills; Casdin was going to have to bring the fight to the Wanderer now.

(Citadel)

Elder Lyons sat at his terminal in silence, he had heard the reports, but he may have well just waited to listen to the news, just like the rest of the wasteland who undoubtedly know that there was truly a new power that could match the Brotherhood. He sat in silence knowing that he may have to face down one of the best soldiers he had ever seen. He sat in silence knowing that he may very well loose.

(Bridge)

Bigsley oversaw the restoration efforts with a vigour that he thought he had long since lost, he had the energy for every situation that arose and for once was optimistic about the future, that all ended when the hum of the teleportation matrix sounded and the Wanderer stepped in with the newest batch of recruits.

"Hey you're back I… would like to know what in the fuck you think you're doing!" Bigsley said in his vilest tone.

"Nice to see you again too Bigsley" Specialist Olin responded plainly, ever the ice queen.

"What? You said we needed more people to get this tech working so I went to people who know about tech." The Wanderer said defensively. Behind the Wanderer were three of the brotherhood outcasts. Morrill and McGraw stood in awe of the technology around them, Olin kept her icy composure as she examined the various terminals and pushed various buttons.

"You realise that you could have reduced generator heat for the death ray by forty precent by re-routing coolant from cryogenics right?" Olin queried in a superior tone.

"H-how did you know-"

"He briefed us on the way to the teleportation device" Olin said nodding to the Wanderer who looked genuinely scared as Bigsley threw him another venomous look.

"Doing that may have released the subjects from cryogenic comatose and we don't exactly want supermutants running around here do we?" Bigsley defended "Wait why am I explaining myself to this goddamn traitor!" Bigsley shouted at the Wanderer accusingly.

"Oh and if you're so loyal to Lyons why are you here then?"

"I- uh, that's different! I mean how can we trust you, you ditched Lyons and now Casdin; who's to say you won't just take all you can carry and bolt, or try to take over!" Bigsley smiled as he felt he was getting the upper hand but the Wanderer quickly interjected as he saw the aggravation rise in McGraw and Morrill.

"That's enough Bigsley, they were abandoned by Casdin and left for the supermutants, he's planning something big but we need to focus on restoring as much as we can before we can do anything about that. I know you guys have history and there is nothing I'd like to do more than sit back with some popcorn and watch you guys sort it out but until we get this place in order you're going to stow it! Bigsley Olin is going to help on the Bridge, deal with it, McGraw and Morrill if you'll follow me I'll show you to your squads." The Wanderer stopped before reaching the matrix to engineering and turned to Olin. "Don't bang him up to bad while I'm gone." Olin responded with a quick salute and Bigsley could have sworn he saw a slight redness in her cheeks, oh this could be fun he thought to himself as he stored that little fact away for future exploitation.

McGraw and Morrill had said little when it became obvious that Casdin had given up hope on recovering them and the technology they had discovered from supermutants. It was pure luck that they were alive and they weren't about to complain about the change of leadership, but as they roamed the halls, spoke with the mercenaries they were to teach about energy weapons and eventually shape into some kind of soldiers they realised that they had signed on for something that they weren't being told about. The Wanderer was courteous and had a good sense of camaraderie with all of the people in his command but McGraw could see that he knew more than he was letting on and Morrill could sense that McGraw was sensing something off about the whole situation.

"Sir what do you make of all this?" Morrill asked genuinely when they had settled into a spacious room that was now the officer's quarters in the living quarters.

"Hard to say Morrill, and it's not 'sir' for you any more remember, you've got your own squad now." The two soldiers laughed at that. They looked out of the window into the stars and felt an anxiety come over them; any experienced soldier could tell you that intuition wasn't a thing to be casually ignored.

(One Month Later)

Things had fallen into a nice little routine, Bigsley and Olin would argue on the Bridge over things that barely mattered, Elliot had beaten his medics into shape, in some cases literally, McGraw and Morrill had taken their command and made it into something resembling a well-trained force, Jackal and Pitt were saddened to in different squads but still made great strides, becoming quite proficient soldiers with an impressive palate of skills, the ship had even taken civilian residents which Sally helped integrate into the ship as smoothly as possible, man and ghoul alike lived and worked aboard the Mother-Ship Zeta, slowly restoring it to full functionality while enjoying a safe life with food that actually didn't taste like ass and a plentiful supply of water thanks to the wondrous food materializers, even able to enjoy some recreational activities such as learning the ancient art of bushido from Toshiro Kago, something which Pitt took quite a liking to, even if he had to learn just by copying the movements the Samurai would show him. Today however was a serious day, an event of great importance weighed upon the Wanderer who now took on the mantle of Captain as well. The Captain sat in his chair which he had revolved to face his quarters at the back of the Bridge. He had his head resting on his clenched fist as his brow furrowed in deep contemplation.

"Okay, okay I think… I know what it should be." The Captain said definitively as all of the eyes in the Bridge watched him and all of the occupants of the ship listened through the P.A. system. "I choose… the black uniform" In front of the Captain was McGraw and Morrill. McGraw wore a black Enclave officer uniform with two white stripes on its arm to signify he was a commander, while Morrill wore a regulator duster with two black stars on his shoulder to signify the same thing. The Bridge nodded in agreement and Morrill looked somewhat saddened as he saluted and left to change into his new dress uniform. After scavenging the rest of the vault of technology (a task made far easier when there is more than three people to do it) a cache of winterised T-51b suits of power armour were found, making the small army of the WRM even more fearsome as they charged into battle as walking fortresses wielding devastating alien weaponry, soon after the raiders of the wasteland either died or decided it was time to retire, the supermutants were the only remaining threat to the average wastelander but the Brotherhood of steel who were now under much less stress from raider attacks were more than ready to combat the menace, this solidified a sort of tense truce between the two factions. The only wild card in the mix was the Outcasts, who had completely vanished from the map, Fort Independence was deserted and any report of Outcast patrols were usually unsubstantiated reports from chem addicts who had taken over the old raider camps.

"I think you made the right choice sir, Morrill never really had an eye for fashion" Olin commented as she leaned against a terminal behind the Captain's chair, she resisted the urge to throw something at Bigsley who insisted in making kissing noises whenever she spoke to the Captain, an act that provided no end of annoyance to Olin and no end of enjoyment for Bigsley. Picking up on this little display the Captain quickly ordered the Bridge personal back to work before the two began another verbal bout for dominance. Even though the air in the ship was light and joyful today was an important day. Morrill whose squad had become the infiltration and special operations division of the WRM was investigating reports of a newly established supermutant breeding ground in vault 112. There were about twenty people in total in a division; there were four divisions, regular army or RA which was headed by McGraw, infiltration and special operations or ISO which was headed by Morrill, medical which was headed by Elliot and technical which was headed by Bigsley, although Olin never missed an opportunity to declare how better she was suited for the position. The armed divisions are made of squads of around five. Each squad was identified by its division and phonetic alphabet letter. Jackal had exceeded in RA and so was put in Alpha squad and was identified as being an RA Alpha while Pitt who was competent but had not quite excelled was part of Bravo squad and was identified as being an ISO Bravo. Today was Pitt's chance to become and Alpha though as his squad was going to infiltrate the entrance to vault 112 and verify the supermutant's habitation of the vault and pave the way for the RA Alphas to clear the place out.

(Weapons Lab)

Pitt zipped up his Chinese stealth suit, marvelling at how quickly the tech division replicated the suit when they had first occupied the ship. He felt safe when he was in his suit, Jackal may be a fortress in his T-51b armour but he could be spotted from miles away in that clunky thing, Pitt was a ghost when he was in his suit and they never saw him coming, well most of the time, some of those supermutants are really perceptive… and bumping into a shopping trolley may have alerted them a bit. He shook his head and did a few small jumps to get his blood pumping. He noticed his squad leader coming back from the briefing, he was humourless guy who always seemed to be angry at someone, but when he crouched he damn near disappeared, one of the advantages of being short Pitt supposed. He wore his black dress uniform and didn't seemed to enjoy it at all, it was a size to big and made it look as though somebody had sucked fat out of him leaving large spaces of the suit free and ruffling, his arm had three white stripes on it signifying that he was a squad leader. Nobody dared laughed at him, even the Alphas, it took something special to lead a squad and a lot of supermutants died to determine who had that something special when the officers were chosen. Squad Leader Jackson as he was known or SL Jackson gathered the Pitt and the four other members of Bravo and relayed the briefing to them. Once they knew the specifics of the mission they collected their weapons, most went with atomizers including Pitt but the odd duck of the group chose to use a plasma pistol, he was a quiet kind of guy and Pitt could barely even remember his name, Smith he thought, everyone just called him Duck though, if he cared he didn't show it. Bravo quickly made their way to engineering where a re-routed matrix connected to a recently deployed beacon outside of vault 112, RA Alpha was already waiting for them, mole rat corpses were piled to one side of the garage entrance, what else were you going to do while you waited, might as well get some target practice. Pitt saw the names of all of the soldiers above their head as his visor scanned their suits with an advanced Friend/Foe program and displayed their name, division and squad, as Jackal approached him he saw in green computer font letters: Jackal/RA/Alpha, Pitt tapped his visor twice and all that remained was Jackal's name.

"About time, we were going to cook these things up and have a barbeque you were taking so long." Jackal said patting his friend's back.

"Hey it takes time to look this good." Pitt said running his hand over his helmet. The two boys made their reunion short as Jackson stared at them, even with his visor covering his face he was a scary bastard.

"Okay Bravo play it by the book, activate stealth!" Jackson ordered as he tapped his chest just below his heart, as he did so he was replaced by a lighted shimmering which soon vanished as he moved silently into the garage, the rest of Bravo did the same and in the same quiet movements made their way into the garage. Pitt had almost forgotten how dirty the world was, two weeks living the good life on the Zeta could do that to you. Not even the radroaches noticed their entry, only skittering about when the door leading to the vault inexplicably opened by itself. They descended into the cold bowls of the vault and Pitt began to feel a chill run down his spine, the kind he felt when somebody was watching him.

(Author's note)

Hi Guys sorry this chapter took so long but I really struggled with ideas for this one. If you think I've gotten to military please tell me, I hadn't planned to take that direction, but then I didn't plan to use Mother-Ship Zeta either. Please leave a review if you see any errors, have any ideas you'd like to throw at me or just want comment, I read every review I'm given and appreciate all of them.