CHAPTER SIX

01:44PM, TUESDAY MAY 13TH, 2282, CAMP GOLF

As if he had fallen from the roof of the Lucky 38 casino. That's how Chief Hanlon's body looked as it lay on the ground just outside of Camp Golf. Hanlon's body was face down, limbs spread out and bent in different directions, and most importantly, two legionary spears stuck in his back. It was the obvious first impression that the Legion was responsible for this killing, but Brendan was very suspicious when he first saw the body. It had been a long journey for Connor, Brendan and Shaun since they started walking from McCarran, they had already fought off a group of geckos and cut up three Giant Mantis'. It hadn't been a very hard journey, other than the sweltering heat and the almost awkwardness between the three, having not known eachother that well. Connor and Brendan had exchanged the odd word, but as usual, Shaun had said next to nothing. They were not welcomed at first at the camp. Connor was hated for his actions here a year before, Brendan looked like a legionary, and Shaun was clearly a Brother of Steel, but once Connor got two guards to Radio McCarran, they were informed and allowed in immediately and taken to Hanlon's body. Brendan crouched over the body and started taken a detailed look first while Connor and Shaun watched.

"These definitely are Legion spears" Sawyer said while touching one of the spears.

Connor was keen to know exactly who had killed Hanlon, who had been a good friend to him for years until his discharge.

"But was it the Legion?" He asked Brendan.

Brendan didn't reply, and just kept inspecting. Soon, Brendan equipped his knife and began cutting at the back of Hanlon's clothes, through the waistcoat, and then the shirt.

"What're you doing?" Shaun asked.

"Answering Connor's question, it's as simple as this, to find out the answer." Brendan replied.

He tore open the back of Hanlon's clothes, revealing his dry and flaky back. More importantly however, he inspected the wounds where the spears had entered his back. Almost instantly, Brendan knew.

"This wasn't Legion." He revealed.

Connor's eyebrows lowered, and Shaun turned back quickly, having started observing the area.

"Not Legion? How can you tell?" Connor asked.

Brendan stood up straight.

"Because these spears were thrust into his back up close, the Legion use spears from a distance only."

"Maybe this was a close encounter?"

"If it was a close encounter, the Legion wouldn't use the spears, they'd use their machetes or guns."

Connor's face went into his right hand and he took a long breath. Brendan saw his stress.

"You didn't really expect the answer to be so simple did you?" Brendan asked the former Medic.

"No I guess I didn't, but deep down I was hoping it would be." Kirkbride replied.

Shaun then walked closer over to the body, as Connor and Brendan watched. The Brother of Steel got to his knees to look at the body. "There's something odd." Shaun announced.

Both other's then took notice.

"What?" Brendan asked.

"I can see by the condition of his skin, and the smell that this body has been dead for about four days, since he was found last Friday. But the blood doesn't add up to that."

Connor and Brendan continued to listen.

"The blood around the spear wounds is dry, but it's been quickly dried with the heat in this place. Meaning the blood is fresher than the body." Shaun said.

"So what you're saying is." Brendan started.

"He was already dead before the spears were stuck in him?" Connor finished.

"Exactly. Now, one of you help me get the spears out." Shaun said.

Connor then knelt over Hanlon and held him down by the shoulders as Brendan and Shaun removed the spears from the large black and red flesh holes they had created around his spine. Flesh tore and bones crackled as they pulled out both spears with a sharp sound for each as they left the wounds. Connor held his hand over his mouth and took steady breaths after watching. Brendan had now turned his back to the body to take a deep breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. Shaun then held his hand out to the former legionary.

"Knife."

Brendan handed over his hunting knife to the Brother of Steel. Seeing something the others had not, Shaun began cutting the rest of Hanlon's clothes off. Connor had now noticed what Shaun had already saw.

"Wait a minute, what are those spots of blood?" Connor had pointed out.

Hanlon's back, apart from the two large wounds from the legion spears had three similar but much smaller wounds scattered around his back. Brendan now turned to see.

"Bullet holes." Shaun said.

Connor got closer again to the body and got down to his knees to get a closer look. Being a former member of the NCR, Connor had a good knowledge of what bullet wounds looked like and could make very good and quick assumptions on what kind of bullets and weapons could have caused them.

"These are exit wounds, not entry. Look a little like 5.56mm rounds. Pretty common, it'd be difficult to tell what gun could've been fired."

Brendan had then stepped closer.

"So the bullets are what actually killed him. The spears were a fucking plant on the Legion." Said Brendan.

"I know you were once a legionary, but because he was shot beforehand doesn't rule the legion out completely." Connor then replied.

Brendan accepted that Connor was right, he knew that the Legion was capable of anything, he had now been on both sides of a Legion attack. Still, despite that, Brendan wouldn't believe it.

"I know, but if the bullets are what killed him, what would the spears be for? Other than to frame the Legion?" Brendan asked.

"Why would any cunt want Hanlon dead to begin with? If it was anyone but the Legion?" Kirkbride replied.

"Well in case it escapes your notice, the NCR aren't exactly everybody's favourite bunch either." Said the former legionary.

"No shit, but they're far from the level of the sheep of Caesar!" Connor then shouted.

The two men began arguing and gathering the intention of most in the close vicinity. Brendan wasn't going to take it. He may have left the Legion but he would never forget them as the people who gave him a home and an upbringing.

"The NCR are on the same level entirely, they just live among us all in a pretty good disguise!" Brendan replied.

Shaun was busy trying to inspect Hanlon's body for any other clues but he was starting to get very distracted by the two men, and after eight months in isolation, he found himself getting extremely angered by the company. Finally, the usually silent Brother of Steel stood up.

"SHUT UP!" He yelled.

Kirkbride turned.

"What? You got something to say?!" Connor asked.

"Yeah! Shut the fuck up. NCR, Legion, Brotherhood, Enclave it doesn't matter! Guilt or innocence, since when has either of those defined a faction in this goddamn world huh?" The Steel Brother asked.

The ex NCR medic and former Legionary could only listen, both intrigued by Shaun's words and stunned that this was the longest sentence they'd ever heard him speak.

"Since when has guilt or innocence ever made a difference to the citizens?"

He lowered his voice and turned his eyes to Connor.

"You fought with this man, under his command. I get it. You want justice."

He turned to Brendan.

"You want to make sure people know the Legion wasn't a part of this."

They both listened silently. Roles switched.

"You both want justice against the guilty. But you forget the one thing. This is the wasteland. Everybody wants justice…"

He paused and then slowly spoke a hard truth to his two partners, himself and anyone else listening.

"But everybody's guilty…"

Time went by the rest of this day, another day in the Mojave. Hot and humid. Connor felt very unwelcome. This was the place he abandoned his squad back a year. He took an hour out of his time, leaving Shaun and Brendan to sit in a tent while he visited the graves of every NCR member who had died there. Graves only buried nearby, surrounded by stones and shown by the wooden crosses above. He had nothing to say, not even an apology but he did find tears to drop. It was hard for him to believe and accept that one fateful choice he made at this camp a year before had cost him a life he did deep down love. Serving with the Republic was something he enjoyed and always felt like he was doing good to the wastes, and he had to leave that life behind, because of a simple yet gravely choice he was forced into. He crouched in front of the graves alone, stared at each cross for a few moments. Whilst he stared he picked up a handful of sand and dust with his right hand. He let out a long deep breathe from his nose and stood back up. Connor then slowly, taking his time, sprinkled the sand and dust on each individual grave. One last look, and he walked away. All three men sat around a bench inside an NCR tent, in deep thought, not a word being spoken. Bewildered wasn't the word, they had nothing to go on other than the revelation that Hanlon was not killed by the spears he was impaled with and that they were staged later. They had taken a good last inspection of Hanlon before talking to an NCR Ranger at Camp Golf about what to do with his corpse.

"We wanted to cremate him, out of respect for being our Chief for so many years." The Ranger suggested to Connor.

This Ranger knew Connor was the former medic who deserted, but Hanlon loved all members, honored or dishonored, so he would accept Connor's opinion this one time.

"Yeah, cremation. He deserved better than this, and we can honour him by not burying him the ground he was posed out on." Connor agreed.

As the three men set around the bench, they had a lot to absorb after the day they had had.

"All we have is that he was shot and killed, before he was impaled. By what seem like 5.56mm rounds. What weapons do we know use those rounds?" Brendan asked.

"Varmant rifles, but they're not powerful enough to pass through the chest and back. This has to be something stronger." Connor replied.

"Assault carbines?" Shaun suggested.

"No that's 5mm." Connor replied.

The three took a long moment to think. All three began looking around them, at Golf, at Lake Las Vegas, at the NCR troopers. Then, almost in sync, Brendan and Connor had come to the same quick assumption. They looked at one another in realisation.

"You thinking the same?" Connor asked.

"I think I am." Brendan replied.

"Service Rifles. They use 5.56mm. Powerful enough to pass through the body, I know that much I've used them so many fucking times." Connor concluded and deducted.

"Okay, then I suppose we may have the weapon that was used. But who the fuck used it and why is the real question." Shaun stated.

"You may be missing one fundamental detail about that truth, about that weapon." Brendan said.

Shaun and Connor both turned to the former Crimson.

"Service Rifle. It's an NCR weapon. I've been in the Mojave since I was a kid, I've never seen it used by anyone else other than the Republic." Sawyer revealed.

Connor knew Brendan was right, so much so he couldn't argue. Just nod his head.

"Yeah, yeah. But I can't imagine a reason any NCR member would want to kill Hanlon. He's well respected by everyone." Connor said.

"Respect means nothing, Connor." Brendan replied.

"We ask around here, about anything suspicious in the last few weeks. But we ask normal troopers, not any main ones. We ask the small troopers, out of the way, doing normal jobs." Connor stated.

All three men agreed, and they went off around Golf to ask as many Troopers as possible about anything that may have seemed odd in the weeks before Hanlon was found. Brendan not so many people cooperated with, because a face was never forgotten in the wasteland. They all knew who he was, but as he had left the legion and everyone knew he was on a mission for Colonel Hsu, he was allowed passage to the Camp. Shaun's almost inability to speak with people normally lowered his chances of getting anywhere, so that left only Connor, who was still quite disliked around the entire Camp. He asked the same question to anyone he could. Did you notice anything or anyone odd or suspicious recently? But he hardly got a real reply beyond a grunt or a simple "no". Until he came across one woman, who seemed to have an answer to his question. Kiley her name was.

"One person, strange, not from around here. They turned up not long before all this shit went down. He spoke to Hanlon." She said.

"They were talking huh? Was Oliver mentioned?" Connor asked.

"Yeah, now that you come to mention it, he was. Since Hanlon was second only to General Oliver I thought nothing of it. His name were some of the words mentioned, but I never heard anything more than that." Kiley replied.

Connor looked down and let out a sigh.

"What'd this guy look like?" Connor asked.

"He wore a suit. A light grey, thin striped suit. Had a dark fedora too with sunglasses. I never really got a look at his face beyond just from a distance and any closer I couldn't make out because of those glasses." She informed him.

The dishonoured medic was confused. A suit? Fedora? He couldn't really think of any person in the wasteland specifically, because those were clothes anyone could wear if they wanted.

"Well, thanks for your time." Connor muttered.

The female trooper only looked at him, in his eyes for a few moments as he walked away. Connor then felt unwelcomed from her, even after she had given him more information than anyone else even bothered to. Meanwhile, at the edge of Lake Las Vegas, Brendan and Shaun sat on the dusty, rocky ground overlooking the large puddle of irradiated water.

"So, how long's it been since you saw your, brothers should I call them?" Brendan asked, initiating a conversation with the almost mute Shaun.

"Almost ten months." Shaun replied bluntly.

It was difficult talking to this man, it made Brendan almost uncomfortable, like he was walking through a dark corridor rigged with trip wires.

"Well, there's something you have over Kirkbride and myself. Your people still want you, they still accept you. You're still one of them." Brendan said, looking off at the lake, eyes squinted due to the blazing blinding sun.

Shaun didn't reply, he just let the former legionary continue.

"I felt like I didn't belong anymore. I wasn't kicked out of the Legion, I left on my accord. I should've thought twice, because before I knew it, they wanted me dead for choosing to now take a different path. I thought maybe, just maybe, because I left myself, I'd have some form of respect, or at least acceptance throughout this fucking place."

Brendan had picked up a small rock and then threw it into the poisoned water.

"Instead, I'm just as hated now. Like I'm now a backstabber to not just the citizens of the Mojave, but the Legion aswell. I'm vilified for trying to live a different life, but I'm also hated everywhere for choosing, years ago, to follow a path I thought was worth following at the time, for choosing what I believed was best for me." Brendan told Shaun.

Shaun finally had something to say.

"…And none of that really bothers you?" Shaun asked.

"No, my strong belief is, we live the lives we create. That no matter what the fuck we do, whatever good we attempt to prove of ourselves, everything ends up the same. Nothing ever changes." Brendan replied.

Before Shaun could reply again, they were interrupted by the former NCR member.

"I got something." Connor called out.

Brendan and Shaun heard and then stood up to regroup. They walked over to Connor who was staring out at nothing, just the sky.

"What?" Brendan asked.

"A woman, trooper. She saw Hanlon talking a guy here not so long ago, maybe a week or two. Above just that, this guy sounds a little strange to me. He doesn't sound like a normal guy around here. Stranger than that though, she heard them both mention Oliver's name." Connor revealed to them.

Brendan and Shaun listened and were just as puzzled as Connor about the information, nevertheless impressed with Kirkbride's results.

"Congratulations, who knew you were this competent?" Brendan said with that hint of sarcasm.

Connor only lowered his brow to the comment, and it did make him laugh inside, rather than offend.

"How was this 'guy' strange?" Brendan then asked.

"Apparently wore a light thin striped suit, a dark fedora and wore sunglasses. You wanna get a search on a guy like that, go right ahead, because I can imagine a long list of suspects." Connor replied.

Brendan listened, turned his eyes away from Connor to the ground, back to Connor and then they could see Sawyer had had a thought.

"No, that isn't a common dress among Mojave citizens, the only people I know that dress like that are…" Brendan stopped.

Shaun and Connor looked at each other in confusion and were then eager to hear the answer.

"Are who?" Connor almost demanded.

Brendan's eyebrows were slightly low, and he took a deep inhale and exhale, almost like he was frightened.

"The Omertas."