Chapter 4: The Journey Begins
Departing Fort Liberty, Chicago 2277
Sergent Winter smiled as the Humvee lurched forward towards the exit of the Fort. This mission was not only 100% clandestine but also almost completely independent, which means that as long as he accomplishes the mission he could do what he wanted. A mission like that only comes once in a blue moon and he was going to squeeze it for all that it's worth. Anything that he could find or do to help restore the legal government of the United States he would do in a heartbeat. So if he happend to find any remnants of the Enclaves eastern forces he would gladly lend a hand. Command must not have been as stupid as he thought it was because they had thought he might get ideas like that and had given him an encrypted transponder which would signal to other Enclave units that he was a friendly. That plus a shit ton of pamphlets and flags hidden in a compartment to hand out to wastelanders sympathetic to the Enclaves cause. Of course in the case he found any wastelander sympathizers he would be astonished, however he thought he could get good with some local towns or something and give them out then. Hopefully the Enclaves liberation of Chicago wont take that long and he could start sending people to reintegrate into the United States.
Winter looked to his left and saw Will driving the Humvee, he was a blond with very fair skin and blue eyes and since he was the one with the lowest rank he got the short end of the stick when it came to positions on the drive. Winter would of course switch with Will after four hours to make sure the person driving was at 100%. Looking back Winter saw Jay had taken up the gun and was scaning around to check for anything that might be off. Jay had short dark curly hair and light brown skin with dark brown eyes. Sitting behind Jay was Mac who would switch with him in four hours as well. Mac had brown hair white skin and green eyes. Winters smile grew larger when he saw his second in command already asleep in the back. Mac was much more seasoned compared to the other two men in Squad Reaper. Winter and Mac had been friends for the last five years. Jay and Will were newer and Will was still a little green. Jay had only been in the military for a year but he had shown great skill during all of his operations, enough skill for command to promote him and move him to a spec ops team. Will was a bit of a different story. The constant grind of holding the few Safe havens that the Enclave controls has left fighting men in short supply. A few months ago Winter had led a strike on one of the last Midwest Brotherhood signal post in Chicago. During the strike Corporal Beck bought it after she steped on a plasma mine, there wasnt enough of her left to recover the body. Squad Reaper was always busy and so being a man down was about the worst thing to happen so command sent Winter Will to fill in for Beck. Will came straight from spec ops training onto the team. Winter had been busy turning Will and Jay into real special operators, still they had a long way to go before they could truly become operators. "Sarge you should get some sleep ill wake you up when we get to our first stop" Will said. "Roger" Winter said with a smirk. Maybe Will isn't as green as I thought he was Winter thought as his eyes closed and he drifted off into the darkness that he always saw when he slept.
Vertibird en route to the UMLF Headquarters, Chicago 2277
Captain Blake was glad to be taking the fight to the muties. They had constantly attacked Enclave positions ever since the Enclave had arrived in Chicago. At first they were just random attacks until a super mutant calling himself General Killman organized the mutant filth into a very loose Army. Now it was time to show those animals the power of the Enclaves military. They were going to assault the base, gather intel and kill every mutant they see. Blake wore the newer much more sleek MK2T power armor. He also held his custom urban plasma rifle, it had a holographic sight, plasma rifle mag accelerator and select fire. Blake looked up from his rifle and saw the other men on his team checking over there equipment. He could already feel the nostalgia coming on as he remembered the First Battle of Chicago from all those years ago, he would make sure to bring the entire platoon back this time.
"Captain we are nearing our objective. We will be there in one minute" the pilot called over the radio. "Alright men listen up we hit them hard and fast. No survivors, No prisoners. Got it?" "Yes sir" the squad answered. That of course wasn't the full plan. The plan in its entirety was to send in a platoon of spec ops soldiers divided into four squads. The first squad would assault through the main entrance, the second squad would rope in from the roof, the third squad would assault the building from underneath, more specifically from the sewer system, and the fourth squad would remain on its vertibird in order to act as a quick reaction force. But Blake didnt have to go through all of that because his men already knew that from the briefings before being sent out. Each squad was at double strength with eight men crammed into the back of each vertibird, so crammed in fact that if Blake didn't feel they might need the Firepower of the these vertibirds he would have opted to take the transport variant ,which could hold an entire platoon. Soon the vertibird began to hover in place. "Alright second squad prepare to dismount" a Sergeant called. The fast ropes we're kicked out of both the side doors of the vertibird and men began to rope down on to the roof of the complex.
Blake grabbed on to one of the ropes and begin to slide down to the roof of the complex. He could already hear fighting going on at the front of the building where first Squad was assaulting the entrance with two infantry fighting vehicles for support. A loud boom echoed from the front of the building as one of the APCs fired its 105mm gun at a target, while both APCs peppered the building with their dual light machine guns. Soon third squad would arrive from the sewers and begin to assault the facility from underground. Blake's boots landed on the roof of the building with a crunch as he landed on broken glass. He quickly brought up his rifle to cover the men still deploying from the vertibird. After the team was fully dismounted they split up into two fireteams made up of four men each. The two fireteams then move to opposite sides of the building and began to rope up at the sides of the building. Blake hooked his rope on to the edge of a railing gave it a yank to make sure it was secure and then began to make his way down the side of the building towards a window. Blake jumped off the wall and sailed straight through the window disconnecting from the rope and pulling up his rifle into a firing position.
In front of Blake stood a very surprised looking ghoul whom he immediately shot in the face turning its head into a melted pile of brains and eyeball. Blake quickly check the rest of his surroundings and after finding no other hostels in the room got up from his crouch and began to search for any intelligence he could find. In the left hand corner of the room sat a terminal on an old office desk. Blake walked over to the terminal and begin to see if there is any important information on it and boy was there. The terminal had troop movements, the location of Supply depots and hideouts, the current status of the mutants filthy Army, troop numbers and God knew what else. Blake quickly began to download all the information on to his Pip-Boy. The sounds of fighting in the front of the building seemed to get more intense and Blake could hear that the mutants figure out that another Strike Team had entered through the sides of the building via the gunshots that were echoing in the hallway nearby followed by the return fire from the Enclave soldiers energy weapons. Moments later an explosion rocked thr building as the third team assaulted the facility from underground. The download completed and Blake began to move into the hallway in order to support his fire team. In the hallway Blake saw that the three other men in his fire team had met up and had passed his room pushing forward down the hallway towards the other end where the mutant forces put up a scant defense. There were a total of five ghouls and three super mutants in the hallway all armed with bolt-action rifles taking cover behind stacked chairs and broken desks. the fire team dispatched all of them with relative ease painting the walls with mutant blood and gore.
Soon all three strike teams were able to Rendezvous at the center of the complex. That left the majority of the complex cleared out and the only place left to go was the mutants main command post at the far end of the building near the roof. That ment that there was no escape for the so called "Mutant General" and what was left of his Command Staff. All the strike teams move to towards the mutant Command Center. Resistance started out weak with small positions manned by two to four mutants and rough cover soon became hardened chokepoints manned by six to eight mutants protected by sand bags and equipped and armored much better than their counterparts. However all this was for not as the Enclave special operators move to through them with ease to the command post. When the teams got there they found a locked metal door leading into the post. Two teams stacked up on either side of the door will the third team move to guards the way the teams came in. Blake moved to the door and placed a breaching charge in the center of it. Moving back to the side of the door Blake squeeze the Detonator to the charge blowing the door apart. Swiftly two troops through in flashbangs waited a second for them to go off and moved into the room and clearing it.
After the gunfire ended the only living creatures in the room were the Enclave special operators and General Killman himself. The mutants blood poured from his mouth, nose, ears and from multiple wounds both caused by plasma and shrapnel. Blake truly began to smile then as he walked up to the abomination. "Well well look what we got here, a filthy fuking mutie who thought he could kill America. Well look who's laying in a puddle of their own blood now" Blake said kicking the mutant in the chest. Killman groaned in pain as Blake's boot connected with one of his shredded organs. "Humans inferior to super mutants. Your victory no last long we come again we come more, many more and we kick you out Chicago." "Maybe, but you'll never find out" Blake said in an icy tone as he shot the mutant twice in the chest and once in the head effectively cutting off the head of them Mutant Army. "All right let's clean this shit up. Land the vertibird with the reserve team and have them secure the entrance to the building. I want the rest of the teams searching every inch of this building for Intel or survivors, any survivors you fine put them down. I'm going to call into command and tell them that we completed our objective."
USS Independence, Somewhere in the Great Lakes, 2277
For the first time in months General Autumn was a happy man. Word had just come in from Captain Blake in Chicago to inform him that half of the Enclaves problems in Chicago had just been taken care of. Now all that was needed for the Enclave to seize control of Chicago was to knock out a few Raider gangs and move into the few settlements built up in Chicago. They would be integrated into the temporary state of Chicago where they would immediately begin rebuilding. General Autumn wasn't going to lie to himself and pretend that this would be like American Democracy of old, no for the next couple of months or maybe even years the Second Republic of the United States would run as a dictatorship. Factories would need to be built, farms would need to be established, troops would need to be conscripted and trained, schools will need to be built, all in order to build up a broken Nation into something that could someday reunite America.
The Department of the Treasury was already in the process of designing a new currency to be used within Enclave territory. The Department of Research and Development already had sections asking for permission to begin projects, like the Atomic Energy Commission wanting to reactivate the nuclear power plants that had fueled Chicago before the war. Not only that but other departments were also preparing for the liberation of Chicago, like the Department of Peacekeeping and Recovery of whom were already designing a civil government for a liberated Chicago. Even the National Archives and Records Administration was getting up in arms about securing pre-war documents and artifacts. Soon, very soon in fact, General Autumn would be swamped by paperwork, filling out forms authorizing or declining projects and attending meetings about those projects. But even that thought made Autumn a happy man because that ment that he Enclave wad be getting back on its feet.
While Autumn was thinking about what the Enclave was going to do after they liberated Chicago he remembered Enclave radio. Although Autumn and Eden disagreed on many things, one topic that they both agreed on was Enclave radio being important for both propaganda and indoctrination into the Enclave. Remembering this Autumn sat down in front of his terminal and began writing a message for the United States Information Agency to begin developing a public radio network for the greater Chicago area and later that day Radio Free America was born.
Regional Command Center, Chicago 2277
Now that the UMLF was dealt with Colonel Macintosh began to plan an offensive against the raider gangs that still held control over parts of Chicago. He would send in strike teams all over the city to wipe out each stronghold simultaneously. Colonel Macintosh would also need to worry about incorporating the local settlements back into the Second Republic of the United States. Captain Blake has proven to be effective many times and could be assigned operational command over the forces allocated to those operations. Macintosh was sure the man had the tact to make a good impression on the locals.
Macintosh called Blake to his office to inform him of his new assignment. "Captain I have a mission for you. I am placing you in command of integrating the locals into the Enclave. I need to make sure you understand how important it is that you do this right, we need these people if we are going to ever get back on our feet. That means no excess force on the locals and no executions. Got it?" "Yes Sir." "Good now I am going to give you three platoons to take care of this, thats one sqad per settlement. That should be enough for us to make our point. Now those men will be heavily outnumbered so make sure they keep there fingers off the triggers. Instruct them to tell the locals they have one week to gather there leaders and send them here so we can meet with all of them." "Roger that sir, anything else" "Ya, this comes from the top so if all gos well then you may see a promotion in your futer."
Enclave Archive
Civil Departments
Although the Enclave is primarily a millitary force that is not all the Enclave is or can be. With General Autumn begining to build a larger civil government in Chicago the power of these branches in the government will increase.
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Arcbives and Records Administration is the civil agency tasked with preserving and recording American History. The Administration also contains a para-military unit tasked with tracking and recovering important documents and artifacts called the Recovery Unit.
United States Information Agency
The US Information Agency is tasked with spreading Enclave propaganda via Enclave Radio or as its known as today Radio Free America. This agency controls all civilian radio and free roaming Eyebots.
Authors Note:
Well that should be the end of the beginning section of the story. So far this has been pretty fun and I would like to know how you guys feel about the story. Feel free to leave suggestions and criticisms for the story. I wont be writing any new chapters for a little bit because im going to go back and begin editing and adding to previous chapters. See guys on the next chapter!
