Wow, thanks for the continued support despite no update in, well, that's a loooong time. I've been firing away at this for a while trying to get the best out me for a while. I really hope you enjoy. Thank you all again, PepoClap
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Boone quickly darted his head behind the bullet-riddled metal box in front of him. The bullet searching for his skull whizzed overhead and dug into the dirt behind him. He peeked and fired once, blindly hoping he'd hit someone. He watched the bullet sail, and miss his target by fifteen meters. He repeeked and fired twice more. This time, both bullets buried their casings into their target. He dropped to the ground again when the amassment of mercs reloaded, reaimed, and refired. His entire cover was peppered with several dozen rounds, each one rattling the earth.
He looked to his left to see his remaining men in the same position. He'd lost four, each death cutting their possibility of survival by a factor of fifty. He gripped the ammo crate and looked over the edge. They were running. He tossed a glance behind him, the decayed Vertibird was still riddled with bullets a hundred and ten meters behind him. His backup Vertibird's had pulled off, the Tactical Gunships took a beating. He gripped the SCAR-L in his hand and propped it onto the box. The Talon Mercs were still sprinting. He fired half of his magazine, before shouting to his team. "We pushed them back! Reload and rearm! We've still got work to-"
The decimation of the earth's crust was not pretty. The explosion tore his eardrums, and launched him backwards. Darkness covered his features, mud, dirt, and brick zipped around his body. Some scraping his chest, other's bouncing off his right shoulder or digging into his arms. The blinding, white-hot pain was causing him to screech in pain. When his mouth opened, dirt invited it's way into his orifice. He gagged, coughed and tumbled over. His left leg hooked around a fallen rifle and his ankle twisted. A second later, he hit the ground.
Another blink of an eye, and the weight of world consumed him. Mountains of dirt dogpiled ontop of him, crushing his chest. Naturally, he wheezed, his body desperately looking to refill it's now empty stock of oxygen. His left arm shot up, clawing at the surface. Someone gripped his clothed hand and pulled him up, his head broke the surface and the sun shot a blinding ray into his eyes. Wwwelcome back moron! Boone's eyes opened, as she dragged him behind a pile of dirt. His head hurt and the thundering shots didn't help. Alice gripped his chestplate and the world shot back into his veins. His head stopped spinning and he focused on the words escaping Alice's mouth.
"-Reinforcements are here, we need to move! B-ooone!" She slapped his face, his head snapped back up. "Yeah, yeah. Pull me up, let's go." His voice was low, as if he swallowed a mouthful of gravel. He coughed, spitting out bits and pieces of the ground. He took Alice's hand and rose to his feet. A small fleet of grey clad Vertibirds flew overhead. Boone thought he saw twelve, but he supposed that was the slight off feeling he had in his head. He stumbled forward, and caught himself from face planting onto the mud. He placed a hand on the softened earth, and reached for a pistol. His fingers touched a torn Glock grip, and he pulled it out of the evergiving ground. He turned, and steadied himself on a box. "Still gotta buy our birds some time to land by us! Grab a gun." He shook his head, which had a steady thump and fired once. Twice, and once more. Three bullets soared, and imbedded the dirt. His aim was way off. He sunk behind the grey crate and extended a clip to Alice. She turned, and fired a burst from a P250. She crouched again, and the thundering of the air overhead brought his gaze upwards. Evac, was here.
The white insignia shone bright against the blue sky. The light hit the Vertibird at an angle that Boone could only describe as heavenly. The cabin door swung open, and bullets immediately erupted from the interior. Several beams flew past them and pierced the now crumbling retreat of mercenaries. The Vertibird breezed over to them, the dust around him bounced as it stopped a foot from the floor. Alice fired twice more, before charging at the open doors ten feet behind. Boone watched as her slender form reached the cabin and in an instant, her body whipped around and he saw her eyes scanning for him. He tossed a look ahead of him towards the firing from the mercenaries, and took off before his rational side could protest. His feet tore up the soft dirt underfoot, and the bullets chasing after him hit the metal armor of the Vertibird. He jumped as soon as the Vertibird started to take off the ground. Alex appeared over the side and caught both of his arms. Three thundering bodies hit the ground, the vibrations shaking his arms. Alex's soldiers had jumped off to allow their exit to succeed.
A brief breath of hope entered his lungs as the sterlie gloves gripped his leather armor. His left leg scrambled to hook himself inside, but a well placed bullet slammed itself into Boone's leg. Boone's body instinctively shook, and Alex lost his grip, the Vertibird was now fifteen feet in the air and couldn't afford to stall. Boone was hanging off the side of the VTOL craft as they started taking fire. He let go of Boone's left arm and grabbed his Laser Rifle and fired at the Mercs on the ground. With his right he tossed him into the cabin. He shifted, and aimed the rifle spraying the ground with rays of red.
Richards fired again, and he quickly shifted behind cover. His back hurt, and his leg was still out of commision. The chopping of the air as their incoming reinforcements landed gave him a ray of hope. He quickly motioned for the injured Connor to come over to him. Connor nodded, and hobbled to a crouch, making his way over. Connor took the nearly empty FAL out of his hands and fired the remaining bullets towards the super mutants left behind by the Talon Company to disrupt their exit. He tossed the empty rifle and hefted Richards onto his back.
The interior of the cabin slowed. The firing stopped, and Connor's body stopped protesting, if only for a moment. It was a scene of brutality. Several mounds of bodies lay stacked on top of each other, next to many scrapped pieces of seats and the sort. Those corpses had clogged up the entire cockpit, where the pilots lay strapped into their seats, their faces of horror still imprinted. He stumbled, and nearly tripped over one of the dozen of fallen 5.56 rifles. Each was either torn and crumbling or empty with no chance of a reload. His torn boots kicked away a SCAR-L and the world came flying back.
Connor's head was pounding, and his internal organs were screaming at him to get into the medical wing, but he persisted. His feet crushed the casing ridden floor as he slowly trudged out of the decimated cabin. His feet continued their trek, another step, another warning from his body. He blinked, and when his eyes reopened, two soldiers flanked him. One took Richards from his back, and the other seemed to talk to him. He continued walking, continued staring forward.
He vaguely felt the world around him, instead the environment was wrapped in a white haze. A glow. He just wanted to reach out and touch it, to feel something in this sluggish state. His eyes fluttered opened, and he was looking straight into a slate grey colored ceiling. He let out a cough, and the world focused back it's grime covered self.
"One, two, SHOCK!-" Sterilized voices sounded out, just as the vivid revving sounded.
He grimaced, and he let out a small gasp. He heard something, something cut through the silence. A flash, and then a violent shake. He lifted his head, they were in the air now, and he shifted his weight to turn to his side.
The cabin doors were open, and a Brotherhood Aspirant was commanding the Gatling Gun, but his eyes found the color amid the haze. A blaze of orange and red. The tail end of a Tactical Variant Vertibird was on fire. The tail rotor was slowing down, they were still at a high altitude, but they were going to go down if they didn't get help. His body fired back at all the commotion, and a sharp pain made him see red.
He fell back onto the makeshift cot, as the medics hurried over from the cockpit to stabilize him.
Alex's helmet flickered on with a sheath of blue light. A small rock shuddered in the aircraft, and it pressed on the "accept call" and Sarah's face appeared on the screen. A muffled Alex rang out. Another call of his name and his eyes flickered open. The siding of the cabin was been hit with a rocket hit and was now barely hanging on as the Vertibird soared through the air at breakneck speed.
He muttered something against the steel floor before picking himself up. Immediately he heard the shouting, Boone was unconscious, and Alice was yelling at the pilots something incomprehensible. He quickly nabbed his fallen helmet and put it on.
"Sarah! I'm here! What do you need?" He shouted, the shaking of the aircraft nearly knocking him off balance. He quickly grabbed the railing and slid Archangel over his back. He looked out the cabin towards their tail.
"We've got one chance to spearhead a defense, and take back control of the fort. Several Brotherhood soldiers have reached the northern hull and are ready to advance. Twenty soldiers, get there. Now." Her voice was sharp, and her face was stoic.
Alex was red, and out of breath. He peeked around the cabin door and fired several times. He didn't get to watch the trajectory before another bullet whizzed passed his head and slammed into his steel clad shoulder. He stepped back from the sudden impact, but not injured. He peeked, and fired another shot. "Not exactly in a position to get there,-" A loud crash proved his point, and the distinct plume of ash grey filled up the sky around them.
He took a last glance at the flaming end of their VTOL aircraft before muttering, "Yeah, I think we're gonna go down here." He took a gaze at the fallen NCR Ranger for a second. He was clutching his leg, trying to apply a field bandage when another wave of bullets clattered against them. "Boone! Time to bail!" He didn't wait for an answer before turning to enter the cockpit.
An explosion blew out the cockpit windows, and a spray of bullets ate away at the inhabitants. Alice screeched, and Alex quickly darted inside, his palm already holding a stimpack for anyone in critical condition. Alice was reeling backwards, and Alex caught her before she slammed her skull into the steel plating behind them. He turned her to look at him, and her forearms were laced with chunks of glass. She shook in his grasp and reached for a railing to steady herself. "Sarah, I've got to do the suicide play to even get us a chance at leaving out of here alive. Power Armor can withstand the impact of me, and two others right!?" He shouted, and her reaction was a gaze of desperation. "Don't. You. Dare." Her voice was slathered in a venomous undertone, but Alex merely deflected before manning the controls.
Alice coughed, and fell to her knees in the cabin. Her arms stung, and the amount of blood flowing like rivers covering her tan skin with candy cane colored blood was sickening. She lost her balance, and slid forwards a foot, her fingers grasping for a emergency hook on the floor. Her fingers picked at it, grasping it and steadying herself from her numb body.
Boone was at her side, and seated her on one of the chairs and reached for a Laser Rifle. Boone shifted and helped her into a seat. She slid in her seat as the Vertibird shifted for the umpteenth time and started to pull upwards. She leaned over and nabbed a pistol stored on the side of the metal chair. Her right arm protested and her strength was gone in a blink of an eye. Her shaking fingers tore away at the field bandage packaging she had in her chestplate. She applied both onto her arms, just to stop the steady flow of blood from pouring out from the various cavities lining both forearms.
Alice slowly rose from her seat, and a bullets tore through the air, and completely chopped off one of her magazine pockets on her plate carrier, narrowly missing her ribs. She quickly increased her pace, her left foot caught on a rifle, but she caught herself on the cockpit doorway and stumbled in. Her feet shuffled inside, one of them feeling stiffer than the other, but she dismissed it. She reached for one of the chairs and look at her unofficial team leader struggle with commanding the controls.
Alex huffed and pulled the throttle to the right, "We aren't gonna be going high-" His voice was drowned out by an explosion that she could swear blew up her eardrums. She immediately covered her head and
They'd actually been hit this time, a high velocity rocket tore through the steel paneling of the Vertibird. Shrapnel tore apart the cabin, a massive divot of the roof tore clean off, smoke flying everywhere.
Alex tapped his controls once more, but nothing happened, he looked back and realized they had no rotors anymore. He had only a single wing, and no supporting rotors. He turned back and shouted, "Get out of the Vertibird! GET THE FUC-"
His position had exploded, and the cockpit erupted in flames. Alex was shielded from the blast of the consoles from his Power Armor, but Alice had taken a direct hit. The flames and smoke had blocked his vision, and the Vertibird was spinning out of control, the fragments of it left rapidly heading towards the ground. Alice had fallen back, her body pushed against debris from the consoles, and was screaming. Both her and Sarah screeched, piercing his thoughts with a spearhead. He darted, and tossed her over his shoulder before breaking through the steel doorway. The hinges flew off, darting through the air, before slamming into the ground. The foundation of the VTOL groaned just as he gripped whatever body part of Boone's he could get a hold of and vaulted out the aircraft.
He held his breath, and his lungs inhaled the sharp, filtered air in his helmet, time slowed. His eyes scanned through the slightly tinted visor, gazing at their target. A rooftop, covered in various construction materials. Several sandbags, a handful of small pistols, steel plates, and the sort. He noticed the highpitched squealing in his ears next. Sarah was tearing her lungs apart trying to gain his attention. His fingers lost a tiny bit of grip on someone's leg. His head snapped down, and his gaze meet the terrified eyes of Boone. He was grasping Alex's metal chest, desperately trying to strengthen the bond between them. Alex swung Boone towards the right side of chest, and the pressure of Boone's fingers digging into his side plating let him know he was alright.
Alice's steady bleeding, covering his chest in maroon sped up his heart rate. He clutched both of his dependents closer to his chest as soon as time started to catch up to them. He felt his legs locking up, anxious as to the impending impact. He felt himself slice through the air, and the roof sped up, growing bigger every milisecond. He started to lean backwards, to make their landing much more possible.
His left foot broke through the surface first, his steel clad foot smashing through the unprepared concrete. His power armor clad leg tensed up. His suspensions braced themselves for the next breakthrough. His right ankle shattering the concrete and tearing through the rebar like butter. He instinctively brought the couple closer to his chest as his lower back broke through the roof. His right oxygen tank got torn from the edge, and the explosion burst his helmet's sound protection. He blinked, and the freefall continued.
The building, enacting revenge of the decimation of it's roof slammed back into the trio. His left arm clipped the stairwell, completely shattering the metal panelling protecting his forearms from the impact, and turning him twenty degrees to the right. He panicked, and quickly lifted them both out in front of him, and his back shattered the bottom floor. The marble shrieked, and it's many pieces stuck out like daggers. Each took a slice against the metal tank that had fallen on them. The floor itself shook, and the marble sunk, exposing the supporting rebar, which Alex broke through like foundation shook his core, and the groans of the NCR he saved were the last things he heard before closing his eyes.
Alex let out a grunt, and his helmet popped off from the impact. Alice was curled up against Boone, still screaming. The blood pooling around her body flowed like a waterfall. Her arms were getting poked and prodded by the harsh marble. Boone summoned his remaining strength and lifted her up, fireman style, trudging towards a table still intact. Alice was still clutching her forearms, holding the fallen bandages, placing pressure on her wounds.
Alex's steel clad fist slammed into the concrete pillar next to him and let out a groan. "Boone, on me." He breathed out, his chest heaving, and his breaths laboured. A small whimper of pain escaped his lips as Boone crouched next to him. Alex lightly placed two stimpaks onto Boone's palm and motioned for his helmet. Alex let out another shaky breath, "I need to call Sarah, the stims in my suit will keep me stable, but you gotta make sure Alice doesn't die."
Boone snapped out of his haze, and bounded over to Alice's body. He nicked both needles into her arm and she turned and cried into his chest, droplets of blood staining the dirt covered armor. He turned around and made his way back towards the Sentinel.
Sarah was shouting, and the soft feeling of the floor was tempting. The slowing of his breath, and the dimming of his vision. His wife was panicking, but all he saw was a lyoness meeting his gaze. His lips parted, and several words flowed out of his mouth. Her face stopped for a split second, and he could see the reaction slowly glaze over her features. The reprimanding voice was gone, and instead was a pleading cry. He breathed out, his voice breaking. "Sss-Sarah, I could-" He closed his eyes, and allowed the pain to subside before continuing
His neck twitched, but he clutched a fistful of marble shards. He took a painful breath, "Get me outta here. Sarah, or I'm gonna die. Talon Company is almost dead. He coughed, and a internal Med-X stabbed into his arm. A slight dribble of blood left his mouth, dripping around his ear, staining his hazel hair.
"Please."