Danse, MacCready, Curie and Nate all stood on the helipad firing blankly at the fleet of hostile vertibirds. Their plain weapons weren't doing much damage to the flying beast. Meanwhile the missile launcher carrying Brotherhood knights were doing a big number on the Castle defenses.
Danse got a lucky shot and sent one vertibird crashing to the ground. It exploded in a burst of fire and sent debris in all directions. MacCready and Curie opened fire on approaching ground forces and sent a few knights and paladins into the ground.
I need a bigger gun if I'm gonna do anything to these birds Nate thought. He turned to the others on the helipad "Im going to head to the armory and get something stronger! You and the other Minutemen need to push them back as much as you can!"
"Got it!" Danse and MacCready yelled.
Nate found Curie in the firefight and dragged her behind cover to talk to her. He looked her deep in the eyes and said "Whatever happens, I love you."
"I love you too. Be safe my love." Their lips found each other in a passionate kiss. Nate pulled away first and ran into the Castle.
He walked past the destroyed gate and into the burning courtyard. Minutemen and Brotherhood alike were falling everywhere he looked. Vertibird wreckages, bullet shells, laser marks and blood decorated the walls and floor.
Nate spotted a few initiates who had climbed the stone walls and were destroying the turrets lining the wall. Nate aimed and fired, they all fell dead within seconds. Nate also saw a suit power armor charging through the back door past a group of Minutemen desperately trying to hold off the attackers.
He watched the knight raise his Gatling Laser and tear apart the Minutemen. No way is my 10mm doing anything to that. Nate searched the ground and found a nuka grenade in the hand of a fallen Minutemen. He grabbed his from the dead mans grasp and chucked it towards the knight.
The knight scrambled hopelessly to get away before the grenade exploded and sent pieces of the knight everywhere. Nate was suddenly launched in the air and landed in a hard pile of dirt and fiery metal. He looked up and saw a Brotherhood knight reloading their missile launcher.
The knight aimed straight for Nate, Nate suddenly couldn't move. It was licked his mind was locked into the sight of the Brotherhood soldier carrying the tool that would bring his demise.
Thankfully Nate was dragged inside the Castle walls before the rocket hit him. Once Nate was safely out of the line of fire he turned to thank his rescuer. He turned and saw the bloodied and dirt covered face of Sturges.
"Thank god you're alive. I thought for sure I'd find you face down in the dirt." Sturges said.
"Sturges! Are you alright? You don't look so good." Nate observed. The Quartermaster had a large gash on his forehead and his overalls were coated with blood around his stomach.
"One of the bastards got a lucky shot. Hit me in the gut before I put some lead in his brain." Sturges cried out in pain and clutched his abdomen.
"Shit we need to get you to the medical area. Then we need to get inside the armory."
Sturges shook his head. "We can't, atleast I can't. The medical area has been overrun. There are Minutemen troops trying hard to push 'me back but they ain't doing much." Sturges groaned again. "Tell ya what. You get me a stimpak or some Med-x and I'll lead you to the weapon I got stashed in the tunnels."
"What do you have in the tunnels that couldn't be kept in the armory? Will it be able to take down these vertibirds?" Nate asked.
Sturges nodded. "It'll do more than take 'em down. And trust me, if Ronnie found out I was building something like this she'd shoot me in the head. Now go get me something to fix this." Sturges yelled as he pointed towards his wound. Nate nodded and ran off to retake the medical center.
Nate ran through the falling apart Castle walls, taking down a few Brotherhood soldiers on the way to the medical area. When he got there he found half a dozen Minutemen outside the door taking cover behind the walls and just as many dead on the floor.
"General!" One of them yelled "Thank god you're here. We need some serious help taking back this place. If we lose this section, we lose access to the stimpaks we need and we may as well consider the Brotherhood victorious!"
"I understand the stakes soldier." Nate replied. "Tell me what we're dealing with. Did you see how many are in there?" Nate asked.
"Atleast six in combat armor and two with those metal suits, all armed to the teeth. We can kill super mutants with pipe rifles but they don't do much against reinforced steel."
"Sure we can, here give me your pipe pistol." Nate asked. The young Minuteman pulled his pipe pistol out of its holster and handed it to Nate. He took it and turned around. The Minutemen couldn't see all of what Nate was doing, but he saw Nate reach into his bag a few times and hammer something inside the pistol.
Nate eventually turned around with no visual changes to the weapon. "What are you doing sir? Nothing's happened."
"Oh believe me this'll do the trick." Nate said. He stood up and tossed the pistol in the medics offices.
The Brotherhood troops took one look at the thrown weapon and began laughing. "That the best you can d-" Suddenly the pistol exploded into a large cloud of smoke. They began coughing and were vulnerable. Nate pulled out his own gun and slowly took out all the soldiers out of power armor. He then ripped off the helmets and shot the other two.
"Damn sir! How'd you make the gun a smoke bomb. And how could you see through the smoke?" The Minuteman asked.
"I learned a few tricks in the military before the Great War. As for the sight issue, I just listened for the coughing and fired in that direction. Now you three," Nate pointed. "Secure this area. Make sure no Brotherhood get in here again. The rest of you head into the courtyard and drive back the ground forces as much as you can. I'll take care of the air threats soon."
The soldiers went off to do as they were ordered and Nate grabbed a stimpak. He ran back to where he left Sturges and found the Boston engineer in exactly the same spot he was left in. "Thank god, I was one minute away from being sucked into that pretty white light." Sturges took the stimpak and injected it into the wounded area.
"Now I feel better. Come on, let's get to the tunnels." Sturges got up and the two ran off to Nates quarters.
They ran down into the dim and wet tunnels. The area was deserted of Brotherhood, which thankfully meant they handed gotten into the west wing and into the armory.
Sturges walked around a bit before his eyes settled on a wooden box about five feet long. "Here it is." He said. He got on one knee and shot of the lock that sealed the box shut. He pulled out the most strange looking piece of machinery Nate had ever seen.
"Sturges, what the hell is that?" Nate asked.
"Built it myself. Borrowed some schematics from that Virgil fella though. It's a weaponized matter eraser, or W.M.E. for short." Sturges looked at Nate who had a confused expression. "It disintegrates anything the beam comes in contact with. And the beam stops moving when it reaches its first object so we don't have to worry about blowing a hole in the Earth."
"Holy shit. How did you make this? How is that possible?" Nate asked while carefully picking up the weapon.
"It was easy. The Institute had apparently been working in these things for a while before we blew it all to shit. Virgil had a copy of the blueprints so once I got my hands on those the rest was pretty easy. Just point this side at those Brotherhood ships and watch them fall. But it has a short range, and NEVER miss." Sturges emphasized. "This thing can do some serious damage so you only want to hit something that wants to kill ya. Now go show them bastards who the hell they messed with."
Nate nodded and ran to the tunnel exit carrying the large gun.
He stepped outside and saw that things had gotten only worse for the Minutemen. Bodies were everywhere and the Brotherhood had all but torn down the walls. Nate saw a vertibird flying about one-hundred feet away. He raised the barrel of the gun and pulled the trigger. A large yellow blinding beam of energy shot from the weapon and tore into the Brotherhood ship. It hit the ground and burst into a fiery blaze.
Several more vertibirds noticed the sudden lose of one of their fleet and began racing towards Nate.
"You fuckers want some more?!" Nate yelled. He easily took down three more before the remaining ships started scrambling to get away.
Nate looked out into the courtyard and aimed his new toy at the attackers. He opened fire and disintegrated entire squads at once.
"Shit! We're getting torn apart! Fall back!" The Brotherhood forces began their retreat. Nate and the rest of the Minutemen easily picked off several more of the fleeing soldiers before no more were in sight.
They all cheered. Except for Nate. He knew that Maxson wasn't going to stop here. If anything he'd hit them harder. They were victorious for now, but Nate knew that would soon change.
Three hours later
Maxson stood at the observation deck. A piece of plywood had been put over the broken window until the glass could be properly fixed. Ingram, Teagen, Cade, Quinlan, Preston, and Captain Kells all stood behind him along with a female Paladin.
"Paladin-commander Wynters." Maxson addressed. "You were the commander of the forces charged with wiping out the Minutemen presence at the Castle, is that correct?" Maxson asked.
"Yes Elder." The female responded with a hint of fear in her voice.
"Would you care to tell me why you and your men could not stand against farmers and scavvers?" Maxson demanded.
"Well Elder. The Battle was in our favor in the beginning. We took them by suprise and our air advantage overwhelmed their defenses." Wynters said.
"Yet I still see the Minutemen flag above Ft. Indepedence." Maxson replied.
"Unfortunately." Wynters continued "They took down a good number of our fleet with some kind of weapon. I've never seen anything like it sir. Not even from the Institute. It tore apart our vertibirds like they were tissue paper. I don't even want to recall what it did to our ground troops. I was forced to call a retreat to keep our losses from growing." Wynters finished.
Maxson turned from the glass walls and looked at Preston. Preston nodded, understanding the order Maxson visually gave him. Garvey pulled his laser pistol from his holster, and activate it. Maxson turned back towards Wynters.
"I don't care if they had an army of Deathclaws. You failed Paladin-commander Wynters. From now on, failure is not an option. We have been too undisciplined and lenient and because of it we were beaten by uneducated buffoons. The Brotherhood has no place for the weak links like you Wynters." Preston raised his pistol and blew apart Wynters skull.
The Proctors looked in horror at the glowing red wound in the former Paladin-commanders head, while Maxson, Garvey and Kells looked at it with satisfaction.
"The plans for the Commonwealth have been slightly changed. The plan will proceed while the Minutemen are still active, we cannot waste anytime." Maxson ordered.
"Kells, ready our forces. Ingram and Teagen, get our soldiers outfitted for battle. Quinlan, find any information on what weapon the Minutemen used. Cade, return to your duties in the medical bay. Garvey, you'll be leading the next group of Brotherhood into battle."
"May I ask where that'll be Elder?" Preston asked.
"I'll think over it and get back to you. It will most likely be one of the major cities, once those are all taken out the rest of the Commonwealth will fall easily." Maxson said. "It is time for the fun to begin."