A/N: I own nothing except the laptop upon which I wrote this story.

He gingerly stepped over the bodies, trying to ignore the smell. They were all dead, obviously. And what was even more obvious was that they had not died well.

At all.

"…Uh, ma'am?" Private Rivia managed to ask, looking at the blood-spattered woman who up until recently had been his commanding officer and not a berserker. "Are you alright?"

Are you alright?

The words were impossibly muffled, as if someone had stuffed cotton in her ears. She could hear the roar in her ears, the same kind of thing that had happened every time that she'd stepped into the Combat Zone. Even his tone of voice was changed: it was distorted, like on a bass register far below what any human (and most super mutants) should sound like. Her heart was slamming in her chest, as if it was trying to break free.

And just like that, it wore off. The world came back into focus, and the sounds of life began to refill her ears. She slowly turned to face him, and blinked once.

"Yeah. I'm fine." She pointed around them. "They're not."

"You, um, really got them." Private Rivia said. "That's, uh, that's a lot of blood."

"It's war." Cait said flatly. "It happens. Especially when you're fighting for survival." She racked the shotgun she was carrying. "Especially when you use this bad boy."

"Jesus shit."

They turned to see Olympus entering the bar, with Crow right behind him. The larger of the two mercenaries took a look around, his eyes wide in something like shock. Or was it horror?

"What the fuck…" He managed to speak again. He looked at Cait. "You did this? All of this? Yourself?"

"It's nothing new." Cait said. She was still breathing heavily. Normality was returning, but her heartrace was still through the roof. It would probably take some time for it to get better.

If it got better.

"Holy shit, thank god we got the deal we did out of you." Olympus said. He looked around, and then cleared his throat. "So, uh, what now?"

"What now?" Cait repeated. "We take the fight right to those bastards in Quincy. Keep pushing and pushing and choke 'em all."

"Yeah?" Olympus said. "That's the master plan? Just the four of us, well the three of us following you, right into a hellhole?" He paused. "You're crazier than I thought."

"Our original mission was to get the trackers into Quincy so our guns could blow them all to hell." Cait said. "I figure we just go deeper than what we needed to."

"Do we?" Olympus asked. "Cuz, uh, technically we're in Quincy. Right on the edge, sure, but we're in Quincy."

"That true?" Crow asked. Private Rivia pulled out a map and checked it.

"Um…according to this chart, and it's been a few months – obviously – since this was drawn…but yeah. Yeah, we're in Quincy."

"Then why keep going?" Olympus asked. "We've accomplished what your bosses asked us to do. Just plant the trackers. Get a good reading and radio confirm, and then we can make a barbeque out here while the city burns."

Cait looked at the ground.

"No."

"No?" Olympus asked. "What the hell do you mean, no? We're here. We've cleared out a forward operating base. There is no reason to risk things any further."

"We're only gonna chip away at things if we fire here." Cait said. "We need to go deeper. I wanna slap the tracker on one of those big-ass buildings out there." She pointed out the window, towards the looming towers in Quincy's heart. "We don't need to slap them on the wrist, we need to cut out their fucking throat!"

"You're going to get us killed." Olympus said. "That is not what your bosses want. They want a job done, not improvised!"

"Oh, what the hell do you know?" Cait sneered. "You're just a damned freelancer, you don't know a thing about-"

"You don't know a damn thing about what I know about." Olympus snarled. He sounded like an angered Yaoi Guai, and it startled everyone into silence. Even Cait was momentarily cowed. He looked her dead in the eye, and all of a sudden stood ramrod straight. "My name is John Stewart. Sergeant First Class, New California Republic 1st Highway Division."

"Former Sergeant First Class." Crow said in a reminding tone.

"Doesn't fucking matter." Gideon said. "I've led men and women into battle before. I've lost men and women in battle before. And I know what happens when you act on impulse, Cait."

Cait was about to open her mouth.

"Spare me the sass." John said. "You are a high-functioning tool, but you are not a soldier. And a soldier never puts their troops into a situation where people die needlessly. You had your orders, and you cannot improvise just because your heart hurts over the death of someone that you cared about."

"You sound just like Danse." Cait sneered.

"I like him already. He sounds like a reasonable man." John snapped. "Cait, if you drag us into the depths of Quincy just because Colonel Garvey is dead, you won't have to grieve long because you'll meet him soon. I signed up for the money, sure. But I also signed up because it sounded like your Commonwealth army-"

"Minutemen." Priviate Rivia offered in a small voice.

"Whatever." John said. "I signed up for this because I'm only a mercenary by convenience. I am a soldier, and I know that I will spend the rest of my life fighting for something. It just seemed like your Commonwealth is something worth fighting for…but if you're the type of person that they put in command, what does that say about the upper structure?"

"Don't you dare insult Nate." Cait snarled. "You say another word about him, and I will fucking end you."

"Does he know this side of you?" He asked. "Does he know about your temper? Because if he does…" Another thought seemed to cross his mind. "How long have you been in the field since the war started?"

Cait was silent.

"Tell me."

"She, um, hasn't." Private Rivia said. "She's been at the Castle, either training herself or training others."

"Then your 'Nate' is exactly as smart as I thought he was." John said. "He didn't want you to be in charge of this mission, because he knew you were going to let your emotions get in the way. He did because he's desperate, isn't he?" He paused. "You want his faith in you to be rewarded? Then stand aside, and finish your mission."

The tension could be cut with a knife.

He was sweating so bad he thought he was melting. He walked slowly out the door, looking around. Salem had gone frightfully quiet. There wasn't even the chatter of gunfire from Quincy Boys; either they had retreated…or they had been taken care of. Either by Barney Rook and MacCready, or the Deathclaws. He hoped it was the former.

That at least would have been quicker.

He heard something. He snapped around to look down the alleyway, his rifle aimed towards the darkness. There was nothing there. Nothing but a few trash cans, some of which had been knocked over. Probably by a radrat or something.

He exhaled. He turned around.

And there it was.

Down the road, standing motionless. An alpha Deathclaw was contemplating him, its horns mighty and curling around its head. Its teeth the size of small knives, and its claws the size of his forearm. At least. Its skin was mottled and black.

Wait, that wasn't black. That was dark-red. And wet. It was blood.

He fought the urge to vomit in the street.

For an eternity they stared at each other. There was a silence greater than any that existed in the world before, as if waiting for the most terrible explosion of noise. He realized that he, too, was motionless. For a second, he wondered if Deathclaws couldn't see you if you didn't move.

The creature's threatening growl disabused him of that notion. It wasn't that it couldn't see him. It was just waiting to see what he would do next.

Chibs had once read of old animals, called cats, that apparently liked to play with their food. They'd paw aimlessly at the little creatures that they hunted, called mice, until they got bored. And then the claws would come out, and the playful batting would be surgical and quick. It would strike the mice around the neck, ending the game almost as soon as it was started. The cat wouldn't start eating the mouse right away, though, his mother told him. Sometimes they'd just gnaw at it. As if to showcase how pathetically insignificant the creature really was.

Chibs swallowed, though his throat was dead-dry. He figured he had a few seconds left before the creature would tire of this standoff. He was too far away from the house where the ghouls were. Not to just run there and hopefully set off the bombs that now lined the front entrance. But eventually after he was dead, the Deathclaw would smell the blood of the wounded…

As if in a dream, Chibs thought he saw something by the Deathclaw's feet. They were half-buried in the dirt and sludge that passed for a Salem road these days, and for a moment he had thought it was the shell of a dead Mirelurk. But then he saw that it was a fuel drum.

And it was leaking.

The Deathclaw let out a mighty roar, tired of this pointless game of chicken with the pudgy creature staring it down. It bared its teeth, drew its claws, and prepared to leap towards the newest of its meals.

At the exact same moment, Chibs turned his assault rifle towards the beast and fired.

There was a terrific explosion, returning noise to the world. The fuel drum combusted in a burst of fire and smoke, showering the Deathclaw with molten soup that had once been gasoline. The creature roared in annoyance, and then in pain as it registered that a shard of the drum had pierced its left knee, rendering the joint effectively useless. It looked to pull the shard out, but then it saw that its prey was running. Roaring in anger at the trick, the Deathclaw pursued its dinner.

Chibs didn't look back. He ran as hard as he could, his heartbeat thundering in his chest and a roaring in his ears. He knew that the Deathclaw could no longer run, but that only marginally favored his odds. He raced for the ghoul safehouse, dropping his rifle to lighten the load. As he got closer to the door, he saw a few of the healthy ghouls there, beckoning and screaming for him to get inside.

"RUN, SMOOTHSKIN! DON'T LOOK BACK! WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T YOU LOOK BACK!"

He was at the porch. He was on the first step. He heard the Deathclaw roar directly on top of him. He instinctively ducked. A massive claw buried itself in the wood directly where his head had been. He slammed the door behind him, realizing that he was screaming the entire time.

"GOOOOOOOOO!" He shouted to the ghouls managing the explosives.

There was a terrific crash. The Deathclaw was tearing the door off its hinges. It was an old building. As it yanked the door loose, the wall came down on it and the trim clattered on its head. It roared in annoyance, and tried to pry itself loose. It was standing right on top of the detonators. But they weren't exploding.

"Pull them!" Chibs bellowed. "Blow it up!"

"They're stuck!" One of the ghouls shouted back. "The detonator's jammed!"

There were maybe a few seconds left before it got free and devoured them all.

He'd never been a brave man before. He'd always known he was a coward. He knew that he was most likely going to die an ignominious death. Even ex-raiders are doomed to that sort of fate.

But as he primed the grenade in his belt, knowing full well he was within the blast radius of the wired explosives, he figured that maybe this would be a good death.

"Get to cover!" He shouted to the others. He hoped they listened.

There was a crashing sound as the Deathclaw wrenched itself free of the debris. It turned towards him, a murderous bloddlust in its eyes. For some reason, he felt strangely at peace.

"Smile, you son of a bitch."

He tossed the grenade. It rolled under the Deathclaw's feet, igniting the explosives and everything else. He saw the beast torn asunder by the detonation. The fire and fury raced towards him, like a sunblast.

Before he even felt the heat, everything went black.

Perhaps that was a form of mercy, in the end.