Chapter Fourteen.

The sun had barely risen above the horizon before they saw the smoke, an uncommon sight in the wasteland, as there wasn't much left to burn. "I think that's the mills," Doc Hoff said. "I wonder why it's on fire."

Frowning, Princess stamped her foot. A raider war was not a great time to join a gang, at least she didn't think it was. Perhaps after the fight was over and everyone was weakest, she could take over. "I guess I'll find out," she said. "Maybe this will work out for me."

"And me as well," Doc Hoff said, following Princess who had begin bounding down a slope, careful not to slip on flattened tin cans.

"I thought you were wussing out," Princess said. "Did you grow a pair overnight?"

Doc Hoff laughed and his brahmin mooed. He led the beast down the slope and made his way slow and steady as before. "Where there's smoke, there's fire. Where there's fire, there are injuries and where there are injuries, someone has to provide medication."

"You're not afraid they'll just kill you and take your meds?" she asked.

His smile made something in her stomach churn. He had given the impression of a friendly wasteland medic, but what showed through his features was anything but helpful. "I have methods of protecting myself from raiders and the like, provided that conditions are right," he said.

He grabbed a string that under the pile of goods on the brahmin's back. "This is attached to a miniature nuclear device," he said. "Animals and robots don't respect it, and neither do raiders that shoot me before they know I have it. When I walk into a raider camp, however, I have their attention and can make the situation clear to them. They become quite businesslike once we establish mutual respect."

"Not bad," she said. "Maybe we can help each other when we get there."

Doc Hoff took the lead again, and after a few hours of hard travel, began walking along a rusted railroad that led through a gap between blasted, grey hills. Princess kept her eyes upward, fearing an ambush from above. In the shadow of the two hills, she almost didn't see the body until she had stepped on it. "Hold up," she said, kneeling down to examine the corps.

It was a bald man who was dressed in scraps of leather with metal sewn on over the vital organs. A laser had burned through the leather bits in addition to half of his head. He was facing out of the valley and Princess thought he had been fleeing when killed.

"He doesn't look too fresh," Doc Hoff said, coming over. He sniffed the air over the body. "Two days, maybe."

"Unless you've got a pill that cures dead, lets go," she said.

The track led to a train depot much of which was obscured by smoke from a burning factory building. Princess gasped as two deathclaws came out from behind rocks on either side of her.

Too afraid to shoot, she backed up and was knocked over by a third deathclaw that had been lurking in the shadow behind her. "Oh dear," Doc Hoff said, taking hold of the string.

When the deathclaws didn't rush in for the kill, Princess raised her rifle.

"Halt!" someone shouted, their voice muffled by a power armor helmet speaker. Princess looked to the train cars and saw a human figure dressed in a type of power armor she had never seen before step out and level the barrel of a flame thrower at her. "Throw down your weapons," the power armor said.

Princess dropped her weapons and noticed that the deathclaws were wearing metal things on their heads with blinking lights. More men in power armor appeared, accompanied by a man wearing a grey uniform and a black hat. He was dressed in a way that reminded Princess of pictures in old books depicting the army of the old days.

The man in the grey was clean-shaven, and clean in general, something Princess was not used to seeing. "Identify yourselves," he said.

"Fuck off," she said.

"Waste 'em," the grey man said.

She heard the flamethrower's internal workings prepare for a jet of lethal fire and then Doc Hoff's voice. "Not unless you all want to be nuked," he said, wrapping the string around his fist and holding it tight.

The man with the flamethrower held off on the trigger, while the man in the grey looked at Doc Hoff carefully. "Identify yourself, wastelander," the grey man said, slowly drawing a laser pistol.

"My name is Doc Hoff," he said. "This is my assistant and bodyguard, Princess. I'm a simple trader in medicines and pharmaceuticals. We saw the smoke and thought a battle might have taken place with a need for medical attention."

"Vultures, sir," one of the men in power armor said. Their helmets had wing-like ridges, making them look like devils or bats, Princess thought. "We should waste them. They ain't got a nuke."

"Be quiet," the grey man said. "My name is Lieutenant Brokenwell. I'm the commander of this operation."

"We'll be on our way if we're not wanted," Doc Hoff said. "But then, you'd likely just shoot us once we were far enough away."

Brokenwell seemed to ponder something for a moment, but shook his head to dismiss the thought. "Look, Doc, why don't you just let go of your little string, we'll let your pet thug pick up her gear, and you can turn around and leave. This is an Enclave operation and we don't have time to be playing games with mutants."

"Who the fuck are you calling mutant, asshole?" Princess said. "I don't know who you are, but…"

The deathclaws growled. "I'd watch my mouth, lady," Brokenwell said. "If they sense too much hostility, they'll attack and there won't be anything I can do about it."

Princess had been too afraid of the deathclaws for it to register that these people had control over them. When it did dawn on her, she was awed, deathclaws being the terrors of the wasteland to human and mutant alike.

"That's a neat trick," she said. "What are you guys, some kind of army?"

Brokenwell sneered. "Don't you mutants listen to the radio? We're the Enclave. We're America. The government. We're here to clean up the wasteland and make it habitable for real humans again."

"Neat," Princess said. "Can I join?"

Brokenwell laughed, as did the other Enclave soldiers. Even the deathclaws seemed to grunt in amusement. "No," Brokenwell said. "Only humans can join. You've been out in the wasteland too long, you're a mutant. You're lucky you and your friend weren't cooked before we bothered to ask who you were, which I'm sure was an oversight." He fixed at hard stare at one of the Enclave soldiers, who seemed to shrink in his armor.

"Fine," Princess said. "I didn't want to join your lame army anyway. The Brotherhood of Steel is way better."

The Enclave seemed to bristle and the rattle of a few laser rifles was heard. Brokenwell's mouth had twisted into a hard sneer, but suddenly softened. "Well now, we can't have people running off to join those posers, now can we? Even if they are a mutant wastelander. Tell you what, kid, you help us out with a little issue that's developed here and we'll let you and your buddy go free and clear. I'll put your résumé on file and if Colonel Autumn thinks you're up to snuff, maybe we can get you some power armor. Would you like that?"

Princess recognized his tone from the one raiders used when they showed up at the gate to Little Lamplight. "Come on down kid, we got candy and games. We won't hurt you." It was a tone that made her want to lob grenades or see how many body parts she could shoot off before the raider died. She had that power once, but here it was the enemy that had the upper hand.

With no other way out of the standoff other than being nuked, Princess nodded and slowly stood up. "Alright, what is it you need?"

To be continued…