Chapter 21: Showdown at the Nipton Corral (Disclaimer, no corral is actually present)
The Courier sat at his desk, reviewing the state of his empire. Food production was at an all time high, thanks to Father Elijah's work. After considerable difficulty, a strike force of robots and mercanaries had wrested several Sierra Madre vending machines away from the deathtrap casino. One was sent to be broken down and researched at the former Brotherhood Elder's lab at HELIOS, while the rest had been plugged in to the Lucky 38 basement.
After a little bit of hacking, The Courier was using Christine's "Coin Operated" combination of fission batteries and scrap metal to produce huge supplies of food, medicine and ammunition. Father Elijah had managed to crack the software code the machines ran on, allowing Seth to produce almost any kind of food or bullet with the counterfit chips or cigars.
Still, the machines had limits. They couldn't produce complete firearms, energy weapons, robots or explosive, as these were simply too complex, though Father Elijah was working to avert this. The machines could, however, produce components to these devices, which then had be put together elsewhere. The weapon components were shipped to the former Gun Runner's plant, and robot parts were sent to Cerulean Robotics and the factory beneath the fort.
It wasn't enough though. The machinery was old and rusted, and the patch jobs Raul and Veronica had given them only returned them to minimum production. The trickle of robots produced by these facilities were of terrible quality, and only compensated for their fragile frames with overwhelming firepower, which was only made possible by the vending machine's mass production of ammo.
Inspite of these flaws, the matter re-arrangers had proven immensely useful in other regards. The mass creation of food gave Seth an iron grip on the hearts and minds of the Mojave. The citizens of the new empire were unaware of where the food came from, as Seth maintained the farms to the North of Vegas, which both covered the machines' existence and stimulated the economy. Anyone who bothered to look would easily see that the harvests did not match the food output, but the populance was too busy chowing down on the large quantities of food they had purchased at cut-rate prices from their beloved dictator, who made a point of presenting himself as a charasmatic, benevolent, public leader, unlike the cold and impersonal Mister House.
And yet, these limitations proved utterly vexing to Seth. What was the point in having a happy, well-fed empire if he couldn't expand it? While Joshua Graham and his horde of tribals had recently seized a number of communities to the North in The Courier's name, complete with tribute caravans, and Legion territory to the East was being seized at a rapid pace (melted down legionary body armor was a prime source of scrap metal for Sierra Madre slugs) the territory was proving difficult to conquer in a traditonal sense.
Although the Legion had begun to fracture and infight without a clear leader, as Seth had slain both Caeser and Lanius, it was not to the degree The Courier had hoped, and even when fracturing did occur, most breakaway warlords were willing to put civil war on hold to unite against the hated forces of the Mojave. So fanatical was their hatred of Seth and his armies that the Legion would slaughter all the civilians living in the territory on the eve of battle to prevent Seth from conquering them. Once the battle was won, all The Courier's armies could do was loot the settlements of anything usefull and ship the plunder back home. Seth took solance in the fact that with time, his growing population would spread out into this land and claim it for themselves, but he wanted the mines and farms working now to fuel his conquest of the real prize: the NCR.
If Seth could conquer the NCR and seize its vast mineral, agricultural, aquatic and technological resources, he could transform his warlord province into a mighty empire, capable of standing on equal footing with his enemies. The burning of the bear flag to accomidate his own remained a distant dream at the moment, however. For while he could lob Boomer bombs, HELIOS One blasts and Cloud-filled projectiles into the Republic, with Hologram sentries blocking off all routes of retaliation, Seth did not have the manpower to seize his prize. Despite his abundance of weapons, he did not have the soldiers to wield them in his name.
"And even if I score a crushing military victory over NCR, it could take me decades to pacify the population." Seth mused inside his twisted mind. "Good thing I've had Elijah produce thousands of slave collars..."
His thoughts were suddenly interupted by a report from Yes Man. "Sir, I think we've located Ulysses!"
Ulysses. That was a name that weighed heavily on the mind of The Courier. A pair of espionage agents had discovered that this was the name of the rumored agent of Caeser traveling as a courier. A week later, the agents who made the report were found dead in their beds, the Old World flag painted in on the wall in blood drawn from their sliced open throats.
In addition to aiding the White Legs, Ulysses had launched several more attacks against the Mojave. Bombings, shootings, assasination, all marked with the sign of Old World America. Seth had deduced a pattern to these radom acts of terror, however. A majority of the plots were discovered pre-maturely or failed in action. Analyzing the plots, The Courier (no stranger to schemes and conspiracies himself) worked out that Ulysses placed importence on escaping a confrontation rather then actually destroying his target. In addition, the attacks that worked were needlessly "showy", when a simpler, less elaborate strike would get far more done.
A caravan, ripped apart on the open road, bodies blown apart by cleverly hidden C4, the Old World flag painted on the road in blood. It would have been far more efficent to hide the bodies, allowing numerous caravans to be ambushed repeatably. A raft, flying the American flag and full of dead bodies floating into Cottonwood cove. Loading it with supply crates stuffed with explosives would have done more damage. These raids are intended to be attention grabbers, baiting The Courier into a confrontation.
"Well if it's a battle you want, it's a battle you'll get." Declared Seth. "Assemble the robots."
"Stay here and watch our backs, Sheriff. Me and the robots will go ahead." Commanded Seth. He and Sheriff Meyers, along with their posses of robots and deputies, respectively, stood amongst the ruins of Primm, which was in the process of being rebuilt.
It was Primm that Ulysses had struck, kidnapping several residents from their homes and painting his symbol on their doors. They had tracked him to the abandoned, burnt town, only to find the hostages laying dead in a path to the drive-in theater, .357 bullets lodged in their heads.
Surrounded by a wall of metal, Seth advanced up the bloodstained path, stopping at the mysterious satellite projecting a massive blue eye on the movie screen. Noticing the flag of America printed on the metal, Seth bent down to examine it...
"Do it Jackie boy." commanded the vaguely accented voice of Costello from the top floor of the town hall. The other follower of Ulysses, the red-haired, broken hearted Boomer Jack, nodded and pressed the button.
...Just as buried pulse charges detonated, shutting down his iron bodyguards. The discharge sparked something inside the satellite, causing it to erupt in a blue light, whisking away the Courier.
"And that's that." Costello stated non-chalontly while dusting his hands. "Kill the witnesses."
"What in Sam Hill...?" Was the reaction of the befuddled Meyers. The sheriff was brought back to reality by the wizzing of bullets, as several White Legs had charged out of the town hall and opened fire on him and his posse.
"Deputies! Stand your ground!" He called out to his motly band, who took cover and began returning fire. A few White Legs were cut down due to their lack of cover, but the hardened tribals continued to attack, cutting down several of the deputies.
Sheriff Meyers was returning fire with his 10mm pistol (curiously equiped with a silencer) from behind the bits of a destroyed house. After nailing one of the tribals between the eyes, he flinched as the head of a caravan shotgun using man exploded next to him. Meyers traced the shot to the upper window of the town hall, where Costello was taking potshots. "Cover me." he ordered a man with a 9mm machine gun and crouched ran out from his position, cliping a few White Legs as he went. Since his weapon was silenced and the tribals were scattering from the sudden burst of machine gun fire, however, they didn't exactly notice him.
After taking cover behind a patch of wall parrallel to the oncoming White Legs, Meyers examined the tribals until he saw one carrying what he needed. "Got'cha." he muttered before shoting one White Leg (silently) in the head and dashing out behind a White Leg adjacent to the one he just killed. Quickly sliding his combat knife between the tribal's exposed ribs from the side, the Sheriff pulled a frag grenade from his victim's belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it at Costello.
The grenade went off in mid-air, too far away to hurt the ex-King, but close enough to knock him on his ass with the shockwave. "Crap, that was too close! We need to scram, now!" Costello exclaimed, scared witless.
"I'll deal with the savages, you just start running." Jack replied while arming a 25mm Grenade APW. He then walked to the window and sprayed grenades all over the area, covering the ground in a field of explosions. Sheriff Meyers was thrown seven feet by the blast and knocked out upon colliding with a burnt house.
When he finally awoke, the two companions were gone and everyone else was dead, blown to pieces by the grenade barrage. He spent a moment retriving his hat before thinking profoundly about what had just occured.
"I am certainly gonna have to kill someone over this."
A/N: And so Old World Blues begins. I'm not going to actually focus so much on the actual quests from the game, seeing as you can just play those yourself. The main focus will be on Seth's use of the Big MT. and how it affects the ongoing war with the NCR.
Also, Sheriff Meyers was always one of my favorite minor characters, so he gets some spotlight this chapter.