Glade hid the smile that threatened to creep onto his face as he watched Sarah brief himself, Gallows, Jack and his four guards on the investigation thus far. Sarah was still reluctant to allow Jack to leave his room which had meant that Glade and Gallows had been ordered to pull a large dining table into the room so that Sarah could lay out a map as well as other important items, such as Boston's notebook and documents recovered from the Temple of the Union.
Glade hadn't been able to rest much recently himself though he didn't envy Jack who seemed to be going stir crazy locked away in the medical facility, the man wasn't called the Lone Wanderer because he liked to sit at home and a read a book. The poor guy hadn't even been told that they were in Canterbury Commons; Sarah was worried that their close proximity to the D.C. would make Jack even more adamant that he needed to be up about.
A smile threatened to break onto his face yet again he caught Sarah throwing yet another worried glance in Jack's direction. The man in question looked fine to Glade's eyes but both Sarah and the doctor disagreed with him, Glade was pretty sure if even brought up allowing Jack to roam free that Sarah would rip him a new one.
"I'm pretty sure that the problem is worse than you guys know" Jack was talking now, he looked relaxed but Glade could see that he was gripping the table tightly as he spoke. "The Commander and Artemis" Jack spat the names out, his contempt for the two men evident "left in a vertibird…one with enclave markings"
"His betrayal is worse than we thought" Glade murmured bitterly, he could see similar emotions of fury and disbelief etched across the faces of his Brotherhood comrades faces. It was hard to stomach that one their brothers, even one as unpopular as Artemis, could have become a traitor working for their oldest enemy.
"Which means that we need to move" Jack had slowly eased himself into a leading role in the meeting, looking and sounding more like his old self. "We need to find out who is behind this plot and end what ever fucked up game they are playing, then we need to gather everyone we can and put an end to this super mutant threat permanently. Glade, did you get any intel on where the rats fled to?"
"Yeah" Glade swallowed nervously and looked beseechingly at Sarah, he really didn't want to tell Jack what the documents they had recovered at the Temple of the Union said.
"Jack" Sarah took over, speaking in a quiet soothing tone, reaching over to place her hand over his "From what information we found, and there's no doubt that it's correct, they retreated to Vault 101."
"What?" A look of panic momentarily appeared on Jack's face, but it was quickly replaced with his Wanderer mask within seconds. "Well what are we waiting around here for? I need to get back there. I need to…"
"You need to rest" Sarah cut him off firmly, moving round the table to block Jack off from the door which he glanced at longingly, the urge to charge out and save the day was plain on his face.
"I can't just sit here and do nothing while those bastards are doing who knows what in my home" Jack was almost shouting, just managing to keep his anger in check as he faced Sarah.
"And I can't just sit here and watch you kill yourself trying to save everyone. I won't watch it Jack, do you have any idea how painful it is for me to watch you kill yourself. I…I just can't Jack" Sarah was yelling back now, a solitary tear spilling down her cheek as she did so. Glade shifted awkwardly edging towards the door, even Gallows and the rest of the human statues seemed slightly uncomfortable at the situation unfolding before them.
"I can't just sit here" Jack spoke softly now, the anger seemed to flood out of him as he raised a hand to gently brush the tear of Sarah's cheek.
"A day? No two?" Sarah pleaded; her blue's shining with unshed tears. Jack wanted to go immediately but as he stared back, almost drowning in those sapphire orbs, he found that he could no longer speak. He could only nod his acceptance, rationalising that they needed time to prepare for the coming battles. Weapons needed to be cleaned and oiled; the dry dust of the wasteland could cause even the most meticulously cleaned weapon to jam if it was not regularly cleaned. Ammo needed to be bought, the bullets hand loaded into the magazines, each individual casing checked for flaws or damage. A stoppage at the wrong moment could be the difference between life and death, a fact Jack could personally attest to. His free hand moved unconsciously to his stomach tracing the edge an old bullet wound through the thin t-shirt.
It had been in the early days of his wasteland wanderings when he had still been learning how to survive in the wasteland. Helping Moira with the Wasteland Survival Guide had seemed like a good idea at the time, a way to learn how to survive while making a few caps on the side. He had headed into an old pre war supermarket looking for food, water and medicine when he had been attacked by raiders who had apparently set up a camp inside. The years of hunting radroaches with his old BB gun had paid off, after a long fire fight that raged through the ruined shopping aisles like some perverse version of hide and seek Jack had managed to finish off the last raider or so he had believed. One had burst out of the bathroom as he passed by, firing a rusty old assault rifle from the hip, spraying bullets in a wide arc as he stormed out. One caught Jack, the force of the shot hurling him into the shelves, knocking his rifle from his hand and burying it under the tin cans that cascaded down from the shelf.
The raider had smiled, showing rotten, brown stumps of teeth as he raised his rifle again to finish Jack off, only for the rusty old gun to fail to fire. That had bought Jack time to rip the old 10mm pistol from his belt and slam a couple of rounds into the raider's torso killing the man outright. Luckily for Jack there had been a pharmacy in the old supermarket and, thanks to his Dad's insistence that he help out in the Vault's clinic, he had been able to patch himself up before stumbling back to Moira. But the lesson that always stuck in his mind from that near death experience had been that no matter how good you are if you don't look after your weapon then it won't look after you. It had also told him that he needed to spend some those hard earned caps on a decent set of armour.
Speaking of which, Jack thought as he glanced at the shoddy leather armour that Glade was wearing, that was another set of things that needed to be bought before they set out.
"Ok, ok" Jack held up his hands in a gesture of surrender "I suppose we do need a couple of days to prepare"
""I know that" Sarah stuck out her tongue at him "I was leading missions when you were still chilling in the vault" She grinned cheekily as she teased him
"Oh yeah" Jack smiled back sheepishly; it was easy to forget that a beautiful, kind, sexy woman like Sarah was also one of the deadliest soldiers in the wasteland.
"So you don't need to up be and about then do you?"
"Well…um…I need to clean my weapons"
"Which you can do in bed" Sarah said firmly
"Yes mom" Jack muttered, his voice dripping with sarcasm, apparently Sarah had taken on that role as well as being his girlfriend.
"Are you sure you want to call me that?" Sarah asked sultrily as she steered him towards the bed "I mean after all of the…things we have got up to recently"
"I don't know" Jack spoke as he pushed Sarah down onto the bed "My memory might need refreshing"
"Oh really?"
"Yeah" Jack glanced around quickly to make sure the others had departed before leaning down and kissing her, softy at first but as the passion grew he began to kiss harder, occasionally wandering to kiss her neck gently, encouraged by the gentle moans that emerged involuntarily from Sarah's throat.
"I think we could manage that" Sarah managed to gasp out before pulling Jack's head back towards her so she could claim his lips once more.
"Shore up that damn barricade" Paladin Gunny yelled, his voice hoarse and ragged from his constant shouting. A handful of power armoured knights rushed to obey him adding their firepower to that of the beleaguered defenders of the barricade. It was a piss poor excuse for a barricade, Gunny thought sourly as he scanned the rest of the perimeter under his command for any more signs of weakness, the reserve force stood behind him shifting nervously, anxious to join the fight. The 'barricade' was in fact a mound of rubble, concrete blocks and metal desk that had been stacked as high as man in long jagged line that was about a mile off from the Citadel.
"First rank, relieve the knights over there" Gunny roared as he pointed off to a distant part of the barricade. The knights chorused an affirmative as they ran off, pleased to be doing something, anything was better than just standing there letting the nerves grow. Idleness was a soldier's worst enemy especially in battle; it gave them a chance to imagine all the ways that they could die, to slowly sap the courage from their hearts.
"The situations gotten FUBAR" Gunny didn't glance around recognising Paladin Tristan's gravelly tone
"Don't have to tell me, how much longer do we have to hold this area? At this rate I'll have to start sending the fucking initiates into battle. The only way they'd kill a mutie would be if the fuckers die of laughter. I mean seriously they can't shoot for shit." Tristan grunted tersely which was about as close to laughter as the dour Paladin ever got to laughter, still Gunny acknowledged the fact that the man knew how to fight a war.
"As long as we can Gunny, the Citadel is all but impenetrable but it can only hold as long as our brothers and sisters have the strength to stand on its walls. So we need to get as much food and water inside as possible." Gunny spat on the ground, snorting derisively as he did so.
"We won't have any one able to stand on the bloody walls if we keep this up. It's a shitty plan anyway Tristan and you know it. Once we get locked up in the Citadel we're trapped like goddamn rats"
"I know" Tristan sighed "but that's what the elder has ordered us to do"
"He's not in the best state of mind, Sarah turning traitor has really got to him"
"He still our leader" Tristan growled, glancing round to check that the knights behind them were not listening to the conversation.
"I know that but if when he regains his senses he's not going like the situation that we'll be in"
"I can't see another option Gunny, so just do what you can" Tristan spoke tersely before moving off back towards the Citadel, leaving Gunny to ponder what the dour Paladin had said.
"Sir" An initiate squeaked behind forcing him to stop his contemplation's as he whirled round to fix the unfortunate man with a steely glare. The man gulped, visibly terrified as he raised a shaking arm. Gunny span round again puzzled at the extreme amount of fear demonstrated by the initiate, he wasn't that scary surely.
Seconds later Gunny was wishing that he was that scary as he saw what had had the initiate so terrified. The line at one part of the barricade was buckling backwards as a surge of super mutants forced the stalwart Brotherhood defenders to step backwards as the howling bloodthirsty mutants howled, swinging sledgehammers, bits of rebar and even hunting rifles. What little common sense they possessed had been lost as they became incensed with battle rage. Only the heavy power armour of the knights had prevented the mutants from smashing their way through the perimeter and turning the battle into a rout.
"Every man except the last rank, follow me" Gunny roared as he raised his power sledge up so that he could kiss the topmost part as a gesture of luck. "Blood and steel" He yelled as he charged towards the disintegrating line, the men roaring as they followed him into battle. Senior knights remained level headed as they charged, moving their sections to shore up different parts of the line so that when the reinforcements struck they reinforced the whole line instead of charging in a losse mass to one part.
Gunny's sledgehammer pulverised the head of one mutant as he joined the battle, red super mutant blood spattering his armour. Seeing that he was alone he stepped forward swinging his sledge in a wide arc, forcing the mutants in front of him to step back and buying time for the rest of his men to surge into the gaps. The mass of super mutants before them made aiming unnecessary, the arriving knights blasted from the hip, like the cowboys from the old pre-war holo-tapes, as they charged in to bolster the line.
Gunny killed two more mutants before he stepped back into the second rank of soldiers to catch his breath and survey the rest of the battle. They were holding for now but with the rapidly dwindling reserves another surge could rip through their lines. He glanced around looking for one of the lightly armoured initiates who scrambled round the battle delivering ammo to those who were running low. He grabbed the scruff of one who dashed past and roared into their ear, the noise of the battle forcing him to do so in order to make himself heard.
"Run to Tristan. Tell him we can't hold any longer and that we are going to conduct a fighting retreat" He pushed the initiate away, allowing the girl to stumble away to carry out his orders. He repeated the action with three more initiates sending them to the other commanders so that the whole perimeter would move back at roughly the same time.
After giving his messengers a few minutes to deliver their messages gunny decided that enough time had passed. His voice, honed by years of berating unfortunate initiates, rose above the crescendo of battle.
"Fighting retreat, odds first" He yelled, listening satisfied as the senior knights repeated his order so that his whole command heard the order. The odd numbered sections would fall back 30 or so yards before forming their own line, then the even numbered sections would repeated the action. Gunny stayed with the even numbered sections, the fight suddenly becoming more desperate as the super mutants saw the line weakening and hurled themselves with renewed vigour.
Gunny swung his sledge hammer, his power armour enhanced strength making his swings lethal. As he shattered a super mutant's knee cap he risked a backwards glance to check if the odds were in position.
"Fall back" He shouted, seeing the odds formed up, gaps left in the line for the evens to funnel trough. "Stay in your fucking sections maggots" He added, his orders echoed by the section commanders. He attached himself to a nearby section as the Brotherhood knights emptied their weapons into the heaving super mutants ranks, halting their momentum and giving them the chance to sprint for the safety of their comrades line, desperately trying to keep ahead of the keep ahead of the pack of super mutants whose greatest wish was to rip them limb from limb. They poured through the gaps in the line which were the hurriedly filled as the last men raced through.
The process was repeated over and over, the dead were stripped over ammo and weaponry before being left were they fell, the injured were dragged unceremoniously, their screams of agony ignored as those carrying them desperately tried not be left behind. As they slowly moved inwards they linked up with the other companies, synchronizing their movements, men threw back desperate glancing gauging the distance to the safety of the Citadel. Section commanders bawled at the men, threatening them with horrible deaths if they did not hold line, determined that the men would be more afraid of them than any super mutant.
They were close to the main gate, perhaps a hundred yards way when a salvo of fire poured into the super mutant ranks from the walls of the citadel. Glancing up it seemed to Gunny that Tristan had lined every man, woman and child who could hold a gun on the wall and ordered them to fire into the endless ranks of mutants who swarmed around the increasingly desperate line of knights who had resorted to clubbing the mutants with the stocks of their rifles until they had time to reload.
"Run for it" Tristan's voice could be heard over the din of battle. The men poured away, dashing for the gate, Tristan's order releasing them to do what they had been longing to do which was run for the safety of the Citadel's imposing walls.
Gunny lingered behind determined to be the last inside, shoving those who slowed forward, unwilling to leave a man behind. Though some part of him knew that not all could be saved, those who fell to the super mutant horde's attacks might only be injured but no one was waiting to check, each man only thinking of his own survival, all discipline had melted away with the order to retreat.
Gunny was a handful of yards away when a rifle bullet smashed into the back of his right knee sending him crashing on the floor. Yelling his defiance Gunny rolled onto his back determined to take at least one more mutant with him into death's embrace. He caved in the skull of the first mutant to reach him but his sledgehammer was trapped in the smashed bone and flesh, the handle ripped from his grasp as the mutant fell away. Leaving him defenceless as a super mutant master approached, a super sledge raised above his head, ready to sweep down an pulverise Gunny. He just hoped that it would be a clean death.
Gunny closed his eyes and sent of a quick prayer as he watched the mutant approach, time seeming to slow as his death approached, the sound of battle seeming to fade. The super mutant stepped up to him, bearing his teeth in a grotesque approximation of smile, Gunny blinked involuntarily as he imagined the hammer smashing into his chest, when his eyes opened again the master was disintegrating, the sledgehammer falling into the pile of ash that gathered on the floor. Before he could act arms were grabbing his and dragging him the last few feet through the gate which crashed down behind him. Sighing in relief Gunny closed his eyes and fervently thanked every god he could think of for answering his prayers though he reflected ruefully that, trapped as he was in the Citadel, he may not live much longer.
