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So I magically did a dumb and missed that the route they took would carry them past Covenant. My bad, noticed it now, will… Come up with something for it later. Sorry.
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The next, and final, morning they spent in the old Police Station, was a flurry of somewhat familiar activity.
Danse, out of his armor since the Ghouls still hadn't worked up the courage to try it against the robot's heavy laser, set to work portioning out their supplies and trading some of their salvaged Pork'n'Beans out for proper, Brotherhood ration packs. She'd taken a look in a couple of them and found canned vegetables and fruit in a long variety, tins of pre-made biscuits and sticks of dried meat in a variety from beef to Mole-Rat and even chicken as well as the canned water and even blended fruit and vegetable juice.
The sheer variety was… Well, very, very impressive to say the least.
"See something you like, General?" Danse laughed, earning an embarrassed little flush from her while she closed the crate back up. Chuckling, the tall Paladin turned to sit on the edge of the Vertibird's open door and smiled. "Brotherhood doctrine, nutrition and variety hold equal importance."
"Makes sense." She nodded, turning to sit beside him and wait on the rest of their group. Her arm ached when the motion of sitting jstles it, drawing a hiss of surprised pain from her earning a worried look from the man that she waved off. "Food variety is a good way to maintain high morale. Which is necessary for an effective fighting force to function. About sum it up?"
"Such is the thinking, yes." Danse nodded, taking a sip from a Brotherhood water can and sighing contently. "I'd think you would know more about that problem than I would, though."
"Yeah I would." She sighed, watching Haylen and Rhys emerge from the Police station with large, Brotherhood packs filled to the brim with their supplies and whatever salvage Haylen had deemed too valuable to leave.
How they'd possibly carry that safely all the way back to Sanctuary she didn't know…
"They'll be fine." Danse assured her, as though reading her mind. She gave him a sidelong glance and he smiled, "Rhys and Haylen have both been well trained by the Brotherhood. They'll follow us out, as planned, and then make their way the way you said to. Might take them a while to get there, but they're supplied enough. As long as they aren't in this Feral infested hell, they'll get there."
"The way we plotted out last night should be safe enough." It was outside the city, and fairly long, but it would lead them around to the old radar station. From there, they knew how to get to the Scrapyard and those there would be able to direct the newcomers to Sanctuary safely. "Honestly, I'm more worried about the route you and Preston settled on to get to old Corvega."
"As am I, General." The man sighed resignedly, "Down the coast and into the city sounds simple enough on paper… But according to mister Garvey, the territory is wild. Well, if being settled by raider gangs, tribes and so-called nations could ever really be."
"Not a fan?" She smiled when he harrumphed like an old man would, shaking his head animatedly. "Preston isn't either."
"And he shouldn't be." The man growled, shaking his head slowly. It looked like he was chewing the words for a long moment, the way his jaw worked. Finally, he spoke, "Raiders, slavers, tribals- A trader we encountered told me about one from the Glowing Sea, nothing but Ghouls and Super Mutants."
"I see." And now he sounded like an old man, too, the way he was talking. But it wasn't her place to say anything, really. Even if she knew enough to want to. "I've been told by Preston that mutants are intelligent, too. So I suppose it makes sense that some of them would be Raiders."
"Hmph. Implying any of them could be decent." The man sighed tiredly, shaking his head and waving her off again. "Just ignore me, General. This is why I hate idle time, waiting to move. I start running my damn mouth and, well… Just forget it."
"Sure." Why would he bring it up if he didn't want to talk about it? Opting for a change in subject she asked, "Will you be able to handle working with them, then?"
"I can follow orders, General."
"You're not under my command, Danse." She pointed out quietly, "This entire idea, us traveling together, is meant to get us to trust each other. Honesty is part of that."
"I'll speak my mind in private, if I need to, but I'm assuming you have some kind of endgame in place." She nodded and he returned the gesture, sighing tiredly. Smiling, the large man assured her, "Then I'll follow your lead, General. That was the deal after all, and I'm a man of my word."
"That's good to hear." She smiled, glad for the man's trust. But, as Nate had always said, blind trust went about as far and got you as much as a blind marksman. So she added, "The short version is that the Assembly has an apparently chronic water shortage problem, due to their location. I have a small river that feeds into a lake, and a Vault water purifier tapping into a deep aquifer besides."
"So you're planning to… Buy them off with water?"
"Kind of." She nodded, "Using trade, I can influence them. Influencing them, I can buy and free slaves, negotiate border agreements to guarantee protection for my people…"
"Not a bad way to approach things given everything." Danse murmured, seeming to think and consider the idea for a long time. Finally, quietly, the man spoke, "The Brotherhood did something similar in the Capital Wasteland. There were a lot of settlements scraping by on water, unable to grow crops properly since they had to conserve so much."
"I'm sensing that that changed."
"Very much so." The man sighed, sounding… Almost regretful, somehow. But he rose and nodded towards the building before she could ask after it, grunting, "Haylen and Rhys are done, it seems."
True enough, she turned to see the two soldiers and even Preston coming her way, two of them carrying their heavy packs and armed for the trip.
With the very real threat of the Ghouls watching their little group in mind, they let the two into the Vertibird and trundled off, back the way they'd come. They let their two passengers off at the same bridge where the Paladin and Preston had skirmished with the very far from home Forged raiders. Then they turned North, headed around and towards the rear of the old factory, where the Ghouls would have long since been driven off.
The irony on what their chosen, supposedly Ghoul-free route had run them into was very much not lost on her.
In his armor, and with so much in the Vertibird, Danse couldn't ride along with the rest of them. Instead, he marched beside the composite carriage. Needing to keep at a pace that wouldn't over-tax the Power Armor meant they moved slowly. So slow, in fact, that they could easily have just been walking. But there wasn't anything they could do about it, unless she wanted to send a heavily armored and, for her meagre forces at least, unkillably armored man back to her center of operations.
That was about as likely to happen as her riding a Deathclaw into battle, of course, so slow and steady they went.
Past the bridge the world became starkly different so suddenly it was almost comical. The roads were still broken and cracked, but they were clear. The cars had been removed, hauled off presumably to be scrapped by the Raiders. The little buildings here at the edge of town, most barely more than two stories tall and all heavily damaged if not reduced to piles of rubble, had been long since looted out and boarded up. To prevent Ghoul packs moving in from the open wilderness on their left, she supposed.
Almost all of the signs had been ripped down, she realized after a while. Store signs, billboards, advertisements and even street signs, it didn't matter. Metal was metal, she supposed, and they'd all been ripped down and toted back for that reason. The power lines had been pulled down too, probably for the copper, but the poles that had held them up had been left. From them hung great round shields as big as she was. They were old, rusted, but their black paint had held up impressively enough.
The same symbol of a silver gear inside a tire had been painted on each, marking out the territory of the Assembly.
"It's quiet…"
"Yeah." Preston nodded beside her as they trundled along, past the old and boarded up buildings. "Assembly runs patrols out here, and they send hunters and trappers into the woods, but… Too exposed to settle out here."
"I bet, yeah." She could just imagine a Deathclaw scenting something meaty in one of those houses. The monsters would rip through these houses like paper… "I'm surprised we haven't seen any fortifications, though. Outposts or something."
"Assembly mostly has people around the old plant, they walled up a few blocks around it and… Restored, I guess is the word, a few of the apartment buildings for people to live in." Preston answered, sounding as agitated as he typically did when he had to talk about the Raiders. "We're on the edge of their territory, General. They run patrols, sure, just like they do out towards ArcJet and even the Police Station in Cambridge."
"Sensing a but…"
"But," the man smiled at her, shaking his head, "they tend to keep themselves together. Easier to maintain control that way, and less space to defend. They have to protect against the beasts out there, hunt and forage, teams to manage trade with the nearby farming communities like Graygarden and Oberland, or hunt down anything causing trouble."
"All a good drain on manpower." Casualties aside, the amount of manpower needed to manage, organize and conduct such affairs was staggering. And, she was sure, something she'd need to see to one day.
"Yeah." The man sighed, adding under his breath, "Of course, if they'd let the slaves go, they wouldn't need the minders."
"Mhm." She couldn't argue with him, really. Slavery was inefficient and harmful to a nation's prospects, and she wouldn't be able to withstand allowing it forever.
"Anyway, we're coming up on their big scrapping base." Preston warned, sighing and shaking off his melancholy. She gave him a questioning look and he shrugged unsurely, "Dunno what to tell you 'cept what's on the tin, General. Some old disposal place or something like that."
"Disposal…" She blinked after a few seconds as she thought and remembered, memories of Nate dredged up and making her choke for a long second before she could silence the distant emotional pangs. Preston gave her a look and she sighed, pinched her nose, and admitted through clenched teeth, "Nate told me about a place near here back in the day. An old disposal site, Jalbert Brother's."
"Might be it, yeah." He gave her a look for a moment until she turned one on him and he sighed, "Just worried 'bout you is all, General."
"Yeah, I know." She nodded, shaking her own melancholy off and waving for him to go on. "When will we get there, then?"
"Uh…" He stood and poked his head out the old frame for the windows they'd removed and looked back, towards the front of the carriage. "Now, Ma'am."
As if on cue, the machine shuddered to a stop and called a warning Danse matched, "Raiders coming, General."
Disembarking with Preston at her side she was faced with a handful of relatively anxious looking Assembly raiders wearing wide round shields and carrying long spears. Like before, back outside the Museum of Freedom, they wore mail hauberks reinforced and backed by leather vambraces and greaves. Their helmets were simple, too, as before. One wore a cloak with a hood drawn up over his helmet and a featureless metal mask obscuring his face, though.
An officer, she supposed, who stepped forward as they approached.
"Identify." The barrel of a man barked firmly, watching the Sentry Bot which in turn slowly turned to face him, leveling its heavy cannon on him threateningly. "Identify," he repeated firmly, unphased by the machine, "and stand down."
"General Nora and Preston Garvey, of the New Commonwealth Minutemen." She answered, adding the 'new' partially on impulse and partially because it was true. They were the new Minutemen, and she needed that to be obvious. "This is Danse, a… Traveling companion of ours. Sentry Bot," she added to finish, "stand down."
"I see." The man nodded, relaxing somewhat as the machine returned to its resting position. Why it had acted in the first place she didn't know, but that was a question for later. Quietly, he demanded, "Business? Minute Men don't tend to like us Assembly men very much, typically."
"I imagine."
"I don't need to." The man growled, snapping his fingers and ordering his men into a shield wall behind him. "One of their little militia groups blasted by brother. Everythin' below the legs, ash. Took 'im a week to die because a bunch of farmers didn't wanna pay us what we're due."
"What you're-" Her arm snapped out to catch Preston as he stepped forward, the man hissing and stepping back in line behind her. Finally, he asked, "Where?"
"Hm?"
"Where did your brother get shot at?" Preston explained, "Up north, down south? Off by the sea? Where?"
"...South." The Raider eventually answered, turned so his shield covered most of him but not yet stepping back into the shieldline he'd ordered formed. "Past Cambridge a ways. Traders wanted a caravan escort to a little town, part of the deal we talked out was food, rest n' water to take back from the stopping point."
"Let me guess," Preston sighed, "you showed up expecting the trade and got shot at from all sides?"
"Wasn't there." The man admitted warily, face hidden behind his helmet's front but no doubt watching them closely. "But yeah. Couple o' runners that'd been watching the rear told us that's how it went down."
"Would've been Mets then." Preston said, sighing and looking over his Laser Rifle idly. The best way to disarm someone, she knew, was to act like there wasn't a reason to be worried about a fight breaking out. That told people that you knew there wasn't cause for one, and gave them pause. "Bastard liked ambushes and tricks like that. The Colonel didn't like him, hell a lot of regiments didn't, because of how trigger happy he could be."
"Sayin' you weren't with them…?"
"Nope." Preston answered crisply, turning that bright, disarming smile he always had on. "Matter o' fact about… A year and a half ago now, maybe? Time's fuzzy on it, sorry. But anyway, he was stripped of his Musket. Drummed out of the Minutemen, because he staged one of his little traps and hit a civilian caravan on mistake."
"No shit?"
"Yeah, seriously." Preston sighed, shaking his head tiredly and jerking a thumb over his shoulder, pointed back the way they'd come. "Down south, nearer to Diamond City than here. It was a big scandal down there, the way I heard it."
"I think I remember hearing something about that." The man murmured, just loud enough she could hear. Preston could too, apparently, though he only shrugged and nodded for it. A whistle and the men and women with him relaxed, the man asking, "So, what brings you lot here then?"
"We're on our way to Corvega." She answered, Preston stepping back to let her speak now that she'd stepped up to the proverbial plate again. The man cocked his head suspiciously and she explained, "I heard that the Assembly is in desperate need of water, and I'm sure that carries down to your… Workers."
"Out at the Heap, water isn't that rough to get, at least enough to scrape by." The armored man answered, "But down in the city, yeah. Lot of bodies need water, and not a lot of water comes in. Part of the Heap's job is protecting this road for water traders and our own men, toting water up and down the road. From the river."
"Right." She nodded, accepting the information even if she already mostly knew it. It paid to be polite, though, especially at times like these. "I want to set up a caravan line between Sanctuary and Corvega itself, trading water in abundance for workers, tools, armor, the whole nine yards."
"Abundance you say?"
"Yeah." She nodded, turning and nodding her head back, towards the Vertibird, "I can show you some of the goods we brought already if you want a sample."
"You got enough to be giving out free samples?" She noted the extra emphasis on 'free' with a little chuckle and nodded, smiling warmly at the man. After a moment, he lifted his spear and stepped around her, Nora following behind and then climbing into the open Vertibird when they reached it.
"Here." He grunted, fishing out an old Nuka Cola bottle of fresh, clear water and handing it down to him.
"Thanks." The man grunted, turning bodily away from her and tipping his helmet up to take a long, greedy drink. The man must have been thirsty because when he turned around, mask back in place, the bottle was empty. "That," he grunted, handing it back to her to presumably reuse, "is some good, clean water."
"I'm glad to satisfy." She smiled, fishing five more out and tucking the empty one into the crate. Holding them all out, she smiled, "For your men, with my compliments and best intentions."
He took them and, while they walked back, she popped the cap off of hers and took a drink. That way they couldn't suspect poison as the reason for her kindness. Which, by process of elimination, she knew would tell them to be grateful to her.
"I'll send word down to Old Corvega that you want to meet with the Chieftain, General." The man said while his soldiers enjoyed what was probably the purest, most crisp water of their lives. Strangely there was real respect in his voice when he said her title. Was water like this really so valued out here…? "For now, please, come and spend the night at the Heap. Put you up with room n' board."
"That would be nice." Assuming 'the Heap' was only a moniker and not a descriptor, at least. And that Preston, who was a far better actor than she'd given him credit for, didn't have an aneurysm, kill someone, or potentially both somehow. Smiling politely she bowed her head, "Lead the way then, sir."
With a nod, the armored raider whistled, his men and women rising and moving to walk beside their machine two to a side while the four of them lead the way. Soon, she got a good look at the Heap, and her first real example of post-war construction.
The old Scrapyard had been built up on a slight, but tall, hill according to how Nate had described it. Stacked cars just inside fences circled it, with a few buildings in the back. Nothing special, back then. Just a junkyard to stack crap no one needed and no one could properly get rid of. Now, though, it had been truly rebuilt, even if it served apparently much the same purpose.
Around it, spread for a hundred feet or so, were piles of junk. Metal, cars, signs, concrete, wood, everything that had come up and one point or another from the road they'd come from and seemingly more. Slaves, or she guessed they were from the ratty rags they wore and the armored Raiders watching over them like hawks, bundles of javelins on their backs, were working at the piles. Extracting materials and then hauling them off to huge processing buildings built up directly outside the walls. Wood was burned for charcoal, metal was being categorized and then melted into ingots, and concrete was being smashed into fine grains to, according to Preston, be remixed into fresh concrete elsewhere.
It was, truly and utterly, an industrial zone. And in a way, it made her jealous.
The Heap itself, presumably named for its surroundings now she saw them, looked less like an old junkyard and more like… Well, like Fort Sanctuary did.
The cars that had once formed the outline had been replaced by thick, log walls fronted by steel like they'd done at Sanctuary. They were tall, too. Enough to tower over even the Sentry Bot by a good five feet or so. A towering watchtower dominated the center of the complex, a hundred feet tall and supported by metal legs with a wooden staircase that circled it all the way up to its apex.
Inside, though the heavy, reinforced and well-made iron gate, the space was surprisingly open. A wide yard with a small target range on one side, and rows of cabins that circled the other two long, tall walls. Just like at Sanctuary, she realized with a blink, turning to find a pot boiling with stew just inside the gate, under a little shelter built seeming for it with half-log benches to sit at and eat surrounding it.
"Sturges designed our cabin setup back home." Preston explained when she turned to him with a confused look, "Tinker design. So, it's pretty common to see it."
"It doesn't look like it can house many people, though…" There were maybe enough cabins for two dozen people. Twice that if you didn't mind using them as bunkhouses, though the smoke puffing chimneys spoke of space dedicated to heating and cooking so she was willing to bet that wasn't the case.
"The slaves don't stay here." Their guide informed them, turning to his three guests while the robot trundled to a stop in the open area beside the target range, set to a hard passive so he didn't attack those training there. "Most of the minders will escort them back a couple hours from-" A loud bell, up in the tower, tolled suddenly and the man laughed, waving a hand towards it, "Well, right about now, actually."
"So they stay down in the city and come up to work?" He nodded and Nora hummed. It wasn't the most efficient thing, but it fit with the 'keep everything together' modus operandi Preston said they used. "I see," she nodded, "thanks for explaining that."
"No problem." The man nodded, adding, "Also, the walls are hollow. Bunks in 'em for the night guards to change shifts in, but be close enough to fight. Sothere's a bit more space for bedding down than you might think."
"I see, I see. Impressive work." That would be useful to know, if they ever had to go to war with the Assembly, so she filed the tidbit away for later and affected a theatrical yawn. "Whoo, today has been a slog. You mind if my men and I get some food and rest?"
"Of course." The man nodded, snapping a finger and summoning one of their escorts. "Go with the minders to Old Corvega. Tell them who's here and why, and ask for permission for them to come in for a proper meet n' greet."
"Yes, Small Chief." The soldier nodded, "Will that be all?"
"Order two guards to be ready to keep guard over our friends." The 'Small Chief' answered quietly, turning a look on Danse's armor. "Last thing I want is some upstart moron getting smart with Power Armor around." Danse stiffened audibly and the man added, to the guard and Sande both she suspected, "Anyone tries, they'll be sentenced to solo patrols out in Cambridge. Got it?"
"If he survives trying…" Danse murmured, earning a snort and a nod from the armored guide.
"Yes, Small Chief."
"Good." He nodded, "Go." With a last nod and an Assembly salute, the young raider turned to jog off and carry out his orders. They watched him go, for a moment, before the 'Little Chief' clapped his hands and sighed, "Now then, I'll show you to our best quarters. They aren't the grandest, but they're warm and come with beds."
"They'll do." She smiled, "They'll do just fine."
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Nick (Guest) :
I was testing that out here, actually. So maybe.
Blaze 1992 :
I wouldn't go that far, but you know who's acts thus far will differ from canon by a good bit.
Darkpaladin89 :
A sound plan!
Cyclone :
Glad you enjoy it!