The little camp was clearly Legion, what with the crucifixes and the red flags littering the center of the camp. It made Boone sick, the thought of the soldiers marching around, so self-important, while keeping people tied up in front of them to sell into slavery.

Boone knew what happened to men in slavery for the Legion. Profligates were broken in, psychologically tortured until they would fight anything put in front of them. Those that refused to break - which were few, from what he understood - were killed, and never humanely. Usually crucified, or disemboweled, or beaten to death by their broken brothers.

There was something to be said about the simplicity of a mercy killing. Still, Boone had his doubts, for obvious reasons.

Their party stood crouched on a rocky overlook, hidden by the distance and the rocks.

Next to him, the Courier gazed upon the camp through a pair of binoculars. He still squinted with the effort of focusing, but he still scanned the region methodically, spotting a Legionary and confirming with Boone the numbers he'd counted. His accuracy made Boone wonder if the kid could have been a sniper had his brain not abandoned his eye.

His speed made him want to scream, though.

"I count five," the boy said, setting the binoculars down next to them. Boone nodded sharply, his head jerking just once to confirm that they agreed.

They both counted five, but Boone also counted their weapons. They had guns, almost assuredly stolen from their prisoners, hung in their waistbands next to their knives. Distance fighting only works as well as its melee opponents. The second they were spotted, their assailants could fire back.

"How many prisoners?"

Boone had already counted them, over and over, to calm himself. It didn't work because every time he finished he remembered that he was counting literal people about to be sold into war slavery, and his throat tightened and his heart raced and his head spun and he had to count something to calm down. So he counted the Legionaries, five of them, and his anxiety reduced itself to a quietly simmering rage, but the more he thought about it the worse his anger got, so he had to count something, so he counted the prisoners, three of them, and the cycle started over again.

Why couldn't the kid just see normally?

The Courier raised his binoculars once again and squinted out at the center of the camp.

The distinct scent of burning rubber wafted up to them even at that distance. Familiar and sickly, the wind blew the black smoke towards them and smacked them in the face. The smoke crept into Boone's nose, reached his brain, crept through to his amygdala.

Placed him right back on top of his alcove at Cottonwood Cove, aiming his rifle at his wife's head all over again.

Hot. Sticky. Sweaty. His heart ricocheting in his chest. Peering down his sight, his gun shaking so hard he could barely focus.

It had been so goddamned hot that day. The sky was overcast, but that just made everything muggy and miserable, the journey up to the outlook miserable. But he hadn't even felt it, honestly. The stickiness on his face, his neck, hadn't been noticeable until he ran back to Novac and realized just how disgusting he'd gotten. The sight of the camp had made him forget any physiological sensations that had taxed him.

He hadn't meant to find it. He honestly thought he could pass through and find where they'd taken her, imagining her chained up but unharmed, able to sneak in and free her without being detected. Maybe he could shoot a few of the guards unseen to get back at them for coming after her.

But there had been no way. There were too many of them and only one of him.

Aim. Breathe. Squeeze. Retreat.

"Are you okay?"

"What?"

The Courier looked at Boone inquisitively, still crouched, his binoculars securely fastened to his backpack. "I said there were three prisoners," the Courier said. "I counted them three times. You didn't answer."

"Oh." He squinted out at the distance. "There's three."

Two of the Legionaries approached one of the tied up prisoners, grabbing him roughly by the shoulders, and dragging him to his feet. His cry of pain echoed throughout the region as the Legionaries socked him in the stomach. One of the soldiers stabbed him in the hand, hard, pinning it to the crucifix sitting on the ground. The other one held him down while they worked.

"What are they doing?" the Courier asked, squinting down

"They must know we're here," Boone muttered. "The Legion likes to torture their prisoners in view of the NCR."

"Why?"

"Breaks down morale. You know you can't save them, so you just have to watch it play out. The NCR condones mercy killing of prisoners if you can't get them out."

Not just condone. All but mandated it, especially when the soldiers were outnumbered and supplies were limited. "I've done it before," Boone continued, staring out at the horrific scene unfolding before him, the cries of the man punctuating his sentence. Nails were difficult to force through unbroken flesh, so sometimes they used a knife to make the process a little easier. Wouldn't want torture to break a sweat or anything. "Makes you wonder if you're the reason they're dead, if you could have gotten them out."

"They're not even NCR prisoners," the Courier said. "Not anymore."

"Used to be," Boone said. "Maybe they don't know."

The Courier nodded thoughtfully, chewing on his lip as he scanned over the scene once more with his binoculars. Again, he squinted, his eyelid twitching, desperately trying to focus. Boone watched as a drop of sweat dripped from his hairline down to his jaw bone, dropping unceremoniously onto the dirt he stood on.

Suddenly, he lowered his binoculars, turning his attention towards Boone. "I think we can get them out," he said, removing his cap, slicking his sweaty hair back behind his ears.

"How? We're outnumbered."

"Not by much. Only two."

"Three."

The boy jerked his head in the direction of the eyebot trailing them.

"You're counting a fucking floating robot as a soldier?" Boone growled.

"You've seen him take down radscorps."

"Radscorpions aren't Legionaries."

The Courier rolled his eyes. "You're a sniper, right? So you stay up here and cover me while I go down and untie them. We can slip in and out and they won't even know we were here."

Boone shook his head. "That won't work."

"Why?"

Frowning, he peeked over the outlook, pointing at the two guards pacing around the center of the camp, their knives readied in their hands. "Even if I pick one of them off, the other one will alert the others. We'd have to kill all of them, and I don't think we're hidden well from up here."

"How many rounds do you have in your clip?" the Courier asked.

"Five. Why?"

"If I can get you a clear eye line on all five of them, can you take them out?"

He scoffed. Obviously he could. If they were all lined up in a straight line, one in front of the other, he could take them out in a single shot. But that wasn't how it worked. People moved, people saw things, people detected where the shots were coming from.

And as little as Boone cared if he died in a battle with Legion slavers, he didn't want another innocent life on his hands.

"I don't know how you'd manage that," Boone finally settled on saying.

The Courier nodded, thoughtful and silent once again, and raised his binoculars once again. He ran his tongue over his lip where he'd bitten as he watched, the cogs in his brain steadily turning. The sight concerned Boone. If he wanted a suicide mission, he could have planned a much more effective one, probably including copious amounts of C4 stashed in his underwear and an undercover mission towards Caesar's Fort.

The prisoner moaned again as the two Legionaries finished pitching the crucifix. Blood trickled down his wrists, seeping into his shirt as he hung, lifeless.

Then, the boy shed his backpack, withdrawing two long, red sticks from it and tucking them into his pocket. He equipped his lighter, flicking it once, and nodded, leaving his eyebot floating behind him.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting you a clear eye line," he said simply, zipping up his pack and moving past Boone. "When you see a shot, take it."

"How are you going to do that?!"

The Courier, almost out of the overlook by then, withdrew one of the sticks of dynamite and lit it. Then he tossed it towards the camp.

"You ain't seen nothing yet," the Courier said, flashing Boone a wicked grin, and then he disappeared onto the road below.

A few seconds later, the dynamite exploded in one of the houses below, the sound loud and grating, filling the air with the acrid scent of gunpowder. Boone's ears rang for a moment as they adjusted to the loud sound.

Boone heard the Legionaries shout amongst themselves in confusion. They would know this was an NCR attack, although he never knew why - for people who condemned their opponents as cowards for not preferring hand-to-hand conduct, they had no reservations picking explosives off their dead foe's corpses and firing it right back at others.

And then they emerged, walking on the road, in a line. One by one. Boone took a breath. He had a clear eye line on three of them.

Aim. Breathe. Squeeze.

One fell down, his head eviscerated.

Aim. Breathe. Squeeze.

Before the other one could even say anything, he was gone too, his brains splattered messily on the pavement below.

Aim. Breathe.

Another explosion.

The remaining Legionary turned sharply in the direction of the second bomb. Boone did not hesitate. He restarted his shooting ritual once again, and the man was dead before he could even comprehend it.

Boone squinted through his sight, looking for the other two. It should have been the slave guards, who were no longer stationed in front of the tied up slaves. He saw movement, but it was not them - instead, it was the blond, who moved like a cat towards the prisoners with his knife ready to tear off their bonds.

Behind him, the two remaining Legionaries came into view, still looking in the direction of the second explosion.

Boone did not waste any time. Before they could even look back at the now-missing slaves, the final two slavers were shot dead where they stood.

Once he'd scanned the area and decided there were no more Legionaries to shoot, he hopped the outlook and journeyed to where the Courier was struggling with the crucified victim.

He had a lot he wanted to say to the blond. Something about how stupid the plan was since he didn't talk it through. How they shouldn't run off from each other, especially since he was horrible with a gun. How he wasn't sure this man was even going to survive since they didn't know what else they'd done with him before they got there. How maybe he needed to be let go mercifully as well.

"Glad you recognized we had options," Boone said, easing the injured man down.

The boy flashed him a smile. "You're a great shot," he commented.

Boone said nothing, but the nagging voice at the back of his head screaming at him how useless he was stopped for a moment.

"That man has cold eyes," one of the escaped prisoners said. "Ex-military. I don't trust 'im."

And it was back again. Just like that.

"Then don't stay," the Courier suggested. "He only saved your lives. No big deal."

Boone just glared at him so intensely that he folded and stepped away from them. To his absolute surprise, the three captives left, heeding the Courier's advice, and started running the other direction from them.

"Can't say I would have done that," the Courier muttered, shoving his knife back in his waistband. "But we can't say we didn't try to help them."

Boone shrugged. "We should get out of here."

In silent agreement, they retreated up to the hill they'd originated from. The boy picked up his backpack and shrugged it back onto his shoulders. Boone said nothing, spending the time reloading his rifle and discarding the spent shells on the ground below them. The Courier knelt down next to Boone and showed him the device on his arm - he'd called it a Pip-Boy earlier - which showed a map.

"I was thinking we go back west to the trading outpost here," the Courier suggested. "We stock up on supplies on the way, scavenge a few of the places on the way, figure out somewhere to camp for the night, and then we search Red Rocks for the guy who shot me."

He squinted down at the screen. Saw the tiny amber text saying Mojave Outpost.

"It's NCR-run," Boone said. "We can sleep there. They'll know me." Maybe not him, but the red beret. Surely they'd give them a break, allowing them shelter for a night. Not that Boone knew very well. Once he'd left Cottonwood Cove, he'd stayed in Novac, where he paid for his food and his room and kept to himself. He hadn't wandered the wastes in a long time.

But the First Recon was still respected. If not, they could figure something out.

"Okay. So we poke around there for the night and then we set out for Red Rock when we're ready."

"What do you need out in Red Rock?" Boone asked apprehensively.

"The Great Khans," the Courier answered simply. Boone felt the color drain out of his face.

What could Boone say about the Khans? Tough. Nomadic. Guerrilla-style warfare. They were as vicious as raiders in battle but a solid, unified tribe with an upper hand for trade with their top-tier chems. Pretty exclusive, from what Boone knew - kept to themselves, rarely dealt with outsiders.

Whose fault was that?

And what would the Khans say about Boone? He had a few thoughts, none of them pleasant.

"You ready?" the Courier asked, interrupting Boone's self-reflection. He didn't answer, just started walking. The sweat from the wicked dry heat dripped down his back, trailing his spine and landing in the waist of his pants.

One thing was true: if the Courier thought Boone's display of firepower at the five Legionaries was something to write home about, he had so much to learn when he talked to the Khans.