Chapter Four: No turning back

August 27, 2289

The Citadel, Washington DC

"Another day, another fucking problem" Arthur Maxson mutters while lighting the tip of his freshly rolled cigar. He takes a puff from it and taps the smoldering cinders into an ashtray. The reports on his desk lay in a tidy pile, all except for one open folder. Laying back in his chair he puffed away at his cigar as he digested the information in that folder. It felt good to be back in his office on solid ground after a grueling stint on the Prydwen for well over a year.

The balmy early summer days of June had fooled him into thinking that this would be the first peaceful summer he had ever experienced. Raiders, feral ghouls and super mutants still persisted, but were greatly weakened when compared to how things were when he had arrived in Washington DC all those years ago. Project Purity continues to cleanse the waters of Potomac and more farms start to spring up along the Potomac. Elder Kells seemed to be adjusting to his new role in the Commonwealth and handling the complicated politics of the settlements and factions well enough.

All was well until he received a brief message from Elder Casdin a month ago that stated he was abandoning Lost Hills and Hidden Valley to the New California Republic. He was shocked that Elder Casdin would even consider abandoning the Lost Hills bunker that had been their base of operations since the days of Roger Maxson. With that news, his hope of seeing his former home and the grave of his parents were crushed instantaneously. Sixteen years it had been since he last laid eyes on his homeland and his now-deceased mother.

Elder Casdin had never once shared chapter numbers with him, only once did he state that he had recalled all Californian chapters back to Lost Hills while he waged war against the institute in Boston. After hearing reports from travelers from out west, it sounded as if the NCR was all but completely established over a sizeable territory of the former American west. In turn, those reports fueled his suspicions that the western Brotherhood chapters were suffering from a lack of manpower.

Once he received word that they were just outside of New Vegas, he had assigned several scribes to be on rotation at all hours of the day to be on standby on the radio. It had been a quiet three weeks until this morning. He was still unsure what he could do about the situation in Denver—any air support he would be able to send would take at least two weeks to reach Colorado and he was worried about the alleged blue flu outbreaks throughout Denver. The headstrong Scribe McNamara that contacted him claimed that High Elder Casdin was wasting resources making a raiding run to the ruins of the Denver International Airport. Scribe McNamara also claimed that food and water supplies would be burnt through by the time that they reached Missouri.

In the corner of his mind, he could recall passing over the huge mountains near Denver and the brutal heat of the plains of Kansas during the summer, if he recalled correctly, he was around ten years old at the time. He remembered being young enough to view the journey as a grand adventure; although at the time he had no idea why he was being sent out east. Looking back, he realized his mother had made the right decision in sending him across a continent after his father had died in a skirmish with the NCR.

He took another puff from the cigar as he became lost in his thoughts. With the Brotherhood just taking over the remains of Boston and Baltimore, man power was stretched thin, not to mention that Proctor Ingram stated that the Prydwen would require months of proper calibrations and preparation to even consider flying past the Appalachians. Mooring in Boston for such an extended amount of time had wreaked havoc on the Prydwen's engines according to Proctor Ingram and other maintenance crew members. It still remained to be seen if Boston was worth the effort, in his opinion, although his peers had already decided it was worth every single life that was lost.

A light knock on the door disturbed him from his thoughts. "Come in" he stated and tapped out his cigar on the ash tray. Looking at the door with his piercing blue eyes, he wasn't surprised at who walked through it.

"Scribe Rothschild, what can I do for you?" he inquired, getting out his seat and pulling a chair near his desk for him.

The elderly man shuffled his way into his office while balancing on his cane. He sat down in the worn leather chair and rested his wooden cane against the metal desk. "Scribe Haylen informed me of the transmissions from out west, I have a suggestion for you, Elder Maxson" he started to say.

"I'm all ears Scribe Rothschild" he told him. He settled himself back into his chair and offered the scribe a cigar, which he turned down, much to Arthur's expectations.

August 26, 2289

Denver, Colorado

Anita's ear drums felt as if they were going to burst from the deafening sounds of gunfire as Knight Smith shot down what appeared to be a Legion scout with his laser rifle. The corpse of the dead scout fell from the two story high vantage point and Anita noticed that he had been wielding a pieced-together sniper rifle. She crouched behind the barricade and double-checked the charge pack in her laser pistol.

"Good shot Elias!" she whispered to him and glanced over the barricade for any other signs of intruders.

"Thank you. I hate these damn pre-war cities, too many hiding places for ambushes" he commented and flicked on his helmet's flashlight.

"Amen to that" Moretti responded in agreement and checked for any potential bogies through his night-vision binoculars. "What's the plan Anita?"

She pointed to the radio tower that was three miles in the distance and was surrounded by the crumbling ruins of businesses and apartments. Much to her surprise, many of them looked as if they had been recently inhabited; which was curious to her as there had been no activity detected in any of the outlying neighborhoods. "We're going to use that tower to get in communication with the citadel" she said with much determination. She crossed her arms over her shapeless gray over coat.

Josh leaned against the 'bird's cockpit and crossed his arms. "I'm going to drop off Chip with Elder McNamara. Moretti should come with us too, you never know what the situation will be on the outskirts here, I could use a man on the turret."

Anita nodded in agreement with him. "Sounds like a good plan Josh" she told him. She knelt down to give Chipeta a hug. "My Uncle will keep you safe, stay strong" she said softly. Or at least as safe as he could given the arising circumstances, all though she decided to keep that thought in her mind.

Chipeta gave her a grin, one of the first genuine smiles she had seen from her. "I'm tougher than Moretti, I'll be fine" she said confidently, straightening her posture. She wore a dinged-up metal helmet that had been salvaged the remains of Antlers, a small town west of Denver.

Anita laughed and took a moment to secure her combat armor along with adjusting the strap on her helmet. She had tried wearing power armor once, but hated the claustrophobic feeling it gave her while encased in the steel shell.

Josh climbed into the cockpit and Moretti made sure Chipeta was properly secured in her seat before taking off. The roar from the blades filled the air as the vertibird took off west.

According to her atlas, they were approaching the ruins of Lakewood. Countless rows and rows of what she presumed to be luxury houses lay in varying levels of disrepair. The nearby hills rolled into the Rockies in the distance. According to Delta Squad, they barely picked up any activity in the neighborhoods of Lakewood, they concluded that most activity in Denver was occurring towards the eastern reaches of the city on the 70. Based on the houses she saw, she assumed that this was likely one of the wealthiest Denver suburbs before the bombs dropped. She could only imagine how this neighborhood once had children riding tricycles over the pristine sidewalks and their parents chatting while sipping lemonade on the front porch in the dog days of August.

Debris dotted the roads, rusty car frames marred the formerly pristine streets, and much to her horror, she passed body pits that were still smoldering. There was no worse stench in the world than that of burned decay. Veronica pulled up her drab scarf in hope of not smelling the rancid air here. Suddenly, Anita was jealous of Smith in his air-filtered armored helmet. If Anita had to guess, the resurgence of the blue flu and the extensive gang wars here had ravaged what little civilization there was in Lakewood. An old billboard sign on the ground that used to advertise Poseidon Energy was painted over with the phrase 'Enemies of the Legion' in blood red pain. As they continued walking through the neighborhood, the suburban sprawl turned into an old commercial district with multiple story buildings dotting either side of the road, which made all three of them feel goosebumps on their skin as they traveled further into Lakewood.

"Remember, if we see any movement, shoot and ask questions later, we can't risk any close contact with the locals here. Can't risk contamination" Smith advised harshly. He pulled out his binoculars and peered through them to get a better glimpse at the massive four way intersection ahead. "I'm spotting movement two hundred feet ahead, safety off" he said quietly. He crouched behind an upright slab of pavement and readied his assault rifle.

Pavement and debris dusted the street, as the three of them sought refuge behind old cement barricades; Anita assumed that the barricades were the remains of an old military checkpoint from right after the bombs dropped. Multiple rusted car frames were in the distance and what she assumed to be human bones were littering the street near them.

"Roger that" Anita responded. She felt goosebumps on her arm as an uneasy feeling grew inside of her. Trying her best to squash her nervousness, she turned the safety off on her laser pistol and walked towards the opposite side of the road from Smith.

"Anita don't move!" Veronica warned. She pointed to Anita's right.

Anita glanced down and saw what Veronica had noticed. "Shit, there's mines everywhere!" she shouted. Multiple red lights gleamed forebodingly near the old gun shop that was near her right. Of course that would be rigged with landmines, she thought.

She started breathing rapidly and anxiously glancing at the ground as she made her way back to Smith, her ginger hair sticking to her forehead. A stray bullet whistled past her head and buried itself into a pile of rubble. Scrambling behind cover with Veronica and Smith, she peeked over the barricade in an attempt to locate the shooter. Up ahead there was an old intersection that was blocked off by a barrier made of wire and rubble. There had to be some kind of encampment up there, she theorized.

"Pass me the binoculars" she ordered Smith. "I want to see if I can get a better visual on those bogies."

He placed the binoculars in her hand and she adjusted the nob until she could get a clear visual at the intersection. Sure enough, she caught a glimpse of the two snipers that were perched atop the barricade. It was difficult to determine how well-armored they were, but her guess was that they were Legion soldiers. One of them looked in her direction and she quickly ducked back behind the barricade. Suddenly, she was thankful that there was barely any light tonight, otherwise she would have been toast.

"I spotted two snipers, my guess is Legion or that splinter group. I think they know someone is out here" she told Smith and Veronica. "I don't think they'll do anything though, they seem content to stay in their encampment and maybe we could sneak by."

Veronica held up her finger to her mouth to tell her to be quiet. "Hear that?" she whispered.

Sounds of quiet growls and galloping legs could be heard getting closer to the barricade. Shit, Anita remembered that Denver was known to be the war dog capital of Post-War America. Most of the dogs here were likely scrawny mutts riddled with diseases and trained to rip the throats out of anyone they came across, she had read that in some report a while back. Caesar's Legion incorporated the Denver tribes by force and the dogs came along with the tribes. Five mangy dogs were running her way, she saw as she peaked her head over the barrier, she felt awful for the poor beasts, many of them had likely never had a decent meal besides human flesh.

Smith started taking pot shots at the dogs, trying to aim for their heads. Anita shot one in the leg and immediately felt remorse for the malnourished creature. As one of the dogs got closer, it nearly grabbed ahold of Veronica's leg. Suddenly, bullets started flying from the intersection encampment. They were open game to the gang of legionnaires now.

Smith quickly opened the side panel on his armor and pulled out a plasma grenade. "This is wasted on these vile slavers" he said bitterly as he pulled the pin on it. He quickly attempted to lob it far enough to land at the intersection. Unfortunately, it landed just short of the barricade, but managed to tear apart one of the snipers and made short work of the vicious war dogs.

"Fuck, that grenade set those cars on fire!" Veronica screamed. "Duck behind something hard!" she yelled as she took cover behind the cement barricade and put her arms over her hooded head.

Two cars about twenty feet away were being slowly encompassed by flame and their unstable two centuries old mini nuclear reactors were going to burst any second by now. They were burning so hot that Anita could feel the heat from the flames warming her face from this distance. The flames turned the rusted metal white-hot and the stench of scorched metal filled the air.

Anita blinked for one second and when she opened her eyes, she felt the ground shake and lost her balance, scraping her face on the broken asphalt. The explosion emitted a sound so loud that all she could hear was her ears ringing. She felt dazed for a few seconds and felt a bullet deflect from her shoulder armor and felt a massive bruise start to form on her left side. With her right arm, she got to her knees and started to aim indiscriminately towards the intersection, spraying and praying in hope that she would take a few legion boys down before she got back to her feet. Seconds felt like hours as she quickly put a new charge pack into her pistol and struggled to standup on both feet. Her upper body felt like it was made out of lead and her legs made of weak jelly. She heard a body thud to the ground in the distance; at least one of her uncalculated shots had landed. Finally steadying herself while trying to stay obscured behind piles of rubble as she walked slowly towards Smith, her legs still feeling too malleable for combat.

"Hot damn, Anita that was a good shot!" Smith exclaimed, clearly impressed that she managed to take a legionnaire down without precision. He started firing indiscriminately towards the remaining few legion soldiers, taking three down nearly in a row.

In between panting from exertion, she responded with a simple head nod in appreciation. Veronica managed to take two more down with her laser pistol, she prided herself on hand-to-hand combat, but Anita had to hand it to her—she had some sharp eyes. Smith had another plasma grenade in his hands, but Veronica shook her head in disagreement, it didn't take a genius to figure out that was the polite way to call him an idiot. He nodded and put it back into the armored pocket inside his power armor.

"Make sure to stay away from the corpses, just in case they're diseased. I don't fancy developing boils" Veronica warned as they got closer to the encampment.

No more gunfire was coming from the shoddily put together encampment up ahead, so all three of them started walking towards it, in hope of finding ammo or possibly uncontaminated food supplies. Anita estimated that after a few more blocks, the radio tower could be reached. Eight cases of ammo propped up the slab of wood that Anita presumed was the dining table. Shattered glass coated the table and crunched underneath her feet as she grabbed a stick and poked around the encampment.

At this point, it was around 3am, she hadn't slept since 5am yesterday, and she was surviving off of adrenaline rushes. She knelt down to the ground and dusted off a green metal sign that had 'Main Street' painted in neat white letters. There were numerous pot holes and cave-ins on what she presumed to be the ruins of this 'Main Street'. In Pre-war books, they always described main streets in cities as being the hub of a town, there were often important government buildings and businesses along those streets. This down-town area was so far gone from its glory days that she couldn't imagine it being anything but weakened buildings, rusty cars, and cracked asphalt. A block down from where she was, a weathered white building stood, she assumed that it was the remains of a city council building, the place where all the community ordinances were made before the war.

"I'm not turning up anything of value besides the ammo, unless you want to take up spear-throwing as a hobby Anita" Smith remarked while putting the salvaged ammo into cartridges that would protect them while traveling. Calling the wooden sticks with pieces of shrapnel tied to the end spears felt too generous in Anita's mind.

Feeling discouraged, Anita swung her body over the sand bags that blocked off the encampment from the road and managed to land on her feet, to her surprise since her motor functions still felt impaired. Whenever she moved her left arm, she felt soreness radiate from what she guessed was an ugly purple welt on her shoulder from the stray bullet. Only a few more blocks until the radio station, she told herself over and over again in her mind, in a feeble attempt to keep both her spirits up and her eyes open.

Now it was past 4am as she neared the radio station; and her worn-out body felt relieved. She reached out her hand to turn the door knob, but was grateful when Veronica gently placed her hand over hers and took it off the knob.

"Anita, stay behind us. You're not in good shape right now; let Smith and I take charge of combat, watch our six" Veronica told her with concern in her voice. She pulled her tattered brown hood over her worn combat helmet and flexed her right hand open to make sure her customized power fist assembly was in proper working order. "Hard to say what we'll find here. With our luck, it's probably ghouls" she speculated.

"Well, now that you said it, we probably will see some ghouls, damn abominations" Smith remarked.

Anita's face ran pale for a second at the thought of encountering a feral ghoul. Their rotting faces and gnashing teeth terrified her, despite the fact that they were relatively easy to dismember. The somber growls they emitted whenever they saw a 'smooth skin' chilled her to the bone the first time she had seen one outside of a training simulator. She absent-mindedly rubbed her eyes with her hands, getting dirt all over her face.

"On a count of three, we're busting the door open!" Smith exclaimed through his power armor helmet. "One…"

Veronica shifted her leg forward and stood ready to strike, her right arm ready to swing at any bogies that could be hiding behind the door. Meanwhile, Anita turned the safety off her pistol and carefully aimed it towards the door.

"Two…Three!" Smith yelled as his T50 armored leg took down the feeble metal door. He walked inside the station slowly and turned his helmet light on again. "Dark as hell in here, we should check for a power source" he suggested.

"This part of town wasn't hit as hard as downtown, maybe it's just a matter of power distribution; either way we should try to find the breaker box" Veronica added.

Anita flicked on her helmet light as well, the dim light illuminating the spackled dry wall covered with the remains of propaganda and advertisement posters. One of the few intact ones amused her; it had a giant spider with a painted white skull on it crawling over the phrase 'Be Vigilant, communism is coming' and another intact one featured a diagram of a Vault-Tec vault underneath a mountain. Damn Vault-Tec propaganda, she thought.

"In hindsight, the onslaught of communism was probably the least of their problems" Anita commented quietly as she spotted skeletal remains on the floor near the poster, and noticed that a singular bullet hole pierced the skull, what an unfortunate soul.

"Far simpler times they lived in" Veronica said darkly. "Let's get moving. There should be a broadcasting room somewhere near here."

They meandered throughout the dark hallways until Anita spotted a red light that signified a broadcasting room. That the red light was on at all was a surprise, but was a relief to Anita since that likely indicated that at least part of the station still had power. She glanced all around the room, hoping to spot a breaker box.

"It's over here, Anita" Smith informed her, his helmet light illuminating the closed box on the wall. "I'll get it open" he said as he yanked the cover off the breaker box with his armored hands.

"I'll work on the breaker box, if you can figure out the controls on that board" Veronica told Anita as she checked the stability of the fuses in the breaker box.

As Veronica experimented with flicking the switches on and off, power briefly flickered, lighting up the station for a few seconds before it was pitched in darkness once more. She attempted it one more time and the sound of electronics churning with power sounded like music to Anita's ears.

A blood curdling growl pierced the air as a ghoul, awoken from its slumber crawled towards Smith, who promptly shot it point blank with his laser rifle.

"Hate it when you're right Veronica" Smith said with a laugh.

"That's what they all say" she quipped back at him without missing a beat.

Anita fiddled with the switches on the broadcasting switchboard and located a microphone with the copper wire mostly intact. "In theory, I think this switch over here should work—Veronica, can you come here?"

Veronica and her spent several minutes attempting to fine tune a signal that could even get to the Capital Wasteland. "I hope you have your little speech planned Anita; better hope that Elder Maxson has a generous heart" said Veronica. "And the resources to spare."

Anita held the microphone closer to her face and turned to look at Veronica. "One can hope" she said with a deal of pessimism evident in her voice.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday! This is Scribe McNamara, we are on the outskirts of Denver, running low on supplies, rampant blue flu cases amongst the local populace, and High Elder Casdin has diverted forces to investigate airport, over! Please respond if you can hear this in DC, over!"

The next five minutes felt like an eternity as they all waited for a response. Anita started tapping her fingers on the radio dashboard nervously, deciding in her mind which was worse, no response or being told to fend for themselves. All that came through on the radio was noisy static and every minute that passed made her hopes feel more diminished.

"Scribe McNamara, this is Scribe Logan, can you hear me? What's the situation? Over" a masculine voice came through on the radio.

Relief shot through her sleep-deprived body like a nice dose of jet. "Scribe Logan, we are in need of food and medicine, ideally more air transport if possible. Over" Anita responded enthusiastically.

"I will alert Elder Maxson, over" the scribe informed her as the signal turned to static once more.

"Anita, you need to rest" Veronica told her as she laid her hands on her shoulders. "We're all exhausted and need to sleep" she said as the dark bags underneath her eyes became more visible. "Smith, can you take over first watch?"

"Yep, let me get out of this stinking power armor for a moment…Moretti, what a pleasure to hear from you" Smith must have said into his armor's internal radio. He nodded for a moment, going along with what Moretti apparently was saying. "Well, Anita's going to hate that" Smith told Moretti via his helmet's radio.

Anita gave him a dirty look. "What am I going to hate?" she asked in an annoyed tone as she turned around in the dingy office chair.

Smith powered down his armor and stepped out of it. He ran his hands through his sandy blonde hair and sat down in the rather sad looking swivel chair next to her.

"Moretti said that Elder Casdin's group found something at the airport…" Smith started to say before pausing.

"What did they find?!" Anita yelled louder than she intended.

"Fuck, don't shoot the messenger Anita" Smith said defensively. "They found some…rather strange tech in the tunnels below, that's all Moretti knows. And, apparently, Elder Casdin has heard of our excursion and is flying here to the station ASAP" he informed her, knowing that she was going to be livid at the thought of meeting with High Elder Casdin.

If it wasn't for the exhaustion seeping through her bonesexhuastion , she knew that she would have broken her hand with a punch into the dusty drywall next to the radio dashboard. Ever since Josh had told her about the things that Elder Casdin had planned for her once they reached the Capital Wasteland, she was glad that she was kept miles away from that man at all times. She groaned in frustration and put her head in her hands as she tried to catch some brief shut-eye.

Author's Note: This chapter took forever for me to write! I probably rewrote this chapter at least four times before being happy with this version. Also, thank you all for the views and comments, they are very much appreciated! My senior year of college just started as well; it's about to be week three for me and I'm starting to find my groove after a year off from college