Ash ducked under a power armored punch from one of the Brotherhood remnants. Firing his pistol in hand, Ash leapt into the air slashing at the brotherhood soldier with Lanius's sword. The sword cleaved into the man's neck as Ash shot out an eyeport of another soldier. The man roared and tackled Ash through the brick wall of an adjacent building. Ash emptied the magazine into the man's broken eyeport. He felt himself slow as the man lost momentum, Ash grinned inside his helmet and locked his feet into the ground. The porcelain tiles of the ground cracked and groaned as the two armored men clashed through the house. Ash began to push back, causing the Brotherhood soldier to panic. The man maneuvered himself to break past Ash's hold, but Ash headbutted the man before throwing him to the ground. Once more, feeling the hilt of the Blade of the East in his palm. Ash lifted the blade high above his head and slammed its tip through the man's helmet.
"Where are they coming from?!" an Envlave trooped shouted from the distance.
"Hold the line!" Dusk shouted, somehow on the ground and no longer in a vertibird circling above the battlefield. Ash panted and threw off his helmet. The yellow eyes lit the dark rooms, slightly illuminating the blue-tiled floor of an old factory department store.
"They're coming out of the woodwork!" Dusk's voice once more echoed from Ash's helmet. He wiped the sweat from his brow and attempted to catch his breath. He pulled his canteen from his bandolier and emptied it over his head. He gasped for breath as his lungs burned for air though they had no reason to.
"We need reinforcements!" Dusk's voice wailed from the radio. Ash grabbed the helmet and looked into the glaring, yellow eyes. The legacy that would be left by James's predecessors. The fear that the design inspired. The fear they would inspire. Ash exited the factory store and found two Enclave scouts wandering the battlefield, clearly fresh recruits and inexperienced rookies. Ash pointed at the two and gestured them over.
"You two, on me." He growled. Ash and the hastly formed fireteam began to makes its way from the outskirts of the battered airfield to the remains of the airport terminal. The battle with Liberty Prime severely crippled the present Enclave air power. Now the Brotherhood held air superiority. Minigun fire thundered overhead as a vertibird made a pass over the terminal.
"Incoming!" A red light lit the night sky momentarily. Prime is up again. Ash quickly deduced. He marked two locations that he wanted the scouts to take and secure. The scouts nodded and wordlessly left Ash's presence. Though green, they were still trained by Brandis, they would know what was expected of them.
"Does anyone have eyes on the General?!" Kodiak's voice peppered over the hissing comms.
A thundering booming sound and a crash shortly followed Kodiak's broadcast.
"Dammit! We're hit. Everybody brace!" Kodiak's shouted once more. A nearby building collapsed onto its side, throwing rubble over a downed airplane.
"Where is it?!" an Enclave trooper shouted over the radio. A Brotherhood patrol passed a plane, right into Ash's line of fire. Ash pulled the hammer on his Gauss Rifle back and unleashed a fully charged 2mm round. The rounded zipped through the air before cleaving off a Paladin's arm. The patrol's members began to raise their own weapons. Two quick bursts of plasma fire, downed the unarmored men as Ash primed a pulse grenade and lobbed it into the air. Slinging the guass rifle, Ash drew his sidearm and fired twice. The first round made its target, the second was instinctive. The grenade detonated and fried the two stading Brotherhood soldiers. Their screams signified that despite almost twenty feet of separation from the explosive itself was more than enough to incapacitate the men. Ash looked up and lit his right arm with a sickly green. The armor reflected the light and two green lights from two separate locations made themselves known to the night. They were quickly followed with a yellow one, indicating that they would be displacing. Ash quickly moved past the Brotherhood patrol and found the remains of Bravo Squad. The six man team had been massacred. Likely by Liberty Prime himself, if the burn marks and melted armor were to show. A fat man with its mini-nuke already loaded leaned against an old Corvega. Ash grabbed it and hefted it over his shoulder.
"I have eyes-on Liberty Prime, he's at the control tower!"
"Everybody hit the deck!" Glade shouted. Another red beam smashed into the night sky. The feed went dead.
"Glade!" Dusk shouted. Ash hoped for a response as he jogged to rejoin the rest of his team. "Glade!" Dusk shouted once more, less spirited. Ash sighed before rushing out into the street, fat man lifted on his right shoulder and pistol in his left.
Despite the clear skies and seemingly clear condition of the airport. Nothing was clear. The wreckage of both Brotherhood aircraft and the resulting geographical changes made by the orbital strikes made it difficult to navigate the once-level ground of the Boston airport. The strike made by Nathan's weapons earlier reformed the landscape and left dunes of dirt as high as fifteen feet. Ash noted that it may be possible that some Enclave personnel could have been buried alive by the ungodly sum of earth.
"Soldiers of the Enclave remnant!" Maxson's voice boomed from the Prydwyn overhead. "I know you think you are in the right."
Ash jogged up one of the dunes, hoping for a good vantage point to see the terminal.
"You're not." Maxson said.
"Didn't see that coming." Dusk said.
"The Brotherhood wishes to save the Commonwealth. So does the Enclave. Why the endless fighting?"
Ash climbed the dune and found the terminal under siege. Though once a Brotherhood stronghold, now the Enclave have taken residence. With glimmering hordes of Brotherhood troops slowly advancing on the terminal position. Liberty Prime smashing at the last of the handful of Enclave vertibirds in the immediate area. Ash loaded his Fat Man and began sprinting down the sand dune to assist.
Ash ducked under a broken steel wing of an old military plane and stopped shortly behind airplane seat. Three Enclave troopers rushed forward in an attempt to halt the Brotherhood advance. It was clear that the Enclave assault force was low in numbers, they would need support and soon. Ash lifted the Fat Man above his head and took aim. A silver vertibird rushed forward with a squad of power armored soldiers leaping from the cargo plane. Ash fired and watched the nuke rocket through the air and smash into the cockpit. The vehicle swirled in a 360 degree spin and smashed through the main door of the terminal. Ash dumped the Fat Man, having exhausted his only mini nuke. He drew his Gauss Rifle and pulled the hammer back, ready to fire.
Katherine felt the vertibird float in the air before unhitching itself from the Prydwyn.
"Don't let that veritibird take off!" Kells shouted. Nate fired at an unknown enemy as the vertibird shot through the air and descended down under the Prydwyn. Katherine weaved and bobbed the vertibird past the fiery rockets that the Prydwyn rained down onto the airport terminal.
"This was his plan the whole time!" Li shouted as Katherine maneuvered the vertibird past the Prydwyn's anti-air ordinances. "He wanted to lure the Enclave here where the Prydwyn had the largest concentration of firepower. He wanted this from the beginning."
"What purpose would that serve? Luring James to him?" Katherine asked aloud as she outmaneuvered the last missile and began to stabilize the vertibird.
"To solidify his standing as the Chapter's Elder." Nate interjected.
"Wait what?" Katherine asked.
"Maxson was leader, no question. But too many people respected James, the Lone Wanderer and savior of the Capital Wasteland in order to truly feel absolute loyalty to Maxson." Nate suggested.
"Correct. Maxson wants explicit and absolute control over the Brotherhood, but James has led the group to success far longer than Maxson has." Li corroborated.
"I don't understand. Why come all this way?"
"To recreate the Brotherhood from the bottom up. Maxson needs to get absolute power, then he needs to ensure that his new military structure will actually be effective and efficient."
"So then the Commonwealth…"
"-is just the beginning." Li agreed. "Maxson is planning on creating a military-industrial complex to rival that of the Enclave prior to its destruction."
"But why would he do that?" Katherine asked.
"I am not sure, but based on a few dossiers that I nabbed from Rothchild before I left the Capital Wasteland seem to suggest that-"
"Disclosing that information would be quite unwise, Dr. Li." Maxson's voice sparked from the radio.
"Impossible." Li muttered.
"Yet, here I am." Katherine tried to move the vertibird, but the controls were locked up.
"We're stuck, he's got us."
"You didn't think I'd plan for someone to hijack one of my vertibirds?" Maxson asked incredulously. "How stupid could you think I am?"
"Based on your judgements of people and the wasteland, I'd say the evidence speaks for itself."
"I suppose you're not wrong. Don't disclose the information within those dossiers, Doctor."
"And why wouldn't I do that?"
"Let me explain myself."