Reviews

Alan

Well, who doesn't like the idea of attractive warrior women in power armour?

Elder McNamara isn't the type to change his mind so Thrax will focus on trying to get at least some of the Brotherhood to leave even if they all won't go.

edboy4926

Thank you.

Carthienes

That's the plan.

Rogue Trader CYOA Story 2

"The Tech-priest tends his flock of Chimeras and lasguns as surely as his priestly brethren from the Ecclesiarchy tend the souls of their Guardsmen, and his ministrations are no less important to the continued success of the numerous campaigns of the Imperial Guard."

— Magos Aubrey Bessemer

Part 7

HELIOS One. Mojave Wasteland

According to Veronica, who'd decided to join me as a sort of unofficial liaison between myself and the local Brotherhood Chapter for as long as I worked towards getting the local Brotherhood Chapter to leave, this installation had been constructed some years before the war by a company called Poseidon Energy. To the public, this place had just been a solar energy plant an effort to find alternate sources of power once the fossil fuels ran out.

Upon the surface of it, HELIOS One did indeed look to be nothing more than a solar energy plant. It contained an enormous array of reflectors and the power plant itself housed steam turbines and all of the other machines required to transform the energy into usable electricity for the nearby settlements.

As such it was worthy of a little study by the Ad-Mech as while they had means of generating vast amounts of power this place was a relic of what was for them an ancient time when mankind was still confined to a single world. It was as much archaeology as it wasn't an attempt to restore the plant to full functionality.

Since the red-robed cyborgs only had a minor interest in studying this place and only so many people they could put to work it had been agreed to fix up the plant and then use it to provide energy for certain parts of the Mojave. Custody of the plant would be turned over to those who had been recruited into the lower order of the machine cult, they would know enough to keep the plant running for Mr House.

With Hoover Dam being so close by you'd think that the locals would have all the power they ever needed. Only this wasn't the case as most of the juice was getting sent to the NCR or just to New Vegas directly. Once up and running the solar plant would provide energy for the different settlements in the area such as Nipton and Novac.

Progress to this end was slow not just due to lack of manpower but because the plant had been damaged extensively since the Great War, and more recently due to the conflict between the New California Republic and the Brotherhood of Steel forces. The local Brotherhood Chapter had taken many losses while trying to hold onto this plant and even Veronica didn't really know why.

From what I learned from one of the onsight Engineseers (tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus whose specialisation is the maintenance and repair of the many technological instruments of the Imperium of Man) only a third of its reflectors were still fully intact and able to fully rotate. To make matters worse, various issues in the plant itself made the energy transfer inefficient, meaning that the plant was operating far under its full potential. This was something the Ad-Mech needed to fix.

Before the Brotherhood abandoned the facility, they put it in a nearly inactive state and armed the pre-War security system. Despite the NCR's best efforts, they'd had no luck in getting the plant to work to its potential or in deactivating the security system. This was because the NCR did not possess the scientific knowledge to get the plant in ideal shape. The Ad-Mech did even if that understanding came with boatloads of mysticism.

Both the Followers of the Apocalypse and the Brotherhood of Steel were reticent to help us or Me House for political reasons. The Followers of the Apocalypse didn't know us well enough to trust us and Brotherhood of Steel was held up in their bunker unwilling to do anything. A real shame as this project would benefit many people by providing them with both heat and light even Mr House planned to charge people for it.

"You know, I've been meaning to ask," I said to Veronica as we entered a less crowded part of the power plant "How did your lot manage to escape when the NCR took over this place?".

I might not be a warlord but even I could see how easily the NCR troops could have surrounded the plant. The solar energy plant had no fortifications and the ground around it was flat.

"Well I wasn't actually here during the attack," Veronica admitted "When the NCR arrived, I was at the 188 trading post because even before we retreated underground, I still had to leave all the time to search for supplies. When I left, it felt like just another supply run, but when I came back the Brotherhood was already gone so I went back to the 188 stop for a while. Eventually, I returned to the bunker".

Made sense since she was a scribe, not a knight, she wasn't meant to fight as a soldier.

"I was never actually told about ARCHIMEDES, whatever it is," Veronica went to say "I don't think Elder Elijah trusted anyone other than himself with any of the research. I didn't need to know, so I was never told".

ARCHIMEDES was a project that Poseidon Energy was working on behind closed doors with the United States military (the parts that would become the Enclave I'd bet) they were commissioned to develop a new and devastating weapon powered by the sun. That part was not told to the public.

Elijah hadn't explained why HELIOS One was so important to the rest of his people and since many of them died defending this place it seemed wrong that Elijah didn't share the knowledge. It was hoped that if we could share the truth with the local Brotherhood Chapter that it would cause at least some of the scribes and knights to question his leader and start thinking about taking a new course of action.

"So, does the Brotherhood out here just keep its people in the dark then?" Sarah Lyons asked, sounding a little bit confused "Doesn't sound very trusting. I mean I know that my father doesn't tell me everything right away, but he always let me know what it was we were fighting for".

Give the Imperium's habit of mushroom management I was in no place to judge.

"Information can be a weapon," said Veronica "and the fewer people who know something, the safer the information becomes. All I knew for certain was that there was something named ARCHIMEDES inside Helios, and Elder Elijah seemed to think it was important".

Since I did trust these two I told them that ARCHIMEDES was in fact a weapons platform that focused the power of the sun and was aimed via a satellite.

"Hold on, when we decided to come here, I was under the impression that we were looking into a scientific project" Veronica almost shouted, "Not start messing with a superweapon".

She need not be worried.

"I have no intention of letting anyone get their hands on a superweapon" I assured the scribe "That's why we need to find this ARCHIMEDES weapon and disable it".

Since I had a cruiser in orbit with lots of guns it served my interest to shut down ARCHIMEDES so that no one could use it against the operations I had going on this planet.

"I'm going to need your help, Veronica," I said as I turned to face her "I had all the satellites in orbit disabled to stop the Enclave from coordinating, so the weapon is useless, but it would be for the best if we found evidence of it to show your Brotherhood and to make sure that no one blows this place up while trying to use it".

Having data on one such device wouldn't be a bad thing as it might be of interest to the Ad-Mech as a curiosity if nothing else. If I could grab a copy I would, but it wasn't that important to me.

(Line Break)

HELIOS One. Mojave Wasteland

Now I felt more like a Rogue Trader. Here I was about to break into someplace where no one else should have been in for many years in search of lost treasures and forgotten knowledge. Given the US military's involvement in Archimedes 2, there could be some sweet tech down below, technology I could keep for myself or sell to some branch of the Imperium as a means of filling the coffers of House Thrax.

"Alright Veronica, do you have any idea of what can we expect down here?" I asked as the heavy metal door slid shut behind us "Security bots, automated defences, that sort of thing?".

After she'd unlocked some terminals on the outside, and had opened up the only hatch that led into the tower in the centre of the solar panel field, I'd thought that we'd find ourselves in an elevator, but instead, the big door opened onto a set of stairs, going down, not up. In this world going underground rarely ended well.

Veronica had been here before, at least in parts of the plant and as such, she knew quite a bit about this place, she'd known that there should be some good tech stored away somewhere in the solar energy plant. Well, she didn't know for certain, but the possibility made this venture worthwhile.

"It might be any number of things," she said as the three of us along with members of my battle harem descended into the darkness. "One of the so-called NCR experts I spoke to did mention security system, and a few soldiers being killed the last time they tried to enter this part of the plant, there could be any number of things in our way".

I wasn't too worried as Veronica, Sarah and I wore full sets of newly manufactured power armour. As for my battle harem, they were superhumans.

"SECURITY LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT. HOSTILE TARGETS ACQUIRED! COMMENCING NEUTRALISATION. NEUTRALISATION BY LETHAL AUTHORISED".

"The fuck is that?!" Sarah yelled

If Veronica said anything in response, I couldn't hear it as there was a whine like a jet turbine spinning up, and the air above us was filled with the sounds of dozens of rounds flying through the air.

Now I was realising that the automated defences had to include miniguns because I couldn't think of any other kinds of guns that fired that fast, and to make matters worse our protection did have its limits so we ended up having to take cover.

"YOU HAVE ENTERED A SECURITY ZONE. LETHAL FORCE WILL BE USED"

The voice boomed during a pause in the barrage of bullets.

"Sentry bot!" the scribe yelled.

I could barely hear Veronica trying to shout over the noise, and lucky for me my battle harem didn't need to hear any orders, they got to work and quickly disabled the robot as it was a direct threat to me. No doubt the means they used to destroy the robot had been impressive however I didn't see it.

Once the coast was clear I got a chance to examine the machine that had attempted to bar our entrance. The robot was basically a massive, vaguely humanoid torso sitting on top of thick tripod legs, each of which ended in giant, treaded all-terrain wheels. There was a missile launcher on the end of one arm, and a six-barrel Gatling gun on the end of the other. It didn't look like a robot so much as a small tank.

"The cogboys can have what's left," I said.

Due to their shortages, they had started making use of local robots when possible. The repair, restoration and anointing of these machines took time, but so did training recruits.

My battle harem moved again as I almost came face to face with another Sentry bot.

"ENGAGING HOSTILE TARGET!"

Before it could fire its missile launcher and blow someone up, one of my battle harem disabled it with a pulse grenade. I felt very glad that my ship had the means to manufacture such items for us.

"Elijah must have activated sentry bots before he left," Veronica said once the defences had been dealt with "They are what killed the NCR soldiers"

"Looks that way," I said "There are probably more of them deeper in the facility".

Sarah didn't take that news well and I learned a few new swear words that must have come into use since the bombs had dropped.

Things went far more smoothly, now that we knew exactly what we were up against. It wasn't all sentry bots, there were maybe half a dozen protectrons, and those went down easily enough since as we'd dealt with them before. Along the way, we found some more pulse grenades. It was always handy to have a localised EMP coupled with a miniature electrical storm specifically engineered to fry electronics when you're fighting robots. They came in very handy when we ran into more sentry bots, as those things were tough.

"How much further until we get to the mainframe?" I heard Sarah ask from behind me.

We must be fairly deep underground by now and finally, we came across an elevator which should take us where we wanted to be.

"I'm not sure," Veronica said "I never actually came down to this part of Helios," she told us "This is beyond the restricted level Elder Elijah set up".

The elevator doors slid open with a creak, which meant that this place at least had enough power for that. I sent 006 and 007 ahead to ensure that we wouldn't be gunned down as soon as the lift doors opened and when they reported over the vox that it was safe to follow I got into the elevator.

(Line Break)

HELIOS One. Mojave Wasteland

The elevator doors slowly ground open and we were presented with the lovely view of a large room full of mainframes, cables, and a lot of terminals.

"I was expecting more," I said as I stepped out of the elevator door "This isn't very impressive".

Well, looks didn't matter much in this case and it was normally a bad idea to put much stock on surface impressions when you weren't in combat.

"Find the controls to operate the power plant and information on ARCHIMEDES" I ordered "Once we get this place up and running as a power plant we can leave it to the Ad-Mech to finish up".

Mr House could take control of this place later on if he wished, but he would not get the weapon and neither would anyone else. As for the Ad-Mech if they wanted to claim credit for getting this plant running that was fine with me.

There was a terminal, but it seemed to be locked, thankfully it wasn't too hard to crack as Veronica provided that she was well worth keeping around. She moved on to check on some other computers leaving me free to examine what data I could find. I went through the litany of data retrieval just in case machine spirits were really a thing and then asked the machine god to bless my efforts. At least the operating system was easy to understand.

"Well, I got into the system," I told the two girls, who were in other parts of this room "but it's not giving me any options. It says something about low power".

'Please repair mainframe generator before attempting to access power grid options'

This could be a lot of work and I was about to start when I saw Mr Handy that was now floating toward me. The spherical, octopus-armed robot with three eye stalks was honestly not something I was expecting to see. Apparently, Sarah had gotten it online as she'd been tinkering with its recharging station.

"Mind explaining the robot?" I asked.

"Welcome employees," said the robot "I hope you are having a productive day".

This was odd.

"And why it thinks we work here?" Veronica added.

"I reprogrammed it to think that everyone here is an employee rather than an intruder" she explained.

"How did you know to do that?" Veronica finally asked.

Miss Lyons smiled at us.

"This isn't my first mission," she said "I did more in the DC ruins than shoot Super Mutants".

While the robot and the girls got to work I tried to learn more about this place. Poseidon Energy was certainly more than just a power company before the bombs dropped. That much was obvious, going through the files on the terminals here. One of them mentioned an 'upcoming' visit (upcoming in this case meaning November 2077) by Brigadier General Scott Lowe of the US Army.

It also mentioned ARCHIMEDES II by name, but it didn't mention specifically what it was, what it did, or even where it might be, not that it matters since I already knew all of that. Whoever was running the show here for this ARCHIMEDES project had serious pull with the pre-war military-industrial complex if a General was coming to visit the power plant, and was the only person here allowed to authorised its use for anything other than a test.

"Thrax I found something," the scribe told me "Take a look at this"

She slid a holotape into a slot, and a projector started to hum.

"It's a recording. Of one of the ARCHIMEDES tests," Veronica said, sounding a little upset "Just watch".

The image showed a small column of light appeared out of nowhere, from the top of the image to the bottom, and then it got wider, and wider, getting brighter. There was a flash, and then a mushroom cloud was slowly rising from the spot on the ground where the beam of light had impacted.

"What... what was that?" Sarah asked.

Something very dangerous.

"That was the initial test of ARCHIMEDES," Veronica said while pointing at the hologram. "It is, or was, just like you told me, a satellite in geosynchronous orbit around the planet. It's a sort of space-based laser, powered by energy collected by this power station and sent to the orbital weapons platform by way of microwaves. I'm not sure how it finds a target, but the yield on impact is... well, you saw the mushroom cloud".

I understood why she felt concerned.

"If someone got a hold of this and figured out how to activate and target this thing," said Veronica "No one would be safe, but if the satellite is gone there's nowhere to send the energy so we have nothing to worry about".

Sarah wasn't so sure.

"Didn't you mention that this place could explode" she reminded.

If the energy had nowhere to go it might overload the generators and go boom. I didn't know if that was actually possible, I just assumed that the worst would happen if someone came down here and started messing about.

"I can wipe all the data" Veronica offered "This is a piece of the old world that the new world can do without".

Assuming all went well we could turn on the power plant and then get the fuck out of here. Just not before I gathered up the holotapes.

"Doesn't look like there's any tech worth taking" I commented.

The terminals and the robot could be used by the cogboys and girls, however, I needed stuff that I could carry out of here such as weapons.

"The truth about ARCHIMEDES will help us to convince a few members of the Brotherhood that the Eldar's leadership isn't as solid as it might seem," said Sarah "I just don't think it will be enough".

Veronica didn't look worried.

"Don't worry I know about some more places that we can visit" she assured us.

Hopefully, I would make a profit today.

(Line Break)

Vault 34. Mojave Wasteland.

We weren't even inside and already the Geiger counter built onto my armour was clicking away, however, this didn't worry me much as the armour this expedition group wore, which was made up of Sarah, Veronica, myself some Sisterhood of Steel and my battle harem all wore wearing could protect us from this level of radiation.

However, given what had happened last time I'd gone underground I'd decided to send in some servo-skulls before having my battle harem led the way into the vault and wait inside the landing craft which was much better shielded them myself.

Thanks to set up in the landing craft and the work of the Engineseers we could see what the skulls saw as they scouted out the vault and did battle with the things that lived down there. Only some of the probes were armed and they were taking heavy losses against the mutated humans.

"That's a lot of ghouls" I heard the scribe mutter.

She wasn't kidding. It was like a convention down there in the lobby's main vault. Most of them were wearing scraps of clothes, and even with the poor quality of the transmission, I could make out the blue and gold of torn Vault jumpsuits hanging loosely off their emaciated and skinless frames. These people must have been Vault Dwellers at some point now their minds and bodies had rotted away.

"So, how're we gonna handle this, Captain," Sarah asked.

Violence looked like the only way to me.

"Let's send in the Sisterhood and have kill every motherfucker between us and our prize" I decided "They can put those ghouls out of their misery".

We were here for a pulse gun, an advanced weapon that Veronica thought would be good enough to get the local Brotherhood's attention. Once the pulse gun was in my hands it would make it clear to all the power armoured wearing warriors that I had the means to defeat them. Hopefully, that should convince at least some of them to leave. If they turned hostile I had to be prepared for that as well.

The pulse gun is an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) based weapon, This pulse pistol was a prototype weapon developed for the United States Armed Forces by an unknown manufacturer as a countermeasure to power armour, which they thought the Chinese were developing. Not the Chinese ever made their own power armour as far I knew.

As part of the Vault social experiment, the armory was overstocked with weapons and ammunition along with the pulse gun which gave the people inside the vault a very gun focused culture. It was also equipped with a great number of recreational facilities, including a full-sized swimming pool, at the cost of living space for some reason.

I hoped that this model pulse gun could also be scanned by the Ad-Mech and reproduced. The red-robed cyborgs should already have such weapons in their arsenal, but if they did they weren't sharing that information with me.

"Purge the mutants" I ordered Sarah.

As I sat inside the landing craft which had cool air I got to watch the new Sisterhood in action as they poured into the Vault and used their plasma weapons to end the ghouls who had all be feral. A part of me longed to be down there laying waste to the mutants, yet this would be foolish, as while I could fight if needs be I wasn't much of a warrior. I had a different role to play.

"We all good?" I asked as soon as the last feral went down on the screens.

There was only a slight delay on the vox.

"No contacts," Sarah reported.

"Are we going down there, or what?" Veronica asked.

This Vault was an absolute dump we soon discovered. There didn't seem to be a single piece of metal down here that wasn't covered in rust or corroded and a lot of surfaces had holes in them. That was just the physical damage I didn't even what to think about caused all the stains.

Half the time when we tried going down corridors, they were blocked off by debris or were collapsed entirely. Wires and metal were hanging out of the broken ceiling panels, the floors were covered in the trash or radioactive goo that made my Geiger counter spike, and every pane of glass was shattered. Only about half the lights were even working.

Plus there were plenty of dead bodies down here not all of which had been made recently as I saw human skeletons littering some of the corridors as well as the corpses of ghouls. None of the Sisterhood of Steel hadn't gotten hurt thanks to the servo-skull probes having softened up the enemy and Sarah's good leadership.

"All the signs pointing to the armoury keep sending us down collapsed tunnels," I said.

As it turned out there was a way. One of the cogboys managed to unlock a service tunnel that must have been sealed due to the radiation. Someone had attempted to keep the source seal and it hadn't worked as even if the ghouls weren't proof of that the fact that the entire vault was contaminated would be proof.

I opened one of the nearby sliding metal doors and was immediately face-to-face with a pair of ghouls, who were wearing the tattered remnants of Vault security armour. The one in front of me started to screech, so I kicked it square in the chest with my power armour enhanced strength and sent it toppling backwards, directly into the one behind.

The teaching engines I'd been educated with when I'd become a Rogue Trader let me know what to do and without thought. Yet before I could blast either of the mutants my battle harem had slain them both. I should have let them enter the room first.

"We're in an underground maze, surrounded by radiation, and feral ghouls that want to rip out our insides and have them for lunch," said Sarah "Captain, you take me to all the nicest places. I hope you don't stop being this romantic when we're married".

She was indeed a lucky young woman.

"We should keep moving," Veronica said, her voice muffled by her helmet. "We'll run the risk of getting radiation sickness even with our armour".

A few moments later we were heading down another corridor, and this one might just take us where we want to go.

"Hey, look!" Sarah spoke up while pointing at the wall. "Would you look at this! A sign on the wall pointing to the armoury and the hallway hasn't collapsed!".

We quickly got moving again and it was quiet down here, we went down the corridors, seeing nothing and no one.

"Is anyone else concerned that we haven't run into any more ghouls?" the scribe asked

I had to admit, she had a point.

"Maybe we killed them all?" Sarah offered up hopefully.

That would be nice and it was likely given the sheer number of Sisterhood I'd brought with us.

"I think we're here," Cameron said.

Sure enough, the illuminated sign above the door said "ARMORY" in big block letters. The door was rusted and looked like it hadn't been touched in several decades.

Cameron, which was the name I'd given to the member of my battle harem normally called 09, had started reminding me more and more of the Cameron character played by Summer Glau and that character served as a bodyguard so I figured it suited her.

"You might want to step back," advised the Engineseer.

One of his machine limbs turned out to be a plasma torch which he or she used to cut us away into the armoury, which didn't take very long, and soon we were able to head inside.

"Let's see what we can..." I trailed off, finding myself at a loss for words.

This armoury contained assault rifles, carbines, sub-machine guns, pistols, sniper rifles, body armour, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, grenades, explosives, ammunition. Sure I could provide myself with all this stuff thanks to the fabricating machines onboard my ship, but seeing such a collection of firepower impressed even me, it was fortune it terms of trade goods by local standards.

"Praise the Omnissiah!" exclaimed the cogboy.

"We've hit the mother lode," I said.

Behind me, I heard several indistinct murmurs of agreement.

"The Pulse Gun is an energy weapon, so it should stand out like a sore thumb down here" I heard Veronica say "Once we grab that, we can leave this horrible place"

For the second time in as many minutes, I was rendered speechless. All around me, I could hear the boots of my compatriots coming to a stop behind me, obviously as captivated as I was by the sight before us. It was a Fat Man. A shoulder-mounted, the tactical nuclear catapult was just sitting there. Along with three football-sized mini-nukes. Slowly, and very carefully, I took hold of the Fat Man, and set it on my shoulder, just to try it out. It was surprisingly light. I was expecting it to weigh a ton, but it didn't, although I was wearing power armour.

"This makes me so happy," I told the girls.

I'd say that I was compensating for something if I'd not been gene enhanced so well.

"It's definitely you," said Sarah "Very macho".

You'd think a guy who'd commanded a starship do battle and could channel the power of The Warp wouldn't be so impressed by the killing toys this world had to offer, but the person I'd been before becoming a Rogue Trader the guy who played the Fallout for so many hours was still within me, and he was super giddy right now.

"We take it all" I decided "No sense leaving it down here for the ferals".

Veronica found the pulse gun she was looking for as we stripped the place bare, which meant we now had what we needed to really get the attention of the Brotherhood.