CHAPTER 14
You'll Break Something with that Attitude.
There was a strange resonance that hit between him and the Deathclaw. It hit him, at least- when she screamed at him like a crazy person -made him connect, made him understand a bit more.
They'd been walking through the wastes a whole day now, and, in a weird sense- it felt like they had been walking longer, but not in a bad sort of way.
To Sanford- this being from someone who had a life BEFORE the war, and now had lived in the Wasteland for a good amount of time -this day had been the most frightening experience in his life. BUT, it also had been the most exciting, and the most interesting.
There was a creature- not human, and also not something horrible like a Feral or a Super Mutant- that could communicate, and give its opinion on the world around it.
It was like talking to an alien. It was fascinating, and scary at how fast he became just... USED, to the idea of how the creature's mouth worked when it talked, how it sounded, and what it said.
She- the Deathclaw who would not be named -was an enigma that Sanford had now determined himself to unravel in his lonely life- even if she said she was leaving after today.
The determination was a good source of fuel to keep him moving, active and alert- it was a welcome feeling.
"I don't think we've ever been in here before." Sanford said, craning his helm up to see the edge of the roof shingles of the tall mill building. "Han'? You think?"
"I'd remember a flea-infested dump like this, sir!" Hancock responded. "Nope! Nada! No memory files on this one."
"You ever been in there?" Sanford patted the Deathclaw's thumb, still sticking out from the belly-section of his Power Armor.
"Non'." She curtly answered. "Not recently, monsieur'."
"How long ago is 'Not recently'?"
"A few years ago, I hid from the Enclave here," She said. "I remembered all the industrial equipment. The saws, drills- things as such."
"Too bad none of my welding equipment would work..." Sanford sighed. "-It'd burn your fingers. And me too, probably."
"If your... HOME, is where you say it is- then this is closer anyway."
"I guess you're right. Hey, Han'? Just cover our backs will you?"
"Aye-aye!" Hancock chuckled, raising his ranged-equipped weapon arm.
A flimsy-looking set of double wooden doors were partially ajar down their division center, and led into the dark depths of the mill.
From where they were, they could hear something squeaking- like a metal object hanging from a loose position caught in a draft. Mechanical desolation. It was eerie.
Sanford and Hancock had found some pretty disturbing places throughout their scavenging hauls- remnants of death, places simply marked by evil occurrences, places of loss and lack of civilized life- sometimes ,lacking of ANY life.
The Wastes were an extraordinary place, as well as a terrible one. Beneath the rebirth of civilization in the brighter corners of the world- dark crevices and crags sported nightmares that tread man's worst imaginations.
Again, murder, death and corpses were sights that had been ironed into Sanford's preparedness- as immoral as that sounded, it was fact- but some of the reclusive hideaways he and that stupid robot had found, were places of true malign hate.
There was no law in the Wasteland- if you pissed off someone, they had every right, and every notion to get away with- shooting you dead without a second thought.
Chaos reigned in places where governments or leaders had not been established, and sometimes those governments and leaders simple exacerbated those things.
But people did everything and ANYTHING out here.
Sanford had discovered corpses of people that had horrible, horrible things done to them- dismemberment, mutilation, killers... DID things, to the bodies. Not nice stuff. Not at all.
-Obviously, it was traumatic enough in appearance, that Sanford dreaded those first few steps into dark buildings, or tunnels or crags.
This mill made his heart thud heavily, and breath catch in his throat.
The Deathclaw, though- didn't even bat an eye.
WHUM
-She kicked the doors right off their hinges- sent one skittering into the black a fragmenting pile of woodchips, and the other clattering once or twice before settling- splintered, and cracked.
Dust and tiny particles flew everywhere and the metal hinges ringed away in the stone floor of the mill.
Shaking his head in disbelief- Sanford shrugged at Han' before the Deathclaw tugged her hand again- like prying a dog to follow her -and the two started stepping inside the dark interior of the building.
Reaching up with a gauntlet- Sanford ticked a small knob on the side of his helm's temple- a night vision filter flooded his vision a green tint, and suddenly, the dark wasn't blurring out everything around him.
The Deathclaw's eyes reflected more light than they already did WITHOUT the night vision, IN the night vision- she looked creepy.
Sneering at him, she nodded to what he was doing.
"-Uhm, night vision." He clarified, tapping the little knob with a finger. "Can't see in the dark like you can."
"Uh-huh." She nodded with disinterest.
"Right behind you, Cappy-ton!" Hancock said in a hoarse imitation of whispering behind him in the doorway.
Looking around- he saw the Deathclaw was kind of right.
This was probably either a sawmill at one point, or some kind of metal-working shop. Big cutting drills sat over large, cleared spaces that had scrap parts piled around them- held aloft by industrial gantries connected to box-offices on upper walkway levels.
The inside of the building was pretty big- pretty tall, it had at least two levels of metal walkways connecting to and fro up there. Doors on the lower floor led to what looked like stair cases- Sanford glanced through one to see several work benches and stations inside.
"This place, might actually work..." Sanford muttered, keeping the drum-fed Shotgun he'd acquired from Hancock earlier, in a one-handed clasp.
"I don't know human machinery as you do." The Deathclaw reminded. "I need you to help me find the right tools, monsieur'."
"I'll certainly try... Hey, Han'- start looking around for like a precision las-cutter. Maybe a RobCo model if you can."
"On it, sir!" Hancock vanished in a whoosh of air and lit fuel up, above their heads. He flew through a doorway on the second floor walkway, and vanished.
"What did you say to look for?" The Deathclaw asked, bewildered. "A... 'Las' Cutter?"
"Yeah, they're precision laser drills that metal workers used before the bombs for cutting hard material." Sanford explained. "Might be one in here big enough to fit your hand underneath it."
"I'm guessing there's no other alternative than..." She grumbled. "-I might be FORCED to stay at your side with such a handicap, monsieur'."
"Well, I want to see if there's one here. I'm not going to use it first-thing if there IS one here."
"What do you mean?"
"Let's try lubricant first, or maybe some grease or oil- we might be able to slide your fingers free."
"And if that fails?"
"I could try cutting away the pectoral plates just below the chest plating," He patted a gauntlet by her palm metallically. "-I'll risk damaging the suit if it means neither of us get hurt."
"... I understand these... SUITS, are rare, monsieur'?"
"Yeah. Me and Han' found this one by sheer luck." Sanford frowned. "But... Uhm, hey! If I lose the suit! Then you'll just HAVE to stick around! Right? Me, you, and that mentally degraded dumbass robot."
"-I HEARD THAT, ASSHAT!" -Came from an above doorway, in a slight echo.
"Don't get your expectations high for that." The Deathclaw clenched her teeth tightly. "I'll cut my only weapons off to get away from THAT."
"I know, Hancock's a handful..."
"How do you deal with it?"
"With HIM, you mean?"
"Fine."
"I just do. He's a good friend. Albeit a noisy, socially impaired variant of the world's most adamant capitalist- but ya' know, he's alright past the slight insanity."
"His behavior is tolerable to you because... He supports you?"
"Yep!"
She was still silent when Hancock called back again from up.
"SIR! SIR! Look! I found a Teddy Bear to match my Chef Hat!"
Sanford was speechless as the robot fluttered down from above- the stupid hat placed atop his chassis, his claw excitedly shoving a mildewy, two-hundred year old stuffed animal in his face with gusto.
The sad children's toy flapped around as the Mr. Gutsy held it by the neck scruff.
"I'll name him Sergeant Biggerworth!" Hancock proclaimed.
"My God! You flying trash-compactor, can you take ANYTHING seriously?!"
"It's very serious! Sergeant Biggerworth can be our new logistics manager!"
"You short-circuited electric toothbrush! Gimme' that!"
The Deathclaw already had her face hidden in a tight clenching claw- when a set of bulky, fat feet rumbled a walkway above where the heroes stood.
Green, bulbous, muscular arms raised a cylindrical barrel- and a deep, raggedy voice cried out-
"Go BOOM, humies'!"
CWWK
Sanford raised a brow- turned around with his shotgun aimed, other gauntlet slapping away the bear from Hancock's clasp.
"Oh... SHIT-!" Sanford never finished his sentence- and Hancock never finished his cry of rage at having 'Sergeant Biggerworth' mishandled by the, in quote- 'dumb, vine-swinging simian'- he called a friend.
A splaying hand.
That's what the descending shadow looked like.
-It opened up in mid-air, and a gravitational force of physical entanglement threw all three members to the ground in a dusty rumble.
Hancock clanked across the concrete floor, the Deathclaw growled and hissed in agitation- and Sanford wheezed and gave off a collection of 'Ow!'s from being rattled about in the suit.
Attempting to squirm, Sanford found his gun had been tossed away- he heard a stretching, crackling sound whilst he and his companions struggled. It sounded like...
"-Rope?" Sanford mumbled, leaning forwards with his helmet, and seeing a cris-crossed pattern of lengths covering him, the Deathclaw, and Hancock in a sack-like enwrapping.
They'd been shot by a net-gun.
Holy crap, people still used those?
"-I gawt-em, bahs! I gawt um!"
-Oh... These weren't... PEOPLE, per say.
An ugly, green, fat humanoid pranced out of the shadows like a goon towards them- a makeshift scrap spear held in its bulky fingers, it stopped to stand over the wriggling mess and point at it with the tip of his weapon.
The Deathclaw was snarling- and if now BOTH of her arms weren't straddled, she would've been tearing the net up and eventually tearing the assailants up too.
-Instead, all the three of them could do was watch as several other large upright shadows emerged from the upper levels of the mill's walkway- muscular, hunched and imposing creatures.
Super Mutants.
A whole gang of them.
The one that had netted them was shoved away under the grip of a large, mechanical limb- it looked like something bolted together with car-parts over grids of circuitry, and plastic meshes.
The robotic limb was festooned with human skulls- tied in clumps around a barrel-like forearm with strings laced through eye and nostril holes. A hand made from synthetic fingers gripped the netter's shoulder, and pushed him aside.
"Well, looke' 'ere boys!" A deeper voice rang. "-Thaz' enuff' meat fer' da' week!"
The biggest Super Mutant Sanford had ever seen bent down over the net, and prodded at the rope with his organic fingers, the opposites of the robotic ones on the other arm.
"Dey' gott'a metuul man!"
"Not-good... Not good, NOT GOOD!" Sanford whispered. "-Han'! Do something!"
"I'm stuck! HELP ME, SANFORD!" Hancock responded, muffled. The robot shook violently, and the Deathclaw shifted in a quick jerk from a disturbance underneath where she sprawled. "THE IGUANA SAT ON ME, SIR! HEEEEELLLLLPPPPP!"
"BE QUIET!" The Deathclaw barked, bucking her hips back, and giving off a high-pitched metal clung.
"You just loosened the most aching bolt on my chassis..." Hancock reported, suddenly lacking volume, still muffled. "You should be a back-therapist, birth-defect lady!"
"Oh... FUCK you!" The Deathclaw hollered. "Just-FUCK YOU!"
"-One thing to learn from me, is to NEVER take my sprocket-pump insults seriously, you free-love hippie freak!"
"Both of you are just... Unbelievable." Sanford growled.
"I'M UNBELIEVABLE?!"
"-She's unbelievable?!"
"Yeah. Yeah you both are."
"Dese' humies' not right in 'ead." One Super Mutant commented.
"Naht all' humies!" Another added.
"Deffyclaw'!"
"And' robo-peepol'!"
"Can we' eet' robo-peepol'?"
"Lez' fine' out!"
The net sack was lifted, on two sides- by two pairs of green hands, gradually taking the Deathclaw and Sanford higher into the air- while Hancock was unpeeled from the floor mid-rant, squashed between the rope lines and the reptile's back.
"-HEY! What are you Commie-sucking mothers' doing?! I'll EAT you! I'll eat YOU ALL- You dirty- SONS OF BITCHES! I'll find Sergeant Biggerworth! AND WE'LL SKEWER! ALL! OF! YOUR! FACES!"
Sanford just closed his eyes and sighed at the now horrible luck he was having.
The Super Mutants carried the bundled group hammock-style- Sanford's armor groaning and creaking from the weight, the rope pulling, Deathclaw going silent in mourning. Soon, they were outside. Soon, the Mutants were taking them somewhere, probably no better than those places Sanford had been remembering horror stories of.
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The square was divided by a long, story-high arm of rubble that extended out from the blown-open side of a large square commercial structure. Wind howled over the chins of tens of jagged, stone pieces that protruded in ridges and fissures from the cracked concrete at their feet.
Looming shadows of tens of buildings cut off direct sight of the constant gray sky of Maryland- they stood there always, partially translucent to show slivers of sunlight through huge trenches and broken walls across their heights.
Mixed with the tiny breeze was the hollow patter of quite distanced gunfire- as, there was always some kind of hanging ambience to do with that subject near and in the city.
On the other side of that concrete debris was the exact goal that Laslar and his squads had been fighting towards tirelessly for the last few days. A Brotherhood defensive position- safeguarding the farthest western flank towards the gates of the Citadel.
Old United States army barricades, mounds of sandbags and a dug-in trench position behind that were originally put up by the Brotherhood to keep the masses of Super Mutants plaguing D.C away from the less defended 'Walls' of their home.
-Laslar had been intending to strafe the area with Vertibirds- but the recent anti-air installments in the Citadel had made a small-scale aerial attack a less then appetizing proposition. According to the crews that had escaped the Citadel's newest wrath- the Brotherhood had found a trove to wire up.
Autocannons, laser turrets- rumors were spreading around that a group of Brotherhood from the Midwest had shipped over some kind of self-propelled weapon to turn to the skies.
The point was- there was so much flak coming from the Citadel, that Vertibirds were the last thing Laslar wanted to have dropping him off at the streets surrounding. The travels on foot were brutal, and they took casualties- but it was better than ALL of them dying in a single shot for no reason.
Still, Laslar could feel his infamous temper getting the better of him as all his operatives stood around with no real order.
Laslar was used to having commanding officers work with the men he shot the enemy beside- used to having the soldiers working alongside his independent operation possessing some direction.
Here, only sergeant Luft had command seconded to his- Ruffous wasn't fit to take over for both his and Luft's squad- thus, the Superintendent was stuck babysitting, and it pissed him off.
They were the ENCLAVE, the fiercest military organization in the world- the feared 'Boogeymen' that crushed whoever spoke out against them.
-Yet for all those titles, they couldn't even get the war in D.C. sorted out... Laslar still had squads in Nevada, playing frickin' hopscotch with the NCR. This was a train, going down the drain.
He'd considered... DOING something, about Eden, sometimes.
The President was that bad.
Laslar had a good mind to use his position of power to stage a coup.
Eden was going to get them all killed.
Ever since his body rotted away, and they slid his brain inside the computer mainframe, Eden had increasingly used his rank to figuratively go berserk.
"Sergeant Ruffous," Laslar said over his shoulder. "Straight ahead. Set up. Wait for my order."
"Aye-aye." Ruffous responded- rolling his neck, and making the hellfire helmet model creak from the movement. Toting his Incinerator, he and his five men footworked around the huddled bunch of Laslar, Luft, and the two soldiers remaining.
-Two soldiers, and one less than before. Laslar almost took off his helmet and spat on the guy they airlifted out.
'Grazed the gut' they said.
COWARD, Laslar said.
-Laslar had his hand draped past his leg in a one-cap kneel. It flicked back and forth in a twitch he had developed over the years- occasionally, he tried to snap his fingers and, and only met a scrunch of steel as result.
The stress of managing intercontinental warfare, logistics, going into the field and shooting- Laslar had been trained since birth to do so for the glory of the Enclave Military, but even with all that conditioning- he had been doing this for thirty years.
Thirty years ran his nerves raw- he had the damned twitch with his hand, his face was a constant expression of sneering- interacting with his coworkers outside the armor and without a gun grew harder and harder.
Laslar didn't exactly give a hoot what anyone thought of his appearance, or his presentation... But as he watched Ruffous collection of heavy grunts thud across the plaza, he found his jaw clenched tightly.
Looking over at Luft- the sergeant just slipped in a battery to his Laser Sniper rifle, and nodded.
"Sir?"
"Brotherhood's just across the plaza," Laslar said. "We're gonna' flank from the right. Engage, pick off guys out of cover, blow shit up. Ruffous is going to piss on their parade when we start falling back."
"Aye."
"Minimal casualties people- we're four against at least thirty. Follow me."
The last line sounded utterly ridiculous- even to Laslar, and he was the unfortunate schmuck who had to say it.
Eden wouldn't have sent in another asset for a job like this, Laslar and his squads were elite class, and he had taken on three or four times his own number in the past.
The catch with that though- was that those past engagements, he had been able to use extensive guerilla warfare to harry the enemy, screw up supply routes, kill guys at night sort of thing. HERE, he was taking four elite soldiers, and throwing them at a defense line.
It was a problem, of course.
"Cannons." He muttered, all four pairs of powered boots thudding against the cracked pavement around him.
Two of his soldiers had traded out their old armory for airlifted supplies that evacuated their wounded comrade beforehand.
They were bulky, big, shoulder mounted weapons- kind of appearing bazooka-like.
These were the new 'Tesla Cannons' and they had been recently developed from the Capital Rig, and Eden had started sending them out to as many ground battalions as possible.
Luckily by Eden's effort- mainly because the President knew some of Laslar's missions required big guns, and also because he lacked patience to deal with the Superintendent's temper- Laslar had a decent number of Tesla Cannons at his disposal.
The Capital Rig was usually relying on mining operations under the Atlantic Ocean to supply 'Extra Effort' side-expositions such as individual-man gun development- thus, Tesla Cannons, probably in a few years, would start to become scarce.
And then we can all question how GOOD they really were... Laslar thought.
Cannons arching on the men's shoulders as they jogged- Laslar shoved down heavily with his legs, and jumped as high as the Power Armor allowed- rumbling the earth and sending clatters of dust falling from nearby rubble mounds.
He landed a foot below the level he'd jumped from- giving off a PMM of landing, cracking the pavement his feet centered.
He moved ahead, and behind him, his soldiers- and Luft -followed.
PMM
PMM
PMM PMM
Forming an archway above their heads- the collapsed face of a skyscraper blocked the sky directly- it extended several feet to act as a 'Roof' to the hideaway the rubble mountains in this section of the city had made.
Watching his step, he found that eventually, the grounded surface they ran down, morphed into not street, but another face of a building.
At one point the marked, broken, and scorched pavement fell away, and the walls of internal structural rooms, layered over each other to create another makeshift route ahead.
This was another 'Fold'-of sorts, from the laid-down building hanging over them.
D.C. had been turned into a hellish world- one flipped, skewered, and taped back together to become a confusing maze of endless corridors, upside-down structures, and blocked doorways. This was how the 'Inferiors' the local fauna- Raider bands and Super Mutants -always reappeared in parts claimed CLEAR, by both the Brotherhood and Enclave.
There were hidden routes of travel everywhere- and nobody had the equipment to close off all the routes they found, and arguably, blowing closed some of these passages would just make NEW ones.
"Watch your step." Laslar grunted over his shoulder. "Stay away from the windows."
"Windows?" Luft joked, sidestepping a cracked pane of glass that fell into a slightly lower square level of the wall.
"I don't know what's below us, or inside these ruins. Don't fall. We won't find you."
The Superintendent reached the edge of their rubble level before the squad did- the guys with the Tesla Cannons having to practically walk around all the obstacles. It just made travel harder.
Laslar didn't have the patience for it.
Leaping down another incline of debris- he landed on the smashed roof of a rusting car- indenting the entire chassis to the point the hood and trunk lifted each a few inches from the ground.
CCRRRKKK
-The noise that metal made when it was wrought in such a way. Horrible.
Laslar stepped down from the vehicle- ignoring the thuds of his allies following.
Divided by a mere few feet of rubble, the smashed bulk of a completely flattened passenger bus- the land dipped down in a hill, and after that was a broken, crater-ridden road that was cris-crossed with the Brotherhood of Steel.
Sandbag piles and walls rounded scrap bunkers- there was a trench that had been dug out right down from one curb to the other in a straight line ahead of the sandbag fortifications- it was supported with wooden struts.
Laslar could identify- whilst he crouched to observe -makeshift anti-grenade defense that was wrung on both sides of the trench, in the form of a tiny mesh fence held aloft by stakes. A field of barbed wire made a small sea before all of that.
As if to add insult to injury, the Brotherhood had set up mines before the barbed wire started, AND in with the wire itself.
The buildings that capped the road on both sides, acted as natural barricades to prevent people from flanking this one-way defense- it forced attacks to funnel in one direction, into the wire and the killing field established by the soldiers garrisoned behind it.
The bunkers had heavy weapons teams in them, no doubt- from the distance, silvery helmed heads and their craniums slithered to and fro inside the trench and behind the sandbags.
"That's not going to be easy." Luft said as he scanned the area with his gun's scope. "In fact, I'll break it now, and say we don't have enough people to go against that."
"Maybe not in an effort to TAKE it," Laslar chimed. "I just want to weaken it. Make it easy pickings for the Super Mutants, or Raiders."
"Shoot and displace?"
"Precisely. You," Laslar pointed at one of the Cannon operators. "-And you," The other. "Stay back. Fire off a shot at both sides of the fortifications behind the trench when me and Luft engage. Relocate, fire again. Sergeant Ruffous?"
"Aye-aye?"
"Once I order the retreat, you and your men fire on the closest bunker until we are clear, understand?"
"Yes sir."
Switching off the communication bead- Laslar jabbed his hand forwards, the soldiers started spreading out.
"Sergeant Luft,"
"Yes sir?"
"You and your man here, take to the left, I'll take right."
"Sir."
Laslar primed his Plasma Archer, checked the battery, and hunched down for a controlled sprint towards the Brotherhood lines.
The Tesla Cannons had better work as good as the egg-heads in the Capital Rig said they did.
Otherwise, they'd all be dead.
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