A War of Unclear Reasons and Uncertain Proportions
3 Weeks Later
I entered the NCR's staging area north of the Shady Sands Bazaar in the morning after my graduation from officer school. It was still early-January of the new year 2242 and I was readying myself to go to a war? As I looked over the sprawling camp, I took the moment to again consider where I was one year before: hiding from slavers in an abandoned barn outside Klamath and staring up at a doomed aerial vehicle. I still couldn't believe how much had happened to me and what I got involved in during the course of a single year.
I entered the camp with all my equipment and uniforms in a large rucksack on my back and took in the scene. Almost 300 brown and tan uniforms went about their business through the green tents, and equipment brahmin lounged around.
An officer approached me in a green beret out of nowhere and said, "Little lost, Lieutenant?..."
I nodded and he said, "You must be the new officer assigned to 1st Recon."
I nodded again, and he gave motion for me to follow. I walked with the officer through the camp and turning around the corner of a tent, I saw a dozen giant soldiers in that grey BOS power armor standing around. Before I could study them, I blindly walked through a tent flap and stood before five men in identical uniforms with red berets.
It was there that I was introduced to the commanders of my new unit. I was the newest lieutenant of the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion Alpha Company Sharpshooters. I met with Captain Wesley who was in charge of Alpha Company, and the lieutenant of 1st platoon, 2nd Lieutenant Martinez. There, I was put in charge of 2nd platoon and given a desperately needed chance to ask questions. The captain saw my file and knew everything not confidential about me. Basically, he knew I was a crack-shot and did work with intel. It was clear that I was practically brand new to the military environment, so he gave me the rundown about the unit and our standing orders.
1st Recon was a new battalion in the NCR Military formed for special missions into raider territories. The army was spread out down south securing NCR territories and townships from the never-ending activities of raiders and outlaws or mutants. 1st Recon was formed by proven marksmen to conduct scouting and sniping operations in the absence of NCR Rangers who were focused on combating slavers and super mutants up north. When word of the Enclave was disclosed by Ambassador Chakrabarti and verified by Brotherhood Intel, the army was mobilized for use on the coast. That fact brought us to our orders. The army here was going to head to the sovereign city of San Fran to monitor incidents in the city and set up a forward operating base (FOB) for a campaign against the Enclave. Upon arrival at San Fran, we would offer military assistance to the locals given recent events and await BOS Intel.
With all that, I was dismissed and introduced to my platoon. 2nd platoon had 18 red berets divided into 9 two-man teams where one was designated a spotter and the other, sniper. Alongside the 18 sharpshooters, I was in charge of another 12 typical troopers who were involved in the platoon's logistics and radio communications. I spent that whole day getting to know the people in my sniper teams and the ever-essential logistics and comms troopers. I spent that night in my designated cot amongst my new command and readied myself for the army's departure the next day.
In the morning, the fact I didn't have a weapon hit me, and Captain Wesley escorted me to the battalion's supply carts. While the entire army packed up for the road west, an armorer handed me a weapon I was very familiar with; a .308 DKS Semi-Automatic Sniper Rifle… This time, with an actual scope that had "Zoom in knobs". Soon enough, the army was ready and began a long march to the city once called San Francisco.
This march with the NCR Military was unlike any caravan run I'd ever been on before. The entire force began to march west, but went in intervals spread out for miles. My platoon had to wait a solid hour after the march started to even move. Military marches did this tactic of spreading a force out in case of ambush. When there's 15 yards between people, one well-placed grenade won't have nearly as bad an impact as a clustered-up caravan. So, the 300+ soldier army headed west into the lifeless desert.
The march was easy but long, and I don't even think deathclaws were stupid enough to attack this many armed soldiers; even though we were spread thin for almost two miles straight. So, the days drifted bye slowly and I was relieved that the only gear I had to really carry was my weapon. All the food, water, lodging, and other supplies were loaded up on brahmin between the thin columns of troops. When night fell, the army was far along the caravan road and each unit had their own camps set up along the trail. On those nights, I was able to meet and really get to know my new men and superiors. My superiors were very kind and easily gathered that I was new to the military. There would have been much more shit talking towards me if they weren't already somewhat familiar with my interesting background with intel and the Covert Ops. So, when mornings on the march came, the army proceeded west.
After a couple days, I passed the turnoff I took to the isolated military base and saw the few crumpled remains of the prewar road. Aside from the troop column all scanning the surroundings, nobody seemed to be aware that we were passing the site of a destroyed super mutant army from decades ago. After a few more days, we passed the lifeless desert and winded up the prewar roads to the city of San Fran. The flat deserts turned into rolling hills of faded green and still scorched trees larger than anything I'd ever seen. Trees surrounded us on the march and the hills got steeper for another few days. Finally, after about one week of marching with the army and camping in the night, the 1st Recon section reached a summit overlooking the ruins of San Fran.
I'd seen plenty of ruined old world cities before, but something about San Fran seemed especially ominous. From atop the hill, dark grey ruins covered the area around peninsulas and the bay was littered with the ruins of giant prewar vessels whose bows or tails stuck up from the murky grey waters like sharp rocks. The post war city lived up to its name as a trade city by the constant caravan traffic, but each passing trader spoke of fighting through swarms of raiders battling "Hubologists" in the outer ruins. I didn't know what a "Hubologist" was, but some said the fighting calmed down upon the arrival of NCR forces. So, we marched on into the ruins, and the hills never leveled out. Word from the spearhead came to the 1st Recon section through a runner who spoke of the "Shi" allowing us to set up south of the "Vagrant's Dock." I again had no idea what was going on, so I simply followed my orders.
Finally, the caravan traffic was packing the roads and all too suspicious of the several hundred-armed men in brown uniforms entering the San Francisco Peninsula. So, I followed the train of troops around the streets and eventually saw the gates to the post war San Fran. The entrance was signified by a large market spread throughout the ruins, armed Asian men with big energy weapons, and a giant archway from one side of the avenue to the other: sort of like the Reno Sign. The archway was very elaborate and bore similar architecture to buildings shown on prewar propaganda posters with headlines like, "Shanghai Has Fallen" or "Forbidden City Destroyed to US Bombers." However, I didn't get to see the post war San Fran that day. As night was falling, we entered the docks for all the prewar shipping vessels and marched past hundreds of downtrodden squatters. We reached the NCR Military's established base of operations in a section of the ruins where engineers were already busy fortifying the place. Walls were erected, barbed wire was raised, sentries posted, and units claimed buildings as HQs or barracks.
I followed the rest of 1st Recon who began setting up the equipment in a hollow single-story community center towards the entrance of the military complex. I got my cot off the brahmin, set out my gear with the rest of the unit, and wondered exactly what I was supposed to do. As the entire military worked to establish their presence in the San Francisco area, I approached Captain Wesley about what exactly was happening.
The next week was non-stop business. My platoon, 2nd Platoon, was charged with securing the NCR's base, now named, "Camp Pacifico." I had to designate all my sniper teams to the rooftops of the new camp's buildings and simply keep an eye out for raiders or trespassers. The other sniper platoon did much the same, just on different rooftops. The rest of the regular army stayed put.
It took a few days to get everything organized, create shift rosters, set up the radio equipment, take inventory, and coordinate supplies with local caravans. At the same time, I wondered; what are we doing here?
After the army was situated, which was top priority, even Captain Wesley was left in the dark. Eventually, Captain Wesley was clued in on the whole scheme, then orders were sent down to myself and my co-lieutenant, Lieutenant Martinez. The occupiers of post war San Fran were a large group of Chinese descendants calling themselves the, "Shi" and they wanted no part of the NCR in their city. So, we were restricted from entering Chinatown and weren't allowed entry into the Vagrant Docks. The Shi allowed us to set up our base under those strict rules, so the army was forced to contract local caravan traffic to gather supplies from inside the city. This situation with the San Fran residents made me wonder; weren't we there to battle the Enclave or something? Captain Wesley agreed, and explained how the BOS had their forces monitoring the north and scouting out Enclave movements which were becoming more frequent along the coast north of San Fran.
Captain Wesley knew of my involvement in the Covert Ops, and asked what the Enclave was or even where they were. Nobody in the whole unit had any contact with the Enclave, and so they looked to me for answers. Unfortunately, I couldn't give any answers, because I was still unsure of how my work correlated to the situation. Also, the Enclave's ambitions were still largely unknown to Detective Paul, Captain McNeil, and myself even at the end of the investigation.
The NCR Congress declared war on the Enclave, but nobody was really sure of why exactly (myself included). All I knew was that the Enclave's support of the northern slaver activity, involvement in the chem trade, and acquisition of industrial chemicals were supported by BOS intel, and that was apparently enough to put us where we were. None of the politics really mattered to us at the time. The NCR military was stuck in a small section by the San Fran docks while the BOS scouted Enclave movements far to the north. Nobody was really sure why we were there, who the Enclave is, or what's next.