Atomic Renegade

by Shaneman17

When the hearts of men grow as black as the void and no hope can be found, sometimes all it takes is a single spark to banish the darkness. When a man from a forgotten time returns home he finds a war torn galaxy waiting for him. What is a man to do for those who live in such grim darkness but to drag them kicking and screaming into the light.

2. Ship of Wonders

Look I know this took a while to come out but I have a good reason. Video games and work. That is all.

Now to address a few comments. Now this chapter is more about exposition than combat and know that the Zetan ship has FTL but does not use the warp. They were amoral creatures of science from beyond our stars and probably would never even consider the Realm of Souls to be a possibility let alone a valid means of intergalactic travel. Also I am disappointed no one caught that the Athena armor was from Fallout van buren.

Now to address some reviews.

coduss- I'll try to be better about my grammar in the future and what most fanfic writers think of Warhammer 40k gear as beyond compare in combat but they mostly forget that the first rule of warfare is to always adapt, yet they tend to make their characters more stagnant, preferring to keep to their old tech without evolving their fighting style or using their enemies weaknesses properly.

Anderson warrior- He had three hundred years before his cryo induced nap. Mr. Prime was been more than reverse engineered and I like the assaultron rifle idea. As for FEV, Albert has seen too many outcomes of that going horribly wrong for everyone to really research it in depths. Besides I like to think the emperor used it as a basis for the thunder warriors.

To the guest- Most RPG characters are swiss army knives and he may have all this tech, that doesn't mean he can win every fight with just that. As for the Tau, well he would see far too much of the Old World in them to support them. Plus I personally hate the space weebs. The story does have renegade in the title and that will become more and more apparent later on.

Da Warboss- There will be dakka. More and more dakka *whispers* Nuka storm bolter.

PTL- he would absolutely love to get his hands on all the gear he could and as for psyker well he doesn't actually have any good counters save for tremendous will power. I mean in the Fallout games you stumble in your several mind control experiments and are able to push through it all.

Other guest- No he doesn't know about fulgrim as he only stole his information from the Imperium and I do not believe anyone really knows about that.

Ranger Aznov- yeah I mean when the games end the characters are all one man armies with inhuman skill and powerful weaponry. Now combine them into one character and you have a huge badass and that's not mentioning just how smart and resourceful they can be.

Spaceship! Spaceship! Spaceship Spaceship spaceship! SPACESHIIIIP!

-Benny, Lego Movie

Chapter 2: Ship of Wonders

"Yes! Burn! Grovel and scream as you die! For as your city falls to annihilation know it was us who did it! For this city is but the first! Next the world and then the solar system! THE GALAXY WILL BURN!"

"TOASTER SHUT UP!" I tossed an empty soda bottle at the omnicidal kitchen appliance as it gazed out the window at the destroyed city. It was a glancing blow but it knocked the murderous bread cooker on its front bread slot.

As it so happened the bar was not open. The rest of the planet's cities were in a state of emergency and every off duty Guardsmen and PDF trooper was called to arms after the cultist's video was aired. Then it was put into an even higher state of emergency when the conquered city was seemingly destroyed by an orbital strike. Now normally that would be a call for celebration at the defeat of their enemies but the fact that it wasn't an Imperial ship that did it put them on even more edge. It didn't help that the one image they got was grainy and indistinct save for the general shape of the Zeta. It was by chance that the locals managed to get the picture as they were scanning the local space for either a possible invading fleet or loyal ships willing to aid them against the cultists and that scanner briefly found my ship when the Zeta's cloaking devise's power was diverted to the Death Ray. The cloaking was back up and running immediately after the weapon fired but it was enough time to see the ship. Hell, if what some of the stuff I've recently heard on some the more restricted channels down on the planet, some had managed to see the connection between my ship and the "Silver Astartes" that had gone on some small rampage down in Alfons. Apparently the PDF had managed to capture several of the surviving mercenaries, the ones smart enough to run and had spilled their guts to the local authorities about me.

In the end it didn't matter if they connected my fight in the old factory to the destruction of the cultist controlled city. There would be too much attention around here for the foreseeable future. It would be best if I beat feet before an investigation could really be put into action.

"Sally, what's the closest inhabited world other than this one?" I asked the little blue hologram of a girl.

"Let's see that would be the planet Alpine a few systems over. A mostly feudal world but, we could be there in a day." She said without missing a beat.

"Alright then, take us away my First Mate ." I said eliciting a grin from her.

Outside the window, everything looked normal save for the large crater in the world's surface. Then like the television back in the wasteland, it started to get fuzzy as everything erupted into black and white static though you could still make out the shape of the planet. Then with the feeling of electricity running across your skin the outside world became clear again. Though that didn't mean everything looked like it was supposed to.

For starters, this systems sun was supposed to be a bright yellow, not a vibrant purple. The black void of space was now a dirty white with pinpricks of blackness where the stars should be. The world that had been made up of dark grey stone and a few scattered large lakes was now a light grey with the blue water now looking more like lava as it became a peculiar shade of orange.

It had been odd seeing it for the first time. It was just after I had taken down the Institute that it had happened. I had tracked down Shawn as a last request to a dying man outside Vault 111 and found that underground Utopia full of geniuses and morons that I realized that I had been holding myself back. They had created a scientific paradise because they had pushed the limits of what they could do and they had the entire Commonwealth at their disposal despite how small their organization really was. Sure their interests and methods were asinine but if I wanted to bring humanity back from the edge of extinction I needed to step up my game. For years I had ignored the Zeta and it's technology for fear that I might cause irreparable harm to either the ship or Earth. It was only by sheer luck that I didn't actually hit the planet when I accidentally fired the death ray during the escape attempt.

This strange reality overlaid with our own had been how the Zetan's achieved faster than light travel. Here black was white, up was down, and light was slow while solid objects could go faster than reality would ever let them. When I first saw it I was reminded of that old book by Lewis Carroll I read back in 101. Thus it had just seemed right to give the dimension a proper name, the Mirror.

As the world outside changed, I was glad see everything was still the same in here. Then without warning the world was gone and the blackness of the stars streaked by as we went faster than light towards our next destination.

Atomizing the Athena armor, I walked over and grabbed the toaster and attached him to my belt by his handle. Though I didn't particularly like the threats of heating coil based doom he threw my way.

"-not to mention the indignity of being defeated by a bottle. Just for that I'll melt it down and pour it down your throat! How's that for thirst quenching?!" It ranted.

"Fine then I guess you don't want to watch me tryout my new toys?" I asked.

"Oh. I'll stop threatening unholy vengeance upon you…for now."

I gave small grin. It was always adorable when the toaster threatened to kill me. It also seemed that he was the most ecstatic at finding out the state of the galaxy. I was almost concerned he would start worshiping that Khorne guy but thankfully his opinion on the dark god was less reverence and more like he were a rival as the toaster proclaimed that it would slaughter the blood God and take his rightful place on the skull throne. I wished the toaster luck with that seeing as he couldn't even move around without assistance.

Walking over to the teleportation matrix, I set the controls to the weapons lab. One flash of light later and I was in a large room with multiple tables holding several hundred weapons of differing makes and models. Ignoring the arsenal of weapons, I made my way towards the ship's firing range. I wasn't surprised to see that I wasn't alone.

"Beep-boop beep!" The round floating robot exclaimed before rushing over.

"Hey ED-E, I'm doing better. Thanks for asking. Now how's the lab coming along, I don't think it was too bad compared to the other labs." I asked. It seemed that over the course of my several thousand years trip, time had gotten to some of the more delicate technology I had lying around and certain machines either needed tuned up, taken apart and repaired or just plain scrapped and replacing. Thankfully all of my mechanical crew were spared that fate by being shut down and routine checkups over the centuries.

"Brrrm bap."

"Oh just the holographic targets huh? What about the matter transformer?"

"Beep."

"Oh good. That would have been a pain to fix it up. Can you get it warmed up for me? I'll be needing it in a few minutes."

I got an affirmative beep in reply before ED-E floated off. Pulling up my pipboy I selected the gang member's stolen rifle and activated the nearby terminal to start recording.

"Alright this is Albert Grimm testing recently pilfered weaponry from ganger members and mercenaries that appeared to be Imperial Guard deserters. Current weapon seems to be an automatic rifle," I pressed the button on the weapon's side and slid the magazine out. "that appears to fire something similar to the 7.62 millimeter round but appears to be caseless. Good for reducing weight and reducing materials needed but at the cost of being very delicate when compared to a standard round."

I slid a round out and set it to the side before reinserting the magazine. "The weapon seems to be made of some hybrid of metal and plastic that reduces the weapons weight without sacrificing the it's tensile strength. Now to test the weapon." I said as I pressed a button to my right.

There was a flash of light down range and a man appeared in the middle of room. At least it looked like a man. He was of average height and lighter skinned with dark brown eyes and seemed comfortable to be standing there without a thread of clothing to cover his body. What really tipped a person off that this was not an ordinary human were several things. First was that there was not a hair to be found on him, his eyes were all but dead to the world as they unflinchingly gazed forward, his breathing was too precise, too mechanical and his body unnaturally stiff. And his junk was missing, that was a big sign right there. Where a man would have his reproductive organs hanging, there was nothing but smooth skin like that of a doll.

Of course this was all on purpose. What better way to test the effectiveness of a weapon against humans than to test them on a human target? Of course using a real human was wrong for both practical and moral reasons. Instead I had used the old Gary clones as templates for my living test dummies, with a few tweaks. No need to waste biomaterial on giving them hair or genitalia when they were just going to get shot and they had such simple minds they could barley breath on their own let alone have anything that could pass for a coherent thought. I could walk up to one and stab it several times and it wouldn't even flinch as it didn't even register pain the same way an animal would, I should know as I did just that several times when testing the clones . Sometimes I wonder if I still carried a grudge against the Garys, but then I would shoot a Gary in the face and forget that train of thought. Of course I still needed data about what kind of damage a weapon could do so I adjusted their minds to register the damage and that data was retrieved by a brain scanner built into the ceiling. In a way the clones were more like plants, fleshy human shaped plants.

I flicked what was obviously the safety on the rifle off and pulled the trigger. "Firing." A burst of automatic fire sailed down range and punched several holes into the Gary, though a few rounds went wide as I adjusted for the recoil. Letting up on the gunfire, I glanced over at a nearby monitor to view the damage I received from the dummy's mind. Nothing really of note except that it did damage congruent with a normal 7.62 round.

"What? That's it? I thought the guns were super big now!" The toaster commented from my hip.

"Weapon seems similar in stopping power to the average rifle but the metallic plastic the rifle is made from presents a down side. While it does decrease the weight, it requires more effort to keep the weapon on target as there is less weight to keep the recoil minimized." I flicked the safety back on, removed the magazine, ejected the chambered round and set the weapon to the side.

Another flash of light and I was holding the still bloodied chainsaw-sword hybrid. "Next weapon is the melee weapon retrieved from a cultist of Khorne. It appears to be made of the same metallic plastic, as do the teeth. While extremely effective against an unarmored foe, it lacks the required cutting power to truly penetrate sturdier armor. A possible solution maybe to replace the teeth with ones made from saturnite."

"Well, hello there baby. What's a fine looking piece of iron doing here with a guy like him?" The toaster said and I could feel his heating coils start to warm up.

"Shut it. Anyways, I have already seen the effectiveness of the weapon and no further testing is required at this time, only after its disassembly and schematics documented." I was just about to put it down when it roared to life in my hand. I jerked the blade away from me as the roaring teeth almost seemed to lunge for my throat. I wrested with the weapon for a few seconds before it's roar settled down to an idle growl and held it as far from me as I could. Not trusting the weapon to not startup on its own again, I set it in a nearby and fairly deep metal box then activated the blue force field that functioned as the lid.

"Ha! She's a feisty one, I like her!" The appliance exclaimed.

"The chainsword also appears to have some form of malfunction as it activated without cause. Best to look at its design in detail upon disassembly." As I said that, I heard the roar come from the containment chest with just as much intensity. I raised an eyebrow at that. The fact it activated again when I mentioned disassembly caught my attention. Once was coincidence, but twice was suspicious. "Note to self, see if living weapons are considered possible now."

"Don't worry babe, I'll be waiting for ya once Al puts you back together!"

Putting the possibly living cultist weapon out of my mind I brought out several laser weapons I had collected from the dead mercenaries. After testing them out for an extended period and going through several dozen Garys I got a good read on the standard laser rifle of the forty first millennium. Over all it was all right. It's standard casing was again made of that metallic plastic and it's weight didn't throw off its aim thanks to the near nonexistent recoil as well as seeming to come in several models, but they performed mostly the same with a few minor differences. Some shot red lasers while some shot blue and they were all powered by an energy pack under the rifle that could be removed and replaced like a standard magazine. They were weaker than the standard laser rifle from my time but seemed to make up for it by being able to fire somewhere around one hundred and fifty shots, though it seemed to vary on the model. The lasers burned into flesh easily but also cauterized the wound, continuing to cook the flesh after the initial hit. Unfortunately it wasn't quite durable enough to handle the testing as the barrel needed replacing around the fifty shot mark. Thankfully it seemed to be an easy fix as I removed the barrel and replaced it with one from another laser rifle.

The Captain's weapon on the other hand performed well. While only firing around thirty lasers before seemingly needing to recharge, those thirty rounds had plenty of power to burn through a body and a into the back wall. It's backpack power source was heavy enough for a weaker man to struggle carrying it but not enough hinder a well trained soldier. It's durability was good as well, only needing time to cool down rather than have the barrel break.

Satisfied with my findings I packed up the weapons and just picked up the chest with the sword still locked up, and took them over to the main weapons lab. In the middle of one of the testing rooms was a block of steel sitting at waist height , about six feet long an three feet wide. It's surface was a grid of dark and light blues with a small keyboard jutting out the side. ED-E was off to the side, Using a small mechanical appendage to mess with an ornate looking machine made of wood and brass. On top of the machine was a circular screen that admitted a light blue holographic display showing several items ranging from food, drinks and cigarettes to medical supplies, ammunition and weapons. The base of the machine still had an old steel plate depicting a woman raising her arms to the side to pick up the hem of her dress. The initials S and M could be seen under her arms.

I set the chest down to the side and pulled out the ballistic rifle, setting it on the table top. Turning to ED-E I asked him if he was close to finishing up the small repairs when he gave a small chirp of agreement. There was a low hum as a few more lights on the machine came on. I put a few commands into the tables keyboard and a few blue force fields shot up from the edge of the table and extended to the ceiling, cordoning off the table's surface. The surface brightened considerably and just as it got close to blinding, there was a pop and the light dimmed. Now with the light gone the force fields lowered and the rifle was nowhere to be found.

Turning around, I walked over to where ED-E was floating. I gently nudged him to the side and scrolled through the holographic display looking for a very particular weapon. I grinned once I got to the weapons category and spied the image of a very familiar rifle. Selecting the gun, I pressed the confirm button and with another flash of light, the weapon appeared where the hologram had been, floating in place with the help of a few small magnetic fields. Grabbing it out of the air, I unloaded the magazine and saw it was full of bullets ready to be fired and further examining weapon, I saw that it was almost exactly like the rifle I had just dematerialized save that the small scratches that were now gone and the once dirty metal looked brand new. I kept my grin on my face as I turned back to the machine to see that the holographic display was back. I re-elected the rifle but rather than have the machine make another, I clicked a tab on the side and was rewarded with something important to any weapon. It's schematics.

The holo-vending machine was an absolute miracle of technology, even compared to the tech of the forty first millennium. It did more than just dispense items but actually fabricated them by manipulating matter. I had first seen them in a misguided treasure hunt in the old Sierra Madre hotel and casino during my time in the Mojave. It used the hotel chips as currency and I thought it had simply teleported items stored elsewhere but no, it actually broke down the material that the chips were made of, rearranged the matter until it was turned into the selected item. They were unfortunately limited in what they could produce as the hotel management did not want their guests getting their hands on anything destructive or particularly deadly such as a weapon, but I found a few holotapes lying around the hotel grounds that allowed access to the more exotic wares.

Once I had gained control of the Big Mountain research facilities, the very same place that invented the vending machines and it's technology, I had access to the master passcode. I had access to the machines programming and therefore had access to every schematic that had been put into the device. Everything from cigarettes to military armaments. I had detailed plans to all those items that gave the exact chemical makeup, the parts needed and how to put it together. Even if I found something that had not been programmed into the device like say a tesla cannon, all I needed to do was have the vending machine dematerialize it and the machine would automatically document every piece that made up the cannon and create it's own schematics for the device. On top of all that, it could break down any material from wood and stone to titanium or even adimantium. Anything could be recycled and therefore a from a pile of garbage could be spawned a fully working suit of power armor. A pile of rusty cans to weapons and ammunition. A broken down car to a nuclear fission generator. And once I had installed them all around Earth, it had changed the dead husks that were cities into thriving metropolises. It was too bad that none probably survived into this day and age.

I was very glad to see that the years of inactivity hadn't seemed to have damaged the device. I glanced back over towards the deconstruction table and saw that it seemed fine as well after its operation in millennia. The table had been an attempt to deconstruct certain objects that were simply too large for the vending machine to properly disassemble, like a suit of power armor. That's where the table came in, functioning like the standard holo-vending machine in dematerializing and creating schematics but not being able to create the objects.

Walking over towards the table I activated it again. I didn't stop with just the ballistic rifle as I moved on to all the laser weapons and the armor pieces. I was not surprised to see just how bare bones the regular rifles actually were but I suppose that meant that repairing the weapon was much easier while the more powerful rifle had a more complex design. The armor was all deconstructed without issue, though I was mildly surprised to see that they were made of new type of alloy, some kind of tough ceramic. The standard armor seemed to be a step above the old steel armor mercenaries in the wastelands used to be so fond of while the Captain's gear seemed similar in strength to medium grade combat armor that was standard for the American military. After that came the chainsword.

I managed to get it out of the containment chest without any issues as I set it on the table. Once the table lit up again and the sword started up on its own once more, though it could only roar in what I guessed was fury as it lay on its side. When the light appeared again, there was a noise accompanying it this time. A horrible scream. Not like a humans, but more like a mix between sparking wires and grinding gears. The scream increased in volume until it started to hurt my ears only to abruptly stop as the light disappeared.

I was fairly sure that swords were NOT supposed to scream like that.

Walking back towards the vending machine, I glanced at the weapons selection again and saw that the sword was there, but it's schematics were…odd. The designs showed it to be similar in design to a Ripper chain-knife but on a larger scale. It also seemed to run off of regular fuel as opposed to an energy cell, that would be something to fix at a later date. It also had strange markings on the inside on several mechanical parts. Some of them caught the eyes while other almost hurt to look at. I was just about to continue to try and figure out just what in the world the cultist had done to his weapon when I realized I had gotten the weapon from a CULTIST. I immediately looked away from the markings and started imputing commands to erase all designs and markings on the chainsword that did not serve any purpose in letting weapon function as intended.

I let out a sigh of relief when I glanced up at the design showing the chainsword with a rather spartan looking design that lacked any decoration or markings of any kind. All function and no form.

"Man, that could have been bad."

"What would have?" The toaster asked.

"Evil markings and runes that probably had some sort of corrupting power. But it all looks good for now so I guess I'll be reassemble you girlfriend later."

"Good! I desire to watch her in action. I mean watching a girl like that tearing someone in half would be fucking glorious!"

I rolled me eyes at that. With my work done, I decided to go checkup on the rest of the ship to see how the repairs were coming along. I made my way towards the nearest teleportation matrix and disappeared with a flash.

…

First stop was the engineering core. Not only was it easily accessible, it was also connected directly to the more important parts of the ship. It also functioned as the main relaxation area.

The engineering core was actually extremely low maintenance with only the occasional cleaning needed. The ships power core was extremely stable and produced very little heat so the room temperature was always at a very comfortable sixty five degrees Fahrenheit. Celsius could fuck off, it was meant for water not people.

The lower floors served no purpose save for some extra storage space so I had removed the few crates a long time ago and brought in several thousand pounds of nutrient rich soil to spread along the floor. With some small safe genetic tamper using old Vault 22 research, I was able to get grass and several other plants to grow with even a few trees sprouting up between the catwalks. They required less water, could survive off of the artificial sunlight lamps I had installed in the ceiling and best of all DIDN'T release toxic spores that were capable of infecting living creatures or turning them into plant zombies.

Several open areas near the entrances to the adjoining wings were taken up by a few tables that could easily be flipped to use as cover, several drink vending machines serving Nuka Cola, Sunset Sarsaparilla and Vim. A few snack machines were available as well, along with a noodle food stand being manned by old protectron, Takahashi. I had apparently managed to steal the robot from Diamond City one night while high and decided to keep the bot around as he was a phenomenal chef. I say apparently as I couldn't quite remember what actually happened that night as Hancock had gotten his necrotic hands on some homemade X-cell from the HalluciGen building. I had apparently also found the treasure of Jamaica Plain, insulted a robot until it exploded and killed a swan. It's probably best if I didn't remember.

Heading towards the old robot assembly, I encountered a small robot yelling at the jukebox while the jukebox ignored the robot and continued to sing the Blues to himself. I walked over and dropped the toaster off with the little robot and asked Muggy to stop bringing the omnicidal devise on to the bridge or anywhere near the death ray. Muggy said he was sorry and rolled away on his singular wheel while the toaster swore murderous vengeance. Again.

After saying hi and chatting with Jefferson for a bit about what music seemed to be popular now a-days, he was not happy to learn that choir music was all the rage, I entered the massive workshop. The darker orange lighting had always seemed an odd choice but it didn't bother me enough to warrant replacing all the light fixtures. As I neared the railings I saw a humanoid shape already there but it was oddly shaped with long blue limbs that ended in rusty three pronged claws. It must have sensed me coming since it turned around and looked me in the eyes with its own single glowing red gaze.

"Oh, greetings Sir. Did you have a pleasant evening?" The thing asked with the voice of a woman.

"It started off bad but it got better. Even managed to have some good old fashioned fun near the end. Thanks for asking Ada." I said patting her metallic shoulder.

"By fun you mean…?"

"Drinking, shooting and some good natured violence."

Ada let out an electronic sigh. "How bad were the damages?"

"Only a local gang and a little over a hundred mercenaries. Annnnddd maybe an entire hostile city."

The robot stared at me for a moment before sighing again. "Well at least it wasn't a continent this time."

"Hey, Australia had it coming!" I said feeling somewhat offended. It wasn't my fault that the entire place had been overrun by monsters that I whole heartedly believed were the devil's unwanted pets. The place had been an insane menagerie of dog sized spiders, crocodiles the size of a bus, as well as bipedal birds that had more in common with a Deathclaw than any bird I had seen! The damn things were almost as bad as the Cazadors or tunnelers. Still nowhere near as bad as the Cazaclaw though. Damn you Borous.

"Anyways forget about Australia. How has it been getting the assembly line back up and running. I may be able to take on a small army but I still wouldn't mind some robotic reinforcements."

"Of course sir. The robot assembly line is seventy-three percent operational and shall be at full capacity once we find the needed material." The robot said.

"Yeah don't worry about it. We'll pick up what we need tomorrow when we get to Alpine. Until then I guess we'll have to settle for what robots are currently operational."

"Yes we have thirty eyebot scouts, twenty Mister Gutsy's, fifteen Assaultrons of various models and ten Sentry bots all armed and armored. Every one synced to your relay grenades and ready to be summoned at a moments notice."

"That's great to hear Ada. Now keep up the good work, I'm going to check up on the rest of the ship."

"Very well. Have a good day Albert."

Saying goodbye I left the robot assembly, made my way through the engineering core and to the hangar bay.

The bay was very dark once upon a time but I had added plenty of light so that there was never a dark corner. The spacious room had a circle of tall pylons surrounding a deep hole that served as the ships docking port. There were several vehicles sitting around the hangar ranging from Zetan recon craft, upgraded vertibirds whose propellers had been replaced with nuclear powered jets engines, a Fury twin barreled heavy assault tank, several refurbished automobiles and my own favored vehicle, the Atom Racer. It was a beautiful piece of machinery, built from the frame of a Lone Wanderer motorcycle, I had it fixed up, replaced the steel with titanium, given it a new coat of red paint and replaced the wheels with magnetic repulsors. The repulsors were similar to the kind found in the eyebots hat kept the robots floating six feet in the air. Of course the Atom Racer was much heavier than an eyebot and required two repulsors to keep it two feet of the ground. The repulsors themselves were shaped like half circles, similar in size and diameter of the original tires. They were installed where the tires had sat with the flat parts of the half circles facing the ground. Now with my upgrades the Atom Racer could go over any terrain with ease while going several hundred miles per hour.

"How on earth did you manage to forget that it is MY duty to repair and polish the cars while it was YOUR job to recalibrate the Fury's targeting systems."

"Ha! You must be haywire. I distinctly recall Mr. Grimm giving ME the task of maintaining the automobiles. Now take those rags you call cleaning supplies and do your work."

"Scrap heap!"

"Screw licker!"

Of course the vehicles in the hangar required upkeep and maintenance, which was in had assigned the two most qualified robots to watch over the machines the job. Unfortunately what I could not have for seen was that the two Mister Handy's intense desire to show each other up. The two robots both had spherical bodies, three swiveling eyes, three arms equipped with a pincer, a buzz saw and a flame thrower with the whole robot being suspended in the air by a bottom mounted jet thruster.

"Hey none of that now boys. And I told Wadsworth to clean the cars and Codsworth to recalibrate the tank."

"Mr. Grimm!" They both said in their upbeat English accents. Honestly it would have been hard to distinguish one from the other save that Wadsworth was light grey while Codsworth was a darker grey.

"Alright you two no more fighting. You are both proud mechanical butlers, you should be coming together to make sure there isn't a rust spot to be found. Now, tell me how things are looking here."

The two bottles each had one of there eyes turn to look at the other, no doubt shooting each other the robotic version of a glare. The both looked back towards me before Wadsworth spoke up.

"All vehicles are accounted for and live up to your expectations."

"The tires are firm, the tanks are full and the weapons are full on ammo." Codsworth interrupted.

"And the teleportation relays are online." Both said at the same time before glaring at each other again.

"Well that's good to hear. Now knock it off with the bickering, it doesn't suit either of you. Now if you'll excuse me." I said before walking away and leaving them to their own devices. I was just about through the door when I could here the hushed insults start up again.

…

The cryo lab was freezing. Of course if it wasn't freezing then there was probably a critical systems failure. Still, seeing as the entire facility was made of Zetan steel, the already cold environment was made all the more uncomfortable and the perpetual fog only made it worse. Yet the woman in front of me hardly seemed to notice.

"Monsieur Grimm, what a pleasant surprise!" The lab coat wearing woman said before giving me a hug.

"Hi Curie." I said hugging her back before pulling away. The former Miss Nanny turned Synth still looked the same as I had last seen her before entering cryo sleep. She still had her short black hair and still somehow managed to keep her old Vault-Tec lab coat spotless.

"How are things going in your neck of the woods? Any issues with the specimens?" I asked motioning towards the wall of cryo chambers. Each and every one of them contain a creature or at least parts of every wasteland creature I could find. They ranged from the two feet long worker ants to the eight feet tall super mutants. I collected the creatures just in case I needed to reintroduce their species back into the wasteland, just in case they were in fact essential to the ecosystem. Of course I couldn't always have a living specimen as the cryo chambers were only so big and there was no way I could fit an alpha deathclaw or a fogcrawler into the much smaller containers. Instead I settled on collecting some of their body parts to insure that I always had access to their DNA if I ever needed to wip up a clone.

"Unfortunately we have lost specimens AA-24 and BD-32. The poor little beasties." Curie said with genuine sadness in her voice.

"A bloatfly and one of the nightstalkers. No huge loss but still it's always better to have an original over a clone. But other than that everything is alright?"

"Yes all is well. Although…" Curie's lips turned upwards into a small smile. "I was unfortunately required to release two specimens just before you arrived. I believe they should have caught your sent right about…now."

"Wait wha-?"

I heard the scraping of claws on metal before I felt the impact in my side that knocked me to the floor. If Curie hadn't hinted to Jesus this would happen my first instinct would have been to snap this creature's neck but thankfully I held myself back. As it was I did nothing as I felt my face suddenly get wet as what ever animal was on me said hello.

"Heya Rex! It's good to see you too buddy." I said as I started running my hands through his fur. I was able to push the cyber dog off of me long enough to get some breathing room only to have another dog's face shoved in mine.

"Hello to you too Roxie."

After about a minute of almost drowning in dog kisses I managed to get to my feet. I gave the two robo-shepards several head pats has my own greeting before Rex sat down and tilted his head at me.

"Awoo?"

"Yeah buddy were back but the galaxy is a whole lot different than when we left it. And not in a good way."

"Ruff!" Rex stood up with his tail wagging.

"Yeah, we'll get through it. Don't you worry about that. Now you two run along and stretch you legs, I bet you two are pretty stiff."

They both gave me some affirmative barks before running off.

"So anyways back on topic. If the cryo labs are all up to snuff, what about the biological labs?" I said turning back to Curie.

"Well all research was stopped before the journey back home but all the machines are still in perfect working order. We still have plenty of biological material for use with the Nuka-Gen replicator. I must say with all I have read about the new xeno races discovered since our accidental departure, I am most excited to study such intriguing species. The creatures known as Tyranids most of all, they seem the most fascinating." Curie said with a dreamy smile.

"Hold up, there will be no studying done without my say-so. The last thing we need is to bring some aliens on board only to have it get loose and cause havoc. Especially a tyranid if even half of what I read was true."

"Huh, very well." She said forlornly before going right back to smiling. "Is there anything else you required Monsieur Grimm?"

"No that's all. I just have one more thing to check up on before we get to Alpine."

…

The cargo bay had always been a dark place as it seemed that the former workers had not been deemed important enough by the Zetan's captain to warrant much consideration. I on the other hand saw fit to provide ample light for the entire bay even if it was mostly manned by Utility Protectrons. The bay itself was much more organized than when the zetan's had run it since they had mostly just collected junk. Now the bay and it's shelves were full of food, medicine and plenty of raw materials for use by the Holo-vending machines. I had installed several small teleporters around the bay that teleported the needed material to the holo-vender while it teleported in any material that had been deconstructed and stored as little cubes. Of course I also kept plenty of intact equipment around the bay such as a few small workbenches, portable generators, force field generators and all the Nuka Cola I could fit down here. Of course it all had to be counted, organized and sorted. Fortunately there was one man I knew who would do it with gusto.

"Forty two crates of Nuka Cola Quarts, fifty tons of Saturnite and two hundred thirty six pounds of the unknown ceramic material and eighty five pounds of newly dubbed plasteel. Plasteel? Really?" Danse asked as he shot me a look.

"Hey it feels like and is as light as plastic yet as strong as steel. Sue me." I responded to the former Brotherhood Of Steel paladin.

Danse had once upon a time been one of Elder Maxon's most loyal soldiers, but unfortunately it turned out that he was in fact one of the synths he wished to eradicate. It was always my belief that he had been a runaway synth who had been helped by the railroad and had his memory erased to escape his past. Of course finding out that he was the very thing he fought against had crushed him, but time and the support of his friends helped him come to terms with his situation. He had been as loyal a companion as Fawkes had been yet even the super mutant had left to find his own path in life while Danse remained. He looked the same as he had always been save for the fact he now wore an all black undersuit as opposed to the old Brotherhood Of Steel orange.

"Everything is accounted for with all of our standard needs met. Although we do seem to have run out of alcohol. Any suggestions on how that could have happened Captain?" Danse said shooting me a small glare.

"Uh…alcohol powered robots?" I sheepishly replied while scratching the back of my head and sighing in defeat. "Look it helped soften the blow when I realized just how fucked everything has gotten since we left. Speaking of how FUBAR everything is, how are holding up?"

Danse looked away from his data slate with a sigh. "I am…unsure. Though I'm glad that humanity is no longer on the edge of extinction I can't help but feel disappointed. We were supposed to lead the world into a golden age of prosperity. I can't help but wonder what might have been had we not been attacked by the damn Xenos."

"Yeah same here. Although we have to remember that as bad as it is, we still managed to drag the human race out of the stone age. At the rate that the planet was healing, we would have died out long before Earth became a garden world again. We saved the human race, now we just have to survive the rest of the galaxy now."

"Heh, true. Despite my feelings I am very interested in the military capabilities the Imperium can field. Especially those of the Adeptus Astartes."

I rolled my eyes. "What? You? Interested in the eight foot tall Space Marines wearing super power armor? Who would have thought?" I asked with a voice full of sarcasm.

"If you must know yes I am hoping to see their armor first hand. Who knows what improvements there have been while we were away."

"What, you don't like your own stuff any more? I put a lot of work into that thank you very much. Besides I'm more interested in these Imperial Guardsmen. Normal men and women equipped with cheap armor and barely adequate weapons managing to protect mankind for ten thousand years. If that's not badass I don't know what is. And if not them then definitely the Adepta Sororitas." I said with a smile.

"Aren't those the battle nuns?" Danse said quirking an eyebrow.

"The super hot battle nuns."

Danse just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Your lecherous tendencies aside, I do find the prospect of meeting them interesting. The other species in the galaxy, less so."

"Yeah if half of what I read was true, we'll probably be shooting at them most of the time. Especially the Orks."

"Yes, more green skins." Danse said with a sneer. "At least the Super Mutants didn't know how to make space ships."

"I don't think the Orks do either. Apparently they just slap metal together in a vaguely ship like shape and just sort of…believe it's a ship." Honestly I wondered if whoever had written the files I had stolen from the Administratum ship had a few screws loose. However every file I found claimed how the Orks had the ability to make things work when they really shouldn't have simply through shared belief. It was honestly terrifying that they could warp reality with their complete idiocy.

"That's ridiculous. Honestly the idea of the Warp and these Chaos Gods sound like something from a fever dream. I doubt it's a mystical as those files claim it to be."

I frowned at Danse's reasoning. He assumed that such things as magic was simply superstition. That type of rationalization was wrong simply because it relied on reality to be sane. That rationalization would get him killed.

"Danse, back on Earth while we were wandering the old cities did you ever get the feeling that there was something that we weren't seeing?"

"Do you mean assassins or hidden snipers? I was always on the look out for such dangers."

I shook my head. "No no, like there was always something around the corner, something just on the edge of hearing or just beyond sight. The feeling that you weren't alone when you knew that there wasn't another living thing for miles around? Because I did. When I stumbled around the ruins of D.C. there were times when I swear I wasn't alone in a ruined building full of nothing but old skeletons. When I stood in the graveyard where I was supposed to die I could hear the whispers of something on the wind. In the Sierra Madre I could see that what had once been people were now some undying abominations. And in the heart of the swamps of Point Lookout and the depths of Dunwitch Borers I found things that were simply wrong. And at the bottom of the Dunwitch Building I found an alter to some unknown dark god that consumed everything but me in nuclear fire.

In that moment when that damned book was burning in my hand in felt something. I felt something watching me, something dark and vast. Suddenly I didn't feel like the unstoppable Lone Wanderer, I felt like a radroach who managed to catch the eye of an Alpha Deathclaw. There was nothing I could do and despite everything I had been through I was powerless. And then the oddest thing happened. I felt that same vast power, well I felt like it was smiling at me. Like what I had just done…amused it. And just like that it was gone and I dread ever feeling that thing ever again.

So when you tell me that the Warp and these Chaos Gods are nothing but fantasy, well ill have to respectfully disagree."

Danse just stood there uncharacteristically quiet. His eyes wide and his mouth slightly opening and closing as if trying to find the right words to say.

"Y-you never me about that."

"I never told anyone and no one ever bothered asking." Running my hand through my hair is tried to think of something else to talk about to spare us from the awkwardness. Unfortunately I couldn't think of anything else to say that could save this conversation.

"Look I'm sorry that I got heavy there but just…just don't underestimate anything supernatural all right? You're my friend and I don't want you getting yourself killed over something you thought was just stupid hocus pocus."

"Don't worry Albert, I understand. I guess I'll attempt to keep an open mind to all the idea that 'magic' might be real. Now if there was anything else captain?"

"Nah, I'm satisfied for now and so far the Zeta seems to be operating fine if not quite at peak efficiency. Now if you'll excuse me Danse I have some tinkering to do."

See my queue to leave we gave each other a nod and walked away. Danse probably would want to double check the inventory while I had a few new toys to play with.

…

My workshop back in the weapons lab was all set up just the way I wanted it. Ever work station I could think of was there ranging from work benches and reloading benches to Nuka mixing machines and cooking stations. Seeing as I spent most of my time down here it seemed like a good idea to make it as comfortable as possible. Now that I was given plenty of time to settle down I could see about putting together my own chainsword.

Accessing the nearby holo-vender I spawned a chain sword, though I was weary of any spontaneous activations. Thankfully the weapon seemed in active with no signs of anything wrong with it. Mentally shrugging I decided to take that as a good sign and move on.

Taking it over to a nearby workstation I pulled up a hologram of its blueprints and got to work.

…

"Captain. Hey Captain? ALBERT!"

Jerking awake I nearly fell off the stool I had been napping on.

I had of course spent the night in the weapons lab as I usually did. There was something about sleeping while being surrounded by weapons was more comfortable than sleeping in an actual bed.

Rubbing my eyes I tried to rid myself of the grogginess of sleep.

"Hey Captain."

"Ugh damn it Sally. What did you need that you had to wake me up?"

"I just thought you'd like to know that we'll be arriving at Alpine in a few minutes." She said over the ship's intercom system.

"Alright I'll be up in a few. Just let me get my things together."

Standing up, I stretched my back and got started putting my tools away. When I was satisfied with my cleanliness, I grabbed the chainsword from where I had left it.

After a night of tinkering I was pretty satisfied with my work. Originally the sword was a scarlet red with plenty of dings and scratches. It's handle guard had been lined with rusted spike and it's teeth were on the verge of breaking. Now the casing had a nice new coat of black and the guard was polished steel. The teeth were the biggest change as it took most of the night trying to get the shape just right. What was once sharpened plasteel had been replaced with the much more durable and infinitely sharper saturnite.

Having run a few tests on several Garys I knew that it could cut a man in half easily, and I am not ashamed to say that I may have been a bit more enthusiastic than I had any right to be during said test. It was also sharp enough to cut clean through the Captain's tougher armor with a bit of force. Of course as good as it was I wasn't content just yet. Taking advantage of saturnite's ability to retain heat, I ran the blade through some plasma until I got the teeth glowing a bright hot orange. Now it charred and burned while simultaneously carving through whatever was unlucky enough to be on the receiving end.

Overall I was extremely happy with the end result.

Hooking the sword to my belt I made my way to the teleporter and up to the bridge. Much like before the view outside the window was stark white with the blurry black streaks of stars flying past.

"Arriving in five…four…three…two…one." Sally announced.

And just like that we were out of the mirror and looking out on a beautiful garden world. Alpine was a green and blue marble slightly smaller than earth. It had eight continent all covered in green vegetation and two snow covered poles. Yet the world was untouched by the Imperium, apparently left alone to advance their civilization far enough that they would be worthwhile to annex. Alpine was breathtaking to behold in all its natural glory. And yet…

"You know something Sally? I don't think those are supposed to be there."

There hanging in the void of space were two ships of similar yet also different design. The first was sleek looking with two wings and a sail in the back with the hull colored black and bone white. The second ship was similar in shape to the first yet where the black and white ship had graceful lines this had sharp edges. It had blades protruding from the sails and it was painted a dark black and deep purple. Also it appeared that they were shooting at each other.

"Well….shit."

...

There were are. Now I understand that some of may call bullshit to all this tech but absolutely none of it was made up. This all stuff found in the games and merely expanded upon. The holo-venders, the cloning, the vehicles, the teleporters and much more exist in fallout world. Pre-war gear is super advanced to the point they could MANIPULATE MATTER! Seriously if properly applied, fallout tech could become pretty OP.

Now all of you have a good 2020.