Jack Parsons and the Fortress of Hope
"Mother of God…" Jack remarked, dumbfounded.
They were in the courtyard of the castle. Out of all the remains recently deceased Mirelurks surrounding them, one stood out above the rest. Jack and Preston were beholding the carcass of a recently defeated Mirelurk Queen.
The monstrosity looked to be some kind of mutated crab, except that it was the size of a mobile home, and extremely pissed off back when it was alive. It walked on six legs and swung two pincered arms like an enraged barbarian. It spat some kind of venomous solution as it advanced. Our hero was very, very glad to see it dead.
"Say, whose idea was it to bring the missile launcher?" Jack asked.
"Private Regis Johnson, sir," Preston answered.
"Well, give that guy a promotion. He just saved all of our asses."
The Minutemen had gone down to the Castle, which was well, an old castle, to reclaim their old base of operations. Jack Parsons was helping them develop into an organization that could stand on its own, in exchange for help getting into the Institute. With this new addition to Minutemen territory, they were finally ready to build a device which could teleport them into the Institute as if they were Coursers. The Minutemen had also grown the habit of calling Jack "The General," much to his chagrin. He did not want to be seen as their leader, per se. He just wanted to find his son. Besides, he knew himself well enough to know that they were probably looking for someone with a little bit more mental fortitude. Not somebody who had grown accustomed to drink himself to sleep. Not somebody who had just lied his way into the Railroad in order to get the Courser's chip analyzed. But more on them later.
Jack ordered that the men carry out their wounded and then the bodies of the defeated creatures. The total score was one dead minuteman (by getting his head nearly knocked off from a claw swipe), one wounded minuteman (From getting hit straight on by the acid), and twelve dead mirelurks. All in a days work.
"Sir, how are we going to move the queen's body away? It's massive!" demanded a nearby corporal.
"Work together, chop it into pieces, burn it where it lies if you have to," Jack answered, "If we wait then they're going to start reeking."
Jack took a step inside to talk with his lieutenant, Preston Garvey.
"Sir, we can set up a command post in here. There's still some weaponry left over from last time. Looks like nobody's gone near here for years-except the Lurks," Preston reported.
"That's great. Do what you have to do. Get this place fortified. I'll work on the radio. Sturges!" He called as he noticed the repairman walking by, "Let's do this."
They spent the better part of the afternoon laying wire and jury-rigging power pylons to the radio tower in the center of the courtyard. They breathed a sigh of relief when the system came on, and they could broadcast once more.
"Anything you'd like to say to the people, my man?" Sturges asked. Jack took a moment to think. He didn't want to start with "People of the Commonwealth," like the Brotherhood of Steel had when they floated in on their flying battleship. Too passe. Then, inspiration struck.
"Hey everyone, Jack Parsons here. Um. How about airline food? Sorry, old world joke. You may know me as the general of the Commonwealth Minutemen. I'm still getting used to that. It's quite the promotion. I only ever made sergeant when I was in the actual military. Well-Not that the minutemen aren't actually military, it's just different-I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm not much of a speech maker. I just wanted you all to know that we took the Castle back over, and you're going to hear a lot more broadcasts from this channel. Uh, the Minutemen are back. That's all, I think."
Jack Parsons leaned away from the microphone and looked over at Preston Garvey for some kind of feedback.
"Well General, it's something. I'll have our radio operator put it on repeat… hopefully some settlements out there will be more willing to join the cause!" he finished, enthusiastically.
The settling-in process took the rest of the evening. Cleaning up the Mirelurk Queen got significantly easier when one of the Minutemen found a Ripper inside the Castle walls. It was not long before they posted a couple of sentinels on the wall and turned in for the night in some sleeping bags they had brought in with them. Preston and Jack set up in the most secure corner of the Castle. It appeared to be the old General's Quarters. People in post-nuclear America knew very little about sleeping in their own room. Almost every sleeping situation was highly communal, for protection. Preston stretched out and sighed.
"Good day," he summarized.
"Yeah," said Jack, with a little bit less certainty in his voice.
"Something bothering you, sir?"
"Yes? No? I don't know." He fell silent. He studied the man across from him. Preston Garvey, of the Commonwealth Minutemen. A man who had grown up in this Wasteland. A man who had probably only had clean food or water a couple of times in his life. One who was only accustomed to having a set of clothes, or two. One with no formal military experience. And yet, he was more well-adjusted to what was happening out here. Jack was the one with mental, physical, and psychological training, but found himself on the verge of falling apart most days.
He lay, staring at the ceiling for a while. He couldn't sleep. And there wasn't a damn drop to drink in the whole Castle. He got up, telling Preston to mind his own business when he asked what was going on. He stalked out to the Castle Courtyard, and then onto the walls. It was a clear night, full of stars. That was one thing he noticed about life in the Commonwealth. You could see the stars more clearly with all of the lights being knocked out by the collapse of society. He stared out into the ocean, south of the Castle. He wondered what else might be down there. If gigantic Mirelurks sometimes got pissed and wandered out of the depths. Could there be mutated sharks or whales out there? That was a weird thought. I suppose it beat all the other thoughts that seemed to go through his head. Flashbacks to wartime, flashbacks to civilian life, flashbacks to the day Shaun was taken. Worries about the future, about what might happen in the Institute. And… he found himself starting to care about some of the people he had met. Valentine, Preston, Sturges, hell even Piper sometimes. In a word, he felt fear. He took a moment to steady his breathing and decided to try to go back to sleep.
He had no idea how all of these problems were going to solve themselves, problems with getting the Minutemen started, with finding Shaun, with coping with his new life. But he know they wouldn't be solved by standing and looking at the water.