Ch.4 Into each night, some rain must fall
Piper
Commonwealth, outside of Sanctuary Hills
Sunrise
"I can't believe that she would do that to us." Piper began softly.
"What do you mean, Piper?" Preston Garvey, the impromptu General of the Commonwealth Minutemen, asked.
"I mean why did Blue have to go and join the Institute on us? Why couldn't she see reason?" Piper replied, progressively becoming more agitated as she went.
"Piper, you should probably calm down for a bit, you've been through a lot lately." Preston soothed.
He was right about that. Since Nisha (a.k.a. Blue by Piper), the Sole Survivor of Vault 111, went off to the Institute to find her son, things went pear-shaped for all of the above-ground factions. Synths became commonplace and the Minutemen became more active, responding to synth attacks and whatnot. However, the final straw broke when Nisha, the previous General of the Minutemen, attacked two minutemen soldiers to save an Institute scientist. Ever since, Preston took her place and vowed to destroy the Institute one way or another, and to personally execute Nisha for the crimes she committed.
However, they didn't have the firepower to take the Institute down. Sure, they had the Castle that was reclaimed whenever Nisha still had a brain, and they had artillery support at many locations around the Commonwealth, but that won't exactly help if the Institute was underground. They had no way to take them down on their own, they needed assistance.
This answer came just a week ago, when the Institute attacked the Old North Church, hell-bent on taking down the Railroad, a secret organization that helps synths escape the Institute's power. Led by Nisha herself, the Institute force slammed into the church guns blazing. Piper was present at the time, taking an interview from Desdemona, the leader of the Railroad. When they came, Piper, along with Deacon, hid behind some wooden targets in a shooting range that had been set up. Both used stealth boys, personal cloaking devices, to hide from the Institute's force and to escape through the tunnel. When they emerged, Piper looked around to see Sturges, Preston, and Paladin Danse in a Brotherhood-owned Vertibird. Quickly hoping on, she quickly learned that the Minutemen and the Brotherhood decided to join forces under one banner for the time being.
Fast forward to today, nothing much happened. The Boston Airport became more fortified and even had its own artillery gun. In turn, the Castle became heavily guarded by Brotherhood Knights and Paladins.
Even Piper had to adjust to some new equipment. She paid Arturo, the gunsmith in Diamond City, a hefty sum of caps to modify her 10mm pistol into a better weapon. He came back with the pistol sporting a reflex sight, an advanced receiver, a ported barrel, a quick-eject mag, and a comfort grip. She even went to Vault 81, the only Vault in the Commonwealth that supported life from the start, and requested a Pip-Boy device. She gazed down on it now; it was roughly six-o-clock in the morning.
Gazing back up, Piper could see a figure standing in the distance, a four-legged creature.
"Dogmeat!" she cried instantly.
The creature dashed toward Preston and Piper at extreme speed, to reveal itself to be the German shepherd used to sniff out Kellogg, Dogmeat.
He whined as he approached, with Piper kneeling down and patting it's head on cue.
"So," Piper asked Preston as she stood up again, "where are we heading today?"
Preston thought silently for a minute before replying, "We could head to Diamond City and get some noodles. I need to talk to Arturo about some modifications to my laser musket."
"Sounds like a plan." Piper chirped.
Dogmeat began to bark as the conversation ended. He was gazing up at the still-brightening sky.
"Whatcha looking at boy?" Preston asked the dog.
Piper aligned her gaze with the dog's own. She could see six, yellow-orange glowing spots in the sky, each of them glowing brighter and brighter.
And one of them looked as if it was gunning straight for Piper!
"PRESTON! DUCK AND COVER!" Piper commanded as they both ran toward the nearby Red Rocket Gas Station.
The object shrieked past, only to land by the river that bordered Sanctuary Hills. The grounded rumbled as it collided with the ground. The duo and dog waited inside the gas station for what seemed like hours, hiding behind old suits of power armor and piles of junk.
"Is it over?" Piper whispered from a suit of T-45 power armor.
"Should be. First the Institute now falling meteors?" Preston commented from his hiding place.
The two emerge from the shelter to find a decently sized crater next to the road. A strange, grey-black pillar stood tall in the center, with Dogmeat barking at it madly.
"Let's go see what Dogmeat found." Preston said with a hint of excitement.
The two took off toward the crater with their weapons at the ready, Dogmeat still barking like a maniac.
"What is it boy?" Piper asked the dog companion.
The two approached the object slow enough to be passed by a snail, if they even existed in the wasteland. The object that stood before them looked like a pod of some sort, its cargo unknown. Preston decided to approach Dogmeat and reward him for his efforts while Piper checked out the mysterious object.
"Good sniffing, boy." Preston complimented.
"Preston…." Piper said grimly.
"What is it Pipes?" Preston asked, lowering his voice in the process.
He looked at what Piper was gazing at. The pod apparently had small windows on it, allowing them an inside view at its cargo…
…..an unconscious person.
"What do we do?!" Piper panicked.
"Don't worry; we didn't make an alliance with the Brotherhood for a reason." Preston reasoned, pulling a flare out of his coat at the same time. The flare had a small Brotherhood insignia printed on it.
"Go to the medic in Sanctuary Hills quickly and get as much medical supplies as possible; preferably stimpacks and bandages. It'll be a while before the vertibird gets here. While you're at it, hop on the radio transmitter and tell the Castle to get their medical facilities ready. We won't have time to screw around when we arrive." Preston commanded the Diamond City reporter.
Piper immediately got up and booked it up the crater and to the Sanctuary Hills bridge. She dodged left and right to avoid the debris from past battles of the bridge that haven't been cleaned up yet.
"MEDIC!" Piper shouted as she crossed into the rebuilt neighborhood.
"Did somebody call a medic?" A French voice sung from one of the houses.
Piper turned toward the owner of the sweet voice: Curie. She stood not five feet from Piper, wearing a refurbished lab coat, pockets overflowing with medical supplies.
"Great, just the person I need." Piper greeted with a hurry.
"What is wrong, Madame Piper?" Curie questioned.
Piper then hastily explained the situation that had rushed upon her and Preston.
"Oh. I can now see why you are in such a hurry." Curie replied slowly. "I will get the supplies and meet you and Mister Preston at the site, Madame."
And with that, Curie rushed back to where she came from to gather more supplies while Piper ran quickly possible to the radio transmitter.
BoS Lance-Pilot Alex Boone
Airspace near Cambridge Police Station
Just after sunrise
"How's it lookin' down there Danse?" Alex asked to his Paladin gunner.
"About as normal as it normally does, Boone." Danse reported plainly.
The two have flown for hours, only stopping for short naps and resupplying ammo and food.
"We should just head back to Cambridge, there's nothing out here, man." Alex complained.
"It's our duty to the Brotherhood to keep watch for any synth scum that try to attack innocent civilians, pilot. We're staying here." The Paladin replied coldly.
'Jeez, don't have to be such an asshole dude.' The pilot thought madly. 'I remember, back in the Capital Wasteland, the Brotherhood weren't such conservative pricks like this lot.'
It was true. The BoS chapter led by the late Sarah Lyons and her father; he struggled to remember the name of the old man, were a lot nicer to wastelanders and to their own personnel than this chapter of idiots. He remembered that Arthur Maxson, the elder of the Boston chapter, actually grew up under the Lyons' family rule in D.C., but decided that the rule of the Maxson family name, the name of the original founder of the organization, had to be the precedent that all BoS should follow.
'I find all of that hate the people, hoard the technology stuff a load of horse shit.' Alex shot to his mind.
His thoughts were interrupted when a sudden beeping noise blared throughout the cockpit of the vertibird. He quickly glanced at a blinking light next to the new radio transponder that had been installed. This allowed all vertibirds to communicate with other BoS bases such as the Prydwen or the Cambridge Police Station. He flipped a switch on the control panel next to his arm to play the transmission.
"This is Piper Wright reporting from Sanctuary Hills. An unknown object has crashed down near the settlement and there seems to be a person inside. We need any BoS vertibird, capable of transporting injured to the Castle, to head towards this location and to look for the Brotherhood signal flare. This message is set to repeat." The transmission crackled.
Alex turned to some-what face the Paladin while keeping an eye on the controls. "Hey Danse. Just picked up a transmission from Piper, says something about a falling object and their need for a vertibird. I'm gonna call Cambridge and tell them that we're heading toward the signal."
"Affirmative, Lance Pilot." Danse replied.
Robert Joseph MacCready
Northeastern Commonwealth
Sunrise
"Got you now." MacCready soothed quietly, as he caught the sight of a pack of Radstags in the distance.
Picking up his Sniper Rifle to aim at his intended target, he slowed his breathing and stooped to a low crouch. Peace and calmness surrounded him, nothing seemed to move or make another noise.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
'What the hell?' he thought to himself angrily.
Just then, an Irish-accented voice flooded through the forest, startling Robert. Only it wasn't just a voice, it was…..
Laughter?
"Oi! What ya doin' here Robert." Said a voice that, even MacCready knew, could only belong to one person: Cait the Irish fighter.
"What the hell, man?" Robert complained, deciding that he wasn't in the mood to keep quiet.
"I was just 'bout to ask you the same question." Cait casually replied.
"Well before I was rudely interrupted, I was trying to relieve some stress by doing some hunting. But since you came barging in louder than a Gatling-laser, I can't do much of that anymore."
"Eh, you'll get over it, besides; drinkin' some whisky seems like a better activity than whatever you were doing."
A sudden noise began to rise across the air.
"Hey, shut up a minute will you, I hear something." MacCready shot back.
The sound in question sounded foreign, not a voice but a whole new sound that hasn't been heard much by wastelanders: the sound of something falling and burning at the same time. It was then interrupted by a loud CRASH! not too far from his current position.
"What the hell was that?" Cait wondered aloud.
"Let's go find out." said MacCready, pulling back the bolt on his rifle.
Hey guys, thanks for waiting for me to finish this chapter! I know that it has been a while, but blame you tube for that (I watched a lot of videos). However, don't fret; I'm still alive and typing. The finale for Vault Warriors and Silent Soldiers (my other story at the time) will release hopefully by thanksgiving. Then I can have my full attention on this story.
Anyways, thanks for reading!
RNG OUT!