Sorry about the wait, I have to write these from scratch now that I'm out of rough drafts, so expect future updates to be slow too.
After another month of grueling supermutant combat, Eleanor's forces finally had most of the DC ruins. And she had managed to find out where the Mutants were coming from with the assistance of some Brotherhood paladins, apparently they were coming from a Vault, numbered 87. though the area surrounding it was extremely irradiated. The amount of radiation she felt that they would never be able to repel, so they needed another way to stop the influx of supermutants.
Right now though she was just fortifying the metro tunnels and the ruins themselves to stop mutants from sneaking in. With the now common use of hand-held radios to communicate, organizing themselves against the supermutants was much easier than the brotherhood had with their barely surviving scavenged radios.
Eleanor was sitting on the captain's chair at the bridge of Rivet City's tower, spinning around in it as she thought. Several engineers and scientists were working with some of the native scientists surveying the ship and determining if it could float again.
Though testimony from one Dr. Pinkerton they had discovered in the bow of the ship after cutting through the door said that it could, she still wanted her people to confirm it.
Right now though, Eleanor was organizing the fortifications of the DC ruins and another expedition, but not into the wasteland, out to the coordinates of the 200 year old signal from what must be the remains of the US's navy. If they could find a good amount of abandoned ships or even the descendants of navy soldiers and officers, then they use them to explore the rest of the world, see if there is any other rebuilding civilizations out there.
She had also gotten word of this "Trinity Alliance" that had popped up overnight, no doubt in response to her aggressive expansion of the Empire. She was sending a representative to each of the cities to tell them that she would be coming to talk, giving warning because of the fact they had sentries with Fatmans and she didn't want to be nuked.
In Megaton a quirky inventor listened with interest to a trader's tale of soldiers taking over rivet city. They had brought some interesting, and most importantly working, tech to the city, and displayed amazing powers. Moira Brown smiled and started packing up some of her things and hiring a few bodyguards.
She was heading to Rivet City.
Eleanor stared at the woman standing in front of her, flanked by a robot and an honest to Science samurai. The woman was taller than most wastelanders and wore some bastardized security uniform modified to look like samurai armor.
The woman, no doubt this Overseer Xana, approached her.
"So, your Eleanor? I was thinking of some form of supermutant from all these stories I've heard of you." Eleanor smirked, minimal manners worked for her.
"Well, I must say you look exactly like I imagined. But let's get past the banter. I know you don't want to join my Empire, and you know you're outnumbered yet have nuclear devices that could wipe out my marines in droves. I propose a sort of non-aggression pact. We won't intrude in your territory... for at least the next five years, and you will not intrude in ours. Another contract can be made in five years. As soon as we absorb Canterbury commons we will discuss borders."
Xana was clearly uncomfortable with the control Eleanor had in the conversation, but still she narrowed her eyes.
"And what of the water treatment facility? We can't let you take that either." Eleanor just shook her head.
"I have already agreed with the brotherhood that that place will stand as neutral ground, with them in control as while they are heavily influenced and portions of them are paid by you to protect your city and others, they are still technically a neutral party and have worked with my marines on multiple occasions to rid the capital of supermutants. We've even invited some of their scribes with paladin escort into Rapture, our capital, to research our technology." 'With very thorough limits' Eleanor thought as she observed Xana think. After a few seconds she nodded.
"We should agree on the southern portion of the borders being the Potomac and I'll call it a deal, you'll have to discuss the borders for the northern portion with the Republic as they don't delegate these things to me like Megaton does." Eleanor smirked, a carefully stated hint that Megaton was her puppet, clever.
Stretching her hand, she said with a smile.
"Then to peace, and prosperity." A bit confused, Xana shook her hand, then Eleanor and her Big Sister escort teleported away, leaving a bit of panic in the crowd that had been watching them in City 101.
Reappearing about a mile away from the city Eleanor grinned at her bodyguards.
"Well, that should give them quite the scare. Come on, We've got work to do.
After a while they made it back to Rivet City, Eleanor looked interested over at a scene growing at the gates.
A young woman in a RobCo jumpsuit was arguing with one of the bored marines stuck on guard duty. He was getting more and more aggravated by the second.
"But sir! Why can't I bring in my Heavy weapons! I assure you I don't even know how to use them let alone blow up the ship! Why wont you let me in?" Then she slumped her shoulders and pouted at the man, though even her bodyguards just sighed, wanting to get this job over with.
Eleanor approached the group a called out to her soldier.
"Marine! Who is this?" He glanced to her then spun around and gave off a stiff salute.
"Empress Eleanor! I didn't know you would be here on my shift! Uh, this woman is some shop owner proclaiming herself to be an inventor, but insists that we let her into the ship with all of her ordinance, over there on that trailer." Eleanor paused and glanced at it, seeing the giant pile of weapons and medicine, and junk all heaped on it. The one Brahmin pulling the cart did not look happy.
"I see the problem then. But let her do so, as long as she has an escort and those weapons are stored securely." The women then walked up to her.
"High there! You must be Eleanor! I'm Moira Brown, I've heard a lot of things about you, mostly bad horrible things that I wont repeat but ignoring that, uh, can I see an ion laser?" Eleanor rose an eyebrow and she continued.
"I mean, that was the main reason I wanted to come here but there is some other things o wanted to see, I'm an inventor and a tinkerer and I like to study new tech, and you guys got some interesting toys so I-" Eleanor stopped here and picked up a bulky device from the trailer.
"You mean like this?" Moira nodded excitedly and took it back.
"Yep! This is the Rock-it launcher, just stuff any assortment of junk into it and fire. Since the wasteland is full of junk it is very useful weapon!" She demonstrated this by grabbing a can from her pile and stuffing it into the weapon, the firing at a concrete wall not far away. It hit and made a small crater as dust went flying. Eleanor just blinked at her and she deflated.
"You don't like it?" Eleanor shook her head.
"Just go on in, find a man named Charles Milton Porter and he'll show you some of the good stuff we brought here." The girl jumped in place with glee and had the Brahmin follow her across the bridge. The marine stared at Eleanor and she glanced at him.
"What is it?" He shrugged and pointed at the excited girl.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Eleanor nodded.
"If Moira could build a decent device like that with just junk, she could be a great asset to Rapture. Imagine her with fresh and custom materials." The marine's eyes widened behind his porthole as he realized what she meant, and Eleanor walked into the city.
Deep inside NCR territory on the other side of the continent, the frozen second, and most popular, president of the NCR Tandi was awoken out of cryogenic sleep. Dazed and confused she is gently place on a table and with utmost care from the men and women in scrubs around her they, gently as they could, stuck her arms and legs with various IVs, and breathing mask is placed on her mouth and anesthetics kick in. Green goo sliding through the tubes...
The head doctor of this top-secret and VERY well funded project had skilled doctors watching the instruments 24/7. They needed to be extra careful because of just who they were treating and just what they were using to do so.
FEV, forced evolutionary virus. they were using a very watered down version of it in very small amounts, aiming to, instead of curing Tandi's illness, making her completely immune to any sort of disease. So far it seemed to be working with negligible side affects, but even those were carefully monitored.
After weeks of treatment, they decided to do the final push. Tandi was carefully placed inside an opaque pod which would, theoretically, completely reinvigorate her immune system. Essentially reversing the age in it and some of her organs.
After the required three days in the pod, green tinted steam hissed and the pod opened, Doctors in gas masks ran up to the pod but were shocked at what they saw inside the pod.
An infant was lying there asleep, but she opened her eyes, slightly glowing green eyes staring accusingly at the doctors.
I hope that last bit shocked you guys well and good, been planning that for a while.