"Look what that horse's ass did to me!" Layla cried, rolling up her pant leg and revealing the black and purple bruise the Legionary assassin's super sledge had given her. She sat at the head of Boone's cot as she explained the Legion ambush. The sniper had popped a stitch on the walk over to Forlorn Hope and been patched up while Dr. Richards, Lt. Gorobets and Sterling all lectured him on the dangers of overexertion after an injury. Soon after, the other members of 1st Recon had wandered in the medical tent, wondering what had happened.
"So he's about to cave my head in," the Courier continued. "And of course I miss when I shoot at him. Next thing I know he gets knocked down by a shot and Lily ends up skewering him before he gets up. But the crazy thing was the shot had come from Boone. I was pretty sure he was out cold by then." The Courier looked down at the sniper in question. "Were you out? Do you remember what happened?"
"Not really," Boone replied, and the others laughed.
"So now they want you dead? I wish these assholes would make up their minds," Betsy groused.
"I wish they'd leave me alone," Layla retorted.
"You're the one shot them up while you were their guest," came from Raul.
"Excuse me?" Layla cried. "I barely shot anyone! That was all you and Trigger Happy here," she said, poking Boone in the shoulder.
"Didn't here you complaining at the time," the sniper replied.
"Yeah, well, I was too busy hiding behind you," the Courier said, then stood from the bed. "Well, I guess I'd better go talk with Reyes," she said, stretching.
"She was ask-k-k-king about you," 10 of Spades said from the back of the tent.
"I'd better go then." She looked around at the other members of 1st Recon. "Can you guys keep an eye on Boone? You know how much trouble he gets into when I leave him alone."
The others laughed as Layla left the tent smiling. She always felt like she was visiting well-liked in-laws when around 1st Recon. Deciding not to dwell on what that might mean, she made for the command tent.
Sergeant Reyes was where the Courier had left her, sitting behind her desk. She looked tired, and Layla tried not to startle her as she approached.
"Hello again," she said, and Reyes turned to look at her.
"Hey, what did you end up finding?"
"No trained Deathclaws, that's for sure," the Courier answered. Reyes shook her head.
"I didn't really think you would. Did any of them have an explanation?"
"No," Layla said, shaking her head. "Nothing even close to what had been reported was true. Nothing that could have been misinterpreted either. It was just all wrong."
"That's disturbing," the other woman sighed. "All of the false reports were signed off by Chief Hanlon."
"What?" Layla cried. "How could that be?"
"I don't know, but going by this evidence, someone at Camp Golf is intentionally sending out false information."
That thought felt like a punch in the stomach.
"Who would do that?"
"I don't know," Reyes grumbled. "But people have gotten killed from this bad intell."
"… So what should we do?" the Courier asked.
"Take the evidence to Hanlon," Reyes said. "He'll be able to get to the bottom of it."
She trailed off. Layla's stomach started twisting in knots.
"All right, I'll get it sorted out," she said, and Reyes nodded.
On the walk back to the medical tent, Layla tried to decide her next course of action. She wanted Boone to take Dr. Richards' advice and rest for another day before moving on. She also wanted to get to the bottom of this situation immediately. By the time she pulled the tent open, she had a plan.
"I'd only left her alone ten minutes before the Khans had grabbed her. We think that's the current record," Raul was explaining to the others gathered in the tent.
"Hey!" Layla cried as the occupants of the tent turned her way. "I thought we weren't going to talk about this?"
"Oh, hey boss," Raul said casually. "Didn't see you there."
Layla glared at him for a moment before speaking.
"Anyway," she said, "I'm heading to Camp Golf."
"I thought we were waiting a day?" Raul asked.
"You are," Layla answered. "I'm going to head over now. You two can come join me tomorrow."
"What's the rush?" the ghoul pressed.
"I've got to speak with Chief Hanlon. It's important." Layla said firmly, then gave Raul a wry smile. "I'll be fine, I've even got a gun in my holster this time."
"You shouldn't go alone," Boone spoke up. "The Legion wants us dead…"
"She doesn't have to go alone," Gorobets said, then looked over to his team. "Sterling and Bitter-Root were going to make a run to the 188 anyway," he turned to the two snipers. "See the lady that far."
"Yes sir," Sterling said, and Layla smiled.
"Thank you." She turned her grin in Boone's direction; she knew the sniper wouldn't like this idea, "See? I'll be fine."
"I'm still going," Boone grumbled, sitting up. Layla sighed loudly and looked to Gorobets. Judging by his shrug, he was just as familiar with the other man's stubborn streak.
"You're still getting escorted," the lieutenant said as Boone levered himself out of the cot. "No sense taking chances while you're injured."
No one argued that.
*.*.*
"Finally, someone who's actually injured," Doc Sawbones muttered as Boone eased into a chair in Camp Golf's medical tent. Layla gave the man a questioning look, and he shrugged.
"There's not much going on around here. The troops are bored and come to me with the most inane problems. Sometimes I think they're just here for free suckers," Sawbones grumbled while Boone pulled off his shirt. A few moments later, the doctor had the bandages off and was inspecting the surgery site. There had been blood on the sniper's bandages by the time they'd parted ways with Bitter-Root and Sterling. They'd wanted to see them all the way to Golf, but Layla had been fairly sure his wound was just seeping and nothing to worry about.
She kind of felt bad for dragging Boone all over the place while he was hurt. The situation definitely needed to be looked into, but she didn't want to push his injured body. Sure, if he'd just listened to her or any of the doctor's they'd seen lately, he'd been in Jacobstown resting, but he could be stubborn if he wanted to.
"This is healing nicely. You should be as good as new in a few days," Sawbones said as he wrapped fresh bandages around the sniper's torso.
"Good," Raul said. "I've seen the inside of more medical tents than I cared to in the last two days."
"Agreed," Layla said, then smiled. "We'll be sticking around here for a while though. In fact, I've got to talk with Chief Hanlon… I'll come find you when we're done."
Boone nodded as he pulled his shirt back on. When Layla didn't move, he gave her a questioning look, one that was joined by Raul and Sawbones.
"So… do you really have suckers?" she asked the doctor.
Sawbones sighed loudly as he reached over to open a drawer full of them.
*.*.*
Soon she was stepping out onto the balcony where she'd first met the Chief. He was on his seat by the radio, looking out at Lake Mead.
"Hello Chief," Layla said, and the old man turned her way.
"Hey there, Kiddo. I hear the Legion's gone back to shooting at you. How's Boone?"
"Recovering," she answered, smiling. Hanlon was usually the best informed person in the Mojave, which brought her back to the problem at hand.
"There's something I'd like to talk to you about…" she started.
"Well, pull up a seat," Hanlon said, indicating a chair on the other side of balcony. Layla dragged it over while the Chief pulled a sarsaparilla from a bucket at his feet and set it on her side of the table.
"What's bothering you?" he said as she got settled, then laughed. "Well, I imagine there's plenty bothering you. But what was so important that made you travel out here with an injured man?"
"Well…" Layla gathered her thoughts before she spoke. "It's about some strange reports we've been getting. I've been speaking with Sergeant Reyes at Forlorn Hope about it."
"Strange she'd have you look into it," Hanlon said, looking out a the lake again.
"Forlorn Hope is still a little rocky, and she'd been having trouble getting anyone to help," she answered.
"Well, what was in these reports?"
"Reyes had been receiving information that supposedly came from the Rangers, but it was all strange and didn't make much sense. I personally went to the worst ones to check on them, but they all came back the same: none of the reports were true, and none of them were coming from the Ranger stations."
"There could be a bunch of reasons for that," Hanlon said. "The most likely is this Reyes got her paperwork mixed up. That happens from time to time."
Layla bit her lip. "I'd agree with you, but these reports mentioned things like trained deathclaws and super mutant legionaries, and they were signed off from Camp Golf… by you."
Hanlon frowned at that. He scratched his beard and looked at the lake again.
"That's damn worrisome," he said. "We're going to have to look into it. Someone might be intercepting the documents..."
"Yeah," Layla said. She was going to have to talk to the others herself. Something was very wrong about this, but she understood she didn't know about the day-to-day operations of the comm officers. She wasn't about to go throwing around blame without knowing what was happening for sure.
"Tell you what, I'll have the other comm techs look into this. We'll get it figured out," Hanlon offered. "Are you kids going to stay the night here?"
"That was the plan… if you didn't mind, that is."
"Of course not. I'll have a couple rooms made up for you."
Layla smiled.
"Thank you."
*.*.*
Boone never realized how many muscles in his side he used to hold up his rifle. Now he could count each individual one as he slowly breathed through his nose, trying to ignore the pain.
Despite the distraction, his aim seemed to be as accurate as usual as he practiced at Camp Golf's firing range. He'd heard that Hanlon could talk your ear off; if he and Layla got going, they could be a while.
Lowering his gun, he noticed the only other person at the range; a woman who grimaced as she fired. Curious, he looked at her target through his scope. Her grouping was fair, but she needed practice. Lowering his rifle, he found her looking his way.
"You're the one with the Courier? The one who killed Caesar, right?" she asked.
"Yeah," he answered simply, hoping the woman didn't want to talk about what had happened. He wasn't much of a storyteller; that was Layla's department.
This soldier, a corporal by her rank insignia, held her hand out to him. "You've made all our jobs a little easier."
He shook her hand. "Doesn't mean we can let our guard down."
"Don't I know it," she said sourly. "This whole camp is full of lazy fuckers. No one wants to keep up with training. If the Legion came our way, we'd be fucked." Her glower faded just slightly as she looked at him again. "I'm Mags, and I'm in charge of the Misfits."
He raised an eyebrow, and she shrugged. "We're the dregs of the army. I didn't make the cut for ranger so I'm stuck here. The others are just wasting their time and waiting to get sent home."
Mags waved over three other soldiers, who joined them.
"This is Razz," she indicated a younger guy with a mohawk, "Poindexter," a sour-looking man with glasses, "and O'Hanrahan." The tall kid with a shock of orange hair stuck his hand out.
"Please to meet you, sir," he said as Boone shook his hand.
"What's this about, Mags?" Poindexter muttered, giving Boone a side-long look.
"Just letting you get a look at an actual war hero," she said, putting her hands on her hips. "This is Boone, the guy that shot Caesar."
That got their attention, though it only seemed to impress O'Hanrahan. Personally, Boone wished people wouldn't make such a big deal about it.
"You were 1st Recon, right?" Mags asked, eyeing his beret.
"Yeah."
"Do you think you could help us with our marksmanship? We're about to go through our weapons qualification, and we'd appreciate some help."
Boone frowned. Layla had said they'd be at the camp for a least a day. The sun was already starting to go down, so tonight would be no good to practice at the range. The Courier probably wasn't going to need his help working out intel details with Hanlon, and getting in trouble surrounded by veteran rangers was pretty unlikely, even for her.
"Sure," he answered, noticing Mags' delight at his response. Poindexter and Razz didn't look so happy.
"We'll shoot tomorrow," he continued. "Tonight you should run PT drills until lights out."
"What? Why!" Poindexter cried.
"Helps you focus." That was bullshit, but the only thing he ever picked up about getting people to work together from his own training was to give them a common enemy. The Legion didn't seem to be good enough for the Misfits, so he'd have to do. They'd band together if he was a big enough ass to them.
The Misfits were in various shades of disgruntled when the sniper saw Razz focus on something back down the hill.
"Oh great, here comes the official NCR brown-noser."
Turning to look, Boone saw Layla wave as she approached the shooting range, Raul in tow.
"Hey! There you are." She approached the group. "I guess I should have just assumed when I heard gunfire that you had something to do with it," she said, grinning at the sniper. "Looks like the rangers are putting us up for the night in the resort. They've got feather beds, and they're clean!"
Hearing Razz mutter something about 'little princess getting what she wants' behind him, he nodded to Layla, then turned back. The kid balked as Boone glared at him.
"Well, looks like we'll start up in the morning," Mags said.
"Be out here again at 0500," Boone said, still glaring at Razz. "For now, run drills. Lots of them." Mags laughed at that.
"Well, you heard the man, move out!" As the rest of Misfits scurried off, Boone turned to find Layla grinning at him.
"Making friends?"
"Sort of," he said.
"Just wanted to check." She grinned. "You weren't waving guns in their faces, so it's hard to tell."
"I only do that with your friends."
Thanks for your patience this week, I worked a whole ass-ton. Thanks for reading, reviewing, favoriting and alerting... in whatever combination of those you'll do. You kids are the best :3