Coastal Cottage had been a fairly easy take over with some mirelurks in the way. My friends and I sat around the ruined house, eating mirelurk around a fire. The best dresser of the large crabs actually was Strong who carved up the remains with an efficient and almost delicate touch. Taking their meals the people I knew best clustered up according to their interests and familiarities. Cait swapped stories with Hancock and MacCready, Piper and Nick chatted with Preston, Deacon, Danse and Curie formed the third contingent if the unlikeliest. Strong sat alone just outside the light of the campfire on the porch of the house while Dogmeat wandered from group to group looking for scraps. Somewhere out in the area 238 prowled in eternal vigilance, ready to sound a warning cry.

"General." Preston raised a mug of Sunshine Co-Op Nuclear Brew. "Settle a debate for us."

"That's not fair." Piper piped. "He has Pre-War opinions."

"That's why he's perfect. Better dessert: Slocum Joe's Boston Creme or a slice of pie from one of those diner machines?"

"Pie! Back in the day they would pull the diner carts around on trucks for neighborhood kids." Hancock looked over to me, his way of telling me to keep quiet.

"No way."

"Way! They even had a jingle and all the kids would come out with all their quarters and try to capture the one good piece of pie."

"What's a quarter?"

"It's like a metal coin, worth maybe a third of a cap. Anyway I remember one day I got the pie from the truck and the entire neighborhood was jealous. I ate it the next day at school and even the teachers were clapping."

"He's lying." MacCready noted. "He's got that twinkle in his eye."

"You're no fun, Mac." Hancock rasped.

"I knew it already." Piper called. "World class bullshitter over there."

"Aye, this man could sell water to a mirelurk." Cait agreed.

"You mean a fish." I corrected.

"A feesh?" Curie looked up. "Do we 'ave feesh still?"

"Yeah. Remember when we went underwater to attack the mutant outpost from the weak side?" Danse recalled. "Must have walked twenty minutes fully submerged. What was a group of them called again?"

"Right. A school." I nodded. "They almost looked normal."

"I-"

Strong stood up from his post on the porch. I held up a hand. "Humans. Many." he grunted, rearranging his metal nest towards the ocean.

"Battlelines. Danse, Piper, armor, firing lines. Mac, Preston, up top, Curie and Hancock on me, ghosts."

The groups dispersed in a hurry, the snipers melting back up the hill while the heavy gunners jumped into their armor and faded out in the darkness. Hancock and Curie had the fastest reactions and we needed to look like we were caught by surprise.

"238." I whispered into my Pip-Boy. "Ambush, enfilading fire." I joined the other two and told them stories about the Silver Shroud until they came into view. A couple dozen odd Gunners armed to the teeth came walking in from the east. They were led by an ill tempered looking man, plasma rifle at the ready, eyes sweeping around the camp. We stood and I slung my musket over my shoulder.

"Two humans, a ghoul and a mutie walk into a bar." he grinned. Some of the men behind him laughed.

"Actually she's a synth." I nodded at Curie. "So it's actually even wackier than that."

Smiles dropped off faces and whatever punchline the leader had he lost it for a moment. "Ah...well. We couldn't help but notice your encampment."

"What's it to you, friend?"

"This is Gunner territory." he answered. "If you're passing through, we charge a fee."

"There must be some mistake, Mr….?"

"Lieutenant."

"Lieutenant. This spot has been claimed by the Minutemen."

A tremor went through his troops. The Minutemen were not to be taken lightly anymore and they all knew it. "Tut. Aren't you a bit far east to be Minutemen?"

"We're expanding. This is just the survey team. Many more of my people are on the way."

"They're not here now." the lieutenant smiled. "And you still have a fee to pay."

I chuckled and holstered my gun. I held up my left hand and reaching for the flare gun on my hip with the right. "Flare gun." I soothed itchy trigger fingers and lifted it to the sky. Firing it, the flare went up, illuminating the sky and casting an orange glow over us.

"Who are you signaling, bud? You've got no friends out here." the lieutenant smirked.

"I told you. My people are a tide and the waves break all over the Commonwealth. If you value your lives, you will leave, peaceably."

"Let's get out of here." one of his men urged.

"Shut it, Henderson." he snapped. "Five hundred caps. Not asking, telling."

I smiled. "I've gotta be honest with you. I don't mind paying the caps but you ought to know. I'm not just on this survey team. I'm the Minutemen general."

"No way."

"Way."

"I thought you were out of Diamond City."

"Hangman's Alley, actually. It's the safest place in downtown, including Diamond City. But that's just home base."

"Yet you came all the way out here to Gunner territory with just three people?"

"Four." I nod to Strong. "Had I known, I would have brought an expeditionary force."

"Price just went up to two thousand." the lieutenant gestured.

I shook my head. "Hancock, how much do we have?"

"Round about 700." he recalled from memory.

"That'll have to do."

"You're giving this clown all our money?"

"They're just caps." I turned to shrug at him.

Scowling Hancock went to the packs and returned with his pack, throwing it at the nearest Gunner.

"Since you're short, we'll take your weapons too." the lieutenant flicked his chin.

"Tiny man no take friend!" Strong warned.

"No one wants your bat, Strong." I called to him. "He has a plank of wood he calls his best friend." I explained.

"But this," I drew my musket, "this is my personal weapon." I held it out in my hands. "It's an experimental seven crank musket, befit a general. If you were to take it, the Minutemen will recover it, no matter the cost. No matter what happens to me."

"I guess we'll take it then."

"Uh, Lieutenant, sir!" Henderson spoke up again. "This is a really bad idea. Caps are one thing but we're robbing a very powerful man of his ceremonial weapon. They won't take it lightly. Not to mention he's Brotherhood. That's a lot of heat."

"Henderson, quit being a pussy and relieve the general of his weapon."

"Nope. No way." Henderson stepped out from the Gunner ranks. "I want nothing to do with this. We take this weapon and it means war. There'll be a small army up here, looking for us, out for blood. No caps are going to pay for it."

"Get back in line before I shoot you." the lieutenant threatened.

"Shoot me then." Henderson threw down his rifle and backed away. "You're signing our death warrants as is. General sir, I tried." he said to me.

"That's why you're going to live, son." I pointed at him. Henderson held his hands up and walked backwards from the fire, stepping out into the dark.

"Sir?" another Gunner asked.

"Let him go. He'll be back." the lieutenant grunted. "Take the musket, and the others' guns."

Hancock raised an eyebrow that did not exist anymore and I nodded. "It's just a revolver, Johnny. We can get another."

He made a face but turned his gun handle first as the goons took his pistol. Curie handed over her powerful Institute rifle and the Gunners closed their ranks.

"Now that you're unarmed, I'm wondering what would stop us from taking you prisoner and getting a fat ransom." the ringleader smiled.

"I thought you might say that, Lieutenant. Strong, friend."

The super mutant lifted his new toy, a gatling laser up from his debris pile and all hell broke loose around us. 238 came barreling in from the side to put herself between us and the gunners, firing her own gatling. The armor came up behind us as we fell back, except for Hancock who slipped a knife into the very startled Lieutenant. The snipers took their shots. The night air split from the pealing of monstrous weapons but only briefly. In a surprisingly short amount of time, it was over and quiet again.

Ears ringing and using Danse as a shield I peeked past his gun arm. The gunners were down, most of them groaning in pain but some still as an ice pond. My people started to filter back to the fire and Preston led Henderson at musket point.

"Fuckin' Christ on a cracker…" Henderson breathed out. Hancock retrieved a prized western revolver from a not quite dead gunner and put a bullet in his face for his trouble. The shot echoed off the mountainside and there were no more.

"John. That's enough." I ordered.

"These pricks were going to-"

"I know. The wounded will live. Understand?"

"That one was on the way out anyway." Hancock huffed. "I'm going for a walk."

He sauntered off away from the fire and I let it go. In the front of the gunner wounded was the Lieutenant, stabbed in the upper chest and with 238 stepping on him to keep him in place. Spotting my rifle nearby I dusted it off and cranked up to seven, a monstrous amount of energy threatening to break out of the containment chamber.

"Well well." I squatted down by him. "That could have gone better for you, couldn't it."

"Fuck you!" he spat blood at me. "Get this thing off me!"

"One more crass word, and Three-Eight will squish you like a tube of toothpaste."

"Let me, sir. I do so enjoy it." 238 urged.

"Not yet, Three-Eight. How many men are back at your hideout?"

"I don't have to talk to you!"

I set the point of the musket on his good shoulder. "You do, and quickly."

He set his jaw resolutely and I leaned back with the rifle, ready to disintegrate his arm. "Last chance."

"Alright! Alright." he coughed a couple of times. "That was most of my detachment. Maybe eight or so left as a skeleton crew."

"You're leaving. Today. Whoever is still breathing may go, but you will relinquish your weapons to us. Go back to your camp, gather all your supplies, but again, you take no weapons. Not so much as a boot knife."

"That's...murder!" he squeaked out. 238 hardly relented.

"Not yet it isn't. You have two hours." I looked down at my Pip Boy. "If I don't see you and exactly the number of men you just told me walking south for good, you will not live through the night."

"I can hardly...breathe."

"You'd best get going then. '38, heel."

The bot came as close as she'd ever had to disobeying an order and with great reluctance removed her foot. I approached Henderson and 238 circled behind him. The skulls and jagged black metal that adorned her chassis whirred and clicked in anticipation. When he turned back to me he understood completely that his life hung by the merest of threads.

"What's your name, son?"

"Hu-Henderson. Jake."

"Jake. You had the good sense to refuse this bloodshed. I'm a man of my word. You will live."

"Thank you! Thank you General!"

"I want something in return. I want you to lead these men out of here. Lead them far away. Take them back to the Gunners. When people ask you what happened here, tell them the truth. Tell them these men are the extent of my mercy." I gestured to the bodies behind me.

Henderson nodded, a bit too quickly. "Tell whoever needs to hear it. Don't fuck with me. You people aren't a priority. Make yourselves one, and I will dismantle you piece by piece. Understand?"

"Y-yeah. Yes sir. Copy."

"Go. Your two hours are already started."

The boy scurried away and only then did I power down my rifle. Danse joined me, watching them go.

"We really should purge the lot of them." he commented. "Little better than raiders, little more organized."

"We can't stamp out every den of iniquity in the entire Commonwealth." I noted. "This was a warning shot. Some will get the message, some won't. The ones that don't, well, you have my permission ahead of time to hang each and every last one of them."

"What is that? Frontier justice?"

"Is that any better or worse than blasting a hole through them?"

"Hmmm." Danse pondered.