She was back several minutes later than Garv was expecting. For a few seconds, Garv had doubts she'd make it there and back in time. He could hear them trying to get through the doors below and the basement was almost directly underneath it.
'What took you so long?' He harried her on her way past.
'I barricaded the doors!' She replied and slammed out of the room on a mission.
Garv paused and turned to Sturges incredulously. 'She took time we don't have to barricade the doors?'
Sturges shrugged. 'She musta been thinkin' about us. Don't see much of that anymore.'
Seconds later, something went past the balcony and landed in the street, scattering the people who were using badly made guns and debris to try and force the museum doors open. The impact shook the building and rained down dust on the two raiders.
Garv winced as he heard a familiar grinding acceleration.
'Damn, girl's found a mini-gun too.' Sturges leaned out to watch the carnage.
For the first time, Garv actually entertained the idea that they may just survive this. With Power Armour and a mini-gun there was no way any of Jared's boys could stand up to anything close to that.
Then the building shook a second time, but not with the impact of a suit of power armour - a roar that sent tingles of fear and terror to wrap around Garv's spine.
'Atom on a spitroast - that's a Deathclaw, Garv!' Sturges gasped from his vantage point - but Garv had known it would have been. He knew roars like that in the pit of his soul. In some of his deepest, darkest nightmares. It must've felt Vaultie's landing and surfaced to investigate.
That was it, she was fucked. There was no way that someone that short and impossibly maladjusted to life in the wasteland could possibly get enough of a handle on that mini-gun and Armour to face down a Deathclaw. Not with a five minute tutorial by raiders against raiders.
He risked a glance around the chipped plasterwork and watched as she turned to face it. It was ugly. One of the ugliest he'd ever seen. It must've been hiding in the sewer because it could not be making that smell on it's own. It's hide was covered in slime and dirt - and blood.
Part of him wanted to use this to his advantage and run now while they were both distracted - The bodies littering the road around the two duellists spoke of what happened to the massive force that Jared had sent to kill them. It would be the perfect time; but he hesitated. Garv may have been a raider, he may have seen and done some horrible things, but he was loyal where it counted. He had gotten her into this, persuaded her to help them. She had barricaded the doors for them. Dammit, he owed it to her to stick it out.
He was just about to tell her to haul ass and try to shake off the thing when his voice died in his throat. She was actually squaring up to the Deathclaw - but she wasn't shooting at it. What the hell was she doing?
'Boss man - Garv, she's shooting at the cars!' Sturges whispered in fascination. They were forced to squint against the bright flash as a car's nuclear battery ignited and caught the Deathclaw a blow across it's bows. The giant lizard staggered and roared an unearthly challenge as it began to head for her again.
Maybe brains wasn't so bad, he mused as he watched her work. She was doing damage to it - amazingly enough. Garv had never seen someone fight like this.
He expected the mini-gun to run out of bullets - she'd chewed up a lot of raiders before it had shown up - but she did not. He watched her fumble with the heavy thing, thinking it was jammed.
'It's empty!' He yelled. 'Do something, Vaultie!' Garv turned his old, patched Laser Musket onto the giant murderous lizard. Deathclaws were notorious for having the toughest skin in the wasteland, so making a dent in it with a laser musket was going to be hard.
The Deathclaw turned to follow the noise and pain - it roared up at them from the road and turned to run towards the balcony. If she didn't get it's attention back soon, it would climb the building to come for Sturges and Garv. She flung the useless mini-gun to the ground and then pulled from somewhere in the suit the gun that she'd taken from the steps of the museum. It looked even smaller in the hands of Power Armour as she faced the Deathclaw than it really should have. It was like shooting BB bullets off a dinosaur but when a round clipped it's curled horn it roared and turned back to Thea as she slowly moved backwards, leading it towards more cars.
When it finally died - and it gave a window-shattering howl as it did - Garv stood and listened to the wind carrying it's death-screams across the commonwealth. He couldn't believe she'd done it. He couldn't believe she'd done it with a dinky Laser Musket salvaged from one of his crew.
This woman was something else.
'Woo! You go girl!' Sturges yelled in triumph as the helmeted head came up to stare at the balcony.
'Quid pro quo, Garv.' Thea's voice sounded tinny from inside the Power Armour.
Goddamn. After all that she still wanted that deal. Sturges grinned at him from the other side of the balcony. He leaned over and called down 'You're not done yet, Vaultie! We gotta get out of this shit-hole and find somewhere to lay low before Jared wonders where his guys are.'
'Lay low?' She answered. 'I know just the place.'
A/N: I know, it's short. I hate publishing anything under 1000 words but this is the end of the quest When Freedom Calls and that means that I have one or two more chapters of actual story plot before I get onto the random fun quests! Not long now!