(Jocko's Pop & Gas Stop)

Pitt and Bittercup had decided to hole up in the old gas station close to Tenpenny tower, Pitt had no desire to be trekking in the wasteland with Bittercup whining all through the night, they had lit a very small fire in the small ramshackle building which Pitt used to heat a small tin of beans, god he missed the food materializers.

"So why are we going back to that super crappy hole in the ground?" Bittercup moaned as she half-heartedly poked her beans with a… relatively clean spork.

"WCB's going to hit it" Pitt said emotionlessly.

"So?"

"How humanitarian of you" Pitt sighed as he stared into the small flame as cracked meekly.

"The WCB Are going to mount an offensive against the super mutants."

"So?" Pitt sighed at Bittercup's vacant face and decided to take his explanation very slowly.

"If the WCB wipe out the super mutants breeding ground it will be empty, right?"

"Yeah, and?"

"If it's empty then there's no one there to stop the WCB from doing whatever they want, right?"

"SO WHAT?!" Bittercup Squealed in the height of her ditzy frustration.

"What do the super mutants use to breed?" Pitt sighed in an annoyed tone

"….. Oh" Bittercup finally caught up

"Now what could the WCB want with all of that FEV? We know there's still a large amount there from what the Captain has told us" Pitt was just talking to himself at that point, Bittercup was muttering in the corner about how ugly she would be as a super mutant and getting dumped by the Captain, Pitt didn't really care. As he was thinking about how to get to Little lamplight without running into any WCB patrols from fort Bannister the radio inside the little gas station began to crackle to life.

"-ey child- -res –ree dog!" The radio was broken and most of the words were unintelligible, Pitt simply turned it off and used his pip-boy, god he loved that thing.

"Has life got you down children? Are you feeling tired? Scared? Lonely? Well too bad cuz there ain't a damn thing I can to about that! But if that didn't make you feel better then maybe some news will? I've gotten reports that super mutant sightings and conflicts inside of the DC metropolitan area is at an all-time low! I got to tell you kiddies I'm looking outside right now and looks nice and empty! So if you were holding off on buying that high rise apartment in the city now might be the time to get excited as we wait and see if out Frankenstein guests have finally read their eviction notices! Now on that note I leave you with season two of our most popular radio segment, you guessed it, the adventures of the Lone Wanderer!"

"You're listening to the second season of the adventures of the Lone Wanderer played by Wilks of the GNR security force, today's episode: Point Lookout.

"My Tobar this certainly is shaping up to be a bit of a trip isn't it! RL-3 would have loved to shoot some the fish we passed by."

"Haha good thing I didn't let you bring him along then! Some of those fish might just sink this ship if we give them enough of a reason to. I don't mean to pry into any of your business Mr?"

"You can call me, the Lone Wanderer good sir."

"My that is quite the moniker Mr Lone Wanderer, so might I ask what brings you to Point Lookout?"

"Well actually it's quite simple I've learned from a rather distraught mother that her daughter has run off here seeking fortune and fame, and I never was one to leave a damsel in distress."

"How noble sir, but oh my is that smoke I see on the horizon! Oh dear you might have to put your philosophy to the test."

Tune in next week to hear the continuation Pitt had always loved the radio drama that they played on GNR but had found that one to be pretty boring, he turned off his pip-boy and got ready to sleep when he almost shat his pants. Bittercup had been staring at him with the intensity of the sun, but when got over the initial shock he saw a certain sparkle in her eyes, as Bittercup began to spring into a machine gun fire conversation about how much she loved the show (and hated Sarah Lyons) he was seriously considering suicide.

(Experimental Troop carrier)

Olin and her team had out done themselves, instead of just reverse engineering a flying saucer they managed to make a new model all together, they had figured out how to use the technology on the saucer and apply it to the verti-birds, now instead of an alien craft with room for one, you had a familiar craft capable of all the death and destruction plus space worthiness and troop deployment capabilities. The majority of what remained of the Brotherhood was being transported in four of these craft as using beacons to teleport them would have been too much of a strain on the teleporter's energy reactor.

"I didn't lose" Sarah pouted in the co-pilot's seat as the Captain piloted her and the pride up to the ship.

"Sure you didn't" the Captain replied smugly. Unlike the former model of verti-birds the WRM version was much larger and also boasted small windows on each side (made of the transparent metal the shielded the main reactor), Sarah lost all of her depression as soon as the ships began to leave the atmosphere. It was a sight to see, the clouds began part as they reached higher and higher altitudes, until the white curtains finally parted to reveal the black theatre of space. Sarah instinctively put her hand on the Captain's shoulder as she felt a falling feeling when the artificial gravity kicked in, the pride were all stunned for exactly five seconds before they all started to yell and hoot in absolute glee, the Captain linked in with all of the other comms of the other ships so the Brotherhood could hear each other cheer, it had been a long time since they had heard their brothers cheer. Olin's face suddenly appeared on the windscreen of the carrier and Sarah quickly took her hand off of the Captain's shoulder (a women's intuition is strong indeed), but not quick enough it would seem as Olin instantly death stared knives covered in snakes being held by a super mutant at her, all of which the Captain seemed blissfully unaware of. "Ah Olin good timing as ever, prep the docking bay to receive us, I want Bigsley and Elliot in my Quarters immediately." The Captain said with a little smile as he flicked various switches as the carrier got closer to the mother ship, a sight which exacerbated the Brotherhood's case of awe. Olin simply nodded politely and cut the signal with a parting death stare at Sarah.

"Huh been a long time since I've seen Olin" Sarah said nervously.

"Yes I've never seen her so happy before" the Captain replied cheerfully.

"There really is something terribly wrong with you."

"Why does everyone say that?"

"I'm sure you'll figure it out."

(Cryogenics)

Jackal and Leslie had spent the last few days in a bit of an awkward period, after what had happened between them they had decided to simply stay friends for the time being, it seemed better, especially since Jackal was being re-assigned to RA Alpha as a medic, it was a shock decision for Leslie and Elliot but Jackal took no objections, he didn't believe the story about Pitt's re-assignment and wouldn't believe that he just left without a single word, he knew trying to get answers from the Captain would just be stupid, it's hard enough to understand him when wasn't trying to hide something. Jackal knew he could get some answers back down on the wasteland, and that's exactly where he planned to go. RA Alpha had taken more of a defensive role along with the rest of RA, defending Megaton and it's various trade routes had them pretty full handed, ISO was doing…. Whatever the fuck it is that ISO does when they're not long distance scouting, seriously something fishy was going on with them, Jackal had a feeling that it might have something to do with Pitt but for now his only concern was finding him. Alpha's mission was simple, a shipment of terminals capable of connecting every outpost in the wasteland with the mother ship and Megaton was going to be delivered to said outposts, it was impossible for the WCB to hack into the terminals as they required the other end to allow access, every terminal had a camera which was always running which meant the other person could see who was trying to access the terminal, if it was legit comms would be opened, if not, the self-destruct (a mini fission generator… connected to a mini nuke) would be activated, but of the WCB destroyed them it would cost time to get connected to the outposts, precious time. Jackal got into his medic armour (a modified replication of another talking model that the Captain had used) and promptly boarded the carrier with the rest of Alpha.

"Jesus took you long enough doc, thought I'd have to run to a local doctor after spending some time with Nova when we touch down, I wouldn't want you to miss out on that!" A loud comrade bellowed as Jackal got in his seat across from him, his name was Garret, loud and crude but death incarnate with a minigun, and now he had a launcher from one of the artillery bots.

"Do you ever shut the fuck up?" Timebomb moaned, he was from Big town a little shit hole just north of Megaton, apparently the place isn't so bad now that it's a WRM outpost, but Timebomb always has an angry face when it's mentioned. He learned how shoot conservatively due to the shit all amount of everything in Big Town, this turned into sharp shooting, which turned into sniping.

"Looks like it's just like old times huh?" Donovan chuckled to Jackal as he tinkered with his pip-boy, he used to be in Riley's Rangers until Riley and Butcher retired, he was fixing things in Underworld until he heard about the WRM, normal kind of guy, no real distinguishing features about him, but if he wasn't with RA he'd probably be right up there with Bigsley and Olin, said he didn't really like the politics those two brought to the division, besides once a ranger, always a ranger. The SL just sat quietly in his seat as he gave his atomizer a final check before departure, he went by Barret, he was ghoul and the rumour has it he was the body guard to some drug dealer hiding out in the metro tunnels before the Captain capped him, besides that the guy was a fucking mystery, and a deadly one at that. The Departure was cleared and the transport gently fell out of the hole in the hangar bay into space before the jets under its rotors thrust it forward towards the brown scarred earth.

(Hangar)

Olin had been quite impressed with the new transports, and even more impressed with her latest insults at Bigsley all she needed now was to get rid of two very annoying obstacles going by the name of Lyons and West. She was an educated woman, a rare thing in these times, despite his…. Eccentricities the Captain was actually quite a learned person himself, but unlike Bigsley or any others in the Brotherhood he wasn't arrogant about it, that made him even rarer than her, so it was with a sinking heart she sat at her desk in the bay stuck overlooking the fine tuning of her brilliant designs while that damn Lyons loitered about with Bigsley and Elliot in the Captain's quarters. Sally noticed her mentor's dour expression and decided it was time to go on the offensive, she was a quick learner and had a grasp of the various ships almost as impressive as Olin herself, it was this talent that would allow to Sally enact her classic plan, her smile was almost demonic.

(Captain's Quarters)

"I'm sorry what? Did I hear him right Tercorian?" Bigsley questioned in an annoyed tone.

"Well what's so bad about it? He seems to think it's a good idea, so why not?" Elliot replied with a good natured smile.

"You see Elliot agrees, Sarah would make a fine first officer and it would be the easiest way to integrate the Brotherhood members into the command chain." The Captain argued, Sarah simply on the Captain's bed, the events of the day had left her very, very tired, her men were safe, and fed so she was perfectly content at the moment.

"And that's another thing who asked to bring the brotherhood onto the ship; I joined up to get away from them!"

"What's the problem, now you get to boss them around!"

"Not good enough!"

"With a first officer you'll never have bridge duty again" the Captain said as though he were watching an animal wander into his trap.

"Welcome aboard Lyons!" Bigsley exclaimed wholeheartedly falling for said trap, but when the three men turned around from the desk to face her they saw her sleeping soundly on the fluffy blankets the civilians had made for the people on the ship, she was in some cargo pants and a tank top luckily, if she was in her power armour the Captain would have had to wake her, but for now the men exited silently and the soldier rest in peace, she had earned that much.

Well this chapter didn't take too long did it? Sorry about the small word count in the latest chapters but I'm trying to ease back into this. Thank you for the kind review Moonburner it MOVED me! Every comment and favourite is keeping me going to bring this happy little tale about space, friendship and killing one another to theatrical close. Ideas, complaints blah blah blah you know the song and dance.