Chapter 2: Scavengers Life
Disclaimer: I do not own Fallout New Vegas
I was lightheaded, but I was able to make out the faded purple sky of the early morning. I was slowly dragged out of the river and onto dry land by a pair of strong arms. I was set down on my back taking slow deep breaths as Zachary stood over me.
"You okay?" He asked. I nodded feeling soaked to the bone. I was about to get up, but he placed his hand on my shoulder, keeping me down. "Take a minute. We still have time."
"What happened?" I asked.
"We escaped at the seat of our pants that's what happened." Michael snapped. We both looked over at him and watched as he squeezed the water from his socks. "I knew I should have just gone by myself."
"Then why didn't you?" Noah asked. Michael gave him a disgruntled look.
"Morals Noah, we all have a set of morals."
"Look, were all okay right?" Skye asked. "We escaped the Legion and we're free now. Can't we just be glad about our small victory?"
We all took a breath before standing on our feet.
"What weapons do we have?" I asked.
"We lost all of our gear in the escape." Noah said.
"What about caps?"
"I got fifteen caps." Zachary said.
"Eight." Noah muttered embarrassed. "Too much gambling."
"Twelve." Michael said.
"Twenty one." I shrugged.
"I have forty…in my pants…back at the fort." Skye mumbled embarrassed.
"Fifty six caps." I sighed. "Well if we do find a merchant we can probably by some bullets and rent a gun."
"We should head to Goodsprings." Noah said. "It's mostly NCR territory, we'll be safe there."
"Great, which way is it though?" I have never been to this part of the Mojave before. I was so turned around I couldn't even tell which direction would be right or wrong.
"North-west, twenty miles." Skye said. "It will probably be a day's walk."
"How do you know that?" Zachary asked. She held up a wrist mounted computer.
"There was no way I was leaving this there." She said. "My trusty pip-boy has never failed me."
"Great, let's get moving." I flicked my razor out just in case and Zachary grabbed another rock. I gave him a skeptical look, but he shrugged his shoulders at me. Hey he may have been a bit weird, but he was resourceful.
Zachary and I took the lead and Noah lifted Skye on his back and carried her piggy back. I was hoping like hell that the only trouble we would come across was a stray ghoul and a coyote. We weren't prepared for a Legion or any sort of raiding party. I could only hope that we come across a friendly merchant, but we're too deep in Legion territory.
"So how long have you been wandering?" Zachary asks, throwing his rock up and down.
"Since I was twenty, that was five years ago." I said. "I've been wandering around, clipping Legion and anyone else with a price on their head. What about you?"
"Eh, the same." He said. "I used to be a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, but there was a mishap."
"What kind of mishap?"
"I pissed off my former boss on a mission a while back." He scoffed. "Okay, so I blew up a raider camp with a few hundred pounds of our stolen tech, give a guy a break huh?" He asked sarcastically. "Anyways, I was tired of those chuckle heads for a long time and decided to do some good on my own."
"Why did you blow them up?" I asked.
"I…didn't know we were doing a salvage run. I thought it was a sneak attack, but whatever no one tells me anything. What about you, what did you do before traveling?"
This was a difficult subject to bring up. I looked down at my scarred hands. Those bastards could have left me my gloves.
"I was a farmer, with my ma and pa." I started. "We had a good thing going, until the Legion decided it was enough. They burned the farm down, killed my parents and left me with nothing. So, I wander and I will continue to wander till whatever is out there kills me or I disappear like everyone else."
"The definition of a wanderer if I ever heard one." Zachary sighed as we pressed on.
(Noah POV)
Hell of a week this was turning out to be. I do a favor for a friend and I end up in a fucking Legion camp. Then I narrowly escape death with a handful of misfits. At least I have Michael with me. He was the best sniper in the NCR. He wasn't the same after Bitter Springs.
"So, how have you been there Michael?" I asked.
"Well Noah, aside from the nightmares of slaughtering innocent people and the blood on my hands. I am very well buddy." Michael replied snidely. "How about you?"
"Had better days." Noah snickered. "You still have nightmares too?"
"Every night, it was a very bad time at Bitter Springs." Michael sighed.
"I'm new around here, what's Bitter Springs?" Skye asked from over my shoulder.
"You're not from around here?" Michael asked.
"No, I was stationed out in the Capital Wasteland." She said. This surprised both me and Michael. The Capital was a stone's throw away.
"How did you get here?" I asked.
"It took some time. I've been here for about a year. It took me a couple months to get here."
"Why did you leave?" I asked.
"I wanted to do more in life." She said. I could feel her looking around. "I was proud to be a part of the brotherhood of steel, but it just got…boring."
"Boring, how could it be boring?" I asked. Being an NCR ranger meant I was on constant surveillance for Legion, so I was never bored. This girl's sole purpose is to protect the people from super mutants and she calls it boring. She must have been crazy to quit.
"It was just…I hated being stuck in the same run down ruins of the capital only to be confided in our iron fortress at the end of the day. I wanted to see life in the settlements, see how people really lived."
"And you wounded up in the Legion's camp, great job." Michael snapped.
"Settle down Mike."
"No, I went to New Vegas, I didn't like it. It was too loud, too greedy and filled with all sorts of filth." She said in disgust. "I left after only a few days and afterwards made it to Nipton only to be captured by the Legion. I didn't make it to the fort until yesterday."
"Nipton, didn't you get any Intel before going?" I snapped. "That place is nothing but a gambling, whore mongering cesspit."
"Was a cesspit." She muttered. "The place was burned down by the Legion, everyone is dead."
"What/Shit!" Mike and I exclaimed. We didn't know that the Legion had made it this far out west, now they were invading small settlements.
"This war is going to get ugly isn't it?" Mike sighed.
"Yup, kid let me tell you something about this war." I sighed. "Me and this guy over here, we were a part of the NCR's 1st recon group and we were sent to take down some Great Khan raiders. We managed to track them down at a small dead-end settlement called Bitter Springs. Our superior gave us simple orders to go in and fire until our clips are empty."
"The only problem was it wasn't the Khans hideout or drug manufacturing station it was their damn settlement." Mike snarled. "There were no killers and thieves, only women, children and elders and when we weren't gunning them down in their homes we were gunning them down in the escape path in coyote tail."
"It was an escape route." I told her. "After a few minutes of mindless slaughter my captain Dhatri managed to at least save a few khans and sent them on their way. Afterwards, a lot of soldiers, including Mike over there quit."
"Geez, you guys seemed to have made the same mistakes as I have. You blundered into a town without the proper Intel." Skye said.
"Yeah, it wasn't a proud moment for any of us." I sighed.
"Hey guys, there's a station up ahead." Drake said from up front.
"Okay." I called up ahead. "Let's hope they got something for us."
(Drake's POV)
We all decided that Zachary and I would go up first and investigate. Places like these were settlements for merchants, thieves or radscorpions. The place was a simple gas station a garage on the left for two cars, gas pumps and a small station. Zachary checked the garage while I checked the station.
I was two steps near the door before being tackled to the ground by a ghoul. It snarled and slobbered all over me as I struggled to pry it off. A rock struck the side of its head and weakened its hold on me allowing me to stab my razor into the side of its temple. It let out a dying growl before falling to the ground dead.
I pushed the foul smelling bastard off of me and held back the bile that crept up my throat. These things were disgusting.
"Hey, it's all clear!" Zachary shouted out to the rest of the group. He held his hand out to me. "You need a hand?" I rolled my eyes at his pun as he helped me up.
"Thanks." I grunted as the other three come up to us. "Okay, we should do a rundown of the place."
"Why don't you and I check the garage?" Zachary suggested. I could agree to that. "You three could check the station out."
"Sounds good." Noah said, putting down Skye.
The three of them walked into the station while Zachary and I checked out the garage. There wasn't much to be found, just some scrap and about ten bottle caps, including the ones I got off that ghoul. Zachary found a sledge hammer so he was happy as a pig in shit. We went inside the station to see Michael examining a repeater and Skye was now dressed in a pair of black pants and a matching vest.
"Looks like you guys found some things worthwhile." I chuckled.
"There's a safe behind the counter on the floor, but none of us can crack it." Noah said as he stomped down on the door frustrated. I move over to the small safe. It was a cheap one, very easy to break into. After a little tinkering we found a great pay load.
A 9mm, a combat knife, a sawed off shotgun and a box full of caps marked with the number, 200. There were also bullets for the guns and I handed them to Mike and gave Noah the sawed off shotgun and the shells.
"Great, better than what we had a few hours ago." Mike said. "We also found these." He hands me a box of sugar bombs and a bottle of water. I quickly yanked the water out of his hands and chugged the water down. I let out a heavy sigh after finishing every drop.
"Damn, that is the best feeling in the world." I chuckled.
"What, rehydration?" Skye joked.
"No, finding what you need in your most desperate hours." I tear open the cereal and start eating before sharing the wealth. "A scavenger's finest moment."
We spent the next hour resting and talking about our past. How Skye wanted more than an army life and Michael quitting the NCR. Zachary even found a bottle of whiskey and shared it with us, though he had more than us, we didn't mind.
"We should probably get going now." Noah said. "We only have a few hours left of sunlight."
I loaded my new 9mm and Noah and Michael readied their guns as well. When we stepped out we were surrounded by a group of Fiends.
"Hey, what are you little bastards doing going through our shit?" The leader snapped.
"Stealing it obviously." I snickered. They had their guns trained on us and we had our holstered. That's when I got an idea.
"You little shits are fucking dead!" The leader shouted as he aimed his varmint rifle at us. We all raised are hands.
"Okay, we surrender." I snapped. Mike looked at me in disgust.
"What the hell Drake?" He snapped. I gave him a reassuring look.
"Mike, do you remember what happened with those Legion bastards?" I asked. I could see the pieces coming together in his head. He nodded and dropped to his knees.
"All right, we surrender."
He quickly dropped down to the ground and I once again quick draw my handgun. Noah pulled out his sawed off shotgun and gunned down two of the remaining Fiends. The last one tried to run away, but Mike picked him off with his repeater.
"Huh, that was easier than I thought." Mike said.
"They're Fiends." I stated. "They act crazy, but that doesn't mean they are organized. These twitching bastards are only threatening when it's five against one."
Zachary came back with a Varmint rifle for Skye, a caravan shotgun for himself and a silenced .22SMG for Noah. Skye was happy to finally be able to have a gun, though they were in poor condition.
"These guns are kind of weak." She muttered in a disappointed tone.
"Yeah, Fiends were never known for keeping their guns in top shape." Zachary stated. "Especially these ones, my guess is they were banned from Vault 3 from consumption of their products."
"I'm surprised they let them live." Noah said. "My Captain told me that they kill traitors like these."
"Oh, I didn't say they let them go, they probably ran like hell while getting shot at." Zachary chuckled.
"Okay, let's get going. These guys don't have anything of value. Just some pool cues and a hatchet." Which I had just sheathed on my belt.
"I thought these guys had cool tech." Skye said as she walked next to me.
"Like Zack had said earlier, they must have been kicked out of Vault 3. So now, like us they were probably scrapping by with whatever they had."
"Makes sense, I just what a real gun again, not this rusted piece of crap." She grunted.
"Don't worry kid. They got to have something for us at Goodsprings." I chuckled.
"I can't wait to have enough money to get some of the top shelf goods from the Gunrunners." Zack grinned. He wasn't wrong they had the best gear in all the wasteland, but they were just giving them away. It cost nearly two thousand caps for a rifle of Skye's caliber.
"There it is." Noah exclaimed.
I looked up at water tower and the noticeable windmill in the distance and smiled. Goodsprings may not have been a big hustle and bustle city, but it did well for fellow travelers. The five of us ran towards the small settlement, eager to get some good food and to be surrounded by good people once again. We wouldn't be leaving till morning as the sun had set by the time we had gotten there. We could all use a good night's sleep.