.com Where the RPs are flowing like Pre-war wine! come join us you Profligates!
Aurora was helping the other slaves to set up her master's tent; no-one knew how long this battle could last and the slaves were ordered to prepare for anything. She pulled hard on the rope that was wound halfway around her arm; it wore against the crossed scar that had formed after Titus had burned her with his shishkebab.
The little girl slave behind her helped as best she could, but there was really little she could do other than go and gather buckets of water from the nearby pump station. Aurora was bathed in sweat and tired from the march after helping to haul the heavy equipment with the rest of the slaves.
She had seen Lanius, the man was a mass of armour and dark auras, the legends that surrounded him bringing fear to each slave he passed, Aurora took an involuntary step backwards as he passed her, despite her being far enough away to escape the monster of the east's notice. She heard the cheer as the first flare rose to the sky, she turned and watched as the orange phosphorous flare burned the sky.
She paused in her work to watch as Titus, standing beside Lanius raised another flare gun and fired, in his new armour he looked magnificent, almost like a war-god, standing beside Lanius. Aurora took a moment to honour her friends at McCarran, and hoped that their deaths would be swift, but knew that the truth would be far more brutal.
She finished setting the tent, and the little girl came to stand by her side, passing her a ladle of water.
"Thanks sweetheart." Aurora smiled, the girl looked so much like Dana, her eldest niece at 7 years old. She turned to the sounds of the men of the Legion charging towards the NCR.
"You look sad, Aurora." The girl noticed.
"Yes, I am, today we attack my people." She sighed, placing the ladle back in the bucket.
The cries and footsteps of the charging legionaries drowned out the starting of the the drums. Men with thermic lances melted the gate's fastening, and within a minute, the recruits had flooded the courtyard. Gunfire crackled and blades crashed with dull thuds into the soft fatigues of the profligates. The troopers were vastly outnumbered. Even having consolidated their forces to McCarran, the number of troopers here seemed pointless. The extra men Titus had requested a week ago now looked excessive when he saw that his cohort outnumbered the troopers two to one.
Within the hour, the outside of the camp was almost cleared. The interior would be the hard part.
Though the rangers were gone, the NCR 1st Recon were still around. A .308 delivered from one of the camp's many towers punched through the helmet of a Decanus mere yards away from the Legate.
Lanius pointed out the towers, and sent the prime legionaries he had kept in reserve to remove any troopers in the towers.
The inside of the old airport would be hard to take. Multiple entrances led to multiple choke points on the inside. Heavy troopers with their LMGs were aiding the troopers, hunkered down at positions close to the doors.
Titus sent a scout round to the east side of the wall, where Agrippa and his men would be attacking from the other side, nearer a smaller entrance with fewer defenses.
The sounds of gunfire echoed back to the Legion camp. Aurora came out from within her master's tent into the heat of the day. She turned to where Titus and Lanius stood, and saw the head of a Decanus near Lanius explode and the man's body crumple to the ground.
"First recon are still there." She mused as she looked to the old airport.
Strangely, she began to worry for him. If he died, what would happen to her? resold to some lowly Legion soldier, or perhaps even placed upon the cross for the final death that the men of the legion believed that she deserved for being an NCR soldier.
"Must be hard for you and your master, watching this." Mused a nearby slave.
"What do you mean hard for my master?" Aurora asked, turning,
"Don't you know?" she smiled, "Your master was an NCR soldier before he came over to the Legion." She continued, as she stirred a pot of stew over a fire.
"No," Aurora said softly, "I didn't know, I just assumed that he was always Legion." She said, as she watched Titus standing beside Lanius. She turned and moved to help the little girl carry empty buckets back to the pump station. They were on their way back with full buckets when the ground exploded in tiny little ricochets before them, the girl screamed and dropped the buckets of water.
Aurora turned her head to the direction of where the bullets came from, two Fiends had gotten up the guts to fire on them, Aurora dropped her own buckets and grabbed the girl, she ran back to the camp, while reserve Legionaries ran past to take the threat behind them.
Aurora stopped once she had gotten to the first line of tents, and checked the girl, there was blood on both of their slave rags, Aurora didn't feel the sting of the bullet as it grazed her shoulder, and she was too busy looking at the wound to the girl's stomach. She knew instantly that there would be no hope of the child's survival. The girl's eyes showed the pain, and were beginning to lose the light of life.
"Sing to me, mama, like you used to…" she whispered. Aurora's tears fell to the upturned face of the child as she cradled the girl in her arms and went to her knees.
"Hear the four wind's call, little one…" she began to sing softly as she wept. It was a lullaby from her grandmother's tribe. "Dance to their song, little one, dream their dreams, feel their heartbeat, and rest until the dawn little one…" she child shuddered and took her last breath as Aurora continued to him and gently stroked the child's hair.
The Slave who she had spoken to before came up behind her and placed a gentle hand upon her shoulder as she gently rocked the girl and hummed the lullaby. Deaf and blind to the goings on about her, unfeeling to the pain she felt in her shoulder, her tears falling to the pale face of the child below in her arms.
he Legion and NCR were at an impasse. Any legionaries trying to get inside the airport were torn apart in a hail of bullets, while and trooper stupid enough to try and escape were gunned down or chopped up. Night was almost upon them, the NCR had no way out. The scout Titus had sent to the other side reported back that Agrippa's men had managed to hold the NCR inside the building the same as the southern group had. 'Fine', thought Titus. This battle would now be a siege, a war of attrition. They'd have to starve the cowards out.
The Legate had retired to his tent at the rear of the officer's camp south of McCarran, and left Titus still standing alone looking down at the legionaries setting up their tents by the walls of the camp. Eventually, the NCR would cave and the Legion would flood in through undefended doors and slaughter any survivors. Without food or clean water, this shouldn't take more than a week or two before the troopers were too weak to fight.
Finally, Titus turned from watching his men set up camp, and went to his own tent among those of the other officers.
Aurora had handed the body of the child to two other slaves who wrapped the girl in cloth and placed her with the pile of bodies. He shoulder had been roughly bound with a strip of cloth, blood still seeped through the makeshift bandage. She returned to her master's tent and awaited him, sitting on the mat that would serve as her sleeping place. She didn't wait long.
She arose when Titus arrived, and took a glass of water to him.
She could tell from the look on his face that victory had not yet been achieved. She helped him to remove his armour and brought his robe to him. Her mind went through the events of the day, the death of the child, her injury, the revelation of a rumour from the other slave woman about her master.
She wanted to ask him about it, but knew better than to ask him in the present situation. "A good day, Master?" she asked softly as she brought him a plate of fruit.
Titus walked inside and dropped his weapons to the ground, taking the glass of water and gulping it down. It had been a long day. He raised his arms and let her undo all the straps of his armor, placing the pieces neatly on a stand. Wrapping the robes around himself, he fell onto the bed and sighed. It was supposed to be easier than this. With all these men, and all their training, this should have been a cake walk. But maybe it was better that those degenerates die like starved animals.
"As good as any other," he muttered to himself, his mood picking up a little as he remembered he could take his frustrations out on his property.
Aurora placed the plate upon a table beside his bed and kneeled beside him, she worked her hands over his back working the tenseness out of his muscles; her left arm was a little weaker than her right with the pain she had begun to feel from the bullet's cut.
"I understand that we have the enemy besieged, master?" she said, as she worked at his shoulders.
Her mind going through what she knew of their supplies situation, but her information was weeks old, and unless they were able to get supplies from the other old highway past the Deathclaws and the jackals and Khans, their supplies might last just over a week.
"Indeed we do. They're held up inside. They won't last long," he chuckled. The two were in silence for a few moments, the only sound being the movement of her hands against his body.
"What happened to your arm, girl?" asked the centurion, doing as best he could to keep the concern from his voice.
She looked to her arm where the red of her blood had soaked through the bandage.
"One of the child slaves and I were getting water from the pump station near the camp, and two fiends decided that we were easy targets, I was grazed, but… the girl… she… died in my arms." Aurora looked away and forced her tears to stop. She turned her attention back to her master.
"Reserve Legionaries took out the two Fiends." She said softly.
The Fiends. If their minds weren't so drug addled, they'd have been inducted into the Legion long ago. He made a mental note to make sure they were ash after the Mojave had been claimed from the republic. "A shame," he said, "a whole life of servitude ahead of her. What a loss."
"You'll be down there tomorrow."
"'Down there', Master?" She asked, confused,
"Forgive my ignorance, but I am unsure as to what you mean." She said as she paused in her ministrations to his muscles moving down from his back to his legs.
"You are going to deliver a gift to your old friends." Like he had said all along, she would be one of the most important factors in kicking the NCR out of Nevada. Titus would sure as hell not let Lanius take all the credit, but he wouldn't mind if this girl was told she was the one most instrumental in the republic's defeat.
"Though I'm not sure they'll enjoy it."
At his words, she went cold. Her skin prickled with fear, she swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth. "Yes, Master, I live to serve." she said softly, sadly.
She did not know if she was going to survive this latest plan of her master. She finished massaging his legs and turned to him,
"May I do anything else for you, Master?" she asked him, a tinge of fear and sadness in her eyes.
"Indeed you do. Get some rest. You'll need it for tomorrow."
With that, he wrapped himself in his covers and lay his head to rest. Hopefully the night was cold.
Aurora left her master's side and finished cleaning up the tent before she went to her mat at the end of his bed and lay down on her good shoulder to sleep.
Her mind ran through the events of this day, her family never far from her thoughts. For the first time in her life, she feared the coming of Dawn.