Chapter 10

The Power of the Dragunov

"Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just brave for five minutes longer."

-Ronald Regan

In 2277 while the Lone Wanderer was in a coma, someone began targeting Brotherhood caravans transporting essentials to the Brotherhood of Steel (the attacker never engaged water caravans). Every attack followed a similar "routine". The victims were killed by a Russian sniper rifle, and the caravans were always destroyed after the protection was dealt with. That was where the "routine" ceased, however. As far as a "routine" goes, it wasn't much of one.

Heightened security scared off the attacker. He was never found and brought to justice, but he was eventually identified, and placed on the Brotherhood of Steel's 10 Most Wanted list for terrorism.

Nikolai Rascalov's first target was in Cleveland, Ohio. Unlike the woman he allied himself with, Rascalov spent less of his travelling time on the radio and more of it drinking.

That's not to say he didn't plan. He did. However, after being a sniper for situations not unlike this one for so long, he had a routine to follow: Never be routine.

He had a playbook of plans in his head for infiltrating, shooting, and fleeing. These plans didn't always guarentee his success, but they managed to keep him alive into 2281, so he saw no reason to stray from them. To avoid predictability, he'd randomize which plan he would use.

In his younger days, he'd also take the plan, the place in which it was to be enacted, and he'd think of as many ways for it to go wrong as he could. Once that was done, he'd come up with solutions to those issues, and he'd prepare himself for as many surprises as he could.

And then he started drinking.

Nikolai quickly became nearly functionless without alcohol. In the beginning, he'd botched a few sniping attempts and nearly got killed, both by the enemy and by his team. He had to be sent to rehab, and it was there that he sobered up again for a few months before falling off the wagon again.

His alcoholism did not change him. Nikolai was widely considered an ass even before he started drinking. The five divorces he had in the last decade only made him worse. He'd killed his second wife for having an affair, and he even attempted to kill the man she cheated on him with.

Nikolai didn't know at the time that the man she was cheating on him with had two black-belts. The angry former husband woke up in the hospital with four broken ribs, a concussion, and a fractured arm. He didn't bother Vlad again.

Rather than hunt to sustain himself like his companion miles away did, Nikolai often chose robbery instead. He'd take what he wanted, but if he was robbing a civilian (something he rarely did; typically he chose to rob raiders because he preferred a fight, and killing civilians was generally frowned upon by all he knew), he'd leave without killing if the victim cooperated.

When he finally reached his target's camp, he stopped his horse behind some debris. There was no grass around him, and as such there was no reason to try the ghillie suit. Where Tennessee's weather could vary in extreme ways, wasteland Ohio typically had one temperature: Cold.

Nikolai decided to conduct his attack while wearing a winter coat with an animal fur collar and sleeves. He threw a winter hat over his head and put on a pair of leather gloves.

Under his shirt he wore armor that he lifted off someone in the Capital Wasteland: an M-1951 field jacket.

His field jacket wasn't much as far as great armor goes. It might protect him against low caliber weapons, but the gunshot would still hurt, and he'd likely not be dealing with handguns if he screwed up.

Even in the face of his armor issues, Nikolai enjoyed the hunt. He didn't only enjoy killing those of evil nature. He'd kill anybody if it was in his best interest, and if it was in his best interest, it was something he usually liked to do. Many considered him a psychopath, but he considered himself a man from the pre-war world, which was a world that had "video games" involving killing as a regular action.

He was silent as he infiltrated the camp. Sneaking behind enemy lines came naturally to him. It was always a slow going for him, though. In great expanses of heavily guarded enemy grounds, Nikolai would take days to reach his target, sometimes taking from sunrise to sunset to crawl thirty meters.

That was in very heavily guarded camps, though. Having arrived at the camp during the night, Nikolai had a window of time to sneak close to his target. His coat was brown and his pants dark green, so in the dark night he was difficult to see.

He even showed restraint that bothered him deeply. He didn't kill anybody he did not need to kill. In the past, Nikolai nearly botched a few infiltrations because he decided to kill someone that did not need to die.

He knew that being caught by the Legion would not end well. He'd hide behind boulders, and when he got close enough, he'd even hide in their tents, often ending up just feet away from sleeping Legionaries. Staying away from unnecessary killing soured his mood, but he was now so close that he could put the suppressor on his Dragunov. He did so inside a tent full of sleeping Legionaries, but a bottle caught his peripheral vision: a bottle of his favorite brand of vodka: Vod Kanockers.

He might show restraint by sparing those that did not need to die this time around, but to get him to ignore a perfectly good bottle of vodka? Inconceivable. Nikolai looked at the Legionary whose nightstand it rested on, and quickly swapped the full bottle with his empty one. He even pocketed a few rounds for his Dragunov.

Many criticized him for his drink of choice, because it supported the Russian Stereotype. His response? "I don't care about American Stereotype. This is a classic."

From the tent, he proceeded along the shadows, expertly weaving in and out of tents as needed, but using shadows mostly for his cover. Mongrels would bark wildly at him, but then they would bark at anybody, and so the poor training of the dogs lulled the Legionaries into a false sense of security. If they bark all the time, why waste a moment or two checking up on them?

Nikolai ducked into a storage tent across from the tent of the Centurion leading the base, Brutus. Before risking even preparing himself for the attack, Nikolai gave himself a rough escape route. His suppressor may not be totally effective from the short range, but it would beat going loud. He figured on sneaking his way out if he wasn't made, and shooting his way out if he was.

Only after he had a mental map back to his horse did he cut a few small holes in the tent's fabric. He'd not push the rifle under the tent. Firing through the small opening would better hide his perch. It was a trick he used in the Moscow riots in buildings, and the technique hid his report nicely.

He quietly moved a large wooden box to act for stability when he fired, and he practically kept one eye on his back to ensure nobody intruded. From that moment on, his job was to wait.

So he waited.

He was waiting for two hours before he got his chance. The Centurion that was his target left his tent for whatever reason: midnight snack, bathroom break, rape a slave, kill an incompetent Legionary... it didn't make a difference to Nikolai. All that mattered was the hunt, and stalking was one of the steps to success.

The report of his weapon was greatly masked by both suppressor and choice of sniping perch, but the kill still acted as a cause for alarm to the Legionaries.

"The profligate! She's here!"

"Brutus is down! He's hit!"

"Where did that come from?"

"There! I think it came from in there!"

Nikolai did not stick around long enough for the Legionaries to enter the tent. By the time they made heads or tails of what was going on, he was already sneaking through the shadows as quickly as he could.

The Legionaries now carried torches and flashlights, which would render his hiding places useless if he tarried. As he tried to escape, he wondered how the Brotherhood Whore was doing. Did she reach her target yet, or would he have to do that for her, too?

"There! By the hills!"

Gunfire interrupted his thoughts, but he did not bother firing in return. Perhaps the Legionaries expected the profligate to bumble if she tried to snipe from a covert position, but this assassination was not performed by the woman per se (she did have a hand in it, or else Nikolai would have no reason to kill the Legionaries). The attack was calculated; precise.

It was done by an expert.

Sure enough, the Legionaries assumed that the woman from Vault 101 was getting some help. They would not be so careless again. This attack, however, occurred before her first solo attack. Nikolai's kill would only serve to hurt her, and in the end, both would end up causing difficulty, at least in some sense, for each other.

Still, as Nikolai mounted his horse and rode off, he glanced back at the direction of the camp, and couldn't help but mutter the phrase he always said to himself after what he considered a successful sniper's kill.

"Good hunting."

End of Chapter

1,594 words. Does anyone even read this?

The original order of past chapters went 'Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, The Power of the Dragunov, and Acceptance." I decided that, in order for this grief thing to really work, it would have to go "Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance", or else it would lose impact. We'll be seeing another Nikolai chapter next, but from there on it'll likely alternate between he and Milly, until they get to Freeside.

Did you get the vodka brand joke?

Next chapter follows Nikolai on his next attack. After that, we see what Milly's up to. And Cord comes back as a zombie and says "What's up?"

I may omit the Cord part.