Chapter 18

Gannon

As blood burst from the neck of Vulpes Inculta, he looked at me while sitting there on his knees and with a gasping breath he said, "You can't…...win…...Mathis" he said while spitting blood from his mouth. His eyes seemed to burn brighter than ever and I began to wonder if the fight was over. He then breathed in a heavy, labored breath, "For….we…...are…...Legion. Hail….Caesar."

Vulpes' cold, dark eyes glazed over and then rolled to the back of his head and slumped into the dirt. The remainder of the blood in his body spilling out into the dirt inside the tent. Caesar stood from his chair in both disbelief and what appeared amusement.

"You show promise Ghost of the Mojave. Until now Vulpes has had no one match him combat except for my Legate Lanius. His greatest weapon as with any of my men, fear. You proved yourself today. I will show my generosity once more and honor your request this once. You and the scientist may go, but you will leave the combat gear I have given you. Your clothes shall be returned to you but not your gun." said Caesar walking over to me

Nearly out of breath, I turned to meet him. "So I am to remain defenseless?"

"Your request was to leave my Fort with the scientist. It was you who failed to specify the details of the bargain. Do not forget that Mathis. I will give you this however." he said handing me what looked like a medallion. "That is my mark. As long as you're here in Legion controlled territory, my men know not to attack you. But this gift will not last long as anyone leaving Cottonwood Cove has only a small amount of time before this means nothing."

I threw the amulet to the ground and drove my machete into it. "Thank you for your generosity, almighty Caesar." I said staring directly at him.

"That won't be necessary. You've given us a display of what you are indeed capable of and a quick study of your strengths as well as your weaknesses. It should be I thanking you. Leave my presence now, and know this Mathis, next time that we meet, I shall have no mercy."

With a fire in my eyes I told him, "Neither will I."

"I would suggest you get your friend, scientist, before I have to repeal my generosity."

There was a silence that fell inside the tent. Gannon made his way over to me and led me out of the tent. Looking back at the bodies of both Benny and Vulpes now laying on the ground, I understood what Caesar wanted. He didn't want to just destroy the Mojave, he wanted the world to burn.

At the tent entrance, there was a slave waiting for us. I removed my used leather armor and gave the slave my machete. In return, I was given my suit that I had worn into the Tops casino. I quickly put on the suit and Gannon followed me down to the entrance of the Fort. A guard led us through the gated entrance and to the docks to a flat barge. From here we set sail to Cottonwood Cove. Once we reached the area, it was easy to tell that the guards in the area were on edge about seeing us walk freely into their camp. Showing them the Mark of Caesar though guaranteed us a limited amount of protection. As we left Cottonwood Cove and were out of earshot of any Legionnaires, Gannon turned to me and spoke.

"Next time warn me before you try to balk at the leader of the Legion with nothing to really defend yourself with. I hate the Legion too, but that was stupid! Now look at us! What are we going to do? We are in the middle of Legion territory and have no supplies! We can't possibly hope to live long out here in the Waste!"

"Will you calm down? We'll be fine. I used to scout this area for traffic all the time. Not too far from here is a small cache of supplies I had stored. There are a couple of weapons and ammo, as well as some clothes, food, a spare backpack and water. Its a short walk uphill to the northwest. I call it my Sniper's Nest."

Gannon kept his mouth shut afterward. The hill climb wasn't too bad for me as I had made the trek a few times in the past six months. Gannon, however, had a hard time with the terrain. Upon reaching the Sniper Nest, I used the key I had hidden in the area to unlock my stored goods. Inside the footlocker were two weapons, a Gobi Campaign sniper rifle that was fitted with a maintenance kit inside a compartment in the stock of the rifle and a plasma defender. I took the rifle and handed Gannon the defender.

"You know how to use one of these?" I asked

"Of course, I'm pretty good with energy weapons. My family has always been a believer in energy weapons. They tend to be more accurate and far deadlier. Which of course is great for someone like me who can't really fight." he said

As I dug through the footlocker for a spare set of clothing, I decided to ask Gannon a bit more about himself.

"So what exactly did your family do? What kind of research were you performing for the Followers when the Legion capture you?"

"Well you definitely seem the type that has your head on straight with trying to rid the world of the Legion but not allowing yourself to take things too far, you also got me out of that hell hole, even though you are former NCR, I guess I can trust you. My father was one of a few surviving members of the Enclave in these parts. We were part of the group that decided to stay at Camp Nevarro when the rest of the Enclave moved on to the East. With the Brotherhood of Steel and the NCR's attitude towards the group, we didn't really have the luxury of staying in one place. Well between Arizona, California and Nevada, I've seen it all. Now I don't agree with everything that the Enclave did but we just wanted to be left alone. The friends of my father are old and pose no threat. I just wanted to work on my research. So we ended up here in the Mojave. We each separated and went into hiding. I fear that our hiding may not be long though with the NCR fighting the Legion."

"I thought I heard the Enclave re-surfaced back in the Capital."

"They did. They tried to take over but were stopped by the Brotherhood of Steel and some pissed off kid from a Vault."

"A kid from a Vault? People still live in Vaults?"

"Apparently there is quite a few still functioning back east. No clue how they are still working after the destruction of Raven Rock and the Crawler, but it all started with this Enclave colonel named Autumn who was responsible for the death of the kid's dad during the whole Project Purity incident. His dad was James, the guy that started the whole thing."

"Damn that kid has no love for the Enclave I bet."

"No, we received word that he's helping the Brotherhood hunt down every last member of the new Enclave in the Capital. They call this kid the Lone Wanderer, he's the Enclave's grim reaper so to speak. But it would seem though that the Enclave has always had a history of underestimating the power of one individual."

As I pulled on my merc grunt clothing and tied my boots and grabbed my rifle and filled the spare backpack with food and water, I took in everything that Gannon just told me.

"So if your dad and his friends are still out here, would they be willing to help us fight the Legion? I know that House is corrupt and the NCR is stretched thin here and stands a small chance of defeating Caesar on their own, but if my friends and I were to out House and take control of all the Securitrons, we could all unite against the Legion and stop Caesar."

"What makes you think House is corrupt?"

"There is something about him that just seems wrong. I felt like I was speaking to a dictator when I met him. I know that he plans to rid the Mojave of the Legion and the NCR. He may also rid it of anyone else not located in the Strip. Benny told me that he had a Securitron reprogrammed for the sole purpose of bringing down House. I don't know if that is true or not but we need to find out."

"Well part of the research that the Followers are conducting is trying to spy on House's network. We want to know how one man has been able to stay in power all these years or if he really exists. We also want to know where he gets all this supposed information about everything going on with the Strip. Another part of the research that I was conducting was to study Helios One. Its such an amazing structure. I feel like it has wasted potential. I think that it could be used for so much more. Think of having electricity for the entire Mojave. It could be our own Project Purity here."

"That's deep Gannon. Well I may know a thing or two about that place having worked with the NCR. If there is time one day I may let you in on it. I'll also see what I can do to get you information on House."

"There is a catch to this isn't there?"

"Do you think that your dad and his friends could help us out with destroying the Legion?"

"My father died in all the fighting with the Brotherhood and NCR but we can try talking to the remnants of the Enclave and find out. We will need to seek them all out but with luck we just might get them to help out. When we came here, we thought it was best to split up as staying in one place."

"Alright, so where do we find them?" I asked worried that by doing this there was the possibility to unleash the terror of the Enclave on the Mojave. Although this land was no stranger to its wrath but it was long ago.

"Well there are six of us left including myself. I know where just about everyone is except for Cannibal Johnson. I had heard rumors he had taken to living in a cave somewhere in the Mojave but I don't know where."

"Okay so where do we start?"

"Well considering our location, we should probably start in Novac. I understand that our Vertibird pilot is living there. Daisy Whitman is her name. She may know where to find the others."

"Alright let's get moving. You help me unite them to fight the Legion and rid this place of all its tyranny, I will help you with your research." I reached down in the footlocker and grabbed a few clips for my rifle. I also grabbed a few energy cell packs for Gannon and handed them to him. "Its going to be getting dark soon. I don't want to be caught out here at that point. Too many feral ghouls and fire geckos out here."

"You got a deal. Just so you know and I don't think this will be a problem, but if you turn out to be some agent for Caesar, I'm out of here."

"That won't be an issue."

I looked at my Pip-Boy, the time was 5pm. Looking at the map we had a lot of ground to cover between here and Novac. I began to contemplate staying put but that would be dangerous. So we made our way back down from the nest and began to travel Northwest. Everything was easy going when we made it to the main road. Being that this was still in close proximity to the Legion, we did not see one Legionnaire. As we made our way down the main road, we saw a group of feral ghouls. Feral ghouls attacked anything as soon as they could see or smell it. Ghouls were the product of radiation exposure which brought them unnaturally long life. I had known ghouls to live at least 150 years. Feral ghouls were the result of the mind of the ghoul completely slipping away. The only way to kill them was a shot to the head. If you miss the head there was a good chance that you were dead.

We had managed to make it past the ferals with no problem as they were distracted by a giant ant at the time. After a few hours of walking, the sun was completely down. It was a pretty dark night. Since we were far from the Strip, it was hard to see anything. Looking at my Pip-Boy, the time was now 8pm and everything was pitch black. I did discover that my Pip-Boy had a flashlight function on the device. It wasn't much light but it was enough to shine a light for us to see our surroundings. As we approached an area that looked deserted except for a wrecked highwayman looked like it hadn't moved in years, we decided to take a rest. I pulled off the backpack I had been carrying since we left the Sniper's Nest and handed Gannon a bottle of water and a container of CRAM. He sat down next to me as I pulled out a bottle of water and a box of Fancy Lad Snack Cakes. We ate in silence as I checked the map to see our distance from Novac. There wasn't much further but we still had some ground to cover.

"So these friends of yours, do you know if they will come looking for us?" asked Gannon

"I honestly couldn't tell you I only met them about a week ago." I said

"Wow you aren't exactly a tightly knit group are you?"

"Is anyone out in the Wasteland?"

"Good point."

"So do you think your Enclave friends will help us?"

"They may help. I doubt they travel with us but they may help when the time comes. We still have a lot of tech from the Enclave."

"Good to hear you have some resources."

"So let's say that we win this war, we free the Mojave, destroy the Legion, stop House, and kick the NCR out, what is your game plan then?" asked Gannon

"The Wasteland is rough enough. I want to do what I signed up to do, make it a better place." I said "What about you?"

"I just want my 'family' to be together again. I know when people hear the word Enclave they run in fear, but its all I've ever known. I would also like to finish my research."

Just then we heard a high pitched screech followed by several others. The feral ghouls had caught up to us. Not being able to see much, we got up, picked up our weapons and ran. I heard Gannon fire his Plasma Defender twice.

"I….can't…..keep moving…...like this….forever." said Gannon

I could feel my body losing momentum as well. I was still feeling the effects of the adrenaline rush from fighting Vulpes. My legs were burning and each breath was getting harder to draw in. Gannon had stopped firing and focused on running. I felt a clawed hand brush the back of my head. A ghoul had barely missed me. I could make out some lights in the distance. The gravel from the road seemed to be pressing into my feet, adding weight with each step. As we drew closer to the lights, I could see the large dinosaur that was the lookout point of Novac.

I barely managed to say "THERE!" and point out to Gannon when a bullet passed between us and I heard a ghoul cry out. Not wanting to see if it was dead, we kept moving. Another shot passed us followed by four more. As we entered into the town of Novac I couldn't run any further. I pulled my rifle off my back and turned to face whatever was left behind us. Gannon saw what I was doing and did the same. His breathing, like mine was very labored. I looked through my scope for any signs of movement as one more shot rang out and hit another ghoul. I saw no other movement.

Slowly but surely I slung my rifle on my back as Gannon placed his Defender back into his lab coat. We started to walk towards the town's inn.

"Who shot those ghouls?" asked Gannon

Then a familiar voice came from the steps of the dinosaur. "We were beginning to wonder if you were dead." said Boone