At the end of the first week of marching, Lucy was starting to get a little bit more used to Savannah's company. At the Missionary's request, she'd shared a lot more of the stories that she had to tell, mostly those that had something to do with her friends. Veronica, Christine, Kyle, Boone, Lily, Raul, Arcade, Cass, even Rex and ED-E. Lucy was naturally more than happy to talk about them, even if it did make her a bit melancholic that they couldn't have come along for the journey to Zion.
Still, they all had their own goals. Veronica and Christine were overseeing Big Mountain, Kyle was out west in California hunting down a few bits of Pre-War documentation, as well as some personal things that she'd asked for. Lily had gone along with him, hoping to find the remnants of her past. Raul was across the Colorado River helping protect innocent settlers from the bandits that had started invading the territory that formerly belonged to Caesar's Legion. Cass was making the most of the gold that Lucy had given her by making a new Caravan Company, and Rex was back with the King, still getting accustomed to his new brain.
It was the thoughts of Arcade and ED-E, however, that inspired the most melancholic feelings within her. ED-E had gallantly sacrificed himself in the Divide to stop a barrage of nuclear missiles from striking the NCR, and Arcade…
She frowned, theories running rampant in her mind, it was difficult to guess what had happened to him. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but she doubted that he had been killed. Despite his preference to stay away from violence, he was a very potent fighter, well-equipped, and likely accompanied by the equally-capable Enclave Remnants. Ultimately, his fate was simply out of her hands, a fact which she unashamedly hated.
"Are you okay?" Savannah asked.
Lucy turned around to see a predictably worried expression on her companion's face; apparently she had been making her thoughts plain to see through her body language. "I'm worried about a friend of mine, Arcade. I found out that the NCR put out a bounty on him the same day that I met you."
Savannah nodded grimly. "I heard about him from the Followers, was he really a part of the Enclave?"
"The Enclave is dead, but his father was a soldier in it, and he was friends with a few ex-soldiers who saved his life when he was a child," Lucy explained, her tone more bitter than even she had expected it to be. "They helped the NCR at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam… but I guess that just wasn't enough for the Republic."
Normally she would be hesitant to so readily reveal the details of her friend's past, but now it seemed that there wasn't really any damage that she could inflict by doing so. Arcade was gone, and the NCR already knew where he'd come from. It wouldn't matter if anything she said made it back to them now. She had also learned that Savannah was a very compassionate person, who would hopefully understand that Arcade was as far from a bad person as somebody could possibly be.
"I've only ever heard the stories about the Enclave, how they were the boogeymen of the wasteland that would take kids from their beds if they didn't eat their vegetables," Savannah replied. "It's a relief to learn that some of those stories were exaggerated, that there truly were good people among them."
"I appreciate the understanding," Lucy said. "Most of what you've heard is true, vegetables aside. The Enclave weren't heroes, well, most of them anyway, and the world's a better place now that they're not around anymore. Arcade said so himself."
Savannah's expression shifted as her words apparently inspired a thought. "Do you think the same could be said for Caesar's Legion?"
Lucy shook her head without hesitation and tightened her grip on her rifle. "If there's a good person in Caesar's Legion, I've yet to meet them, and I don't think that's going to change."
Savannah did not reply, which defied the expectations that Lucy had started to form about her. Savannah was a woman who was very outspoken about her faith, and the virtues of forgiveness, compassion, and an aversion to violence. To have her remain silent in the face of such a bluntly hateful statement was a bit unusual, but if it was an attempt by Savannah to avoid an argument it was a welcome one.
For as much as Lucy hated the Legion, she hadn't enjoyed their earlier argument, even if she stood by what she had said. Despite that, she recognized that some of Savannah's points had merit. Most notably, she hadn't really processed the similarities between the situations she was confronted with at Red Rock Canyon and at Boulder City.
There were a few good reasons for why she'd chosen to negotiate in Boulder City, most notably a need for information on Benny, and to save the NCR hostages that the Khans had taken. She had no such restrictions at Red Rock Canyon, and faced with the overwhelming likelihood of what the Khans would do to innocent people across the Mojave in the future, she had felt as though she had little choice in what to do.
"Lucy, if you don't mind me asking…" Savannah prompted, mercifully shaking Lucy out of her thoughts, "why did you agree to help me?"
"Because you needed help," Lucy answered. She swiftly realized, however, that Savannah was likely looking for a more detailed answer than that. "This wasn't a trip that you could've made alone. Not easily, anyway."
Savannah nodded. "But your friends… would you not rather be with them?"
Lucy paused, even momentarily slowing her pace a little bit as they walked. It was, admittedly, something that she had given considerable thought to over the week. She wanted to check on Veronica and Christine, to know that they were still okay and that Big Mountain and its secrets were safe. She wanted to be exchanging dry jokes with Raul, discussing all things nerdy with Arcade, she wanted to be traveling with Kyle and-
She shook her head clear. She already knew what her answer was, and there was no sense getting lost in thought. "Not if it meant leaving you to do this by yourself."
"And I appreciate it, but…" Savannah replied, clearly struggling with how she wanted to express something. "All of what you've told me, about all of these battles and missions of yours… When was the last time that you did something for yourself, Lucy?"
Again, she was forced to pause. There was reuniting Veronica and Christine but… well, that had been more for their sake than hers. She'd gotten into a few recent battles with Raiders and the wildlife, but self-defense was probably not what Savannah had in mind. She'd also slept a little over a week ago, not really because she needed to, she'd just felt like it. But she also recognized how absurd it was to think of sleeping as selfish.
"I'm not sure," Lucy answered, surprising herself with how hollow her voice sounded, and the sudden exhaustion that she felt. It was genuinely something that she hadn't given any thought to.
Savannah's expression softened. "Then… maybe once we get to Zion, you should think about taking a break. It sounds like you haven't gotten a chance to rest for a while."
Lucy nodded, unsure of what to really say. Savannah was right, but Lucy couldn't help but feel that even if she tried to relax, she wouldn't know how. She'd had moments to rest, but genuine, prolonged downtime? That was something that she hadn't really given much, if any, thought to.
"Think about it," Savannah said, evidently sensing the nature of Lucy's dilemma, or at least the fact that she was having one.
Thinking, thankfully, was something that Lucy was quite good at. "I will."
It was well past noon when, after days of relative peace, Lucy finally spotted what she had been expecting to find in the distance. The distinctive crimson tents belonging to the soldiers of Caesar's Legion were visible even without her improved vision. Once she'd spotted the camp, it was only a matter of moving towards a better position to get a vantage point on them.
From their new rocky perch, Lucy and Savannah took count of the Legionaries in the distance. They were loud, and carried themselves with a bitter anger, no doubt inspired by the crumbling state of their empire. But what truly caught Lucy's attention was the lack of any slaves. That meant one of two things, either the slaves attached to this band of soldiers had been killed or escaped… or this was a raiding party.
Either way, Lucy knew what she had to do.
"I count twenty of 'em, probably another ten in the tents, at least." Lucy surmised, keeping her voice down in spite of the distance. "See any slaves?"
"No, thankfully," Savannah quietly answered, lowering her binoculars and looking at Lucy. "How do you think we should get around them?"
Lucy remained silent for a moment, examining the camp with her built-in rangefinder. It was around four-hundred yards out, give or take about thirty depending on which part of the camp she was looking at. It was beyond Medicine Stick's effective range, but closing the distance was always an option, especially since they hadn't been detected.
"Lucy?" Savannah asked, a hint of nervousness in her voice.
Lucy grabbed her rifle, making her intent clear even before she spoke. "Who said anything about going around?"
Savannah was silent. The blood drained from her face and she spared a glance back towards the camp. She wasn't nervous, but Lucy could see the dread in her eyes. It was hard to really guess what Savannah was thinking, but Lucy could assume.
Fair enough, there's a platoon of 'em down there, Lucy thought. "Don't worry, I can take-"
"No, we can't do this!" Savannah whispered, an urgency in her voice. "Lucy, this is wrong!"
Again, she'd thrown Lucy for a loop. Although in retrospect she probably should've seen Savannah's objection coming. "That is a Legion Raiding Camp, for all we know they could be marching up to Zion. You're telling me that hitting them first is wrong?"
Savannah, to her credit and Lucy's frustration, remained firm. "To shoot anybody in the back like this is horrible. We don't know what these men are planning, perhaps they're not here to-"
Lucy shook her head. There was a time and a place for moral idealism, but it was not now. "Get it together! It's Caesar's fucking Legion! Our situations reversed, they'd do a lot worse to us than kill us, and they wouldn't even think about feeling bad about it!"
Savannah paused, clearly taken somewhat aback by Lucy's outburst. Lucy, for her part, was through with patience. They were on the battlefield now, and it was time that they started acting like it.
"I am going to go down there and kill every last one of them before they hurt somebody who can't defend themselves," Lucy pointedly said. "If you have a problem with that, stay here, and I'll do it myse-"
Savannah, however, was already reaching for her M1 Garand, albeit with visible reluctance. "I won't let you go alone."
Her tone betrayed every ounce of conflict in her mind, and for a moment, Lucy considered insisting that Savannah stay behind. If she was genuinely this shaken up over the idea of ambushing even a foe as truly evil as the Legion was, then it stood to reason that she might not have the nerve to be counted on in a fight. However, Lucy's gut told her that wasn't correct, and that Savannah was anything but a coward.
Maybe this'll be just what she needs, Lucy thought with a smile. "Stay up here and cover me, I'll head down to that closer ridge and draw their fire. Once we've whittled them down, I'll move in and finish the job."
Savannah nodded, clearly listening, although it was clear to Lucy that her mind was elsewhere.
Leaving her heavy rucksack with Savannah, she crept down the rocky ridge in practical silence. She'd neglected to bring a Stealth Boy or any such tool to help make her sneakier, but the sentries that the Legion had on watch were far too unobservant for their own sake.
The rocks provided outstanding cover, and it wasn't long until Lucy found a position that she was happy with around two-hundred yards from the raiding camp. She got settled in and had a good line of sight on her first batch of targets, a quartet of Legionaries doing training in a large, sandy clearing. Before she opened fire, however, she turned back to Savannah's position and magnified her vision with her cybernetic eyes, confirming to her satisfaction that Savannah was ready to join in.
Balancing the Medicine Stick on a rocky shelf before her, Lucy dialed in her sights on the first target, and positioned her right hand in such a way to rack the lever as soon as the trigger had been pulled. With a gentle squeeze, she sent the first Saturnite Sabot out the barrel, followed by rounds two, three, and four.
Within three seconds, four headless Legionaries fell to the ground.
Far behind her, Savannah's rifle spoke twice in rapid succession, before steadily falling into a more rhythmic pattern of fire, periodically interrupted by pauses to reload. The Legion's response, to their credit, was to do exactly as they were supposed to. They didn't panic, all took cover behind the durable rocks, and didn't move even as the minutes passed. While the majority of them exercised patience, two small parties of their number were sent on long flanking routes, one towards Savannah's position, and one towards Lucy's. It was professional, thoughtful…
And entirely predictable.
Lucy caught the first group off-guard by engaging them not from a distance as they no-doubt expected, but on their flank at a mere ten yards. The decanus leading the group was the only one who managed to get a shot off back at Lucy with a pistol, but it was a poorly-aimed whiff, clearly inspired by a bit of panic. Within seven seconds, four more crimson-clad raiders were left bleeding in the Mojave dust.
The other party fell victim to Savannah even before Lucy could get involved. The missionary kept an impressive rate of fire considering the heavy cartridge that she was working with, and it paid off spectacularly as she too left the Legion's last offensive force in a similar state of dismemberment.
With the remaining Legionaries now thoroughly stuck in place, Lucy was free to take her time in getting around them completely. With at least twelve of their number dead, it was safe to say that the Legionaries were probably not going to come out and engage Lucy on her terms, and so she would just have to go to them.
The complete absence of slaves paid off spectacularly as Lucy reached down onto her belt and withdrew a pair of frag grenades. Tossing one into both ends of the camp, the concussive force and shrapnel tore the tents apart, accompanied by a few of the Legionaries. Some had been wounded and survived, made apparent by their screaming.
As soon as Lucy found herself in the camp's entrance, three Legionaries attacked her. Two with machetes, one with a semi-automatic rifle. The one with the rifle managed to get a shot off on her, impacting her chestplate and knocking the wind out of her. His success was quickly cut short, however, by a 30.06 round delivered from four-hundred yards away by Savannah.
The two remaining ones clearly expected her to be stunned by the lack of air in her lungs, but her cybernetics kept her moving. She blew the right leg off of the first one to buy herself a bit of time, blocking a machete slash from the other with Medicine Stick's barrel, before using a classic NCR Ranger move to sweep the Legionaries legs out from under him. From there, drawing her 5.56 pistol from her hip and finishing the man off.
Taking a moment to catch her breath, she set about finishing off the rest of the wounded. The one-legged Legionnaire, along with those who had been caught by the grenades, all met their end with a single round to the head. A swift death was the only mercy that Lucy afforded them. Truthfully, it was a lot more than they deserved.
She found one final Legionnaire, the Centurion of the raiding party, in the only tent that was still standing. As soon as their eyes met, however, he simply turned his gun on himself, and pulled the trigger. It was hardly a surprise as well, since all Legionaries preferred death to capture, and the man had likely assumed that was the fate Lucy had in mind for him.
Within an hour, the camp was lifeless, save for herself and a handful of Pack Brahmin that the Legionaries had brought along. She took the time to make sure all of the Brahmin had managed to escape the battle unscathed, since they didn't deserve to pay the price for the Legion's crimes.
Savannah joined her in the camp, struggling to carry her rucksack, with a look of absolute defeat on her face as she took in the carnage. It was admittedly a bit hard to gauge her expression since she'd pulled her hat down to cover her eyes, but her body language spoke volumes. "God have mercy… is… is there anybody…"
"They're all dead, the last one killed himself," Lucy replied. "Nice shooting."
Savannah set the rucksack down and took a long, deep breath and stepped towards Lucy. She already knew what was coming even before Savannah grabbed her by the shoulders, matching her own artificial eyes against Savannah's teary, brown ones.
"How can you just… do this?" Savannah asked, struggling to hold herself together. There was transparent, stern anger in her voice, accompanied by immense regret. "Doesn't this bother you at all?! This wasn't necessary! Nobody had to die today!"
Lucy remained silent, it wasn't hard to tell that an interruption would be unwelcome at the moment. It was, admittedly, hard to keep a straight face when confronted with Savannah's anguish. A part of her felt guilty at having dragged her into the battle, but in her defense, she had offered Savannah the chance to back out.
"Look around you!" Savannah insisted, gesturing broadly at the burning tents and mangled corpses. "How can you look at all of this and tell me that sneaking around wouldn't have been a better option?"
Now, Lucy sensed, it was time to answer. "Because now these bastards will never hurt anybody ever again."
"And how do you know that they would've?!" Savannah demanded. "You just killed all of these people, over an assumption!? You thought that they were here to start a fight, and so you butchered them, like animals."
Were it anybody else that Lucy had killed, she might've shown Savannah a bit of credit, but memories of the Legion's atrocities gave her the resolve to stand firm. "Better them than the people in Zion. Call me a murderer all you want, but these men, no, these soldiers came here armed to the teeth and without a slave in sight. They came here for a fight."
Savannah, in a move that Lucy admittedly found respectable, also stuck to her guns. "And again, you assume that. These men weren't machines, they were people. For all of the assumptions we could make, we still killed them without truly even knowing who they were! What if they were fleeing? The Republic has beaten the Legion back, who's to say they didn't see the writing on the wall and were trying to run away?"
"If we'd tried negotiating, we'd be up on crosses right now." Lucy sternly replied. "You can call me out for making guesses all you want; but if I wasn't cautious, I'd be dead, and so would a lot of other good people."
In truth, some distant part of her envied Savannah's idealism and wanted to agree with her, but it was buried by sheer common sense. Even with Caesar and Legate Lanius dead, Legionaries were raised from childhood to be murderers, rapists, and monsters. None of that was going to go away now that their chain of command had been beheaded.
Savannah shook her head in open disgust. "You've had a lot of harsh things to say about the NCR; but that doesn't change the fact that you're wearing that uniform, and fighting their war!"
Lucy paused, briefly debating how it was that she wanted to reply. Ultimately, however, she found a fairly good way to word it. "It's not just the NCR's war, it's mine. And if the Legion were to stop hurting innocent people tomorrow, it'd be over."
Savannah stammered, for a moment, lost in tears and heavy breathing. Finally, she simply chose to turn and walk away, apparently recognizing that neither of them were getting anywhere. Either that, or she simply couldn't stand to look Lucy in the eye anymore. Lucy watched her walk away, unsure how to feel, really. Savannah wasn't just going to leave her entirely, but for the moment, the Missionary simply needed her space.
There was little doubt in her mind that attacking the Legion camp had been the right decision to make. She'd ultimately tallied up around twenty-seven Legionaries by the end of the battle, more than enough to massacre all but the largest caravans that were headed up to Zion. Because of her and Savannah they would be, for the moment, much safer. Even so, seeing the tears in Savannah's eyes…
She finally returned an hour later, and at Lucy's insistence, they loaded what they could from the Legion's camp onto their Brahmin. Even Savannah recognized that the supplies were something that the New Canaanites could badly use, although she did abstain from partaking in the burning of the dead.
It was as Savannah silently worked far behind her, and Lucy stood alone before the burning corpses of her latest batch of victims, that she was confronted once more by a thought that she tried her hardest to avoid.
Why do I have to do all of the killing? she thought, not even sure who she was really asking.
Almost as if to answer her question, she spied something on the edge of the flames, a paper about to be consumed. Just in case it held something of note, she reached forward and grabbed it to have a look. Defying all of her expectations, she turned it to reveal… a drawing. It was crudely made, probably with an old world crayon, but it depicted the natural canyons around them in intricate detail given the limitations that the artist had clearly been facing.
For a brief moment, she looked down at the drawing in her hand, and then back up to the flaming pile of bodies, and briefly wondered which one of them had been the artist. A sudden inability to breathe caught her for a moment, before she folded the paper up and put it into one of her pockets. A part of her considered tossing it back onto the fire but… something about that idea filled her with a disgust that she couldn't quite comprehend.
With a shaky sigh, she turned away from the body fire, unable to stomach it any longer.
Why couldn't it just be somebody else?
