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"Crew of the Righteous. This is the Jörmungandr. Land your ship immediately and surrender."
The loud blare of the Dominion flagship's transmission rang clear in the bridge. They were able to cut through the comm channel's encryption and were now broadcasting their warnings throughout the Brotherhood airship. Following the disastrous events at the Basin, the destruction of both the Glory and Pride, Lissandra Maxson ordered her helmsmen to steer them out of Landfall and plot a direct course for Lost Hills. Elder Larsson had refused to evacuate his people from the vault hours prior to the Dominion's invasion of the Basin, choosing instead to make it the site of the Texan Chapter's last stand.
In spite of herself, the Lancer-Commander found it admirable that the Elder was more than willing to die for the Order. So convinced was he of his righteous cause that he couldn't see any path beyond a martyr's death. Knowing this, she decided it was best to leave him and his zealots to their fate, choosing to fight the long war another day. All the information they learned, the data gathered from the vaults discovered in the Texan Wasteland and the intel they had on the Dominion, would be invaluable to the cause. The other chapters will need what they know, at the moment it was the best weapon they had against the Dominion.
"Crew of the Righteous. You cannot outrun our guns. We have a lock on your ship. This is your last warning."
All eyes turned to Lissandra Maxson, who sat tensely on her chair. They all saw what the Jörmungandr could do in a fight. They knew that neither their shields nor armor could stop its bite. Their chances of surviving by running were slim to none, but no one had the slightest hint of desire to end up in a Dominion labor camp. Perhaps they were going to have their martyr's death after all?
"Ma'am, should I cut them off?" A communications lancer offered.
"Do it." Maxson said quickly, "Helm, begin evasive maneuvers. We've got the speed, so let's use it to our advantage."
No sooner had communications been cut off than the bright flash of the Jörmungandr's main weapon's discharge flooded the interior of the bridge. The helmsman turned the ship just in time to dodge the first shot. The lance skimmed across the surface of the kinetic barrier and left a seared gash in the forcefield before the capacitors closed the breach. Stunned, the crew of the Righteous stared blankly at the near miss. They snapped to when Maxson spoke into the intercom, "All hands, we are under attack. Get to your stations and brace for evasive maneuvers. This is gonna be one bumpy ride home."
"Captain!" She turned to Lancer-Captain Reginald Kaczynski, "Send someone up to spot for us! We need to anticipate the Jörmungandr's fire! It's a slim chance, but it'll improve our odds!"
"Yes ma'am!" Kaczynski selected two lancers and ordered them to ascend the bridge to the uppermost lookout tower of the Righteous. That way, when the Jörmungandr primes its shot, they could maneuver out of its firing line.
After a minute had passed, the lookouts roared into the intercom. "The Jörmungandr's priming! Break right! Break right!"
The helmsman pushed the wheel into a spin, violently sending the ship into a roll that sent everyone onboard crashing against the walls. The maneuver saved everyone from the wrath of the Dominion flagship, but only for a brief moment. The Jörmungandr's crew was quick to pick up on the Brotherhood's tactic, and sent a squadron of Warhounds to bite at the Righteous' heels to cripple it. First, the fusion-lance broke the shields. Though it missed the rest of the airship, it gave the Warhounds an opening to send their missiles through. The Righteous suffered heavy damage across its main engines, leaving it vulnerable for future attacks.
"Ugh, damage report!" Maxson yelled as she scrambled to get back on her chair after being so violently thrown off of it.
Kaczynski climbed over the slumped form of an unconscious lancer and read the message from the core room. "Engineering reports multiple hull breaches in the engine room! That last hit took out the core! We're losing power!"
Another violent shudder rocked the ship as the engine room vented out the pressure build-up from the damaged core, followed by an eerie stillness as all power drained across all systems. The Righteous was dead in the water. It was still hovering some 20,000 feet up in the sky, but it wasn't going anywhere.
"Ma'am, I don't believe this." Kaczynski said after a quick glance at the communications panel. The Jörmungandr was hailing their vessel. "They still won't shut up."
"Can we get the guns online?" Maxson asked.
"Negative, they've knocked out all our teeth in this one, Lancer-Commander."
"Very well." She sighed wearily, rubbing the swelling bump in her temple. "Put them through."
Then, a voice from the Jörmungandr spoke. This time, it wasn't the flagship's admiral. "Righteous. This is Knight-Commander Nance McKenzie. The fight is finished. We have lost. Surrender to the Dominion, and you will be spared. The Jörmungandr has a clear line of fire, and it will only engage if further resistance is met. I personally guarantee that you will be looked after. If you cease all hostilities, the bloodshed ends here and now."
Once again, the crew and all the souls aboard the Righteous waited with baited breath as they looked now to Lissandra Maxson for guidance. They gave it their all, they tried their best but it was never enough. They were completely at the Dominion's mercy. Suddenly, the Lancer-Commander found herself in the same shoes as the Elder. But rather than double-down, Maxson thought long and hard about the people with her. There weren't just men and women onboard the Righteous, there were children too. The flight from Landfall was their last hope of escaping the claws of the Dominion's armed forces.
Gathering up her courage and steeling her resolve, Maxson approached the panel and gave her reply. "Righteous to the Jörmungandr, this is Lancer-Commander Lissandra Maxson. We submit ourselves to your mercies. Our ship has sustained heavy damage, and we've suffered casualties. We are unable to move our wounded. Send aid, we will not resist. Maxson out."
To her surprise, some of the people in the bridge heaved a sigh of relief. It became rather clear to her that not everyone in the Brotherhood was prepared to fight to the death, and she felt glad to have made this decision. Afterwards, she gathered her crew and called for everyone to meet her at the main hangar where all the vertibirds were kept. There, she gave a small speech to impart some measure of hope in the hearts of the tired and broken warriors of the Brotherhood. "The Dominion will come for us, do not resist them. Whatever comes, know that you've served the Brotherhood with distinction and fought valiantly. But this is not our end. We will survive, regardless of the banner that waves o'er the Wasteland. God bless you all, and good luck."
A few minutes later, the great shadow of the Jörmungandr loomed over the derelict airship. A noisy clang of a boarding ramp connecting with the Righteous reverberated across the ship, and out of it came several squads of elite Blackwatch troops. They were met with a dozen knights in power-armor. Unarmed, but determined to put on a show of defiance, they stood their ground and barred the path of the aesir super-soldiers.
"Lose the armor." The Blackwatch OIC growled as he stared one of the knights down, "Now."
"Stand down, knights." Maxson approached the group before the exchange broke out into another fight. "Do as he says."
Reluctantly, the knights obeyed their commander and disembarked from their power-armor harnesses. The aesir gathered them into pairs, then sent them into the Jörmungandr for processing. Afterwards, the medical teams marched into the Righteous to deliver aid to those in need. With some reassurance from the Lancer-Commander, before she herself was taken away, the wounded and sickened members of the Brotherhood of Steel allowed the medics to tend to their injuries. Food and water was distributed to the old and weakest, but once they were fed they were immediately transferred to the flagship. It was the first bit of human decency Maxson had seen in a while, the first she'd seen in the Brotherhood's enemies.
It was enough to change her perspective on the Dominion.
Maxson was brought before the admiral, who insisted on meeting his Brotherhood counterpart, the woman who dominated the skies of the Texan Wasteland long before the Jörmungandr's conception. They met at his cabin, which was located directly under the flagship's bridge. The room was a tad too fancy for Maxson's tastes, which featured a rich hardwood floor, wall-to-wall bedecked with keepsakes and mementos from Old America, and a large oil painting of the late High Marshal Roman Stern the First hung just behind the admiral's desk. A great fish-tank hovered above his bed, where two coelacanths swam menacingly around their aquatic home.
The guards stood back and let her approach the seated admiral, who was still busy typing away at his computer. When he'd finished, the admiral got up to greet the Lancer-Commander properly. He didn't know it at the time, but that same woman was the daughter of the Brotherhood's supreme leader. Keeping her, like a hostage, would most assuredly give the High Elder enough of a reason to keep the war going.
"Lancer-Commander Maxson, I'm Admiral Byron Locke." He introduced himself, "I'm glad you finally came to your senses."
Maxson stiffened at the remark and refused to shake the admiral's hand, "Make no mistake, admiral, I only conceded defeat for the sake of my people. Were it not for the threat of your men's barbaric treatment of non-combatants and their unyielding foes, I would've tempted fate a bit further and kept this chase beyond the borders of the Texan Wastes."
Locke lowered his hand and smiled. The woman had a lot of fire in her yet. Polite as ever, the admiral brushed aside her barbed taunts. "Forgive me, I meant no offense. I'm merely saying that I'm grateful that we've ended this exchange early and a little less bloody than the obvious alternative."
"So? What now?"
"Now? We round up the rest of your boys, and end all hostilities through soft or hard tactics. Whatever it takes to end the conflict, so we can all move forward."
"No." The woman shook her head, "I meant, what now for us? Your prisoners. What will happen to us?"
"Ah." Locke folded his hands behind his back and stood up straight. He looked like an eagle in white, standing vigilant on his perch for some unseen enemy. "I'm glad you mentioned that. Before I reply, there's something I want you to see. Or rather, someone I'd like you to meet."
Calling up some of his aides, Admiral Locke had McKenzie brought to his office. The former knight-commander of the Texan Chapter's fighting arm was no longer wearing the eye-catching and bright prisoner's jumpsuit she'd come to familiarize herself with in the past few weeks. Instead, the woman was dressed in a clean-cut and trim olive-green uniform, which stood in contrast to Maxson's battle-worn and tested lancer's outfit. Maxson stared, wide-eyed, at her as she strode forward sheepishly.
Kenzie refused to meet her gaze, wishing she would sink into the floor. She had made a deal with the Dominion to spare her people's lives, but nevertheless felt like betrayal.
"What... what is the meaning of this?" Maxson demanded.
"Get used to the sight. One day soon, you'll be wearing that same uniform." Locke said with a mean smirk on his pale face, "I've spoken at length with the High Marshal about matters concerning the future of our defeated foes- particularly your case. I've convinced him that it is more beneficial to... take your people's strengths and combine it with our own."
Maxson couldn't believe her ears, "You mean to assimilate us?"
"It's not as ominous as it sounds." Locke chuckled, "There will be a period of acclimatization, of course. Your people and mine have dealt each other grievous harm in the past few years, but we don't have to be enemies once all has been said and done. You will all be transferred to a lovely little patch of land we've pre-selected for colonization. Under our supervision, you'll work the hard soil till it blooms and gives life for the next generation. Afterwards, you'll be left free to live in that land for the rest of your lives."
The Lancer-Commander knew exactly what he meant. She wasn't an uneducated savage, "A penal colony."
"But a colony nonetheless." Locke's tone turned firm, "Trust me when I tell you, it's a mighty big bone we're throwing you here. The others who fought us? Well, let's just say there's not much left of them to even remember."
"Please consider it, Lancer-Commander." Kenzie said quietly, "The future of our people depends on it."
Locke shrugged at Maxson's silence, "It'll happen either way. We'd just much prefer you'd do it willingly."
Being locked up inside a vault long enough, one tends to lose track of time. The whole world, encapsulated within a thick shell of steel, concrete and stone. But for Elder Larsson, the man counted the days with the same dogma as an inmate eagerly awaits his last day in prison. The doors and all other potential entrances to Landfall were sealed and barricaded. No one could get in or out.
Afterwards, all efforts were spent on fortifying security junctions throughout the vault, and building sustainable living areas for the large population of Brotherhood personnel squeezed so suddenly within such a small space. The vault was not designed to house any form of population, having been designated as an R&D outpost post-war. But the Brotherhood made do with their cramped conditions, and once again became vault dwellers. Laboratories were cleared out to make room for hydroponics bays, the old water pumps connected to the great underwater caverns beneath Landfall were repaired and activated. Then, the Brotherhood played the waiting game.
Weeks turned into months, the Texan Chapter received no news from its fellow chapters. They didn't see nor hear anything from the Dominion either. The vault was isolated, cut off from the Wasteland. As far as Larsson was concerned, it was the best they got out of their situation. If the Dominion was making any attempt at laying siege, they weren't getting anywhere. The Texan Chapter could weather a siege for years, if the reactors and food supply held up.
But living underground with such finite resources was not without its own problems. Morale was low to begin with, and it was steadily getting worse as time passed. There were threats of his own men committing suicide, threats he took seriously and subsequently took action. To keep his people from doing anything reckless, Larsson had to disarm half the population. Non-essential personnel had their weapons confiscated and taken to the armory. Anyone he suspected of being a liability, both to themselves and the chapter, were locked away in their rooms and fed half their rations.
Then, just as things began to settle, the silence was broken.
It happened on a particularly quiet day, when the guards at the main vault entrance started to grow lax with their duties. The great vault doors, twin six-foot thick slabs of solid reinforced steel and lead, have been welded together and blocked by several layers of derelict industrial equipment. There was no reason to fear an attack, or at least not a sneaky one. The knights on watch were trading stories and cigarettes, dreaming of happier times when the biggest threat they've faced in the Wasteland were the raider clans. They never thought it would come to this, with them living like rats when they had the Wasteland in the palm of their hand. They had the technology, the discipline and the numbers.
How could they have lost, and lost so badly?
"Have you been counting?" Knight Reyes said to her friend, Knight Goto, as she handed him the other half of the cigarette. Both knights had disembarked from their power-armor to conserve energy, and were sitting against the control panel connected to the vault doors.
"Counting what?" Goto leaned over and picked up the stick from her fingers with his lips.
"How long we've been here. I've lost track."
"Oh I dunno. A month maybe, two? My watch broke on the second week, and I didn't bother to ask anyone. No point."
Reyes made a few more attempts at small talk, but pretty soon she and the other knight drifted off. The boredom was getting to them, and the droll existence of vault living dulled their edge.
"What I would do to see the sun again." Goto's eyes, already narrow slits due to his Japanese ancestry, squeezed thoughtfully into two straight and unwrinkled lines. "I never thought I'd miss the outdoors so much. Now, I think this vault will very well be my tomb. Our tomb..."
"Don't think like that." Reyes said, "There's still hope for our chapter. We survived the apocalypse, we can survive the Dominion."
Suddenly, a large glowing circle formed in the middle of the entrance, directly between the seam formed by the welded doors. The circle grew brighter and hotter with every passing second. Immediately, the two knights first called up the overseer's office- where the elder had made himself home. Then, they alerted every security checkpoint to send reinforcements. Goto barked into the intercom, "Alert! Alert! This is Knight Goto! We have a breach at the main entrance! Requesting additional support!"
Steel and concrete melted off in sheets, forming a bright glowing puddle of molten slag on the ground. A breach, wide enough to fit a Shieldbearer mech, had been created in the vault entrance. It took the Dominion a few minutes to undo the Brotherhood's work on the entrance, almost as if they delayed their assault on Landfall on purpose to further undermine the efficiency of their attempts at resistance. Blinding light from the sun flooded half the room, eclipsed by a colossal shape moving through the breach.
A mech, twice the size of the Shieldbearer, climbed through the breach and stood over the two knights menacingly.
As it was with all Dominion designs, though lacking the kinetic barrier generator of its Brotherhood counterpart, the mech was heavily armored and likewise heavily armed. From cockpit to torsal chassis, layers of rolled steel protected the pilot and the mech's vital components from small-arms fire, leaving a tiny slit of bulletproof glass in the middle. Unlike the Shieldbearer, the mech forwent the use of fully dexterous hands. Rather, its arms were fitted with a rotary 40mm cannon and a heavy incinerator in the other.
This monster of steel was a Jotun, another result of the Dominion's reverse-engineering of the Brotherhood's existing works- and a vast improvement from the latter.
Reyes and Goto froze, frightened and awed by the sight of the Dominion war machine. They were caught in the open, their power-armor standing empty several feet away. Even if they made a run for it, or attempted to suit up, the mech would be on them in seconds.
Almost as if he read their minds, the Jotun's pilot bellowed out a warning. "Don't even think about it. Stand down and surrender."
Goto was tired. Miserable and tired. He just wanted it all to end. He didn't care if Reyes would follow his lead, so he dropped his gun and raised his hands, giving up without a fight. To his surprise, his friend did follow suit, and they both got on their knees before the mech.
"Smart move." The mech's amplified voice nearly deafened the knights, and its heavy footfalls rocked the concrete floor as it stepped closer. "Now, don't move. This'll all be over soon."
Dominion soldiers poured in, flooding the entrance with troops both in power-armor and without. Goto heaved a sigh of relief and bowed his head as someone put him and Reyes in cuffs. The rooks roughly forced the two knights to their feet and dragged them out into the light.
Blinded by the brilliance of the sun for the first time in months, Goto shook the spots out of his eyes and squinted as he took in the abrupt change in the landscape around them. The Dominion had captured the Permian Basin and processed the resisting populace, moving them to a far-off refugee camp for summary reeducation.
What was left was a sprawling military complex stretching across what used to be the unbroken landscape of waster dwellings, where the recovered technologies of the Brotherhood were taken to be salvaged and integrated later. The technological reserves stockpiled by the Texan Chapter were vast, for they had been reclaiming them for untold decades. Large facilities made out of tents and steel prefabs dedicated to sifting through the loot had been hastily put up. The Dominion's scientists were hard at work, separating usable equipment from the undesirables, the latter of which ended up in the scrap heap.
Jotun mechs watched vigilantly from atop hills and cliffs, while vertibirds flew in and out to deliver personnel and cargo. The flagship Jörmungandr was nowhere to be seen, so Goto assumed it had finally returned home. Fortunately for him and his friend, they were well away from the fight when the Texan Chapter inevitably collapsed after making one final show of resistance in the dark halls of the vault. If they stayed, they would've born witness to the Elder's true nature.
Driven mad with desperation, Larsson ordered his zealots to throw everything they had against the Dominion invaders. Bullets, lasers, plasma and grenades. Men, women, even children were hurled senselessly into the meat-grinder. The juxtaposition of his and Lissandra Maxson's stance on the latter days of the war against the Dominion showed how easy the Brotherhood's creed collapsed in on itself, how quickly they forsook the tenets that separated them from the madness of the Wasteland.
Those dark and bloody moments ended only when the last knight was cut down in a hail of Dominion bullets. The worst part of the conflict was that Elder Larsson wasn't even present in most of the fight- or even at all. After searching the long and antiquated halls of the vault, a squad of rooks found him behind the barricaded door of the overseer's office. Propped up on the chair, with his head hanging lifelessly on his chest- and a smoking laser-pistol in his cold right hand.
Rather than face the Dominion's wrath head-on, as he so forced his underlings, Larsson chose to take his own life.
The squad commander, a gnarled veteran of the three-year war against the Brotherhood, leaned over the desk computer and realized Larsson was writing a final message to be uploaded to the Brotherhood's network. They caught him just before he sent it.
"Sarge, why don't you send them a message of our own?" One of the rooks suggested.
"No." The sergeant said, deleting the message. "Better to leave them in the dark, that'll put the fear of God into them. Let's just go home."
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A/N
And so ends the conflict between the Dominion and the Brotherhood Texan Chapter. Thank you dear readers for supporting this fic, I appreciate the feedback.
'So what's next for the Dominion?' That's usually the question I get concerning the direction I'm taking. Well, there are no short answers, but I'll go with the simplest one. All nations go through conflict, war can either make or break one depending on the situation. And in the Fallout universe, there is no end to war. The enemy's the only thing that changes, and the rate of escalation.
In canon, there are a few Wasteland powers that could pose a threat to the Dominion. Even the Brotherhood, if their separate chapters banded together, could give them a run for their money ( hint hint )
But y'know who Bethesda did dirty with FO3, after Obsidian built them up to be a force to be reckoned with? Yeah, I'm talking about the Enclave. No point in teasing it or leaving you all in the dark.
Yes, this is happening. And soon. :)