The Castle was in pandemonium. Not chaos. Everyone was actually organized about what they were doing. The gates, even the one to the sea entrance, were on lock down. Ammunition was being toted up to grenadiers minding the artillery. Lookouts patrolled the walls attempting to spot either a target or a plume of smoke designating one. Radio Freedom was flurry of arms surrounding the still calm voice of assured assistance as he received check ins from settlements that weren't under attack.
A bolt of lightning nearly blinding everyone in the room stalled the bickering of the colonels gathered in the General's office. They were left equally speechless when the General appeared from it.
The General immediately started scolding. "No one is supposed to be in my office."
"The rumors about teleportation were true?", Desdemona breathed.
"What part of following my orders do my Colonels have a problem with?", the General continued.
"No, you don't get to do that.", Preston denied. "You can't just appear out of thin air and turn a breach of protocol on us."
The General calmed in the face of Preston. "And yet, that's what I have to do.
"With the surprise of the situation, I had to make my way here as fast as possible. And yes, that meant faster than the vertibird that should be carrying the Commonwealth's star journalist back from what we've managed to turn Nuka-World back into. I had expected my office unoccupied, as I left very specific standing orders to that effect. So I had the Institute teleport me here.
"No one can know for certain that the Institute has a teleporter. Rumors, fine. There have always been rumors about what the Institute can do. And those rumors help keep the Commonwealth together, by requiring each other for strength against the Institute even while benefiting from relying on its power. But after the whole synth replacement debacles over the years, the public would panic if they new for certain that an Institute agent could appear by their bedside in the middle of the night. This has to remain top secret. You are ordered to not, not even you Desdemona, can tell anyone in your command this. You all have to even keep it from Brandis and Zao."
"But Piper has published/", Ronnie Shaw started.
"She's published what she's surmised without a source.", the General stated. "That makes it a rumor. As soon as there are confirmed eye-witnesses that are Colonels in the Minutemen, it becomes fact. It can't be fact.
"Especially when we have bigger fish to fry."
Preston straightened himself. "Radio Freedom has confirmed what's being said in the broadcast. Somerville Place is no longer under Minutemen control. Somerville has survivors on the move ever since coming under tank fire.
"We'd have a better accounting had we known this was coming.", he said while staring at the Colonel of Intelligence.
Desdemona shrugged. "How could you not? A mercenary group that's thrived on the countless conflicts creating a demand for wetwork is the last gang standing in the entire Commonwealth. We're the peace keeping force moving the civilian government forward. Of course they're going to attack you."
The General agreed. "I saw it coming. That's why I've been trying to convince everyone that the actual hard fights were ahead of us."
"Then where are they hitting next?", Shaw demanded.
The General nodded. "They've already told us. Gather around me and I'll show you.", she said while sticking out her Pip Boy.
"They hit Somerville with tanks. Since they couldn't move around something as large as a tank while keeping the surprise factor with the population, every tank they have has to be in one spot. While it's unusual to try to keep tanks in uneven and marshy ground, they kind of had to."
Desdemona's ASSAULT GAS MASK convered head nodded. "Somerville is deep in Gunner territory. Right between Vault 95 and Gunner Plaza. They could only keep them out of sight in their own neighborhood. And then they used those tanks to get a...how do you say?"
"Shock and awe.", the General supplied.
The other woman agreed. "That's it, shock and awe advantage. Particularly since they have television and we don't. They get to make propaganda that really sells it to the regular folk of the Commonwealth. Shows the very people that support us how much of a threat they are and how little we can defend ourselves.
"But they bet it all on an opening move."
Preston objected. "I was at the Quincy Massacre. Gunners can keep up a fight."
"I'm sure.", the General said. "But because they moved with surprise, we know whatever tanks they have are all in one place. And because they hit Somerville, we know where they are and what terrain they're on. Plus, because of the constraints of the map, they only have two choices."
Desdemona cut in. "Somerville lay directly between the Plaza and the vault. Now, they have a connecting supply route without opposition. If they move on Murkwater, they get the same all the way to Quincy where they've been holed up for the past twenty years.
"But they'd have to move those tanks through really swampy areas. If they swing north, not only do they get to hit Egret Tours Marina but if Egret falls the whole river becomes vulnerable. You've been working to get a navy for situations like this."
"Exactly.", the General confirmed. "We can make the choice for the Gunners. By fortifying Egret Tours and evacuating Murkwater we can get them to choose to connect themselves across their territory instead of threatening a northward push. And with civilians in the way like they are, we're going to give them that."
Preston objected. "They're stuck in that triangle though. Sheriff Somerville's and now with Murkwater, Sheriff MacCready's people are homeless with no where to go. Unless...no."
"It's the only place safe to send them.", the General told Preston.
"That ghoul is five minutes from being feral. I don't think she was that sane to begin with.", Preston continued.
"She's not sheriff there, Clem is. And Vault 88 is a vault: complete with a blast door a nuclear weapon can't pierce, food and water and electrically secure, and actually prepared to take on a host of refugees at a moment's notice. Which is exactly the situation we have here. We can keep every civilian alive safe for the duration of this conflict. I can't tell people to wander the swamps on the basis of Overseer Barstow is kind of scary.", the General explained.
"So I'm going to go out there and tell Radio Freedom to get on the horn and have everyone that can move to pick up everyone who can't and hightail it over to Vault 88. Then everyone who isn't a Minuteman needs to start setting up internal defenses in case that vault is somehow breached while everyone who is keeps trekking until they reach Jamaica Plain."
"Because Quincy lies right between Vault 88 and Warwick Homestead.", Preston realized.
"And therein lies the nightmare.", Desdemona realized.
"Brandis' command is based in Fort Hagen, which keeps in check all those Gunners in their highway nests. As long as Egret Tours remains secure and resupplied by the river, there's little chance of the Gunners doing anything but trying to fortify against us making a counter attack against Vault 95 or Gunner Plaza. With the civilians safe in Vault 88, this entire area in the south is theirs but to press north they'd have to cut through every super mutant left alive after Diamond City - Fallon's, the hospital, everything.
"Which leaves them one front with actual juicy targets. Not only can they try for Warwick Homestead from Quincy, but they can set their sights on a full council member's independent community: the Atom Cats Garage. And if they manage to take both, they negate our naval advantage in the east leaving us without a beach head of our own to cut into them. After that they can stick to defense in both of those spots and it's the march north through Jamaica Plain straight to the Castle."
The General held her voice steady. "They don't even need to make it all the way here to cut the Castle off from the communities. Our only access to Goodneighbor, Bunker Hill, Diamond City and Vault 88 will be by water. And I don't think the civilian population will see it that way."
Preston began to understand. "So who ever's running the Gunners knows propaganda. The Commonwealth's already been shown we're not invincible by the loss of one of our settlements, and now we're just going to concede another. But if the Castle is even symbolically separated, it's another hit without even a battlefield victory. And if we were to lose the Castle again...even with an air and sea evacuation..."
"Not you're understanding. But we/"
The General was cut off by a knocking on the door. "Come.", she called out.
"General.", the Minutemen started. "Spotters on top of the wall saw some Gunners on the road. But there's like three of them. And they're waving a white flag."
Shaw double took. "They can't be surrendering."
The General winced. "They're parleying. They get to show that they're willing to negotiate in an effort to make us the bad guys in this. They probably recorded a statement of intent and even if we can't spot it, they'll be filming the approach to the Castle. If we open fire, we're warmongers. But negotiations are going to be useless because everything they want we can't give them and everything we want would destroy their existence as a mercenary group.
So we have to agree to negotiate and try to play the game of looking like we're the peaceful ones. Dang it- that's what they want. Time to move their tanks through the swamps."
The General's eyes raced behind her WRAPAROUND GOGGLES. She looked back up at the waiting Minuteman, then started talking and walking. "Send an armed party out to meet them. Outnumber them, be wary of an ambush but don't fire first. If they're on the up and up, wait for my signal and then lead them back here. Not before."
The General made her way over to Radio Freedom by the time the Minutemen had ran off to start gathering soldiers for the meeting.
She stuck her Pip Boy under Radio Freedom's nose. "Keep broadcasting on Minutemen Radio that no other settlement has come under attack, as long as that remains true. Send only that message repeating and music out over the regular broadcast. On the CB, contact the Slog and Saugus Ironworks and Finch Farm...you know what, grab Croup Manor and Greentop Nursery too. Plus every single APC crew in the area. Get as many Minutemen to surround Hub City Auto Wreckers tonight as you can. And give them orders straight from me to attack the Gunners there at dawn and clear them from that entire highway heading north. But only over the CB radios that we have. And make sure no one broadcasts otherwise from a settlement beacon."
The General stood tall. "Now to offer these Gunners at the gate the opportunity to negotiate at Goodneighbor in a few days like we did with the Triggermen. It was precedent setting after all."
