1

Who would have thought that the Brotherhood of Steel would have attacked them first?

Project Purity tried to pour in the direction of Rivet City. The power armor that had been gathering at it for days finally made a concerted move in their direction. Behind them, a force field fence to safe guard the remnants of the Jefferson Memorial in their absence. The attempt was almost laudable.

But charging into direct mortar fire designed to break the strong holds and quarries that raiders preferred to infest was a feat beyond. And the Minutemen had been building their trade mark mortar installations on the flight deck of Rivet City since removing enough of the jets to have the space. Trying to do that while under near immediate bombardment and strafing runs from an actual jet airforce that long ago established their superiority in the sky was impossible. And the Minutemen had been planning on flying those already.

The Marine Corps was mostly livid when Colonel Bridget informed them that the Minutemen tasked with defending and occupying Rivet City were doing their job for them. Within the hour, the soldiers huddled behind and under the cover provided by the wasteland's rubble were wrapped in green instead of chrome as the Brotherhood's abrupt attack was thwarted.

"Brendis, why haven't you broken that shield down yet?", Colonel Bridget screamed into her radio.

The radio calmly replied back. "Because hitting a meter wide antenna from 20,000 feet up at a speed faster than sound is actually kind of difficult."

The ex-Gunner scoffed. She side-eyed the Minutemen crewing the cannon beside her. "I haven't been aiming at the parts of the shield suspended in mid-air.", came his reply.

Then she snarled. And strode off, toward where her men were being shot at by targets her clients felt were best placed in the ground.

2

"Uh, we need to get into that force field. Like right now.", one Commonwealth marine told another.

The skull tattoo on her cheek twitched. "Duh. Do you think I want to spend a week hiding behind this concrete chunk?"

The first shook his head. "No, I mean Bridget is coming right for us."

"That's not even funny.", the second admonished.

"I don't think it was meant to be.", the Colonel informed.

The ex-gunner spun around. "Ma'am! I...uh...Should you be in the field? You're a Minutemen Colonel now."

"And as such, you don't have the rank to suggest I do anything.", Bridget snapped back. "Where's your synth?"

A pale, foam body, graffiti dripping over his formerly off white hide, wrapped in the green of the unit that became the Minutemen Marines and the synthetic armor of the Institute itself replied. "Here, Colonel Bridget.", it calmly reported as it held up the slab of cement it's assigned detail hid behind to avoid the currently token Brotherhood return fire.

"You lazy bitches put your back on this.", Bridget commanded. "That thing's coming with us."

The assaultron that had accompanied her pressed a forearm against the concrete. The now marines did indeed lean into keeping their rubble safety wall in place. The synth climbed out of their found crater.

"Don't get shot until it's convenient for me.", the colonel told the machine. Together they crawled off.

3

After being pushed back inside the Jefferson Memorial and its shield fence, most of the Brotherhood of Steel was double checking their armors to make sure they had a viable counterattack to offer. There was even a bit of optimism, in that their attack run forced the Minutemen to turn their jets on armor designed for the battlefield instead of the three century old building Project Purity was housed within. Some of them were even taking shots at the incoming Marine Corps just to keep them honest until it was their turn to get pushed off the battlefield between the shield fence and Rivet City.

And those snipers found a few prime targets: several shapes of white and green charging the shield fence. Just before they came in range - and it was as if it was exactly, mathematically before they came in range - the marines in white armor over their green uniforms physically picked up pieces of rubble. The Brotherhood snipers only had a view of cement, concrete, and the occasional twisted piece of rebar.

Those chunks came to rest at the shield wall, directly against one of the antennas projecting it. The Brotherhood snipers could only see the faint red glow reminiscent of an assaultron's laser and dirt being thrown above the cement blocks. After some time watching this, the rubble fell flat as if it was no longer being held up. In fact, it seemed to settle into the ground as if it had more space.

Bowditch lived up to his reputation as Proctor of the Order of the Shield as he actually saw what was coming. "Everyone back in power armor. Everyone! We have minutes, maybe less to meet the Minutemen charge on our position. The charge will be centered on that antenna."

True to his word, the antenna fell into where its own foundation once was. At the initial impact of the fall, it snapped in half before collapsing to the ground. Between the rarity of parts for its construction and amount of ground it needed to contain there was no redundancy built into the shield fence. As soon as it lost one antenna, even to being dug out from underneath, the fence had a gaping hole in it.

The defense of Jefferson Memorial did not quite have that same hole in its defense, considering the concentrated power armor operated by life long experts there were to meet the rush into that hole. Unfortunately for Proctor Bowditch, that was not the only antenna attacked. And when the Brotherhood of Steel's now fielded Knights took aim at what they now understood the attack to be, the Marine Corps thanked them by expending their ammunition on the now unshielded armor. Armor that certainly couldn't replace multiple sections of downed fencing. Or withstand the now concentrated barrage of Minutemen cannons.