Recording by Scribe Ellison

Behemoth

The siren ringing the red alert jerks me from concentration on the pipe pistol I'm trying to fit a bigger magazine onto. I drop the weapon as Jimmy races past. The boy is so pale his freckles stand out on his face. "Behemoth! Behemoth! Greenies, fifty of them, they have a behemoth! Mom!"

Em rushes out of her house, already calling back, "Where?"

"Coming to the ford, they'll be here in a few minutes!" the boy stutters.

Em nods and bellows, "Just like a drill, people, you know where to go! Get to your posts!"

The fearful mob of settlers becomes a purposeful mob, scattering to guard posts or up to the vault. Sturges quite calmly rolls up a garage door, revealing two suits of power armor. One is pink.

I hear a bang and a cloud of red smoke streaks the sky above us. Distress signal. Preston Garvey runs from setting it off and calls, 'We'll have support soon!" He climbs into the plain suit of armor.

"Scribe, get to the vault!"

"I can fight!"

Em nods, "Sniper post, up there.'

I climb to the roof where there's a sandbag crescent, a rifle under a waterproof tarp, and a cooler with water and four doses of jet, and a radio. The enemy hasn't come into sight, but there's a stirring of dust at the edge of my vision.

"Mom!" I hear, and look back.

Shaun and Shiloh have interrupted their mother as she fits a minigun onto her pink power armor. I hear Shaun say, "We can help."

Hesitation, then, "Shaun Michael Mason, Shiloh Ann Mason, one-four-three-seven-two-eight."

"Thanks Mom!" The two children race out of sight. they're not going to fight are they? Not against-

Oh god.

Here they come. The behemoth towers over the crowd of super mutants urging it on with cattle prods. I've never seen a behemoth, the thing is massive, misshapen, with huge knotted shoulders and a tiny head that whines in pain at the shocks its getting.

The sharp crack of a rifle jolts me out of my moment of frozen fear. I hunker down and put my eye to the rifle scope, sighting on the behemoth's head. Crack! I miss. Or maybe I hit the thing's shoulder and it didn't notice.

they're still at quite a range, but I hear more rifles crack and the front rank of greenskins start to bellow in confusion and go down. The radio crackles, "Get the bombers! Look for flashing on its hand! We'll take out the behemoth!"

Flashing hand? I skim over the enemy with the rifle's scope. There! It's holding a bomb? Somebody else takes that one out. I look for the next flash.

Then the super mutants charge and everything dissolves into chaos. I fire again and again. There's an explosion, then another one. Shouting humans, bellowing mutants and the howling of the reluctant behemoth. The huge thing comes crashing towards us and the two suits of power armor come lumbering out to meet it. And I can't watch because there are greenskins in the street going for the other snipers on their rooftops. Turrets open up in every direction and I have just enough thought to hope friendly fire really is impossible for them.

I have to reload. My hands work and my eyes glance up. Em and Garvey are cutting a swath through the horde, miniguns blazing. Green bodies fall around them but they haven't reached the behemoth.

A missile whines and blows, sending Garvey to the ground. Through the radio I hear, "I'm fine… my ears are ringing..." He rolls over and swings his gun around to cut the enemy off at the knees.

My rifle is loaded. I see a mutant reaching to pull itself onto the roof opposite me. I shoot it in the back and it falls.

The behemoth stamps and roars. I look.

Young Shaun is there, suddenly right next to the behemoth. He reaches out for its leg, ducks away, and runs.

The behemoth's leg explodes.

He put a mine on-

The monster howls and staggers, I can see the white bone in its leg but it doesn't fall. Em charges the thing.

I swing my rifle—where is Shaun?-he's trying to get away but there are still greenies upright. I fire frantically, I don't find the boy—there he is! A mutant with a hammer looms over him. I shoot it but the hammer falls, smashing the boy's leg.

Then a Brotherhood vertibird roars overhead and we're saved. Four paladins in armor jump down, one hitting the mutant like a freight train and stomping it into mush. Shaun is up somehow, grabbing his rescuer's armor and hanging on. They flee the field and the snipers clear the way for them.

So I don't see how the behemoth finally gets taken out, just hear the crash as it hits the ground.

And then it's over. The last few greenies still on their feet flee, right into the arms of three troops of minutemen. The siren shifts to ring warning. I stay at my post, now able to relax enough to feel really awful, sweaty and sore from aiming, sick as the adrenaline wears off. I get a carton of water from the cooler and drink.

Who's hurt? Who's dead? Did Shaun make it? He shouldn't have been there. In the Brotherhood we have rules about apprentices and squires in combat and I feel a little sick in an entirely different way as I realize Em, who I quite like, disagrees with me on this vital subject. How can I respect her if she puts her own children in danger?

At last the siren rings the all clear and I climb stiffly drown from the roof to join the chaos of mopping up. We have to locate any greenskins that are down but not dead and put them out of their misery, and collect their weapons and any explosives they may have left behind. The water purifier was damaged and needs repair, the turrets need to be reloaded and the rooftop sniper rifles checked. And the bodies should be collected as soon as possible. that's what's waiting for everyone who's still uninjured.

Two suits of power armor are powering down. Garvey cracks his first and is giving orders before he even reclaims his Minuteman coat and hat.

Shiloh shows up to help her mother out of the pink power armor as the Brotherhood armors come clanking over. Em groans, holding her shoulder. "I'm all right. How many dead?"

"None! But Doc says Tom might lose his leg, he got hit by shrapnel." Shiloh tells her.

"None?" The General wobbles as if almost collapsing from relief.

They're at the center of a whirl of activity but it's almost happening without them. I'm the only one without an assigned task so I hang back waiting to be drafted but not wanting to intrude. But I can't get the image out of my mind. "Is Shaun-?"

One of the Brotherhood armors grates, "He's receiving medical attention. He'll be fine, Scribe."

Em says, "Danse, come out of there and reset my shoulder. The Doc's busy."

The Brotherhood armor opens and a lean man in the orange jumpsuit meant to be worn under power armor gets out, stretches, and turns to help his friend. I flinch at the crack, the sound familiar from training. A dislocated shoulder is the most common injury to people wearing power armor in battle, I've had it so I know exactly how much it hurts.

When I look back, Danse is saying, "You want to wrap it over your suit or disrobe in public?"

Em makes a pained laugh. "Just wrap it and stick me with a stimpack, Doc Jenna can redo it later. I don't have time to go change."

While under care the General keeps talking to people as they pass by, asking how many bodies they've found and what parts of town still need to be checked for explosives and how everyone at the hospital is doing. She notices me watching and sends me out to join half the town in gathering dead greenies for disposal.

Our orders are confusing, at least to me: the dead super mutants are to be collected and chained together at the ankles, with chains provided. A few of us settlers together can haul a dead greenie over to its comrades and get them chained up. We make a few grisly bouquets and then get to work raking up the remaining… bits. A few settlers throw up as they do this, and since I don't blame them I'm not going to mention names. Shiloh Mason and Kaynah pass out rakes. "It's gross, but we'll get yao guai sniffing around if we don't clean up right away."

"Shiloh, how's your brother?" I ask.

"He's ok, he'll be back soon. Wasn't he cool?"

"There is nothing cool about putting children in danger!" I snap, and immediately regret the tone fueled by my general nausea.

Shiloh gives me a condescending look that does not help. "He wasn't in much danger, Scribe, he knew the vertibird was coming. But it's nice of you to worry."

Kaynah catches my eye and shrugs. Even among wasteland children, Shiloh is a bit weird. My concern remains, about the General's treatment of her children, but that is not something to be pursued when I must pursue raking a severed hand out from between rocks without touching it.

The bits and pieces are piled with wood and dried brahmin dung and set on fire. The whole bodies will face a more interesting fate that I don't get to see until evening. Dinner is being cooked, the smell mingling unpleasantly with the stink of the battle and stench from the burning body parts. Thankfully no settlers are on pyres; our position as defenders mostly on rooftops and the warning Jimmy gave us let the settlement escape with only a few serious injuries and many minor ones.

The General is talking with Paladin Danse and the vertibird pilot near the other side of the bridge. The vertibird is parked there, quite near where we left the chained bouquets of bodies.

"Scribe!" Em calls, waving. She sounds quite cheerful for someone who probably still has a badly aching shoulder. "You don't weigh much. Come see what we do with the bodies!" Danse gives me a brief crack of a smile.

So I board the vertibird with them and we put on harness so we don't fall out since none of us are in power armor. I hear clanking as I get my harness on, but it's not until the bird roars into the air that I see what they've done.

The dead mutants have been chained and the chains clipped to the vertibird. The takeoff is slow, since we're dragging a whole string of bodies, but they weigh only as much as six men in power armor so we soon get above the trees.

The wasteland spreads below us. I see the line of power pylons with Abernathy Farm built around one, the lake to the west of Sanctuary, and the thicker forest to the north. South of us the skyscrapers of Boston gleam dully in the distance.

Em leans out the side of the craft, half out the door hanging by her harness and a handhold in the ceiling. The wind is pulling her hair free from her bun and her expression is filled with joy. Danse is watching her, not the view.

The pilot calls, "How much farther?"

"Turn a little more south, you're looking for a movie screen and a big parking lot."

We turn, and fly a little further and I see the remains of an old drive-in movie theater down below. I know what this is because I've seen pictures: a movie would be projected on the big screen and prewar people drove their cars to watch it for entertainment. The parking lot is scattered with the dead hulks of cars, and even from so far up I can see the telltale mounds indicating a mole rat nest below.

"Pilot, get right overhead and let 'em drop!"

The pilot looks back, "You want the bodies… Ooh, I see! You got it, General! Everybody hold on! We're going to go straight up when I drop the weight!"

I tighten my harness and Em gets into a seat and attaches her harness to it. "Ready? Ready!"

"Three, two, one-"

Something clanks and the vertibird jerks upward and wobbles alarmingly. I clench my teeth and hang on. After a moment or two though, we're stable again and the vertibird swings around to give us all a good look at what's happening down below.

The piles of bodies have fallen right on top of the molerat nest and the rats are already boiling out to devour them. Blood and scraps are flying. It's a disgusting sight, but also inspiring.

"You're farming them!"

"We can't eat greenies, but we can eat molerats! And this way we don't get guai on our doorstep. Next trip we'll drop the behemoth. I'm going to invite Jimmy along since he warned us."

We turn to fly home.