"Like old times, Colonel?", a marine reminisced.
"No.", Bridget mused. "We had to care about a profit margin in the old days. Now that we're official, we can just level these cannibals and call it a day."
Her men were primarily on foot after the General separated her forces. But she still had more than she was accustomed to working with. Vehicles to recover within, synths to meat shield, even a vertibird in the air to spot.
"I would like to talk to you about the town you approach.", a man she did not recognize said to her left. Everyone spun to face him and point their weapons at him. Bridget saw that he was just a single man with a rifle slung across his back. She looked to the vertibird in the air and shook her head.
"If you're mayor of Andale, I don't think we have much to say to each other.", Bridget offered.
"He's not mayor of Andale.", Alan said from behind her. "Vance is the head of the Family."
Again everyone whirled on another person coming out from the darkness. Bridget frowned. "It is after sunset, isn't it?"
Vance and Alan shrugged.
The marines started backing into a much more cohesive firing line.
"Are there any more of you...here?", Bridget asked. "Here-ish?"
Alan walked over to stand behind Vance.
"That is actually what we were working on.", Vance stated. "Andale has been...affected in a way in which we alone may have a solution."
"We have a solution for it as well.", the colonel replied. "In fact, I was ordered to carry out that solution."
Vance frowned. "More violence. Is that really what this needs to be, Colonel?", he asked. "Is that what you would want out of us?"
Bridget sighed. Heavily. She looked around at the marines still pointing weapons at the two. "For the love of...They're Commonwealth citizens. Politicians even. Stand down until we sort this out."
"Thank you.", Vance offered. "So first, to assuage you and your men. There are two others here with me in Andale. They are consulting with the denizens over the same reasons that I am certain you are here to address. We are simply addressing them in our manner."
"No matter what strange abilities of the night you may wield, civilians shouldn't be taking on military missions.", Bridget stated. "You want adventure? Sign up."
"This isn't a military venture, Colonel.", Alan explained. "We're working to embrace the inhabitants of Andale as our own."
"What?!", Bridget cried.
"It's all in line with the Right to Autonomy, Colonel.", Vance explained. "We as a community have the right to offer citizenship to anyone we care to. As long as we don't astray to any of the other articles in the constitution or passed ordainments, there should be no issue."
Bridget eyed him. "What about the Right of Freedom From Threats?"
"What threat, Colonel?", Vance objected. "Has any one from the Commonwealth found themselves under threat from an inhabitant of Andale?"
Bridget pursed her lips. "Are they holding anyone?"
"Yes.", Vance replied honestly. At Bridget's expression, Vance pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. "One Ronald Laren of Girdershade. Now I do understand that Ronald Laren does indeed live within the greater Commonwealth, Girdershade is expressly not one of its settlements or communities, at least according to the General's note. And since such protections do not serve super mutants or rogue feral ghouls or death claws and the like, it would be rather pretentious to assume a difference for Mr. Laren would it not?"
"Is he...?"
"Intact?", Vance assessed Bridget's question. "Yes, he is."
"Physically.", Alan added.
Vance rolled his eyes. "Fair enough."
"Okay, I don't care how powerful you think you are.", Bridget stated. "I have been ordered to eradicate this threat to the populace. I'm not leaving until that's done."
"Of course.", Vance agreed.
"What?!", Bridget exclaimed again.
"Give us until overmorrow.", Vance asked. At the expression he received. "Two nights. We have our citizenship within and our understanding with the Commonwealth. Those that choose to learn to abide by our laws and align their nature will be less stress on your force. Wouldn't it be prudent to lessen those you face from what currently stands to those simply irreparable?"
Bridget considered. "That would give time for the other part of the expedition I came from to reform on this position."
"Serendipitous.", Vance smiled.
"But I want Laren. Standing under the power of his own still beating heart. In the day.", she warned.
"Of course.", Vance nodded. "Ronald doesn't have the necessary preclivities to...warrant our ways.
"However, I must ask from you as well. And as Alan has notified me, the Minutemen answer to the citizens not the reverse."
"What do you want?", Bridget inquired.
"If you were to bring your force into siege distance of Andale, the residents would be at risk of believing we are their only way out from certain death. Regardless the truth of the matter, the assessment of their future capability to continue peacefully as one of us would be complicated. I am not asking you to turn on orders from the General. Anyone who believes they should flee into the day to continue on this towns ways has made certain that they are not my concern and could prove to be that very threat to the Commonwealth you've been assigned to contain.", Vance explained.
Bridget nodded. "But you don't want anyone accepting your fate out of fear of marine."
"Precisely.", Vance acknowledged. "Even if it takes empathy and not experience, you can understand how entering the Family should be a choice made without immediate coercion."
Bridget nodded. "Overmorrow. You have tonight, the day, and the next night to whisk away anyone you can. I'll only come after them if the General tells me to - like if they've already victimized someone. But if anything tries to get out without you or my men get spooked by something going bump in the night, the entire place is going up in flames day or night."
"Your men will sleep as lambs under the sheperd.", Vance assured. "Thank you for your allowance, Colonel."
"And I mean what I said about Laren.", she warned.
"I must return his letter from the General. As well as explain his current place in the world.", Vance stated. "But he will appear to you soon enough, hail and hearty.