Chapter 142: Uneasy Alliance.
Clements relaxed on his bunk as he waited for orders to come down the chain, the brass had been locked in talks for the last couple of hours with their INT staff on the ground and the Institute spooks who apparently had agents pretty much everywhere.
Kinda made him worried that maybe they had infiltrators in their own ranks, the vast majority of Enclave personel were born into it from previous generations, hell thanks to the Bio-Weapons department they even had a 'breeding' program where healthy sperm and eggs were harvested from every single 'pure' enclave member to ensure purity.
Hell Clements himself had his sperm harvested when he hit eighteen so this program had been running for quite some time and from what he'd heart on the grapevine from some ESF soldier that had worked closely with the squints, they didn't even need an actual woman to birth the babies born of this, they had some kind of artificial womb system rigged up thanks to some kind of cloning project that had been running somewhere to keep their numbers up.
Though sometimes Clements worried to himself about the tactics that his organisation employed, he kept telling himself it was for the greater good, that all of these underhanded and dubious tactics would be worth it in the end when America was once again united under the Enclave flag, then and only then would they have the peace that was promised to them.
He truly hoped that it would all be worth it in the end just like the higher ups promised it would be, they said that once the country was reunited only then could they focus on the true goal of rebuilding America into the superpower that it used to be, once that was done they would be able to venture out and to the wider world at large and one country at a time rebuild this broken world.
It was a dream and most likely a pipe dream to be sure but right now it was the only dream worth having because all you had to do was take one look out of any window at the world around you and see the true horrors of the shit storm to know it was what needed to happen.
But now he had to wonder what would this new America and this new world look like when they were finished?
As he looked over he could see their new synthetic team-mates and he wondered what would become of them when this was all over?
Would they become some kind of new age slave class that their higher-ups would use to build this new world or would they be given a place in it?
It didn't quite sit right with him, America had gotten rid of slavery hundreds of years ago and the stain of it had plauged the nation for years and granted while slavery had indeed been continuing all over the world for hundreds of years with all races and colours being taken against their will, America could hold its head up high and say we stopped it.
So for them to now suddenly go back on that promise and to essentially start creating near limetless slaves to use as a cheap labour force to build this new world upon.
Now while he was fine with the plastic droids he'd seen running around the wastes taking on that role as for his experiences they were only a little more intelligent than the old prewar droids you saw flitting about all over the place, they were blatently a robot with no real form of sentience to them.
But these new synths that were among them now were so much more than that, to look at them you couldn't tell them apart from a normal human, even talking to then you wouldn't notice the difference immediatly if you were not looking for it, but given that even though he knew that they were not human even he had a hell of a job telling the diffrence between them.
Suddenly Sarge came clomping back into the bunk room and cast his eye over the bunks as well as the synths who all seemed to be sat at a table playing a game of cards.
"Grab your gear and suit up we got our first op," he said in a voice that carried across the entire bay and caused Clements and hie entire team to jump from their bunks and to head towards the makeshift armoury with a real spring in their step.
Clements stepped into his armour and after it ran the nessesry checks he stepped out of the bay feeling lighter on his feet, it was amazing how naked you could begin to feel when out of power armour because you spent so long inside it.
He collected his weapons from the lockers and headed over to where Sarge was waiting and to his surprise he found all of the syths geared up and ready to go.
"Jesus Christ did you guys just teleport into your armour or something?' Clements said as he approached.
"We are just more efficent than normal humans you will become used to it in time," the closest synth a female he now knew was called Delta two said turning to look at him.
Over her shoulder he saw Sarge looking at him and shaking his head which gave him a clear indication not to argue with her so he didn't he simply shrugged but wondered why Sarge had stepped in like that, what did he know about the synths that Clements didn't?
Once the team was fully assembled Sarge led them over to where Sabine had set up her workstation and was waiting for them.
"Alright people listen up because I am not in the habit of repeating myself, as I'm sure you are aware by now the Free Peoples of the Wastes is an organisation that prides itself on human and non-human intergration and togetherness, this is an abomination that we must stop at all costs, the damage these people could do to humanity and to America as a whole doesn't bare thinking about," she said clicking a button that started a slide show.
One a screen opposite the table where she sat an image flickered into life but it was kinda grainy and obviously taken with a long range telephoto lens.
It showed a man wearing what looked to be an X-01 series set of power armour but he had the helmet removed so you could see his face, the guy was young and surpisingly handsome looking with long either white or blonde hair, it was hard to tell because of the grainy quality of the picture and the colour bleaching.
"This is Number Seven, an escaped subject of the Bio-Weapons division and the defacto leader of the Free People's of the Wastes, he is a top priority target, now the Bio-Weapons division would rather like him returned in one piece so that they can study or rather read tame him for their own uses, but after so many losses to him and his team most of the military wing and leadership are in agreement that he is too dangerous to leave alive, so they have issued a contain or kill order, with heavy emphisis on the kill part, it is their belief that without his leadership the Free Peoples wil fall into chaos and colapse, now his exact whereabouts are at this time unknown but it is belived that he is currently leading a small part of his group on some kind of expedition to this region here," she said clicking her slide control again and making the image change to show a map.
"This region was once owned and operated by the Nuka Cola corperation and is designated Nuka World, it was once a large theme park that spanned the entire region, inteligence reports that currently the entire region is under the control of a series of Radier clans that are operating in unision under a boss of some kind though details are kinda sketchy to say the least, but here is wha twe do know, there are a series of smaller clans that each hold a territory within the region, from each of those territories the clans use slave labour to grow food and harvest reasourses, a tythe of this is then paid to the overboss who controls the whole thing," she said clicking her slide to show another long distance grainy photo, this time of what looked to be a town or marketplace.
"It seems that Seven and his people are in the region with the aim of possibly overthrowing the raiders for control of the region, our sourses indicate that there have been a number of skirmishes there recently with reports of an individual with and I quote, "Fantastic powers the likes of which none of us have ever seen before, this guy could throw an entire building at you if he wanted and he has an army of Deathclaws at his back," end quote," Sabine said looking up from her computer to look at the team for the first time since the briefing began.
"If Seven is indeed building up an army of Deathclaws in this region his threat level has just jumped through the roof, so I cannot stress to you enough the emphisis on this kill order, your mission is simple, you are to fly north to Nukaworld and establish a foot hold in the territory away from the main Raider hub, from there you are to scope the land and report back, disrupt any raider controled assests you can and turn them to our side, show the people of this region that the Enclave is here to help, that way it will be much harder for Seven to gain any kind of traction in the region while we come up with a plan of how to take him down, any questions?" Sabine said clicking off her display.
"What do we do should we encounter Seven or his group ma'am?" Sarge asked.
"I would recommend no contact with them at the moment Sargent but should it be inevitable then you are authorised to use whatever force nessesary to either kill or contain the target," she said firmly.
"Roger that, what about on the ground intel?" Sarge asked and Sabine nodded.
"Our new allies in the Institute are dispatching a series of infiltrators to the region based on intel they have already garnered, they are going to be replacing a series of low ranking Raiders within the various clans so we can get a better lay of the land, but our first order of buisness is to set up a base of operations so that we can get to work in the region," Sabine said.
"Ok roger that do we have any potential sites in mind?" Sarge asked and Sabine nodded before returning to her slides and seemingly picking one, she also seemed pleased that Sarge was activly asking the right questions here which made Clements wonder if she was testing their capability to carry this operation out, he would not put it past the Int section or the Spectres to use such underhanded tricks as he'd heard quite a lot of worrying stories about both back on base.
"This is an abandoned factory to the far north of the territory, from what we understand no locals or Raiders go there due to an abundence of dangerous wildlife that inhabits the surrounding swamplands, the factory used to be used for making a varity of gifts for the onsite vendors to sell so it should also be full of surplus raw materials that we can salvage to put to good use, the factory itself also has a landing pad at the rear for cargo Vertibirds that we should be able to use for exit and entry and thankfully seems to be behind a rather large perimiter wall that must have been used for security back in the day," Sabine said showing another grainy picture.
It was only at this point that Clements realised that the pictures had been taken using an Eyebot, there was no other logical explantion given not only the height of the pictures taken but also the way in which they were taken, like the viewer was hanging in the air looking down at an angle, if they had been taken from a Vertibird then they would have had to have been taken from either a nose mounted camera which would have given a far better picture quality, or from someone hanging out of the side with a telephoto camera and then the angle would have been different, that only left Eyebots.
"What kind of wildlife are we talking ma'am, deathclaws, Yao gui, or is it some of the numerous insects that are bound to live in swamplands?" Sarge asked.
"Unknown all we do know is that what ever they are there are many of them and they are dangerous enough that not even the Raiders will go there, so be on your guard at all times until we get security for the place up and running," Sabine said with a shrug of her slender shoulders.
"Are you acompanying us on this op ma'am?" Sarge asked and Sabine nodded.
"Yes, it will be my job to set up a communications Hub to allow us to talk to both HQ and this FOB, word from the higher ups is that once a foothold in the region is established they can begin shipping in some ground troops to both areas in order to provide security so that we can focus on our true goals here, from this point on our call sign is Phantom, I will be Phantom one Sargent you are Phantom two, I will leave the rest of the numbering to you but ensure that I have a list of assigned call signs by the end of the ride over there so that I can list them," she said and once again Sarge nodded.
"Sounds good ma'am," he said seeming to glance around the team as if he was making a mental checklist of who was going to be what.
"Also another part of this op is that given that we are going to be working with our Institute allies I want yourself and your soldiers to be paired off with one into two man teams, a battle buddy system, so your battle buddy will be called Phantom two one so I know which team and who I am dealing with, it will be so that we can learn from one another and adapt our tactics together to ensure a co-oprative and co-hesive unit," Sabine said and Sarge seemed surprised by this by the speed at which his head snapped to glance at her but he simply nodded when stared down by the Spectre.
"Yes' ma'am, understood," he said and instantly Clements smelled a rat.
He got the feeling that the 'Battle Buddy' system wasn't anothing to do with them 'learning' from one another, it was because the Spectre didn't trust the Institute as far as she could throw them and wanted the ESF keeping an eye on them to ensure they didn't do anything stupid that could either compromise them or betray them outright.
Once the briefing was over Sarge quickly paired everyone off and Clements got himself paired with Delta two who once she was instructed to simply walked over and stood next to the soldier who towered over her in his power armour.
Once that was done he gave a quick list of the call signs to Sabine and then that was it, they were ready for the off.
Clements who was now designated Phantom three and Delta two who was now Phantom three two headed towards the Vertibird with his new partner in tow and he couldn't help but keep glancing at the female Courser.
He'd heard quite a lot about these paticular combat units of the Institute but how much of it was myth and how much was reality was up for debate.
He'd heard thatir primary function was assassination and retrieval which indicated to him that if they had to make an entire devision with the scope of retriving someone that there must be a lot of escape attempts from the Institute.
Though wheather it was synths trying to escape a life of servitude or possibly scientists was another matter for the debate teams.
Though this got him thinking, if it was the synths running away then it meant to him at least, that they were sentient enough to know that the situation that they were in was horrific, because if they didn't know any better then why would they run?
The other train of thought that pulled away from his mental station was if it was the scientists who were running and these were the guys that were creating these 'people' then how bad must life be for them to wish to run away from what would be touted as a paradise?
Either way the fact that they had to create an entire class of synth whose dedicated function was to retrive these runaways was very telling in itself as it said that the institute was lying about the state of its society as if it were the scientific utopia that they touted it to be, why would anyone run from it?
This line of thought brought him back to the topic of slavery as they all piled into the Vertibird for the off to this Nuka world.
He glanced again at Delta two and he wondered if she was a slave and if she was did she even know it?
He began to think if there was a way to possibly breach the question to her as there was a high possibility that they were going to be spending quite a lot of time together over the comming weeks and if there was maybe there was a way that he might be able to possibly use this to their advantage somehow?
A thought of possibly turning the synthetic woman to their side against her current masters began to form in Clements mind, it seemed like rather a sound plan to convert one's enemy to one's friend, though technically they were 'friends' already thanks to this treaty which had been put in place, though how much each side would be willing to go to trust the other was heavily in question.
All he did know was that he was going to have to tread very carefully around her, he did not know how much autonomy someone like her had and if she would instantly report any attempt of his to get information out of her or to pursuade her against her team.
Thats when he bega nto think about the enemy they were going up against now, it was no secret these days that the Free Peoples of the Wastes were a royal pain in the Enclave's collective ass.
They seemed to have a real knack for pulling off the impossible with faw fewer numbers and not only that they had a real nasty habit of either showing up at critical moments before simply vanishing like smoke in a windstorm.
Though Clements couldn't help but admire this Seven guy, he had gone from runaway test subject to leader of a full blown cult in less than a year and in that time he had managed to inflict rather significant causualties and losses to both the Enclave and anybody else foolish enough to take him on like the various Raider clans that had fallen under the boots of his people.
Honestly he wondered wheather they should be picking a fight with this guy at all, wheather it was truly worth it, they guy certinally had zero problems going up against them head to head when need be and with the strength he was able to field it made him a threat worthy of respect.
Surly a wiser move on command's part would have been to try and contain him down here in the Boston region, simply cordon it off and leave him here and his fell monster loving followers to all hold hands and sing kum bye ya till they were fucking blue in the face?
But it seemed that there was more at play here, most likely the Bio Weapons Division pulling some strings to try and either contain or eliminate their fuck up, though he had to admit having the power of someone like that guy on their team would make their job a hell of a lot easier in a lot of ways.
Why throw a ton of man power at a fortified settlement when you could simply send one guy with an army of Deathclaws at his back to raze the place?
Clements sighed and he looked out over the land below his door gun as the Vertibird stuck to the clouds for cover, he supposed he'd probably get his answer on what kind of man Seven was soon enough.
Soon the ground far below their bird turned from rolling green pastures with settlements dotted about to a thick fog covered swampland and a dark sense of forboding began to decend over Clements mood.
Granted the place would be perfect to set up a covert operating post but it was also gonna be filled to the brim with all sorts of nasty critters just waiting to take a bite out of the unaware.
Being on guard in a place like this in this world wasn't just an advisery it was a requirement doubly so in a place like this, suddenly Clements was very glad that his suit was equipped with new thermal optics as he got the feeling both regular vision and even his night vision gear was going to be absolutly useless in that thick fog.
Some of the newer Eclave armour suits had been equipped with motion tracking equipment that worked kinda like a cross between radar and sonar, it would send out high frequency pulses that bounded back causing a constant clicking noise to be heard in the users helmet but when something moved within the range of those pulses it caused a ping to be heard and would flash up on the users HUD to show them what direction it was in.
Only Sarge had managed to secure one of these new devices and it was currently mounted on the rear of his armour behind his helmet and looked like a small rotating radar dish, he got the feeling everyone was going to be sticking to Sarge's ass so close down there it would be like he was wearing them.
"Thirty seconds out!" the pilot called over their internal comms and the whole group stood up.
The Enclave personell would be going out first with their Institute counterparts following them, once the LZ was clear and secure they would begin unloading their equipment from the bird which would remain on the factory landing pad unlless the LZ became too hot for them to maintain it.
Clements heared the landing gear coming down and despite that only happening on the final decent he looked down and saw quite litterally fuck all except white.
He switched his vision mode over to thermal and instantly the world changed to a deep shade of blue and black but it at least had some kind of definition that he could use to orientate himself.
Both his Enclave brothers and sisters as well as their synthetic counterparts all glowed white, red and yellow as the heat they gave off was translated into a colour pattern that his visual sensors could interpret.
"Drop!!" Sarge yelled and two of the ESF soldiers went out of each side of the bird dropping to the gound a few feet below with enough force to cause a series of mini booms announcing their arrival as they hit.
Before he had even fully stabalised his stance Clements weapon was in the shoulder and coming up to scan the arcs around him, so far he saw nothing on any of his sensors and his thermal vision revealed nothing but that didn't make him relax any, if anything that made him even more tense because he knew the enemy were out there, only now they didn't have a clue where they were.
To his right he saw Delta two take up her position in the formation and she just like him was scanning the area around them with her rifle, though he didn't know what kind of enhanced sensors she had avalible to her, he didn't know if her specialised combat helmet had enhanced vision like his did or if her very eyes were out fitted with them, but by the way she seemed to be fixating on things she couldn't have been seeing without somthing to show her it was there she had somthing.
"LZ looks clear, I'll stay here with Phantom one and begin unloading, Phantoms three, three one, four and four one breach that building and begin sweep to clear, everyone else you are with me helping to get this shit on the ground, sweep team you have permission to use lethal force on any threats if you identify any civilians in the AO arrest them and bring them here for interrogation, you have your orders now move out!" Sarge said over the comms.
"Sir yes sir!" Clements and the others chorused before spliting up to get to their tasks.
Clements felt better knowing he had Silver watching his back, Silver or Annie Silver was Phantom four and was one of the best sharpshooters in the ESF currently, she was also one of their best breaching specialists.
Clements speciality was engineering and electronic warfare, if it had gears or a circuit board he could figure it out, he was also their infiltration specialist with the highest stealth rating of anyone in the ESF, which is why he and Silver were the obvious choices for this as Clements could get them in quietly while if that was impossible Silver could get them in with a bang.
Following Silver was Delta Four a young looking Asian man who looked like he could have been Chinese or possibly Korean if they hadn't have known he was a synth, he was dressed and armed exactly the same as Delta two, wearing the same configuration of armour and even carrying the same weaponry.
"Phantom three you take point three one your second on stick, Four one your third on stick I'll take rearguard, lets get in there and get this shit done," Sliver said gesturing with the barrel of her DMR rifle towards the building.
The group formed up and began moving towards the massive factory building which appeared in Clement's vision as a large black shape with vuage lines on it to indicate windows and shutter doors.
Off to their right from the landing pad there was an old service entrance and the group stacked up on the door, Clements tested the handle and discovering the slackness her did a cut throat sign.
"Gonna have to pick it open give me a minute, these old locks can sometimes be rusty and stubbon," he said softly into the comms as he pulled his tool kit out of his belt.
Fortunetly for clements the lock itself was of pretty high quality, this meant that it was in decent shape despite having survived the end of the world and a couple of hundred years left esposed to the elements with zero maintienence.
With only a little bit of fiddling he managed to pop it open and he signaled as much to his team before replacing his tool kit in his beltkit and rechouldering his weapon.
He gave a count down with his fingers to indicate when he was going to pull the door and one he closed his fist he reached and pulled it open slowly.
Fortunetly the hinges seemed to be in just as good a shape as the lock had been and the door opened with barely a whisper allowing them to enter silently into the factory beyond.
The door itself led into one of the delivery areas where pallets full of parts would be delivered for processing and further pallets full of finished products would be shipped out to the local vendors for sale at their stalls or shops.
With the fog out of the way Clements switched his vision mode over to night vision which used the large infra red torches that were mounted fitted to his eye pieces which gave them a faint red glow, he always had to remind himself not to look at his comrades when this mode was on for fear of blinding them.
Sweeping the bright invisible beams over the warehouse all was still and other than a few dust motes floating in the air causing sparkles in his vision filter nothing moved.
Slowly and silently the tem made their way across the loading dock betwee nthe stacked shelves and pallets heading for a large doorway that in Celements estimation would lead them into the main factory floor.
Thankfully this door wasn't locked and he was abke to simply turn the handle to gain entry, he figured that who ever had held the factory before the bombs fell had simply locked up the outer doors when the had left from their last ever day of work.
He couldn't help but wonder what had happened to those workers and their familes?
There were rumors that a lot of the higher ups in the Nuka Cola company had been in tight with Vault tec so there could be a possibility that many of their decendents were still running around out there today, having been released from their underground sanctuaries only to find the world they had rules over gone and now replaced with this shit show.
Either way it didn't really matter if they had lived or died, the capatilism they had fought so hard to protect as still alive and well plus he had to love the irony that as a symbol of the once mighty capatalist nation their own bottle caps were now the main source of currency out here in the wastes of America.
As he figured, the door did indeed lead into the factory floor and no sooner had they moved through the wide corridor that ed from the loading bay to the assembly line than he spotted movement ahead.
Clements held up a fist over his shoulder and switched his vision back over to thermal.
Once again the room ahead of them switched to a blue and black image as his computer interpreted the temprature variations and created an image from the mass of information.
Thats when he saw little golden marks on the floor ahead of them and he quickly pressed his comms while flicking the switch which would shut off his exterior speakers and mute any sound coming from him.
"Got movement ahead, I see a trail on my thermals, switch to thermals if you got them," he said softly and he saw all of his companions making a switch so it appeared that the syths did indeed have access to thermal vision.
No sooner had they done so than they all spotted what he was indicating and the team began to move very slowly forwards, inching out into the room to sweep it.
Suddenly to their left there was a clang of metal on metal and all of them snapped left only to find a small chain that was hanging from one of the machines swinging back and forth while coliding with the large runners of the machine it was attached to.
Clements cursed to himself, this place was enough to make anyone jumpy but he was a battle hardend special forces solider of the ESF, he was better than this.
Thats when the whispering began, at first he though he was hearing things, like a faint voice carrying on the wind, only there was no wind as they were inside, then he began to wonder if he was hearing echoes of his companions still outside working on the bird.
But no, the further they moved into the room the clearer it became, but not to the point where he could make out any actual words, just a voice whispering in the darkness somewhere.
"You hear that?' Silver asked over the comms.
"Indeed it sounds as if we are not alone here," Delta four responded before he had the chance but it at least confirmed that he wasn't going mad, if the synths were hearing it too then it was definitly not a product of an over active imagination.
Thats when to their right a loud blood curdling screech filled the air and within seconds it was coming from all around them causing all of them to try to clamp their hands over their ears despite all of them wearing helmets.
"Back into the corridor! Force them to come at us from infront!!" Clements yelled though he doubted his team heard him but hoped they would all follow him as he turned and headed back into the corridor that lead into the factory floor.
As it turned out that despite the sense ratteling screech near enough breaking their hearing his team were on the ball enough to quickly follow him into the corridor where thankfully the acustics dampened the screech somewhat by forcing it to only come from a singular direction.
"What the fuck is making that noise!?" Silver yelled most likely due to being partly deaf now thanks to the ungodly din.
Thats when they saw a shape flash past infront of them, what ever it was it was fast and it barely registered on the thermal vision, it was more of a shadow than an actual image.
Thankfully Clements trigger dicipling kjept his finger still as he aimed his gun at where the shape had vanished behind some large stacking machines which loaded pallets to be moved to shipping.
Then just as quickly as it started the screeching stopped and the silence that filled the void left by it was almost as deafening as the noise itself.
The heart monitor on his HUD was like a sodding seizmic reader during a fucking earthquake it was jumping up and down so much as he tried to slow his breathing down.
He'd been trained to deal with the unexpected and there was always a hello f a lot of that to go around in the wastes.
Thats when it hit him, he knew what this fucker was.
"It's a fucking banchee," he said softly over the comms though it had more been intended for himself but he'd forgotton to close the line.
"What do you mean a fucking banchee? I though we wiped all of those fuckers out already!?" Silver exclaimed.
"Only thing that makes sense, did you read the report on them?' he asked and she nodded.
"Yeah, female creatures that have the ability to look human but are actually some kind of bat like creature, they can use an ear splitting hyper sonic attack that ruptures its victims ear drums rendering them deafened and disorentated allowing them to either escape or kill their target," she said.
"Sound familiar?" Clement said.
"But how the fuck did one of them get all the way out here!?" Silver demanded.
"Fucked if I know but Isaw the pictures of these things and they have wings so maybe it fucking flew who knows, point is if its here who knows how many there are or what else is hiding up here," he said.
"Great so what the fuck do we do now?" Silver asked.
"Simple, we hunt the fucker down, now we know what it is we know how to fight it, turn your mufflers up to maximum, it was what they were designed for in the first place, but we're gonna have to rely soley on our eyes because we'll be deaf," he said and Silver nodded.
"Alright lets do this," she said and the four of them after making their modifications turned and moved slowly back towards the factory floor again.