If the sound of laser fire didn't alert everyone in the base then the explosion of the Hovercraft certainly did.
With his power armour on, Knight Captain Gallows was among the first to get the message thanks to his armour inbuilt radio. The sound of his heavy footsteps reverberated in the stairwell as he rushed up towards the roof.
"This is Paladin Rork, The gate area is secure but we've got incoming."
Bursting out of the roof access door, he turned north to see the 'incoming'. Five blocky-looking aircraft flying towards them. Before he could radio it in, he watched as the five craft broke from formation.
"Gallows here, I've got a visual on five aircraft; one is setting down north of us, two heading towards the building lot to the east and the others…" The bullying he was on shook and dust around him was kicked up as two of the craft sped over him. "Heading to the west gate area."
"Copy that." Cross' steady voice responded. "Gallows stay on the roof. I want you on overwatch, call out anything you see. Paladin Rork, you and your squad stay and hold the north gate."
"Yes ma'am. However, they're making use of tear gas, a lot of the knights here were affected by it."
"Have them pull back, I'll send more power armoured squads your way. Beater Squad, Atom Squad take the eastern lot. Hardin, you take your squad to the western gatehouse and hold it. I'll send Thunder squad there too." A flurry of acknowledgements came through the radio at her orders.
"We didn't pick this fight but we're sure as hell gonna show them they were wrong for testing us!" Even through his usual stoic demeanour, Gallos cracked a smile at her declaration.
Running to the edge of the roof he took a knee and levelled his rifle to the eastern building lot. Judging by the increase in laser fire he trusted the gate guards at the west to hold until Hardin arrived. The eastern lot in comparison was less defended.
Both hovercraft had landed and out of them flowed armoured officers. His crosshairs moved throughout them looking for his target and soon settled on an officer who left the vehicle and immediately started shouting orders at those around him.
'Breathing out, squeeze.' With a snap, a bullet left his gun and the officer dropped to the ground.
Their panic was clear as they all ducked and scrambled to find cover. He set his sights on an officer too slow to react and with another crack came another dead body.
He watched as the officers peeked out of cover to fire a couple of shots only to retreat a second later. They must have realised this wasn't working and Gallows watched as they threw out a handful of grenades which exploded with smoke.
Gallows took what shots he could, but the officers began their advance towards the warehouses. "Beater, Atom, be advised contacts entering warehouse three."
"Thanks for the work Gallows, we got it from here." Atom squad leader responded and he watched the few officers coming out of the smoke come under laser fire.
Gallows turned moving to a different part of the roof. He had more bodies to drop.
—
"Cover me!" Hardin shouted as he stepped out of cover. Behind him, Lukas and Berger levelled their laser rifles and saturated the side of the transport that the officers were taking cover from.
Now out in cover more than a few blaster bolts hit him, while they made him stagger slightly they had yet to do serious damage. Seeing an officer peek out to shoot at him, Hardin reacted quickly and downed the man with two shots from his laser pistol.
Steadily moving forward he finally reached his objective, a fallen Knight writhing on the ground. Reaching down, he used his power armour's strength to heft the soldier up and behind him before he slowly backtracked, careful not to expose the knight.
Another officer moved to shoot at him but before Hardin could react the officer dropped dead and the sound of a sniper rifle rang out. Now back in cover he handed the knight off and gave a thumbs up in the direction of the shot.
No longer having an obvious target, both sides returned to a game of cat and mouse. Hardin didn't like it, but right now neither side had a clear advantage. Fortunately, that was about to change.
"Sorry for the delay, Paladin." Hardin turned to see the members of Thunder Squad approach. "What's the situation?"
"We've got approximately fifteen contacts, most of which are taking cover behind those vehicles while others are dispersed throughout the treeline." Hardin looked at the soldiers of Thunder Squad. "Now that you're here, I have a plan to take them."
"What do you need us to do?"
"I need your guy with the Gatling laser to lay down suppressive fire on the vehicles. We'll then move hard and fast towards them watching for fire from the trees. Then we'll flush them with grenades and mop up the rest." The Paladin thought about his words before nodding to him and turning to the rest of his squad.
"Griggs, take a position over there and be ready to saturate the target. Beth, you go with him." Two knights nodded and moved quickly. "The rest of us are ready when you are, Paladin."
Hardin nodded and spoke into his radio. "Harper, get ready with your Tesla cannon. Lukas, Berger get ready to push on my go." Hardin turned to look at the Knight with the Gatling laser and nodded.
Knight Captain Griggs stepped out into the open and while a few blaster bolts hit his armour's chest piece, his footing remained steady. The few officers not already behind cover quickly did so as a torrent of laser fire was unleashed.
"Go!" Hardin shouted and began moving towards the vehicles. Behind him, Lukas, Berger and the rest of Thunder Squad. He heard the distinctive wind up of a Tesla cannon and to his left, he saw it land, blowing up a tree and the officer behind it.
"Watch the tree line." The few officers who took shots at the column of power armoured soldiers quickly found themselves coming under laser fire.
"You two, prep grenades." Hardin could hear behind him. Now only within a few metres of their objective, he watched as two grenades flew over him and behind the vehicles. By the cries of alarm from the officers they had seen them too.
*boom *boom
Two explosions prompted them to take the other side of the hovercraft. Stepping around, Hardin saw the effects of the grenades. The frag grenades had torn some of the officers to shreds, but that wasn't their main objective. They were meant to disorient and distract them for their entry and it had worked well.
One of the officers looked up at him as the Brotherhood soldiers came into view, eyes wide in panic. He barely had time to raise his blaster before Hardin gunned him down. The rest of the officers had been caught in similar states of disarray and were quickly dispatched.
"Target area secure." Thunder's squad leader spoke into his radio before turning to the rest of his squad. "Use these vehicles for cover, we'll start flushing them out of the forest."
The members of Thunder Squad began to move. Meanwhile, Lukas and Berger looked to Hardin who nodded to them. "Let's move."
—
With the job of dealing with the officer on the outside of the warehouse falling to Atom squadron. The Task of flushing out the officers from inside was graciously accepted by Beater Squad. Putting them in their preferred combat range.
Close quarters.
"Raaaggghh." With a mighty swing, the end of the super-sledge met chest armour. The armour was strong but not strong enough, and the officer it was protecting went flying into the warehouse wall before crumpling to the floor.
The power-armoured figure turned its head to the officers who had been standing nearby. "Hahaha, come and get some." Between watching their comrade sent flying and the voice-modulated declaration from the one responsible, the officers decided the best course of action was to run away.
"You having fun there, Enzo." Beater squad leader asked.
"You're damn right sir."
The Paladin shook his head. Beater's speciality was close-quarter combat but Enzo always enjoyed being up close with his hammer.
"Paladin River, sir." He turned to look at the newest member of Beater Squad. "We're ready to push into the offices."
"Understood, Knight Captain. You and Enzo watch our rear while we move in." Receiving a nod in response, he moved to the door of the small offices the officers had barricaded themselves in. "Alright, let's do the quick and clean."
He didn't wait for a response before his power armoured foot bashed down the door and he had to step to the side to avoid a hail of blaster fire. He nodded to a squad member and with a quick motion, in went a stun grenade.
River counted under his breath and at the last second stepped into the room. Bolts of red struck all over his armour but the hardened T-51 had faced worse. The stun grenade exploded disrupting the officers, River trusted his helmet to auto-adjust and he was back in action sooner than they were.
Raising his custom laser rifle. He fired a shot at the closest officer. The beam splitter on the end of his weapon, turning it into a laser blunderbuss, tearing into whatever was on the wrong end of it.
Advancing forward he could hear his squad begin filtering into the room, shooting at the exposed officers. Passing a row of cubicles he turned his head to look at them and missed an officer popping out of a nearby doorway and taking a few shots at him.
"Ahhh." River moaned. One of the shots had landed on the joint under his right arm. While there was armour to absorb the shot, it was thin enough that the heat could burn his arm.
"You ok, sir."
"Fine." River raised his rifle and shot into the officer, the officer ducking back into the room. He scowled and marched towards the doorway, sure he could just enter and kill the man, but he had managed to piss River off.
Nearing the wall next to the door, River took a guess and reached back with his left arm. Punching forward, his power armour assisting his punch with a whir of motors. His fist met and then went straight through the wall.
Judging by the scream of pain, River had hit the man, so grabbing a handful of whatever was on the other side, he pulled his hand back. The aged wall buckled under his strength, and through came the scared form of an officer.
Throwing the man to the floor, River managed one good look at him before pointing his laser down. The officer had fear written all over his face, but before he could begin to beg or plead River fired, ending his life.
The rest of the small office area was silent now. Looking around, he saw his squad checking the rest of the side rooms, but judging by the silence there were no more contacts.
"Beater this is Atom… River we got them on the run out here, how's things inside?" The voice of the Atom Squad leader came over the radio.
"We're just about finished here, be out in a minute."
Before he could go about ordering his squad, his radio crackled to life again.
"Attention all squads, evacuation is almost complete, but there's more incoming." Star Paladin Cross' voice rang out. "Start making your way to the south gate for exfil... I repeat, make a fighting retreat to the south gate."
"Alright boys, you heard the lady, let's move!"
—
Star Paladin Cross watched from the southern gatehouse as the last of the Brotherhood personnel left the warehouse. It was by no means the exit she had been hoping for, but damn if seeing her brothers and sisters perform well didn't make her proud.
She had sent Paladin Hardin and his squad to lead the remaining Knights towards the waystation, away from the city, with promises that they would be soon behind them. She didn't know what to think of the paladin at first but she was warming up to him, he had a good head on his shoulders.
"They're about sixty seconds out, ma'am." Beside her, Knight Captain Gallows spoke. A pair of binoculars to his eyes, watching as more aircraft flew towards them.
She merely grumbled in response. The few other paladins with her readying their weapons. One, in particular, hefting an especially deadly weapon.
Finally seeing Paladin Rork and his squad come into view was enough to get her to sigh in relief. Looking up at the roof of one of the warehouses she saw one of the aircraft set down and officers disembark.
"Come on, double time. We are leaving." The group of paladins quickly began to depart the warehouses even as officers from the roof began firing down at their retreating forms.
Reaching the treeline, she motioned them to stop. Turning, she saw another craft begin to descend where they had just been.
"Paladin Lawrence." She turned to the one holding one of the most powerful weapons in the brotherhood arsenal. "Give them our parting gift."
"Yes, ma'am." The paladin moved forward and took a knee, raising the weapon in a suitable arc. He fired and watched as the payload whistled away.
—
Pilot Currav Eivi of the Eulea planetary police force watched as the last of the pirate forces they had been sent to dispatch retreated into the forest.
The radio chatter from before sounded much more grim than it looked from his pilot seat. But he was just a pilot, he liked flying and he wasn't privy to the tactics of the regular officers.
The order came through to descend the transport craft for deployment. So he began to lower the craft as steadily as he could. So focused was he that he almost missed the few pirates that stopped right at the forest's edge.
"Uhh Sir, the pirates have stopped they may-"
Fire. Unrelenting all-powerful nuclear fire.
In the last few split seconds before his death, that's all he could see, hear, smell, taste, feel.
In an instant, the world around the hovercraft was engulfed in a bright flash. The vehicle itself was immediately disintegrated. The Officers on the roof who weren't blown away by the blast, went down with the building as it crumbled under the sheer power of the explosion.
Currav Eivi wouldn't know any of this, however. His death was instantaneous.
—
The sound of a snapping fire was what greeted Sarah Lyons as her eyes fluttered open. Slowly taking in the world around her, a familiar feeling set in.
Hearing the howling winds outside rattling the bones of a long disused house, its walls torn and rotting and the floor caked in dust and dirt. Turning to a window outside she saw the wasteland in all its oppressive nothingness.
It was strange in a way, she felt more at ease seeing the endless wastes here than she had since being whisked away to a tranquil little planet. In the capital wasteland, there was a pecking order, and she knew where she and the brotherhood stood in it. The new planet was just that, new and therefore unfamiliar.
The sound of someone coughing to her side drew her attention, where she saw someone sitting tinkering with his laser rifle.
He was wearing his custom T45 power armour that he kept despite her insistence that he upgrade it. No matter how badly the wasteland would chew it up and spit it out he would spend time maintaining it.
His messy brown hair, which he always did his best to maintain between missions, a holdover from his time underground. He called it a new approach to post-apocalyptic hair styling, organised chaos she thought.
His eyes, filled with the patience, determination and drive to do good or as he would say 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. And emblazoned on the shoulder pauldron, just below the Lyons Pride insignia, the numbers.
101
She stared at him for a long time, the wasteland and any thought about their strange new circumstance forgotten. It had been a long time since she had had this dream. The frequency of them dropped as time passed but always reappearing from time to time. This was the first instance since their forced departure from the capital wasteland.
She remembered the setting well. They were on their way back from a mission as night began to fall. She made the call to set up a camp in an old building and sent the rest of the Pryde to scout the area leaving the two alone.
It would be the last quiet moment they had before she never saw him again.
"Something on my face?" He asked, glancing up at her with a smirk.
"No." She turned away before letting out a small sigh. "Just looking."
These dreams never lasted long, for which she was both thankful and not.
"Something you want to ask?" He had stopped fiddling with his weapon and had his full attention on her.
She stayed silent for a moment, chewing the inside of her cheek. There were plenty of questions she wanted to ask but in the end, she settled on the one she wanted to know the most.
"How did you do it?" He raised his eyebrow at the question as if asking for clarity. "Y'know… with your dad… how did you get over it?"
"Ah, that..." He paused, staring off into the distance. "For a time I didn't, really."
Sarah looked up at him, seeing sadness in his eyes.
"After the raid and our escape from the purifier, I just had stuff to do, an objective to keep moving forward to, something to keep my mind off it." He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "First the GECK, then dealing with the Enclave, enlisting your help and then I was back at the memorial."
He seemed to stare far away into the distance, remembering the past. "I shot Autumn, Fawkes went down, we rushed to the chamber and saw the sacrifice that was needed. The choice was clear to me so I stepped in, finished my dad's work and then…"
"And then it wasn't over…"
"You left," Sarah spoke, a small drop of displeasure in her voice.
He nodded. "Yeah, I left." He let his head hang in silence for a moment before continuing. "Now that I had time to process it all, I fell into a downward spiral. I threw myself at the scum of the wasteland. I don't remember if I was looking for or running from something."
"Eventually, I ended up at The Pitt. Some half-baked plan to sneak in, but hey… I agreed and wound up there anyway. I had a lot of time to think back then…"
Reaching into a custom compartment of his armour he brought out a small leather bound book. "What brought me out of that place and helped me heal was helping others. Sounds cheesy, but every time I helped someone I imagined my dad and how proud he would be."
He chuckled to himself for a moment, stroking the spine of the book. "I suppose we inherit the ideals of our fathers."
"When I finally came back, I saw all the good you and the brotherhood were doing, and I joined up. The rest you know but I still never fully got over it per se…"
"There will be good days and bad, but as time goes on the time between the bad gets longer…" He paused, looking her dead in the eyes.
The world around her got dimmer and dimmer, the walls fading into nothing.
"I know you can do it, Sarah…" Finally, he disappeared, leaving only his voice. "You got over me, didn't you."
—
Consciousness came back to Sarah almost immediately. She lay in her cot, staring at the tent roof silently. This was one of the better wake-ups than those she's had recently.
Swinging her legs out of her cot she sat on its edge. Pushing herself to stand she made her way over to her power armour.
Flicking open a latch, she reached inside a compartment of her armour and pulled out a familiar black leather book.
Sitting down, she let herself reminisce about her friend and comrade, caressing one of the few objects she had to remember him by.
"I miss you… John."
AN: Dun Dun Duuuuhh... a Lone Wanderer name drop and a mini nuke both in the same chapter. Hope you like it :)
For those hoping for more LW sorry to disappoint but this will be the most of it for a while... BUT recent idea crafting has made me reconsider the fate of the LW and his appearance in the universe. But again nothing this soon, I want the story mostly revolving around the brotherhood for now.
Also I am replaying fallout 3, one can only rely on so many Oxhorn lore videos.