Saying his goodbye's to family and friends had freed up his mind for the declaration to the UMA Council. As the doors to his home closed behind him, and he stepped out onto the street with his most trusted men, their ride to the old air force base in the north east landed smoothly.
A Vertibird landed outside the Lucky 38 Casino in front of the four war fighters. Two mini gun platforms hung off the outer doors and a tail gunner position had been welded to the underside of the vehicle. Chris jumped into the tail gunner copula while Mitch and Neil took a door gunner position. The Courier climbed in last to sit up front.
The pilot was waiting for the all clear sign for lift off. The Courier sat in the copilot seat and did the secondary flight checks. While doing this his mind drifted to the past year. The first anniversary of the second battle for Hoover Dam had passed by last week, celebrated with a short parade. After the conclusive battle, the Legion and NCR forces were shattered and defeated.
The Legion, embodying the worst of humanity, a spartan war fighter society, led by their chieftain who called himself Caesar. The army of slavers fitted in their best sports padding for armor, and waving short swords and knives and throwing spears, but all the blades coated in some kind of poison. They all died under a hail of gunfire and rocket barrages.
The Courier had recovered a platinum casino chip from the Lucky 38, and it was actually a thumb drive with the boot up sequence for the securitron upgrade software. Upgrading the army of robots in New Vegas and the larger army the Courier found under the abandoned weather station was the hard part. Loosing them on the Legion to fight alongside the NCR, only to double cross the NCR after giving the Legion a hard spanking, all capabilities on full display. General Oliver was not happy to learn that victory never had been within his reach when the Courier stood atop Lanius of the Legion, Caesars top field commander. The Courier then ordered his new securitron army to take all the NCR captive. Many had resisted and died.
The Courier strode east, across the Hoover Dam the conquering hero, to his allies, and the living ghost of death to his enemies. The Brotherhood of Steel was a thorn that he needed to deal with. They were a radical group insistent on collecting all prewar technology, mainly weapons and armor, to horde to themselves in their bunker in the Hidden Valley of the Mojave.
The Courier was at the tip of the spear, so to speak, in removing the BoS from the chessboard. After they had been dealt, their bunker destroyed from the inside by the Courier himself. with was when he began to distribute all the weapons and armor from their storage rooms in the bunker to his growing following of settlers native to the Mojave Wasteland that had felt conquered when the NCR came in to claim Hoover Dam for the power it provided.
It started small back in the days after the second battle for the dam. Small groups would find him in New Vegas or the surrounding area as he used his robots to improve the infrastructure. Asking him to join and how they could help, like wolves looking to join a pack. It was when Chief Hanlon and a number of AWOL NCR Rangers showed up on the Couriers doorstep that he had to seriously consider building a military for the city-state that New Vegas had become.
It was only with Hanlon's help that the Courier had established the Guardian program. The program that would shape the United Mojave Alliance from an automated army to a blend of human and machine war fighters.
When the Courier took a sip of coffee and gave the hand signal to lift off, the pilot canopy began to rise above the city. Reaching for the sky in an old world machine, the rotors beating the atmosphere into submission. The scream of the engines as the bird got under way toward Nelis Air Force Base.
Chris sat in the gunner copula thinking about the scarce detail of the mission. Everything he'd worked for in the UMA army as a Guardian. Independence and freedom from the overreach of the NCR that was turning into a colonial power far to the west of the Mojave desert. He'd grown up a poor ranch hand with no family, but adopted into a simple community of farmers. He'd learned to handle a rifle early and when the time came to volunteer for the defense of New Vegas from the NCR after the second battle of the Hoover Dam he was at the recruiters office at sunrise.
Mitch had been a general store owner in the town of Nipton before the Legion had burned it to the ground and murdered the population. He'd escaped to the foothills of the mountain range and hidden until the Courier came through. He then joined the Courier and was a near constant companion. He found himself watching his boss nurse the coffee as he walked into the cargo area to speak with the men collected at their stations.
Neil had been an NCR Ranger that had flipped to the Courier's team when New Vegas had kicked out the NCR. He hadn't felt like a traitor, the NCR had used and abused the Rangers, sending them on endless missions and patrolling them up and down the Colorado river. He had walked damn near every inch of river bank that the NCR had ordered to a recon mission on. When the Chief of the Rangers, Chief Hanlon, had flipped was when he had followed the highly decorated Ranger into this new alliance through the Couriers Guardian program.
"I bet y'all wondering what the mission is." The Courier said, taking a seat in the cargo area coffee in hand. Seemingly to be on the edge of telling them some revelation of great importance.
"Ya know it had crossed my mind," Mitch quipped scanning the holographic battle map of an unfamiliar city.
"What's the play here Hoss, I've got a fresh troop coming in that're going out on desert survival training." Neil said.
The intercom allowed them to communicate while the vertibird made best speed towards Nelis. It was a system that the Courier had a knack for building and maintaining.
Chris stayed quiet, his family would take the news hard but the Courier needed a full team to pull this mission off. He couldn't do this with half measures, and he intended to keep his promise to Cass. The Courier needed Chris's skill set on his team.
"We're going on the farthest recon I've ever ordered. We're going to the east coast, a full two thousand miles from here." There was a disbelieving silence over the cabin intercom for a full ten count before the first response came.
"I'm in." Neil said simply, "Where's the AO?" Area of Operations. Neil remained a Ranger to the core.
"The Old World capital, D.C." The Courier said looking intently at the holographic map, "We take our best vertibird and travel east for roughly two thousand miles to the east coast of the continent. Old BoS communications that I," The Courier cleared his throat, "Requisitioned before their destruction show a rouge chapter out in the old capital of the US." The Courier pushed a button on the holotable and the topography of the east coast city began to slowly rotate.
The Courier continued with his brief, "We establish a base of operation to coordinate out of, here." He used the interface to highlight a settlement in the south east of map. "This is what the database called Rivet City, it was the largest settlement that the eastern chapter had come across until communications were cut off. It is a friendly settlement protected inside an old world aircraft carrier that ran aground shortly after the bombs fell."
"Is this a one way deal?" Mitch asked. He was a founding member of the first class of Guardians, he also had tired of war and fighting. He was leaning towards getting out of the service and settling down somewhere quiet.
"I do not have a solid estimate of how long we will be gone. This is a volunteer mission, and we are stopping at Nelis to load supplies. If anyone wants out of the mission, you'll have to disembark at Nelis." The Courier said taking a sip of his black coffee. The briefing and discussion carried on for another ten minutes before the pilot called over the intercom they were on the approach to Nelis.
The Vertibird landed at Nelis and four men exited the aircraft. They stood like hands on a compass, close friends made closer by the trials they had faced in the war against the NCR. When the aircraft lifted off and headed to the southeast there was a vacant silence that followed. It was broken by the Courier.
"Who is coming with me," he said tiredly, as he surely was. To say that he'd been through the ringer would scratch the surface of his experience with the Mojave wasteland so far. It had been nonstop full auto rock and roll for the better part of two years. His only restful night of sleep had been after Doc Mitchell had sewn his head back together. He often wondered if God tested anybody else so thoroughly. He had been vilified and venerated, "Ya'll know I've got half an idea who I am. This trip is to kickstart my memory from before I got shot in the head. I need to go to several locations with close to no idea what I'll find there. I'm not even certain what it is I'm looking for."
There was a brief silence before Chris said simply, "I'm in."
Neil had already volunteered, "Can't let you go this one alone big hoss."
Mitch was silent a while, a battle of loyalty raging in his mind. "Ok." He said simply. "I'll go."
The Courier was silent for a long moment, before the silence became uncomfortable, he said almost under his breath, "Good. Now we wait for the bird to get packed, then we fly east."
As the vertibirds flew in on approach to the wreck of the old ship that was now Rivet City, they all marveled at the view. from 10,000 feet it was breathtaking. Gigantic husks of buildings that made for impassible rubble blocking off huge sections of the city. It looked like a maze, all of the destroyed concrete and metal structures, impassible but for circuitous pathways towards a central rectangle of area that seemed clearer than the rest of it all. The view of total destruction was terrible in its totality. The entire city seemed to be an obliterated nightmare.
"Prepare for landing." The pilot said over the radio.
As the vertibird closed in on its landing zones the Courier got a closer look at the destroyed monuments of an old world city gone mad. Suddenly an icy throb at the back of his head lit his world on fire. He was dimly aware that he had fallen to his knees, knocking his helmet off and clutching his head as a slide show of information threatened to overload his mind.
Flashes of battle inside the destroyed city, fighting massive mutants alongside paladins and knights. He felt on the verge of a bout of dry heaving as his hands gripped the plate decking of the vertibird floor. Navigating inside the destroyed city to reach a radio station. Walking out of an underground labyrinth of interconnected train tunnels to the west side of the river. Walking the Capital Wasteland in search of someone.
The Couriers vision narrowed to a tunnel and he could hear his friends shouting over him. The landing forced his face into the deck roughly and his last thought was of a girl. She stared at him, and he felt his heart break and mend a thousand times. Her golden complexion with deep almond shaped eyes of the darkest brown. Her high cheek bones that hid dimples at the corners of her mouth. The secret knowledge he saw in the corner of her eyes when she looked through his eyes and into his soul. Everything went black.
The first sensation he felt was the softness under him. His shoulders were aching and that pain threaded its way all the way up to the bullet wound in his forehead. The second sensation was the overloading cacophonic noise of many people talking over one another. It was deafening to his ears and made the head pain all the more severe. It felt like the worlds worst hangover, and brought back even more of the memories from a time long ago.
Seeing the open sky for the first time, watching as raiders attempted to ambush a caravan, and walking through the collapsing halls of the Capitol building. It was at this point he sat straight up, his equilibrium and stomach protesting all the while, and heaved out the meal he'd eaten on approach to their destination. His eyes opened involuntarily after he'd heaved and he slammed them shut just as fast when the light lanced into his orbital nerve and stabbed viscously at his brain. His lunch landed in his lap, roasted brahmin staining his pants and seeping into the fabric. He collapsed, exhausted and weak.
"Issac, can you hear me?" A female voice off to his left asked among the commotion. She was very close to his ear and the noise was still overwhelming.
"Someone dim the damned lights!" The Courier roared as loud as he could project from his acid coated throat. The noise stopped but still he squeezed his eyes shut. He felt a coolness settle across his face and tentatively opened an eye. The light directly above him had disappeared and he thanked God for that small mercy.
"Issac. Can you hear my voice?" It was the female voice asking again, the form blurry and undefined.
The question was directed at him, and in a quivering voice he said, "Why are you calling me that?"
More voices whispered and shushed one another as if to share secrets only to be reprimanded for doing so.
The voice said, "My name is Sarah Lyons. Your name is Issac, Issac Martin. Do you remember?"
A flash erupted within his mind. He heard monitors making sounds and people in urgent voices calling to each other. He felt his pulse quicken and his head pounded in rhythm with his heart hammering away at his rib cage.
In a dry voice that was not his own he croaked, "I remember everything." Heaving with great effort he tossed his legs over the side of the bed. The room seemed to be in motion almost as if he were drunk. He choked back another bout of vomit and swallowed it back down. Head pounding he called out to his men.
"Mitch get the men ready." He pushed a hand against his forehead as if to hold his brain in his skull. He could only stand with a severe bend at his waist, "Neil, you and Chris prep the bird for flight."
"Issac!" There was a hand on his shoulder pushing him back down. His strength had returned to him but he was still disoriented. Reflex guided his hands as they followed the arm on his shoulder up to the armpit. He pivoted on the balls of his feet and got his hips low, like a coiled spring and when his hip made contact with Sarah's mid section, he uncoiled.
Sarah was flipped over his torso and landed hard on the bed he'd occupied recently. He felt a pair of arms coil around his torso like a python and start to squeeze. The arms had one of his arm trapped, with his left arm pinned inside the grip his right hand searched for the knife hidden underneath his duster by his shoulder finding only a handful of shirt.
"HOSS!" Neil shouted, and was on Issacs back pulling his arms under control. He had a hell of a time trying to control the man, currently plagued by demons of his past.
Issac Martin, formerly known only as the Courier, let out a hitching sob. Remembering the girl taken by the slavers of the Pitt, the ones he'd failed to defend and all the rest of his friends that had been taken to that God forsaken hell hole.
Unable to form words and unable to hold back the strength of his emotions, like the flash flooding of a canyon, undeniable and irreversible. He let go at that point, voice screamed hoarse and eyes clenched shut. His agony turned sorrow so powerful that he could not breath. The guilt of his inability to stop the slavers that took his friends overwhelming his mind so completely. He felt a jab in his bicep and everything slowly turned to darkness.
Issacs last conscious thought was of a girl named Kimba, the girl he had sworn to protect against the world. He'd made a promise that he was entirely unequipped to fulfill. He heard her voice in the recess of his mind before the darkness took him, "I believe you, Issac. I trust you."
