A/N

So recently, I stumbled across a goldmine of Fallout fanon ideas. Coincidentally, they all talk about the same place in Fallout America that I'm currently basing the Dominion on- the Texan Wasteland. Finding myself spent and dried out of creativity, reading on these ideas gave me the inspiration I needed to write.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to the Corpse Coast.

Future chapters will be featuring the war-torn landscape of the Texan Gulf outside of the Dominion frontier, filled with raiders, slavers, tribals and monsters. A little warning though, heavy themes of you-know-what that's only worthy of the M rating. Don't worry though, I'll try not to take things too far, just enough to give the grim aspects of a post-apocalyptic world like Fallout some justice.

Look out, savages! The Dominion's coming to bring civilization back to the Wasteland- one bullet at a time.

}!{

In the days that followed their departure from Dominion-held soil, the South-Texan Expedition covered approximately 230 miles of the Wasteland in search of promising locations for the Dominion to exploit in the near future. Water sources, town or city ruins, and other vaults buried beneath the sands of the Texan desert. Some of these objectives were met, most of the time they were not, but what they found in the Wasteland proved that the venture was not a waste of time or resource.

Adhering to strict expeditionary protocols, they took their time recording and documenting every route they took, every point of interest they found, and took samples from potential exploitable resource areas.

On some days, they would come across small settlements. Hope kept the team at a safe distance from these population centers, as most of them were composed of raider or slaver tribes. The expedition was not a standing army, no matter how advanced their equipment was in comparison to the natives. Hope preferred to make contact only when absolutely necessary, and to use violence only as a last resort.

Their presence, however, still drew the attention of the locals. In the lawless frontier, not an hour went by that the convoy became endangered from some raider attack or other. Their guns made short work of their enemies, enough to deter the survivors from making a second attempt, and the expedition team convoy would make a speedy headway out of their territory.

There were some days when the convoy would reach no man's land, and would operate with relative safety. Here, Dex took the time to train Rose in the art of combat, teaching her all that he learned at the academy and in his experience as a mercenary.

"Okay, baby. You ready?"

Rose pressed the laser-rifle stock against her shoulder just like he taught her, "Yeah." It took some work trying to persuade Hope to lend the weapon from their armory for her to use, with Dex succeeding only when he offered to subtract 500 credits off of Rose's fee pending their return to Dominion lands.

The weapon she was issued was a standard Cyclops Mark-1 laser-rifle, the Dominion soldier's next weapon of choice besides the popular Reckoner assault-rifle. It featured a titanium-alloy shielded array for better durability to weather the elements, a modified internal capacitor for added power, and a focal accelerator to maximize the rifle's accuracy. Like most weapons of the Dominion, the Cyclops was built to have a smaller, compact body for ease of storage. All in all, it was considered a worthy successor to the AER9 model from the Pre-War era.

"Now, there's a difference for every weapon. For laser weapons, like the one you're holding now, it's all about precision. They don't have a lot of stopping power like ballistic weapons or plasma, but they can burn through most metals and especially flesh." Dex pointed to the dead tree where he'd hung a few empty Cram cans on strings from its branches, "Think of it like using a scalpel, rather than a hammer. You'll be cutting them up to ribbons before a target takes two steps."

"What's a scalpel?"

"It's a knife, sharp as a razor." Dex shrugged, humoring her question. "Doctors use them all the time. I just thought it would make a good analogy."

Rose took aim and hovered her finger over the trigger.

"Don't worry, laser-rifles hardly have any recoil."

The weapon vibrated in her hands and fired a single beam of red light that left a black spotty line in her sight for a few seconds. The beam cut a small, coin-shaped hole in one of the cans. Rose smiled proudly at her accomplishment, "Gotcha."

"See? It's real simple, and if you practice long enough you'd be as good a shot as me." Dex said as he hugged her waist from behind. "Don't worry about the ammo, the MF cells are rechargeable."

"Thank you, sweetie."

"You're welcome." Dex replied, kissing her neck for motivation. "Now see if you can hit them all in under a minute."

It was late noon, and the sun was dipping into the horizon. The convoy stopped at the banks of a spring of clear, fresh water to rest and cool their engines. Hope had all seven Centaurs park in a circle around the spring to give them cover and good sights in all directions. She decided that the place was a good spot to camp in for the night, but took precautions in ensuring they'd sleep peacefully. She assigned some of the soldiers to stand guard in two shifts that would change every three hours.

She took the first watch, standing guard atop one of the transports to get a good view of the land around them.

For miles and miles, all she could see was golden sand and faint silhouettes of heavily irradiated mountains. The wind had turned cool, which was one of the few blessings the Texan desert had to offer, and blew against her face with gentle brushes. Hope enjoyed the tender caress of the air for a few minutes, before resuming her watch.

She got out her binoculars and peered through them, slowly scanning the horizon for any sign of trouble.

The familiar sound of laser weapons-fire caused her to glance down at the couple shooting at some tin cans hanging by a dead tree. Her brother's girlfriend Rose was learning quickly, and that brought a smile to the lieutenant's face.

She might just make it. Might. Perhaps too generous a word for the rookie.

"Nine out of ten! Good job, baby!" Dex yelled excitedly.

"Below average by Dominion standards." Hope muttered. As far as she was concerned, she can tolerate the rookie if she can pull her own weight and follow her commands.

As evening approached and darkness fell over the desert, the fires within the convoy campsite burned bright to offer the explorers its heat and light in the chilly night. It was a fairly peaceful evening, and the soldiers gathered around to swap stories as they ate their dinner of MRE's and other canned goods.

Most of them, consisting of a little over half the escort team, were rookies barely out of their teens, ranging between the ages fifteen to nineteen. The other half were veterans of the little insurrection wars of the Dominion frontier, battle-scarred soldiers like Hope and Sterling. They were men who were all too eager to impart the truths about the horrors of the Wasteland.

The stories they shared at the campfire were nothing short of unnerving, as the veterans gleefully played on the rookies' fear for their amusement.

Hope didn't bother intervening, knowing that a little shaking-up was healthy for the rookies, especially Rose. Up until now, she had no idea what possessed her brother to bring her along for the journey. As much as she liked the fact that he showed concern for anyone other than for himself, Hope for the most part saw Rose's involvement as a liability and a waste of resources.

Rose held no such ill-will against anyone in the team, especially Hope, and was a welcome change to the foreboding atmosphere. The boys liked her for her cheery attitude and friendly manner, the men enjoyed her warm company and her good looks. But it was Dex, the luckiest of them all, who received the fullest extent of her attention.

Later that evening, the soldiers retired for the night and left the campfires to sleep in the transports or in their sleeping bags. Dex and Rose stayed up for a bit to watch the stars in the clear night sky.

Rose played with the necklace Dex made for her earlier that week, which was fashioned out of an old holotag chain and the 1 credit coin he got from Judge Greene in Carlon. "You know, I wonder why he didn't make the reward any higher than 1 credit."

Dex threw her an inquisitive look, "You really wanna put a higher worth on Carver and his boys? They were worth far less than 1 credit, baby."

"I suppose." Rose said with a shrug. She took his hand in hers and ran her fingers across the lines of his palm, "I really appreciate you risking that 6000 credits just to get me on the team, Dex. Really, I do."

"Baby, you're worth far more than 6000 lousy credits." Dex replied, making her blush. His fingers closed over her hand and he drew it close to his lips, "There's no gold, cap or credit in the world that'll ever amount to how you're worth to me."

"You really know how to make a girl feel special." They watched the patterns of twinkling white dots in the dark blue expanse for a few minutes, then Rose whispered. "Hey, wanna take this somewhere private?"

"Of course." Dex smiled, letting her lead the way.

The two got very little sleep that night as they spent the hours making love in Dex's tent, as they'd done most nights for each day on the journey. Time on the trail had the tendency of wearing down even the hardiest traveler, but not for Dex or Rose. They had each other to work out the aches of the long road, and their bond grew even stronger in the face of adversity.

Soon, all the noise of the camp died down until only the faint chirp of desert insects could be heard above the wind. The sentries changed shifts, keeping a good eye on the shadows in the distance.

Then, at exactly 3 in the morning, the shadows moved. And the darkness suddenly lit up with the flashes of gunfire.

"Alert, we're under attack!" The sentries yelled, sliding into their hatches to operate the Centaur main guns.

The entire expeditionary team sprang into action, taking positions behind the armored transporters and metal crates. No citizen of Elysion went without weapons-training, even the least of them had been taught some form of combat skill, and this showed when the scientists moved to assist their escorts.

"Rose, come on!" Dex shook his girlfriend awake as he grabbed his rifle from where it lay next to him. "Time to see if your training pays off."

The pair joined in the defense of the convoy, firing back at the shadowy figures hiding behind the dunes. Rose flipped the safety switch on her rifle to power up the capacitor, then waited for the booting sound to fade into a low hum. She recalled her lessons with her boyfriend and took careful aim so she won't waste her shots.

She fired, looking away as the resulting flash momentarily blinded her, then peered through the darkness to see if she hit her intended target.

Someone in the convoy switched on the floodlight lantern on top of one of the Centaurs and sent the lights streaming forward to illuminate the area as well as blind their foes in a literal flood of white light.

They saw their attackers well enough to know they were another tribal raiding party. They were armed with an assortment of crude, jury-rigged pipe guns and rusty machine-guns. Even worse was their attire. Not a single one of the raiders wore body armor, only tattered dusters or patch-work jackets and ripped jeans.

Primitives. Savages. And every other name to describe how low they've sunk into barbarism.

Seeing their enemy better under the floodlights, the Dominion soldiers relished the opportunity to reveal the might of their empire in one swift counter-attack. The hammer of the larger guns on the Centaurs was deafening, and it drowned out the screams of the raiders as Hope and the soldiers manning the guns turned their wrath on them.

High-caliber rounds grinded flesh to paste, leaving fine gusts of red mist wherever and whoever they passed through.

Rose didn't even need to fire again, but watched in amazement at how quickly the attack was repelled. The expeditionary team had encountered attacks like these before, though on a smaller scale as they were on the move as it happened. This one was no drive-by, it was a slaughter.

The woman shrank back as a rain of hot metal came streaming over her spot, spat out from the guns as they released casing after casing with each shot. Soon, the raider party, which amounted to a few dozen men, were reduced to only five. The survivors turned tail and fled back into the desert. The floodlights chased after them.

The hammer of the guns ceased, but the lieutenant wasn't finished. "Sniper, finish them off!"

Rose looked at the woman in shock. A soldier hefted his gauss rifle onto his shoulder as he climbed to the top of a Centaur. He took position next to Hope, went prone and took aim.

"Why do we need to kill them all?" She asked Dex. "They're beaten."

"Shh, baby." Her boyfriend said, "Watch."

The gauss rifle screamed, taking a raider apart from the middle. The top half slid off, and the bottom kept running until it stumbled into a halt. A second scream, and another raider was promptly throttled across the air as the high-velocity round went clean through his back and out his chest. The corpse brushed across the sands like a wet rag until gravity forced it into a halt, leaving a red smear in its wake.

One of the raiders turned around, saw the fate of his friends, and panicked. He flung his weapon away and raised his hands as he knelt in a desperate attempt to surrender.

"Haha!" The sniper laughed, "Nope."

A third scream, the raider's head was gone.

"Can't take prisoners on the road, right LT?"

Hope nodded, "Two left. Kill them too."

Rose flinched from the gory sights. The sniper made his fourth shot and the fifth, cutting down the survivors before they could disappear beyond the dunes. The lieutenant surveyed the carnage, commanding the floodlight operators to make a sweep of the area.

When she was satisfied that not a single raider was left alive, she disembarked from the top of the Centaur she was standing on and approached the rookies. There were some of the younger soldiers who remained shaken after the battle, much like Rose, and she wanted to instill a stronger disregard for the savages' lives. "Leaving a single raiding savage alive is like leaving a worm to infest your orchard. One worm leads to a dozen, and a dozen to a hundred. Leave enough, and the whole orchard is ruined."

She turned to Rose, "This expedition's purpose is not solely for exploration. We are the Dominion's torchbearers in a dark world, and we will burn it clean."

It went without saying that Hope expected Rose to show less hesitation for killing raiders in the future, and that she will be watching her closely.

"Pack up! Raise the standard of the Dominion high! We continue the ride south!" The lieutenant declared. Her soldiers scrambled to obey her, including the mercenaries.

"She scares me." Rose said to Dex.

"You'll get used to it." He assured her.

}!{