A/N
I'll admit, I've never once been to Texas, so all I'm writing here's based on whatever 'reliable' sources I can find on the web. To all you folks from Texas, I hope I'm doing your home state some justice even if it's the post-apocalyptic kind :)
Also, for those of you who were wondering about the Dominion having an air force, let this chapter be the answer to those questions.
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"We are hope. We are salvation. We are the Brotherhood of Steel."- High Elder John Maxson.
..::..
As soon as daylight spilled into the Texan Wasteland, the Brotherhood expeditionary team departed from Outpost Seven and left for home.
They retraced their steps into the highways of the Old World, back the way they came. Through the cracked asphalt roads, and into the sand-swept barren lands that stretched across miles and miles of empty landscape. The Texan Chapter, or more formally known as the Eastern BoS Division, of the Brotherhood of Steel was based primarily at the Permian Basin southwest of the Corpse Coast.
Up until they first met the Dominion in Middle Texas, the Permian Basin represented the greatest hope of reclaiming Texas from the ravages of banditry, mutation, and super-science run amok. A string of stable city-states and townships had formed there, on and about the remains of I-10, I-20, and I-27. Some saw convenient way-stops and trade lanes, others looked at the potential of the Permian Basin and saw its communities as flies struggling on a web.
For the Brotherhood of Steel, they saw an opportunity in safeguarding the communities from the dangers of the Old World's technologies, seeing it as their sworn duty to guide them into a brighter future as they felt they were the only ones who possessed the knowledge in handling the relics of the past.
More or less similar to their first encounter with the Dominion, the communities at the Permian Basin rejected their attempts to curb their rapid acclimation with the vast stores of pre-War technologies unearthed from the ruins of the broken cities and military complexes. Disagreements often resulted in violence, and due to the advanced military prowess of the Brotherhood at the time, any fight proved costly on the wastelanders' part. However, as time went by, they developed a form of compromise.
As demanded by Elder Corvinus, the denizens of the Basin were allowed to keep technologies that were deemed vital to their communities' longevity, such as automatons designed for medical purposes or renewable sources of energy like wind turbines, as fusion-core generators were always reserved for the Brotherhood. Energy weapons and combat vehicles were strictly prohibited. Any who broke the terms usually suffered the same fate as they would when facing the raider factions in the wilderness.
As the three of them stepped off the gap in the road and into the sands, Scribe Karter stopped to glance back at the coastland they left behind. "Can't say I'm feeling bad leaving that place."
Paladin Brand paused to stomp at a bark scorpion half-buried under a clump of dirt in the sand. "That is unfortunate, I have a feeling we're gonna be sent back here in the near future."
"If we're going back, I hope it's with a bigger team."
The trio continued on their way, each keeping a hand on their weapon as they ventured deeper into the badlands. They found to their surprise, however, that things have changed since they last went through the old highways.
The Dominion, as it turned out, worked quickly in establishing a secure main road stretching from Outpost Seven back to Elysion. Security checkpoints were set up at every junction and roadside building to provide a stable supply chain for the colony at the Corpse Coast, transforming the highways into relatively safe passages for travelers to use when venturing to and from the Dominion's lands.
Proof of their effectiveness was seen in every burned out wreck or sprawled pile of corpses pushed out of the road to be dumped into a mass grave. Any troublemaker, gang or raider warband seen roaming the highways of the Dominion was handled with extreme prejudice. And since there was no shortage of encounters with the badlanders, considering how widespread the barbarism had become in present day, the Dominion soldiers saw more than their fair share of action daily.
At the sight of the Brotherhood devotees, especially Paladin Brand in his power-armor, a Dominion patrol consisting of Centaurs and other Dominion desert patrol vehicles surrounded the little group. Brand immediately ordered his men to lower their weapons, unwilling to have another brush with death so soon after leaving the hellhole that was the Corpse Coast, so they wouldn't be seen as a threat.
The officer in charge stepped out of one of the light armored dune buggies and addressed the paladin. "Now who are you wasters supposed to be?"
The symbol of the Circle, the Cog and Sword would've been easy to recognize had they remained at the Permian Basin. As it turned out, they were far from home. Out there, not a soul knew what the Brotherhood meant to the people of the New World nor recognized their significance as a faction in the Texan Wasteland, especially the Dominion.
"I'm Paladin Brand. We're the Brotherhood of Steel, and we just wanna go home." Brand stated firmly. "Lieutenant Hope Weiss promised us safe passage, provided that we don't cause any trouble in your territory. We plan on honoring our part, I hope that the Dominion does the same."
"Is that so?" The officer said haughtily, "Well then, you wouldn't have a problem staying put while I confirm this with the LT, now would you?"
Brand frowned, "No. Not at all."
"Watch 'em, boys. They make any false moves, put 'em in the ground." The officer said to the other Dominion soldiers, coordinating with the radio operator in one of the Centaurs to send a message to Outpost Seven.
Five minutes passed, then ten, then twenty.
Finally, the officer got a hold of the outpost and confirmed the guarantee for the Brotherhood's safe passage. He had to let them go and so he did, albeit reluctantly. As the patrol left them with a warning before continuing on their way, Paladin Brand found himself seething. For the first time, it was they who were on the receiving end by a higher authority's jurisdiction, and he hated it.
"How many more checkpoints do you think we'll come across on our way home?" Karter asked.
"None." Brand said with a frown, planning to skirt around the main highway and make a detour so they could get home without another incident like the one they just experienced. "We're taking the long route back to the Basin. I've had enough of this nonsense for one lifetime."
Beside the occasional howl of the desert wind, the faint thrum of an aircraft's engine could be heard in the distance.
It wasn't the roar of a vertibird, that the people of Elysion or Carlon had gotten used to hear over the week, but the growl of a new aerial machine that was the culmination of two years worth of work and boundless ambition. The scientists of the Dominion, never content with dominating the earth alone, turned their attention to the sky, produced one of the first fighter planes to serve in the Dominion's growing arsenal.
Following two previous and ultimately disastrous attempts at creating a fusion-powered prop engine aircraft, the A3-1 Bloodhound strike fighter fulfilled expectations when finally tested in the field. Armed with four 40mm cannons in its fuselage and several suspended armaments such as two 1500lb Seeker smart-bombs, or alternatively a single 30mm gatling-style autocannon, its role largely focused on close air support as the demand for air dominance in colonization operations increased within the past few months.
The High Marshal himself, viewing the results of their work from his office window, was pleased with the sight of the planes taking to the skies for the first time since the bombs fell. Even as he felt himself wasting away while the cancer ate at his aging body, Stern felt proud of how far the Dominion had come in the last twenty years. After spending so much time underground and struggling to wrestle control of the land from both man and beast, the Dominion was on its way to master the air, just as the America of old did back in the day.
Field testing that fateful morning would involve live targets, real enemies such as groups of raider insurgents who've somehow traversed the rocky canyon dividing the border of Carlon's outer rim and the untamed Wasteland beyond. Lured by the promise of a rich bounty from plundering the more prosperous country of Middle Texas, there proved to be no shortage of hostile elements spilling into Dominion land. Such occurrences have become common over time, but they've nonetheless proved to be an annoyance to the Dominion's enforcers.
Farmsteads or tiny settlements were their usual targets, as the opportunistic raiders favored preying on civilians rather than military controlled outposts, learning painfully the consequences of facing the latter in combat. Over the years, as the frequency of these attacks increased, the non-military citizens of the Dominion were given extra protection through higher caliber weapons and additional light assault vehicles, effectively discouraging future raids from happening as often as before.
While this did not entirely end the raids, there was a noticeable drop in the rate of assaults on the production or population centers in the Dominion's borders, especially since the Dominion's feared super soldiers turned these encounters into exercises to hone their skills.
The Knights, the Dominion's elite, rarely saw action in the years following their conquest of Middle Texas, even less when they finally held total control of the region, and so they relished any opportunity to be of service to the cause.
Thanks to the EITS drones they sent out, the raiders weren't hard to track down. In the wake of destruction they left behind, a very clear trail led right up into the western mountain range known as the Slithering Range, named as such due to its unique form attributed to that of a snake slithering on the ground when viewed at a certain angle.
A four-man team led by Commander Gavin West, embarking on an XV-B04 Vertibird gunship, was sent to clear out the raider hideout. As the gunship left the airspace of Elysion, the squadron of Bloodhounds did a quick flyby to show off their maneuvering skills, drawing cheers from the elated citizens on the ground. Then, they flew off to drop their payload on the raiders to soften them up for the kill team.
Coordinating with the targeting lasers fired from the EITS drones' beam emitters, the Bloodhounds effectively zeroed in on the raiders' position.
"Squadron leader, be advised, we have lost visual of the target." Fade, the kill team's sniper, informed the Bloodhound squadron.
A nonchalant response came not long after, "Copy that, KT, flushing them out."
They watched as the Bloodhounds swooped in and pitched back. Later, a powerful explosion rocked the countryside as the Seekers found their targets and detonated the moment they touched the ground. A smirk formed on West's face as he watched both flame, smoke and dust unfurl like a flag in the wind. Their job of purging the raiders just got easier, although personally he preferred facing a challenge at the very least.
The gunship hovered above the killzone and landed on a clear strip of ground to let its cargo of hybrids off. The kill team disembarked quickly and swept the area for survivors.
The ground looked like a giant shovel buried itself deep into the earth and flipped both dirt and rock aside in one fell swoop. Pieces of charred meat, cloth and metal were half covered with sand from one end of the hideout to the next. The more intact bodies lay far away, smashed against the mountain face after being throttled so violently by the resulting blast.
There wasn't much left of the shack they were holed up in, as one of the bombs struck it dead center.
After verifying the results of the bombardment, Fade called it in. "Well done, squadron leader, good kills."
The Bloodhounds, circling above the killzone like vultures, broke off and headed back to base. "Understood. Heading out."
"That goes for us too." West announced, slightly disappointed that there wasn't much to do there. "Let's go."
Fade, glancing back into the mountain, stopped short when she noticed a large rigid form move from above the dunes. Trusting her instincts, she warned the team ahead of the impending danger. "Team, look alive, we've got company."
A low growl and the telltale screech of claws brushing against one another heralded the arrival of one of the most terrifying beasts of the New World. A leathery hide stretched over steely muscle, bones harder than iron jutting out of a frame that was impossibly huge for any living creature, and a devilish face with the horns to match it.
The creature snarled and stood up on its hind legs.
"A deathclaw." Fade said, feeling her heartrate rise. "It's a fucking deathclaw."
The moment the name rolled out of her tongue, the team immediately moved to withdraw. Mutants and raiders, they could handle on their own, but not deathclaws. They were the apex predators of the desert, a manifestation of the untamable spirit of the Wasteland and the hellish nature of a world gone mad made flesh.
To face it head-on was suicide, even for the Dominion's supersoldiers. "Fall back, let the gunship handle that thing!"
The deathclaw howled, calling for what was sure to be its brethren. The kill team did not realize it at the time, but the bombs destroyed the one wall separating the deathclaw cavern home from the outside world when they killed the raiders, unleashing an even bigger threat to the homesteads on the border.
More deathclaws appeared, prompting the kill team to beat a hasty retreat back to the vertibird. Commander West informed the pilot of the danger, telling them to begin ascent as the hybrids could make the jump when it was high up in the air, unwilling to have to wait for the deathclaws to get a chance to reach them. The Dominion had faced them before, and they knew that the deathclaws, while primitive creatures, were more powerful than any animal on Earth.
If they could make the jump, so could they.
"Go!" West remained on the ground long enough to cover the team, choosing to jump on last. His Reckoner rifle discharged its whole clip into one of the deathclaws, and still the thing charged at him.
One of the hybrids manned the minigun and covered the commander while he climbed aboard. The hail of bullets forced the deathclaws to back off and allowed the gunship enough breathing room to take off. One, proving too relentless to give up, picked up speed and leapt for the vertibird as it hovered twenty feet off the ground.
The entire gunship pitched as the weight of the deathclaw forced it to tilt sideways. Alarms blared from all over the cockpit, the pilot yelled for the hybrids to do something about their unwanted passenger while he struggled with the controls. "We're pitching! Get that fucker off my girl!"
Grasping firmly to one of the handles, West leaned out and fired at the deathclaw in the face, forcing it to lose its grip and plummet back to the ground below. Its talons left many a scratch mark on the outer hull and the landing skids, while leaving both crew and kill team visibly shaken as they turned back to Elysion.
"Where are you going?" West said to the pilot.
"Where do you think? Back to base!" The man retorted.
"The hell you are!" The commander moved in between the pilot seats until his face was right next to the pilot's head, "Circle back, we're dealing with this shit here and now!"
The pilot's mouth twisted into a grimace as he hesitated between following his fear of the deathclaws and his job. The commander far outranked him, and disobedience in the Dominion military carried dire consequences.
"Standby." In the end, he turned the gunship around.
The pilot reached forward to arm the vertibird's rockets and steadied the gunship so he could draw a bead on the deathclaws. He waited until the reptiles clustered together before deploying. Three rockets were sent out against the deathclaws, enveloping them in flames as the incendiary warheads detonated once they reached their targets.
"Mow 'em all down!" West told the team. Every gun at their disposal expended its ammunition into the screaming abominations, never letting up until the beasts were nothing but red paste and pink mist.
A single deathclaw survivor limped out of the battlefield, holding up a stump where its left arm used to be and showing horrid gashes all over its body. It croaked piteously as it moved to flee into the desert. Before it could disappear into the safety of the wilderness, Fade's rifle trained its barrel onto the deathclaw's face, and the creature's head exploded as the coup de grace was dealt with the final shot.
Glancing up at the hole where they emerged from, West ordered the vertibird pilot to saturate the caverns with every warhead they had on hand in a move to seal off the breach. "Bury them."
"Understood, commander."
As the vertibird sent hail after hail to bring the whole mountain down on the caves, Fade remarked to her CO about the events of their day. "Bit off more than we could chew?"
"What're you talking about?" West replied, "This is exactly what I was looking forward to. Go on, call it in."
"Uh huh, right." Fade went on comms and reported their op's success just as the vertibird came about to fly on home, "Task Force Alpha here, mission accomplished. Heading back to base."
Scribe Karter shielded her eyes as the red sunset glared at her and the other Brotherhood devotees from the west. A familiar greeting, one she'd grown accustomed to seeing each time they emerged from the mountain pass that spilled into the Permian Basin.
At last, after spending months away into hell, they were finally home.
"Come on, we're just a few thousand meters away from warm food and soft beds." Paladin Brand said, nudging the scribe forward. He too shared the feeling of relief, and he was eager to end the day behind the Brotherhood stronghold's steel walls.
The folk of the Basin along the main road stepped aside at the sound of heavy armored footfalls stomping up the street. Mothers pulled their children indoors, workers paused in their errands to gawk at the armored figures, while the militia guarding the walls and fences tipped their hats good-naturedly to their neighbors returning from the expedition.
The mixed reactions of fear, loathing and begrudging respect had become the norm in the Basin, as the wastelanders grew to embrace the Brotherhood as their benefactors for the most part. While they largely preferred to leave the people to fend for themselves, most threats to the communities were dealt with by their better equipped patrols. These actions, while considered inconsequential, earned them enough goodwill to keep tensions at a minimum.
Landfall, the Brotherhood stronghold, lay at the mouth of Vault 10. Surrounded by a perimeter wall of steel and hard concrete, complete with a deadly array of defensive auto-laser turrets, the stronghold served as the Brotherhood's main base of operations in the Texan Wasteland.
Originally, the plateau was used as a landing zone for the Texan Expedition airships as the group needed a stable area in which to repair their fleet in relative safety. The discovery of Vault 10, categorized as a military installation, proved too much of an unprecedented resource to pass up, and the expedition stayed to restore and utilize the rich bounty of technologies within. Over the years, the area was transformed into a fortress and aptly named after the fleet's first decent to earth.
As of 2101, it was clear that the Brotherhood was an unrivaled power in the region, and drew most of its new recruits from the area. The Brotherhood had been far more assertive in the goings-on of wasteland politics and life. They continued in their mission of preserving and developing technology, though often jealously guarding such technologies for fear of the far too ignorant outsiders who might misuse such gifts.
For all their flaws, both Brand and Karter were proud of serving the Brotherhood. It was this same reason that they so valiantly strove to protect and uphold its ideals, starting with their reports of the new faction rising in the East.
Paladin Brand removed his helmet as he approached the perimeter wall, stopping a few meters from the main gate so that the sentries would see his face. "Paladin Brand, Expedition Team 22, reporting in!"
The sentry peeked over the wall, remembering well how many men the expeditionary team originally had when they left Landfall. Pushing a button on the control panel, he unlocked the gates to let the team back inside. Quickly, he descended to meet up with the paladin to inquire of the state of their mission, desperate to know of the fates of some of his friends on that team.
"Paladin! You're back!"
Brand mentally steeled himself, knowing what the younger man was bothering him for. "Yeah, more or less intact."
"Where's..." The sentry's voice trailed off, "Where's Jacob and the others?"
"Sorry." Karter, having been placed in charge of recovering holotags from the dead, fished out a collection of silver chain and glowing tags from her pocket. She held one out for the man to see, "If it's any comfort, kid, he died fighting. They all did."
The sentry's face fell, but there was a certain look of determination that crossed his eyes. He saluted the dead, honoring their sacrifice. "The best end anyone could ask for. Ad Victoriam."
"To victory." Brand echoed, "As you were, sentry."
The young man fought to keep the tears from falling and making an embarrassment of himself. He watched as the surviving explorers marched off to enter the vault, where the Elder himself awaited for their explanation.
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