A/N
Just to clarify, the Dominion doesn't have jets ( at least not yet, but we'll get to that part ) just planes. Fusion-core powered prop engines, to be precise. Why? Cheaper to build, easier to maintain. And really, who doesn't like some good old fashioned prop planes?
Also, it gives me an excuse to insert some Ju-87 Jericho trumpets ( yes I'm a wehraboo, deal with it )
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"All warfare is based on deception." - Redacted Source
..::..
"Three lines, up front! Move fast! Let's go!" The officer's grating voice, harsh like a bunch of stones rubbing together, barked at the small crowd forming at the gates of the rook training camp. They quickly followed his command and formed three lines in front of the twin barriers of steel, then stood at attention. Each gate stood twelve feet high and had the symbol of a castle battlement with a shining black crow perched on top carved on each of them.
This was Camp Forge. After two weeks had passed, Brand found himself standing among 200 other recruits, all with different backgrounds and reasons for being there. Yet, one thing was certain. They were there to join the Dominion as rooks, to serve as its fighting arm and help bring civilization back to the Wasteland. It was an honor for some, a way to give meaning to their lives or born out of a sense of duty.
For Brand and a few other recruits, it was simply a means to an end. Some were born outside the Dominion, and saw a chance at attaining citizenship by joining the Army, same as the paladin. It was quicker than a civilian's service term, but was not by any means an easier choice.
"Listen up, recruits! You'll now be taking the first step in joining the finest fighting force in the Dominion! Five thousand rooks have begun standard service on the very footprints in which you now stand today!"
Brand glanced down without bending his head and saw the golden boot-prints carved and painted into the ground. Every recruit had lined up to stand exactly on top of each footprint without being told, assuming quickly that this was what the officer wanted them to do.
"You will carry on that proud tradition! Do you understand?"
"Yes sir!" The men shouted in unison.
"Good." The officer paced down and in between the lines, resuming his rhetoric without losing pace nor breath. "The rooks' assessment depends upon teamwork. Therefore, teamwork will be an essential part of your training. The words 'I', 'me' or 'my' will no longer be a part of your vocabulary. You will use words such as 'this recruit', 'that recruit', 'these recruits'. Do you understand?"
Again, the recruits shouted. "Yes sir!"
The officer walked towards the gates and pointed to the rook emblem, "These gates symbolize your transformation from a civilian into a Dominion rook. You will pass through these gates one time and one time only. Do you understand?"
"Yes sir!"
There was a long awkward pause as the Dominion officer stared at them expectantly. After two minutes had passed, he screamed at the top of his lungs, jolting the first row of recruits who bore the brunt of his tongue-lashing outburst. "Did I fucking stutter?! I said you 'will pass through these gates' - and I mean right fucking now!"
The recruits visibly straightened themselves up and answered, "Yes sir!"
They marched through Camp Forge's gates, right into the crucible where the finest soldiers in Middle Texas were molded. This wasn't the first time Brand had been subjected to extreme conditions as part of his training, he practically lived through it his whole life to become a member of the Brotherhood's revered knights. He knew what to expect from his transition into a soldier of the Dominion, for the sake of the mission, but he mentally prepared himself for the unknown.
If the Dominion was supposed to have nothing but the best, he could only imagine the worst things its soldiers had to go through to have such a title.
They formed up at the assembly area, passing by hundreds of other recruits undergoing PT, jogging down the track or going through the obstacle courses. Another officer showed up and took over the recruits' initiation phase, dismissing the officer that led them inside.
The rook stood out from most of the soldiers in Camp Forge as he was dressed in a desert-camouflage uniform. His massive arms were exposed as his sleeves were rolled and buttoned up, the amply displayed words 'Old Blood and Proud' were tattooed on his forearms. He made no effort to hide his markings as he crossed his arms over his chest and began pacing through the ranks. The officer's face was, as every rook in the Dominion army, clean shaven and had every hair on his head closely trimmed. Uniform, in both clothing and body, it was enough for Brand to think that every Dominion officer just as well were put together in a factory.
The man's dark brown eyes scrutinized the recruits from head to toe, and like the first officer to greet them, he gave them the warmest welcome that would be expected from basic training initiation. He began with a collection of the most colorful words one could only imagine a drill instructor would say, "Well fuck me in a threeway and call me Sally, if you're not the most pathetic bunch of chucklefucks I've ever seen!"
And so it began.
It took just one errant twitch of the lip, from one errant recruit, for the drill instructor to immediately zone in on him like a heat-seeking missile on a warm target. "Do I make you laugh, recruit?"
The poor guy, naturally, would say, "N-No sir!"
The DI had yet to say his name to the recruits, but then introductions came in different forms. "Oh, so now I'm not so fun to be around, is that it? Boy, I work so hard to make people laugh all day long for six fucking days a week! You think you can do better?"
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Whatever the DI asks, the recruit has only two options. 'Yes sir', or 'no sir'.
Both usually ended up with the recruit in question hitting the ground. "Yes...sir?"
"Bullshit! Now get on your face, you owe me fifty for wasting my fucking time!"
As the recruit flopped awkwardly on the ground, sweating like a hog and grunting like a teenager having his first jerk-off session, the DI leaned over him and planted his boot on the recruit's back. "That's right, up and down, just the way I like it!" He looked out into the faces of the other men standing at attention around him, and saw their strained expressions. Not wanting to end up like their comrade, they made it a point to keep their faces hard with their eyes forward.
"Listen up! I am your drill instructor, Staff Sergeant Joker!" The DI bellowed, "Now I don't give a flying fuck if you're a city-boy, a low-life waster, or some other regressed wasteland-piece-of-regurgitated-shit! Here, you are all dross- every one of you equally worthless."
As if to further illustrate his point, the recruit suffering beneath Sgt. Joker's boot collapsed after reaching the thirtieth push-up. The DI glanced down, took a whole minute to glare at the heaving young man lying in the dusty field, then shook his head disapprovingly.
"Pathetic! Get your ass up back in formation 'fore I kick it!"
"Yes sir!" The recruit wheezed as he struggled to get back on his feet.
Sgt. Joker resumed his speech and marched across the front of the assembly, "At Camp Forge, we will break you. We will mold you. And if you endure till graduation, you will leave these walls not as the frail little meat-sacks you came in. You will be made of iron!"
"I'm not meat." Brand muttered, "I am steel."
Sgt. Joker was quick to pick up on the man's whispers and stomped towards him, "The fuck did you just say to me, recruit?"
Fearlessly, albeit also foolishly, Brand declared at the top of his lungs. "I said I am steel!" The staff sergeant's fist slammed into his belly, driving the breath right out of the paladin. It felt like someone took a sledgehammer and rammed it into his body. Brand went down hard with a loud 'oof'.
"Steel?" The DI scoffed, "More like pig-iron! Get up, recruit!"
Brand clutched his aching midsection and gasped for air. The sergeant's face was but an inch away from his own as he invaded his personal space, further driving in home the message.
"Private Pig-Iron." Joker hissed with a taunting grin creeping into his lips, "That's your name now. You got a problem with that, boy?"
"No sir."
"I can't hear you!" The staff sergeant blasted into his face.
"Sir, this recruit has no problem with his new name, sir!"
"Hoo-fucking-ah!" Sgt. Joker acknowledged, finally satisfied with his answer. He turned to face the whole assembly, "Recruits, on me! I'm showing you around the barracks. Hop to, daylight's wasting!"
As the men and women of Camp Forge drilled through the long hot hours of the day, the transhuman soldiers of Task Force Alpha gathered atop the balcony of one of the training facility's hangars to watch the Bloodhounds come and go. From there, they had a good view of the runway as well as the jogging track that went around Camp Forge's interior. As the wait between missions seemed to grow longer, the hybrids had grown restless and went on leave more often than most special operators in the Dominion. And because they were considered the best of the best, a certain amount of leeway was granted to them for services rendered in the past.
Their presence drew a lot of attention from the work crews attending to the many war machines getting retrofitted or upgraded, as they usually did not venture too far away from the White Bastion in Elysion. While they retained much of their humanity, the hybrids seemed nonetheless too alien for the workers in the hangar.
"Hey, stop eyeballing them and do your job!" An engineer hissed at his friend, noticing how his attention was drawn to the female hybrid leaning casually against the railing. The weight of the crate they were carrying shifted unevenly as the other worker became distracted. It didn't take long for him to lose his grip on the heavy box of spare parts, and the whole thing dropped to the floor with a loud crash. The lid came off, spilling its contents all over the ground.
"Fucking idiot!" The irate man swore and began soundly chastising his coworker.
Danny Fade pushed herself off the railing and approached the arguing engineers, "Need a hand with that, boys?"
The senior engineer saw her coming and immediately apologized for the inconvenience caused by the mishap, "So sorry, ma'am. And no, we got this."
The hybrid merely smiled and helped pick up the pieces. She closed the box and lifted it onto her shoulder, showing minimal strain in her efforts as she did so. "Where to?"
The engineer scratched his sweaty head under his hardhat and pointed to the docking area, "That-a-way. Thanks for the assist."
Gavin West watched the three walk off with a judging arch of his brow. He waited until Fade returned before speaking, "Didn't have to flex yourself back there, you know."
"What're you talking about?" She replied, resuming her stance on the railing while West handed her a cold bottle of beer. "Was just helping a fella out."
"Hmph." He grunted, "Sure you did."
A Bloodhound performed a low pass over the runway, then climbed back into the sky. The whole hangar shook at the plane's maneuverings, and the hybrids shared a chuckle as they watched the aircraft disappear into the clouds above. More Bloodhounds followed, forming a squadron of six that chased after their squadron leader. The propeller-driven sirens on their fuselages emitted a series of chilling howls as they flew past.
"Have you heard that they're making an air force branch sometime this month?" Kidman remarked, "And what I mean is a separate service branch, apart from the rooks."
"After twenty years, it's about damn time." West replied.
"Hello again interservice rivalry." Fade said with a shake of the head, "But hey, it's another sign that the world's finally piecing itself together."
"Thanks to the Dominion." West nodded, glancing up as the Bloodhounds made another pass. "And thanks to us."
Back at Landfall, the Brotherhood of Steel began their preparations for the coming war.
All day, every day throughout the week, they worked ceaselessly to put together the many technologies of the Old World at their disposal, that they might put it to better use. Most of these technologies were for the hybridization of existing weapons and armor. Other chapters of the Brotherhood would be content with the state of their recovered artifacts, but not the Texan Chapter.
Recognizing the threat of a heavy armored vehicle in the Dominion's ranks, such as the tanks that were reported to be seen in the Corpse Coast, the need for countermeasures paved the way for new developments. Operating just shy of breaching the core tenets of the Brotherhood Codex, they improved on their relics and adapted them to better serve as tools of war.
Under orders from Head Scribe Harper, the scribes gathered the supply trucks they had on hand and took them apart, particularly the rear carriage to allow for the mounting of a main gun. A massive 8.8 cm gauss cannon, one of the many high-caliber ordnance weapons the Brotherhood possessed when they first landed at the Permian Basin, was mounted onto each gun carriage.
Drawing inspiration from the many anti-tank weapons of old, the Brotherhood patterned their tank destroyers after the outdated German flak-truck, as the main guns proved too bulky for any other design.
Harper, together with the Elder himself and Head Paladin Larsson, knew that the Brotherhood did not possess the means of matching the Dominion's war machines in terms of quantity, so he endeavored to at least match them in firepower.
The Permian Basin had no shortage of flat and clear terrain, which presented many choice locations for training their next generation of soldiers. The gauss-trucks, adequately named Equalizers, were then driven out into the desert. A collection of hastily assembled steel constructs, representing Dominion tanks, were erected all across the firing range. While they were not, by any means, as heavily armored as the tanks they imitated, the targets in these exercises served only to improve crew accuracy and efficiency in action.
A gun, after all, can't kill if it can't hit anything.
Elder Corvinus, together with his advisors, oversaw the exercises personally. His presence never failed to inspire the young men and women at the range, and it showed on their faces as they beamed at him from their formations. The old man had to crack a smile at the zealous eyes looking to him for affirmation. He ascended the platform to the observation booth and gestured for them to begin.
Like children eager for their father's approval, the crews operated their tank destroyers feverishly as they would in a real combat situation. Their superiors barked the commands, and they followed.
The massive 88 guns zeroed in on their targets, and the loaders hoisted the small but dense armor-piercing shells into the gauss cannon breeches. The multistage coils hummed with life, and there was a palpable vibration in the air as all systems were primed. The gun crews let a moment pass before pulling on the firing levers.
A loud crack, and the first cannon fired its shot. The shell emitted a high-pitch scream as it tore through the air, which later dissipated the further it went from the cannon. Unfortunately, the shot missed its target and ricocheted over the ground two feet from the steel construct.
"Addendum." Head Scribe Harper muttered as he typed into his pip-boy, "Recommend pyrotechnic charge tracer-modification to shells for better visual trace of projectile flight path."
"Check fire, way off!" One of the Brotherhood initiates announced.
"Have you made certain that there are no primitives living presently in that direction?" Corvinus inquired of Larsson, pointing to the flight path of the ricochet.
"Yes, of course." Larsson replied nonchalantly, prompting the Elder to assume that he made no such effort.
"Do me a favor and double-check." Corvinus insisted.
As the firing exercises continued, a runner came up to the observation booth to deliver a holotape to the Elder. The runner saluted and made his report, "Elder, this is from Paladin Brand."
Corvinus received the holotape and stood up, "Gentlemen, I shall now attend to this business elsewhere. I leave the supervision of these exercises in your hands."
Both Head Paladin and Head Scribe acknowledged their commander's order and assumed responsibility over the Equalizer crews, leaving Corvinus free to evaluate the success of the Brand's integration into their enemy's territory in private. He took the long route back to the vault, pausing every now and then to inspect each facility within the compound, every one of them bustling with activity as initiates and squires alike were drilled like never before.
Training in power-armor and energy weapons courses were made available, even to the least of the Brotherhood's castes. This was due to the Elder's recognition of the Brotherhood's strength in their mobility and the adaptability of their armored troops, which he decided would be prioritized in terms of development.
Corvinus later reflected that the last time he saw the Brotherhood mobilization of this scale was when they left Lost Hills to venture out into the Texan Wasteland for the first time. Back then, they were prepared to face an enemy too primitive to mount any form of resistance against the Brotherhood. Now, things were entirely different.
His review of Paladin Brand's report only served to confirm his preconceptions on their enemy's strengths.
The Dominion didn't just have infantry or tanks, they held sway over the air as well, which did little alleviate his growing concern. Throughout history, any power in the world that maintained superiority over the skies had already won half the war. And although the Dominion's infrastructure, based on Brand's initial report, was no industrial juggernaut like the America of old, it looked like they would barely feel the sting of the cost that war would bring.
The Brotherhood, on the other hand, would feel it keenly should they proceed carelessly.
And so, as he sat there in his office with the computer screen on his desk glaring into his face like a green floodlight, Elder Corvinus found himself alone and feeling as though he'd already lost the war.
His thoughts drifted towards the many young men and women under his command, all of them so eager to serve him and the Brotherhood. All of them, willing to die for the cause that he and so many of the pioneers of the order championed. He thought about the people of the Dominion, their soldiers and their civilians alike.
Were they truly deserving of the Brotherhood's wrath? They didn't even know who they were, and the Elder wondered if they did- would they even care?
Finding himself mired in doubt, Corvinus decided to turn towards the one person whose advice he'd always sought whenever he felt lost. He turned in his chair to the wall where the symbol of the Cog and Sword was hand-carved into the steel plating. He opened a small panel and had the machine scan his handprint, which then allowed him access to the supercomputer that was connected to the Brotherhood Interregional Network.
It was another relic of the Old World, exclusively reserved for the Elder Council. It was also how Corvinus regularly communed with the founding father of the Brotherhood, who was both his teacher and mentor.
"Greetings, High Elder."
The face of an old and battle-scarred man stared back at Corvinus through the screen. Gone was the youthful fire that once burned beneath the sagging skin and hard glaring eyes of steel. He looked tired, gaunt as though an unseen disease was sapping at his strength. But upon seeing his former student, his face lit up and he offered him a smile of recognition.
"Ah...Corvinus...it's good to see a friendly face after all this time." High Elder Roger Maxson didn't need to say it, but most of the people he met online at the interregional network had grown distant. The council he helped create were filled with ambitious leaders, the power that they held utterly corrupting them, turning them into rivals just shy of enemies when they once stood as friends.
Elder Corvinus was the last of his true friends, his loyalty to both him and the Brotherhood was indisputable. Although most of their talks involved Corvinus' frequent requests for counseling, the High Elder found it pleasant and never chastised him for having the humility to ask for help.
Humility had always been his most prevalent trait, and it helped him long after his rise to Elder status.
"Something troubles you. What is it?"
"High Elder." Corvinus placed his chin against his fist as he shared his thoughts, "I find myself at a proverbial crossroad. I...we have found a force in the Wasteland that rivals the Brotherhood, both in strength and ideals. A force with people, a thriving community but blinded with ignorance of the technologies of the Old World that they hold."
"And?"
"I am paralyzed with indecision. On one hand, I must adhere to the cause of the Brotherhood. I know that I must uphold our ideals, for the good of the men and women who stand under my command. It has led me to prepare for a war that has not yet been declared." Corvinus sighed, "On the other, I am compelled to take pause and think. I don't know our enemy...I don't even know if they are our enemy. I even find myself wondering if peace is ever an option. Tell me, what must I do?"
Maxson nodded, "Peace is always an option. Not every clashing ideal needs to be solved through violence alone. This force you speak of, whatever they stand for, find a way to coexist."
"But...what if coexistence demands compromise?"
"Never compromise, Corvinus. But never strike without warning. The Brotherhood stands to guide this New World out of the ashes of oblivion, and sometimes the sheep will not heed the shepherd's voice even if his intentions are for its benefit."
Corvinus pursed his lips, finding clarity in the High Elder's words. "Thank you, I shall remember your advice in all what I do next."
"Don't worry, I know you'll always make the right choice." Maxson said before terminating the connection.
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