Moving out in a tight, combat formation, the team plus Sarah and Owen made their way towards the town of Forest Marsh. This was once a scenic riverside town overlooking the Charles Dam, but due to the failure of the dam system and the towns flood defences, it was now a fetid marsh inhabited by ghouls. Today, however, the enemy were significantly more technologically advanced and better equipped than your average ghoul.

Nate held up his rifle and scanned the town using his scope. He could see half a dozen brotherhood soldiers in power armour making no attempt to hide their presence.

"I can see six but there is bound to be more." He turned to Cait and Curie and pointed up the hill. "Can you two take overwatch somewhere up there and radio back when you are in position." The girls nodded and headed off up the hill. Nate then looked down towards the riverbank. "There are two soldiers down there where the walkways begin, we need to see if we can take and hold that position before trying to clear the rest of the town."

"Those walkways were set up by Sheila and Dale, the couple who worked for Solomon. The roof tops are covered in mutated fern which make a potent anti rad medicine. Pity though, as it is said that ferals took them both the last time they visited this place." Piper looked towards the town.

"Solomon?" Valkyrie asked.

"He sells chems in the shop next to the surgery back home." Piper responded, referring to Diamond City.

"Ah, yes, him." Valkyrie nodded. Looking back to the town she asked, "but they link all the buildings, right?"

"Yeah, all the way to the gun shop the other side of town." Piper confirmed.

Nate turned to Sarah. "You and Owen stay here and cover our six. I am going to take Piper and Valkyrie up on to the roof, from that position down by the river and make my way across town. Can you make sure nothing creeps up behind us as we go?"

"Of course," Sarah responded as she and Owen headed to a vantage point overlooking the start of the walkways."

Receiving the message to go from Curie and Cait, Nate then signalled to form up into a stack, and the three of them headed towards the first brotherhood soldier in power armour. A whistle from Nate caught the soldier's attention just long enough for him to turn and be filled with bullets from Nate and Valkyries weapons. Looking over to the second soldier guarding the riverbank, he saw that figure also fall from bullets fired by Cait and Curie. The way looked clear to climb on to the first roof and so Nate signalled for the team to advance.

The three of them worked their way methodically from one roof top to another, using the makeshift gangways, taking out targets as they appeared. Cait and Curie were a godsend, as from their position they were able to root out a few would be snipers who were hoping to get the jump on the three in the stack. It wasn't long before the town fell silent, and another nine brotherhood soldiers lay dead or dying on the rooftops. One soldier, dressed in the uniform of a Brotherhood Officer, was stationed near a portable radio transmitter. Nate searched the body and found a note which seemed to be ordering the hit. Folding it up and slipping it into a pocket on his chest rig, he and the girls headed back to where Sarah and Owen were waiting.

"I found a note," Nate said reaching for the folded piece of paper and handing it to Sarah. "It was Kells who ordered the hit."

She read the note quickly and shook her head. "Kells, really?" She read the note again, "As in registration KS-390LC, stick up the ass, Lancer Captain Kells. That's weird, I thought he was just a glorified pilot. Did you find anything else interesting?"

Nate nodded, "Yeah I found a map on the soldier that shows some sort of compound nearby."

Sarah took on a grim look, "I was afraid of that. Look, we've gotta go." Seeing that Nate and the team were looking puzzled she added, "I'll explain on the way, but every minute we stall is one more we can't afford to spend."

"What are you talking about," Nate asked.

Sarah took a deep breath, "We have a spy in the Brotherhood of Steel." She answered. "His name is Chase, and he's the reason we've been able to keep tabs on Maxson for the past several years. I've never met him personally, but I know where his hideout is. If Kells found me, odds are he's onto Chase as well."

"We need to warn Chase before the Brotherhood gets to him." Piper finished the sentence.

"Ok," Nate nodded, "let's get moving."

The team headed north to the location Sarah had indicated. Unfortunately, by the time they arrived they could see that the bunker had signs of a forced entry, and they found the body of Chase lying in one of the rooms.

"Damn it!" cursed Sarah, "We're too late."

"So, what now?" Asked Cait.

"Let's make sure this area is locked down before we do anything else." Sarah ordered.

"I'm on it." Cait responded as her and Curie headed outside.

Sarah then turned to Piper, "Chase kept meticulous notes about any Brotherhood dirt he found. If we can locate his diary, it should provide us with some leverage. Hopefully he had a good enough hiding spot to throw off the Brotherhood search team." Sarah then sighed, "This might take a while."

"That's ok, I'll help." Piper said eagerly as she smiled back.

Nate chuckled to himself as he had never seen Piper this flustered around someone else. He could definitely see why. Sarah was older than Piper, probably early forties, he would guess, but she had a striking beauty and captivating eyes, as well as an assured and comfortable manner when in command. 'Well,' he thought to himself, 'if you are going to have a crush, why not the future leader of the Brotherhood of Steel.'

"Hey, is it me, or is there something odd about this floor plan?" Sarah asked, looking at one of the bunker walls. "I'll bet you a cold glass of water there's more to this bunker than meets the eye. Check around to see if you can find a secret panel or something."

"You got it." Nate replied as he headed back towards the entrance. At the same time Piper headed into the little bathroom that was off to the side of the main living area.

"What do we have here?" Piper asked to no one in particular. She then reached for a button at the back of the toilet and pressed it. Her inquisitiveness rewarded by a scraping sound and the opposite wall opening to reveal a secret room. Sparsely furnished, the room contained a desk and computer, a water cooler and a wall safe. "Found something!" Piper called out, and then she jumped as she turned around to find Nate and Sarah standing directly behind her. "Cool, eh?" Piper pointed to the hidden room.

"That nose of yours working in your favour, for a change." Nate smiled.

"Oh, don't get excited, I'll be back in hot water soon enough, you know me." Piper chuckled.

"I've just figured it out." Sarah exclaimed. "You are the Piper from Publick Occurrences."

Piper gave a little curtsy, "at your service," she replied blushing again.

"And Nate here is your guardian angel, keeping you out of trouble from those you expose?" Sarah asked.

"Well yes, he's something like that, although I swear, I get into more trouble when he is watching than I used to, when he wasn't." Piper sighed.

"Lucky I'm here to give you a hand, when you need it." Nate smiled knowingly at Piper, who blushed.

Sarah smiled at that comment and then turned to the console. "So, this is probably the intel Chase was collecting."

Piper went to the desk and sat down in front of the terminal. After a few minutes of trying to breach the password protected information, she was through. In front of her was a list of journal entries. "So, which one first." Piper looked up to Sarah.

Scanning the six options, Sarah responded, "try Maxson's Medical Procedures."

Piper obeyed and opened that diary entry.

At age 13, Arthur Maxson was mortally wounded in a battle with a deathclaw.

Cybernetic implants were required to save his life.

Maxson became physically stronger as a result of the implants, which set him down a strange path.

Below is a list of known implant procedures performed on Maxson in the years since:

5th November, 2280 – Facial reconstruction and cybernetic limb actuators.

23rd September, 2281 – Dermal impact and phoenix thermal combat implants.

5th April, 2282 – Hypertrophy accelerator.

12th January, 2283 – Nociception accelerator.

18th October, 2283 – Reflex booster.

28th March, 2284 – Pain inhibitor.

9th December, 2284 – Brain augmenter.

14th July, 2285 – Optics enhancer.

6th February, 2286 – Logic co-processor.

22nd August, 2286 – Probability calculator.

18th May, 2287 – Nutrition actuator.

Quinlan describes Maxson as still "very much human". I suppose it all depends on how one defines their terms.

Fact remains, Maxson doesn't appear to ever eat, sleep, or use the facilities, and rarely leaves his spot on the bridge.

If the extent of Maxson's medical procedures became widely known, how would that be received, given the Brotherhood's stance on synthetic humans.

"Well, yeah, they are way too 'Synths are abominations.'" Piper mimicked a low masculine voice.

"What about…'Figurehead', I wonder who they are talking about?" Nate smiled.

Piper opened the entry and began reading.

"A brief recap of Brotherhood executive duties:

Henry Casdin runs the Citadel and all Brotherhood operations in DC.

Where the Prydwen travels, Lancer Captain Kells is in charge of:

Ship operations

Assassination and cleansing operations

Squire training

General training

Hunting rival faction operatives

Internal investigations.

Proctor Teagan manages the Brotherhoods equipment, munitions, and cataloguing of weapons and armour recovered by research patrols.

Proctor Quinlan assigns the research patrols to collect technology.

What exactly does Maxson do?

He's ceded so much operational control to Kells, I doubt Maxson is aware of even a fraction of the shady activities Kells has been involved in lately.

"Well, I am looking at Kells in a totally new light," Sarah blew out a breath. "What's that about Quinlan?" she pointed to another entry.

Piper opened the section and read.

"The more I watch him, the more I get the feeling Quinlan has some serious reservations about Maxson's leadership. He goes through the motions, but his heart isn't in it.

Unless I am reading the signs wrong, he's been subtly trying to create division within the ranks.

When she had finished reading that entry aloud, she selected the last one on the console, 'Kells.'

"Dissent has been spreading over Kells. Some of the rank and file feel the "cleansing" missions he assigns are increasingly arbitrary and don't serve the Brotherhood's interests."

"Alright," Sarah stated, taking in a breath, "that ought to do it." She nodded. "Let's head to the Prydwen and confront Maxson." She then turned to Nate, "Between the Liberty Prime codes, the Kells hit and the dirt we have here on this holotape, it might be enough to pull this off. That is, assuming the Brotherhood don't shoot us on sight once we reach the airport."

"Ok, happy with that, let's go. You do the talking and we can be the intimidating presence." Nate smiled.

The remainder of the team made their way out of Chase's bunker and met up with Cait and Curie who had posted themselves guarding the perimeter around the entrance.

"Find anything?" Cait asked.

"Yeah, dirt on Maxson and Kells, so we are headed to the Prydwen to poke the hornets nest." Piper grinned.

"Well, it's getting dark, any chance of finding somewhere to camp for the night?" Cait responded.

Nate looked at the map on his PipBoy. "Theres the old multi storey car park outside MedTek Research, just back down the road, remember the one full of ghouls." Nate looked at Piper.

"Yup, you mean just above Taffington." Piper nodded. "Or we can make it back to the boathouse, it's not that much farther."

"There is also the prof…..." Curie began before Cait, Piper and Nate each shot an unimpressed look at her.

"So, it's the boathouse then, that's settled." Cait tried to rescue the slip.

If Sarah had noticed the unintended revelation by Curie, she didn't seem to show it, whilst Valkyrie nodded to Nate. Nate knew Valkyrie was aware of their hidden gem of a house, as Cait had told her about her session with Nate and shown her the marks.

The team moved off and were soon in a patrol formation making their way through the town of Malden, on their way to the boat house at Taffington.

Before Nate lowered his PipBoy he saw an alert flash up on the screen. 'Casdin Caravan Radio.' "Hang on guys," he instructed as he moved up to where Sarah was stood. "Listen to this." He said as he opened the radio on his PipBoy and tuned in to the new radio station that was now in range.

"Casdin's Caravan is currently doing business next to the old cemetery near Covenant. Come on down and see for yourself. You won't be sorry!

Body aching? Sore of heart? Geiger counter's off the chart?

Casdin's Caravan's got the cure. Alternative medicine products that will fix you up for sure!"

"Is this Casdin anything to do with your Henry Casdin?" Nate asked Sarah as they all gathered around his PipBoy to listen.

"That's Heather, she's Henry's daughter." Piper responded.

"What do you know about her?" Nate asked.

"Erm, well… I know she hates me, that's for sure." Piper answered hesitantly.

Nate smiled and gave Piper an accusatory look. "What did you do?" he asked.

Cait, Curie and Valkyrie laughed.

"Hey, just because I have a tendency to get into trouble once in a while doesn't mean it always has to be me?" Piper exclaimed.

"Oh, I know, it was just a hunch." Nate chuckled.

"Heather had a sister, Georgie who was killed by Kellogg and a bunch of synths at University Point. And yours truly here wrote about it. Heather was the lone survivor." Piper's tone turning serious.

"I know how that feels," Nate murmured. Turning to Sarah, he asked, "do you want to go speak to her?"

Sarah looked at Piper, "Is she a Casdin supporter, do you know?" She asked.

"Not sure where her loyalty lies. Her Mum died when she was still a kid and her Dad left both of them when they were still teenagers. I think her sister was only sixteen. Georgie's death affected her a lot and she disappeared for a while, it's good to hear that she is back." Piper stated.

"You going to be ok?" Cait asked her friend. "Or do you want me to kick her arse for you if she gets too gobby."

"Well let's try to keep it civil, ladies, Sarah could do with some freely given intel rather than some extracted through broken teeth." Nate looked purposely at Cait.

"Aye, aye, captain, I'll behave," Cait gave Nate a cheeky wink and a salute.

Afraid Nate might give the teams discipline dynamic away, for the second time, by threatening to spank Cait for her sass, Valkyrie jumped in. "So where do we find this Heather then?"

Nate was looking at his PipBoy. "It's not far from here, just past Covenant. Fancy a trip up there in the morning?"

"Sure, sounds good." Sarah replied.

The team, Sarah and Owen continued to Taffington Boathouse and arrived just as it was getting dark. Cait volunteered to do a little clearance patrol and Owen begged his mom if he could go with her. After agreeing he could, Sarah began helping Piper with the evening meal. After Cait and Owen had returned and the dinner tidied away, the team sat down around the fire on the ground floor of the old abandoned house. Owen, who had been fighting sleep for so long, gave in and was soon softly snoring in his sleeping bag. Curie and Valkyrie volunteered to take first watch.

"So, what's with you guys?" Sarah asked. "Now that you know so much about me." She looked at Piper who blushed again. "With that PipBoy and I can see you've had some military training, are you from a Vault?" Sarah asked Nate.

"Yes, Vault 111, from up beyond Sanctuary. I was cryogenically frozen before the bombs fell." Nate answered.

Sarah's mouth opened, "so you are from before all of this?" she indicated around her, "Wow, that must have been a shock when you woke up to all of this shit."

"And since then, he's been wandering the commonwealth picking up any waif and stray he comes across." Cait rested her hand on Nates leg.

"Oh, are you guys…?" Sarah asked, pointing at the two of them.

"Uh hu," Cait nodded, "the others just hang around with us to make us look good." She chuckled.

Piper threw a wet tea bag at her companion, "We make you look good!" she exclaimed.

"So, you're ex-military from before the war, then?" Sarah pressed.

"Yup," Nate nodded, "retired."

"Yeah, the old man was just not up for it anymore." Cait smirked, knowing her comment would get a rise.

Nate looked at Cait, smiling and wagging a finger, "just you wait until I get you home, young lady."

"Oh," Cait responded, "I can't wait."

Piper then smiled at Sarah, "they are adorable when they are like that." She stated.

"Really?" Sarah responded, sounding surprised.

"No, absolutely not. It is sickly and cloying and very unfair for us unattached spinsters." Piper pointed to her and Curie.

"Ha, spinsters!" Sarah laughed, "what are you, twenty something?"

"Twenty-three," Piper nodded. "But with this lot I feel nearer forty." She smiled and then dropped the expression, "sorry" she said sheepishly to Sarah.

"Hmm, I can see what you mean by good at getting into trouble." Sarah teased the blushing reporter.

"Ha, Piper stumped for words." Cait laughed.

"We can give you the rest of the evening together, if you need it." Added Nate, joining in the banter.

"Oh, I'll only need a couple of minutes to give this brat a sound spanking." Sarah laughed back, winking at Piper.

Piper's cheeks reddened again as her mouth opened and then shut several times.

"Yes, she has that effect on people." Nate was nodding.

"However, we will give you the room, even if it isn't to spank our young Piper, as I am tired and off to bed, as is missy here." Nate stood and held out his hand to Cait. Collecting their weapons, Nate and Cait headed upstairs leaving Piper and Sarah alone.

"I'm sorry if that embarrassed you," Sarah responded when they were alone.

"Oh, no, that's ok." Piper blushed again and smiled. "Cait's right, I do have that effect on people."

"I've read your paper since it first came out and I admire you greatly. What you do must take an enormous amount of courage. Saying that, I can see why you might piss a few people off… all in the name of a good story and the truth getting out, right?" Sarah smiled warmly at the younger woman.

"And I'm sorry for being a brat about your age. I didn't mean to…" Piper gushed out.

"It's ok," Sarah held up her hand, "the threat wasn't serious." She chuckled, and then looking around, whispered, "I would need somewhere much more private to deal with you properly." Sarah mimicked looking behind her to ensure no one was listening. Again, Piper blushed a deep red and looked at her hands.

"Ok," Sarah took on a more serious tone, "Enough teasing, I can see it's bothering you, sorry."

Piper looked up with an expression of surprise on her face. "Oh, no it's not that you are bothering me, at all." She exclaimed.

"What is it then?" Sarah asked resting her hand on Piper's leg.

"I think I want to kiss you." Piper responded.