Kirk was confused. The creatures were very gentle with him. They used all sorts of tools on him. Almost like a medical exam. Despite the gentleness of the poking and prodding, it was getting very tiresome. Kirk tried speaking to them, but they simply ignored him, chittering amongst themselves in an unknown language. Kirk was getting annoyed and tried yelling, "ENOUGH, LET ME GO!" The creatures stopped and pressed a button. Kirk tried to scream as he was electrocuted from the table he was locked to. It only lasted a few seconds but it felt like forever.
As they continued their examination of him, they became fixated on his scarred torso. Specifically, where they seem to disappeared at the start of his limbs. They pulled out some devices and scanned him with them. Then they drew his blood and swabbed his mouth, putting it in some machine. The creatures spoke to each other and then they injected him with some kind of liquid which put him to sleep.
Vance and Jericho went around the camp silently killing the sleeping slavers. Vance found the leader as described by the other slaver and took the device off of him. Jericho aimed his gun at the slaver and nodded to Vance, who kicked the sleeping slaver.
"Wh-hat- oh shit!" he exclaimed, reaching for his gun. "Don't even think about it." growled Jericho, poking him in the head with the barrel of his gun. The slaver put his hands up. Vance grabbed the slaver's gun and threw it away from him. "Jericho! Vance!" Lucy said, waking up.
"Whose the old prick? Where is the kid?" Jericho asked her, keeping his gun on the slaver. "It's, uh, complicated." she said.
Jericho sighed, "Is he dead?" Lucy looked at him as best she could in the dark. Did she sense some sadness from him? "I don't know." she answered. Vance cut them free and then turned to the slaver. "Take the collar off him." he demanded. The slaver complied and backed away with his hands in the air. "Alright, they're free, just let me go, and I will tell my boss that we were wiped out by a deathclaw or something." he suggested nervously.
"Where is the young man with the vault suit?" Vance asked holding his knife to the slaver's throat.
"Fuck if I know. They disappeared."
"They?"
"My boss and some friends."
"Which way did they go?"
"I don't know! They vanished in some kind of weird blue light!"
Vance turned to Jericho, remembering seeing something like that earlier. "Luce, is he lying?" Jericho asked her.
"No, that is exactly what happened." she answered grabbing her and Kirk's bag, showing it to them.
Vance remembered the site Dogmeat took them to. "Was it at some sort of crashed object?"
"Yeah, they were tracking some kind of signal through the vaultie's gizmo on his wrist. Boss figured we would find more product, but found that instead. Shortly after they disappeared in the blue light." the slaver answered. "Can I go now?"
"No, you die now." Vance said, preparing to swing. Arkansas grabbed his wrist. "Wait, allow me." Vance lowered his knife and moved out of the way.
Arkansas approached the slaver and stood inches from his face, "If you can kill me, you are free." The slaver looked at the others who backed away. "Deal." he said, lunging at the old man.
Kirk woke up, to a black woman smacking his face. "Hey, you awake?" Kirk stood up, shoving her away from him. "Whoa! Easy kid! They just dropped you in here with me!" she said, her hands up. "Sorry, I- it's been a rough couple of days." he said examining the room. He noticed a blue fuzzy screen leading out. He approached it, and tried to touch it. The fuzzy particles formed at his head, almost pushing him away. "Where are we? What are these things?" he asked. "Aliens, I think. This is probably their ship."
"Aliens? Like in those old Pre-War comics?"
"Yeah! That's what they seem like to me. So you some kind of vault dweller?" she asked.
Kirk realized he was back in his suit but without his PIPBOY. The armor was missing too. "Yeah, I left my vault about a month or so ago."
"Call me Somah, what's your name?" she asked. "Kirk. How long have you been here?"
"Long enough to have a plan to get out of here. Want to hear it? I need your help to pull it off."
Kirk turned to her, "Let's hear it."
Vance, Jericho, Lucy, and Arkansas were following Dogmeat back to the site, in hopes of finding Kirk. Jericho collapsed again, so they decided to rest for awhile. It was still dark, but the sun would rise soon. When they woke up, Lucy explained everything that happened to them, while nursing Jericho's symptoms. "You are nuts, for coming to us in your condition." she told him, patting the sweat from his head with a cloth.
"Shut it...brat." he said weakly. Arkansas was surveying the landscape with his rifle. Vance walked up next to him, looking around. "What will you do? You are free, yet you are still with us." he asked, holding his hands behind his back. "Not sure yet." he answered lowering his rifle. "You won't go back to your deathtrap for slavers?" he asked.
"Maybe. First, I want to try and find the kid."
"Why? You hardly know him, and he almost killed you."
"Yeah. Still, he was..."
"Interesting?" Vance suggested.
"Yeah, that's a good word for it. I'm guessing you know what I mean?"
"I do." Vance said with a smile.
"Let's go pansies, we ain't got all day." Jericho announced gruffly, walking off.
Two aliens laid beaten to death on the ground with Kirk and Somah standing over them, green blood staining their knuckles. "Can't believe that worked." she said. They had staged a fake fight between them in hopes that the aliens would come in to stop it, which they did and were turned on by the duo. They picked up their batons they had and moved out.
They moved down the excessively shiny hallways, fighting a few aliens, who again went down a bit too easily. "These aliens are pretty frail don't ya think?" Somah asked, flicking goo off the baton. "Agreed, pretty weak too." Kirk replied. They had no strength in their swings. It seemed they were hoping their weapons would do most of the work. Kirk noticed when you hit them with the baton it sends out a shock. However they seem to rely on the shock aspect, while they used it more bluntly.
They continued on until they heard a voice, "Hey! Hello! Over here!" Kirk turned to see a little girl in a pink and white coat waving at him. "Are you guys escaping? I can help! I know all the important places here!" she said excitedly.
"We don't have time to babysit Kirk, let's go." Somah said, trying to walk away. "Hang on." he said, and knelt down at the door to her level. "How do you know where to go? You are locked in here." Kirk asked. "Oh I have escaped bunches of times, and can fit in small places. They usually put me to sleep, but when I wake up, i escape and explore again." she explained.
Kirk impressed at how brave she was, but also disturbed at her carefree attitude of the situation, decided to open the door. "How do we open the cell?"
Sally pointed to her right, "If you go that way you should see a cylinder thing, break it and it will open all the cells."
"How do you know that?"
"I see them work on it from time to time, it seems to be the generator for these fuzzy doors."
Kirk nodded and walked down the hall with Somah. They found the generator, but Kirk hesitated. "What's the matter, let's do this." Somah said, readying the baton. "Wait, she said this will open all the cells right?"
"Right, what's the problem?"
"We don't know who we are about to set free. They could be raiders or...slavers." Kirk realized the slavers he was with could still be alive and here.
Somah stared at him for a moment. "Better them than these aliens. We need all the help we can get if we are getting out of here."
Kirk mulled it over, his gut didn't like it, but logically it made sense to let them free. The more people to fight these things the better their odds are. At this point Kirk noticed that this was all insane. How did he keep finding himself in these dangerous scenarios? Regardless he had to act.
He nodded to Somah and they quickly broke the generator with the batons. Not long after, they saw Sally skipping over to them. "You did it! Follow me!"
They followed her through some hallways, where they saw numerous other people fighting the aliens, Kirk tried to focus on Sally as they avoided all the fights. They reached a door and Sally crawled into a vent next to it, "Wait here! I"ll open it."
A few minutes passed and Somah looked at Kirk, "She played your ass." Kirk sighed, beginning to think she was right. Then the door open with Sally on the other side smiling. "This way!"
She lead them into a room fill with weapons and armor. "I think you will find your stuff in here."
Kirk quickly found his armor and PIPBOY. He put it on and looked over at Somah who had a shotgun and backpack with various tools hanging off of it. Kirk wished he had his pack and weapons, but were left with the other group of slavers.
"Did you find your gear?" Somah asked, loading shells into a drum mag. "This is all I had on me, when I was taken."
"What the hell? Did they snatch you from your house?"
"No, I was captured by slavers and they had my gear."
"Wait seriously? Did they get captured with you?"
"Only like four of them. Look I got captured with two friends, I need to get out of here and save them. So let's go." Kirk said, getting annoyed. He found a 9mm pistol and a lever action shotgun. It was similar to his BB gun from the vault so he was able to quickly figure out how to use it.
They followed Sally to a staircase covered by other freed humans. "Stop! They have some sort of barricade at the top!" one guy said to them. "What's the problem? Just charge them, they are weak." Somah said, walking up to the stair case. "No, don't!" he cried, lunging at her. Before he could reach her a blue flash hit him and he disintigrated into ash. "HOLY SHIT!" Somah cried falling backwards away from the stairwell.
Kirk then noticed the piles of ashes on the stairs. He wondered how many people they have already killed. "Eat this you freaks!" Somah cried, firing up the stairs. They indeed had some kind of fuzzy bubble blocking the shots. They fired back at her, just missing.
"Sally, is their another way out of here?" Kirk asked, pulling Somah further into cover. "Nope, these stairs lead us to a big room, where we can go wherever we need."
Kirk cursed under his breath as he tried to think of a way out of this. They could rally the other prisoners and charge the stairs? Not ideal, but could work. A lot of people would die though. He looked at Sally, "Is there a way behind them? Could you use a small vent like the one earlier?"
"Uhh, yeah but you guys are too big and it doesn't exit up there, but I think there is a small hole on this one. I used it to spy on them."
Kirk mind raced with possibilities. "Grenade. Hey! Does anyone have a grenade?!" he yelled.
A man tossed him one from the other side of the stairwell. "Sally, could this fit through that hole and land on them?"
"Oh yeah, definitely!"
"Do you know how to use this?"
"Yeah I saw it in a movie, pull this pin, let go of the handle and toss it."
Surprised and confused, Kirk nodded and gave her the grenade. "We are counting on you." Sally gave him a salute and ran off.
"So much for this being easy. The weapons they have are leagues ahead of ours. Even the energy weapons." Somah said. "Could explain why they are so frail, they depend heavily on their technology." Kirk added. "Hey, uh what if the grenade bounces down the stairs?" Somah asked. Kirk and the other humans whipped their heads at her and quickly backed away from the stairs.
A few moments later, an explosion erupted at the top, with alien bodies rolling down the stairs. The group quickly made their way up where they found the remains of the aliens and their weapons.
"Sweet, now we can use their own weapons against them!" a man said, grabbing a small one. Kirk grabbed one that looked like a rifle and examined. It didn't seem like a normal gun, the only thing that made it similar to their weapons was the shape of the gun and it's trigger. What is with these aliens and everything needing to be excessively silver? No sight or obvious way to reload it. Kirk pointed it at an alien corpse and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He looked it over again and tapped a glowing blue light on the top and it made a noise. Kirk tried pulling the trigger and a shot vaporized the corpse.
Sally came running up to them, "Did you see that?! That was the coolest thing I have ever done!" The other humans cheered for her and Kirk gave her a high five. "Lets go."
Soon the door behind them opened. Kirk turned around and immediately pointed the alien rifle at the slaver who captured him.
"Whoa whoa, you best lower that weapon vaultie." the slaver leader said, pointing a alien gun at him. Behind him were a handful of freed humans as well, along with his slaver buddies.
"Like hell I am." Kirk said gritting his teeth.
Somah walked between them, holding an arm out at each of them. "Let's take it easy, folks we are all on the same side. Ain't that right Buck?"
Buck being the slaver leader, lowered his weapon, "Somah! So this is where you were all this time? It's good to see you old friend."
Kirk tensed up, keeping his weapon raised, "You know each other? You're a slaver too?"
"Kirk let's just calm down, technically I am not a slaver, I just help with their gear and stuff."
Kirk tightened his grip on the gun, looking at her backpack covered in tools. "You mean like their special collars? You may as well be one, if you keep those inhumane things maintained."
Somah looked at the floor with a look of guilt. During their discussion the group that was with Kirk and the group that was with Buck were feeling uneasy, unsure what to do.
Sally walked in between the groups, "Hey! I don't know what is going on here, but have to work together if you all want to go home!"
Buck stepped forward, making Kirk tense up and ready to fire. "The girl is right vaultie, all I want is to just get back to my family. The whole capturing you and your friends is just business, it's not personal." He slowly walked up to Kirk with his hands raised as he talked. "When we get back, I will let your lady friend go, as thanks for helping. I can't release the old man however, that is technically personal to my boss." He held his hand out to Kirk, so they could shake on it.
Kirk stared at his hand, his mind processing his words. What the slaver didn't know was they had rescue coming for them, at least he was pretty confident it was coming. If he was lucky, they would be free by the time he escaped. Regardless, if the slavers words were true, he didn't have much choice. Sally was right they needed all the help they could get. He shook his hand and looked him in the eye. "Alright we will get out of here together. But I still don't trust you."
They soon came to a large circular room where Sally led them to a large orange and black circle on the ground. "Oh, that's not good." she said, tapping it with her foot. "What's the problem?"
"This thing usually is on and it can take us to the captain's room, but it's off."
"What do you mean 'on'? Can't we just pry it open?" a man asked.
"No, it's not like a door silly, it moves you to the room with light or something."
They all looked at each other and shrugged. Kirk couldn't help but be amazed at all this technology. It was truly way ahead of the tech humanity had.
"Oh! I know! The space man can help us!" she said running off.
The group followed her to another room with giant pods. Inside they could see people frozen inside. Sally went up to one with a person in a silver suit and helmet.
"We just gotta wake him up and he can walk outside to the other side of the ship and turn on the light door from there!"
Kirk stared at Sally, trying to wrap his mind around it all. "How do you know all of this?"
"I've been here a pretty long time, I know everything about this place. The aliens catch me and put me in a cold sleep, then I wake up and do it all over again."
"Kids are pretty good at finding things out. Their small size can get them into places that are usually secured and hear things they shouldn't." Buck said, amused. "Do you take kids as slaves too?" Kirk said, with an edge to his voice. "I do what I have to do for my family vaultie, judge me all you want, my conscience is clear."
"Awesome! Now let's wake the space man up!" Sally yelled, a her fist in the air.
A woman went over to the device and hit a button, that Sally pointed at. A loud hissing noise erupted from each of the pods as they opened, smoke filling the room. A man with a cowboy hat, a man in strange armor, and a man who looked like a soldier all fell out catching themselves and standing up. The space man, however collapsed onto the floor.
"Oh no, is he dead?" the girl wondered. Kirk was feeling uneasy at how Sally was handling all of this. He knelt down to the man and removed his helmet. He checked for a pulse. Dead. He looked over at Sally and nodded. "Aw man. Well you can at least take his suit and use it."
"Why do we need this suit?" Buck asked walking up to them. Sally explained her plan to everyone one more time. The recently awakened folks were still very confused, espcially the armored one, who spoke another language. But they understood they had to work together to get out of there.
The soldier spoke up, waving to everyone, "Uh, Private Tercorien from the 108th Infantry Battalion. So this plan of yours is to send one of us by ourselves into unknown territory, find this other light door, with no knowledge on where it is or how to operate it, and turn it on for the rest of us to come through?"
"What year do you think it is?" a man asked. "2077." the private answered. The cowboy shot his head up, "2077?! You're a coupla centuries off, pardner!"
A few people laughed, while Somah spoke up. "It's 2277, the Great War ended in 2077 with both sides launching nuclear bombs at each other. There is nothing left of the old world."
The private stared at her, but was looking through her. He sat down on the ground, processing what she just said. The cowboy crossed his arms and walked away.
"He is right though. What if we get overwhelmed by the aliens by ourselves trying to open the door?" Kirk asked.
Everyone just murmured in agreement. "Then we need a distraction. There must be other parts of the ship we can split their attention to." Buck said, fiddling with his alien gun.
Kirk spoke up, "Draw them away from where we want to go, and then after we open the 'door' we all charge through taking the remnants by surprise."
Buck snapped his fingers, "Exactly!" They smirked at each other, but Kirk quickly hid his.
"Sally, where can we go from here, to cause distractions?" Kirk asked.
"Yeah! A place where they make big robots! The place they keep their small ships! A big scary lab! Oh and one more place I haven't explored yet!"
"Alright let's split up into groups and cause some chaos!" Buck yelled, getting up. The morale in the group soared, with everyone cheering.
"Wait! We still have the issue on how we turn the damn thing on once we find it!" Somah yelled.
"Oh I got an idea for that, Kirk come with me!" Sally said, waving him to her as she went back to the big room.
"I'll go with ya. The rest of you hunker down here!" Buck yelled out.
"Who put you in charge, trash?" a man in a black uniform spoke up. Buck slowly turned to the man. "You best watch your mouth Enclave scum. Don't know if you heard but you guys are a joke nowadays." The Enclave man walked up to him, standing inches from his face. "The Enclave will save this world and bring back order!"
Buck laughed in his face, "You don't know a thing! How long have you been up here? The Enclave got wiped out I hear back West. Your'e lucky you got snatched up before that happened.
The officer smirked, "You know nothing slaver, and you will all face our wrath in due time. Now, I have experience holding defensive positions! Follow my lead and we will make it out of here ali-" He had turned his back on Buck, talking to the group when he shot him in the back, turning him to ash. The group stood stunned at the sudden death.
"I think we all agree, that he was talking nonsense right? He just would've made things more complicated than they needed to be." Buck said casually putting the gun away. Nobody reacted. Maybe it was because they agreed with the kill. Maybe it was because his other buddies were placed all around them a little too conveniently. Whatever the reason they let it go.
"Alright little girl, show me and vaultie how to operate this door so we can get out of here!" he said walking over to them.
Kirk had his hand tight on his pistol, ready to shoot him if needed. What he didn't notice was the cowboy doing the same thing.