Chapter 152: Drop Shot.
No sooner had Angel's bullet found its mark and the Minutemen Commander began to fall than Angel was already moving.
She knew that she had a very limited window in which to make her escape and she was going to have to move fast if not only was she going to get away from the area undetected but was going to be able to reach her next target before they put out an alert.
Throwing her rifle over her shoulder on its strap Angel sprinted from the shooting position she'd set up and raced across the rooftop to drop down on the far side to ground level.
No sooner had she hit the ground than she could already hear the alarms blaring behind her.
It seemed that this particular group were a lot more organised than the last lot because no sooner had their commander fallen than rather than run around like headless chickens trying to find a direction to go in, this group were organising into fire teams to start scouring the area for the shooter.
Angel knew that if she didn't put some serious ground between her and them they'd pick up her trail and be on her ass the entire way to her next target which really wasn't going to make taking them out any easier.
So she decided to use one of her lesser-used tricks.
It was less used not because it wasn't effective because it bloody well was, but the reason she tended not to use it was because it really didn't fall into line with her stealthy nature or MO.
But there was an old saying that said 'Needs must when the Devil drives' and right now the fucker was most certainly behind the wheel.
So Angel quickly took her bearings to line herself up with her next target and she began to sprint.
Once she was up to speed she braced herself and then hit both the ground and then herself with a pair of powerful psychokinetic shocks.
honestly, it felt like either a giant invisible boot had just kicked her up the ass and sent her flying skyward like she'd been kicked into a field goal or someone had strapped a rocket to her ass.
Now this ability was nowhere near stable or accurate enough to actually fly but each hit did launch her about seven hundred meters forwards of where she was when she fired it off.
So it did allow her to cover ground pretty quickly in a pinch and as it turned out her instincts were spot on.
Not long after she began using the jumps to cover ground quickly she heard the telltale clatter of vertibird engines and a brief look into the sky allowed her to locate the bird from what she saw it was heading right from the Minutemen HQ to the base she'd just left and this bird wasn't carrying any cargo nets which meant it was dropping someone off.
Now while she had no proof that it was directly related to her activities she couldn't help but feel that it was rather suspect that all of a sudden a troop carrier was dropping off at the base she had just hit, it was too much of a coincidence.
So she decided to operate under the assumption that the Minutemen had deployed some kind of specialist hunter team to track her down, which meant that she was not only going to really have to pick up the pace but at the same time make sure she was not making mistakes that could put them easily on her trail, it was going to be a fine line to balance.
A couple of long-range jumps later and she was finally in range of her next target, now all she had to do was hope that they hadn't managed to get the message out to their other field commanders quick enough for them to batten down the hatches or she was really gonna have to think outside of the box.
Leviathan was going to be a tricky one as this wasn't a logistics group she was going after, this was an artillery company that had been tasked with setting up multiple long-range strike cannons all across the region capable of laying down very accurate fire at a moment's notice.
From what the intel document had stated there were already a number of these sites set up across the region and were already active, so a careful approach was very much warranted here.
Just like she figured would be the case the artillery company had set up in a place that not only provided them great sight lines in all directions but also provided them cover from potential attacks.
In this case atop an old overpass road.
Angel had found herself a spot to look at the overpass at nearly enough the same height as it so that she would have a straight shot at the place but she could already see that wasn't going to work at all as they had erected high siding all around the place made of heavy-duty corrugated iron panels and from the looks of it, tyres filled with sand and rocks lining the rear of it, so not even her anti-material rifle was going to be able to punch through this.
There was nothing left for it, this hit was going to have to be up close and personal.
Now normally Angel would wait for dark to fall before attempting a risky incursion like this one, but with a hunter squad having been deployed on her trail and the very real threat that they had already warned the other commanders to be on their guard she had no choice but to go in immediately.
Now just because she had to act fast didn't mean she was going to be reckless or stupid, you can do things quickly while still ensuring that they are done properly, getting inside the base would give her a good chance to find out exactly how their artillery calling system worked and possibly even its strike range and capability.
Angel sets up a lay-up point where she can leave some of her heavier equipment like her anti-material rifle, the massive .50 calibre gun won't be much in the way of use in the close quarters that she was going to be dealing with so it would simply be excess weight to slow her movement.
So deciding to only take her short-range gear like her suppressed pistols Angel sheds any non-essential gear and ammo leaving it under the camouflaged tarp she'd set up to hide her sniper position.
Once done she activated her cloak and slowly began to pick her way down the hillside towards the bottom of the valley where the massive support pillars for the overpass were embedded.
It was obvious from the lack of support or scaffolding running up these massive concrete pillars that held the road up that the troops stationed above didn't ascend to it this way.
Angel figured they must have come along the road itself until they reached the place where it broke and set up, knowing that anyone wanting to attack them could only come at them from one direction, or so they thought.
One of the things that Angel had brought with her was climbing equipment as she'd had a sneak suspicion that she was going to need it on this job, turns out she was right on the money yet again.
So pulling a grappling hook from her belt she attached a length of rope to it and began to swing it until she had enough velocity to send it soaring into the air and over one of the hanging metal support beams that ran along the underside of the bridge.
She did this as close as she could to the main pillar itself as this is where the metal was most likely to be both the strongest and also the most well anchored.
Once it was in place and the hook was set Angel could essentially walk up the wall holding onto the rope, if she fell she had the plan to use a hit of psychokinesis to break her fall, all she'd have to do was remember not to scream or that would be a bit of a fucking giveaway to those above.
Angel was very glad that she maintained her physical fitness as her arms, shoulders and hips were burning like she'd rolled in a radioactive puddle by the time she finally managed to make it up onto the beam above her.
Once safely straddled on the metal bean she recovered her grappling hook and coiled up the rope securing it in the clips on her belt to ensure that it would be ready for action should she need it again, which given that a shit storm would descend on the place the second she pulled the trigger, she got the feeling that she would indeed need it again very very soon.
Angel lifted herself up from a sitting position into a squatted crouch on the narrow metal girder, by her approximation she should be able to use these girders to climb her way up underneath the overpass itself.
From there she would be able to enter the camp though she would have to be careful of the spotting holes and shooting slots that they had cut into the sides.
Even as good as the cloak was it wasn't good enough to hide her if she happened to climb pretty much on someone's face.
Moving slowly and confidently Angel walks along the beam like it were a balance beam back in the gym, once at the end closest to the support pillar she begins to use the frame anchoring it to the cement to ascend upwards.
It doesn't take her long to climb up directly underneath the platform that contains the road as well as the artillery encampment, from down here she can hear the hustle and bustle of the Minutemen military camp above her head.
Angel slowly and carefully moves herself out from under the support framework and onto the outside of the large pillar, from here handholds are a little tricky as once she reaches the level where the blacktop was she will have to climb the metal walls that the Minutemen have erected and they weren't exactly designed to be climbed, quite the opposite really.
Now she could use a psychokinesis hit to propel herself upwards and over the wall but she really wants to avoid doing so if it can be avoided as it could drop her down into a whole world of trouble as she doesn't know whats on the other side so it would be better to play it safe for now.
Carefully Angel uses a combination of her strength and her tools to climb higher until finally after a great effort she manages to hoist herself onto the top of the wall and now she gets her first good look into the base itself.
She instantly finds herself both surprised and impressed at what the Minutemen have accomplished here.
The base itself is well laid out, she'd rather expect the place to be rather haphazard but it simply isn't.
They had neatly laid out buildings all clustered around two rather large-looking guns that sat in two gun pits that they had set up in the centre of the camp well away from anything else to minimise risk.
From the size of the guns Angel could tell that they had quite a range to them, she would estimate at least fifteen to twenty miles in any direction easily.
With a couple of these set up in various settlements or strategic locations, it would not be out of the realm of possibility for them to create a network that could hammer any part of the region of Boston with fire at a moment's notice.
Angel drops down inside of the wall and moves to hug some supply crates nearby as she continues to observe the encampment.
To her left are the barracks where the soldiers are living, they are not much more than a series of two-story wooden buildings that while having been obviously rapidly erected looked rather sturdy.
Directly in front of her and past the large guns is the armoury where the soldiers keep surplus weapons and ammunition for both the small arms in their possession and the gun battery.
The place is kinda of obvious as it is the most heavily fortified of all the buildings having iron and steel plating affixed to the walls to prevent any kind of accident.
They seemingly had everything they needed here including a small farm plot set up to grow their own onsite fruits and vegetables.
But finally, Angel spotted the building she was truly looking for, the command building.
It was relatively small and unassuming but thanks to the whip-like radio aerials and the miniature satellite dish strapped to the roof it was kinda obvious.
Slowly Angel picked her way around the outer wall hugging it to reduce her profile as she moved and allowing her cloaking tech to do its job, every time one of the heavily armed soldiers came close she simply froze in place and tracked them with one of her silenced pistols just in case.
Once she was clear Angel got close enough to the command building to hear the conversations being had inside.
"This is echo one go ahead command," a deep gravelly voice said.
There was a muffled reply that indicated that the speaker was listening to the response on a pair of military-grade headphones.
"Roger that it's all quiet here so far, no sign of any intruders or anyone approaching the camp, I have spotters out and patrols searching the area around the camp so if anyone tries to get close we should pick them up," the deep-voiced man said.
Angel got the feeling that this was her target, Leviathan.
It also appeared that the Minutemen command was now indeed aware of her activities and was actively attempting to thwart her so that meant that the Vertibird she had seen was indeed most likely a hunter team sent out to track her down.
This meant that she not only needed to be extra cautious but would have to employ multiple methods to ensure that she managed to take out her targets, if she solely relied on sniping them it would be too easy for them to hide the targets behind cover.
No, she needed to show them that no matter what they did she could still get to them and that there was nothing they could do to prevent it, she would show them what Enclave superiority truly meant.
But first, she needed to gather some intel on this artillery network and its reach as well as its operation, she needed to know how they were calling in strikes as well as how accurate it was.
So slowly she lifted her head up to look in through a window that had obviously been installed to prevent the HQ from getting too hot or muggy inside, it was mounted high on the outer wall of the wooden prefab-style building to prevent any nosey person peeking in, but that wouldn't stop her.
Peeking inside the building the first thing that Angel noticed was that the window looked right into the comms room which had four large radio sets obviously all tuned into different frequencies for picking up calls not only from Minutemen but most likely their new allies as well.
Each set had a Signaller sat at it working and sending messages as well as decoding and writing down incoming messages, they also appeared to have a SIGINT sat in the centre of the room.
She was a woman in her early twenties and she seemed to be working on decyphering some intercepted communications, quite possibly from the Enclave.
Thankfully Angel knew that the Enclave's encryption and protection protocols were ironclad so it would take them a very long time to breach them without assistance, though it did worry her that they were actually attempting it, that could mean that they were aware of their presence.
Moving as silently as she could Angel hoisted herself in through the small window and dropped down inside of the command building.
There is a room off to her right and instantly she sees him, Leviathan.
He is sitting at a desk apparently plotting co-ordinates on a map, he appears to be trying to work out a grid system that would provide the most cover of the artillery network and the best places to set up their guns.
On the map, Angel notices a series of blue rings including one where they currently are which to her mind indicates that these are the sites that are already equipped with guns.
There are also a series of red circles which she guess are either potential sites or ones that are currently under construction, either way, there are far more blue circles dotted all over the map than red ones.
That's when she notices the odd cylinder sitting on the corner of his desk and she moves very slowly closer to take a look at it while never taking her weapon off the centre of the man's chest.
It appears to be some kind of smoke grenade and when she gets close enough she realises it's an EESG.
EESG or Electroinicly Enriched Smoke Grenades are not very common these days and are quite a rare find due to the difficulty in producing them, but this instantly answers at least one question that Angel had, how they were calling in targeting for the guns.
Most likely they had some kind of scanning system back in their HQ that was calibrated to look for the electronic signal given off by the smoke which would allow for rapid long-range targeting without direct line of sight.
They would then use this signal to work out the coordinates and most likely contact the closest gun site to saturate the area with heavy artillery fire.
This gave Angel all sorts of ideas on how she could use this system against the Minutemen, but it would require two things to happen and the first of which was that she needed to get her hands on some of those grenades and she needed to do this before she took out her target.
So moving back the way she had come Angel slipped back out of the window of the command centre and moved around the outer wall again until she was next to their armoury.
Now this place didn't have any windows for obvious reasons, which kind of makes heavy walls pointless if you have weak spots peppering it.
Getting them to open the door would be rather tricky so Angel decides to wait until someone needs to enter the building so she can shadow them through the door and thankfully given the back-and-forth traffic she didn't have to wait long.
A couple of sentries coming in off their patrol headed into the armoury to report the ammunition they'd expended and the reason for it, which given the reason they gave was molerats was probably somewhat extensive given the little fuckers habit of popping in and out of the ground like the worlds ugliest Jack-in-the-box was also understandable.
Staying low and slow Angel moved through the door behind the two soldiers as they headed up to the counter to turn in their gear and log everything, she moved to the far wall and remained there hugging a potted plant until they were done and gone.
Through the large metal grate, Angel could see the boxes of the EESGs sitting on the shelves at the rear of the armoury but currently, she had no way to get to them as they were behind a locked door.
Looking deeper into the armoury she could see that there appeared to only be one person on duty inside so now would be a good time to do this.
Gently Angel knocks her fist on the door of the rear access to the armoury.
"Yes?" the quartermaster calls from the rear.
Angel does not reply but knocks again.
"Yes what is it?" the quartermaster says but this time much louder to again no response other than yet another knock.
"I swear to Christ are you fucking...deaf?" the quartermaster yells storming to the front grate and peering out only to see no one there.
The confusion on his face grows deeper as there is yet another knock on the door and he lifts an eyebrow before leaning forward to look down at the lower part of the door, obviously expecting to see a recruit playing some kind of childish prank only to find...nothing.
Another knock.
"What in the name of fuck is doing that?' the quartermaster said to himself heading through to the back, Angel heard a jangle of keys and then the sound of the door being unlocked from the other side.
As the door opens Angel moves with the speed of a seasoned fighter.
No sooner had the door opened wide enough to present her target than the flat side of her hand slammed hard into the quartermaster's throat full force, crushing his windpipe and preventing him from yelling or even breathing.
As she dropped to his knees struggling to breathe Angel quickly gripped his head and using her weight to roll forward snapped his neck cleanly and silently.
The man's body slumped forward to the floor with his shocked expression now coming from between his shoulder blades.
Angel moved quickly to drag his lifeless body into the back and stash it out of sight, then she popped open one of the boxes and retrieved as many of the EESGs as she could safely fit into her pouches That was when she noticed something that made her smile.
Her original plan had been to call down an artillery strike on the base once she'd cut the communication lines to the place so that they couldn't call the strike off but stored at the very back of the armoury in a special container were Mini Nuke shells that were designed originally for the FatMan shoulder mounted delivery system.
Just one of these things could take this whole base out but there were two whole boxes of the things here.
So with some quick work rigging up a timed charge to one of the shells and setting the timer Angel rapidly made her way out of the base.
She hadn't set long on the timer only ten minutes which should give her long enough to get clear but hopefully, not long enough for someone to discover it and defuse it, though if they did she had left a little surprise in the form of an anti-tamper grenade under the shell so if someone shifted it the spoon would pop and so would the grenade.
Angel was halfway down her rope when she heard shouting from above her, it seemed that someone had discovered the dead body of the quartermaster, and by the distinct increase in it only a moment later they had discovered her charge.
The blast from the top of the bridge shook the whole thing and sent Angel falling as she lost her grip on the rope.
As she fell backwards towards the ground far below her Angel could see a huge white and gold light above her from the Mini Nukes detonating, she could see the wave of fire and heat washing outwards positively evaporating the walls of the base though thankfully for her, not downwards.
However, it really didn't help her much given that she was currently falling most likely to her death.
Thankfully for her, she regained just enough of her senses to deploy her psychokinisis just before she hit the ground which absorbed the vast majority of the force of the impact thankfully but still caused her to bump along the ground a bit like a rag doll as she hit.
As she sat up Angel saw the massive mushroom cloud rising from the top of the overpass where the artillery base had once stood, it was just gone, there wasn't even any debris raining down like you would have expected from such a monumental blast, though the clicking of the Giger counter in her stealth suit told her it was about high time to get the fuck out of there unless she wanted a whole lot less hair to worry about combing in the morning.
Quickly getting to her feet Angel dusted herself off, she knew she was gonna have to decontaminate thanks to this and thankfully she always carried some Radaway in her medical kit but she could definitely call this hit a success if not a little unorthodox.
"Dark Angel to Dark Sky Actual how copy over?" she said into her comms as she quickly made her way out of the area and began the torturous process of creating a series of false trails as she began to head for home.
"Solid copy Dark Angel go ahead over," the comms operator said in her ear peice.
"Leviathan is down I repeat Leviathan is down, confirmed kill, nuclear detonation over," Angel said.
"Roger that Dark Angel good work as always though that's a little out of character for you, over," the comms operator said sounding a little surprised at the method she'd reported for the kill.
"Needs must when the devil drives Dark Sky, over," Angel said.
"Roger that Dark Angel, keep us in the loop Dark Sky actual over and out," the comms operator said and the comms line closed down.
It took Angel hours to finally trudge back to her base of operations, she had spent most of that time laying false trails in the hope of throwing off her pursuers so that they wouldn't follow her back to her temporary home base in the city, but she knew that safe protocol would dictate that when she left for the next job it would be the last time she ever used this base which while being a pain in the ass as she rather liked this place was for the best.
After a quick decontamination shower and suit check for any potential breaches of thankfully there were none, Angel hit herself with some Radaway to clear out any of the shit that might have made it through the suit though to be fair these things were pretty well shielded, not as good as say a suit of power armour but good all the same.
Angel burned the two documents relating to Rook and Leviathan until there was nothing left but an ash smear, nothing that could be recovered and linked to her or the Enclave.
As she fished through her remaining documents she selected two for tomorrow, she knew in her heart that today's progress was going to make things infinitely more difficult for her as after hearing that yet another of their commanders had fallen the hunter team would be out for blood.
Now while she knew that it could not be effectively proven that she was behind this killing as there was nothing left of the base or anyone that had been inside it for them to pin it on her either way.
But to say that a base that just happened to contain one of their field commanders turned into glass on the same day as one of their other field commanders happens to get shot is a coincidence is a bit of a stretch in anyone's book really.
Her next two targets were going to be codenamed Raptor and Pidgeon.
Raptor was responsible for an effort to organise the local farms into rotating their crops to aid in both food production as well as distribution, he was currently in the process of setting up both trade routes and deals between these farms to supply produce to both Diamond City as well as the Brotherhood, these deals would be quite a win for the Minutemen as not only would the farms profit from this allowing them to expand their operations but also the Minutemen would have more funds funnelling into their coffers as a result so if it fell through it would be a major blow to their military economy.
There were unfortunately multiple locations that Raptor could be at as he moved around an awful lot due to his role, one of these locations was the Brotherhood base itself and given the insane level of security at the place due to the presence of an Elder there Angel was going to be staying far away from that place.
Pidgeon was obviously so named because she was a lasion that had been sent to work with the local Avians.
Apparently according to the intelligence reports the Avians had been working closely with the Brotherhood on recovering and sharing technology within the Avian's territory and now the Minutemen were looking to do the same kind of deal, there were possible links to the Free Peoples setting this whole thing up so there were unconfirmed reports that there may very well be a lesion team from them present at the meeting as well.
The meeting itself was scheduled to take place in Minutemen territory in two days, this gave her just a single day to pin down and take out Raptor in order to make her way to the meeting place where the meeting was supposed to be taking place between the Avian representative and the Minutemen.
She knew this place was going to be very heavily guarded and what with her recent activity there was a very real possibility that one of three outcomes may occur.
One: They postponed the meeting till a later date until she was apprehended which would simply change her plans.
Two: Heavily increased security making it much more difficult to get close but not impossible.
Three: They change the meeting's venue to a location they deem more secure such as in Free People's territory or possibly in the Avian's territory.
Out of the three, the last one posed the most challenge in her opinion as there was no intel on either the Free Peoples territory or on the Avian's territory as the Enclave had not been able to get people inside either organisation as of yet, so there was nothing that could be said about either of them that was not pure speculation.
If outcome three happened the risk posed to her would be greatly increased as she knew that neither the Avians nor the Free Peoples were to be taken lightly.
The Avians had fought a war with the Brotherhood and managed to not only hold them off but looked like they may have actually won in the long run without intervention.
The Free Peoples were by far in her opinion the greatest threat of the group as very little was known of their actual fighting capabilities other than every single fight they had entered into they had won with very little effort.
Other than having people with similar powers to herself in their ranks and being led by one such individual who was an enclave traitor, very little was known about the actual extent of their combat readiness and capabilities.
Though it was well known that they had a multitude of different species in their ranks such as tame Deathclaws and even Super Mutants to name but a few.
This alone made them dangerous but the fact that they seemed to very effectively know how to deploy these creatures as weapons of war spoke volumes as to their skills in battle but the problem was very few ever survived an encounter with them so actionable intel on their numbers and methods was sketchy at best.
Angel knew that avoiding a fight with them would be best as going up against the Brotherhood, the Minutemen or even the Avians was one thing but these people were in her opinion by far the most dangerous of the lot.
Anyone who could deploy Deathclaws prepared to fight for you on the battlefield at a moment's notice was an opponent to be respected to be sure and she did not want to get into a scuffle with them until she was absolutely sure of what she was dealing with.
But on the other hand, if this meeting was indeed going to have representatives of the Free Peoples present at it then it might be a very good way to observe them and to get some solid intel that she could then report back to the Enclave either during her call in after her target was downed or during the after mission debrief when she returned to base.
She was very sure that her superiors would be rather pleased to have something more concrete to work with other than the ifs and maybes that they had at the moment.
She knew that there were currently other operations on going that were tasked with attempting to subvert their current operations in various areas and this actually told her a lot despite not having any details on the function or even the location of said operations.
The fact that there were multiple and that they were most likely rather spread out told her that the organisation was surprisingly large and spread out, that they were well equipped and prepared to fight plus they had the skills to do so.
Angel couldn't help but wonder to herself though, what truly was the appeal to those that joined the Free Peoples?
Why did they do it, why betray their own races and pledge their allegiance to those who would co-mingle them with those so vastly different to themselves?
Didn't these people believe in staying in their lane and keeping to their own at all?
She really did have a million questions bouncing around in her mind about this mysterious organisation and even more about their leader the mysterious number Seven.
Now this guy was the thing that mystified Angel about the Free Peoples the most.
From what she understood number Seven was once a member of the Enclave, specifically something to do with the Bio-Weapons division much like she was herself, this would have meant he was able to enjoy all the prestige and rank and even privilege that she herself enjoyed.
So why the hell would he throw it all away to help a bunch of non-human degenerates like he had?
What could possibly drive him to give up the life that would have been laid out for him aiding and restoring the USA under the Enclave?
Someone with his power would have been hailed as a hero within their ranks and afforded the very best of everything, he would have had his pick of the units to command and would have been most likely a good deal of ranks above her at this point but instead, he'd said fuck it and thrown it all away to run around with a bunch of Deathclaws and sub-humans.
And the same could be said with number Three.
She too fell into this same category.
While not as powerful in the combat arena as number Seven she had other potential as an intelligence gatherer, hell the Spectres would have welcomed her with open arms given her abilities which while the extent of which were shrouded in mystery the results of which were blatantly obvious.
If she ever got the chance to confront either of them face to face she was going to have to ask these questions or she'd never forgive herself for having to live with them living rent free rattling around in her head for the rest of her life, but for now, she had a job to do and it was only going to get harder from here, so she had work to do.