Stan's POV
'Of course it had to be slavers.'
That was my thought as I dived for cover inside a rusted bus, firing through a window with my laser rifle. Our mission had gone pretty good as soon as we came into Washington a couple of weeks ago.. While many settlements ignored us or even shot at us, most had at least given us a chance. We had secured a small alliance with New Coulee, Royal, and the Tri-city Pasco. New Coulee had surprised me the most, since they had usually prefered to remain isolated from most of the wasteland. However, apparently a recent election had brought a new political party to power, ending some of the same corruption that had plagued the NCR and becoming more involved in the wasteland, most notably fighting the Enclave.
We had just left New Coulee a couple of days ago, heading north to where Republic was supposed to be. However, at some place called West Fork, we had encountered a party of 40 slavers. While they had superior numbers, this didn't worry me much. What did worry me though, was how geared they were. Most of them had ballistic weapons, like carbines, shotguns, and rifles. However, a dozen of them had laser weaponry. What made it worse was that a couple of them had missile launchers, and their leader was wearing a power armor frame covered by scrap junk, wielding an impressive minigun. While we had taken out about 20 of them, two of our own were already killed, and another 3 were wounded, although one was still able to fight. It got worse when enemy reinforcements arrived in the form of two pickup trucks and another dozen slavers.
I was just about to order a retreat when I heard someone call my name. Looking over, I saw one of our 3 scribes motion over to me, a radio in one hand and a laser pistol in the other. I made my way over to her, staying behind cover as I made my way out of the bus to where she was behind it.
"What is it Scribe Diana?"
"Sir, I just got a military transmission on the radio. It's for us."
"...Alright, patch the radio through to me." I ordered, watching her direct the signal from her field radio to my helmet interface, letting me talk to whoever was on the other side. "This is Star paladin Stan, who is am I speaking to?"
Static and silence remained for a moment longer before being replaced by a clear voice. "Star paladin, this is Billy Porcer, leader of the town of Republic and general of the Republican army, we heard that you could use our help."
"I'm not sure how much you can do mister Porcer. There's dozens of slavers here with a couple of machine gun wielding pickup trucks."
"We know, our UAV just got to the battle a couple of minutes ago."
Looking up through the sky for a minute, Stan noticed the UAV in the sky, keeping a safe distance from the fighting.
"Our reinforcements are going to be there in a few more minutes, just hold on Stan. Make sure to keep the connection up too."
That's how it stayed for the next few minutes as shots were exchanged between the slavers and us. The side of the bus got too shredded to use as cover so we had to pull the the troops in there out and join us on the far side, although that cover was rapidly diminishing as the slavers started lobbing grenades and missiles at the bus,chipping away at it. Salvation soon came however, as the radio in my helmet came back.
"Alright, we're here, Just keep your heads down and we'll take care of them." I was about to protest, but then I paused and looked at the state of my team. Half of us were dead or injured, and the rest showed various signs of fatigue. So hesitantly, I ordered everyone to get down and cease firing.
When we stopped shooting the slavers looked at each other in confusion and some in victory, although the latter disappeared as they heard an increasing *thumping* noise in the distance, growing louder and louder. Then out of nowhere, two vertibirds soared over the battlefield, each dropping two bombs onto the mass of slavers. The result explosion was deafening and blinding as most of the slaver troops were killed or scattered.
Stan noticed that one of the pickups had somehow survived, starting to be driven away by panicking slavers. Before it could get far however, a massive projectile slammed into the side of the truck, blowing up that side and breaking the truck itself into two flaming pieces of rubble. Looking over, I was shocked to see that it had been done by a tank, it's main cannon slightly smoking from the shot. It was accompanied by a second tank, along with a dozen or so heavily armed troops who, along with the vertibirds, strafed and cut down any remaining slavers.
One of the troops yelled "All clear!" into their radio before jogging over to us. "If you don't mind me asking, which one of you is Star paladin Stan?"
"That would be me." I responded, recognizing the voice as I walked over and shook their hand. "You must be Billy, thank you for helping us there."
"It's no problem Stan. Do you need any help, I can see that some of your people are badly wounded."
After thinking for a little bit, I decided to say yes and asked if we could go back to Republic as there was more to discuss. Billy agreed and had a couple of trucks come over. We loaded up the dead and wounded in one of them while the rest of us piled into the back of another. After a few minutes, we started to drive off with the rest of the vehicles at a decent pace, one of the vertibirds flying above us.
Just then, my radio came on again as Billy's voice echoed through my helmet. "Welcome to Republic, Star Paladin Stan.
The next day
(Billy's POV)
"Alright, let's start off by asking some questions." I announced as we sat down. We had agreed after the battle to hold a meeting the next day once he and the others got rested up and evaluated. Now it was that day, and now I was in the meeting room with Stan, along with his head scribe and second in command. With me was Richard, George, and Sheila.
Focusing on the present, I look over at Stan and start the questioning. "What are the brotherhood doing out here?" I knew that the Washington brotherhood stayed in the area west of the Cascades, so unless these guys are from a different chapter, they were up to something interesting.
"We came out here to look for help I suppose." This had caught me off guard. It was apparently rare that the brotherhood even accept outside help, so if Stan's bluntly saying it, then it must be bad. I break myself out of these thoughts as I continue to listen to Stan. "The war with the Enclave has raged for over a year now, and at the moment both sides are at a standstill. Even so, our current calculations say that even with our western allies, we will eventually loose due to a manpower and resource shortage. I was sent out here to make as many allies as possible and try to coordinate with them. Besides the fight with the slavers, it's actually gone better than expected. This was one of the top locations due to all of the positive news about it and the fact that you guys own one of the bunkers."
This wasn't good. If they managed to put the pieces together and see that we were here, then there's a good chance that the Enclave noticed too.
"Star Paladin Stan, I know that you came here to become an ally of us, and you've very likely accomplished that. While we still need to vote on it with the council, we'll very likely agree to support your cause." I say. I then cut him off before he thanked us. "However, a fight between us and the Enclave will have to wait, because we ourselves are not in a position to fight them. With that and the fact that we're expecting more fighting with the slavers, I don't think we'll be able to fight them for quite some time."
"Alright, I suppose that's fair. How are my soldiers doing?"
"Knight Ordin Will have to stay here to recover for about a week. The other three though should be ready to leave by tomorrow. Since you still need to visit some settlements, how about you pick him upon your return trip?"
Stan looked like he was in deep thought for a moment and then agreed. For a while longer, we continued to ask each other questions. Sheila had also been able to talk to him briefly and was able to establish trade relations with the followers. After there were no questions left, I clapped my hands and stood up, smiling the whole time. "Now that the questioning is finished, how about a tour?"
2 hours later
I had shown Stan and his companions the entire town. We had shown them the hospital, marketplace, residential district, guard HQ, and military HQ aboveground. Now we were showing the three the bunker, and they looked quite impressed. "It's definitely quite similar to our own, although this one focuses more on robotics and ours didn't have vertibirds." He commented as we walked along. We continued on in silence for a few minutes before making our way to the control room. I spotted U-12 discussing something with Max before noticing us and coming over.
"Hello John. I presume that these are the brotherhood soldiers that you're giving a tour to?"
"Yes U-12, I was just finishing it up here, what are you and Max up to?"
"We're just going over a couple of the final repair reports and inventory checks, and a couple of things came up that are quite interesting, if you'll follow me." U-12 led us to one of the computer banks and typed a series of commands onto it before showing us a report of the reactor.
"Our reactor is a mark 3 Fusion reactor, a powerful military bunker standard that can usually not only power the bunker itself, but several nearby military installations. However with this one, there are heavy modifications to it, suggesting that it was being used to possibly launch the mark 4 fusion reactor, which is only found in a few locations in the D.C area and other important military and government sites across the country. With these modifications, the reactor could not only power the bunker, but even a town a four times the size of Republic with all appliances considered. It also comes with a small station to refuel fusion cells and cores, although the process is extremely slow. It's one fusion core every twelve hours and thirty fusion cells every three hours."
I glanced back at the brotherhood soldiers to see how they were taking it. The scribe looked like she was in heaven as she stared dumbfounded at all the information, not too far off from practically drooling. Stan was definitely better, but I could tell that he was thinking about it. His second in command still maintained a blank and stoic face as he watched us. I turned back and asked U-12 about the second thing he mentioned earlier.
"I was just about to get to that. I mentioned that the bunker's reactor would normally power several other military facilities. Well I believe that I have found them." With that, U-12 gestured to the center table as a holographic map popped up, showing the nearby land all the way to the edge of Spokane. As I watched, I saw a few markers pop up on the map, showing various locations not too far away from Republic. Among these included three checkpoints, a communications bunker between Ferry and Republic, and an isolated airbase to the southwest of Republic. There was also a location marked 'Vault-tec storage'. With a bleep, my pipboy added these locations to my digital map.
"Thank you for showing me this U-12." I turned to look at Stan. "So that wraps up the tour. If you want, you can go back to your bunks and take a nap or rest up. We'll give you some spare supplies and recharge your fusion cores before you leave tomorrow. We'll also give you a couple of vehicles."
"Mister Porcer, thank you for helping us." With that, Stan turned around and walked back out towards the elevator, his two companions following him.
When they were back out of earshot, I looked at U-12 and gave my commands. "Alright, in three hours I want teams on the move towards those points. Teams of around 15 for most of them, and a team of around forty for the airfield. I also want each team to have at least one person in power armor and a UAV for the above ground locations." I then pause as I look at John and U-12. "Is there anything else?"
"Is helping the brotherhood the best idea? I know they're different than their fellow members down in the south, but they're still brotherhood none the less. Also, the Enclave are extremely powerful and we've already got enough to deal with as it is." John said.
"I know, but don't worry. By the time we face the Enclave, we should be strong enough to deal with them. Besides, these guys seem trustworthy enough."