"Well met. Call me Ghost... So, what's going on here?" I asked looking around the small room.
"Unfortunately, it's not that easy to explain. Come inside, if you're up for it, we've got a proposition."
Nodding, I stepped past the barricade, noticing four other people in the room, three of them huddled on the floor and a fourth standing beside a working pre-war computer, typing some sort of code into it. The three on the ground didn't look out of the ordinary, though the old woman was an interesting sight. Few people made it to such an age out in the wastes.
However, it was the man standing at the terminal, dressed in overalls and his pockets filled with all manner of tools, that piqued my interest. An engineer? Mechanic perhaps? People with knowledge of mechanics were always in high demand for larger communities.
Preston leaned his rifle against a filing cabinet and sighed, "A month ago, there were twenty of us, yesterday there were eight and now we're down to five. First the ghouls in Lexington... Now this mess."
"It's shit everywhere." I shrugged.
"Think I don't know that?" He wasn't angry, rather his voice was dejected, "The things I've seen and done... With the massacre at Quincy, we thought a new home could be made in-"
"Wait, wait, wait... Massacre at Quincy?"
"We tried to stand up against the gunners, yes, but we didn't have enough manpower to hold out. I think we're the only functioning group of Minutemen left, and these folk here... They're all that survived that mess."
"Crap," I muttered, rubbing the bridge of my nose.
"Had anyone there that you knew?"
"No... Well, not anyone living there, but recently I parted ways with some friends I made on my journey over here. I told them to find Quincy rather than to wade through the marsh with me." I shook my head clear of that thought, "Never mind them. Whatever happened has happened. Hopefully, if they’re dead, it was quick." I looked back at the Minuteman, "Please, go on."
There was sadness in Preston's eyes as he listened to me, but he bowed his head silently and continued.
"We wanted to settle in Concord, thought it was a safe place that we could start again in, but the Lexington raiders proved us wrong on that front. We still have one final place on our list, before it comes to leaving the Commonwealth completely, but for that, we need to clear away the raiders assaulting our building. Sturges here has cooked up a plan of sorts."
"Better be a good one," I looked at the mechanic Preston had pointed to, "Because while Preston is a good shot and I can't complain too much either, the last time I checked, the raiders have more numbers than what we can deal with."
He bowed his head with a smile.
"There's a crashed vertiberd up on the roof... Old-school. Pre-war. You might've seen it on the way in."
"Sure, I did. That thing won't fly if that's what you're getting at."
"Never stated it would... But it does look like one of its passengers left behind a seriously sweet goody for us. We're talking about a full suit of T-45 power armour. Military-issue."
I couldn't help but smirk, "I like where this is going."
"Thought you might," Sturges smiled, "Up until your arrival, the plan had been to send Preston outside, seeing how he had the most combat experience, but-"
"-but I've never used a set of power armour before." Preston finished the sentence, "You, however, look like the type who isn't lacking experience when it comes to that stuff."
"You have a good eye for details." I leaned against a table.
"Anyway, that's not the end of it." The mechanic continued, "With the suit, you should have no problem with ripping off the vertiberd's minigun. I've checked already, it's got a full mag in it, and there are two more under the seat. All these things combined will grant every single fucking raider an express ticket straight to hell. You dig?"
"Of course, I fucking dig! Who wouldn't?!" I laughed, slapping his shoulder.
"Only problem is that it's out of juice. The owner took the FC with them to wherever he wandered off to." Preston adjusted one of his sights.
"Well, that's good news then, because I found one right in this very building."
Sturges looked at Preston with a grin, "The guy's one step ahead of us already. That was exactly what I wanted to ask of you, to go grab that from the basement."
"Anything else that I need to fix on it?"
"None, it's all yours."
"Okay, then count the job done. I'll be back in about ten minutes."
I strode towards the door, leaving my laser musket leaning against the table. The old woman looked up at me as I passed by her, now no longer sitting on the floor, but on a dirty sofa. Her eyes were a strange, light green colour.
"Careful kid, there's somethin' comin', and it's... angry."
She had the look of an addict, just like Patrick, so the comment shouldn't have meant anything. Still, something about the way she had said it made me shudder.
"Don't worry, this isn't the worst thing I've been through," I smirked, opening the door.
"I'll cover you from the balcony!" Preston called after me as I strode up the stairs.
"No need!" I yelled back.
It took no time at all to reach the roof, two boxes of ammunition beside a dust-covered and rotten desk. Opening them, I found stacks of fusion cells, a few thousand caps worth at the very least. Sitting on top of one of the piles was a holotape.
That would be interesting to listen to.
Tipping the cells into my backpack, I shoved the holotape into my pip-boy, at least giving me something I could listen to while I checked the state the armour was in. It was rusty and banged up in places, that much I could see, but it was far from the complete pile of trash I’d expected.
"Personal log. United States Army, Staff Sergeant Michael Daly." His name wasn't familiar, then again how would it be, I wasn't garrisoned in Boston, "This past Saturday, October Twenty-third while en route to West Stockbridge, our vertiberd crashed into the roof of this museum. The cause: EMP following a nuclear detonation. Several in fact."
"West Stockbridge?" I mused while inspecting the leg of the power armour. It was slightly damaged, but still in working condition.
"From the intel I've gathered, this was a global event. The co-pilot was killed on impact. Pilot died of his injuries a day later. Day after that, Flaherty and Kanawa were shot by some scared, desperate, survivors. Then Proznanski took off running. Haven't seen him since." The voice was getting more and more agitated. Seems like they were just as unprepared for a nuclear war as everyone else had been, "Now it's my time to go AWOL if that concept even applies anymore. After walking to USAF Satellite Station Olivia, and being threatened at gunpoint to leave, I'm back here at the crash zone. My armour's fusion core has burned out, so I'm guessing my soldiering days are done. I'm taking the laser rifle and whatever cells I can carry and heading to Boston, on foot, to see if my sister survived all this..." The sound of a chair moving was audible in the recording, "She's got an apartment on Bolyston Street... If you happen across this wreck, take what you like, I'm sure you'll need it more than I will. This is Mike Daly, signing out. Good luck, and God bless America... Or what's left of it."
As it ended, I shoved the fusion core into the back, before twisting the suit open and stepping inside, my backpack left on the chair that had once seated the ex-soldier. Its servos creaked and complained, but that was far from unexpected, coming from a two-hundred-year-old piece of military hardware left outside for the elements to gnaw at.
Closing around me, the HUD flickered to life. Flexing first one arm, then the other, before doing the same to my legs, it was good enough to use, though it could most definitely use some calibration. I was thankful that this suit had some of the positive features of the T-51 replacing the shittier T-45 features.
It had been quite a few years since I had last worn power armour, but it was as much a force to be reckoned with nowadays as it was before the war.
"System diagnostics," I called out, and the voice recognition software flashed the diagnostics screen up on the HUD. Good to know they had taken that from the T-60. I'd never used the armour while in active service, only after the Great War, but there were few things better than a T-60, that much I knew.
There was slight damage to one of the arms and the left leg, meaning I wouldn't get to walk underwater or jump from thousands of meters until I got it fixed. It could still deflect a bullet though, as any suit could, and that's all I needed. Walking up to the minigun Sturges had mentioned, I pulled it from its stand, the rusted metal giving way without issue.
Grabbing the handle of the cargo box under the seats, the door ripped off and stayed in my hand as I pulled on it. With a shrug, I threw it to the side and took the two magazines of ammunition from it, slotting them into my utility belt.
Finally, I walked back to the desk and hung the only nuka grenade I had onto my belt, before striding over to the very edge of the building and looking at the ground below.
"He's there!" A raider yelled from the roof of the building opposite me, firing at my armour-clad form. The calibre of his gun was no match for my heavy equipment, the projectiles ricocheting off in every direction. Flipping the safety off, I pulled the trigger of my weapon. Revving it up took a few seconds, and then a short burst of bullets erupted from the barrel, leaving the pipe pistol-wielding man a heap of shredded flesh.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped off the building, briefly feeling weightless as I headed toward the ground. Cracking the road as I landed, I pointed the barrel of the minigun towards the raiders.
"Fucking shit! They've got power armour!" One of them yelled, and at once all of them were ducking behind cover. The smoke from the grenade I had thrown had dissipated completely, two more bodies lying on the ground, liquified. The strong acid contained in the smoke had lingered in the air long enough for some of the more impatient raiders to meet a gruesome fate.
Briefly checking the magazine of the minigun, I was surprised to see a light flicker up on my HUD, showing just how much ammo I still had. I knew that ammo counters existed in some of the newer models, but having that function in a power armour nowadays, especially one that worked for ballistic weaponry... Well, that was a real rarity.
"Ammo counter, status: Active. A48 Heavy Minigun. Six-hundred and twenty-four." Came the voice of the suit.
I couldn't help but smirk as I spun up the barrel of the gun, the hail of bullets only a slightly stronger pull of the trigger away. Very few of the obstacles the raiders were cowering behind would stop my shots, though I very highly doubted they realised that.
Spraying the entire street from left to right, my ammo counter rapidly decreased, stopping at three-hundred and seventy-eight when I finally let go of the trigger. The odd body part stuck out here and there, bloodied or detached from the rest of the body, yet I knew I hadn't gotten everyone.
"Gristle! What should we do?" One of them yelled.
"Be quiet, I'm thinking," Gristle replied.
Taking the nuka grenade from my belt, I pulled the pin and threw it towards the first raider's voice as precisely as I could. The grenade tinkled against the ground as it rolled the last few meters towards its intended target. They didn't even have time to cry out as the entire left side of the street lit up with nuclear energy, scattering the remaining raiders and their cover into dust, and causing one side of the already partially-destroyed house to crumble in on itself.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
As I readied myself to finish off the few stragglers, the fusion reactor of an abandoned car, probably destabilized by the grenade or my bullets, caused yet more destruction as it filled the remainder of the street with radiation and raw power.
A roar rang out, a flock of crows fluttering away from a nearby rooftop, and I felt the blood drain from my face...
The tales told of these creatures predated you ever meeting one. The vicious predators of the wastes. The sound of its call was something that chilled even the most experienced veteran to the bone.
A deathclaw.
Whipping my head from left to right, searching for any sight of the beast, I readied my weapon. Depending on what subspecies of deathclaw we were talking about, or how old the beast in question was, my gun could be completely useless.
Its claws would rip through my power armour with ease no matter what it was.
A rumble on the far end of the street, now filled with broken cover and dead raiders, brought my focus to the junction it had come from.
A crash, a second, much louder roar and a manhole cover flew up into the air, closely followed by broken chunks of asphalt.
From there it emerged.
It was big, even for a deathclaw, but by the looks of it, it was still relatively young.
The closest raider to the beast started firing at it, but the low calibre rounds their pipe weapons used were about as useful against it as they had been against my power armour.
She learned this the hard way, when the creature shrugged off an entire clip, roared in surprise, and walked up to her. Lifting her off the ground, the deathclaw bit her cleanly in half, her screams cut brutally short. As more shots struck its thick hide, it flung the limp lower half of the dead raider's body to the side and picked out its next target.
I wasn't going to wait for it to go through the entire group of raiders and notice me.
Spinning up the minigun barrel, I started walking slowly towards it, hoping to land as many shots as possible.
A car chassis flew through the air, crushing Gristle and another raider against the wall of a house, before the car and its surroundings erupted in nuclear flames.
Blinking the spots from my eyes, I looked back at the beast, who was in the process of reaching towards a raider uselessly shooting at it from a balcony.
As the bullets started to fly from my own weapon, the deathclaw felt what it was like to get shot by bullets worth something for the first time today. Turning around in the blink of an eye, it started loping towards me. Chunks of flesh were torn from its body as it rapidly approached, but its bull-like strength kept it going until my minigun clicked empty.
"Fuck..." I muttered.
Sprinting as fast as I could into the corner store beside me, I knocked down a rusted rack of pre-war items as I darted towards the stairs of the second floor. The monster was mere meters behind me, and I sure as hell wouldn't be outrunning it.
The splintering of wood as I placed my foot on the first step signalled that the deathclaw was also inside the store now, the two-hundred-year-old wooden doorframe no match for the beast. Splinters tinkled against my armour as I darted up the steps, the narrow stairwell, which the builder probably never would've thought would one day have to accommodate a full set of power armour, was definitely not big enough to fit a deathclaw.
Looking behind myself, I watched as it pushed itself slowly forwards, spit dripping from its sharp teeth, its large shoulders cracking wooden boards as it inched ever closer towards me.
If it continued any longer, the entire shop would crumble in on itself.
Ejecting the magazine of the minigun and shoving a new one in, I pointed it at the creature's exposed stomach as the ammunition counter reset. The weapon barked and continued doing so until the new magazine ran dry, the beast's abdomen nothing more than a tattered mess. Each breath I took sounded like gunshots in my helmet as silence fell on us.
Thank fuck it was over.
Taking the large combat knife from the utility belt, just as rusted as the power armour it belonged to, I closed in on the beast, ready to make sure that it was dead.
It was then that it lashed out with the last of its deadly strength, its claws instantly shredding through the leg of my armour, and only just missing my leg encased inside. As I tried stepping backwards, the leg wouldn't follow, and I grunted in annoyance and surprise.
The fucker had managed to slice right through the servos.
Pressing the button to open the suit, I jumped out of the back and unholstered my revolver, pointing it right at the beast's bloodshot eye. The gun kicked back in my hand as the bullet left the barrel and entered the monster's brain. Its arm instantly going slack, I let out a sigh of relief, finally letting my guard drop. My life had flashed before my eyes right there.
"That's what you get for getting the drop on me..." I muttered, unsheathing my smaller, yet just as sharp, combat knife and getting close enough to the dead creature to stab into its neck, "Cunt!"
It took a long time, but every slice felt amazing, and in the end, I held the creature's head in my hands. Throwing it to the ground floor, I climbed over the limp body and found some rope lying about, tying it around the horns and hanging it off my back.
As I exited the ruined corner store, the few raiders that were still alive took one look at what was on my back and hesitated. I glared their way, issuing the silent challenge for them to come at me as I rested my hand on my revolver. Nobody took it, and first one, then the others in quick succession turned tail and ran, heading back towards Lexington.
With a satisfied grunt, I headed back inside, only to find the Minutemen now sitting in the lobby. Preston's conversation with Mama Murphy ended abruptly as everyone's eyes settled on me.
"What the hell happened outside?" Sturges asked, worry etched on his face, "Was that a deathclaw we heard… And where's the suit?"
"A nuka grenade I threw and probably the gunfight itself happened to wake a big deathclaw living in Concord's sewers. Not to worry though, the creature's dead-" I pointed to the head hanging on my back, "And the raiders are gone, though the power armour's leg servos broke, unfortunately."
"Must've been an amazing display... I'm just glad you're on our side."
"I'm on the side of whoever pays the most... Though I'm always prepared to help the innocent."
"Shame." He frowned, "You can never have too many friends in the Commonwealth. Still, I hope this is enough for your troubles... You sure as hell earned it, and the Commonwealth Minutemen live to fight another day."
He handed me my backpack from upstairs, and Sturges gave me the laser musket. When I looked into the bag I saw a bag of caps sitting on the pile of fusion cells I had found.
"Thanks." I smiled, shouldering the bag, "Where you off to now?"
"Place called Sanctuary Hills, we heard it's pretty safe there, except for some tales about a crazed robot... You know we could use someone like you there, someone who can get things done properly."
"Well, what a coincidence, because that's exactly where I'm heading too," I smirked, and Preston couldn't help but grin.
"Well, maybe fate brought us together, or is it just sheer luck?”
“You coming with, or staying for a while longer?" Sturges looked me up and down.
"I'll tag along." I adjusted my trophy to sit on my backpack.
"Why are you bringing that thing along?" The younger woman asked, her voice filled with bitterness. She had lost someone recently, that was clear as daylight. Not an uncommon occurrence, unfortunately.
"I fought too hard to leave this place without some memory to decorate my wall with."
"You realise its meat is worth a helluva lot of caps too, right?" Sturges muttered.
"Yeah, it's good shit too, full of protein. A good chunk of cooked deathclaw meat will keep you running for half a day at the very least. Don't have the tools with me right now to carve it up properly, but I hope they arrive sooner rather than later. The rads in the creature's body will keep it from going bad for a few weeks anyway. Doubt that anyone will walk through this place in the coming weeks and take a fancy to the corpse, but it might attract some pests looking for a good meal."
"I wonder where you learned to skin a deathclaw." The sombre-looking man mused to himself.
"Gotta have some secrets. Everyone does," I gave him a friendly smile, then headed after Preston through the door. He stopped beside the corpse of the Minuteman whose laser musket I had taken, "Let's just say you learn many skills when you've lived for as long as I have."
I got a few strange stares as I stood beside Preston. I knew that my face didn't convey my age... I could thank the Enclave for that.
After saying a few kind words to Denzel Williams, the dead man lying on the steps of the museum, he leaned down and took the corpse's hat, pressing it into my hand.
"You might as well take it. As far as I'm concerned, you're a Minuteman."
I bowed my head and accepted the gift.
We trudged past the corpses of the various raiders, or pieces of them, then walked past the hole that the deathclaw had made while exiting the ground. In the gloom was a door, leading down to what was probably the sewer system. Something worth checking out once I was properly settled in back home.
"Kid, a word." The old woman whispered. The same one who had mentioned something angry approaching when I had been upstairs. Had she somehow predicted the deathclaw's arrival?
"Yeah?"
"About the journey that you're about to start on. I've seen your destiny, know what pain you've gone through, though even the sight does not show me your entire past."
"The sight?" I asked.
She continued without answering me, "You're a man from times past... From before the war even, but your family isn't with you. I can still feel your son's life energy out there."
I stopped in my tracks, looking at her, my hands subconsciously clenching around the laser musket's handle.
"What..." I could hear the blood pumping in my ear, drowning out the conversation of the others. Never had I believed in psychics and seers, and I wasn't about to start believing in them now. But then where did she get all that information from?
"Alas, Mama Murphy cannot help you. The sight covers him from me, but I can sense that he's out there."
I was about to mutter something about crazy old women when I realized there was one way I could check if she was right. Vault One-Eleven.
I had been too late that day, but I knew that they'd made it. Hopefully, it wasn't one of the many vaults that they'd conducted horrible experiments in. An entry with the name Shaun Teach somewhere inside a terminal... That's all I needed to confirm what I already knew.
Saying nothing to the woman, I tried my best to clear my thoughts of my past. Not like I wasn't prepared for the waves of bittersweet nostalgia... Even now, I could see before me the land we were walking across... A very different land, not yet killed by mankind. Greenery blooming on the hills and cars still driving up and down the as-of-yet unbroken road.
The sight of a brahmin carcass laying in the middle of the road caused us all to come to a stop, ripping me from the past. Two bloodbugs feasted on the corpse.
"Let me-" Preston started.
Two shots rang out from my revolver, causing everyone around me to jump back in shock. The bugs fell to the ground, dead.
"The trick is to not fuck around once you spot them. They can smell warm-blooded animals, including humans, extremely well, and once you've alerted them, they're fast and hard to hit. If a massive needle going into you doesn't outright kill you, then the diseases they'll give you will."
"Just swing at them with a machete or something if they get too close," Sturges offered.
"Might work if your blade is extremely sharp and you're lucky. As I said, they're fast. If you miss a swing, you won't get much of a second chance. Strike one of its limbs, or even cut through its mouthpiece, and the bugger will survive. Chop through its wing, and you'll be lucky if it doesn't latch onto you while falling to the ground, in a final act of deadly kindness. Its chitin plating is quite hard to cut through, and that's while it's just sitting on the ground. In the air? Ten times as bad." I saw Sturges gulp, "So yeah, you can use a machete if you want. You might get lucky and survive. I, for one, wouldn't risk it. Can think of few things worse than getting your innards sucked out by an oversized mosquito."
In no time at all the small wooden bridge spanning the River Concord was in sight, an overgrown statue of a Minuteman standing guard on the hill beside it. Just as I remembered it.
Funny, how things came full circle. Fate really did like playing games.
Yet there was a construct even closer to us. Still standing, though rusty and covered in centuries-worth of trash, was the red rocket truck stop I had used so many times to fuel up on coolant. Taking a closer look at the abandoned red building, I noticed a hairless creature pop out of the ground and start intensely scratching at the door.
A low growl came from inside the building, surprisingly loud.
"Molerats." The bitter woman muttered, whose name I had overheard while she had been talking with the other man, Jun. Marcy. They were a married couple, though they didn’t look happy with each other’s company right now.
"And a rabid dog," I added, "Nothing out of the ordinary."
"Seeing as how you're such an expert on all things bestial, got anything to offer us to deal with them?" She asked, Preston giving her a sideways glance of annoyance. I looked at her patiently.
"Nothing special about them, just need to be ready to jump away if you feel the ground move underneath you. Focus on them and fire. Oh, and hope that their nest isn't too big."
I heard the boom of the laser musket as Preston dropped the first beast, a black hole now decorating the creature's body. I aimed at another as it ran towards the sound, the beam passing through the creature's entire length as it slid to a halt on the ground.
Two more popped up from the ground a meter or so from us but having no tough skin or chitin plating to boast of, they were one of the least worrying things you could encounter in the wastes. Sure, their teeth could fuck you up if you let them, and they carried their fair share of illnesses you could worry about if you ever got bit, but rarely did they outright kill you.
Unless you were a complete imbecile about it.
With another two laser booms, the threat was gone, but neither Preston nor I lowered our rifles. That was a good thing... Preston had good wasteland instincts in him.
"What about the dog inside?" Preston asked.
"I'll deal with it," I told him. Unholstering my pistol and walking closer, I peeked through the broken window and pointed my gun at the moving target, only to recoil in shock.
Staring back at me with its head bumped to the side and ears floppy, was a dog. A German Shepherd, with intelligent eyes.
My heart skipped a beat.
It barked playfully and I holstered my pistol, slowly approaching the dog with open hands. It sniffed my fingers with interest, before barking and rubbing its head on my hand.
"How'd you get here boy? How do you even exist?" He barked again as I scratched his ear as if trying to answer my question. His tail wagged with excitement, "I've not had a dog since before the bombs, but you look friendly… How about it boy? Wanna come with me?"
The dog jumped up on his hind legs and rubbed his nose into my face, causing me to let out a laugh of joy. Friendly animals were rare in the Commonwealth, and I hadn't seen a dog like this in ages. A genetic wonder.
"What's going on there?" Preston called over, and I heard him winding up his rifle.
"It wasn't a rabid dog after all," I called back, "But a friendly one." I turned to the dog again, opening the door with one hand, which smoothly slid open, "Come on, doggo. Follow me, we're not far from home."
I walked back to the group who stared at the creature in fear, save for Mama Murphy, who only smiled.
"What the hell is that?" Marcy screeched.
"It's a dog, or rather, how they looked like before the war. His predecessors somehow survived the radiation for two hundred years, and now he's here, bringing back a bit of pre-war nostalgia with himself."
"Interesting... Is it friendly?" Sturges asked.
"Yes, yes, Dogmeat is always very friendly... And is also prone to helpin’ those in need. Take care of him well, he needs it." I wasn't sure if Mama Murphy had aimed that last part at me or the dog.
Slowly everyone walked over to him and petted Dogmeat, an interesting name, but one that I kind of liked. I was scared he would take off like a vertiberd, so fast was his tail wagging.
I looked up at the horizon, the sun about an hour or so away from setting.
"Guys, if we want to get some sort of camp up and running in Sanctuary, we need to hurry up. I hope I don't have to tell any of you why staying outside in the wasteland at night isn't good for your health."
Preston nodded, and we continued our journey for a few more minutes. The bridge I had once driven over now had a massive hole in its centre where it had collapsed into the river below. Every beam was covered in moss, and not all of them looked all that safe to step on.
On the far side, I was more than surprised to see a sign... Roughed up by more than two centuries of negligence, and overgrown with vines, but still displaying the heartfelt message of a different time.
Welcome to Sanctuary Hills!
I breathed in a lungful of air, which felt more refreshing than it had ever before.
I was finally home.