Rendezvous Point Alpha

Cro wasn’t one to second guess Jack but this just didn’t feel right. “You sure about this commander?” They had driven towards their rendezvous point, but killed the engines and hoofed it the last few miles. Four of them were crouched low in the sand. Rook and snuck closer to the rendezvous campsite with the shitty tracker that they had found on the bikes. Apparently Jack had expected it and told them to check their bikes not far out of New Vegas, low and behold there it was, sometimes Jack’s intuition was down right scary. But no one could be right all the time, Cro just hoped today wasn’t that day. “Affirmative, but have the Mules ready if we need a quick exfil.”

Jack inwardly sighed. He could tell his team didn't like this plan, but he could feel something wasn’t right, feel it in his bones. He could just now makeout rook in the faint light of dusk as he made it back to their camp. “Report” Jack said as Rook got into speaking distance. “Tracker set commander, I got as close as I could and chucked it as close as I could to the rendezvous camp.” Rook looked a little conflicted “If I may be commander, everything looked on the level, those soldiers are in York armor” Jack had to contain himself from an audible sign. “Heard, now rest up, I have a feeling this will be an eventful night” Rook looked like he wanted to say more, but he went over and began to get his sleeping roll set up next to his Mule. Jack could see Xyla giving him questioning glances from the corner of his eye, but he ignored it. Time would tell if he was right.

Full dark had come when Jack noticed the movement around the rendezvous point. They certainly weren’t as sneaky as they seemed to think they were. An alarm was promptly sounded by the camp and soldiers moved out of the tents at the point. The soldiers were armed and armored already which gave Jack some hope that his intuition hadn’t failed him. At the noise in the distance, his team swiftly climbed out of their bedrolls and moved up next to him on the ridge. There were about twenty soldiers against over fifty marauders. Even that might be a close call with the better training of the soldiers, but to a man every marauder had a crossbow and was using it to the utmost advantage. This must represent a sizable portion of New Vegas forces, it was certainly more than Jack had expected. Several York soldiers went down in the first few moments of battle, riddled with crossbow bolts. Standard soldier armor wasn't designed like Jack and his teams. It was simply a kevlar breastplate, vambraces and greaves with a standard open face helm. Jack could see his team shuffling uncomfortably as they watched the York soldiers getting slaughtered, he could feel the unease. As the last ten soldiers formed a circle with their shields out and swords low, Jack realized he was starting to second guess himself. As another soldier went down and he saw more marauders reloading their crossbows, he made his decision. “Mount up, were going in”

Mal almost chuckled as he watched the pompous reach soldiers get butchered. He had to admit they seemed more prepared than he had expected, but they certainly weren’t expecting the numbers he came in with. He had gotten two other chiefs to put forth soldiers under his command, well, Reynolds command. He thought maybe after this haul he could change that, Reynolds was getting old afterall, and he was as fast as he used to be. Hell maybe he could talk to Rugrat and Vince to see if they had any thoughts on their chiefs. As he looked over to watch Vince put his spear through a reach soldier, the ground exploded around him and a man in White armor launched into the air. From his waist he pulled a long sword that seemed to flow with the air. Vince’s spear fell from his grip and Mal watched as he tried to hold in his insides as they began to spill out into the dirt. Around his men the tents that had been sitting there like a treasure chest waiting to be opened, opened, and inside was anything but treasure. The mounted repeater crossbows hit his line in a wave of feathered death. Mal was no stranger to battle, he immediately pulled a fireball from his belt, lit the bottle's cloth fuse and chucked it right into one of those damned crossbows. He heard the screams from the men operating it as they went up in flames. He saw another white armored man with a poleaxe, scythe? He wasn’t entirely sure. He pulled his giant warhammer from his back and strode toward the man, he might be a double crossing bastard, but he wasn’t no coward. His confidence wavered a little as he had to roll out of the way from the massive backswing on the scythe. He came to his feet with surprising agility himself, but the speed and grace on the man in white armor gave him pause. From a distance you couldn’t see that the man flowed like a dancer, his blade a five foot range of murder around him. Mal saw his moment and kicked up some sand toward the other man, as his axe had just passed him, he stepped bringing his maul hand to his side to block the back swing of the scythe and gave the white armored man a mighty kick. Impossibly the man leaned back and to the side with the kick yanking Mal off balance, then the armored man pushed forward with the spear point as Mal released his maul and lept to the side. Mal felt the burn across his ribs as he tumbled. He swiftly pulled and released a throwing dagger toward the armored man's face only for him to make roll with his shoulder as he dodged it. From his peripheral he could see that his men were taking a beating against these new super soldiers, he realized that they had been baited, and he took it faster than a desert chimera. With only his hip dagger left, he turned and ran towards the darkness that held the bikes. He would let the chiefs know the reaches had set an ambush, and there would be hell to pay. He didn’t hear the whistling behind him.

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Through his goggles magnification he watched as the whip sword decapitated the man called Mal. A stone dropped in his gut as he realized they had been betrayed. It was one thing to suspect, a whole other problem to know. He made the signal and his team banked north east, leaving the slaughter behind. A sliver of guilt budded somewhere beyond his conscience at the men that had died tonight, but it was quickly squashed. As long as they weren’t his men.

The man in white armor saw the bikes turn off in the distance and he nearly cursed. Anger was something long ago trained out of him, so he breathed deep and made a radio call. “White knight to king four, the bishop has left the board.” As he watched the last of the sacrifices killed, he gave a silent nod to his prey, it had been well played getting someone else to trip the trap. If he had it in him to be impressed, he might so have been. “Need immediate exfil and rendezvous point, we move to the next phase.”

South of Wind Reach

Jack and the Ravens had stopped to eat some rations, unfortunately there was more to discuss then food in bar form. Jack sighed as he responded again. “For the last time, we aren’t going to Wind Reach, with the extra mule feed we should be able to head straight to the King.” Had it been anyone else, he might have lost his patience, but Cro and him had been friends forever, and he deserved a little more leeway than most. Cro didn’t look happy, but he knew when to call it quits. They had been arguing about the next move, at the edge of camp, away from the others. Cro knew better than to question Jack in front of a newbie. Jack had pointed out that they didn't know who they could trust. Someone had leaked their mission, and there was a very small pool of people who should have access to it.