"Those...LAWs?" you ask, looking through the collection of men and women in there.
"Fuckin' A they are, they're handing them out like it's fucking candy," Brick said, shaking his head. "I remember when you normies came after us with miniguns and super-sledges. You know, proper Brotherhood tech, not this pre-war shit." He sticks a cigarette into his mouth, the cigarette looking tiny against his huge jaw.
"Yeah, yeah, and back then, one human could take on three dozen super mutants, single handed," you say. "And we're all weak pansies-"
"One human did take on three dozen super mutants single handed." he said, flicking out a lighter.
"This is where you-" You stop as Brick holds up his arm, showing you a thick furrow along his arm. He points at it.
"The Vault Dweller took this chunk outta me with a laser rifle."
"At a hundred paces!" The entire squad says, at the same time.
Brick points his finger at the squad, threateningly. You take stock as they laugh and shove at one another. You have a ten man squad - one medic with what looks like a sawed off shotgun tucked into her holster, and an M270. You frown seeing those. You had thought they had stopped handing out M270s after Necropolis. At Camp Edwards, they'd said that they were back to making M15's for everyone.
Apparently, Camp Edwards was still getting the Army News and not the Real News.
You...admit, it is a bit hard to look away from the medic. You could see why she had joked about not wanting to give up her tits - but every part of her was drop dead gorgeous in a way that shone through even two layers of regulation NCR gear and weeks of dirt.
The next three people you see are rocketeers: LAWs, M270s, hand grenades. The first of them is a tough bastard with a thick bushy beard, who is doing a pretty good Brick imitation. The second of them is a weasley little ghoul who is missing a good chunk of his nose and half of one of his ears. The last is a burly looking woman with a bald head and a big crossed sword pattern tattooed across her scalp. She's pale and has a pipboy, so she's either a Vaulter (unlikely, considering the hair) or a Brotherhood defector (even less likely, considering the Brotherhood.)
Across from them are four riflemen. These guys, fortunately, have their M15s. There are two twins, both of them blond, who are using their bayonets to mangle a jar of rations between one another, whispering under their breath, a girl who looks like she can't be more than eighteen - a thin, willowy thing with more freckles than hair and lips she keeps shut tight until the other woman next to her joggles a smile out of her with a joke. You see why she has her lips tight: She's still in
braces. The woman next to her is an older one, maybe close to your age, Shi, with a big familiar red star sewn onto her helmet.
The last person is a long haired man with glasses that look so thin and delicate that they shouldn't have survived this long. He has a tiny screwdriver and he's using it on the matte black edge of a Hecate, and you notice he isn't carrying nearly as much as everyone else. They'd split his gear up among everyone else.
"We've got some good anti-tanks here," you say.
"Yeah…" Brick's voice is soft. "We've needed it. A quarter of them are new, fresh out of boot."
You nod. "What about you?"
Brick grins, then swings out a fucking Istvan. You had seen them, mostly brought over by merchants who had managed to survive the trek across the Big Empty and the Deserts. They told wild travelers tales of the east coast, most of which sounded like absolute bullshit. The idea that anyone would build a city around an undetonated nuclear bomb seemed like a bad joke.
They brought with them a range of energy weapons that rapidly became known as 'the kind that will get you killed' - scrap built, barely functional plasma rifles, laser pistols without fucking
sights on them and the most ass backwards battery placement you've ever seen in your life - and...Istvans.
Istvans look like someone tried to take an old water cooled machine gun and turn it into an assault rifle with some...interesting design decisions. Like a side mounted magazine and rifle grip, despite it weighing as much as a fat baby. The rumour was they were supposed to be rifles for guys in power armour, which you supposed made some kind of sense, but the NCR used them as light machine guns.
They worked well enough. For… certain definitions of the word.
Raiders hopped up on buffout and psycho could use them like actual assault rifles, if they didn't mind ignoring the bruised shoulders they usually got, but normal humans needed bipods and friends to carry the drum magazines. In Brick's hands, though, it looked like an actual rifle, strangely, if an ugly, bulbous, bizarre one.
"Why the fuck do you carry that monstrosity?" you asked.
"It fires the same caliber Legion does for their stupid rifles," Brick said, cheerfully. "I keep killing, I can keep killing." He patted a shotgun slung off his hip - the standard M7, sawn off for close in combat. "I also got this. And this." He patted a bundle of dynamite hanging from his other belt.
"Arnie," you say.
"Yeah?"
"You're fucking insane."
***
Drives Fast, for all that she has claws that look better used for ripping brahman apart, is a maistro with the spray paint. She adds little flowers and smiling faces around the WANDERING HOME logo she paints on, then puts a little semi-scroll pattern beneath it, before finally, cutting her own scaled skin with her claw. She daubs the blood into the pad of her finger, then draws a line of blood against the front edge of the tank - the curve of her claw means that a perfectly placed scrape into the paint cuts a line above the blood.
Seeing your look, she gives you a huge toothy smile.
"For good luck!" she said. "See, my people don't really have a religion. Unlike you guys, we know who our gods are, and they're
dicks. Since, we're actually big chameleons that were made by the FEV virus, and then we got modified by the FEV virus even more by the Enclave, so, you know. Two gods, first, the West-Tech bozos, then the Enclave jerks. But we still practice religions and stuff, most of us adapted to the faith of the Arroyo people, after the Chosen One saved us from the Enclave. They're animists! So, by anointing the tank with my blood, I'm awakening and binding the tank to my spirit. The tank's spirit. The tank has a spirit, in animist philosophy. Which, even if you don't believe in actual spirits, it is
kind of true, since, like, it's a huge complicated machine, with moods and fixtures and things that can go wrong and it can get sick and run out
food. Except instead of food, it's fuel! Except the food is biofuel, so it
is food." She winked at you, before scrambling into the tank head first.
"... cool," you responded, not really sure what else to say. "Anyone else got any good luck rituals?"
"Yes," Mask croaked.
"Luck is just a misunderstanding of statistics," Dora responded.
"Don't need luck," Trudy responded confidently.
You turn back to Mask. "What is it?"
"Can't," he says.
"You...can't do it?"
"Yes," he says.
"Why?" you ask.
"Cloud," he says, then gestures around himself, shaking his head.
"Well...if it rains, we'll tell you," you say.
"No," he says.
Fine.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" Drives says from her driver seat. Somehow, she has wriggled around so her head is sticking up and out. She points with her nose. "Officer!"
You turn and see a jeep driving along. The private behind the seat looks nearly as straight edged and put together as the officer, and he drives like it to: You swear he's coming in at
precisely fifteen MPH, not one iota more, not one iota less. He comes to a smooth stop and parks so gently that the radio antenna doesn't even wobble. You jog over to the officer, giving him a quick salute - he's Captain Maximilian Wu. You'd read his name in the transfer papers, but hadn't seen him in person till now.
He's the only man you've seen so far who is clean shaven.
"Lieutenant Yang," he said. "Ah. You have A9." Quietly. "Fuck, sorry 'bout that."
Your jaw tightens. "I have no complaints," you say, and try and not sound too frosty.
Wu shrugs. "Well, you drew another short stick - we need a patrol to secure a logistic route for the last prep. There's reports of enemy activity on the radio from our partisans, but SIGINT thinks it might just be a small scout party, possibly some wild techs."
"I wasn't aware there were any wild techs around here," you said. "I thought the Boneyards were damn well picked clean."
"You don't 'pick' a city the size of Los Angeles clean, not even in a century. It is possible, also, that the Legion might be deploying robotic forces…" He shakes his head. "Either way, we need the road cleared and we need it cleared now. Take your platoon out and get it done."
"Yes sir," you say, saluting, and the jeep smoothly drives off - fifteen MPH. No more. No less. You turn to your tank, and gesture. Morales, Brick, Baalaji and Angel all gather around as you use the front of your tank and your Cortex's ability to do some simple light projection to shine a map of the local area on the hood. Drives Fast oohs and awws, while Dora takes a step towards you, reaches out with her hands, then jerks them back.
You point out the logistic route. "Reports are we're looking at either some light Legion or wandering robots, maybe they got loose when a building no one's opened up in a century got blown open. They might be Legion bots."
"A good old clanker hunt," Brick said.
Dora sparked.
"No offense meant," Brick said. "Back in the day, I had a robobrain buddy, TX-9. Course, some clever human reprogrammed him to think of me as an exceptionally large rat and he shot me in the ass while I was on the john. But you can't get mad at clankers for their programming, right?"
"I dunno, some of them…" Angel spat. "Back in Vegas, bots were the fuzz, dig?"
"You were at Vegas?" Morales asked, sounding skeptical.
"I was born there, baby! Freeside for life. I'm in because the Army's the fastest way back home, way I see it." she explained.
Baalaji nods. "How are we doing this?"
"I take the lead, infantry in the back ready to deploy, you two alongside with Mighty Mighty Man in front - just in case we need to push something out of the way, I want you to be able to get to the front of the line easily," you say. "Rubble Maps on this region mark this as new pavement - NCR built it, and the Legion hasn't bombed it. Yet. But you never know what we might run into.."
"Got it, boss."
"No heroics today, alright? Play it safe."
They all nodded.
---
The engine of Wandering Home roared to life with a snarl, like some ancient beast coming to life. You stood in the turret, your arms on the edges of the hatch, and felt the breeze in your hair as the treads began to creak and rattle and clank. You rest your hand on the pintle mounted, imported Chinese machine gun that is serving as the extra bit of firepower your turret had. It was faintly comforting, but not as comforting as the smoke launchers mounted along the sides.
Your headset was snugly fit on over your Cortex Comrade, and as you adjusted the muffs, you heard the sound of crackling, then Dora's voice.
"Lieutenant Yang, permission to ask a question that is pertinent to mission success and team morale?"
"Yes you may," you say. Polite of her.
"Are you currently being mind controlled and or indoctrinated into communist ideology by your Cortex Comrade?" she asked.
A few laughs came from the others.
"Why are you laughing?" Dora asked.
"Oh, shit, she's serious, I can see the serious light blinking on the back of her head," Trudy said.
"I am not aware of any such light," Dora said insistently.
You put your hand on your headset. "Uh, no, Dora. I'm not being mind controlled and or indoctrinated into communist ideology by my Cortex Comrade."
"That's exactly what it'd mind control him into saying!" Drives-Fast said, loudly. "I've read about this, there are ways to break mind control. Lieutenant! Do you have any family and or romantic partners that can slap you in the face and say…" Her voice shifted, to a shockingly good imitation of Dirk Hostedler, the star of a bunch of the new holo-thrillers. "
Damn it, Yang! Snap out of it!" She imitated the sound of a hand striking flesh with amazing accuracy too. "Snap out of it, Yang!"
"It doesn't do mind control!" You said, as forcefully as you can. "It has maps, health readouts, blueprints, targeting information, it plays music. it's just a Pip Boy."
"I've seen intelligence reports indicating otherwise," Dora insisted.
"Would this report be sourced from the United States government, circa roughly 2077?" you ask.
"...no." Dora sounds evasive. You're honestly a bit surprised.
"Where, then?" Trudy asks, before you have to.
"Tales from the Front, issue 47, story three: The Alaska Candidate," Dora said.
"How can you be this big of a fucking nerd, you're goddamn robot," Trudy said.
"Easy," Mask gargles into the intercom.
"There is nothing nerdy about keeping up with the latest stories from the war effort," Dora insisted.
"The last one was printed two hundred years ago!" Trudy exclaimed.
"You do realize the war is over, right?" you asked.
"For now. It is important to stay vigilant. Communism never sleeps," Dora responded. "And neither do I."
"You do know that Brick is closer to being a communist than I am?" You ask. "He's a hardcore Unitist."
"That seems wrong," Dora said, hesitantly. "... The Legion are communists, since they wear red, but they are anti-mutant. It doesn't make sense."
"Communism isn't just
things you don't like," you say. You weren't
entirely sure what it
was, different people back home had different ideas, but still.
"No, that sounds exactly like communism to me," Dora said, her voice huffy. "Communism is when a small oligarchy controls the means of production and enslave the masses by depriving them of resources unless they labor for them. Like the Legion!"
"You know? Sure," you said.
--
"Uranium Fever, this is Wanderer 2-7, requesting Big Iron at grid three-niner-zero, danger close."
"Copy 2-7, Big Iron is two mikes out."
The radio chatter mumbles in the background of your hearing as you try and gauge when the time to button up is. On the one hand, buttoning up closed off your line of sight - but on the other, you'd left the NCR lines and were beginning your patrol on the road. The NCR built roads a lot like the old Americans did, with tarmac and bright paint. But the Americans never had to deal with dust like the NCR did - even a few months without steady traffic and repair,and the road was already beginning to show that the wastelands were trying to claim it again. Ruined buildings lined it - some heavily picked over, others still left for future teams.
It didn't help that the majority of actual traffic was carried on trains, both the old coal ones and the newly refurbished fission-powered ones. These roads were for rich assholes and the last mile goods, both of which had seen a heavy reduction in traffic since the war started and the NCR's limited biofuel production all got earmarked for the war. Indeed, at the side of the road was somebody's abandoned Highwayman, 2280 model. All red and chrome, at least before the sand started stripping it, like what your old boss drove.
"Oh, look at that… beautiful," Trudy said. "Shame to see it left out here."
"Think we can tow it home?" Drives-Fast asked, rubbernecking out the hatch to follow it as the tank passes. "It looks so quick!"
"Eyes up, everyone, there's no cars for anyone if some Legion asshole catches us off-guard," you pointed out. That was when you saw the glint of metal. You crouched just a bit lower in the turret, narrowing your eyes. Drives Faster gasps over the radio.
"I see something, sir! That thing! You told me to do, I'm saying something when I see something!"
You pull the binoculars from your pouch and glue them to your eyes. Zooming in and focusing you can see that the SIGINT guys were right: It was bots. Protectrons, arranged in a broad line about five hundred metres out, marching forward, their curved heads wobbling from side to side. It was then that you noticed that hammered out tower shields that had replaced their claw-crip left hands, painted red, with the symbol of the bull crudely daubed on them, and their heads emblazoned with the standard Legionnaire helmet motif of plumes that fanned above their heads.
Their right arms carry what look like assault rifles, strapped into their claw grips so they could crudely spray them over anything ahead of them. That was in addition to their face mounted laser-emitters.
There was a whole damn
platoon of them. You counted, 18 total.
The pros and cons of the situation flashed through your mind.
Pros: They advanced at a slow waddle. They couldn't clear rubble. They were stupid as hell. They were bright and shiny - brand new, like they'd just rolled off a RobCo factory, been modified to look Legion, then marched out. They were also in a close formation.
Cons: A stupid asshole could still kill you. They had assault rifles, shields, and lasers, meaning that a frontal attack wouldn't be a great idea. They didn't have armor, but they were built sturdy enough that they'd still be hard as hell to finish off. They wouldn't stop until they were all dead.
"They're the waddlers!" Drives-Fast exclaims. "The beep boops! The...the thing! That...with the P!"
"Protectrons?" Dora asked.
"Yeah!" Drives-Fast said.
"Lucky bastards," Dora said, her voice sad. "Imagine, no sentience, just simple directive. Point A, Point B, no decisions…"
"Dora, we need to get you a psychiatrist someday," Trudy said.
"Why?" Dora asked.
---
What are your orders, Lieutenant? The Protectrons are currently about five hundred meters away (Long Range.) Their ARs are a threat to infantry and, if they all focus fire on a tank, could do some damage to fragile components. Their lasers are a threat to the light tanks or your side armour.
Your squad moves as one unit, your tanks each move independently.
This will be a bit of a shooting gallery, sure, but it will act as the tutorial for shooting.
This game runs a great deal like Flying Circus - where rather than breaking down your turn into discrete moves, you simply describe what you will do and the GM will string together the moves that represent that, calling for rolls and making hard and soft moves in response.
So in other words, don't worry about specific mechanics: just tell us what you do and what you order your squad and fellow tanks to do.
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