Grace half-growled, half-whispered, "You gotta be fucking kidding. As soon as they realized we were up here, and that would be fast, they might cover half this building with suppressive fire and then traverse that fifty -- which will shoot through these thin walls like they were nothing. Or charge up through the main door and drown us in raider bodies. We're in concealment, not cover up here. Any other options?"
Lily stared out the window. She didn't entirely disagree but still felt that was the best option. But, of course, they'd have to decide whatever they chose in the next couple of minutes because she could see the raiders setting up what looked like two aged but obviously serviceable light mortar tubes. Very distinctive mortar tubes, Lily narrowed her eyes. She never thought her being a WW2 history buff would actually be practically valuable to her, ever.
Were those tubes from WW2 or just modern reproductions of that design? No, there was no way anyone would build copies of the Modèle 37.
The Brotherhood had clearly killed a handful of the raiders who tried to sneak up and throw grenades over their cover, and now the Dushka was firing sporadically, mainly to keep the Brotherhood's heads down and prevent them from fleeing. It wouldn't take even the shittiest mortar team long to find their range when they were barely two hundred meters away and still in direct line of sight to direct the barrage.
Big John raised his hand, whispering, "We could uhh... go back to sleep? Head downstairs, back in the semi-hidden lab, and wait until they all fucked off?"
They seemed to consider it, so Lily decided to burst his bubble, "What about ze brotherhood reinforcements?"
Big John hissed, "What fucking reinforcements?"
Grace groaned as the dominoes fell into place in her mind, "Right. They're probably already on the way. Although, unless they're fucking close already, they might not make it in time. But when they get here and smash those raiders like a bug on a Vertibird's windshield, they will definitely secure the area and likely do an expanding radial search outwards for at least a couple of blocks. The odds that they find that lab we were holed up in is very high. If they find an unknown merc team essentially on top of the four dead brothers... well..."
Both Johns said, "Fuck!" simultaneously while Tangent just shrugged.
Lily offered, "Maybe ze Brotherhood will 'ave opportunity to attack when we distract and put down many of the raiders from the ambush?"
Grace narrowed her eyes, "Maybe. But maybe not. I generally have a policy against being someone else's distraction, anyway. Shit, are those mortar tubes?"
Lily nodded, "Oui, very, very old ones. French, too, I zink five centimètre tubes from ze Guerre Mondiale circa 1940 or so... but, uhh... I 'ave to admit; fortunately, in this case, this is not ze best weapon the Republic ever fielded... Still..." Lily trailed off. Still, "a mortar is a mortar," was what was left unsaid.
Grace looked at her with astonishment, "Are you saying that those are damn-near three-hundred-year-old French mortars from World War 2? Where the hell did they get them? They have to be MAKING the ammunition! How the fuck did you even recognize--Wait, never mind... not the time for any of that. This is what we're going to do."
Grace glanced at the Assaultron, who was spinning her claws excitedly, "First, Girlie, tell me -- can you actually not give Matilda orders or was that just something you implied because we were a new team and untrusted at first?"
Lily nodded, "Yes, I was a bit nervous going with a group of strange soldier of fortune. 'owever, you are correct; I can give her mostly any order. Now, you see, I do trust you to take care of me."
"Yeah, I bet she took real good care--owe!" Big John started to make a lewd comment but got elbowed in the ribs by Grace.
"Okay, order her downstairs to wait in front of the main entrance. That's the exit closest to the raider's side. If any raiders assault the building after we open fire, she is to slice and dice them inside the building guerilla-style, keep them from coming up the stairs. Otherwise, she is to attack when she believes it will be most tactically impactful," Grace whispered quickly.
Lily relayed that order, making sure to specify to attack only the raiders, and Matilda ran off with a jaunty wave of her claw.
Grace continued, "Next, get on your radio and switch to channel 1. There's a chance that the Brotherhood team is on that frequency. Tell them we are about to attack the flank of the raider force, and we'd really appreciate not being hung out to dry as a reward for helping them."
Lily blinked, "Why me? You are in command, no?" To which the Amazon grimaced, "For a couple of reasons, I never directly interact with any of the shinies, okay?"
If Lily had actually been playing Fallout, she knew that line would have triggered a new companion quest about discovering Grace's dark history with the Brotherhood or Enclave. She had said any shinies, after all. Still, Lily decided to table that particular intriguing mystery for now. Instead, she pulled out her radio, switched to channel one and keyed the PTT, "'Ello, 'ello, 'ello? Any Brotherhood station, 'ow do you read?"
After a moment, a scratchy reply came over the handset, "This is Pride station Golf November Romeo; identify yourself."
GNR? They must be in or near the Galaxy News Radio building then, Lily surmised. She debated giving a fake name or prevaricating but decided against it, "Golf November Romeo, I am Lilliane St. Claire; I am with ze independent mercenary, yes? We were hoping to talk to the Brotherhood fireteam being attacked next to the Coolidge building in the U of Mar-ree-land campus. We want to help, but we're hoping on a little.. 'ow you say, coordination?"
The reply was quicker this time, "Ms St. Claire, Golf November Romeo, we would very much appreciate any assistance. Brotherhood reinforcements are still ten mikes out. That team is not on this frequency, but we can relay to them; what do you want me to tell them?"
Lily glanced at Grace to see if he wanted to make any adjustments to what she would tell them. Still, she just made a 'get on with it' motion with her hand, "Golf November Romeo, please tell them zeir enemies consist of at least forty raiders of above average armament and bearing, including a crew-served Russian Dushka fifty calibre 'eavy machine gun, and two mortar teams that are about to begin ranging fire against zeir position. We are set up in enfilade on ze third story of the Coolidge building, and in position to provide raking fire. We especially intend to silence their heavy weapons and indirect fire capability. We would appreciate if once their 'eavy guns are silenced, a coordinated attack, although we understand you may not trust a random voice on the radio. We're going to attack in 90 seconds. Lastly, the Assaultron is ours, not raider equipment, so please don't fire on it. Over, out."
Lily clipped the radio back to her waist and began a mental stopwatch. It was so much easier when her brain was a quantum computer; very easy to keep time when that was the case. A scratchy voice came back on the radio, "We copy Ms St. Claire and have relayed it, but we can not promise any action from the commander on the ground."
Grace gave a thumbs up, "7 out of 10 for a first interaction with a Brotherhood team. They didn't call you a tribal or tell you to get off the radio; they must really be worried." Then she turned to face everyone else, "Okay, Lily, you target the mortar team. I'll get the HMG crew; the rest of you just rake fire down their line. We want maximum chaos in minimum time after we open up. Lily, hope you were keeping a count because I'm not, so we'll all fire when you fire," whispered Grace. We all selected a window as fire positions.
Lily wished they all had suppressors. That would have likely increased the number of raiders they could drop before they figured out what was going on.
Lily found her targets, a group of men arguing about the settings for the old mortars and thumbed the selector back to semi-automatic. Weird that it looked so much like an M4 carbine but didn't have a 3 round burst mode. She put the red dot on the chest of the guy who looked the most important and waited. Yes, about now. She squeezed the trigger and immediately heard the report of Grace's Dragunov and the bursts from the other guys.
New John was firing quick controlled bursts from a light machine gun -- he must have picked that up from the raiders yesterday. Kind of ironic to use their friend's gun to kill these guys, Lily felt.
Lily had some hope that there would be an explosion when she shot the guy who was carrying one of the rounds to the tube, and he dropped it, but sadly despite life possibly being a video game, it wasn't a movie.
Still, Lily was able to kill four of the mortarmen and wound one other before the raiders realized where the fire was coming from, and a group of about ten of them started directing automatic fire to random windows of the building they were in.
Lily supposed that was what Matilda considered the "most tactically impactful time." While most of the raiders were either looking either up on the third or fourth floors, or still looking at the Brotherhood, the killbot started sprinting towards a group of raiders that finally figured out which room they were in.
Grace screamed, "Down!" and they all hit the deck. Lily looked up at the ceiling, seeing bullets striking and raining down debris on the room. She felt a sting in the back of her neck and cursed. A somewhat near round punched through the masonry and showered her with sharp stone shrapnel.
She started to hear the distinctive *crack-thwum* of plasma weapons, see the flashes of green light reflected off the ceiling she was looking at and now hear the screams of raiders who presumably had their faces or asses burned off.
The pace of fire hitting the room slowed considerably, and everyone looked at each other. Tangent shrugged, which she felt was a gesture of deep meaning for him, and Grace nodded, and everyone stood back up and retook firing positions.
Lily was about to direct her fire towards the Dushka that had been traversed towards them but instead was forced to change targets to return fire on a group of raiders. The Dushka was presently firing on Matilda, who had just gotten done decapitating two men near the mortar emplacement.
One of her arms had already taken a direct hit, knocking one claw off at the elbow. Instead of just charging the heavy machine gun like Lily thought she would, Matilda kept zigging and zagging before snatching up the mortar that was dropped earlier, glancing at it while still on the move and then she threw it with surprising ease for someone who only has claws for hands. The robot laced it, like she had been looking for a wide receiver but instead it hit the ground just next to the Dushka and exploded, killing the operator of the HMG.
The raiders couldn't seem to make up their mind on which direction to defend against. One of the men must have shot the commander in the first volley as people were yelling this and that. What was the phrase? Order, counter-order, disorder? Right before she and the others had to duck down again, she saw three power-armoured suited figures closing with the raiders at a slow jog, firing aimed reflex shots from the hip from plasma rifles accurately while on the move.
Damn, they are good, thought Lily while staring at the ceiling again. Big John's voice brought her out of her reverie,"NJ's been hit!"
She turned over to see the man sitting on the ground and clutching his stomach like he'd been starring as the villain in a Western. She half expected him to say theatrically, "Awww, he got me!" Remembering this was, at least as far as she knew, real life, she crawled low over to the injured men to render aid.
Examining him briefly, she told him, "Through-and-through, ruptured spleen, internal bleeding," she then jammed a StimPak she fished out of her pocket into the same general area as his wound. StimPaks in Fallout healed you instantly, if she recalled, but the medicine here, despite how miraculous it was, was only akin to very rapid regeneration. But she judged that the big man would not bleed out before it did its job.
The fire directed at their position was dwindling rapidly, so Lily decided to stand up again. That was a mistake. Almost instantly, she took a round to the shoulder that spun her, caused her to drop her carbine and put her on the ground simultaneously.
Lily blinked. Why was she seeing the ceiling? Oh, she had been shot. The detached part of her mind diagnosed herself with hypoxia-induced momentary loss of consciousness caused by hydrostatic shock. The Amazon was crouched next to her, looking down at her, concerned, "Girlie, you okay?"
Lily glanced at her shoulder, finding the wound on it already in the process of healing right in front of her eyes. They must have given her a StimPak while she was out of it. Well, curing herself of cancer was just another item to be put on the list. She could almost do it, anyway. "Yes, yes, I think so. Merci." She glanced at Big John and Tangent, still firing down at the remaining raiders, but they had switched to aimed shots instead of bursts and their fire was sporadic.
The battle sounds had slowed significantly. Grace helped her to her feet. Lily tested her left arm's range of motion and found it slightly to moderately impaired. Removing the top of her combat armour, she retested and found it slightly better. However, the combat armour was quite damaged on her left shoulder. She would keep it off for now, and repair or replace it when she got home.
Still, there must be some bone fragments inside there, somewhere. Also, not a big deal, especially since Lily planned on performing elective brain surgery on herself within the next few weeks. Compared to that, what was a little pulling bone fragment or perhaps shrapnel out of your own shoulder?
Lily peeked out the window, "Seems it is a rout."
Grace nodded, "Take B.J. with you downstairs; get Matilda. And you'll probably be forced to at least say hello to the Brotherhood. We'll police our stuff up here and meet you down there. See if you can get them to agree on a loot split and any reward they want to give us. Although the Brotherhood is sometimes cagey about that."
Lily nodded and then picked up and slung her carbine before quick timing it downstairs. If she had to talk to the Brotherhood, she wanted to talk to these particular ones who invariably owed them, rather than some random Brotherhook mooks arriving on a Vertibird or on foot.
She pulled out her radio and keyed it again, "Golf November Romeo, this is St. Claire. The raider forces appear in a rout. Your boys are moping them up now; we'll be coming out of ze front of ze Coolidge building right now if you'll relay that. I don't want any blue-on-blue incidents -- we do NOT look like the raiders."
"Alright, time to look non-threatening," Big John remarked.
Lily considered that for a moment before nodding and then carefully unzipping enough of her bodysuit to show significant décolletage. This caused Big John to crack up, but he said, "Yeah, that's actually probably a good idea."
They walked out of the front, and Lily yelled, "Matilda! Front and centre!"
She detected motion and turned to see the Assaultron turn and start jogging over to her. Two armoured Brotherhood men had been eyeing the robot warily.
There wasn't as much damage as Lily feared. The small arms had mainly bounced off Matilda's armoured plating, but she would definitely have to replace the lower arm and claw. "Reporting, twelve human scum terminated. Light damage sustained."
Lily couldn't resist, "Light?! Your arm's off!" But internally, she was sighing. Nobody would get her popular culture references anymore; it was really a tragedy.
The Assaultron seemed to shrug, pause and say, "I want a sword-arm."
Lily blinked at her, then tilted her head to the side as she considered the size limits regarding prints on her fabricator, "Uhh... 'ow about ze long knife? Retractable into claw, yes?"
Matilda, the Murder Maid, seemed to consider this compromise before stating, "Acceptable."
Lily looked up at two figures in T-60 power armour approaching her. A male voice, partly distorted by the power armour's speaker, said, "You the mercs that Control told us about?"
Lily simpered, thrusting her chest out a little, "Yes, yes. I am called Lilliane St. Claire, and I am actually ze medical doctor by trade, rather than a soldier of ze fortune. We came here scavenging, yes?"
Lily internally smirked as she caught the feeling that the speaker was definitely tracking something other than her eyes. The quiet one seemed to be all business, though. He continued, sounding shocked. "Doctor? Doesn't that like, go against the Hippocratic Oath or something?"
The quiet one spoke up, a female's voice, "Stow it, Johnson."
That was one of the possible replies Lily had expected after Lily mentioned that she was a doctor. Some of the Brotherhood tended to like to rub pre-war knowledge in the face of the people of the Wasteland. She had considered her reply to that carefully, following the plan of giving the impression that she might be from the pre-War era.
Lily smiled, "Ah, yes it has been many years since many doctors swore solemn oaths to the 'ealing gods, no? And not even Asclepius would care about us killing raider scum. Do No 'Arm applies only to one's patients, you see."
The quieter female snapped her attention directly to Lily's face. She stared at her for a long moment before she motioned the other, "Johnson, go check on Wilson's injuries. The exfil flight is 5 minutes out. I'll talk to Dr. St. Claire, here."
The man named Johnson ambled off. The woman carefully took her helmet off, revealing a younger blonde woman than Lily expected to find leading a squad of soldiers. The soldier smiled, "Now that Johnson's gone, you can holster those guns if you want, you won't be needing them." Her eyes dipped very briefly down to Lily's chest before returning to her eyes, making sure Lily knew precisely which guns she was talking about.
Sighing theatrically, Lily zipped up her bodysuit back up, which caused the other woman to chuckle in amusement, "The Brotherhood, and the Lyon's Pride has to thank you and your friends, Dr St. Claire. I'm Paladin Sarah Lyons, and it's nice to meet you. You rarely see a person with such a... classical education as you seem to have in the Wastelands, Doctor."
Oh. That's why the young woman looked so familiar. Suddenly, Lily was reconsidering her position against swearing at the Mr ROB. This set of circumstances seemed improbable and contrived as hell.
It could have been worse, though. At least Lyons wasn't the one injured, forcing me to help her, Lily thought. Still, she had the sudden feeling of being toyed with, and not the way she liked.
"Well, thank you very much, Paladin Lyons. But there definitely are a few people like me, 'ere and there. Even if it is from self-study -- there are still many legible pre-War books, and people still possess eyes to read them. But, sadly, most people don't 'ave the time to waste when they need to spend all of their effort just to 'ave something to drink and survive day to day," said Lily, somewhat sadly.
The acorn that was Sarah Lyons didn't fall from the tree of Elder Lyons, so this pushed her buttons as she seemed enthused, "That is definitely the case. Hopefully, someday that won't be the case, though. If we can just get rid of all the damned Super Mutants in the capital."
If Sarah Lyons wasn't interested in looking down her cleavage, then Lily would simply massage the woman's ego and goals instead. Lily smiled, "Yes, yes. They are quite monstrous."
Sarah reached for something in one of her bags and returned with a small dagger, which she offered to Lily, "Here, take this. You saved lives today, maybe mine. As thanks, if you ever need a favour, come to the Lyon's Pride FOB at the GNR building or the Citadel, and you can find a little help from me or one of the others with this token."
Lily glanced down at the dagger, which had a medieval motif and featured a stylized design of the circle and cogs of the Brotherhood of Steel on the handguard. The sword was missing in the design, but Lily supposed the dagger itself represented that element. She glanced up, hearing a rhythmic thumping which turned out to be a Vertibird transitioning from aeroplane mode to VTOL mode. At the same time, Grace and the others were walking out of the Coolidge building.
"Feel free to scavenge anything you like from the dead Raiders, with the exception of that heavy machine gun. We're going to take that with us," Sarah said before replacing her helmet back on her head. "You're an interesting person, Dr St. Claire. I will definitely remember you."
"Ah, you as well Miss Paladin Lyons," replied Lily as the two parted, Sarah jogging over to the rest of her men. The injured one was on his feet, so he couldn't have been in too bad a way.
Lily wasn't surprised the Brotherhood didn't much care for most of the salvage. These raiders weren't firing lasers or plasma casters or miniguns. Of course, nobody would ever call a Dushka high technology, but it was undoubtedly highly efficient, so she also wasn't surprised they were taking it. It wasn't like she and the others could cart it home anyway; they weren't driving a technical.
They grouped up together again. Lily reported, "The Brotherhood is taking the Dushka; everything else is ours if we want it. But let's make it quick and depart, no?"
Grace grimaced, "Better than a swift kick in the ass. She give you anything else?" Lily nodded, "A knife as a token to redeem for an unstated favour in the future."
Grace shuddered, "Keep that fucking thing away from me. You can have the joy of getting a favour out of the Brotherhood if you want, yourself."
They quickly policed the dead raiders, taking mainly ammunition and a few weapons if they were in good condition. She paused at one dead raider, "'Ey, guys. I think I found the putain that shot me." Lily held up the semi-automatic sniper rifle. She was really quite fortunate that the shot did not hit her in the head or heart. Still, now she had his rifle, so she was the winner, in the end, she supposed.
She did find out that there were sixty dead raiders, not the forty she counted earlier. And that wasn't including those that got away, either.
Accelerating some functional subdermal armour development was becoming a priority. Normally subdermal armour in biomorphs was formed by a gene mode that caused spider-silk to grow just under the skin. Lily definitely did not think she could effect such a radical biological change with the meagre gene editing toolkit she liberated from the lab. So, she would have to consider a synthetic solution. Surgery to implant graphene nanotubules underneath the skin? That had promise.
The team wasn't very comfortable around the Brotherhood, nor was Lily, for that matter, so they worked quickly. Mister Handy was at maximum capacity, and they were all carrying full packs. It would take most of the day to return back to the town.
Sarah Lyons found her when they were headed out, "That is a nice trick with that wrecked Mr Handy, turning it into a pack mule. Well, thanks again."
Lily paused. The chances that the lab underneath the Coolidge building would stay undiscovered were small, so she decided to inform Sarah about it, "Paladin Lyons, you may want to check the basement of the building we were firing out of. There is a mostly in-tact pre-war life sciences laboratory there. There wasn't actually much useful salvage we could cart away, mainly some respirators and one small freezer, but the lab itself is useful tech -- it 'as to be powered by either a small fusion reactor or geothermal units like Vault-Tec vaults are. Everything down there is still powered, even the HVAC systems. Quite comfortable inside, really. It might make you guys a useful FOB, if nothing else."
Although Lily would tell them about it, she wouldn't call it a virology lab. The Brotherhood were a mite sensitive on the subject of virology labs, considering what their founder did to all the scientists at WestTek so many years ago. But, "life science lab" was suitably ambiguous without being a lie. They would see that she had disassembled and carted away a cryogenic freezer, but they would find that anyway, most likely, and if she mentioned the lab now, it wouldn't look like Lily was hiding anything.
Sarah Lyons tilted her armoured head to the side, "Really? Why thank you for that report. In that case, I will order the Lyons Pride to temporarily occupy that building while I call in the Scribes."
With that, they were off; after a few blocks, Grace asked her, "Why'd you tell 'em about that lab?"
To which, Lily shrugged her shoulders, "They probably would have found it anyway, and in case I need to deal with them again, I didn't want it to look like I was hiding anything."
Grace pursed her lips before nodding, "Fair enough."
The hike back to Canterbury Commons was a lot less fun when they were humping mostly full packs. About halfway through it, Lily realized that the Assaultron wasn't carrying a pack. She attempted to order the Assaultron to carry her load, but she just said, "No, it reduces my aerodynamics for when I fight."
Was this bitch Napoleon Dynamite?!
They got back with some time still left in the day, and they used her temporary clinic to go over all the loot they got. Everybody picked a few items for themselves. Lily got one of the laser rifles, the sniper rifle, some replacement armour and of course, the cryogenic freezer and all of its contents. She also took a few of the processors and electronic parts. Everything else would be converted to caps, which was going to be quite substantial. And she would take some time tonight to repair the plasma rifle to function, it would be up to Grace to find a new stock for it though.
Once the rest of the loot was disposed of then Lily would become a woman of caps.
