New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Chapter 19: Cottonwood Cove

Welcome back to the Mr. New Vegas show. I'm your host, Mr. New Vegas. Got some Dean Martin coming up later in the program, followed by good ol' Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra. But first, I have some news. Violence outside the Vegas wall has increased in recent days, despite the best attempts by NCR troops stationed at Camp McCarran to find and eliminate the leaders of the Fiends. Fighting was especially brutal in the ruins where the Las Vegas beltway meets the Long 15. Locals and tourists are advised to steer clear. More classics coming at you on the airwaves, so stay tuned.

"Stop the car."

It was the first thing Boone had said since we'd set out for Cottonwood Cove about an hour earlier. For some reason, the ride had seemed longer. Boone had claimed shotgun before anyone else had reached the car, and had been scanning the landscape the entire trip; Veronica, Arcade, and Cass were all sitting in the back. It probably sounds cramped, but the great thing about old world cars like my Corvega is how surprisingly spacious they are - the backseat was like a wide, rather comfortable sofa.

Well... as comfortable as I could make it, anyway.

"Boone?" I inquired. It was all I could think to ask, really.

"Stop the car," Boone repeated. "If we get much closer, Legion perimeter scouts are bound to hear the engine."

I nodded, and pulled the car off to the side of the road, killing the engine next to a patch of honey mesquite trees.

"As lovely as this trip has been," I heard Arcade mutter in the back, his words laced with sarcasm, "I'm glad we're stopping. I really do feel the need to stretch my legs."

"What, had too much of our girl talk already?" I didn't need to see Veronica to know she was smirking. I'd heard the conversation coming from the backseat; on the one side was Cass, explaining the finer points of distilling moonshine to an Arcade who couldn't care less, and on the other was Veronica, recounting a story where she'd punched a raider in the face so hard, his skull went right through his body, and literally shot out of his ass. She was getting really vivid and graphic with her story, too, and it made me wonder: just how much of the gore did she really remember, and how much was she just making up on the spot? Though, I did have to admit 'cascading rivulets of crimson slashing through the air and glistening in the evening sun' had a certain morbid charm to it.

And to think: Veronica was the one who wanted the dress.

"If I wanted girl talk, I'd just start talking to myself," Arcade retorted. Veronica just laughed.

"C'mon," Boone checked his rifle, making sure it was loaded. "We're about half a klick Southwest of where we need to be."

Just as ED-E flew down to join the rest of us, I thought about those directions Boone had just described - that couldn't be right. I checked my Pip Boy's map. Sure enough...

"Hang on - we need to get to Cottonwood Cove, and that would take us... not quite the wrong direction, but not close enough to the cove."

"I know. We can't go straight there," he said, starting to walk away. "Follow me."

"Well, alright, but hang on a minute," I said, moving to the front of my car. "I gotta get something first." I unlocked it, lifted the trunk lid, and started rooting around, sifting through the very large pile of stuff I kept in there.

"Th' hell?" Cass looked over my shoulder into the pile of crap in my trunk. "I thought that was where th' engine was."

After some shifting of general clutter, I found the two things I was looking for. The first was the rifle I'd picked up from the Gun Runners earlier - they called it Pinpoint. Instead of wood, the stock was made out of carbon fiber and plastics, the bolt and receiver were custom tooled, the end of the barrel had been fitted with a muzzle suppressor, and there was a long range optic scope mounted to the top. All in all, it was a handy piece of kit. Expensive as hell, but it should be worth it.

"Hey Cass? Think you can give me a hand with this?" I said, handing a corner of the second thing I'd found in the trunk to Cass.

"What is it?" She looked at the mesh in her hands, turning it over and staring at it intently as she helped me get it unfolded.

"Camo netting," I said, unfurling the grey-brown mesh netting, and urging her to help me drape it over my car. "It's a kind of old world camouflage equipment. It won't really work up close, but from a distance most people won't give it a second glance."

"Not unless they know what to look for," Veronica chimed in, surveying our work.

"Well yeah, but there aren't any other rusted cars around," I shrugged. With any luck, if anyone looked in the direction of my car, they'd just think it was a big rock or a clump of dead plants. "If there were, I'd hide it in the middle of them rather than bother with the netting."

"I think we might need to hurry," Arcade said, looking off towards Boone. "He's leaving without us."

"Boone, where are we even going?" I asked as we made our way over the broken ground. The group of us had been following him on a very precarious and winding route along a ridge. I still couldn't see the Colorado River.

"Sniper nest," he said, suddenly sliding down from his spot and down the ridge. ED-E buzzed by my head and followed. With a shrug, I followed suit, grabbing hold of the steeply angled ground to slow my decent. After only a few seconds of sliding, I found myself on a strangely level part of the ridge, which had somehow remained hidden from view on the approach. There was a small shack, which looked hastily constructed out of wood and corrugated metal, a small circle of stones and some ash, a few discarded tin cans, and countless discarded cigarette butts. At the edge of the cliff (and it was steep enough to be a cliff at this point) was a small awning made out of the same sort of camo netting I used on my car.

"I need you to give me a hand with something," I heard Boone say as the rest of my companions followed me down. I turned to him, only to see him with a shovel in hand - where had he gotten a shovel? - and handed me one as well. Handed is perhaps the wrong word, though. He practically tossed it at me.

"Alright, sure," I shrugged. "What are we digging up?"

"Just some things I left, last time I was here" he said, walking with a distinct purpose to a patch of ground that didn't look any different than any other patch of ground nearby. He planted his shovel and started to dig.

"You can be infuriatingly cryptic at times, you know that, right?" He just grunted a "Hmm," as the two of us shoveled the dirt and rocks away. Eventually, I hit something hard, but not hard like a rock: hard like metal. The two of us working eventually cleared away the dirt enough for us see a long, rectangular metal box. When it was clear enough, we discarded the shovels and cleared the remaining dirt away with our hands. He grabbed one end, and I grabbed the other, pulling it out of the hole and setting it on firmer ground.

"So, what is this?" I asked. The others had started to gather around us, to see what we were doing. Boone didn't reply, and instead set his rifle on the ground before turning his attention to the lock. The box didn't use a key; it was a combination lock, like I'd seen on some briefcases in the past. He thumbed in the numbers, pushed a button, and the box opened with a hiss of displaced air.

The inside of the box was divided in half by a metal partition. One half contained some kind of chest armor, with the pieces arranged very neatly in the most space-efficient manner possible, and displaying a desert camouflage pattern. Underneath the armor was what looked like some kind of dirty brownish-green leather duster. Sitting on top of the armor was a combination helmet and gas mask, with dark green tinted eye lenses, some kind of small camera or light mounted on the right side of the helmet, and "FORGIVE ME MAMA" written in black ink on the front of the helmet. On the other side of the box's partition was a rifle, very much in a state of disassembly, but unmistakably a DKS-501 sniper rifle that had been given the same kind of desert camo paint job as the armor.

While Boone busied himself with assembling the sniper rifle, I grabbed the helmet, and turned it over in my hands to get a better look at it. There were several tally marks on the sides, and on the back were two columns of words scrawled in the same black paint. The left column was headed by "NANJING" with "JUN" "JUL" "AUG" and "SE" below it. "SE" had a line crossed through it. The right column was topped by the word "SHANGHAI" with "SEP" "OCT" "NOV" "DEC" "JAN" "FEB" "MAR" "APL" and "MAY" written below it.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed the top of the helmet, and pushed it back down into the metal box.

"Please, don't touch my things," Boone said, grabbing the last piece of the sniper rifle and fitting it in place.

"Where the hell did you get all this?" I asked. Boone didn't reply at first, and instead grabbed the chest armor. I only got a glance, but I could see writing on the collar, in a faded white ink:

SSGT VICKERS, RB

O POS - USMC

"I bought it," he finally said, sliding the various pieces of armor on, and locking them in place.

"Bullshit," I heard Cass say from behind me. Both Boone and I turned to look at her, but Boone continued to armor up as she kept talking. "I've seen that kind've armor b'fore. That's NCR Ranger armor. Y'can't just buy somethin' like that."

"It's not Black Armor," Boone said simply. As he spoke, he took off his sunglasses and his beret, and very carefully, almost reverently, put them in the metal box. "This is a set of pre-war US Marine armor from the invasion of China. Got it from a merchant who'd just passed through Utah. It cost a fortune." Boone grabbed the helmet and put it on, securing it to his head with a well practiced speed. He tapped the camera on the side of his helmet, and I heard it emit a high pitched mechanical whine. The lenses seemed to light up of their own volition. Finally, he grabbed the leather duster, and shut the box with his foot as he put it on.

When he stood up, he cut a rather imposing sight. I'll give him that much. The breeze caught his coat, and it fluttered... rather dramatically, it must be said. He turned his helmeted head, and looked at us from behind a single green lens.

"You wanted to find out how to get into the Fort," when Boone spoke, his words were slightly muffled by the gas mask, and carried an odd reverberating quality. "Here's how."

With that, he walked to the edge of the cliff and shouldered his rifle, waiting on the rest of us. Peering over the edge, I finally could see Cottonwood Cove. The road wound through almost nearly to the edge of the river. A series of buildings and several tents dotted the area, and I could see several small docks and a few boats sitting at the edge of the river. I tried to follow the path of the road back to where I'd left my car, but I stopped when I saw the telephone poles. There must have been dozens of them - maybe even a hundred - all lining the road towards the cove. I was suddenly thankful we were so high up and far away that I couldn't make out any detail.

"There should only be a handful of legionaries stationed here. About the same as Nelson, probably. I can hit them from here, but if there was another marksman firing from the Cottonwood Overlook-" Boone pointed to a small ridge on the south side of the cove, that had a few smaller buildings and what looked like the trailer of a big rig hanging off the edge "- that should cover where the fire is coming from. Cause enough confusion, that should draw out the leader of the camp. Once he's dealt with, the mop up should be easy."

"Excuse me for asking this," Arcade spoke up; Boone and I turned from the ridge to look. "But how is a shootout going to help? I thought this was about getting into the fort."

"Yeah," I scratched the back of my head. "I was just about to ask that myself. Not that I'm against killing legionaries, but this sounds more like a 'kill-em-all' plan. It's hardly subtle. And it still doesn't really answer how to get to the fort itself."

Boone stared at me from behind the green lenses on his helmet. Even so, I'd be willing to put money on the notion that his face behind the mask would be just as stony and expressionless. He turned back to the ridge, and pointed at the docks.

"The Legion use boats to transport men, equipment, and slaves from here to the fort. Most are rafts, but I've seen at least one with a working outboard," He turned back to Arcade. "That's our way inside: steal a boat."

"Ok, that's fine... but why risk ourselves with a big fight? Why can't we just sneak in and steal it?" Arcade asked

"Dead men can't squawk," was Boone's reply.

"So what's t'stop 'em from warnin' th' fort while we're killin' em?" Cass was kneeling by the ridge, taking a look for herself at what we were going to be up against.

"They only use radios to spy on the NCR, not to communicate," Boone said to her simply. "Caesar hates technology."

"You know, I gotta say... This plan seems reckless, dangerous, irresponsible, and needlessly violent," All of us turned to look at Veronica when she paused. She just smiled, and continued. "I'm game."

"It's a solid 'nuff plan I s'pose," Cass spoke up, still looking down towards the cove. "An' after seein' what they did at Nipton 'n Nelson, I got no problem takin' a crack at these bastards. So who's gonna be th' other shooter?"

"Catch," Boone's voice startled even me, because of where it came from: without being seen by anyone he'd gone to where he'd set down his rifle, and didn't toss so much as shove it towards Cass. She was as startled as I was, I think, but she caught it with both hands. He continued speaking after giving her his old gun, his voice still filtered by the gas mask. "It's suppressed. That'll help keep them from spotting you, since you'll be firing from a position more exposed than mine."

"Alright..." Cass said hesitantly, eyeing the gun with suspicion. "But... why me?"

"You're the best shot here. Apart from Sheason and myself," Boone replied.

"So, why don't I shoot from the ridge?" I asked. Honestly, I trusted Boone's judgment, but sometimes I wished he'd be a bit less unfathomable. Or, at the very least, more forthcoming with information.

"Because your part in this plan is more dangerous. And more crucial. While the two of us are picking them off, you drive up the middle. Mop up the stragglers," He sniffed inside his helmet. "You're the one who wants to go to the fort anyway."

"Fair enough..." I'll be honest - I'd be much more comfortable somewhere I could put Pinpoint to more use, far away from the Legion line of fire. But I was going to have to go down there one way or another. Probably best to have Boone and Cass cover me with death from above. Besides... it's not like I would've asked anyone else to act as bait. I'm not that kind of asshole.

"ED-E," I called for the robot, and immediately he hovered in front of my face with a beep. "I want you flying high enough above me on the way down so these two can see you. When I get close enough, fly down and cause some chaos," He beeped again in agreement, while I turned to Boone and Cass. "I want you both watching him. When ED-E joins the fight, that'll be the signal to open up."

"Sounds good t'me," Cass said, resting Boone's rifle against her shoulder. Boone merely nodded.

"Alright, before we go any further, I want to get back to the Corvega. There are a few more things I want to pick up," Everyone nodded, and (with the exception of Boone) all started walking back up the way we came. I started following, but right before I left, I happened to look back over my shoulder.

Boone was standing at the edge of the cliff with his sniper rifle in hand. He stood there, stock-still, like a statue of the old world chiseled from granite or marble or something. At first I was confused - why was he just standing there? And why was he staring down at the cove? And then I remembered his words from yesterday: "I tracked her down. Southeast, near the river." Quietly, I made my way back towards Boone, until I was standing right behind him. He didn't move until I spoke.

"This is it, isn't it?" I asked, not daring to voice my suspicions any more than that. His head shifted slightly in my direction, but he didn't say anything. Silence permeated the air for several moments. It seemed like even the wind was scared to make noise around Boone. Eventually, he turned his head away from me, and went back to staring at the cove.

"Does it matter?" was his response when he finally spoke up. Somehow, his voice was more gravelly than normal, and it wasn't just the filter of the gas mask. His voice was cold... devoid of emotion... it almost sounded inhuman.

The voice of someone already dead.

"I... I guess not," I said, shaking my head sadly. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"We already had this conversation once," he said, sharply. "I'm not interested in having it again."

"I suppose so," I sighed, slowly walking away, and towards the path back to my car. Before I got completely out of earshot, however, I heard Boone say one last thing to me.

"Sheason. When you get down there, don't hesitate. You hesitate fighting Legion, you're already dead."

"There y'are," Cass said when I finally caught up with them. Cass, Veronica, Arcade and ED-E were all hanging around my car. "What'd ya do, take th' scenic route?"

"Something like that," I shrugged. I pointed to the rifle in Cass' hands. "What kind of ammo do you think that takes?"

"Uh..." She took a look at the rifle in her hands questioningly, and ejected the magazine. "308, I think."

"Alright, gimmie a sec," and with that, I pulled the camo netting off the front of my car and popped the trunk, rummaging around inside it for a minute or two before pulling out two boxes of .308 rifle ammunition. "Here ya go, extra ammo."

"What th' hell, man? Just how much CRAP do you keep in there?" She asked with a laugh, taking the ammo off my hands.

"Enough," I said, still searching for the other things I was looking for. "Keep in mind, normal for me is living in my car. I'm still not quite used to House's gilded cage..." I looked up from the mass of stuff in the trunk, and turned back to Cass. "You should probably get going. This isn't going to work if we don't move fast. Veronica, go with her."

"Wait, what?"

"Cass'll be firing from an exposed point, like Boone said. If they figure out where the fire's coming from, she'll need someone to watch her back. Just in case." Even though I was talking to Veronica, my gaze didn't leave Cass. She cocked her head to the side, and looked curious for a moment... but then her expression changed to that of someone who was just insulted.

"Hey now, I can take care of m'yself. I don't need someone watchin' my back, like I'm a fuckin' child!"

"I'm not doubting that," I said reaching into the trunk and pulling out a super-sledge. "But a little help never hurt anyone." And with that, I handed the massive hydraulic sledgehammer to Veronica, whose face lit up like the New Vegas skyline.

"Did you get this at the Gun Runners? For me? Oh, I didn't know you cared!" While Veronica was gushing over her new toy, Cass merely sighed, and started walking away towards the overlook to the south.

"Fine, whatever. You comin' V?" She called back over her shoulder. Veronica nodded, despite the fact that Cass couldn't see her, and was about to follow when I set a hand on her shoulder. Veronica stopped, and just looked back at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Make sure you keep her safe," I said in a low voice, so only the two of us could hear. "Can you do that for me?" She just looked at me for half a second, looked at Cass, and then looked back at me with a face of dawning comprehension and a sly smile. She chuckled softly and nodded.

"Don't you worry your pretty little head about it, Shea," she reached up and tousled my hair like you'd do to a six year old. This really annoyed me, given she's still practically a child and I'm at least a decade older than her. "Any Legion comes poking around, they'll get a face full of pain and death." And with that, she skipped off after Cass.

"She's an odd one," Arcade said, shaking his head. "So, I guess this means I'm tagging along with you to 'mop up' then. Oh joy." I just went back to searching through the trunk. He walked up beside me and peered in over my shoulder. I shoved a few books to the side, and he picked them up, reading the titles.

"Let's see... 'Big Book of Science,' 'Guns and Bullets,' 'Chinese Army: Special Ops Training Manual'... Cass was right to ask about one thing. Just how much crap do you have?"

"Just some light reading for the road. Aha!" I pulled out the cylinders I was looking for, and handed one to Arcade. "Here, hold this."

"And what exactly is this that I'm holding?" He turned it over in his hands just once. "It looks like a microfusion cell."

"You're half right," I said, securing three of them to my belt, and continuing my search for pistol ammunition. "I found the design a couple years ago. You need three cells to make one of those, and it takes a fair bit of rewiring, a sensor module, the firing pin from a frag grenade and some electrical tape, but it gets the job done."

"You turned microfusion cells into grenades," Arcade replied flatly, looking at me over his glasses with an expression between stunned shock and amazement.

"Call it a poor-man's plasma grenade," I said with a smirk. "Speaking of plasma, you need any ammo for that pistol of yours?"

"I'm sure I have enough ammo to last... oh, ten minutes? Fifteen?" Arcade shrugged. "I'll be honest, the current situation is far from ideal. Marching down into the gates of hell with only a pistol at my side against dozens of brutal and bloodthirsty Legion troops who would like nothing more than to nail me to a cross and use my nipples for target practice? This isn't really how I expected to spend today. Why exactly am I following you again? Oh, that's right, because you offered a resolute-and-yet-vague promise to fix things in Vegas. And somehow that brings us here. Ah well."

The whole time he'd been talking, I just stared at my Corvega. I wasn't really listening to him, because a plan was forming in my head. It was a crazy plan. A reckless plan. A horribly stupid, painfully stupid plan, even. But Boone's plan was crazy, reckless, and stupid on its own. What harm could a little more do?

"Help me with the camo netting," I said, trying to pull it off my car.

"Sorry?" Despite looking confused, Arcade pulled himself out of it long enough to help me pull the mesh off my car and shove it back in the trunk.

"So, what do you say Virgil?" I smirked, shoving the trunk lid closed with a clang. "Think you'll let me be Dante for a while?"

"And so, I think it best you follow me for your own good," Arcade didn't reply, and instead spoke like he was quoting as the two of us got in my Corvega. "And I shall be your guide and lead you out through an eternal place where you will hear desperate cries, and see tormented shades, some old as Hell itself, and know what second death is, from their screams."

"So... was that a yes? Seriously, what the fuck was that supposed to be?" I asked. Arcade merely chuckled and pressed his glasses further up his nose, settling into the passenger seat.

"It's from the first chapter of the Divine Comedy. Virgil the Poet is offering to show Dante the Pilgrim the path through Hell," he said grimly. "I thought it rather apt, since we're marching to Caesar's doorstep."

"You know, I'll be honest... I never read it." I turned the key, and my Corvega rumbled into life with a roar.

"And we're not marching."

I'm sure the Legionaries using Cottonwood Cove as a staging ground were expecting a great many things to come down the highway into their camp. NCR scouts, giant mutated bugs, some raiders perhaps looking for easy prey... maybe a deathclaw, or an albino radscorpion. Those huge fuckers do tend to wander occasionally.

I'm pretty sure the last thing they expected was a 750 horsepower old world machine - spitting blue fire out the tailpipes - to come barreling down the highway towards their camp at full tilt.

I felt the car go light and the bottom come out from under me as we crested a hill. During the middle of the jump, it felt like my lungs were being forced into my lower intestines. Arcade was clutching the dashboard with one hand and his pistol in the other; I couldn't tell if he was pissed off or terrified.

"This is a stupid idea!" He yelled over the roar of the engine.

Pissed off it was then.

"Exactly!" I yelled right back, over the crash of the tires hitting the road again. "They won't be expecting this!"

There was one last corner on the road before the Legion camp, but a telephone pole cross with a skeleton still tied to it was sticking out of the ground - right at the apex of the curve. There was only one way I could make it around the corner without scrubbing off so much speed as to lose the element of surprise.

Before I go any further, I want to make something very clear about my car. It wasn't originally built to go fast - I made it fast when I put an enormous 3 megawatt fusion reactor behind the rear wheels. It was originally built in the late 2060's to be a luxury car, designed to go from point A to point B not as quickly as possible, but as soft and comfortably as possible with space inside for half a dozen suitcases. And because of that, it's very large - a little over 18 feet long, and six and a half feet wide. Mix that with the fact it weighs just over two and a half tons, and driving it around a corner at any kind of speed is kind of like trying to shove a very large building around a corner if the building was made of giant boulders. And cement. And churches.

"What the HELL are you DOING?!" Arcade was really yelling now. Honestly, I couldn't blame him - I'm sure from where he was sitting, it looked like the car was heading directly for the telephone pole. I had my foot planted on the floor, and the steering wheel turned as far into the corner as it could go. And it was at that precise moment when Arcade decided to start yelling in my ear, I felt the back end of the car let go. I took my foot off the gas, and the car started sliding sideways, and even over the roar of the engine, I could hear the screeching of the tires over the ruined and cracked pavement. Clouds of tire smoke poured in through the windows, and I strained against the wheel to get the nose of the car pointed back in the right direction. Just when I was afraid the car was going to spin out, the back tires found grip and I was back to speeding down the road straight instead of sideways.

"Holy mother of God and all her wacky nephews! Not even Daisy Whitman's this crazy, you asshole!" I did my best to tune out Arcade yelling at me, and shifted the car back in gear as the camp came into view. Of course, distinctly separate from the camp and a damn sight closer was a Legion soldier standing right in the middle of the road. One uncomfortable bump in the road later, and he was no longer in front of us. In fact, he was behind us, crumpled in a bloody heap of red sports equipment. Not the cleanest way to go, it must be said, but at least he had the decency to get pushed under the car. The windshield has enough cracks in it as it is.

"Hold onto something!" I yelled, gunning the engine and aiming the car at a row of crimson tents near one of the collapsed buildings.

"That's not helpful!" Arcade yelled right back. Half an instant later, the only sounds I could hear were the sounds of metal rods hitting the car, one right after the other, and the windscreen was covered in red cloth. I just kept going, ignoring the hideously bumpy ride threatening to shake my spine loose until...

CRUNCH.

The Corvega came to a stop with a sudden and unexpected halt. Boone said don't hesitate, so I didn't; with one hand I flung the driver door open, and with the other I grabbed the shoulder of Arcade's labcoat.

"C'mon!" The two of us dove out of the car. The engine was still running, and I hadn't had time to take the car out of gear, but it wasn't moving. I didn't really have time to think about that though, because over the noise of the engine, I started hearing loud pings - the unmistakable sound of bullets ricocheting off the car. And then came the men shouting orders.

Well, at least I had some cover. That was a start. I pulled out Roscoe and peeked just enough over the car to see what was coming. VATS kicked in almost without thought now and started picking targets - 10 Legionaries were rushing at us with machetes, and six, maybe seven more scattered around with rifles. A few of the Legion soldiers carrying blades also had what looked like old world police riot shields, painted red with gold designs.

I took aim with Roscoe, and pointed at the nearest trooper. Two shots, and he was down. There were several sounds from next to me like a series of methane bubbles imploding in a swamp, and another nearby Legion soldier died from a burst of green plasma hitting him square in the chest. Nevermind the three plasma bolts that missed him. A bullet pinged perilously close to my head, and I ducked instinctively. That was when I heard what, at that moment in time, was the most glorious sound in the world: tinny, patriotic marching music belching from an Eyebot's speaker grille.

ED-E dropped out of the sky and flew directly over my head, letting loose laser blast after laser blast at the advancing Legionaries. One of the troopers with a shield was getting perilously close, and was flat out running towards the car. Arcade was reloading, and even though ED-E fired, the shot missed. I lined up Roscoe and was about to take the shot when I heard the second most glorious sound in the world.

There was a crack in the air like a thunderbolt, loosed by some angry, vengeful God. The Legionnaire lifted his riot shield away long enough for me to see the left side of his face explode in a shower of meat and bone. He spun, and the body hit the ground with a wet thud.

The fighting continued like that for several minutes. More Legion soldiers kept coming out of the woodwork, but thanks to my accuracy in VATS, Arcade's plasma pistol, ED-E's laser, and the sniping from Boone and Cass, they thinned out considerably. Eventually, I could hear no more shouts. The bullets had stopped pinging against my car. And there, off in the distance, about 50 yards away from my car, was the dock with the boat we were searching for. So, I decided to make a run for it.

"Hey," I patted Arcade on the shoulder as I got up and moved past him. "Cover me." I kept my pistol drawn as I made my way over to the docks, just in case there were any Legion troops smart enough to be hiding and waiting to ambush me. I got about halfway there when I came across something that made me stop in my tracks completely.

It was a cage. A roughly 20 feet by 20 feet cage made out of chain-link fencing topped with razor wire. It had been hidden behind several tents, which is why I hadn't seen it from my car. Thing is, I knew it was a cage, because there were people inside. Two dozen people, easy. All shapes. All colors. All ages. All of them were wearing rags, and looked half starved... and beaten. When I got close, several of them grabbed at the fence, in the vain hope that they might be able to reach through the links. Most of them didn't get up - and looked too weak to get up. The most noticeable thing about them, however, was that each and every person was wearing a metal collar with a blinking red light.

I'm sure I would have tried to help them right then and there - in fact, I distinctly recall walking towards the cage, to see if I could find a gate - when I heard one of the girls hanging on the fence near me cry out in a weak voice:

"Behind you!"

I had just enough time to register a fist the size of a cooked ham before it connected with my face and I saw stars. Everything went sideways, and I felt myself roll across the ground. My grip on Roscoe loosened, and I heard it clatter on the rocks somewhere.

When my vision straightened out, I saw the biggest non-super mutant motherfucker I think I've ever have the misfortune to come across. Certainly, he was the biggest Legionnaire I've ever seen. His armor looked like a mish-mash of bits and pieces of fallen enemies. In the split second I had before I was forced to move, I saw a chest plate and a helmet from a super mutant (the only difference was the helmet had a red fringe on the top), the right pauldron and forearm from a suit of power armor, armor plates from the kind of NCR Ranger armor I'd seen Milo wearing yesterday, and the shin guards and boots from old world combat armor.

Before I could see anything else, I had to roll out of the way; a giant, hydraulically actuated sledgehammer was brought down on the ground with enough force to send splinters of rocks in every direction. I rolled again, and grabbed That Gun just as he brought the hammer down again. I tried to scramble to my feet, but instead of hitting me with the hammer, he kicked me in the gut with those steel toed combat boots. I tried not to lose my lunch, and ended up landing a good five feet away from him on my back. I leveled That Gun and fired at him, hoping - praying - that VATS would pull through. I was practically at point blank range anyway.

Of the five shots I fired, two were glancing shots in the arm and shoulder, and three hit him square in the chest. He didn't even seem phased. I pulled the trigger a sixth time, just because I was trying to fire as many shots as I could, but the click of the hammer hitting an empty chamber echoed in my ears. Obviously, he heard it too, because he just laughed.

I didn't wait. I couldn't wait. I tried to scramble to my feet, but I heard a loud thud, and felt a large hand grab my shoulder and flip me around. Another ham-sized fist hit me in the face, and I didn't have time to feel dizzy, because what I felt instead was a hand wrap around my throat and start to tighten. He lifted me up. My feet left the ground.

Instinctively, I started clawing at the hand on my throat. I could feel myself start to go lightheaded. My eyes felt like they were going to burst out of my head. My vision was starting to get blurry. I regained enough of my senses to stop clawing fruitlessly at his hand, and instead started punching him in the face. He didn't even flinch from the first punch... and the second punch he caught.

"Did you really think you could beat me, profligate?" He said with a snarl. "I, Aurelius of Phoenix, hand picked by the mighty Caesar himself to lea-"

I never got to hear the rest of that sentence, because he was cut short by a sound not unlike a bubble of methane imploding in a swamp. His expression went limp, and a trickle of blood escaped his mouth before his eyes rolled up in the back of his head. The two of us collapsed on the ground.

I probably would've been more grateful to Arcade for saving my sorry hide, but there was a bit of a problem. Despite being dead, this Aurelius of Phoenix had one hell of a grip.

"Help?" I managed to wheeze out, trying desperately to loosen the dead man's hand.

"Thanks for saving me," I said to Arcade as I put the car in neutral and turned off the engine. "I swear, that guy came out of nowhere!" Luckily, I hadn't crashed into anything, so my car was still in one piece, apart from the new bullet holes. But it's not like shooting a car a few times will make it explode in a massive fireball. No, all I'd done was drive it into a ditch. A latrine ditch, sadly (the smell was probably never going to come out) but at least I hadn't wrapped it around a telephone pole or crashed headlong into a big rock or something that would wreck it.

"Don't mention it," he said as the two of us pushed on the front of my Corvega to get it out of the ditch. "I'm just glad I finally got my eye in after that first one. It's been so long since I've been to the range, that I was out of practice."

"The range?"

"Yeah. You know, a firing range. Where you can practice target shooting without somebody shooting back, you know?" He grunted, and with one last combined shove the two of us were able to get the car clear of the ditch and back on open ground.

"No better way to practice than in a fight for your life, I say," I smirked, and decided to have a little fun with him. "Still, thanks. It's nice to have a big, strong doctor around to help keep me safe in the big, bad wasteland." His expression when I said that was priceless.

"Heh. You know, even though overt flattery will get you everywhere, I'd appreciate it more if you were honest with me. And I can tell, you're as straight as a ruler. Still..." He smirked, and pointed at me. "You. You're dangerous. But you can be my wingman anytime."

Did he just... yes he did. And here I thought I'd seen the only copy of that. I couldn't leave him hanging after setting up that quote so brilliantly, so I just smiled back him, barely able to hold back laughter.

"Bullshit. You can be mine."

The two of us just started cracking up. I slapped him on the shoulder, and we were both laughing so hard, we didn't hear when Cass and Veronica showed up.

"That was awesome!" Cass spoke up, and Arcade and I quieted down. "Drivin' th' car right into th' middle o' th' camp? That was th' ballsiest thing I've ever seen! I think y'ran over three of 'em b'fore anybody started shootin'!"

"Well, I'm glad you approve. And I'm glad you're both here. Veronica, I'm gonna need your help with something. Arcade, you too."

"What's up?" I heard her ask. She was smiling, but I think she was a little disappointed that she hadn't been able to have a go with her new toy.

"Just come with me. It'll be easier if you see it."

It didn't take long to get to the cage. Everyone was as shocked as I was when I'd first seen it. As soon as we got near, that same girl who'd warned me spoke up again.

"Can you... can you free us?" Her face was dirty, and what little hair I could see under her shawl was black and just as dirty.

"O'course we can, don't worry 'bout it," Cass said. She walked up to the fence, and did her best to give a hand of comfort through the chain links. "Where's the gate? We c'n prolly blast it off."

"It's over here," I said, pointing to it. It wasn't all that complicated, but picking it would take time. "Arcade."

He didn't need to be told twice. He took aim with his pistol, and the lock evaporated into a fine green mist. I was just about to fling open the doors when Veronica practically shouted my ears off.

"WAIT! We can't let them out!" She sounded worried. "At least... not yet."

"She's... right," the girl stated sadly. She grabbed at the collar around her neck.

"What? Why?" Cass demanded angrily.

"See those things around their necks?" Veronica pointed. "Those are bomb collars."

"Oh, fuck me," I cursed.

"Yeah..." Veronica gulped, and continued grimly. "They don't have much explosive. Just enough."

"It's worse than that," the girl spoke up. "The slave master, he... when he put us in here, he told us... the collars are linked. One explodes, they call explode."

"The good thing is," Veronica did her best to try and sound hopeful. It didn't really work. "I've seen bomb collars like this before. I know how to disarm them and remove them without detonating the rest. But... it's gonna take time." That was certainly fine by me, I thought.

"Take your time. Do it right, not quick." I turned to the girl at the fence. "What's your name?"

"Weathers," she said softly. "Samantha Weathers."

"Don't worry, Sam. We're gonna get you out of here. Arcade," I turned to the doctor. "Think you can give Veronica a hand, maybe tend to the wounded?"

"You got it boss," he said with a nod.

"What about me?" Cass asked. "What're we doin?"

"You're gonna help me put together a Legion uniform."

It took the two of us about five minutes to find enough dead Legionaries who still had intact pieces of uniforms to put together something that (I hoped) could pass for a Legion soldier.

"Think we got enough?" I asked. Cass nodded.

"Yeah, but there was somethin' weird though."

"What's weird?" I asked, sorting the pieces.

"All those Legionaries? They all had the same tattoo. S'only one, and they all had it on th' left shoulder. Just a simple tattoo, spelled out 'SPQR' in plain black letters. Got no idea what it means."

"It's the Mark of the Legion." A voice came out of nowhere that made us both jump. Boone was standing right behind us, still wearing his armor and still carrying the sniper rifle. "Every Legion soldier has it. Don't know why. Don't really care. But before I was discharged, NCR started checking for it. Try and root out Legion infiltrators."

While Boone was talking, I was stripping off my normal clothes, and bit by bit was reassembling a Legion uniform. I was about halfway finished when Boone spoke up again.

"You haven't told her, have you?"

"Told me what?" Cass looked confused.

"He's going to the fort without us," Boone said simply.

"What? Why?" Cass looked genuinely shocked and a little bit worried. "Y'got a death wish'r somethin'?"

"Nope. The opposite in fact," I put a crimson wrap of cloth around my lower face, and tried my damndest to ignore the smell and feel of a dead mans clothing pressing up against my nose and mouth. "If I go in alone, I should have an easier time of it. Besides... bringing you all along would make it complicated."

"How so?" Cass stepped closer, and looked about ready to slug me.

"Should I go down the list? Boone can't come because he's way too trigger happy when the Legion's concerned, and I wouldn't trust him not to just start shooting up the place. No offense."

"None taken," Boone said, nodding his head. "You're probably right."

"I can't take Arcade, because he's needed here taking care of the wounded slaves. I can't take Veronica, because she's busy disarming all those bomb collars, and even if she wasn't, I couldn't bring her to the fort for the same reason I can't bring you to back me up. You're both women - and I don't think I need to remind you what the Legion does to women. You'd both stick out like a pair of sore thumbs. And I really can't bring ED-E, because a flying metal ball is going to be really conspicuous around a bunch of soldiers that shun modern technology." As I spoke, I put on the finishing touches to the Legion outfit. With any luck, I could pass for a real Legionnaire.

"So, you're just going to go in alone then?"

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I've infiltrated raider camps, slaver camps, I even once snuck into an NCR base to deliver a package. I'll be fine. Now, help me get this off," I offered the arm with my Pip Boy to Cass. I'd undone the locks, but it didn't want to come off. With the two of us grabbing hold of it, it did finally come free from my arm... but for some reason, taking it off stung quite badly. There were a few red dots on my skin underneath where it had been. I didn't know if that was new or not, since before when I'd taken it off before hitting the sack, the lights had been off.

"So, you're not even going in with your Pip Boy then?" Cass asked. She was really looking worried now. I shook my head.

"Nope. That'll really stand out." I bent down to my pile of discarded clothes, and reached into the pants pocket, pulling out both my car keys and the Platinum Chip.

"Don't worry. I'll be fine."

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