Chapter 27 Operation Mole Rat

John tried to sound as friendly as he could, not easy in eight foot tall power armour. Even if he hadn’t been holding a short sword and a long gun. “Go inside, please.” Even that sounded like a threat, it got them moving though, heading into a building they’d clearly seen enough of.

He found Tempest waiting for them, as the scouts threw packs down from above, handing them to the traumatised people. John watched over them. Letting them sit outside, treat each other’s wounds. Dress and drink water, rubbing their faces clean.

Field scribes were neither soldiers nor scholars, instead a mix of both. Most were local scavengers, their familiarity with the area around them a valuable asset. Worth enough to get them basic combat training, secure housing, regular meals. And make enough caps from the salvage the Brotherhood didn’t care about to send money home. The men and women before him had been through a rough night. “Ronin, call it in.” Sara winked, letting him know he deserved to make the call.

“Sierra foxtrot, Ronin, how copy?”

“Solid copy Ronin, send it.” He heard tension in the female voice, worried at hearing from the lowest ranked member of the unit no doubt.

“Package secure, nothing broken. Send medevac, over.”

“Solid copy, eta forty mikes, November out.”

“Evac inbound, forty minutes.” That quashed the numbness, seeing the relief in the exhausted faces, the smiles on split lips. John didn’t let himself enjoy the moment fully, knowing forty minutes could be a long time out here.

One of the field scribes walked over to him. Boots untied, shirt still bloodied from the night before. The water canteen shaking in her bandaged hand. “Knight, you need to call in a code victor.” John didn’t know what that code meant, also he wasn’t a knight. He did like the sound of it though.

“I’m in command, I’ll decide what we call in. Your name is?” Sara took charge before John could call her over

“Groves sir, Jen. There’s something you should see.”

Groves took a minute to compose herself. Finding a cleaner shirt, finishing her water. Then headed back into the factory, trying to ignore what remained of her captors. She instructed Sara to stand on the walkway above and watch, then continued to command the scouts. Practically ordering the elite operators even Paladin Maxwell had no real authority over.

Aided by their R frames the scouts climbed along the steel rafters. Disconnecting heavy, hooked chains, letting them clatter to the ground below. Then she had Ronin and Crixus latch the hooks to the steel top and pull. Hinging open the metal cover of the raised, central platform, revealing the casting mould below. “Groves, Ronin, up top.” Sara shouted down. John knew better than to climb the narrow metal stairs in the armour so he exited, smoothly. Taking a moment to stretch and breath, not noticing the smell of blood, cordite, and charred flesh that hung in the air.

He looked down from the walkway above, seeing the outline of the mould completely, recognising the giant, cog shape. The unmistakable pattern of a Vault door, splattered unevenly with red paste. Sara unclipped the radio from the back of her belt, stopping herself, and handing it to John. “Like the scribe said, code victor, call it in.”

“Actually I’m a just field scribe.” John saw that Groves knew what she’d stumbled onto, she knew this would get attention, and wanted to be accurate.

“Not for much longer Jen, you did real good.” Sara put a hand on her shoulder, she’d been through a lot and kept focused on her mission. “Call it in John, to the outpost.”

“Echo outpost, Ronin, code victor at my twenty, how copy?”

“Solid copy Ronin, sit tight, out.”

“There’s something else, a sub level, I can show you.” John became more impressed. The field scribe had been taken hostage, beaten, yet still did her duty even now. Smiling through split lips, and swollen, bruised eyes.

She led Sara down, John followed, stopping to retrieve his mace. Whatever steel alloy the lady used to make the one handed weapon from, the explosive energy propelled it with such force that it stuck into the solid mould lid. Wedged tight but completely undamaged. John unclipped the maul from his armour, using it to tap the carbon fibre handle free, levering the spiked orb out. Trying not to slip in what remained of the would be grenadier. It took longer than he thought it would. Eventually it came free, not even scratched. He reconnected the one handed weapons back into the warhammer and clipped it back on his armour. Even more astounded at the genius of the esoteric lady.

“What happened to your team Jen?” Sara asked, trying not to sound like she needed a report, Jen led them across the floor and through an open door as she gave one anyway.

“We spotted this place from the air last week, it looked deserted. So once we finished up at our site west of here we decided to take a closer look. Fuckers ambushed us a couple of miles out.” She stopped halfway down the steel stairs that wrapped round a wide cargo lift. John thought it looked entirely unnecessary to cover the short distance. “They we’re going to sell us to someone named Jones. Apparently he pays well for Brotherhood, sent one of them with our tags as proof.”

Sara slipped off her shallow pack, jingling through the personal identification holotags they all wore. Apart from John. The treacherous, even to his own kind, not to mention stupid, raider brought them to the fob as proof. No doubt hoping to get a better deal than whatever bounty this Jones offered. And not having to share it with his dead pack. Animals, John thought to himself, already morally certain about putting them down. Saving two lives each time.

“You’re out of uniform Scribe Groves.” Sara handed Jen back her own tag, the small blue holochip that held her data glinting in the low light. John saw what it meant to her to put it back on. “It’s alright Jen, go topside, eat something, that’s an order” Sara didn’t want to push her further.

“No sir, I’m ok, it won’t take long. We don’t have the equipment onsite to open it anyway.”

Unchecked hope pushed John ahead. His training drawing the rose carved pistol as he stepped down into a corridor. Thick railings were embed in the ground, leading to a rectangular, dull steel door. Three, smooth, wide, cylindrical locking pins set in the wall on either side, and a dormant terminal in the middle.

John knew it wasn’t what he stupidly allowed himself to hope for, it wasn’t big enough to be a Vault, not by half. “One of these animals dragged us down here one by one, beating us when we told him it didn’t have power.” Jen tried to remain indifferent, like what happened didn’t happen to her. “I reckon we could get it open in a few days with the right equipment, I’ll make a list and send it back with the medevac birds.”

“John.” He turned to Sara, she tapped her left arm, smiling. He raised his arm across his chest, turning on the screen. Unclipping the wireless four pin from the jet black housing.

“Is that a fucking pipboy?!” Jen shouted with surprise. Her words echoing with such volume that she covered her mouth, reflexively trying to stop the sound. “Where did you get it?”

“That’s classified.” Sara taught him that deflection, amongst many others. John thought it sounded good, Sara didn’t laugh, not until Jen started yes siring him. Then she broke, her frequent laugh echoing up the staircase.

John walked over to the terminal, finding the four pin socket he knew would be there. Using his own device to power it, seeing the familiar Unified operating system that even he could crack in minutes. He ran his own simple brute force hack, trying not to think about the woman that taught him all the coding he knew. A mere fraction of her own knowledge, her genius, genius he took for himself, leaving his love behind. A decision he hoped she would understand.

“Got it.” John turned from the door, Sara fell back. Pulling the curious scribe with her. Submachine gun levelled at the door from what little cover the concrete corners provided. John did the same, more of a trained response than anticipation of a threat. The locking pins retracted with a series of clunks and the door lowered straight down into the floor. Sucking in fresh air that felt like a gust of wind rushing past them as it flooded in. Sara moved, John followed, the beaten, but excited scribe held herself back.

Inside the long room, stacked neatly in padlocked, wheeled, cages sat block after block of grey metal. Almost the identical shade of the Vault door. Sara relaxed, lowered her weapon, he did the same. “All clear Jen.” The tough scribe all but ran in, her pain dulled by the rush of discovery.

In far less time than it took John to hack the terminal she picked the nearest padlock, one handed. Her left hand crudely bandaged. “Sir, pick that up, please.” Sara did, her expression telling John it turned out to be heavier than expected. She put it back down and John touched it. Feeling the same cold texture with his exposed trigger finger and thumb that he’d felt a decade before. “It’s a depleted uranium alloy, staballoy it’s called.” Sara laughed. “Seriously, look it up.”

“They made kinetic kill rounds out of this right, nasty stuff.” Sara had an admiration in her voice that didn’t match her words.

“They also made doors, big ones.” John felt hope at coming across the best lead he’d found so far. Even the old world engineering couldn’t move something that big, that heavy, that far.

“Jen, John here is going to get you patched up, and on the first medevac.”

“No he isn’t, I’m ok, and I’m sure as shit not leaving anytime soon. I don’t care if the elder himself comes down here to carry me out personally.” John knew Sara well enough by now to know she really liked people like this. Those who pushed up against the system when they thought they were right, yet she didn’t show that to Jen, just to him.

“You heard her John, take her with you to secure the lz, you can both brief Excalibur when he arrives.”

“Right away…Paladin Maxwell.” Jen’s face dropped, grasping who she’d been speaking to, mixing with the realisation of who she had to speak to next.

Sara’s last instruction before sending John topside was to call in another request, send Crixus down, then get Jen fed and patched up. While keeping her separated from her team. It made him feel awkward, like how others must have felt around him at first. A feeling he hadn’t missed as he became one of the Marauders. “Echo outpost, Ronin, request lima alpha at my twenty, how copy?”

“Solid copy, out.” John felt a chill at the thought of turning Lady Avalon loose in a room filled with something apparently called staballoy.

The quick reaction force from forward operating base Sierra arrived first. Three Vertibirds, two with a pair of armoured door gunners hovered above as one landed. Medics leapt out, two checking the group of five, one looking over Jen while she fidgeted and resisted. Within minutes the hovering birds dropped the armoured knights on the roof. Bringing the door mounted miniguns with them, instantly fortifying the factory.

“Sir, she has a broken arm, probable fractured ribs, and needs stitches. She should be on the evac.” It took John a moment to realise the medic was talking to him, or rather the armour he wore.

“Do what you can, she stays.” The amplified voice left little tone to argue against. The other rescued field scribes were flown out. The medic strapped Jen’s broken arm tight, poured a clotting powder on her wounds that made her yelp. Then he stitched and bandaged what he could, leaving Jen painkillers she refused to take. The medics flew out, taking the other bird with them, bringing the first real moment of calm John felt all day.

“Ronin, second floor, bring our new friend.” Sara spoke through the comm. John walked the armour back and exited. Jen walking slowly behind, her strapped arm putting her off balance.

John hadn’t noticed the rooms upstairs. A row of dirty, cracked glass walled offices. Filled with filling cabinets and computer banks. Along with occasional dead raider. Shot clean in the chest and head by Tempest as she cleared above precisely, surgically, while he swung his hammer to create carnage below.

“Excalibur is still an hour out, I wanted you to get a look in before Styx and Acheron got their sticky paws on anything.” Sara opened up the last room, filled with stolen loot.

Weapons, gear, crates of booze, chems, and boxes of junk the raiders took simply because others had it. “Recon took the best of the booze. The caps and chems we’ll give to the field scribes. Anything you want you take it, both of you, you’ve earned it.” Sara smiled as Jen made a beeline for the bottles of booze. Throwing back a good swig of vodka, the painkiller she would take. She stopped, remembering she had to brief the elder, checking her breath against her free arm. “Relax, he won’t mind booze on your breath, he will mind if there’s none left, so go easy.” Jen smiled, and began picking through the box of pistols, throwing a few in a pack she took as well.

Sara nudged him, holding something out in her hand. At first John thought it might be an extended magazine, attached to something. Then she pulled the magazine back and the attachment clicked into place. A squared slide, lengthened, vented barrel, a folding nine millimetre pistol. John readied himself to thank her, yet the look in Sara’s eyes stopped him. This wasn’t a reward, it felt like a warning. “Stash it where you can, keep it ready, but don’t pull it less you have no other choice.” The implication felt alarmingly clear, even in the hushed whispers of the practical paladin’s voice,

John hadn’t forgotten their conversation that night at the missile silo. She’d made sure he understood the Brotherhood were asking for his help because their goals aligned. If that changed a well hidden pistol may be his only choice.

John took the gun, more to set Sara’s mind at ease than anything else. Maybe it will help her sleep he thought, he didn’t think he’d ever need use it. John trusted the elder, he believed in what the Brotherhood did. He’d seen the abomination, up close, if he could help fight it he would. And he’d do it gladly to spare Rosie.

The Marauders stood relived. The minigun carrying knights on the roof. The pair of scouts hidden behind rifle scopes. The two suits of power armour set to guard. All proving more than enough protection for the five strong unit. Along with the toughest field scribe they’d ever met.

Acheron saw to Jen, his own extensive medical skills making her more comfortable. Freeing her arm, wrapping it in powdery bandages that solidified almost instantly after applying water. Sara talked to her, keeping her calm. Styx questioned nearly every aspect of the retelling of the action from Crixus. Laughing at the chem addled raider that charged John, killing himself. Disappointed he didn’t get to fire so much as a shot. John ate a pre-war pouch meal. Trying to play down the pipboy aided throw as dumb luck. Avoiding dwelling on the feeling of being trapped in normally lighting fast armour.

On the wind John heard the unmistakable chopping whir of approaching Vertibirds. Soon two were circling overhead. One dropped four knights, two armoured, two without. Then flew up and out of the tight landing zone. In a way that meant there could be only one pilot flying, the final bird landed far quicker than the rest.

Elder Maxwell stepped out. Dressed in dull green, customised assault carbine hung vertically on his chest. He turned to aid Lady Avalon, still managing to look different than everyone else. Wearing a bright orange t shirt, leather tool belt over her shoulder, joined by her husband Proctor Reed. “Ronin, Groves, report in.” Sara stood as John confidently strolled over to the elder, Jen swearing under her breath. She’d just about prepared to brief the elder, but not the lady alongside.

“Sir, Ronin and Scribe Groves reporting.” John stood to attention, glad to see the pride the elder had, the lift a real lead and being in the field gave him.

“Stand easy. I understand there was a spot of bother.” The elder walked ahead as the rest followed.

“Yes sir, nothing we couldn’t handle.” John broke down the rescue, showing he understood the tactics. Mentioning little beyond the breach, using sterile euphemisms.

“Tell me Ronin, how did you breach the wall?” Lady Avalon’s question sounded more loaded than the pistol on his chest. He gave her the answer she deserved, in manner he thought she’d like.

“With your favour my lady.” She smiled, he did too, especially as he caught a glimpse of a grin from the elder, and exacerbation from the proctor.

“Who called the code victor?” The elder’s gravel voice sounded serious. John wasn’t worried, Jen made the right call.

“Scribe Groves sir.”

“Field Scribe Groves actually sir.” Jen spoke up as they climbed the stairs.

“Ah yes, the woman who refused to be medevaced.” John thought the elder sounded amused more than annoyed.

“No sir, I mean yes sir, I want—”

“Acheron checked her over, she needs fluids and rest, no reason she can’t rest here.” Sara came to her aid.

“Very well, continue Scribe Groves.”

“Field scribe sir.”

“Jen, if you keep correcting me we aren’t going to get along.” John couldn’t work out whether the battlefield promotion, or the fact the elder knew her name, shocked her more.

“They kept us...tied up, all night, on top of the mould. It didn’t take me long to work out what it was. Too damn big to be anything else.” The elder looked down, seeing the unmistakable shape, looking to John who confirmed it with a nod.

“Fine work Jen, outstanding.” The elder shook her good hand. Proud of the lowest ranked amongst them being aware, alert, on task, even held at gunpoint.

“The redecorating, our friends in black I assume?” The elder pointed to the viscera lining the mould. The rest of the bodies already dragged out. Stacked as a menacing warning to the next fools that even about fucking with the Brotherhood.

“Nope.” Sara nodded to John, then winked behind her father’s back as he turned.

“He had a grenade, several grenades...I threw my mace at him.” John didn’t know how else to put it, he daren’t mention the slowed time. “It’s a fine weapon, and I had good instructors.” The elder seemed amused, not questioning his earned ability to make a throw like that. The lady opened an ornate notebook, quickly sketching the layout below.

“You were standing where, exactly?” John led them down and stood a few feet forward from where he’d actually thrown from. Pointing out the dent forced into the steel mould cover by the blast, she really liked that. “Was it damaged?”

“Not a scratch my lady.”

“Excellent work John, yet you needn’t have called me for this.”

“We didn’t.”

John hung back and let Scribe Groves lead them down. The lady immediately began holding up a metal block. Striking it with thin bars, listening, measuring, weighing. While the efficient Proctor Reed scribbled things down, doing sums on paper and in his head. “One point eight tonnes, that’s a lot d u.”

“Can you forge it?” The elder asked them both.

“Absolutely.” The lady beamed.

“Scribe Groves, Gates has a team inbound, you may join them.” John saw the look in her bruised eyes as she watched the lady work, as did the elder, “Or you may assist the lady.”

“Yes sir, thank you sir.” Jen stood to attention as best she could. “You are to remain no more than six hours, and will leave at the first sign of your injuries worsening, understood?” She nodded, then set to taking notes as Lady Avalon reeled off equations.

John admired the elder. He managed to walk the line between rewarding achievement and the health of his latest scribe. “Tempest, Ronin, your unit is relieved, take your r and r now. I want you rested to follow up on what we find.” John didn’t understand, but he didn’t protest, although the elder saw his confusion anyway. “You’ve been in the field every day for over a month, Gates is going to analyse every scrap of data, that’s going to take time. It’s not worth the risk to go out searching blindly, not when we’ll have actionable intel in a few days.” John understood, and dreaded the thought of running into Scribe Gates. He’d probably take more than forty eight hours to explain the ground floor.