Fallout: Wasteland Warrior

[Retlaw83]

Here's kind of the prelude to the next modding project for Tactics I'm going to undertake. It will be highly story driven, and more RPG-like than the original Tactics. It takes place in between Tactics and Fallout 2 in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.

[Retlaw83]

The Midwest Brotherhood Humm-Vee rolled eastward down the remnants of Interstate Route 76. The going for Paladin Lebron’s squad had recently begun getting rough, as many of the road bridges in the hilly region between the Republic of Cleveland and the warriors’ ultimate destination, Steel City, were either too decayed to be trusted or were gone completely. When they came to one of these bridges, Junior Knight Horris would either drive over the median strip or do a three-point turn depending on whether the lane divider was a concrete wall or a grass patch. He would then find the nearest offramp, and the squad would take residential and commercial roads that were used for mundane everyday routines before the Great War, until Horris found the next suitable onramp for 76.

While this method of travel was much slower than taking the mostly intact alternate routes, Lebron felt that it would be extremely difficult to get lost if they followed a road that traveled due east. Also, it minimized exposure to the people and communities of the Republic of Cleveland, which would almost undoubtedly soon be an enemy of the Midwest Protectorate that had been forged by the Brotherhood of Steel.

Trying to recover from the effects of the War, Steel City, also known as Three Rivers, turned back to the industry that had started the town centuries ago; producing steel. They were the main suppliers of new steel for the wasteland that stretched from the Rocky Mountains to New England, and were beholden to one but themselves.

However, with the newly powerful Republic of Cleveland right next door, the ruling council of Steel City was getting nervous. If the Army of Cleveland decided to take Steel City by force, there was nothing the city could do aside from hiring mercenaries from the surrounding Pennsylvanian duchies.

Lebron’s squad had been given the mission to go to Steel City as ambassadors. It was the Brotherhood’s hope that they could be annexed to the Protectorate in exchange for defense from Cleveland, and among the equipment carried by the Humm-Vee was a HAM radio to be used in a dialog between Brotherhood and Steel City elders on that subject.

“Here we are, boys and girls,� Lebron said, pointing upwards as the Humm-Vee rolled down one of the smoother portions of I-76. The sign the paladin pointed to was a battered and rusting piece of pole-suspended metal. The words “Welcome to Pennsylvania� were barely legible on its scarred and battered surface.

“Hooray,� Squire Allison said in sarcastic voice. Initiate HR-120, a humanoid robot controlled by the Calculator, turned its head, recorded the information and transmitted it back to Brotherhood High Command in Vault 0. The robot, for all its intelligence assets, was really no better than a PIPboy that could transmit both ways. It was regarded by the rest of the squad as a Mr. Handy wannabe, an epithet which HR-120’s non-emotional AI reacted to with indifference and the brain of General Barnaky, which controlled the Calculator, found mildly distasteful.

Initiate Dwight Preston of Coldwater – the people of Coldwater had always prided themselves on the fact that they had last names – idly looked down at the safety on his weapon as the Humm-Vee was hit with an explosive rocket.

The vehicle spun around in circles and skidded across all three lanes of the road as bullets began plinking off of it. Paladin Lebron, who was the only Brotherhood soldier not screaming his head off, was about to order his people to return fire when the Humm-Vee smashed into a guard rail.

Dwight shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs as he looked over at Allison, who was impaled on HR-120’s unyielding metal body. The robot looked at the corpse attached to him – Dwight thought the robot might actually be experiencing something like horror as it tried to process what it was seeing – and then clanked to a motionless hulk as a hail of armor piercing bullets tore into it.

The last thing Dwight remembered before feeling a couple bullets enter him was Paladin Lebron kicking open the front passenger-side door and spraying the foliage on either side of the road with his minigun. Gradually, the piercing belch of the belt-fed weapon and the image of Paladin Lebron both faded as Dwight’s world grew dark.

EDIT: Revised this a little.