» Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:20 am Im no english student, in fact im current failing it at school, so dont be too judgemental on me. But critism is welcome.
Adventures with a Caravan
Adventures with a Caravan
As I walked out of megaton, I met Crow and his Caravan Guard Sherry. They looked the part of a being a wastelander, all dirty and scowling, until I approached when Crow suddenly put on his best ‘I’m a nice guy buy, something from me’ face. After some simple bartering between us, I got talking to Crow, introducing my self as Chase, and began talking about where he was going next.
“So where are you heading to after Megaton?” I inquired.
“Another town, why should I tell you?...” Crow replied suspiciously.
“Cause maybe you could use an extra gun…” I suggested.
“…or you are trying to set up an ambush on me and Sherry” he retorted, after thinking a few seconds he added “tell you what, you don’t look the raider, psycho killer type, how about you give a little good faith payment and Ill tell you where I’m going”
Knowing that by myself I couldn’t reach any other town by myself, I grudging accepted his proposal and handed over 100 caps.
“Well now that the informalities are out of the way, I’m heading out in about an hour, going south to Tenpenny Tower to try and get some caps out of those rich snobs” he happily explain while fondling his new caps.
I relied “Tenpenny is as good as any place to get to, I suppose I’ll be coming with you”.
“Alrighty then” he relied before turn and shouting to Sherry who was keeping a lookout, “This blighter Chase is going to be tagging along with us when we head out, try not to shoot him….much”
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I ran back into town to pick up a few extra things from craterside supply, some stimpacks, a few round of 10mm ammo for my gun and two frag grenades before grabbing a quick drink from the Brass Lantern. By the time I was out the front, Crow and Sherry were just about to leave.
Crow turned to me “No funny business, no shouting out or making loud noises to attract attention, else Sherry will put a bullet up your [censored]” pondering for a second “Don’t lag behind either, we aren’t stopping just because you get tired, we keep going until we get there, or if that takes too long, find a good place to rest for the night”.
So we set off, Crow knew the tracks to get over the hills, and between the cliffs, and it wasn’t long until we were getting a distance from Megaton. The ground was starting to level out and we had just cross where the highway used to be when…
“AHHHHHHH” Crow runs yelling, hands on head straight back the way we had come, and looking ahead I could see a group of 5 raiders some with guns, others with long wooden sticks running towards us. Sherry took the lead, dropping to her knee and picking off the raiders, I stood there in shock, not knowing what to do. Finally as the last one was left, I pulled out my 10mm and started randomly shooting at the lone survivor running towards me, all the shots going wild.
“Ratatatatata…” Sherry’s assault rifle mowed him down, blood spraying onto my shoes. It was over, I had survived, quickly a felt all over for wounds, as I couldn’t feel most of me because of all the adrenaline that was flowing though my system. Crow wandered back and handed a stimpack to Sherry who had sustained a few bullet wounds, the worst of which to her left leg. Crow turned to me;
“Extra gun my [censored], you didn’t do anything!” he exclaimed
“Neither did you! You just ran and hid the whole time, at lest I stayed out in the open!” I shouted back at him, clearly expressing my anger about his actions “You left us to a five on two stand off!”.
“So what! I pay to have protection so I don’t have to fight, you said you would be an extra gun, but instead I can see you are just useless in a fight and too stupid to run away” he yelled back.
Although I had a comeback, the adrenaline had drained enough for me to realise I could be abandoned here if he chose, and shut my loud gob up. Meanwhile Crow had been getting his mind together too and asked me;
“I hope this attack had nothing to do with you?” he inquired, obviously suspicious that I might have set him up “explains why you didn’t fight and why you didn’t run away from them…”
“I did not set you up!” I replied, getting very annoyed by this constant suspicion “how could I?!? I was at the pub the whole hour after I left you”.
“Says who?” he sarcastically replied know that I had no way to prove I really was.
“Says me” said Sherry, “Now stop your testosterone fuelled fight and lets get moving, I don’t want to be walking around here in the dark”
“But Sherry..” whined Crow
“I mean it, he is not a danger to us, he is just a snivelling wastelander that wanted to get away from megaton, now shut and move”
I felt hurt, I didn’t like getting insulted, especially as I was standing right here with them, but I saw her logic, and followed suit as we once again headed off towards Tenpenny towers.
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As we came up to a rise Crow stopped, Sherry turned to me;
“Over this hill is a known raider ambush spot, so we have to take it careful and not alert them to our presence” she said in a very serious tone.
Sherry crept up to the top and surveyed over the landscape.
“Damnit! Their’s one standing on the road, and…”
“Crack!” a bullet whizzed over her head, missing her by centimetres. Sherry ducked back, pulled out her rifle and stood up taking aim over the hill. This was it, my chance to shine as Crow crouched looking for something to duck behind, this was my chance to prove I wasn’t a ‘snivelling wastelander’ and that I had the guts needed to survive in this cruel world.
Jumping up, I ripped out my pistol and took aim at a raider, he was totally exposed in the middle of the road, easiest shot in the world… “BAM!” I took the shot, the recoil of the gun shifting my aim, needless to say, the bullet when wide, hitting a nearby rock and ricocheting into the distance. Sherry took aim, every shot from her assault rifle hitting their target, and the raider fell down with a dozen bullet holes as a reward.
Two more raiders, upon hearing the shots, came running into view before diving behind some rocks, Sherry did similar, and long shoot out began to look likely. Suddenly I realised that I was in a great position, the rocks barred the raider’s from seeing me, allowed me to get close to them, I also had two frag grenades on me, which I could use to either kill them, or at least flush them out so Sherry could have a clear shot.
I slowly inched forward, Sherry could see me now, but had no clue what I was doing, but having some common sense, she didn’t shout out of warn me to get back. Maybe she realised I had a plan, maybe she didn’t care whether or not I was shot, it doesn’t matter, what does is that I made it to the rocks without the raider’s realising.
I grabbed both grenades and pulled their pins, waited a second, then reached up and dropped them over the rock, before throwing myself forward away from the rock.
“Oh [censored]!” one of the raider’s shouted, as he dived out from behind the rock, Sherry hearing this poked her head out and saw him in the open. She lined up her shot and “CRACK’ his head exploded into bloody chunks. Meanwhile the other raider had thrown one of the grenades away and was turning to grab the other when it exploded, he was hit with a painful explosive force, before being shredded by metal fragments from the grenade, his blood and flesh littering the area behind the rock.
Sherry ran down to me, hauling me into the air and giving me a huge hug and kiss on the cheek.
“You beauty! I knew you had that look of determination in your eye!” she exclaimed as she let me go. I tried to stand, but my legs felt weak and I just ended up dropping to the ground and blacking out.
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I awoke in a built up area that I presume was what I had seen in the distance when we had been walking earlier, Fort…something…I couldn’t remember. Suddenly the rush of what had happened came back, and I began to think, have I been carried here by friend or foe? I was scared to look.
I heard Crow’s voice;
“We can’t stay here long, there are too many raider’s nearby”
“And we are not leaving him to just die or be enslaved by their hand, if you insist we leave we will put him on the Brahmin” Sherry argued back.
“There is no room, come on we are going…” angrily whispered Crow, stamping his foot in the protest, he was obviously impatient to get going again, but he couldn’t go anywhere without Sherry.
“Hello?” I spoke out, as if I had just awoken.
“Look he’s awake, get him up, give him some meds and let’s go!” Crow stated to Sherry.
As I sat up, I looked around, we were under a building’s overhang, and a road was nearby. There were many other buildings around, they were holed up in the city, hence Crow’s obvious concern about raiders who often lived in such areas. Sherry jabbed me in the back with a stimpack, before then stabbing me with some Jet, finally she threw me a bottle of Buffout saying “Take some and get up”.
After having all these concoctions forced into me, I stood up feeling queasy, but Sherry strong arm around me stopped me from falling over. Crow lead the Brahmin over and had my arm tied onto it as he lead it out from under the building, Sherry took point, rifle at the ready, she was clearly nervous about something. I felt the dying rays of sunshine on my face as we left, from what I knew of geography, we weren’t going to make it to Tenpenny Tower before nightfall, leading to the question, where were we going to go?
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Shots came at us from behind, the raiders had been waiting and their scouts had spotted us as we left. A half demolished high rise stood erect nearby, Crow jogged the Brahmin into it, and me also as it was the only thing keeping me up.
“[censored], [censored], [censored], [censored], I told you this would happen!” shouted Crow, now that he had nowhere to run, he had pulled out his pistol and started shooting alongside Sherry. A grenade bounced into the room, neither Crow nor Sherry had seen it.
“Look out!” I shouted, but it was useless over the gunfire. I closed my eyes waiting for the explosion and the end of my life. I waited and waited, but nothing happened, all I heard was the gunfire from Sherry, Crow and the raiders as they both exchanged shots. The grenade must have been a dud! What luck, except for the whole out numbered by raider’s thing.
The gunfire slowed as both sides began to conserve ammo, and as the raiders slipt up to try and flank the building and catch us off guard from behind. As soon as the fight started to slow, Crow ran over.
“This is the only chance you’ll get to see tomorrow” explained Crow “Sherry is going to cover our escape”
“But what about her?” I asked, expecting the worst
“She knew this might happen and was always willing to sacrifice herself to keep her companions alive” said Crow as he hitched up and starting leading the Brahmin, and me, out a side exit in the building. I protested, but did not have the strength to get free and stay with Sherry.
She gave us a final glance as we left, and as I looked into her eyes I could see that she didn’t want to die yet, but knew it was her duty. That moment of glancing away from the battle had cost her a bullet to her arm, forcing her to pay attention on the battle at hand, meaning the last image I saw of her was of a determined fighting women as I was pulled around the corner.
Crow lead the Brahmin up a nearby hill, through a maze of large grey rocks, looking closely I could see his eye we’re teary after losing a long-time companion. As we neared the top of the ridge an almighty explosion rocked the ground, looking back I could see that the raiders had launched a barge of rockets at the building we had been in. The gunfire stopped and the battle was over.
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As night fell, Crow found an abandoned truck that would supply protection for the night from all the dangers nearby. Crow pulled out a stack of frag mines that had been tied together from out of a pack and began to trap the area around the truck, while it may kill the first enemy, if there was a group it would provide an alarm that there was a danger nearby. He untied me and I stumbled over and crashed onto a mattress, where I was asleep within minutes.
“Wake up you wasteland scum” a foreign, almost metallic voice yelled into my ear.
“[censored]!” I screamed as I was kicked in the side.
I was up quickly, and grabbed for my gun, but all my hand met was air.
“What the hell” I exclaimed looking to where my gun should have been, before looking up at my visitors.
In front of me we’re two outcast brotherhood of steel paladin’s, each in full power armour. One had his gun out, but had it pointing to the ground, while the other one, closest to me, had his pistol holstered.
“Why are you in a restricted area?”
What was going on here? and where was Crow and his Brahmin? While I was trying to get my thoughts in order the outcast was slowly getting annoyed. Suddenly he lashed out, punching me in the jaw.
“Answer my questions!” he shouted at me as I lay on the ground clutching my jaw as pain spasmed across my face.
“I s-s-o-rr-rr-rr-y” I mumbled out of my painful mouth “I did-n-t kn-ow-ow”
“Well unlucky for you, we are under orders to kill anyone who comes here” he sternly replied “so we will have to ‘put you down’”. As he said this he clubbed me across the head again, this time knocking me out cold.
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I was kneeling on the ground with a blindfold across my eyes, my hands tied behind me, same with my feet, and there was a gun pointed into the back of my head.
“I, Brother Ruck, sentence this citizen of the capital wasteland to death for the offence of trespassing on restricted land and conspiracy against the true Brotherhood” said a voice from behind, mostly likely from the person with the gun at my head. “This citizen will be executed at 1:00pm local time by…”
But his speech was cut short as a loud siren cut through the air, followed by many gunshots.
“Super Mutants attacking the compound, all units available must report to fend off the attack, I repeat Super Mutants attacking…” came across from loudspeakers.
“[censored]” said Brother Ruck behind me as he removed his gun from my head and ran off, leaving me blind and stranded wherever I happened to be.
Over the next few minutes the gunfire got closer and closer, until I could hear the shouts and screams of the combatants of both sides. Silence suddenly came across the compound, no siren or fighting, footsteps came close with a heavy puffing sound.
“Ahhhh! Fresh bound meat for us friends” said the voice who was unmistakably a super mutant.
I was picked up and the blindfold was dislodged from over one eye, I had a quick glance around where I was. The ‘compound’ was a small concrete building that was surrounded by a solid looking metal fence. There were power armoured bodies and dead super mutants scattered all around, along with many, many bullet casings.
“Nightie night” said the super mutant as a wooden board flew at my face, again knocking me out.
To be continued……
Will Chase ever get to Tenpenny Tower? What happened to Crow? What more could go wrong one what was to be a simple caravan trip?
