» Mon Jan 31, 2011 3:20 pm Chapter One: In The Wasteland
The shattered concrete of the ruined highway cracked under the weight of Defender-Sergeant Tomas’s armored boots as he led his troops down the desolate road. God[censored] dead-end salvage missions, he thought. Sure, we need every lead we can get, but that doesn’t mean I gotta appreciate being told to dangle my ass out in the middle of raider territory for the sake of a couple of guns.
The small squad of Brotherhood Outcasts had been sent on a days-long journey to the western edge of the Capital Wasteland. The techies at the Anchorage Simulation Outpost thought they had uncovered data suggesting a small cache of Pre-War weaponry was hidden away in the rusted-out ruins of a U.S. Army installation stuck out seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It was hardly an exceptional find, Tomas reflected, but these days the Outcasts needed anything they could get, what with the latest escapades of Lyons’s pack of misguided, holier-than-thou do-gooders.
Tomas could still hardly believe the rumors coming in of Lyons’s reactivation of the purifier and rout of the Enclave, yet each day they gained more and more strength. Maybe we did choose the wrong side, he thought bitterly. That old fool Lyons is sitting pretty on top of a pile of the best tech there is while we’re stuck chasing after rumors and whispers. Thomas suspected most every Outcast was asking himself that at one point or another these days. And yet, there was nothing for it. They’d made their choice, and they intended to stick by it. No matter how much tech Lyons got his hands on, he had abandoned the Brotherhood’s guiding principles; the Outcasts intended to see those principles upheld or die trying.
And so Tomas found himself and the five members of his squad tramping down the cratered pavement en route to the reported location of the installation. This far away from downtown D.C., raider gangs of all sorts ruled the wasteland with an iron fist. There might be the odd independent community here or there, but for the most part, the whole area was swarming with the scum of the earth. To top things off, Squad Ahab was days away from the nearest Outcast presence, and certainly wouldn’t be receiving any help from the locals. No good soldier would ever put himself in a position like this willingly, but orders were orders, and tech was tech. The Outcasts journeyed on, keeping a wary eye on the cresting, rugged terrain surrounding the road. It’d be a bold group of raiders that attacked a group of obviously competent and lethally well-equipped soldiers; however, raiders, chem-addled trash that they were, weren’t exactly noted for their decision-making skills.
The second man in line, Defender Tarn, suddenly snapped his hand up to signal a stop. The Outcasts halted immediately with impressive precision as Thomas turned around.
“What’s the matter? I didn’t see anything.” Tarn chuckled, “Could use a pair of glasses, sir. Check that pile over there; that’s definitely not natural. Looks like a heap of bodies.” He gestured to a small mound a few hundred feet away. Squinting through his visor, Thomas saw that the stack did indeed distinctly resemble a mound of corpses. “Well, damn, and here I was hoping we’d get to that base without any excitement. Let’s check it out; if raiders’ve been through here recently, it’d be damn nice to get some advance warning.”
The squad trudged off the road, its members terse and on edge; fresh bodies were usually an excellent sign that raiders were nearby, and in a killing mood. Thomas knelt over the pile and inspected it more closely. There were quite a few corpses heaped together; some were clad in the simple cloths and armors favored by wasteland scavengers, while still more wore the trademark scrapped-together leather-and-metal armor of raiders. All of the bodies were bruised and bloody, with many bearing gruesome injuries clearly inflicted by high-caliber weaponry. “Looks like some scavvers and raiders had a little disagreement. Can’t really tell who won; looks like they both got shot up pretty bad.” He stood and turned to his squadmates. “Any ideas, fellows?” The ever-observant Tarn commented, “Not a lot of bodies for a full group of scavvers in an area this dangerous. Raiders won, we’d probably be looking at a hell of a lot more waster corpses, unless this group was pretty damn small. My guess? Raiders tried to hit some scavver caravan, got more than they bargained for, and beat feet. Then the scavvies dumped all the bodies together a ways off the road so people wouldn’t notice there’d been a big group of ‘em through here.”
Tomas sighed. “Unfortunately, I’m inclined to agree. Which means they’re gonna be pissed off and looking for somebody to take it out on. Let’s hope we stay out of their way; as satisfying as it would be to light up some raider ass, I don’t want to be out here any longer than absolutely necessary.” The squad murmured its assent; while they were all brave men and professional soldiers, none particularly relished the idea of wandering through remote areas of the Wasteland without support.
The Outcasts gave the bodies a cursory inspection before moving on; all useful supplies and ammunition seemed to have been stripped. Hardly surprising, thought Tomas, given the dearth of resources in the Wasteland, but unfortunate; even the technologically advanced Outcasts could always use material to trade with the locals. They might be ignorant savages for the most part, but cooperation with the wastelanders was a necessary fact of life at Fort Independence. Perhaps that was a sign of how far the Brotherhood had fallen, but necessities had to be met.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Tomas ordered the squad to move out. The sun hung low over the horizon, casting distorted shades of purple, red and orange across the beaten landscape. They wouldn’t have much time before night fell, and Tomas wanted to find a more defensible position to make camp before darkness came.
Once I got to understand them a little better, though, I grew to really respect them as a faction. I felt like doing some writing and figured I'd write a story about them, as they really don't get a lot of publicity and I love 'em to death. 
