Prologue

Blood soaked into my armor. The red liquid was beginning to show through it. My back was against the wall that was the only protection between the fiend who shot me and me. I somersaulted out and squeezed the trigger of my service rifle when I came to a stop. I limped over holding my chest. “Please man, I don’t want to die, please, please,” he begged. “Y-you came here and we didn’t want any trouble, but you came and started shooting.”
I pulled the nine-millimeter out of its holster and put the barrel to his forehead. He cried out, “Please, I’ll leave this place forever.”
I squeezed the trigger and a scarlet mist emitted out of the back of his skull. The fiend squad leader was dead. Dead-Eye Fred was gone with one pull of the trigger. I pulled out my combat knife and severed his head; Major Dhatri wanted it to show to all the men to help morale.

I reached the camp and the sun had risen. Major Dhatri was a tall, dark-skinned man that stood there waiting for me. “Corporal Brian, are you okay?” he questioned as he glanced at my blood-soaked armor. The blood had clotted and fused my wound to the armor.
I reached into my sack and pulled out the blonde-haired head of the sniper; it left my hands and went into Dhatri’s.
“Dead-Eye Fred, he’s dead, you really killed the son of a—Well then, excellent work, Corporal. Rest well, Soldier. Return at sixteen-hundred hours.”
With a grin of delight on my face, I jogged towards my tent. It was home to twenty cots, but the one I had could’ve been a cinder-block bed and I would’ve fallen asleep just as fast. I stripped down to my underwear and undershirt and was caressed by the coarse linens of the blankets.

When I awoke and put on my standard-issue armor and grabbed my service rifle. “Corporal Brian Smith?” a woman in NCR armor asked. “Chief Hanlon has a message for you and this.”
She handed me a Pip-Boy 3000. I put it on my left wrist and felt extremely heavy; she also gave me a glove. I pressed a button on it labeled, “Data”. On there was a message and I opened it up.

“Corporal Smith,

You’re request to take the Ranger Test has been approved by your commanding officer, Colonel Hsu. You must report to Camp Golf to begin the testing to become a New California Ranger.

Sincerely,

Chief Hanlon”

I grinned as I headed for the door from Fort McCarran. I was finally going to be tested to become one of NCR’s finest…

I've seen that not many people on this forum appreciate writer-feedback, so I'll give you my 2-cents.

Story: Perfectly fine. NCR trooper becoming a Ranger is nothing that hasn't been overdone yet, so I'm with you on this one.

Writing: Way too fast paced. He got to the camp how late? What did he do while he travelled? Did he encounter a Brotherhood/Legion Patrol? Killing a fiend shouldn't earn you a field promotion that easily. He had to have done something far more........Ranger-ish. Like clearing out one of their outposts. Try and add flavor to the character and his travels. It's more interesting to read about him narrowly avoiding a deathclaw than him moving his butt out of his bed.

Score so far: 3.5/5
Don't be discouraged, though, keep on writing. Improvement comes with time and practice.

I think the pacing was fine towards the end, but the first couple sentences were hard to decipher. If anything, extend the fight scene just so as you can flesh out your characters combat ability again. I'll try to keep up with your installments.

Yep. That combat scene definitely needs more flesh to it's bones, and by that I mean you need to add more detail. I usually give examples, but I don't feel up to it right now.

To give a different view of things so we all can get a full perspective, I believe that it was completely believable that he got a field promotion. Not even a promotion, a chance to take a test to get promoted. For defeating a notorious gang of men by himself, he deserved the chance. I do believe more detail, no, more flavor is needed to the story, it was pretty dry. That being said, it wasn't half bad and I look forward to the ranger test, I'm curious...

Thank you, I'll take the advice. And I'll explain, this isn't just a fiend. This is one of the leaders of the fiends that has taken down a lot of troops (like Cook-Cook or Driver Nephi) and this isn't the first one he's killed. Obviously he wouldn't get a field-promotion for it, but he was already just waiting for his papers to be signed so he could head for Camp Golf.

I hope this helps you understand a little. The time he arrived was early morning (around 6:30-7:00 AM). I also hope this helps.

Chapter One: The Ranger Program Test

I looked at the huge perimeter of Camp Golf. At least fifty tents were inside the chain-link fence. A ranger veteran opened the gate for me but held his hand out in a ‘stop’ sign. “Listen Smoothskin, unless you’re going into the Ranger Program, you better turn around, because Chief Hanlon hasn’t said anything about reinforcements.”

“I’m here for the Ranger Program, Sir,” I stated. Unlike Dhatri, these people deserved respect. They didn’t kiss ass to get where they were, they were the guys who were elite enough to get where they were.

“Name’s Richard, Smoothskin,” the Ranger Veteran pulled off his mask to reveal a face with patchy skin and no hair; oddly, his right eye was missing, but his left was fine. “When the Chief assigns you to a mentor, listen to him or else it’ll be your life.”

“Richard, always with the initiates aren’t you?” an old man with gray hair and a goatee asked. “Excuse Richard, he’s a little rough, because he’s one of the few survivors of Necropolis when the super mutants raided it.”

“Chief Hanlon, I do my best to help get the green off their ears,” the Ghoul sighed. “What happened back west, I don’t want to happen again. Unity was as bad as Caesar’s Legion.”

“Richard, Unity is long gone,” Chief Hanlon reassured. “Listen, your name is Brian right? You need to listen to me; if you expect to become a ranger you’ll need to be trained in things such as hand-to-hand combat and sniping. Of course, you’ll need to take the Ranger Program Test before you get trained.”

“I see, when can I take the test?” I looked at my pip-boy; it said the time was “4:37 PM”.

“Now if you’re ready, Brian. Head behind the mansion and Quartermaster Victoria will give you the supplies you’ll need.”

I jogged to behind the mansion. There she stood with a cowboy repeater and a suit of combat armor for me. Quartermaster Victoria was a short, gray-haired woman who was at least middle-aged. I donned the combat armor and the cowboy repeater.

She handed me some instructions which read,

“Your cowboy repeater is loaded with seven rounds, use them effectively. The Combat Armor has a special mark on it that will make the ranger shoot you on sight. Your repeater is loaded with special rounds that will stun on contact, you must get into the mansion, get Chief Hanlon’s key, and return with it.”

I gulped as I read the instructions, this would be extremely difficult.