» Wed Oct 17, 2012 10:06 am Political instability, a pro-NCR terrorist militia, caravan attacks and a mysterious warrior in black. All part of normal life in independent New Vegas... or is it?
Chapter One
20 year old Jaden Storm, once a simple courier, now had a lot of titles to his name. Doctor of the Followers of the Apocalypse, Brotherhood of Steel Paladin, controller of the Big Empty, rescuer of Zion, conqueror of the Divide and now President elect of the New Vegas Alliance. All of this would have been doubly shocking to most as Jaden looked even younger than he was. He was only 5'10, brown hair in military style and with looks that most girls would have described as 'cute', it was easy for people to underestimate him. The soft looks masked a steel hard determination; plus he was certainly not soft in body either. His muscles were well developed, thanks to his intense training and the medical implants inside of him. His combat talent was only exceeded by his diplomatic ones; he seemed to have the ability to negotiate his way out of nearly any situation. In the last 2 months he'd persuaded the Great Kahns to let go of their vendetta against the NCR; they'd now left the Mojave for a new home. He'd brought the Boomers out of isolation, persuaded the King to stop his feud in Freeside and even stop a schism between Super Mutants at Jacobstown. His only failure on this front, at least as far as Jaden was concerned, was his inability to talk his nemesis Ulysses down at the Divide. He'd been able to save the world from another nuclear holocaust but not Ulysses himself. Like Elijah at the Sierra Madre before him, Ulysses refused to back down...and it had cost both of them their lives.
Even with all the hardship and struggle Jaden and New Vegas had gone through he didn't regret most of his choices over the last six months and certainly not given his recent battle with Ulysses. For all his novice ability at ruling at least he could say he cared about New Vegas, whereas the other factions had just been intent on using it for their own ends. Nonetheless the reckoning with Ulysses had unearthed some unpleasant facts about his previous life about which he could remember very little. Desperate to find some truth he'd been undergoing therapy with Doctor Usanagi to try and recover some of his other lost memories following 2 big moments of self discovery at Bitter Springs and then later at the Divide.
"Your guests are arriving now."
Jaden turned to see Arcade Gannon, Veronica Santangelo and the stone faced Craig Boone approaching from the elevator.
"You're making us feel underdressed Jaden," Veronica joked on seeing him in his formal suit given to him by the White Gloves. "Maybe I should get into my dress!"
"Doesn't exactly go with your power fist, does it?" Jaden shot back. "Given your Elder's coming you're on security today. Perhaps next time?"
"You always say that!" Veronica pouted. "I'll hold you to that promise sometime. I'd best go and send our guests up."
"No sign of the Patriots knowing about today's meeting, all of them made it to Vegas." Boone was typically all business.
"No leaks high up at least then," Jaden was relieved about that.
The Patriots were a bit of an enigma; coming out of nowhere 3 weeks ago to start causing chaos on Vegas' caravans. They were fairly well equipped: green combat armour, assault carbines, grenades, explosives, some laser and plasma weapons but the biggest shock was that some had Pulse guns. For a nation largely defended by Securitrons that was very bad news and, whilst he was certain the Patriots had some covert NCR backing, Jaden couldn't figure out for the life of him where the Patriots had got these weapons. He was having his 'friends' at the Big Empty along with the Brotherhood try and come up with a solution or counter to this problem.
The Patriots' demands were simple: dissolution of the New Vegas government and annexation into the NCR. So far though the response had been simple too: go [censored] yourselves. If anything the attacks were stiffening the spines of every New Vegas citizen and were causing a lot of backlash, Jaden and the King had their work cut out keeping the peace in Freeside lately.
Boone, for his part, despised the Patriots. He was glad that President Tandi was in her grave now; knowing the country she'd established was now associated with Raider style caravan attacks would have given her a heart attack for sure. As far as he was concerned they denigrated the very flag they claimed to serve and he treated them like Legion: so far he had 17 of them on his kill tally.
"I don't think they'll attack a big target for awhile," Boone smirked. "Not after what we did to them last time."
Just after New Year the Patriots had tried upping the ante hitting the Followers' clinic east of the caravan station but it went spectacularly wrong. Even though the attackers wore combat armour and looked very professional; their actions proved them anything but. Instead of blowing up the building instantly with the launcher they had, they'd tried shooting their way in and got into a full gun battle with the Follower guards. Despite having better armour and equipment they couldn't rush the door and ended up stuck there until Jaden happened to show up for his session and ended up killing all 4 as they stupidly tried to rush him. It was more like fighting Raiders than professional soldiers.
Worrying that there might be more he got inside and helped the Followers clear out. They'd just had enough time to get themselves, their Auto-Doc and most of their equipment out of the building before a Vertibird came up from the South and levelled the building with a hail of rockets. The Patriots' victory was short lived; all the action had attracted the attention of four Securitrons who locked onto it with their missiles and blew it out of the sky. Since then the Patriots had stuck to caravan raids. Jaden moved Usanagi and her friends into some spare rooms at the Lucky 38 until a new place could be found for her.
Although damaging the failed raid had turned up some interesting facts. Their armour wasn't as good as it first looked; it was in pretty poor condition and obviously mass produced rush jobs. The remains of the Vertibird revealed that it was a repainted NCR one; a fact which caused no end of embarrassment to Ambassador Crocker when Jaden confronted him with it. This certainly meant someone in the NCR was slipping equipment and weapons to his hidden enemies but that the quality and experience of the Patriots was spotty at best. Obviously whoever was running the show with them hadn't got too many volunteers from the NCR army so he'd been forced to use wastelanders and Raiders to make up the numbers.
However Jaden still hadn't found their main base or had any success identifying their leader or backers, hence today's conference. Normally he only had meetings with the 3 strip families as most business was covered there, this would be the first meeting of all New Vegas' settlements.
Swank, the new boss of the Chairmen, was first to arrive. He'd been Jaden's staunch supporter following Benny's untimely demise at his hands. He was followed swiftly by Marjorie of the White Gloves. She too had become very fond of their new chief for ridding them of Mortimer and his cannibal ways whilst keeping it all under wraps. Cachino, the Omerta leader, was the last of the big 3 to show. Jaden had never fully trusted him but he had to give credit where it was due. Cachino had kept his promise to run a clean ship at Gomorrah and the girls there enjoyed a much better working life than they had under Big Sal and Nero. Of course there were other reasons all of the big 3 respected Jaden: namely he wasn't House and certainly wouldn't look the other way like he used to do. He'd purged all their houses violently once and they'd no doubt he'd do it again if he thought it necessary.
"Isn't this everyone, boss?" Cachino asked once he'd sat down at the table.
"Not today. Every settlement and faction is sending someone."
"Rexie!"
"Speaking of which..." Jaden looked up to see the King getting off the elevator with Julie Farkas. The two were enduring a friendly greeting from his old cybernetic dog.
"Looking good, Jaden."
"You too, King. How's things in Freeside? Still rough?"
"I won't lie, it's getting ugly. I'm having to put the boys on double shifts to keep the peace. "
"It's causing a bigger drain on our meds too," Julie pitched in. She'd had to treat a lot more injuries since the number of street brawls had gone up.
"I'll get onto Happy Trails and start some more scavenging runs," Jaden promised.
Elder Mcnamara was the next out of the elevator. He'd had problems within his chapter on his decision to attend and become part of the New Vegas government but he'd run roughshod over those objections. Jaden had shielded the Brotherhood from outside aggressors and was the best bet to keep the NCR out as far as Mcnamara was concerned.
Johnson Nash, Raquel, Sunny Smiles and Cliff Briscoe had never dreamed they'd end up in Vegas never mind in the Lucky 38. It was hard believing the same courier they'd met just three or so months back was now de facto ruler here.
"Just two more?" Boone had been counting them in.
"Two of the most interesting, yeah," Jaden admitted. "Veronica should be fetching Sarah about now."
Three minutes later Veronica arrived with a blond girl in a vault jumpsuit, actually she was guiding her as she was blindfolded.
"Okay Sarah, you can take it off," Veronica advised. "You're in the 38 now."
A relieved Sarah Weintraub pulled off her blindfold and she was welcomed in by an equally relieved Jaden. He'd had to use all of his persuasion skills to get her out of her precious Vault and a blindfold to get past her fear of open spaces.
"Nice pad, Jaden."
"My great big Vault in the sky," Jaden agreed whilst suppressing a smile. That was how he'd had to describe his home to get her out here. "Have a seat."
"Just Jacobstown's representative now," Arcade said with some worry.
Jaden shared that. "Let's hope he doesn't cause too much of a panic and everyone here can handle him."
"Handle who?" Julie couldn't help asking.
The elevator doors opened again producing a gasp of shock as they got the answer.
"Glad you could make it Marcus," Jaden greeted the huge first gen Super Mutant.
Marcus smiled. "Likewise my friend. When we first met I had a feeling that you'd be doing great things, good to see I wasn't mistaken."
"Hope you didn't have too much trouble getting in."
"Got a few stares but no more than that. You did take Lily into the Strip before so I didn't expect to get trouble given I'm just visiting."
Jaden turned back to the rest of his guests. "And before I get any smart ass comments the first guy that gives any gets thrown out on their ass! Marcus is older and wiser than all of us, he's the mayor of Jacobstown and he and his mutants provide a lot of our Brahmin and Bighorner meat. Clear?"
Seeing Jaden was dead serious everyone gave quick agreements as Marcus descended the stairs and took his place at the table.
Jaden quickly joined them at the table's head. "Now everyone's here let's get started. I know bringing everyone here is unusual and many would have rather had this meeting closer to home. But given what's happening lately I think you'll agree on the need for secrecy and security."
"Not a problem from where I'm sitting," Sunny replied. "The problem is those Patriot bastards."
"Couldn't have said that better myself," Cachino pitched in. "Are you sure that paper pushing w
easel up at the embassy doesn't know anything?"
Jaden had kept the NCR embassy functioning after his takeover and Crocker was still assigned there. The only other change on the Strip was the human guards. The NCR military police had been replaced by Jaden's newly formed Vegas militia; trained by Boone and Jaden personally at McCarran airfield. They were small in number but more capable than Raiders and NCR grunts.
"Oddly enough yes I'm sure," Jaden answered. "Crocker and the NCR government aren't backing this; it's hurting their rep no end. Hell the last two attacks hurt them more than us."
That earned a chuckle around the room. The caravans that Jaden was talking about had been carrying caps back to the NCR after they'd finished trading. Vegas ended up with the goods but the NCR ended up out of pocket thanks to their so called 'Patriots'.
"We still haven't found where these bastards are hitting from?" Cliff Briscoe chipped in.
Jaden shook his head. "No. They're not in Red Rock Canyon. That's been empty since the Kahns left. Somewhere in the south or outside the border is the best guess for now."
"We'll need to do more than guess soon," Swank warned. "Alright these guys aren't doing much more than irritating but the fact they're with the NCR is turning up the heat."
"He's not wrong," the King agreed. "I just don't get these Patriots. All they're doing is making people more ornery at them and the NCR."
"It does feel like desperation on someone's part. I've got some idea who," Jaden growled. "Alright, I'll send the militia down to Primm, Goodsprings and Novac until we find a way to put the Patriots in the hurt locker, just in case they get a little more ambitious."
"They probably will when they see their current tactics not working," Boone warned. "They're trying to get us to roll over whilst doing as little damage as possible so the NCR has something to take over."
"Won't happen," Sunny muttered with distaste. "They're no better than the gangers were. We're not going to cave in just because a few bastards with guns show their teeth and bark for it."
There were murmurs of agreement all round.
Jaden turned to the King. "Do you think Freeside's going to be safe for the moment even with all this going on?"
"It's tough but I think we can handle it."
"If you need militia or Securitron backup just say the word. How about you Marcus?"
"I don't see that we need it, not yet anyway. We'll stay vigilant."
"We'll just have to hope we get a lucky break the next time they pop their heads up. Now how's the reclamation of Vault 3 going?"
As they turned to other matters little did anyone know that Jaden's wish was about to be granted in full...
Vegas trade caravan- SE of Novac
Rose of Sharon Cassidy, Cass to most, was not having a good month. It had started off pretty well; she'd jumped at the chance to restart her caravan business again after the Crimson Caravan and Van Graff conspiracy fell apart. On their departure a lot of the Crimson employees, feeling disgusted and betrayed by Alice's duplicity, quit and joined Cass in her new venture as she'd inherited the Crimson compound and the Silver Rush after both disgraced companies cleared out.
Since then the luck had changed course drastically with the Patriot problem. Her caravans had been the primary targets and they'd lost a lot of people and goods over the last 2 weeks. The only silver lining was that the Patriots weren't an entirely professional force: that much was obvious in the last 2 attacks where they'd hit NCR property instead of theirs. It sickened Cass that this was all being done in the name of her country; the NCR she'd known and lived under would never have sanctioned this. She and Boone had gone out of their way to persuade Jaden that the NCR could still be a good ally; something like this going on set their case back god knows how far.
"You ok Cass? You seem out of it." Cass was jerked out of her thoughts by the voice of Mary, one of her top caravaneers and friends.
"Just frustrated, that's all. Uh, where are we?"
"We're just coming up to the fork to Clark Field and we'll soon be in Novac."
Cass sighed in relief. Despite this being one of the safest runs around, Nelson to Novac, any caravan trip was a risk nowadays.
"Well don't let yourself get too distracted or..."
Mary's head suddenly exploded, sending a spray of blood and brains all over Cass as Mary's body crumpled onto her, she lost her balance and fell to the ground under the weight. Cass knew her friend had been sniped from behind but was trapped under her body and couldn't push it off. She certainly couldn't reach her shotgun or even move.
The other 3 caravan guards had been picked off easily by similar sniper shots from over the ridge, leaving just the Brahmin and cart untouched.
Cass was working her way out from under the body and wondering just where the Securitron patrol in this area was.
"Hahahaha!"
She looked up to see 4 men in Patriot uniform emerging from what had been the old Viper encampment.
"If you're looking for your tin robots they're back there," the red haired leader sniggered as he held up a pulse gun. "Go get the cart. We'll take the stuff with us this time."
As his three friends hurried away he stood over the fallen Cass.
"Pity you decided to turn your back on your own country, Miss Cassidy."
Cass snorted in contempt as she saw a crudely drawn bear on his military green armour. "Look who's talking! You're no better than the Fiends, you [censored] whisky dike!"
At that the man lost all his pleasantry. "Well [censored] you! I was going to take you alive, ransom you off and make you comfortable while I did..."
He was cut off by the huge wad of spit that Cass spat at him.
"Fine, your loss! I guess your hero boss will just have to grieve over your corpse...uggh!"
For the second time he was cut off, but this time by the bullet from behind that slammed through his throat. Blood spurted out of the gaping wound as he crashed to the floor.
Cass couldn't see any shooter; she knew he was using a silencer as she'd heard no shot and that meant...
One of the other Patriots, preoccupied with looking through the cart, seemed to freeze up on his feet for a second before a river of blood spewed from him also. His throat had been cut. Cass had to look hard but she just managed to see the shimmering, rippling 'ghost' releasing his victim before somehow jumping clean over the cart and out of her view. Not that she needed it; the screams of terror were all anyone needed.
"Jesus Christ what the [censored] are you...ARRRRGGGGH!"
That was followed by an ear rending CRACK and a gurgling that soon died away leaving eerie silence. Cass finally managed to lever the body off and got back on her feet. Hefting her shotgun she moved warily around the cart. Even she wasn't prepared for what awaited her.
Both the other Patriots were dead, needless to say, but it was how they'd been killed that stunned Cass. One's head had been smashed in, quite literally, on the cart. He'd been slammed into it so hard his skull had shattered on impact. The other had choked to death due to his Adam's apple being crushed.
"Cass!"
"Justin! Thank god," Cass hurried over to the only surviving caravaneer feeling very guilty. He was new, only 17 years old, and she'd brought him in on this thinking it would be a milk run. Now he was shot in the arm and covered in blood, not all of it his.
"Where'd he go?"
"Did you see who it was?" Half of Cass wanted to thank their rescuer. The other half wanted to run as far away as she could seeing what he was capable of.
"Only for a few seconds," Justin gushed. "He was dressed all in black, head covered too, I couldn't see his face. I didn't want to either...[censored]."
Justin was choking back bile looking at the gory scene around him.
"Take it easy," Cass eased him up onto his feet and passed him some water.
"Thanks." He downed the whole bottle. "They never stood a chance. He smashed one guy's head in and then kicked that poor bastard straight in the throat. Just stood there and watched him die. I thought he was going to do me too. I tried to play dead but instead he jammed this in my arm."
He passed Cass a spent stimpak. She quickly looked around down both ways on the road and on the hills. Nothing. This guy gets in at the last minute and then takes out four armed men in under a minute, three of them by hand?
Other than Jaden she couldn't think of anyone capable of such a thing and he was nowhere near Novac right now.
"Do you require assistance?" Cass was jerked out of her thoughts by a single Securitron that had arrived from Novac's direction.
"Yeah. Go back to Novac and get some more men out here. We're gonna need a lot of help with this mess!" Cass barked.
As the Securitron wheeled away Cass went over to comfort the unhurt but scared pack Brahmin. So much for a milk run. She took another wary look around. She was grateful to be still alive but she doubted they'd seen the last of this mysterious warrior, not by a long shot.
Little did she know it but said warrior was still watching her from the nearby hilltop. He was still stealthed of course so there was no risk. He waited around long enough to see that help arrived and then moved north. He would have stayed to do it himself but keeping a low profile was paramount. No one here had any idea what was coming. It would make Hoover Dam look like a minor annoyance...
