» Mon Oct 17, 2011 6:04 am Wasteland Crusades II
Part 1: War on Eighties (1 of 2)
Aurora, Utah
The sound of destruction, rubble collapsing, bullets sliding through the air, and men screaming, filled the city of Aurora. Though it had once been a city reduced to rubble and ash by the nuclear fire of the Great War, the New Canaanites had rebuilt, returning the city to a place of civilization and culture. It had been a safe haven before the Eighties, strengthened by their war in the south, invaded and took control.
A grim smile crept over Vanguard Lucas Smith’s features as he considered the irony. He knew why the New Canaanites had surrendered their town so swiftly, why they had evacuated their women and children to the Great Salt Lake and let the Eighties take Aurora. All fled before the Wastes Templar. Those who didn’t either bent their knee or died.
A hiss and snap, the telltale sound of a bullet biting through the air and slamming into the rubble next to his head, brought Lucas from his thoughts and back to Aurora. Kneeling behind what had once been a place of worship, Lucas peered over the edge of the dilapidated wall he’d been using as cover. The Eighties had thus far proven unwilling to bend their knee to the Templar, and, subsequently, were being massacred.
Bringing his Friction Rifle to his shoulder, the Vanguard turned and opened fire on the trio of Eighties who’d been shooting in his general direction. Overall, the Eighties, while highly mobile and violent, were not well organized. They would recklessly charge into the fray, only to realize their folly and attempt to run. The trio who’d foolishly attempted to kill Lucas did the same, and, like others before, they were mercilessly cut down by Templar firepower.
Though he took no pleasure in slaughtering thugs and other heretics, Lucas understood the need to do so. Once Aurora had been taken, Emissary Richard, often called Richard the Desert Jackal, would move south. The Eighties, cut in two, would scatter, and the road to New Vegas would be laid open. As one of the elite Vanguards, Lucas could count each and every slain tribal and heretic as his own contribution to that goal.
As he moved further into the city, operating as most of Richard’s Vanguards did, alone as a part of a greater whole, Smith’s radio crackled to life.
“Requesting immediate assistance at First and Main,” a Templar called hastily. “Enemy armor is advancing on our position.” As if punctuating his sentence a muffled thump echoed off the nearby buildings. This was not Lucas’s first battle, nor his first gunfight. In fact, he was very experienced in such matters. As such, he could discriminate between the sporadic pops of small arms fire and deafening booms of heavy artillery.
Moving in the direction of the noise, and long Third Street, Lucas wondered if anyone else had heard the artillery shot. If they hadn’t he might be arriving alone, the other Templar assuming they had misinterpreted the radio call. After all, of all the tribes the Waste Templar had fought against, none had armored transport, save for the Brotherhood of Steel.
But when he rounded the corner, turning onto Main Street, Lucas found the source of the deafening booms. A Pre-War tank, coughing black smoke into the air, and riding along primitive treads, turned its barrel in Lucas’s direction. For a heart stopping moment, Smith was sure he was going to die, a tank round turning him into a smear along the pavement. However, the tank didn’t aim at him. Instead, it turned past him and trained its barrel on a Crusader.
Time seemed to slow as the Crusader desperately raised his shield. The tank thumped, rocking back as a round discharged from its barrel. There was a short pause, less than the blink of an eye before the Crusader was engulfed in a plume of debris and dust. When the smoke cleared, the Crusader was still standing, if just barely. Though the shield had taken the brunt of the explosion, and was all but gone, the Crusader’s left leg was badly mangled. Even from where he stood, Lucas knew a second round would be the end of the heavy armor and the Templar within.
From the top of the tank’s turret, a man sat, surveying the area. The only assumption Lucas could draw from this, was that the man must be the tank’s commander. That in mind he carefully trained his sights on the man’s forehead. His Friction Rifle thumped into his shoulder as the round ripped the man’s head away from the rest of him.
Unlike conventional fire arms, Friction Rifles fired only a small, relatively light round. However, the round was made of an alloy that, as it slid along the length of the barrel, became super-heated. This typically left soft targets in flames, if not disintegrating them altogether. Ideally, they were suited for fighting armored Brotherhood of Steel soldiers, the heated round melting their armor or heating its interior enough to kill the occupant.
No sooner had one man been killed than another took his place, putting both hands on the heavy fifty caliber machinegun that sat atop the tank’s turret. Lucas let his right leg crumple, sending him into a roll as machinegun rounds the size of his index finger slammed into the street where he’d been seconds ago.
Hiding behind the building that sat on the corner of Main and Third, Lucas knew he’d be doing little to aid his Templar brother from there. As the machinegun continued to rip chunks of concrete from the building where he’d found cover, he also knew that charging back into the street would be the last thing he’d ever do. That in mind, he ran to the nearest door that led into the building and kicked it off its hinges.
Sprinting into the building, Lucas found a vantage point to fire at the tank: a small window that had lost its glass. From there he managed to put a pair of rounds downrange, but neither met their target. Though he may have delayed the inevitable, sowing confusion within the tank’s cockpit, and hopefully slowing the reloading process, Lucas knew he couldn’t stop it.
