FALLOUT: Sievert - Vol.4: Divergence

Chapter 31 - Divergence

   Our journey brought us to inside the city known as Trinity, a local battlezone hotspot between three powerful factions at war.

We had been traveling for nearly week before reaching an outpost that was controlled by the USA, this outpost was supposed to be check-in and resupply for us, but unfortunately, my party and I were greeted with disrespect and hostility right from the get-go.

We decided to push through to the battlezone in hopes of meeting up with the main USA combat forces in their rear to check-in before looping back around west to discover and understand the way that the USA treats their people on the way to San Frans before ending the journey in the city of Lost Angels, the capital of the USA.

  By the time we showed up in the rear of the front lines, it was already dark and our rations were gone. We continued forward with only four stops; filling the time with conversations and complaints about people being assholes in the military. But it was odd as we should have made contact with US rear-guard already, we kept waling in, hoping to run into soldiers or logistics.

30 minutes of walking put us within the front line, we kept our guard up while walking down the main road in the city. There were trash barricades shelving off main parts of the road and entire blocks as we walked through the city. The sound of light gunfire popping off in the distance, more like practice than firefights. It was relatively quiet other than that.

  As tired as we were, we couldn't stop. We kept marching deeper into the town following the main road. I wondered if we missed the main force or if this was a cleared sector of the town. Overhearing loud, unfiltered talking, I stopped to look around a street corner to notice that men standing around a bonfire in combat armor that was painted black. The men were talking about the rumors of a new commander in the Enclave. I back the group up and we head down another route, then loop back to the main road, Ignoring three blocks of city in the process.

We continued to power walk through the town with weapons on the ready but lighter on the step. As we followed the road up, we came to a blue-colored bridge; through barricades and destroyed old building debris, we easily got onto it. We stopped at the mouth of the bridge behind some of the dilapidated vehicles as I wanted to get the others insight about what's going on, we all moved in close to avoid making noise.

Before we could all group up, I hear someone yell out behind me in a clear young man's voice. I didn't catch what he said, but I thought it was Mark; I twisted around as he wasn't with us yet, but he was to my left. I took a small-caliber munition to the stomach plate of the armor! Blaire, who was closed to me, took cover behind me as the 2 others took cover into some abandoned cars. 

"Were surrounded, all sides, but the bridge." Blaire relayed to me.

I stood there and took the small arms fire, feeling what felt like punches to my chest and gut. Only seeing muzzle flashes flair out, I couldn't pinpoint the targets to shoot back from their muzzle flashes alone due to how dark it was.

  Thinking quickly, I order Blaire, "Okay, run down the bridge at full speed. I'll cover your rear."

Without hesitation, she turned 180* and takes off down the bridge. I spotted five men in combat armor poke up with R91 rifles and open fire at me. There could have been twelve hostiles, easily.  I spun around as I hear Daniel yell out "We're Clear!"

I started power armor stomping my way up the bridge, feeling an occasional punch from the armor doing its job here or there, across my back, preventing the penetration but not the shock from getting through. We got up to the curvature of the bridge and started running down the low angle as we continued to take fire. As we were about 3/4ths the way to the other end I heard the sound of an engine, a vehicle in operation, heading towards us from behind.