Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 69: Wicked Game

To say he was on edge was a major understatement. As soon as the vertibird touched down in a squall of sand and grit, an armored unit of Brotherhood penned Danse in and demanded his co-operation or 'deadly force would be applied.' He yielded his hands up and complied with their directions, even tolerated a few coercive shoves from behind in detached submission, his weary body taking the force of them with slack limbs. He braced himself for whatever they had in store for him now. It couldn't be any worse than what he had just endured. Too tired and numb to keep caring.

Do whatever you want to me, he thought to himself, hollowed. I'm just a machine, in the end.

It was a red night. Murky blood-clouds blanketed the atmosphere, filtering the darkness with a dim glow. Danse knew it must have been produced by a combination of the red dust hazing the air and the oil wells set aflame in the deeper regions of the land, where the clans of raiders fought on a constant. The Brotherhood had only dipped it's toes into the warzone, though it had made one hell of a big toeprint.

The temperature had cooled though the humidity of the lingering radstorm kept the air sticky. Under the glow, it felt like the camp was under the code-red light of a flare, though Danse's operational instincts weren't enough to pull him out of his gloom.

All around him, the Brotherhood were mobilizing their defences and fortifying the outpost, obviously committed to work all throughout the night in order to have their new headquarters at operational status by morning. It was something he had been proud to be a part of, the way the Brotherhood of Steel worked as one efficient machine, each soldier a valuable link in an unbreakable chain, bound together by oath of blood, loyalty, and honor. No man or woman was taken for granted. Each served their purpose with irreplaceable determination. They bore weight as one. That was what it mean to be a brother or sister.

Burnt and charred structures were being cleared away to be replaced with metal prefabs or sturdy field tents, and the structures that were still standing-huts, crude tents, shacks-were bolstered by sandbags and firewalls of carbon polymer to be repurposed. Guard posts were set at intervals throughout the crossroads where the aisles of domestic huts met and branched out. The bodies of the Dark Bloods were being dragged by the ankles, if they still had them attached to their legs, and away into the darkness of the camp. Most likely to be dumped into a mass grave outside the walls.

The bodies of the fallen Minutemen, however, were gathered with respectful diligence. They were identified and then covered with sheets and laid out in neat rows, ready for burial or incineration, or to be shipped home if Maxson allocated the resources and manpower. Danse hoped they would wait for Kelly to have her say on how their bodies were treated.

He felt himself sinking deeper into his well of depression at the sight of so many lost. It was beginning to tax his body just to walk, and his motions grew lumbering.

He was marched en masse to the South centre of camp, where the battle had left a bloody halo of corpses around the main tent that the Minutemen had defended to the death. The tent was now nothing but a crisp skeleton, only it's metal frame remained. Within, the wooden furnishings, and the blackened bodies of the slaves the Brotherhood couldn't get out in time, still crackled as the heat from their fiery demise escaped into the cooling night.

There, Elder Maxson stood at the foot of it's smoking corpse, free of his power armor and clad once more in his distinguishing battlecoat. He stared into the debris as the island of officers around him quietly collaborated on logistics, defensive layouts, and personnel distribution. Well, it looked as though he would be bumping into Maxson after all...