At The Precipice Of Something New

Something Dicey

The Commonwealth
August the 1st, 2289
21:47

Eaten each other alive. They had eaten each other alive or, at the very least, would have had one of the two parties involved been human.

The former military hangar was, to put it bluntly, an unmitigated disaster of the dead bodies of raiders and the husks of the so called 'Mechanist's' janky robots. The Knight, never one to tolerate that which stood in his way or frustrated him, did all he could to mask his annoyance at their circumstances. Their peculiar robotic companion's radar beacon turned back on and subsequently flashing and beeping faster and faster, the longer they followed it through the facility, the more irritating it became. Well trained in the art of masking his feelings, the Paladin took note of everything around them, sharing in short conversation their potential uses with the Scribe, and weighing the risk calculations for a potential, later team recovering the scrap and technology left about the old hangar. Light and nimble on her feet as ever, the Scribe kept a close watch on her surroundings as they went; out of, what had seemed to be, something of a maze, they stepped into a room of old, disused tanks; a M60 MBT, a M1 Abrams MBT, a M47 Patton, and a M8 AGS were left to rust and rot in the hangar over two centuries before. Shooting down the few raiders and robots left to make themselves known, the Paladin, the Scribe, and the Knight weaved their way through the room and the tanks, stopping only when the Paladin ordered them to. He frowned at the open security gates ahead of them and at the barrels of radioactive waste shoved to the side in the room it led to, but, seeing their robotic companion entering the room, found no alternative. Wasting no time, he ordered the Scribe, first, to don a full hazard suit over her standard uniform before following him and the Knight into the room and through the closed doors at the other end of it where their robotic companion's beacon was flashing brighter and beeping faster than ever.

Shedding her bags quickly and pulling her hazard suit out from one of them, the Scribe slipped into and sealed herself in it with an oxygen mask over her face. She swept up her bags and oxygen tank almost as quickly as she had shed her bags, donning them once more. Hearing the Knight brusquely calling her over to deal with an active but fussy computer terminal, the Scribe ran over to them, assessing the state of the device as soon as she was in reach of it. Removing a password jammer from the pocket of one of her bags, the Scribe examined the computer's ports before finding one compatible with the jammer. A few minutes more of fussing with it, and the computer granted her access. Opening the commands, the Scribe let out a sigh of relief when she found one of them was to open a security gate into the next room, the one which their robotic companion seemed all but desperate to enter. It was unsurprising, then, when the door swung open, their robotic companion was the first through, eliciting a few swears from the Knight under his breath, though they quickly turned to louder, shouts at the sight of a grotesque sentry robot powering on. Startled himself, the Paladin took a small step back and threw his arms out to push the Knight and the Scribe back behind him, the robot covered in metal spikes and additional armour which, he suddenly realised, was slowing it down.

Not wanting to waste a single second, the Paladin barked orders at their robotic companion to engage the menace before beginning to attack it himself. The Knight and the Scribe followed suit, breaking off in opposite directions in the massive room they had entered to attack the menace from both sides; the Scribe to the left and the Knight to the right. Focusing on the centre plating and in between its joints where the robot was weakest, the Paladin fought just behind their robotic companion assaulting it; the farther out of way of the machine's direct line of fire, the better. Keeping as close a watch on the safety of his most trusted Scribe and Knight, the Paladin held his aim steady and true. He smirked to himself beneath the helm of his power armour when the robot stopped moving, its systems getting stuck just before it reached the incline of a ramp. Unable to barrel down or closer to its targets, the machine continued its rapid firing. Noticing its weak spots too, the Scribe knelt down, her gun as well balanced as it could be in her increasingly shaky hands, and fired on them, careful not to accidentally hit the Paladin, the Knight, or their robotic companion. The Knight, similarly, kept his barrage of bullets firing towards the now stuck sentry bot, weaving his way behind it to fire on its fusion cores the moment the unit tried to cool itself. The opportunity to do so coming sooner than expected, he kept firing but missed, his body growing tenser in frustration within his power armour.