A New Eden

Tsunami of Hate

     The only coherent feelings of this camp were that it was hot in the day and these beds were very uncomfortable. I was on a mission, because of course I was. The sand on the bed made the situation no better. While the veterans were over chasing some fantasy ghosts down in Baja because "The Legion is over! Why would we need them anymore?" the rest of us, regular rangers and troopers, just had to fend for ourselves. Last week the brass down in California had TEA with some GHOULS and me and the rest of Kilo Team had to fist-fight a former legion centurion! 5 to 1 and we lost 2 men! But no - Baja, that's more important! I took a deep sigh of absolute malcontention.

     I took a quick, disgusted look at the observer the brass sent over for "inspection". Every one of Kilo Team knew that was just a bunch to crap so they could send someone out to fine us for something. Shady Sands needed money, and apparently we weren't important enough.

     Camp Forlorn Hope was where I stayed this night. A dark tent in the middle of nowhere. Kilo Team used to matter - I thought. The Courier in all his mightiness had apparently helped this camp out of its pit, deathclaws and debt and death and depression. I was so sick of hearing about that turncoat. Helped the NCR all the way until Hoover Dam when he came in with his army of robots and turned us all away. I was there - saw his smug face when he told us the Dam was his. After that he hid away in the Lucky 38, training and talking and bringing people up to the suite. Arcade Gannon, some random girl named "Violet" or "Veronica" or something. Other people, a cybernetic dog, some mexican ghoul, and an eyebot. Very weird company. Sometimes you can see him standing on the top floor of the 38, just watching Vegas like a king. He is a king, what he says goes. I readjusted my position on the bunk. I was at the top, and apparently the top bunk didn't get to have a window. I hate this place.

     I fiddled with the clasps on my suit, I never slept without it, never could. We moved out at about dawn. "Sun-Rise" for the civvies who feel they're some kinda regional government since the courier decided the whole Mojave was free. Scumdogs. We were only allowed these camps as "Diplomatic Outposts for Wayward Wastelanders" whatever that meant. I leaned over to my bunk-mate, Zachariah. He and Ramirez were the only two I very much trusted. We had some new members of Kilo Team and some of them were shifty.

"Hey, Z, what time is it?" I asked. He had a little plastic window through the tent we set up.

"I'd say it's time to move out. Sun's about one-third above the horizon."

     I nodded in agreement. It was time to move out. I have't been able to get some sleep outside of my actual home since the Dam, and that was about three months ago. Makes these missions a bit difficult. I took a small bite of some rations from our footlocker and jumped down from the bunk. I went along, waking the rest of the rangers up from their 2 hour sleep. We were making our way to Vault 11. Recently some pretty advanced Mercs have taken up to squatting this place. Thye wear these advanced yellow hazmat suits and these absolutely insane yellow lasers. Apparently this pre-war company called Bringham tried to compete in the market of Energy Weapons and made a yellow laser rifle.

     Once we got to the road the observer - never bothered to learn his name, started talking about his time in first recon. How he spied on Caesar himself and killed the residents of a village called Reno before it was New Reno because they wouldn't give him free booze, 'Cowboy style' he said. The rest of the trip was in silence.

     It was about an hour under the hot Nevada sun before we reached Vault 11. We crept around the corner to see the shaky wooden door. No one stood outside, which was odd. the only thing that was worth noting was the tubes crawling out of the door, I had priorities. They were an organized unit, not one to leave themselves defenseless. But on top of the ridge, above the door, was an odd sight, I followed the aforementioned tubes and saw a giant vertibird, like the one the President had used on his visit to the Mojave.

      The tubes ran out of the vault door and into barrels onto this metal monstrosity. I signalled for my team to wait, and peaked through the shoddy wood of the door. About three armored guards, both with salvaged power armor akin to the NCR's, stood guard at the vault door. You could tell it was salvaged because of the way they moved, and how you couldn't hear the servomotors grinding with each step they took. One gold "V" was painted on the left arm and back of the armor.

     I looked at those troopers, armed with the weird laser guns, and I had one idea. The observer the NCR sent, he was the perfect choice.

     "All right, spy-boy. If you're so great, if you spied on Caesar himself, why don't you take this stealth boy and tell us what you see in there." I said, digging one of two stealth boys out of my pack. He took it with a smirk and waltzed right in. Just standing. Not crouching, not crawling, just walking right through.

     It wasn't long before I heard their laser rifles whirring up, maybe a two millisecond process. He stopped in his tracks. I noticed a fusion cell spinning in the barrel of the weapon before three hyper-focused beams of yellow lasers - it was a tri-beam collection apparently - went right through his stomach. I wasn't fazed. He bragged about killing entire villages of innocent women and children regularly. He seemed honest about it, too.

     I sent my right-hand man, Ramirez, up there. He was a ghoul, and he was one of the finest. I focussed my left hand on my Hunting Revolver, the grooves on the handle formed a nice little stress-relieving activity. I watched him gingerly approach the vertibird. I would, as well. He looked into the vertibird, and a flash of yellow light was all I needed to know. I quickly unholstered my service rifle and unloaded 2 rounds through the hole the laser rifle left. I heard them ping against the armor of the aggressor.

     I quickly scaled the rock face in lieu of the slower ladder that I had not previously noticed. It was fine, I was trained for this. I kicked the tube feeding into the vertibird off it's couplet and studied the sickly green water feeding out of it. They were excavating the vault! What power other than the NCR and the Courier could do this. I knew it, it had to have been the courier and his merry gang of idiots. I crawled underneath the vertibird and used my Hunting Revolver to shoot upwards, into the Vertibird. I heard a violent grunt before the power-armored figure jumped down and pulled me, by my scalp. I fired off two shots but missed. I panicked.

     The man threw my service rifle off the cliff and manhandled my Hunting Revolver into his own hands. I felt a pop as my knee exploded with pain. My ears, now ringing with pain and my own screaming, neglected to inform me of the sound of a laser rifle spinning and firing, my only indication of that was the pain in my other knee and the dreadful smell of ionized air. I screamed even louder, pain flooding my lungs like a Tsunami of hate. I opened my eyes to see my compatriots in handcuffs, on the ground. First to go was Zachariah, then Hernandez, then Jacobson.

     I felt only depression, pain, and sadness as the last round of my Hunting Revolver entered my skull.

A/N: Ok, I think I'm content with this. I hit the thousand word mark and I edited it to my liking. Please tell me what you think.