Chapter 37: The Beginning of the Road
I don't own Fallout.
1 Day before the 'Message'
Amber Karlson laughed as she ran through the small rows of corn as her mother Loreen absently did the laundry nearby. She suddenly stopped as the BIG doggy prowled quietly a few feet away, the big white dog turned to her… and smiled at her, his tongue lolling happily out of his mouth as she screamed. "Doggy!"
"Amber? AMBER!?" gasped Loreen as she ran right up to the big white doggy… and he happily licked her face. she giggled as Loreen took a breath. A tall man in a wide brim cowboy hat, a pair of playing cards in the brim absently walked towards the dog and patted his head as he continued to lick the young girl.
"Come on buddy let her breathe." He said politely as the big dog pulled away as Amber giggled, got up, and gave the dog a big hug. He glanced charmingly at Loreen. "Sorry. He likes kids. I promise he's friendly." Loreen looked nervous but then the big dog and Amber seemed to play a game of 'tag' she chased him around as he pranced her away, but still in sight of the house.
He glanced around for a moment and then turned to her, "…Sorry. Could you tell me where I am? Miss-"
"Loreen, and you are?"
He stared at her for second and smiled. "Bard." He said politely, "Bard Bowman." He approached her, "Just came back from a long trip. Heading to the NCR for some business I have to take care of. He glanced at her house. "…Nice Place Mrs. Karlson." She smiled at the charming young man… but then her face fell.
"…How did you know my name is…?" but she stopped, as he held a revolver on her, under his coat.
"…Don't scream." He said softly, politely. "Do not scream." She went rigid, her first thoughts were towards her daughter. "She'll be fine as long as you don't. Scream." He said, coolly. "You may quietly ask me questions… and for the next few minutes. I will not lie to you."
"…Why are you here?" she asked, staring into his cold eyes.
"I want to kill your husband." He said, so straightforward and calm, she was a little surprised.
"Why?!" she asked horrified as he frowned.
"…Because he helped his boss kill my dad." He said, simply. Calmly. and she was just as clearly taken aback by his 'honesty'. "And I took a great offense to that." he added, his eyes briefly flashing with rage as he took a breath. "…But. And I mean this… as long as you cooperate. You will not be harmed, I will not hurt you, and you can hate me for the rest of your life for what I'm about to do."
12 hours later.
"Loreen!" Karlson shouted, slamming through the old Watchpost door as he held his sequoia out, "Amber!?" he checked the doors, and the rooms. "Loreen!?"
'Come to these coordinates, come alone or I'll slit your daughter's throat. Swat.' The note on his door said, and he followed the coordinates and the dog tracks to the location. This watchpost was abandoned for an old fortified one, but it still functioned as an emergency location. "Loreen!?" he kicked the door in and saw Loreen bound to a chair, and gagged. On the floor was his daughter, asleep, but the MASSIVE wolf known as Raid, dozing quietly with her as he stared horrified…
THUMP.
He fell to the floor, bashed on the back of the head, and knocked out as Loreen whimpered, sobbing horrified as she knew what was about to happen. Swat had kept his word, she was not harmed, and Amber had no idea what was going on, thoroughly distracted by the big wolf, and Swat gave her some sort of sleeping concoction, made naturally from plants from a place called 'Spudtown'. She'd sleep for a while… but she'd be fine.
Swat eyed her, bound to the chair before he reached down and took Karlson's sequoia, eyeing it curiously… before slipping it into his empty holster… it wasn't his mother's sequoia… but it would do for now. He stared at a now furious Loreen. He pulled the gag away as she spat on his face. he wiped it off, calmly.
"I will NEVER forgive you." She snarled bitterly as he nodded.
"…Good. Because I won't ask for it." he got up, and walked away, grabbing Karlson's leg. "Wait about an hour then you can start screaming for help. By then maybe NCR rangers I inform will come to get you. Raid." The big dog gingerly slipped from Amber's sleeping body, then followed his master out as he dragged the unconscious Karlson behind him. Shutting the door.
Karlson spluttered as a bucket of water was tossed on his face, he was duct taped securely to a chair as Swat absently toyed with the emergency radio. "What the fuck?" he said softly as Swat checked the sequoia… "…what the fuck are you doing here?"
"I'm here to kill you. And your friends…" he said, calmly… and honestly a little psychotically. He glanced at Karlson. "…You don't take very good care of your gun Karlson." He noted lazily, putting the sequoia down.
"So you go after my wife?! My Daughter?!"
"…Yeah." Swat replied, dismissively. "I don't want to but… anything at this point to get all of your attentions." He said, hand on the sequoia, "And a sequoia…" before glaring blankly at Karlson. "…You killed my dad. In cold blood…" Karlson sneered but said nothing. He wouldn't give Swat the satisfaction of acknowledging that his commander did that. "…I don't think you understand what's happening here… I might have let you get away with it if you didn't do it in front of my mother's grave… if he had a fucking GUN in his hand. But you ASSHOLES!" he growled like the monstrous wolf that traveled with him. "KILLED HIM! IN COLD FUCKING BLOOD!" he roared at Karlson. "Shot him like a fucking FERAL!" he grabbed Karlson's throat. "YOU NCR FUCKERS! DECLARED WAR ON ME! AND MY FAMILY!!"
Swat… had NEVER… been this angry before… And that made him absurdly dangerous.
Karlson was a trained Ranger, he faced legions, he'd face tribals and raiders, super mutants… he's even been interrogated a few times. He held firm. Swat held a bullet and loaded it absently into the sequoia. Taking a breath. "…So… what I am about to do to you, your country… Your family…" he added calmly as Karlson's fury started to rise. "Know that… it's because it's very fucking personal." He abruptly shot Karlson in the leg.
Karlson screamed. Then Swat injected him with a stimpak. Karlson groaned, angrily as he was healed… Swat left the stimpak in his leg, and loaded another bullet into the sequoia. "…I'm going to give you an hour Karlson, to tell me everything I want to know, everything you can tell me… and if you don't. I'll drag your wife in here… and shoot her in the head… then I'll give you another hour… before I do the same to your daughter." He said coldly. "…So… either save me some time, some bullets." He loaded the gun, and tossed a handful of stimpaks on the table beside him. "…And talk… or let me vent a little."
He eventually did… and then Swat sent out the message.
5 Days after the 'Message'.
'The NCR does not respond to terrorist threats.' Declared freshly elected President Tanner over the emergency radio after Swat had declared war on the remaining rangers of Ranger Virginia Wolfe's team. Even though Ranger Wolfe was more than happy to meet Swat's demands.
After the message was sent they had quickly discovered Ranger Viggo Karlson's body, several rounds of sequoia fire planted in his chest. Karlson's Wife and young daughter were found unharmed close by in a secured room, very distraught. However, after that was silence, some wrote it off, others didn't…
This is why we now find ourselves at Camp Slaughter… which was ironic because it was a supply depot. Ammunitions, food, weapons. It was a former summer camp once upon a time, near a firewatch tower that miraculously survived the bombs intact, and once reinforced and surrounded with sturdy junk walls, now it was a storage outpost… over 30 NCR troopers occupied the post at any given time.
Near the Firewatch tower, three NCR troops sat around a campfire, only the light of the fire lit their surroundings, up in the tower was a watchmen, and eventually one of the three would take his place for their shift.
Sgt. Igo 'Weezer' Faggin sat staring into the fire, puffing a cigarette like always. He was the oldest, and highest ranked among them. Corporal Sally and Corporal 'Pansy' were with him.
"Soooo…" Pansy began, the youngest of them and pretty much a rookie. "…Are we going to… talk about the message?"
"Fuck no." Sally said coldly, "Don't worry about it Pansy it's just horseshit. Some fucking merc who thinks he's badass."
Weezer had been ominously quiet for a long time. He hadn't spoken much since their commanding officer told them to ignore the message. They had all heard it… and just this morning a note was left outside the commander's cabin. "Leave, Surrender, or Die. -Swat." So the chatter didn't die. The higher-ups thought it was just a prank from the rest of the troops to get the recruits to pee themselves..
"…But you know…" Pansy noted nervously, "…Would you guys run?"
"No!" Sally scolded him angrily, "He's just one fucking man."
"In a heartbeat." Weezer declared firmly, they both stared at the veteran trooper. He puffed his cigarette until it was a stub, and spat it into the fire before lighting up another one. "…In fact… I think I'm going too."
"What the fuck Weezer?" Sally growled, breaking protocol and ignoring his rank. "You fought legion! You were there at the second battle of the dam!"
Weezer turned to her, puffing his cigarette. He let out a heavy waft of smoke. "…Swat fought legion to…" he said coldly. He took a puff. "…We were stationed at this… little settlement, barely more than three families and a couple of houses…" he tapped away the ash and continued. "…A group of Legion. 20, 25 showed up. There was only a squad of us, 6 or 7… don't really remember, but I do remember Swat and his big fucking dog were passing through… said he could help. We needed all the manpower we could get… so the town paid him his caps…" he stared at Sally and Pansy.
"…Barely at first light he goes out with just a knife in hand, challenges the Legion's commander to single combat… Big guy, huge bumper sword and armor… he probably could've been one of The Caesar's personal guards. So they meet on the field, then the fight begins… do you know what happened?" the two obviously didn't, and he didn't give them a chance to it was rhetorical. "He flipped the knife in his hand and threw it at the Legion's armored head." he mimed the motion. "It went right through the eyehole and killed him. Over in less than 5 seconds." he puffed the cigarette. "Legion didn't like that. So they charged him…
He pulled up his hand, miming the firing of a gun at Sally and Pansy. "…He shoots 5 of them dead with his sequoia before we could even try to help. Then he reloads in half a second, and shoots another five." Pansy was in awe, Sally looked non-plus.
"Bullshit." she didn't believe a word of it. Wasteland tall tales.
But Weezer continued, "By the time we start helping? He's already killed a majority… with a fucking sequoia… his dog ate at least three faces before he put them all down." He got to his feet and tossed his cigarette into the fire. "…Pansy. You want to run? You're a smart guy…" he said, "…You want to leave? let's go now."
"Seriously?" Pansy asked as Sally looked horrified.
"Are you fucking stupid?! It's just one-GUK!!" she raised her hands, trembling slightly as what looked like the knife made from the claw of a deathclaw appeared from her throat, "…ack…" she fell to the ground, Pansy staring horrified at the knife as suddenly a body fell nearby from the tower, a combat knife in his head.
A pair of boots entered the light of the campfire. Pansy continued to stare in horrified awe at the man dressed as a Ranger, SWAT in freshly painted bright white upon his bulletproof vest. Weezer stared a little terrified at the man as he casually walked to Sally's corpse, and removed the knife.
"…Don't scream." He warned as Weezer clenched his teeth nervously, and Pansy opened his mouth but no words came out… just a little pee. "Put down your guns… and run away from the outpost." He said casually, wiping the deathclaw knife callously on Sally's armor. "Guns." He repeated as Weezer, quickly tossed his rifle away. Pansy had already dropped his but it was still close to hand "I won't say it twice…" he replied. Pulling out his sequoia as a pair of VERY big dogs, one black, one white growled appeared like eldritch horrors from the darkness ominously nearby.
…The next morning.
"Fucking shit." Ranger John Wuu and Ranger Hunting Raven stared at the sheer… massacre of camp slaughter. Dead troopers littered the smoking camp, the food storage, the ammo, the weapons. Gone. All of it… SWAT… written in blood on the only wall standing… "It's all fucking shit." he repeated into the radio.
"Any survivors?" Ranger Virginia asked over the radio.
"We picked up two… 'deserters' not too far away." C.J. said, glancing at the look of terror on many of her fallen countrymen's faces… some didn't have faces anymore: Chewed off. "And three more in the brig."
"In the brig?"
"Swat apparently shot a man who had surrendered accidentally, then spared a medic to take care of him. And there was a drunk rookie sleeping it off already there… Swat didn't bother." Ranger Raven mumbled, glancing through his sniper rifle at the surroundings, hoping for some sight of Swat.
"That's it?"
"Yes. Ma'am." C.J. said, finding difficulty keeping the anger and fear out of her voice. "He's burned Camp Slaughter to the ground."
"MMn…" Ranger Wolfe sighed over the radio. "…Maybe this was a good thing."
"A good thing?!" C.J roared angrily as Wuu and Raven nervously took a step away from her. "He's killed over 30 people! And Karlson! Torched our supplies and our food! People need that to survive out here!"
"…And now, maybe, the president will allow US to hunt him down." She said as C.J. stared in horror at the radio. "Just what Swat and I wanted in the first place-COUGH!" C.J. raised her hands in frustration and marched away. the faces of her dead countrymen still staring blankly at the sky. "Wuu, Raven, after she's calmed down return to HQ… we need to be together to find him. None of this one at a time shit."
"Yes Ma'am." Wuu said softly, before leaning closer to the radio hoping not to be overheard. "…And C.J.? Your granddaughter?"
"She'll understand eventually. Leave the dead, we'll send a clean up crew to deal with it."
"Yes Ma'am." Wuu said as Raven scowled, the radio turned off.
"…I'm starting to think that C.J. was right." Raven mumbled as Wuu snorted.
"He just ambushed them. Let's face it, our rank and file troops aren't exactly prepared for ambush tactics. Our track record for it speaks for itself." Raven stared at the dead bodies.
"…But as far as I can tell. Only him and his dogs came here…" he said, being the top tracker on the team he would know with just a glance. "...I thought he only had one dog?" he added absently to himself.
"So?"Wuu replied, interrupting his thoughts.
He grunted as his train of thought was derailed and he continued irritably. "So, it takes a lot of legion to kill an entire base of troopers in a night." He mumbled, poking the commanding officer's corpse with the toe of his boot, a bullet in his forehead. "And they aren't nearly as accurate." Wuu just scoffed, Swat couldn't take the whole team at once, not in a million years.
End
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