567. The Castle Situation

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And the wind carried the scent of warm stew and salt, rust and ozone, the smell of a place still standing. He took a breath, that is long and steady. As he know the Castle has live to see another day.

The morning came quiet, the kind of hush that settled in the bones of old forts and older men. A light fog rolled in off the sea, soft and gray, wrapping the Castle's stone in a ghostly shawl. Gulls called faintly from the shoreline, their cries distant and fleeting beneath the low drone of generators and the rhythmic clank of tools on metal.

Sico rose early—earlier than most. His cot in the command tent remained untouched; he hadn't slept more than an hour, choosing instead to walk the parapets under the stars, listening to the lull of the waves and the creak of scaffolding in the breeze. The rain had stopped sometime during the night, though everything still bore the damp weight of the storm's passage. His coat, heavier now with dust and dampness, was slung over one shoulder as he sipped from a dented tin mug, the black coffee inside bitter but grounding.

He stepped through the yard slowly, eyes roving over every new bolt, every repositioned barricade, every patched seam in the Castle's weather-worn stone. Crews were already stirring—soldiers in mismatched armor, engineers hunched over power couplings, a pair of scouts jogging laps to keep warm. It wasn't bustling yet, but it was awake. Breathing.

This place had almost died two nights ago. Crushed under claw and tide. But it didn't.

Not on his watch.

The eastern tower had come together overnight. Ronnie's team worked past dusk and into the small hours, their lamps flickering orange behind the newly braced walls. The collapsed stairwell was now replaced by steel framing bolted directly into the tower's core. Sandbags ringed each floor for cover, and firing slits had been cut into the stone, just as planned. It wasn't pretty—but it was lethal. Effective.

"Be honest," Ronnie had muttered as she passed Sico with a crowbar under one arm, "how bad did it smell in here before we gutted it?"

"Like crab guts and regret," he'd replied.

She snorted. "Sounds about right."

He let her be—Ronnie didn't like being watched when she worked. But she gave him a small nod before disappearing into the tower again, which said more than words ever could.

Now, Sico's boots crunched on gravel as he made his way to the far end of the yard, where two massive forms rested beneath a scorched tarpaulin that looked barely fit to cover a campfire, let alone sixty tons of armored steel.

The Sentinels.

Their dark green hulls were battered, dented, and scorched in wide arcs of melted plating and buckled tracks. The Mirelurk Queen's acid spit had done more damage than expected; one tank's entire left tread assembly was charred and half-slagged, while the other had its turret mechanism locked in a dead rotation. The barrels of their main cannons drooped at uneven angles like broken limbs.

Four engineers crouched around them now—each dressed in heavy overalls streaked with oil and rust, sparks flying as one of them worked a rotary saw into a jammed access panel. Another lay flat on his back beneath one of the treads, muttering curses as he yanked at a severed hydraulic line.

Sico recognized the lead mechanic—a wiry woman with cropped black hair and a set of welders' goggles perched atop her forehead. Her name was Yana, a former Brotherhood scribe turned Freemason engineer, and not the kind of person you interrupted mid-job unless you wanted a socket wrench flung at your head.

Still, Sico didn't stop. He approached, hands in his coat pockets, stopping just short of the oil-stained tarp.

"How bad?" he asked, voice low.

Yana didn't look up. "Define bad. You want them walking and talking again, or do you just want to roll them into the sea and hope they float?"

"Prefer the first one."

She sighed through her nose and finally met his gaze. "Then yeah. It's bad. The Queen spit right into the left Sentinel's main engine intake. Melted half the inner seals. The control chip for the weapons relay is fried too—like, melted pudding fried. The other one's got acid erosion all down the turret ring. That's what locked it. If we force it, it'll shear the entire bearing column."

Sico crouched beside the one she gestured at, running a hand along the base of its massive cannon. The machine was still, silent—a warbeast on its knees.

"Can they be fixed?" he asked softly.

Yana leaned on her wrench. "Not here. Not properly. If we had a field dock with a clean bay, maybe. But with this crew? Best I can do is strip what still works and stabilize what doesn't. We might be able to get one of them moving in a straight line, turret locked, hull cannon still functional. The other…" she shook her head. "We'd need parts I don't have and weeks I can't afford."

Sico was silent for a moment, glancing from one Sentinel to the other.

"Alright," he said. "Prioritize salvage. Get what you can out of the busted one—targeting optics, power cell regulators, anything modular. See if we can retrofit some of it into the second. I'd rather have one big bastard limping and loud than two statues."

Yana nodded. "I'll get my people on it."

"Oh," Sico added, tilting his head slightly, "and the mechanic who said I owe her whiskey?"

Yana's grin split like a crack in dry earth. "She's right behind you."

A young woman in a stained jumpsuit appeared from around the rear of the tank, covered in grime and holding a soldering tool in one hand.

"You owe me a case," she said flatly.

Sico raised his hands in mock surrender. "You'll have it. One bottle for every hour you spent shouting at that fusion coupler."

She narrowed her eyes. "Then you better bring six."

By noon, the yard buzzed with life. The turrets were online. The east tower's lights now flickered in steady blue and gold. Rina reported that the Castle's radio uplink was not only fully operational but stronger than anything Concord had running. She'd received messages from Sanctuary Hills, the Watoga outpost, and even a rogue ping from an NCR scout relay across the mountains to the west. Nothing clean, but it was connection. Vital threads in the web the Republic needed to thrive.

Sico stood for a moment at the heart of it all, surrounded by movement. He didn't give orders. Didn't bark or shout. He just watched.

This was what victory looked like. Not the burning end of battle, but the slow, grinding resurrection of a place nearly lost. The raising of walls, the joining of wires, the long breath that came after the scream.

He made his way back to the command tent just as the stew was being ladled out—real meat this time, Mirelurk tail with brahmin bone broth and wild carrots. The smell was better than most remembered from their childhoods. He accepted a bowl from one of the younger scouts and sat beneath the awning outside, letting the steam warm his face.

Preston joined him a few minutes later, his boots leaving muddy prints across the tarp flooring. He didn't speak right away—just sat, set his rifle beside the chair, and took a long sip from his flask.

"We've done good," he said eventually.

Sico nodded. "We have."

"Think the Castle's safe now?"

Sico stirred his stew. "For a while. But nothing stays safe forever. That's not the point."

"No?"

"No. The point is that we stand ready. Every time. No matter what claws up from the dark."

Sico let Preston's words settle between them like the embers of a dying fire—quiet, warm, but not without a trace of smoke. He nodded again, this time more to himself, before setting down the half-finished bowl of stew on a crate beside his chair. The warmth had done its job. The fatigue of the past two days still weighed on his shoulders like iron plates, but it no longer dulled his mind. If anything, the exhaustion had clarified things. There was always something else to do. A place like the Castle didn't let you rest long, not if you wanted it to stand through the next storm.

He rose with a slow groan, flexing his shoulders beneath the long weight of his coat, then adjusted the old militia scarf around his neck. The wind had begun to pick up, that familiar briny tang returning as the fog thinned into pale ribbons along the horizon. A good sign. Sico took one last look at the yard—the moving figures, the repairs, the laughter, the hammers—and let it burn itself into memory.

"Gonna check the armory," he said over his shoulder.

Preston raised his eyebrows, wiping stew from the edge of his mouth with a sleeve. "You expecting another fight?"

"I'm expecting to be ready when one comes."

With that, Sico turned and walked along the northern edge of the yard, past the recently cleaned walls where fresh paint stencils had been hastily applied—symbols of the Freemasons Republic, crossed swords under a rising sun, and the older minutemen torch still preserved on a few panels. The mix of insignias reflected the Castle itself now—a hybrid of legacies, old blood and new steel.

The armory was buried behind a reinforced bulkhead near the western wall. Not the oldest structure in the Castle, but definitely one of the most important. It had been looted and gutted more than once over the years—first by raiders, then by time, and most recently by necessity. The Mirelurk siege had drained their supplies like a leaking blood vessel. Ammunition, explosives, even spare rifles had been handed out in desperate handfuls during the worst hours of the fight. Sico needed to know what remained, and what didn't.

He approached the heavy door and rapped his knuckles on the steel.

From inside came a muffled voice. "Hold up!"

A few seconds later, the locking mechanism hissed open with a mechanical sigh, and a young man popped his head out—tan skin smeared with carbon powder, a pair of cracked safety goggles pushed up onto his forehead.

"President," he said, stepping aside quickly.

"Sergeant Dunn," Sico replied with a nod as he ducked into the entryway. The interior was dim, lit by a pair of generator-fed ceiling lamps and the cold glow of a pip-boy screen someone had mounted to a workbench for extra visibility.

Inside, the Castle's armory resembled a half-disassembled war museum. Rows of metal shelving lined the walls, each labeled with chalk or marker—'5.56mm', 'energy cells', 'grenades—frag', 'mines (anti-personnel)', 'med kits (field triage)', and a few more hastily scratched out, no doubt emptied during the last stand. Lockers stood against the back wall, their doors mostly open and contents either gone or reallocated. A few rifles still hung in racks—mostly pipe variants, some laser muskets, one battered Gauss rifle with an improvised sling that looked like it had been fashioned from old seatbelts.

Sico stepped further inside, eyes narrowing as he scanned the shelves.

"How's our stock?" he asked.

Dunn crossed the room to a crate and flipped open a clipboard. "Short version? We're holding on, but barely. Here, I'll walk you through it."

He led Sico to the nearest shelving row and began pointing out labels with the practiced monotone of someone who'd had to recite bad news more than once already.

"5.56's down to maybe four thousand rounds, and that's including the couple hundred we salvaged from the wrecked Humvee. Enough for another major firefight, but if we don't restock soon, patrols will start going out with half-loads."

Sico frowned. "What about energy weapons?"

"Better shape. Fusion cells are still over fifteen hundred units, mostly thanks to the Brotherhood stock we repurposed last month. But we're low on spare barrels and recalibrators. If someone burns out a modulator, we don't have the parts to swap it."

Sico nodded slowly, processing.

"Explosives?"

Dunn exhaled, rubbing his brow. "Frag grenades—maybe a dozen. Plasma? Two. Cryo? Zero. Mines, we've got three types—fragmentation, pulse, and shock. Most of the shock mines were deployed in the inner courtyard during the Queen's charge. Got about six left, tops."

"Any rocket or missile stock?"

Dunn gestured toward the corner of the room. "Two launchers. No rockets. The last batch we had was used to blow the southern rampart when the swarm tried to breach through it."

Sico's expression didn't change, but a shadow passed behind his eyes.

"And medkits?" he asked.

"Worse," Dunn said grimly. "Stimpaks down to two cases. Trauma packs? Maybe ten usable. Bandages, antiseptic, chems—low across the board. We're making more from field supplies, but we're running short on antiseptic base and purified water. Rina thinks she can sterilize more once the new purifier's up, but for now, we're rationing."

Sico rested a hand on the nearby crate and tapped his fingers in thought. He stared at the shelves as if trying to will them full again.

"We need to resupply," he murmured. "Soon. Maybe before next week."

Dunn nodded, closing the clipboard. "We could send a convoy back to Sanctuary. Maybe Concord too. I know we've got some supply caches near Warwick and Sunshine, if the routes are still secure."

Sico gave a slow nod. "I'll talk to Preston. We'll need to pull some scouts. I want detailed maps of every road from here to the coast—every bridge, every checkpoint, every known Raider or mutant nest."

"You think we'll be hit again soon?" Dunn asked, his voice quieter now.

Sico looked at him. Really looked.

"I don't know," he said. "But I've learned not to wait for trouble to announce itself."

He stepped past the shelves and made his way to the back lockers. Most were empty—cleaned out during the last battle—but one caught his eye. It was sealed with a newer padlock, not standard issue. He raised an eyebrow and glanced at Dunn.

"Whose is this?"

Dunn scratched the back of his head. "Oh—that's MacCready's. He keeps some specialty gear in there. Scoped rifles, spare parts. You know, stuff he doesn't want floating around."

Sico leaned forward slightly, inspecting the lock. Not because he didn't trust MacCready—but because he did. The man was a professional, and professionals didn't take unnecessary chances. Whatever was in that locker was valuable, either to MacCready or to the Republic itself.

"Alright," he said at last, stepping back. "I'll leave it."

Dunn chuckled faintly. "Good call. He gets weird about his scopes."

Sico cracked the faintest of smiles. "He's earned it."

He stood in silence for a moment, letting the details settle. The numbers were clear now. The Castle was defensible, but not invincible. Their walls were stronger than ever, their communications humming with new life. But the war machine needed fuel—bullets, parts, medicine, and people. And none of it grew on trees.

He turned back to Dunn.

"Draw up a manifest. I want full inventory—what we have, what we need, what we can live without."

"You got it, President."

Sico nodded once and stepped back into the corridor, the armory door hissing closed behind him with a final clunk of steel and magnetics. He walked the length of the wall slowly, letting his boots fall in rhythm with his thoughts.

A cold wind swept across the yard as he emerged once more into the open air. Above, the clouds had begun to clear, revealing shafts of early afternoon sunlight breaking across the ruined coastline. The sea was calmer now. Even the gulls seemed quieter.

Sico adjusted the collar of his coat as he crossed the yard again, the light breeze flicking bits of dust and old ash along the cracked concrete under his boots. Every step away from the armory carried the weight of reality—that no victory, not even one as decisive as the defense of the Castle, came without a price. You could patch walls, bury the dead, and repaint banners, but without bullets and blood to back it up, it was just a hollow shell waiting to crack again.

He moved toward the northeast tower, where the new radio equipment had been installed in the room above the former officer's quarters. The old pre-War comms gear had long since rotted out, but thanks to Ronnie's salvaging teams and a few gifted techs from the western edge of the Commonwealth, they'd managed to rebuild the place into a solid nerve center—radios for local and long-range communication, an uplink to relay towers stretching from Finch Farm to Abernathy, and a reinforced console salvaged from an old Brotherhood outpost west of ArcJet.

As Sico climbed the narrow stairwell, he could hear the hum of the radio already. A low crackle punctuated by occasional chatter—check-ins from patrols, route clearances, updates from nearby settlements. A different kind of heartbeat. Steady, fragile, essential.

At the top of the stairs, he gave a short knock on the side of the open frame before stepping inside. The radio room was small but efficient—two desks, three working terminals, and a central broadcast rig bolted into the floor. The far wall had a map of the region tacked up, covered in colored pins and scribbled notes on paper tags. A young woman with short red hair and a headset turned from one of the consoles as he entered.

"President," she greeted, pulling off the headset and standing. "Signal's clear if you need it."

"Thanks, Rea. Patch me through to Sanctuary."

Rea nodded and turned back to the rig, flipping a series of toggles and dials with practiced ease. After a brief pause and some white noise, the line cleared.

"You're live on the main line," she said.

Sico stepped up, lifting the handset and pressing the talk switch. "Sanctuary Base. This is Sico at Castle Command. Come in."

There was a pause. A few seconds of static. Then:

"Sico? Hey, it's Sarah." Her voice cracked slightly over the line, but it held a familiar warmth. Even over a scratched radio frequency, the fatigue in her voice was clear.

"Hey," he said, his own voice softening a touch. "You sound like you haven't slept either."

"Who has lately?" she replied, a dry chuckle chasing her words. "Castle holding up alright?"

"We're standing," he said, glancing out the nearby window at the courtyard below. "Walls held. Spirits are high. But we're burning through supplies faster than we can patch holes."

"Same over here," she replied. "Power armor parts are being welded faster than we can track. But Rina got the new water purifiers running. At least we won't be dry."

"That's good," Sico said, then got back to the point. "I just came from the armory. Dunn walked me through the current stock."

He paused, letting his words settle, then continued with a grim steadiness. "We're down across the board. Ammo, explosives, meds. Energy weapons are holding out better, but only just. No rockets left. Just two stimpak cases. Dunn's drawing up a manifest. I need you to send whatever you can to meet it."

"Understood," Sarah replied without hesitation. "I'll put together a logistics team. Who's your courier?"

"Not sure yet," Sico said. "Depends on route stability. Preston and I are pulling updated maps today. I want scouts on every road to the coast, Concord, Warwick, even Sunshine. If we're lucky, we won't need to go beyond friendly turf."

"We'll prioritize meds and .56. I'll check with Jackson about the Warwick cache. I think we left a crate of grenades there after the Super Mutant sweep. Maybe more."

Sico nodded to himself. "Appreciate it. If we can rearm fully within the week, we can keep the pressure on. If not…"

"We'll manage," Sarah cut in firmly. "We've done more with less. You kept that place standing through hell, Sico. That counts for something."

He didn't answer immediately. He looked down at the radio receiver in his hand, thumb pressed against the rough side of the switch, then out the narrow slit of the window. The sea glimmered with steel light in the distance.

"I know," he said at last. "But I don't want to survive the next storm. I want to break it before it gets here."

Sarah was quiet for a moment, then said gently, "Then we'll start packing tonight. I'll have it rolling in two days, max. Might need to scavenge some of it, but I'll get it done."

"You always do," he said, something like a smile in his voice now.

"And Sico," she added before he could sign off. "Check in with me tomorrow, same time. I'll send a runner if anything changes, but I want to hear from you direct. No more blackouts."

"You got it," he said. "Stay safe, Sarah."

"Same to you, President."

The line went dead with a soft click. He lowered the handset and set it gently back into the receiver cradle. Rea looked up from her station, one eyebrow raised.

"Good news?"

"Could've been worse," he replied, brushing a hand over his hair. "Get Dunn up here later. I want him to send the full manifest down the wire when it's ready. Triple check everything."

"You got it."

Sico stepped away from the console and lingered by the window a moment longer. From here, he could see nearly the whole of the yard—the soldiers moving gear, the engineers dragging metal panels to brace the west wall, the soft plume of smoke from the mobile kitchen. The Castle was more than a fortress now. It was alive. Bleeding, yes—but breathing.

He descended the steps again, each tread creaking under his boots. When he reached the bottom, Preston was already waiting at the base of the stairs with a folded map in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other.

"Looks like you had the same idea," Sico said.

"Thought you'd want to see this sooner rather than later," Preston said, holding the map out. "We updated our scouts' notes—raider movement near the Route 95 junction, possible Gunner detachment moving along the Charles, and a lot of fog reports around Breakheart Banks. Could be nothing, could be something."

Sico took the map and unfolded it slowly, his eyes tracking the hand-marked notations. "We're gonna need to clear the Warwick and Sunshine lines before Sarah can send a full convoy."

"Already spoke with MacCready," Preston said. "He's putting together a fireteam to sweep south tomorrow at first light. Robert's taking a second squad west toward Concord. If anyone's got fresh intel, it'll be the caravans near Drumlin."

"Good," Sico muttered. "We'll send a recon drone from the Castle, too. If the fog gets worse, I want eyes in the air."

Preston nodded, then handed him the coffee. "Here. Figured you'd earned a hot cup."

Sico took it with a grateful nod, inhaling the rich scent before taking a slow sip. "Still bitter."

"Yeah," Preston chuckled. "But it keeps you upright."

Together, they walked the edge of the southern parapet, overlooking the beach and the broad sweep of ocean beyond. In the far distance, a shattered tanker sat rusting on a sandbar, half-eaten by waves and time.

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• Name: Sico

• Stats :

S: 8,44

P: 7,44

E: 8,44

C: 8,44

I: 9,44

A: 7,45

L: 7

• Skills: advance Mechanic, Science, and Shooting skills, intermediate Medical, Hand to Hand Combat, Lockpicking, Hacking, Persuasion, and Drawing Skills

• Inventory: 53.280 caps, 10mm Pistol, 1500 10mm rounds, 22 mole rats meat, 17 mole rats teeth, 1 fragmentation grenade, 6 stimpak, 1 rad x, 6 fusion core, computer blueprint, modern TV blueprint, camera recorder blueprint, 1 set of combat armor, Automatic Assault Rifle, 1.500 5.56mm rounds, power armor T51 blueprint, Electric Motorcycle blueprint, T-45 power armor, Minigun, 1.000 5mm rounds, Cryolator, 200 cryo cell, Machine Gun Turret Mk1 blueprint, electric car blueprint, Kellogg gun, Righteous Authority, Ashmaker, Furious Power Fist, Full set combat armor blueprint, M240 7.62mm machine guns blueprint, Automatic Assault Rifle blueprint, and Humvee blueprint.

• Active Quest:-