585. The Aftermath From The Institute Attack

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Shaun stared at the screen then whispered, to no one in particular. "We'll see about that."

The scene returned to Sanctuary not with celebration, but with silence.

The kind of silence that settles over a graveyard, thick and heavy. Smoke still curled from the blackened edges of the barricades, and the crimson sun—half-lost behind soot-colored clouds—cast everything in an eerie, funeral glow.

Sico walked alone through the rubble.

His boots crunched over broken synth parts, twisted rifles, and bits of scorched Freemason armor. His ribs ached with every breath, his shoulder was half-numb, and the left side of his face was caked with someone else's blood. Still, he kept walking—head high, eyes scanning.

The fire in his gut hadn't gone out.

But the weight on his chest grew heavier with every step.

He found Preston sitting on the edge of a shattered crate outside the remnants of the northern tower—just a rusted hunk of steel now, riddled with plasma scars. A field bandage wrapped his upper arm, already soaked through in places. His face was drawn, hollow, but his hands moved steadily over a set of clipboards and tablets, sorting through the aftermath one name at a time.

Sico stopped in front of him. Preston looked up, the weight in his eyes mirroring his own.

"What's our count?" Sico asked.

Preston didn't hesitate. He didn't even sigh.

"107 soldiers with light injuries. Thirty-four civilians in the same category." He glanced at the next board, flipping it over with fingers that trembled only slightly. "Fifty-seven soldiers and twenty civilians seriously wounded. Mostly plasma burns, some limb loss."

Sico swallowed, but didn't interrupt.

Preston's voice dropped as he read the last line.

"One hundred and four soldiers killed in action," he said. "Fifteen civilians."

He paused.

"We also lost twenty-five Commandos. And twelve of the Power Armor boys. That's… to many since we build both team."

Sico closed his eyes.

He didn't speak. Didn't blink.

The silence returned, coiling around the two men like smoke.

The numbers felt unreal. Just digits, until you saw the faces behind them. Heard the way they laughed, or how they drank their coffee, or the way they yelled when they missed a shot during training.

Sico didn't cry. But he didn't breathe for several seconds either.

When he did, it sounded like gravel in his throat.

"Any civilians unaccounted for?" he asked.

"No," Preston replied quietly. "Hancock and his team helped get everyone into the shelters before the breach. A few collapses, but… they held."

"Good," Sico said softly. "Goddamn good."

They walked together after that—no words, just motion.

Through the tents now lined with wounded, where young medics scrambled to keep IVs in place and use their last doses of Med-X sparingly. Where soldiers clutched each other's hands, or stared at the ceiling, whispering the names of fallen friends.

Sico stopped to kneel beside one such cot.

The man lying there was barely recognizable beneath the gauze, but Sico knew the outline of his jaw. Knew the voice that once joked about marrying a Minutewoman just for the hat. He had taken a plasma round meant for Sico himself. Without hesitation.

He sat there for a long time.

Long enough that the medic didn't interrupt.

Eventually, he stood, fingers brushing over the blanket.

Albert and Sarah found him near the courtyard firepit, where Commandos had begun laying out the bodies of their own.

They approached from opposite sides, both streaked in soot and blood but alive. Albert had one arm in a sling. Sarah walked with a limp.

The three of them didn't speak for a long time.

Then Sarah said, "We held."

And that was all.

They stood together, shoulder to shoulder, watching as a group of young soldiers—half of them fresh recruits—began setting up temporary pyres. They were careful. Gentle. As if afraid to dishonor the dead by rushing.

Ana Delcroix sat near one of the medical tents, helping a boy with a tourniquet. He couldn't have been older than sixteen. The bandage on his leg was crude, and he winced as she tightened it—but he didn't cry. He had been one of the ones who held the north checkpoint when the coursers breached.

She tousled his hair and gave him her canteen.

MacCready, across the yard, stood with both arms locked against the frame of his ruined Power Armor. The plating was warped, the helmet dented in. He was talking softly to it. Maybe cursing it. Maybe thanking it. No one interrupted.

Sico walked to the Commandos' memorial tent next.

The flap was open. Inside, twenty-five stretchers, each draped with the Freemason red. Some of the bodies still had scorch marks. Others had been cleaned.

He walked down the aisle, stopping halfway to kneel beside one of the fallen. A woman with close-cropped hair and a hollow cheek scar. The one who pulled him out from the rubble when the EMP hit.

He rested his hand over hers.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Outside, the fires were being lit.

One by one, the pyres caught flame. And the smoke rose again—not from battle, not from destruction—but from mourning. From memory.

From honor.

As the night deepened, Sico climbed alone to what was left of the parapet. It creaked under his weight. The view was wide. Ashen. But there was life in the settlement below. Survivors moving like shadows through flickering light. The wounded, the helpers, the builders.

He struck a match. Lit a small flame in a tin bowl beside him.

One flame for a hundred lives.

His voice was a whisper. Just loud enough to carry to the dead.

"They tried to break us. And we bled. But we didn't break."

He looked east, where the sky still glowed faintly.

"They'll come again."

A pause.

Then his voice hardened.

"But they will never take us while I still draw breath."

The memorial flame flickered low in the tin bowl as Sico stepped back from the edge of the broken parapet. Below, the last of the pyres burned in solemn silence, their smoke drifting toward the dawn as the stars above began to fade into a tired sky. The first light of morning brushed gently across the ragged rooftops of Sanctuary, catching on bullet-scarred walls and crumbling sandbags like glimmers of something not quite hope, but not despair either.

Sico's boots felt heavier now as he made his way down the ruined steps. He wasn't limping, not quite, but each movement dragged with the gravity of exhaustion. Not just physical. Deeper. Like a stone tied to the heart.

He found Ana Delcroix still kneeling beside the wounded boy she'd tended to earlier. The kid had dozed off, propped up against a salvaged crate padded with old rags. His leg was elevated, the bandages tight, stained but holding. Ana had draped her jacket over him, though the dawn chill still clung to the air.

She didn't look up when Sico approached. Just let out a slow breath and kept brushing her fingers gently through the boy's soot-matted hair.

"He never blinked," she said softly. "When the coursers hit the checkpoint. He stood there with a broken rifle and swung like hell."

Sico crouched beside her, arms resting on his knees.

"We teach them to be brave," he said. "But not what comes after."

Ana finally turned her head. Her face was lined with smoke and dried blood, eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed from hours without rest. But they were steady. Unbreakable.

"What comes after," she said, "is why we're still breathing."

Sico nodded slowly.

A long silence passed between them before he spoke again.

"I need you to take your people back to Lynnstone," he said.

Ana blinked, surprised. "Already?"

He nodded again, slower this time. "Today. Before noon."

She sat up straighter. "We've still got wounded here. Half my medics are helping your staff. My people can stay another day, at least. We can—"

"No," Sico said firmly, not unkindly. "I need you back at the settlements. All of them. Get your patrol routes active again, reinforce outposts, rotate your scouts. I want every wall watched."

Ana stared at him, the beginnings of a protest flickering behind her eyes. "You think they're coming for us again?"

"No," he said. "I think they're going for everyone else."

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

"The Institute doesn't retreat unless they've already decided what to destroy next. They failed here. We humiliated them. But that wasn't their last play. And if I know Shaun—and I do—he won't throw another wave at Sanctuary."

He looked out across the camp, at the fires, the med tents, the stretchers.

"He'll go after the places we don't expect. The places we can't afford to lose."

Ana was quiet. She reached down, gently adjusting the boy's blanket. "We barely held this place, Sico."

"I know."

"You're asking me to walk away from the only line we just proved we could hold."

"I'm asking you to make sure there's something left worth defending," Sico replied.

She studied him. Long and hard. Then finally looked away, drawing in a deep breath that seemed to rattle in her chest.

"You're playing the long game."

"I'm just trying to make sure there's a game left at all."

Ana rose slowly, brushing ash off her trousers. "We'll be ready in an hour."

Sico stood with her, giving her a brief nod of thanks.

She turned to go, then paused and glanced back. "You want to tell him?"

Sico looked down at the boy, still sleeping fitfully under her jacket.

"No," he said quietly. "Let him sleep."

An hour later, the reinforcement from Lynnstone gathered by the southern gate. They had stripped down their temporary gear, redistributed supplies, and patched what wounds they could. The dead had been buried. The armor dented, the uniforms scorched, but their formation was clean—proud, even in mourning.

Ana moved among them, checking shoulders, helmets, eyes.

Not issuing orders—reassuring. Re-centering.

She found one of her younger lieutenants by the perimeter wall, arms crossed and jaw clenched.

"You're not staying?" the girl asked. Her name was Kaylen. Eighteen. She had taken down two synths in close quarters and was still shaking.

Ana put a hand on her shoulder. "We already held our line. Now we hold theirs."

Kaylen nodded, though her lip quivered.

The boy Ana had treated earlier was sitting upright on a makeshift cart, legs bound and splinted, arms wrapped around his rifle. It wasn't even functional anymore—bent down the middle—but he held it anyway. Like it was the last piece of something sacred.

When Ana approached, he looked up at her with wide, glassy eyes. "Are we… running?"

She knelt in front of him.

"No," she said gently. "We're going home. So this place still has one."

He sniffed, then nodded, trying to be brave again.

Ana reached into her coat and pulled out a clean bandana—folded, faded red. She tied it gently around the boy's wrist. "This means you're one of us now. Officially."

His mouth trembled. "Thank you, Commander."

She ruffled his hair and turned.

Sico stood by the gate.

Their eyes met across the clearing.

He raised a fist in silent salute.

She returned it.

Then, without another word, Ana led her people out.

Through the cracked southern barricade, past the broken watchtowers, into the morning light where the road turned to dirt. Their boots stirred dust, but their backs remained straight. There was no cheering, no drums. Only resolve.

The last of them disappeared into the tree line as the sun finally broke the clouds, casting pale gold across the broken face of Sanctuary.

Sico didn't speak as they vanished.

He just stood there a while.

The sun warmed nothing. The breeze carried only the smell of fire and burned synth oil.

Behind him, the settlement stirred. Fires banked. Medics moved with practiced rhythm. Builders were already hauling stone toward the gaps in the wall. Someone was fixing the roof of the command post.

Life went on.

But something had changed.

Sico looked down at his hands.

They didn't shake.

Not yet.

But the weight on them would never come off.

He turned slowly and walked back into Sanctuary—past the craters, the spent casings, the bloodied banners still hanging limp on the fences. Past the line of stretchers, past the flags marking graves.

The scent changed as Sico moved from the battered outer perimeter of Sanctuary into the inner ward—less smoke and burned metal, more blood and antiseptic. The prison loomed in the near distance, its once-cracked concrete patched hastily with scrap plating and welded steel. It had never been pretty. It wasn't meant to be. The place had been a pre-War processing center, long since gutted, repurposed into a fortified holding compound the Freemasons used to house only their most sensitive enemies.

Like Talbot.

The man who had nearly fractured the Republic from within.

And the man the Institute had gambled a full-scale offensive to retrieve.

Sico's boots echoed sharply on the pavement as he crossed the inner trench bridge, the hastily rigged drawgate still scorched from the last plasma hit. He nodded to the two guards standing at the threshold, both of them Commandos, both battered and bruised, but still standing. Their black-and-crimson insignias were faded, dulled by soot. One of them raised a fist in salute, the other merely offered a tight, silent nod.

Inside the yard, the signs of battle were everywhere.

Burned corridors. Shattered blast doors. Craters left by concussive grenades. Bullet pockmarks running like tattoos down the walls.

But the flag above the compound still flew.

Red, white, and black. Still upright.

He followed the sound of hammering down the inner corridor—where reinforcement teams were bolting new plating over a destroyed wall section. One of the welders looked over his shoulder, blinked, and straightened immediately when he saw Sico.

"Commander on deck," someone called out quietly, respectfully.

Sico didn't stop. Just nodded and continued.

He found Sarah standing in the command wing near Cell Block Alpha, arms crossed, eyes locked on a large tactical map lit up by old, flickering bulbs. Her armor was scratched raw, the Freemason insignia on her shoulder barely visible beneath the dried blood and debris. Her right leg was braced with makeshift plating, and a burn ran down one side of her neck, hastily treated but still angry and red.

Robert stood beside her, one hand resting on a rifle slung across his chest. His entire left sleeve had been ripped away, bandages twisting from elbow to wrist. His expression didn't change when he saw Sico—just the barest shift in posture, as if bracing for either orders or grief.

"You look like hell," Sarah said without turning from the map.

Sico almost smiled. "You should see the other guy."

She snorted softly, finally turning. "You walking okay?"

"Barely," he said. "You?"

She motioned to her leg. "Glorified broomstick, but it works."

He stepped closer and clasped her forearm gently. "You held."

"Yeah," she said, voice low. "But just barely. You should've seen it."

"I saw it," he said. "The field cams were patched into the wall until the relay collapsed."

Sarah gestured toward a burnt-out corner of the command table. "That was our first breach. Courser got through after cutting half a squad down. Robert took its head off with a scattergun."

Sico looked at him. "Nice work."

Robert gave a tired shrug. "It wasn't clean. But it stayed down."

Sico leaned forward slightly, studying the map. "You lost twenty-five."

Sarah nodded grimly. "All Commandos. Most of them holding the side entrance. Coursers came in staggered—four different angles. We didn't have time to rotate teams before the second breach."

"And Talbot?" Sico asked, voice lowering.

Sarah's jaw tensed. "Still secure. Never even saw the door open. They got within ten feet of the vault once. Never again."

Robert added, "One of them tried hacking the door remotely. EMP burst knocked out half the corridor, but the inner shell held. You were right about doubling the dampeners."

Sico nodded slowly. "What about the holding cells?"

Sarah glanced toward the far hallway. "Still intact. All prisoners accounted for. No escapes."

He let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

The three of them stood in silence for a moment. The corridor behind them hummed with distant generator noise, interrupted only by the occasional spark from a plasma torch or the distant clatter of boots on steel.

"I need to see him," Sico said at last.

Neither of them protested.

Sarah keyed a small override into the wall panel. The heavy blast door to the lower vault unsealed with a loud hiss, and the trio descended together into the cold, reinforced depths of the prison—into the silence below where even war hadn't touched.

The light flickered in the hallway as they passed.

They stopped before Cell 03—heavily reinforced, shielded by a mesh of EMP-resistant polymer and hardened steel.

Inside, behind four inches of blast glass and a passive energy field, sat Talbot.

He didn't look up.

He sat cross-legged on the cell bench, hair disheveled, clothes singed but intact. A small cut ran along his temple. His expression was neutral, almost serene. Like a man in deep meditation rather than a prisoner of war.

Sico approached the glass.

Talbot finally opened his eyes.

For a long moment, they just stared at each other. No words. No games. No moves on a board.

Then Talbot smiled—small, tired, but undeniably real.

"You held," he said quietly.

Sico didn't answer.

Talbot tilted his head. "They really wanted me back, huh?"

"You're not going anywhere," Sico said flatly.

Talbot nodded slowly. "I figured."

Sarah shifted beside him, tense. Her hand rested lightly on the hilt of her knife.

Sico took a step closer. "They bled for you."

"I know," Talbot replied.

Sico narrowed his eyes. "That doesn't bother you?"

"Should it?" Talbot asked, voice almost philosophical. "People bleed for power. For control. For what they fear, and what they believe. They always have."

Sico clenched his jaw. "We lost over a hundred men. You weren't worth a single one."

Talbot's expression didn't change. "And yet… you kept me alive."

Sico stared at him a moment longer, then turned away.

"He stays," he said to Sarah and Robert. "But no more chances. We upgrade the cell locks again. Add another EM buffer. Triple-check the security relays."

Robert nodded immediately.

Sarah was still watching Talbot. "I want a motion camera tied into the heartbeat sensor. If he so much as shifts wrong, I want to know."

"Done," Sico said. "No more surprises."

They walked back together, leaving Talbot in silence again.

When they reached the top of the stairwell, Sico stopped and looked out toward the distant fields—toward the green where so many had died, and the broken gate that still stood.

"We're not done," he said quietly.

"No," Sarah replied.

"Not even close," Robert agreed.

And so the prison held. As the sky warmed with dawn, Sanctuary stood—scarred, grieving, half in ruin but free.

________________________________________________

• 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:-