McCarran

2275: August 5th

Tanya landed hard on her side, two more bodies dropped in the nearby roadside ditch. A groan escaped one of them. Sheridan seemed to still be alive. The other one didn't have such luck. A stump of cauterized flesh was all that was left of his head.

Quickly peeking out of the ditch Tanya looked across the old road to see three figures in power armor. Their dark olive green chest and silver helmets reflecting light in the desert sun. Climbing back down, Tanya looked down the line to see her squad's AT riflemen lying dead beside his weapon, alongside other wounded and dead.

This whole thing was bullshit! It was just a routine patrol mission down the old I-15. Get to the Mojave outpost,clear the road of any potential hostiles, then get back to Camp McCarran, making regular layovers on the rail posts going through the central Mojave to ensure work was progressing on time. Now her Squad leader was dead. The Corporal was wounded. And everyone was depending on her to lead now, even if they didn't know it.

CURSE YOU BEING X!

Taking a breath to calm my nerves I rolled over and grabbed Sheridan. "Get that BAR firing Sheridan! Keep your head down and cover me while I get the AT rifle!" The boy was terrified but nodded and let me climb over him before looking at me again. Giving him a quick count down on my fingers, he stood as I reached zero and started firing at the Brotherhood Paladins attacking our position, forcing them back into cover momentarily to cover the weak points in their armor from the new automatic heavy rifle fire. Taking advantage of the lull in fire, I bolted down the line at full speed, running past my fellow soldiers and jumping over wounded before diving back to the dirt next to my prize as a stream of red ionized air swept over my position.

I looked back down the line to see if Sheridan was okay and was relieved to see he had just stopped covering me to reload and was looking back at me as he fitted a new magazine into his automatic rifle. Giving him a nod I reached up and grabbed the single-shot fifty-caliber rifle and pulled both it and the bandoleer of extra ammo for it back into the trench. A burst of laser fire cracked over my head as I did but I managed to safely get the rifle and ammo into cover. Taking a moment to catch my breath I looked around myself and saw the squad Radioman curled up on the ground next to me, covering his head while his rifle was left discarded on the ground.

Clenching my teeth I reached down and grabbed the kid by the collar of his BDU and held him up to my face. "Pull yourself together, soldier! Is your radio still working!?"

"Y-Yes it's working but-"

"Then get on it and call the Captain. Tell him what's happening here and tell him to call down a smoke strike on our position now!" While I was using a loud and authoritative voice. I didn't scream, I wanted to since this whole situation was insane. But I needed to keep my cool or else I'd just cause a route and get everyone killed. But we needed a smoke cover to fall back and reposition to a more defensible position or possibly break contact, not out here in the middle of this rocky pass where these damn Brotherhood Tin heads had the advantage of range and cover over us.

The kid weakly nodded and as soon as I dropped him he fumbled for the radio on his back and started making the call up the line for the smoke strike. In the meantime, I had to remind these Paladins that they weren't invincible.

Looking up the line I motioned for Sheridan to come closer before setting up his gun again. He'd have to cover me but if he stayed in the same spot as before he would just get shot instantly. And so following my own advice, I crawled down the shoulder of the road until I was about three meters to the right of where I had been before. Once in position, and checking that I had a round loaded, I looked back up the line before giving Sheridan the single to fire.

"Everyone! Cover Tanya!" He shouted before standing and laying down a field of fire, joined in by two more troopers with their semi-automatic M1s. Once again taking the waning fire from the Brotherhood Paladins I stood up, placing the AT rifle across the road and shoulder of the old interstate, I took in a breath and aimed at the three men in power armor. Centering my sights on the one with the heaviest weapon, a Gatling laser, I slowly released a breath before-

Boom!

The large rifle kicked back into me, moving me back about half a foot and bruising my shoulder. My enemy didn't get off as lucky however as the power pack worn on the Paladin's back caught fire, spewing black smoke and glowing before it exploded as the micro fusion reaction inside went critical. The two Paladins to his sides dived for cover. But as the smoke cleared all I could see was the half-molten slagged body of the Paladin, the back half of his head and torso missing while metal and composite fused with flesh. The whole road seemed to go silent as both sides took in what I had just done.

The silence didn't last long as within moments one of the Paladins had stood back up and aimed what looked like a laser Thompson gun at me, but I was already moving, yanking the gun back down as I lay flat in the ditch, watching as red after effects burned over me.

Inspecting the weapon I opened the bolt and fed another round in before looking back at my men. There was six of us left including myself. Two riflemen, Sheridan, our medic, the radioman, and myself. It wasn't enough to win against two paladins. And I knew they wouldn't fall for that same trick twice, especially because without such a clear target as that Gatling laser I wasn't going to be able to kill them even with the AT rifle…

That's when I heard the whistling.

The next moment the whole area between my squad and the two remaining paladins was covered in white smoke, stinging our eyes and burning our skin. Yet the enemy fire died down, the death-bringing beams unable to pierce the thick cloud.

Standing up I broke into a dead sprint back up the line shouting orders as I went. "GRAB THE WOUNDED! WE ARE MOVING!" The men jumped into action, helping our wounded and quickly moving past me and away from the fight. And thus exhausted and battered, we headed towards the closest safe settlement. South towards Primm.

By the time we got back to Primm it was already dark. Entering the small town we were confronted by the local law. Primm wasn't part of the NCR yet even if they benefited from our control of the region, and to maintain that neutrality in the war between us and the Brotherhood we were told we couldn't stay in the main part of town, instead we were told to stay in the abandoned west Primm. It wasn't the best place to be but it had some standing buildings left and gave us a chance to rest, treat our wounded, and communicate with our superiors back in Vegas.

Vegas. What I wouldn't give to have more time off in that city. I wasn't one for the gambling, but it's nearly pre-war level luxury and soft beds were still more than worth the price in my eyes.

But now wasn't the time to think about that. After settling in my squad. I took the radio from its operator and went up to the roof to call in our position and status. Making a bigger deal out of the wounded than I probably had to. But in the end, the result was an up-armored pre-war truck pulling up outside town loaded down with a pair of M2HB heavy machine guns.

After loading up my people the team leader in command of the improvised APC turned us around and set course for McCarran.

And there in the bed of that truck, with steel plates between me and the outside world, and heavy machine guns watching over me. I got some sleep.

2275: August 6th.

The following morning was uneventful. After returning to McCarran I had Corporal Sullivan sent to medical and had the rest of the squad quickly write up a short after-action report then report to their bunk and get some rest. Advise I took after writing up my own report, careful to make the whole firefight seem like organized chaos and not me taking control of a fucked up situation.

When I woke up it was alongside the survivors of my squad. The atmosphere was subdued at best, something that carried over to the mess hall where instead of any of the normally lively conversation I'd grown used to toning out, everyone was silent. Losing half the squad and barely surviving ourselves had damaged morale and with the Sergeant dead and Sullivan in medical… it fell to me.

Standing up, my chair grinding against the old tile floors of the airport terminal, I held up my bottle of water before saying clearly. "To the fallen."

That seemed to take everyone by surprise considering the time is taken to curate a detached persona. But Sheridan joined in, raising his own bottle and echoing my statement. "To the fallen."

The remaining members of the squad soon joined in, prompting me to continue. "They fell in the line of duty, combating Brotherhood terrorists hell-bent on preventing the Republive growth. Let their sacrifice never be forgotten." Seeing them all band together after such a devastating loss felt nostalgic. And for a moment I didn't see Xio squad, 1st platoon, Bravo company. I saw the 203rd.

Then I saw the flash.

Sitting down I was relieved to hear that they had started talking. Specifically trading stories about our lost comrades, reminiscing about fond memories, and funny stories. I was thankful none of them were paying close enough attention to me to see the tears run down my face.

Before the morning meal was over our tables little remembrance was disturbed when an MP walked in calling my name. "Woodson, Specialist Woodson."

I waved him over, knowing trying to avoid whatever this was would only hurt me in the long run. The MP walked over before looking at me in seeming surprise at my age and stature. But he quickly regained his composure. "Specialist Woodson, Colonel Hsu wants to speak with you."

What…? Why the hell did the base commander want to see me personally? It had to be something to do with the ambush yesterday. But I had conducted myself well during that engagement… unless my supposed comrades decided to use me as a scapegoat for our failure to complete our mission. Damn them.

Regardless I stood up. "Understood, I'll head right there."

The MP nodded and walked off to return to his duties. While I quickly left the old terminal to escape the now conspiratorial gazes of my squad.

Arriving at the Colonel's office I politely knocked on his door. Being rewarded with a quick. "Enter" a moment later.

Walking inside the small office which had clearly been a records room pre-war. I was met by the sight of the Colonel wearing the standard NCR BDU with a green Officers beret. The man clearly had vaguely Asian features, though I suspected he didn't know from where he hailed. Stepping towards him I offered a Salute, one he quickly returned with a mumbled "at ease" as he sat at his deck reading something.

"Sit down specialist." I hesitated, not wanting to appear too grateful to be off my feet. Something he clearly noticed and misinterpreted. "Don't worry Specialist, I don't bite. Just wanted to go over some discrepancies with your report."

Damn it, they really had thrown me under the bus, hadn't they? Sitting down slowly across from Hsu I was met with a warm reassuring look as he placed the papers, likely my report, on his desk.

"I know that look, this is your first time taking charge in a firefight and you aren't sure if you did anything wrong."

Oh if only you knew Colonel. No, what I was worried about is how badly my team had screwed me over in their reports.

"But I just wanted to let you know that according to these reports, there wasn't a thing you could have done differently that wouldn't have resulted in your whole squad getting wiped out."

Wait what?

"In fact, the only reason I called you in here is that your report differs from your comrades, specifically your own part in the engagement." Hsu finally finished.

"I'm… not sure what you mean sir?" My confusion was genuine. What did he mean by my report differed? If my comrades hadn't thrown me under the bus, what could possibly be different about my report?

"Well Specialist, all your comrades said that after your Sergeant was killed and his assistant squad lead incapacitated, you took charge and were responsible for rallying them and leading the retreat after managing to kill one of the Brotherhood paladins by yourself. But your report reads more like your squad was acting on some unheard orders. And your part is severely under played when compared to your team's reports." Hsu explained clearly to me.

I wasn't sure how to respond to that. I'd never been close to any of my squad mates, so I'd make sense to throw under the proverbial bus in order to get out of any trouble. Instead all of them claimed I was responsible for saving them? I was flattered and happy to know my squad actually acknowledged my value as a human resource and wanted to see me rewarded… but I didn't want to be in leadership!

"I… didn't think my contributions were that significant sir. Everyone just did what they were supposed to. If anything it's that one hundred-five millimeter gun that saved us, without that smoke, we wouldn't have survived." That wasn't a lie, my team did conduct themselves as well as any group of conscripts could be expected, and that single pre-war gun had probably saved us. But I could only hope the Colonel would buy it.

Hsu looked at me for a few agonizingly long seconds before he nodded his head. "Humble to a point. Well Specialist, as you are the most senior surviving member of your squad other then Sullivan. You are temporarily in command until he recovers, from which point you will fulfill the role of assistant squad lead until a new graduate from leadership school can be found. Additionally, as it is within my authority, you are being promoted from Specialist fifth grade to fourth grade."

He handed me two sheets of paper, the first one I saw was my promotion card to be handed over to the battalion quartermaster for my new rank patch and pay grade. The second upon closer inspection was the same for the Corporal.

"Thank you sir!" I said, letting genuine happiness seep into my voice at the promise of higher pay.

"One last thing Specialist. I'm giving your whole squad day passes to the strip. Take the day to rest and relax after what happened yesterday." He reaches under his desk and pulled out a stack of papers. The first two were promotion sheets for me and Corporal Sullivan. The rest were our day passes.

I stared at the stack of papers in momentary surprise, before straightening up and giving him a salute. "Thank you sir!"

"Don't mention it, Specialist. You're dismissed, go back to your squad and let them have their day passes."

I stood up and offered a salute, one he quickly returned as a signal I could go. Stepping out of his office I hurried back to the meal hall to find my squad still around the table.

As I walked towards them I saw Sheridan stand up before calling out to me. "Tanya! What was that about with the Base Commander?"

Waving him to quiet down I walked over and retook my seat before I started my explanation. "Colonel Hsu wanted to speak with me regarding the disparities between my and the rest of your reports. Seems you gave all the credit to me for killing that Paladin, while my report was more mumble."

The whole table immediately exploded as they all suddenly started claiming that I'd saved them, kept them moving, and was responsible for killing that Paladin. It only stopped when Sheridan stood up. "Listen here you brat, none of us would have touched that AT Rifle. We were all scared out of our minds facing THREE paladins at once. If it wasn't for your leadership and skill with the Tube, we all would have died."

I felt a faint blush work its way into my cheeks and quickly dipped my head. These guys weren't my friends. I barely knew most of them by name for god sake… getting my cheeks to cool off I stood up to face them. "Be that as it may. The good Colonel also saw fit to reward me a promotion to specialist grade four, based on your recommendation. And to reward each of us a day pass to the strip. You earned this when you stood up and fought, regardless of that fear you say I saved you from."

The whole table once again broke into a catastrophic drum of noise as they all cheered for their good fortunes.

I couldn't keep the smile off my face at the once again familiar feeling even if I kept it small.

The strip was amazing. Shady Sands was a model post war city, using easy economic building techniques like adobe and wood. The Hun from what little I'd seen from photos, was the remnants of a pre war city with some large buildings lit up, but even that city, the economic hub of the NCR, was nothing to Vegas. The only city I suspected that came close to matching this place was our own crime city, New Reno.

But to compare that barely contained hive of criminal activity to this?

Everywhere I looked I saw roads that if not in good repair, were at least clean. Lights blazed even now in the middle of the day. Clean water ran from fountains. While people wearing suits hurried about from casino to hotel to bar.

It wouldn't have been my first choice for a vacation spot in either of my prior lives. But it was likely the closest to pre war living I'd experience in this one, short of getting into that gated community known as Vault city, up in Gecko.

While my squad went off to the casinos to gamble away their pay. I decided to go to the Vault 21 hotel and visit their bar. Vault 21 was an odd hotel, was once a nuclear shelter, now it was a novelty hotel. They did a lot of business with the NCR due to their proximity to our Embassy to the New Vegas autonomous zone. But the reason I chose to come here was simple: this place was meant to operate alone, potentially for hundreds of years, and so they had a working hydroponics lab that could grow rare pre-war crops. Specifically…

"One Coffee please, black, no sugar." The young man in the baggy Vault 21 jumpsuit nodded before turning around to start preparing my order.

This reason alone had to be my favorite reason to come here. That and the fact it was the smallest and quietest hotel on the strip. In fact I was the only person in the bar at this hour. Funny that.

"You know, considering you have a monopoly on Coffee you'd figure more people would be coming here just for that." I idly remarked as the young man worked.

"Well. Apparently most people on the surface associate vaults with messed up experiments. That and we don't really have the same kind of appeal as the bigger casinos."

"Experiments?" I asked, suddenly very interested in what he meant.

"Well. It's just rumors. But vault hunters come by here and tell stories. A Vault east of here apparently had an overstocked armory. And our vault was forced to settle all disputes by gambling."

That… was incredibly stupid. "I assume you stopped doing that almost immediately then right?"

"Haha yeah… we stopped… regardless, Vaults have a bad reputation. So our only appeal is the cheap rooms and the stuff we can grow. Makes us popular enough with you NCR types since we are so close to that Embassy you're building across the street. But that's about it."

That was unfortunate. If these guys weren't doing well they'd go out of business eventually. "How do you stay in business?"

"Mostly you people and New Vegas autonomous zone security."

"AZS? Why do they give you enough patronage to stay open?" I asked. AZS were organized mobsters. Infuriatingly better equipped then I was with proper ballistic vests and 10mm SMGs. But they were Vegas' face, actually interacting with people while Mr House's robots did any heavy lifting.

"Most of them used to live here. They used to be our security force. How did you think they are so well armed and drilled? Rest of them are tribute from the families to stay on House's good side, or debtors."

"Debtors?"

"If you run up a tab at any of the casinos, House offers to buy off your debt. In return you sign a ten year contract and work for him, those with combat experience join security, the rest his labor force to help rebuild the strip. Hopefully he'll expand out to the communities soon."

That made sense. Meant he had a constant flow of thankful employees who see him as their savior from the three families. Smart.

"Well. If that's all the business you're getting, have you tried branching out?" These Vaults were meant to be able to rebuild if I remembered my history correctly. They had everything they needed, surely those resources could be put towards a more productive business venture.

"What do you mean by that?" He finally finished my drink and turned around to place it on the bar.

Taking my drink I took a deep sip before placing my cup back down. "Well, what facilities do you have? Vaults are meant to rebuild, so surely you have manufacturing facilities and pharmaceuticals. You obviously have hydroponics."

The man's face took on a mournful expression before he sighed. "Mr House blocked off access to the manufacturing wing and uses that for his own purposes. We do have a medical lab, but that's been reserved for Strip employees. The only facilities we are still allowed free access to is the hydroponics."

That was unfortunate, but House owned this city so I couldn't blame him for trying to maintain control of all his resources and benefit his employees. It made for a good incentive to work for him, knowing he reserved resources and provided benefits like health care would draw people to him and keep them loyal. But not using any resources possible to try and make profit felt off to me. Like there was more than just running his private city

"Well you can grow luxury goods like coffee obviously. What if you sold it to me in bulk at say, ten percent off your normal price? I'll go and sell it in Camp McCarran, come back here and buy it in bulk again."

The man looked down at me for a moment before slowly saying "I'll ask the Weintraub siblings. They run the vault these days. They say yes and I'll sell to you."

I smiled widely at that. "Give me a few shipments and I guarantee you'll have reliable repeat customers. Trust me, soldiers love coffee, and the real thing will definitely appeal to soldiers over ersatz coffee."

"Ersatz?" He asked.

"False coffee. Basically mud water and some chems to keep us awake, tastes terrible but keeps us alert during long shifts."

He nodded and got back to work. I finally got to enjoy my coffee.

2275: August 7th.

The day spent on the strip was a nice break from military life. But military life never ends. Or this seemingly endless stream of chem junkies.

A familiar stream of laser after effects and the stick of burning ozone assaulted my senses as I sat behind a wall of sandbags outside our main gate. While I was enjoying my water with a little "coffee" mixed in. The rest of my squad were sat around doing much the same.

Sure we were being shot at but these weren't the Brotherhood. They were raiders, and while individually they were unpredictable madmen. As a group they were predictable.

"That's thirty seconds, their berserkers will charge soon." I calmly said as he put my canteen away and grabbed my rifle.

Corporal, Now Sergeant, Sullivan nodded and grabbed his own, he was still recovering from his wounds but he could walk on his own and holding the gate wasn't exactly strenuous work. "Remember, these guys can't aim past their chem highs, stay low, cover your battle buddies, and go for headshots to drop them fast, body shots will just kill them later."

As if on que we heard the crazed shouts of psycho addicted berserkers charging our line. Completely different than the assault troops who also used psycho mind you. They weren't junkies.

As one we stood up from our positions in cover and opened fire. Looking down the iron sights of my rifle I trained it on the first man charging across the old road and fired. A splatter of gore flew out the back of his head as he fell to the ground. Realigning my rifle I quickly dropped another as Sheridans BAR began to fire.

The slow firing machine gun wasn't ideal for many of the things our commanders wanted it for. But the .30 caliber rounds tore through the unarmored junkies charging our lines. I watched as one man had the upper half of his head torn off, another as his heart and part of his lungs were blown out his back, third get her thigh blown out, sending her face first into the old asphalt.

The rest of the squad kept firing and within less than a minute the "battle", if you could even call it that, was over. The last report of a weapon being the crack of Sullivan's rifle as he took out the man with the laser weapon. Honestly all in all this was nothing even for these guys, these raiders had no idea how to fight and always came at us with the same strategy again and again, like automatic fire followed by a charge over open terrain would magically work after doing it every week for 22 years. Honestly the biggest mystery to me was why we didn't just go out in force and wipe these guys out.

If even a single one of them could read and had a history book they'd learn why that wasn't going to work without a much larger commitment of resources. Probably more than they had, but more than my squad could handle alone.

But for now, clean up. "Okay everyone, up and over, drag those bodies away from McCarran and strip them of anything useful."

And that we did. Walking over the brief battlefield and stripping the corpses of anything of use. I found what looked like the American submachine guns from world war two. The one that was basically just a metal pipe. Pulling the magazine out however revealed it was chambered in our standard service round and had 'Gun Runner Arsenal' stamped on the receiver. I didn't know if it was military or not, but I was reclaiming this for the republic, like hell I was going to keep lugging around that steel and wooden rifle when they also loaded me down with grenades, especially when I knew my promotion would land me one of those grenade rifles sooner or later.

Oh the woes of being the squad grenadier, being made to lug around the squad's entire explosive arsenal. Whatever would I do?

By the time we started dragging the buddies off to just dump in the nearby underpass, I saw Sullivan had taken the automatic laser weapon from this group's now dead leader. It looked awfully like an American Thompson gun, which definitely gave him an American action hero look as he held the weapons stock under his arm, barrel pointed lazily across the underpass to where these Fiends were based out of. I also saw that several members of my squad had taken the melee weapons from the dead Fiends. Hatchets, machete, Sheridan even had what looked like a chainsaw knife.

When everything was said and done, everyone felt a little better off. I could see it in their eyes, this victory went a long way to proving to everyone here that they could be real soldiers and not just cannon fodder against the Brotherhood. Everyone found something that made them feel like they were better equipped after looting those raiders, and taking zero casualties in a fight while we wiped out our foes just went to show who were the better fighters. Morale was up.

Morale got even better when we got back to the gate and were immediately relieved by another squad. Meaning we got the rest of the day to ourselves once again. Or the ones not in charge of leading the squad did.

Apparently another squad had gotten nearly wiped

out and they were being folded in with us. And Sullivan me to go get them and bring them over to our squads part of the bunk. Great.

What I found wasn't promising, out of the four of them only one rouse to greet me when I introduced myself. And that was their leader, a Corporal and my new superior. The three riflemen behind him didn't look as well, two were staring off into space and the last one shot me a glare before returning to his book.

The Corporal meanwhile shook my hand. "You must be who Sullivan sent to get us."

"That's right, Specialist fourth grade Tanya Woodson."

"Corporal Johnson. And this is what's left of Jackson's fusiliers." He gestures to the remnants of his squad.

"Well Corporal Johnson, you're in good hands. Sullivans new but he's competent at leading and cares about the squad."

He nodded and quickly got his people stood up and moved all their gear over to our section of the barracks.

I watched them settle in from a distance, observing as the poor excuse for soldiers we got saddled with just sat around and did nothing, my squad members at least were being productive with their spare time by cleaning their rifles or reading the news.

I just had to survive another year and I'm free, ten more months and I can retire to civilian life and go help run the business I co-own. I just have to survive to 2276 and my two years are up. As long as nothing bad happened that could extend my term of service, I would be free!

So… this took a while, so I'm a slow writer and I got sick like half way through this chapter. But I hope you all enjoy this chapter that I honestly don't consider to be that good.

So the next few chapters are probably going to be shorter and follow Tanya during her service in the Mojave before the battle of Hover dam. And before anyone says the battle happens in 2277 and she said she'd get out in 2276… don't worry I have a plan. If you know what bullhead city is you should have some idea.

Honestly I'm just thankful for all the likes and the comments. Please leave more I love to engage with people about my ideas.

Tanya is currently her squads grenadier, this means she's walking around with either proper frag grenades or sticks of dynamite. But her getting a promotion might earn her a M39 thumper grenade rifle. Who knows.

More to come, promise.