The fruits of victory
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The sun was slowly setting on the horizon as I watched my new recruits maneuver with their newly acquired weapons. I couldn't help but feel frustration. I had been promoted to the rank of centurion, but instead of commanding a veteran force, I found myself training a group of poorly equipped and inexperienced young men. It was what was expected of me, and I knew I couldn't fail; the Legion's hierarchy didn't forgive mistakes, and now that I reported directly to Lanius, the pressure was even greater.
As much as I would have liked to be the first to leave the camp and head towards Vault 29, there were many duties expected of me as the new centurion. The first was to adapt to the painful hierarchical system of the Legion. I had become a high-ranking officer, and it was expected that I wouldn't make any mistakes.
The Legion had a strange command structure. Technically, the second-highest rank, centurion, was only supposed to command ten decanus and ninety legionaries, but in reality, this was often broken. Some centurions commanded far more decanus and legionaries, sometimes even other centurions. The primus pilus, or the centurion of the first centuria of the cohort, was one of those who sat at Lanius' table.
Normally, I would report to the most veteran centurion, but Lanius had other plans. He wanted a full cohort of men in power armor, a titanic goal considering how rare they are. Even with the blueprints to make more Vault-Tec power armor, gathering the necessary materials was extremely difficult and, above all, expensive.
That's why I reported directly to Lanius and not to Centurion Nicodemus, who had been recommending me for promotion since the day he himself gave me the rank of decanus.
For now, I had to settle for leading a centuria before forming a full cohort with my future men. After my conversation with Lanius, I was quickly assigned a group of extremely fresh recruits who had arrived as reinforcements for the campaign. As was typical for the Legion, they were incredibly poorly armed but highly motivated to fight for Caesar until the end.
Once again, I found myself using my influence to purchase weapons with hard currency for my soldiers. It was cheaper to buy the scarce weapons than to constantly train new legionaries to reinforce my centuria in case of casualties.
I spent the entire afternoon acquiring rifles and ammunition for my men. I immediately began training them in the use of rifles in combat, burning through valuable ammunition, but I couldn't give them the week of training I would have liked.
Diana had gathered all possible resources for a desperate defense of her temple. If the temple was captured, it would mean the moral defeat of the tribals, and since that had already happened, resistance was likely to be minimal. If we advanced quickly, the war against the tribals could end with the least possible bloodshed, which would increase the future flow of slaves for upcoming projects in these fertile lands Diana had protected for years.
The problem would be raising funds to purchase the land. The Legion could demand the land's surrender to my tribe, but Lanius—he would squeeze every last aureus out of me for equipment to fuel his campaign.
Everything depended on reaching Vault 29 first, so I could be the first to loot it and claim a significant share of the spoils. Now that I was a centurion, I was guaranteed a large percentage of the plunder.
Early in the morning, before the sun had risen, I had a verbal conflict with a decanus in charge of Lanius' cohort logistics. I needed more motorized carriages, as the five we had for my contubernium weren't enough to transport a hundred men. Securing an additional fifteen carriages wasn't easy, as they were a valuable asset for the campaign.
But I managed to secure them for a limited time, so without wasting any more time, I had all my recruits wake up early, and we immediately set off at the maximum speed the carriages could manage.
Luckily, along our entire route, we encountered only defenseless villages with no guards, just as I had predicted. Diana had invested all her resources into stopping us at her temple, and now that she had failed, she couldn't do anything to stop our advance toward Vault 29.
The terrain we passed through was the same fertile land we had seen since invading these lands, with various crops growing abundantly. Many legionaries had already started harvesting the local plants, but we had our sights set on the real prize: the vault and its valuable technology.
With every kilometer we traveled, the environment grew greener and the river clearer. It was obvious from my men's expressions that they were amazed by this place. Most of them had grown up in a desert environment and had become accustomed to living in such conditions.
After traveling for hours, we were nearing our destination. Before I could give orders, my legionaries scattered in all directions. Some jumped to grab apples, others were pulling up local vegetables, and a few ran to the river to get water.
I bit my lip in anger at this insubordination. The risk of an ambush was real since we had penetrated deep into tribal lines. But I also understood my men's fascination with everything they were seeing. The only ones who remained in position and alert were my original contubernium, scanning all around and reacting to every sound while the others continued their attempt to gather whatever they could.
I could see their faces light up with joy as they bit into apples, free from any signs of radiation mutation.
"The fruit... without mutations? Wait, what?"
I approached to examine everything more carefully and noticed that the plants the tribals were cultivating were pre-war varieties. But that would be impossible... almost all seeds were mutated by radiation, and Vault-Tec never considered apples vital for their hydroponic farms.
I took one of the apples and scrutinized it closely. When I split it in half, I determined that the fruit was perfect, with no visible mutations—identical to the Red Delicious apples, one of the most common in America. It was incredibly sweet and juicy, a sensation I had forgotten from consuming pure fructose.
This only made me want to speed up our advance towards Vault 29 even more, to try and reach it before any further armed resistance could be mounted that would require the full presence of the Legion's army, forcing me to share the loot with many others.
"Everyone, back to the vehicles, now!" I shouted, breaking the enchantment of the moment.
The men, still with smiles on their faces, reacted quickly to the order. Although some had shown signs of insubordination by dispersing earlier, they knew they couldn't test me twice. Discipline in the Legion was absolute, and despite how tempting the surroundings were, they understood that well.
We got back into the vehicles, this time with less caution. The machines groaned under the strain of speed, the uneven terrain, and the lack of proper maintenance. But it didn't matter. Every second lost was one less opportunity to loot the Vault, one less chance to gather the vital materials and technology for the power armor.
We continued driving through the green plains until we finally spotted a large settlement where Vault 29 was supposed to be. As we approached, we noticed that the town was undefended, with no guards in sight. We had arrived before they could reorganize their forces.
We immediately dismounted from our vehicles and marched toward the town, spread out in a wide line with the power armor units at the front to provide protection for the more poorly equipped legionaries in my century.
When we saw people emerging from the town, we prepared ourselves. But instead of carrying spears, rifles, or bows as we had seen in our previous battles, the locals came out holding baskets filled with food.
This did not make me lower my guard, and I continued advancing towards the group, alert to any ambush attempts, especially since the town had three-story buildings where a skilled sniper could take out a few of us before we could find cover.
The group that met us extended their arms with the food baskets, though I noticed they were trembling with fear.
"Why do you surrender?" I asked, pointing my rifle at the large crowd that had gathered to greet us.
"The goddess of the harvest commanded it. When the men who serve the Bull appear, we must offer tribute to avoid their wrath," an elderly man with wrinkles all over his face responded.
I knew well that Lanius would destroy every trace of this tribe's culture because they worshipped a goddess not recognized in Caesar's pantheon, making them a threat to stability.
"Your subjugation will be accepted by Legate Lanius when he arrives. In the meantime, I want you to hand over all your weapons—from knives to rifles—and you will not suffer harm from my hand," I responded to the leader of the group.
The locals, their faces pale and trembling, exchanged nervous glances at my words. Some hesitated, but quickly began to comply. Men and women, young and old, emptied their baskets of fruit and began handing over what weapons they had: rusty knives, poorly maintained spears, and a few broken-down rifles. Everything they owned was clearly inferior to our equipment, but even so, a soldier never underestimates a potential enemy.
My men moved through the town. The power armor at the front served as an imposing visual deterrent, while the less armed legionaries kept a safe distance. The locals seemed to have surrendered entirely, but I knew a desperate tribe was capable of anything.
"Centurion, it seems they have no more weapons," Drusus said, pointing to a pile of poorly maintained arms.
Having achieved the most important goal of disarming the inhabitants, I began searching for Vault 29. It wasn't hidden—it was simply a matter of following the electrical wiring supplying the town to locate it.
The Vault was open, and the few tribals inside were tending the hydroponic farms... but there was none of what had excited me. No seeds, no advanced tools, no weapons, no robots. Nothing. Empty.
All that remained in the Vault was the power station supplying electricity to both the Vault and the surrounding town, which, at best, would cover the cost of the vehicles and the newly acquired equipment.
The tribe had to have obtained those pure seeds from somewhere; otherwise, it wouldn't have been possible. I remembered where the data frequencies originated before being sent from Vault 29,the signal was west of this position.
Since there was nothing of much value in the Vault except for some manufacturing machinery we already had, we returned to the vehicles and drove west, leaving the village for the next group to arrive.
"Strange... why do they have so many mutated Brahmin?" Cato remarked, looking to the right.
I turned to observe, noticing the place was full of regular cows, not the horrible mutation of the Brahmin.
After another few hours of travel, we arrived at a canyon and had to continue on foot through the area until we encountered a zone teeming with both animal and plant life.
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