Part 58: Bunker Epsilon: Dear Shauri

Oh you don't know the half of it!

Post 58: Bunker Epsilon: Dear Shauri

Dear Shauri



The front moves ever forward as the Brotherhood brings order to the Wasteland. A lot of time has past since we saved your village. I have witnessed many changes, both in the Brotherhood and the surrounding lands. It gives a certain frame, a context that makes me see why I kill. The raiders have no such luxury; they're rabid dogs who kill because they can, because they don't know what else to do. The Brotherhood has a purpose. I guess it's to make a Wasteland where we wouldn't have to kill anymore.

Or at least as often.



We move with the frontline. This leads us to the newly established Bunker Epsilon. Much like Delta, it's a new bunker, one that can be hardly called one.



Epsilon is an end of a ravine, and sentries constantly patrol the natural walls surrounding the compound. The pressures of war mean that we don't have time to excavate new bunkers. Maybe any pre-war bunkers in the area had already been taken by raiders, destroyed by war or passage of time.

I wonder if the new bunker would impress the new recruits less. Do you remember your first time at Alpha, Shauri? The metal walls and the doors that moved as if by magic? The cold, cold lights, so different from the dancing flames of a firepit? I can still remember the smell of ozone from the time of my recruitment.



There's none of that magic in Epsilon. We don't even have permanent structures. Everyone lives and works in large tents. Even the quartermaster!



With the boxes piled outside of his tent, he looks like a traveling merchant, not the technological master of the most advanced force in the wastes. Thus our fight for a civilized future takes on a very much contemporary look.





Falleto is very much a hardass. But I'm a Paladin, Shauri, a rising star. Mayhaps I should be more humble, but I have rising through the ranks faster than I can understand. I get all the linchpin assignments. I've brought in piles of new tech, new equipment. Perhaps that's what makes me so indifferent to quartermasters.



One day, you'll also reach the rank where you can get the cream of the crop of recruits. Maybe you'll even find Stein. The squad had to let him go. We traded him in for a Reaver, a lady called Peta. She seems quiet enough. More than that, she seems handy with energy weapons, and that's something we really need right now.

Stein is young and cocky, and I don't feel much regret in letting him go. Stitch, however, is my eldest companion and I could never see myself going on a mission without him. I might not understand half of what he says, but a good medic is worth his weight in scrip.

I can consider myself a happy squad leader, Shauri, for I have yet to lose a man in combat.



And while my rank affords me all of the attentions of medical officers, they're mostly unnecessary since Stitch manages to accomplish any task set before him. He used to be an invaluable combat asset, too, until his favored shotguns proved to be largely ineffective against the robots.

Maybe I'll figure something out once I get him his suit of power armor. For now, they're restricted to me and Peta.



Shauri, I...



I...











I failed you.



I'm sorry, Shauri, I...



I...



The robot chasis was a heap of bent metal and torn wires. Certainly it was no deathclaw that did it in.

We're on the right trail.



You're positive it's him?

Peta's voice cut through the static of the radio. She was driving the APC while Ice was out tracking.



Positive. Bring everyone in, follow the brook till the end.



APC trundled in, keeping the brook on the right. Peta could barely make out a bare chested man standing at the end of a trail of dead robots.



Ice approached the man, slowly..

Come. We have to go.

The man just stood there, watching his own feet, furling and unfurling his fists.



The APC stopped and everyone jumped out. They approached the man, keeping respectful distance.



Flashman.

We need to go.

...I failed her.



But you never failed us.

Standin' around you would fail many mo'.

Come, Flashman! Do your duty just like Shauri did. We will be striking at the very heart of the robot war machine.

We will have vengeance.

Vengeance...



Dear Shauri.

I did not manage to save you and that will haunt me to my grave. However, there are a great many people that I responsible for. All those lives I saved when we took Quincy from Beastlords. The people of Cold Water, ungrateful as they are. The ghouls that have been accepted into our ranks. The super mutants that had been spared. I have a duty to them.

Flashman,jpg And I have a duty to you, too.





We are going to hit the robots at their most vulnerable. They don't have a home we could raid or land we could salt. They probably don't feel anything about any number of them that we kill.

Doesn't matter. We will start with their repair facilities, so that every hit robot is a doomed robot.



We will have vengeance, Shauri. For you, and for everyone we lost.



That I promise you. We will have vengeance.