Part 60: Canyon City, Part 2: Breaking Backs With Power Packs

Post 60: Canyon City, Part 2: Hipfire



Flashman shouldered the RPG. Prescious M2 ammo was running low, and he could not know when he would find more. But the RPG could be fed from a small cache of EMP and Sabot rounds, as well as those HE rockets they found in the dead turrets.

If the fact that he was about to fight inside the tight confines of a building worried him, Flashman showed no sign of it. With the tube resting on his shoulder, he opened the doors to the next room.

A lobby? A control room? Whatever it was, it had more robots guarding it.



One of them immediately ate an RPG round to the face. Peta slipped through the doorway while Flashman was reloading and started snapping (zapping) shots at scurry bots.



The dead humanoid bot held a minigun of an unseen design. Flashman had barely picked it up off the ground when Peta ripped it from his hands.



Blessed Ohm! A Sunbeam gatling laser! Oh this will set fire to many a devilish automaton!



Having said that, Peta used the gun to melt a cornered scurry bot. There was no light show, unlike with plasma guns and laser rifles, but the tiny bot danced as it was raked by invisible beams, and its molted innard sprayed on the walls.



Sunbeam gatling in hand, Peta stepped out into a corridor running though the building. A rumble rose in the far end, followed by whirring and the sound of flailing chains.

A tank bot! They managed to cram a tank bot in here!

Peta spun up the barrels and aimed the ugly muzzle of the gatling at the robot.



However, the tank bot was massive, hard and apparently not too sophisticated as far as the technological side went, so it took the shots all too well, and Peta had to retreat, firing all the way.



It was a suitable time for Flashman to step on the stage once again, and he did, firing his RPG at close range, letting the armor soak up the blastwave.

This made the robot retreat – maybe there was a bit more tank than bot in the tank bot and it was struck by an ancestral fear of RPGs.



After some chase and random shots, the tank bot charged Flashman in a last ditch effort to break free. Seeing the metal juggernaught careening towards him, Flashman didn't even aim, simply firing the RPG from the hip. The rocket slammed into the already mangled chasis, finally gutting the robot. The blast was so close and so strong that Flashman was knocked unconscious, inches away from the treads of the now-dead robot.



Medic!

When Stitch arrived and started administering aid to Flashman (this included holding a rag soaked in Rot Gut under his nose ), Peta went down the length of the coridor and chose the door to her left. The building wasn't secured yet.



Security robots! The rooms had was crawling with the machines and they fired wildly at the startled Peta.

She ducked back and starting firing through the door. Flashman joined in with the M2. Soon, the last of the tentacled machines fell down twitching.

It turned out that they were carrying a lot more fusion cells than their diminutive size would imply.



With an another core located and a room cleared of robots, the team moved to secure the rest of the ground floor.



Flashman led the way, Stitch followed, and Peta waited in reserve. The leader couldn't help but marvel at the technological artefacts built into the walls and their probable functions.



Finding the stairs to the second floor, Flashman climbed them carefully, looking for any robots. He didn't find any on the top of the stairs, but he glimpsed a few security bots in the room next door.

He called Peta and told her to take the lead.

The security robots soon fell to the overwhelming might of the gatling laser.



The central room on the second floor held two humanoid robots. Using guile and indiscriminate fire, Peta distracted the tin men long enough for Flashman to get into a position which allowed him to shoot the robots at point bland range.

Sparks flew, torsos exploded, etc.



Even the humanoids held a surprising amount of ammo for energy weapons. At this rate, Flashman could have both Peta and Toni firing Sunbeam gatlings till their barrels melted and still have enough left over for Ice.



Meanwhile, Mandy, still on read guard duty/scouting alternate routes was starting to feel pretty lonely.



Ice, on the other hand, was called forward to place more det packs on the power cores.



While the sniper was dealing with high explosives, Peta found a surprisingly intact terminal that started playing as soon as she touched it.









More terminals were coming online, seemingly reacting to the presence of real live people.







Stories of graft and incompetence just spilled out of the machines, relieving them of the burden that would be carrier once more by the living,









Cute haircuts?! Where the pre-war people crazy? That sort of logic was incomprehensible to the Brotherhood, which adhered strictly to military procedures and didn't permit any lavish accomodations for the senior commanders.



Of course, one doesn't have that much time for thinking and philosophy when there are robots out and about.



With (hopefully) all the bots out of action, Flashman took the stairs to check the roof.

Ruins spread every which way while the roof itself was a mostly flat plane of brass with some pipes interrupting here and there.



Ice was once again on demolitions duty.



Peta used the breather to compare her weapons. The EMP rifle seemed more damaging, what with the EMP effect, while the Gatling had a terrifying rate of fire and delivered many more shots on target.

Decissions, decissions! Ohm guide me...

And somehwere downstairs, Toni felt getting snubbed.



Flashman lead his troops (mostly Peta) to the basement, where he opened the only door in the room. A long corridor stretched away from it. It was unremarkable save for a single lifter bot.



Combined fire from Flashman and Peta easily took down this previously-menacing automaton.

Flashman was discovering that HE rockets weren't as impotent as he had previously thought.



The squad made their way down the tunnel and took the first ladder they found. It led to a yard in what appeared to be a small Nuka Cola factory. It was mostly abandoned – save for a couple of robots that went down real fast – and the troops easily found the core.



The factory held nothing else of interest, just piles of trash, broken cupboards and rotting tables everywhere.



Wait, that wasn't the last power core? I was sure there were four!

Flashman checked his PipBoy, incredulous.

Welp, I was wrong. Don't know how that slip-up happened.



The next core wasn't hard to find, as it was placed in a ruined building that was both unguarded and easy to access from the Nuka cola plant.



However, upon entering a nearby ruin, Flashman immediately spotted a robot and fired a rocket without even realizing.

Judging by the arrangement of trenches and sandbags, the team had stumbled into the rear of a robot defense line.



Between Flashman's RPGs and Peta energy weapons, the robots fell one after the other.

Flashman didn't even bother shouldering the tube anymore, firing it from the hip, using his natural strength coupled with the synthetic muscles of the Power Armor to control both the aim and recoil.



Ice was still on rearguard and demolitions duty. It was unclear what she thought about being taken away from the fight, as Ice seldom stated her opinion on anything.



Flashman and Peta got into another close range firefight as they stumbled into a yet another badly placed defensive position. Flashman got briefly knocked out by a stray shot hitting his helmet and sending vibrations through his head, but Peta finished the fight.



The squad was now advancing on the final power core.



It was set inside a half collapsed factory building, which was jarringly different from the repair center. Here, the metal was blackened and bent in places and there was no high tech splendor to accompany it.



Mandy was tasked with scouting out a suspicious opening in the wall before Flashman would rush through the door.



Turrets!

Turrets controlled by a switch placed outside the building!

The setup didn't make any sense. As Stitch would comment later, the robots likely tracked each other through some radio beacon IFF system, so there was no need for a shutdown switch... especially if it’s placed where an attacker could get to it by crawling.



Flashman opened the door and revealed himself to the turrets. Not even a beep.

Clear!



Ice, move up! The last core is in sight!



While Ice was underway, Flashman and Peta put some effort into dismantling the turrets, just to be safe.

Once their metal innards burst, they spilled 7.62mm everywhere. Flashman couldn't decide whether these or the rocket turrets werestranger.



Ice was about to drop off the explosive satchel when two more scurry bots popped up. She had to run back to the door where she was forced to duck to avoid the overly enthusiastic fire from Flashman and Peta.

With the robots gone, the explosives could be placed without interruptions.



Ice, I'll do the honors if it's all the same with you.





The explosives burst the bubble on the power cores and without the autorepair systems feeding off the other cores, the machine just burnt itself out.



The mission had been brief, but grueling, and everyone felt more experienced from it.







Three robot repair centers were offline. Every robot that escaped the fight would now be doomed to slowly wear itself dead, and the enemy logistics should be in disarray. Thus while Brotherhood suffers losses in combat units, the enemy is losing the core of its ability to fight.

The end grinds ever closer.

Next time: Downtime at the bunker!

Eventually, this mission turned out to be relatively short. After you clear the right side of the map, the left folds almost like paper tissue. No giant robots, no security bots, and just a few security bots.

That said, the robots in this carry ridiculous amounts of ammo. You'll be swimming in 7.62, HE rockets and energy gun food if you can carry it all. Also, HE rockets are now surprisingly good. Fuck me if I understand why.

Oh, and the last turrets are supposed to be autocannons and deal a lot of damage, despite shooting 7.62. I'll make it known that I hate games that base damage on the gun, not the round.

I also missed a terminal which explains the power node self repair, even thought that's bullshit considering that one of the reasons why Fallout looks like it looks is that they didn't discover electronics miniaturization or somethig