Part 50: Great Bend, Part 1: Gettin' Bent

I'm such an ass at updates.

Post 50: Great Bend, pt. 1: Get Bent At Great Bend



All right, you lot. We're facing robots here, which, considering our previous experience with them, means jack and shit to us. We're gonna test their mettle and metal ourselves. I'm the only one in power armor, so I lead the way!

Not like anyone was going to argue. Staying behind while Flashman runs off to get shot was a time honored tradition in the squad.



Flashman didn't get far before he saw a filthy man crouching behind a car, cautiously waving at him. The man reeked, more than a regular wastelander, and of his eyes one was milky white, the other beset by madness.
A hasty introduction followed.

Hey, slow down there, geezer. What can you tell me about the robots?





Flashman took a breather to mull the information over in those Psycho-addled brains of his.

So the robots are leaderless? Now that's some jolly good news. Stay here, Jake, promise not to steal your trash.

Filing questions like "how do hobos know what a Mr. Handy is" in the back of his mind, Flasman crept out from cover of the car.



He came under fire almost immediately. Crouching faster than he realized, Flashman let loose with the M2. A series of fat tracers raced to a robot and the golden humanoid exploded in a ball of flame and torn metal. Another automaton ducked for cover.



While hugging the barrel wall, Flashman noticed a lone robot in the distance. Strangely enough, the robot wasn't interested in the firefight, so Flashman concentrated his attention forward.



He didn't even hear Ice sneak past behind him, she was getting to be that good. But she took cover behind some barrels and gave a sign: if anything, a robot is getting a plasma bolt through the chassis.



Covering fire secured, Flashman advanced as carefully as he could in the armor. Though bulky, the Brotherhood power armor was a beauty in the right hands. After his training in use, Flashman felt that he could almost dance in it. A lot less restrictive than the clunky metal or environmental armor, anyways. Bit loud, though.

Edging forward, he did notice a mangled corpse bearing familiar features. Flashman stretched his brain trying to remember.

Ripley...



Rest in peace. It seems that returning home didn't help you much in the end.



There were other corpses strewn in the streets, too, something Flashman suspected to be a common sight in Great Bend these days.

The robots, however, remained hidden, no doubt hiding, perfectly still in their positions. Something had to be done.

Mandy, you're up, luv. There's some platform to the left of the street, see if you can see anything up there.

Mandy was as silent as Ice and as used to death as the rest of the squad.

Dead civvies. Medical supplies, didn't stand a chance.



Getting on the platform, she was careful not to silhouette herself. That was inadvisable in general, even more so with robots and their prying eyes.



Spotted one!

The robot was clearly concentrated on ambushing people advancing up the road and didn't expect/predict an attack from that direction. Mandy lined up a perfect headshot...



Damn!...

The thing was fast. Fast and tough.. They exchanged several shots and Mandy was sure she did more than just glancing hits on his dome, but the robot was still functional and returning fire in good order.



Flashman was distracted from the shooting by loud and unfamiliar crackling happening behind his back. Turning around, he saw the previously idle rust colored robot frozen half-way to his position, trembling and throwing sparks. The trembling grew into shaking and sparks into arcs of lightning and before long the robot exploded. It seems that it had inadvertently run into some water with submerged live wires.

Electricity, eh? I can see why the rustbuckets would be interested in this bloody hole!



Mandy slammed another stimpak into her tight and felt the pain recede, with the familiar pricking feel of tissue regeneration. This was an embarrassing and frustrating sniper duel. She was holding the rifle steady with all the strength given by the stimpaks, waiting for her shot.

The robot rose again. The head seemed a lot more banged up than before; maybe that's why it was slower this time.

Take this, you metal cocksucker.

She sent a bullet straight through the big round sensor on the head, and the robot disappeared.



In the meantime, Flashman had managed to perforate a robot which had sprung up from its cover, likely to ambush the distracted squad leader. However, power armor was more than able to handle the inirial salvo, and the robot did not survive a return burst of 50 cal through the jest. Searching through the wreckage, Flashman was amused to find out that the bots were using regular human weapons.



As if on cue, another robot popped up, only to be cut down by the M2. The supplies of the precious 50 cal were running low.

Ice, check Ripley... maybe you'll find vital signs.

Ice nodded, grim as ever, and strode over to the body.



There was no need for closer examination: Ripley was clearly dead from multiple gunshot wounds. She was desperately clutching a large leather rucksack, now stained with dark blood. Inside, Ice found a treasure trove of books, most in excellent condition. She carefully pried the bag from Ripley's cold hands. She halted for a moment, as if she was thinking hard, then took Ripley's hand, crossed them on her chest and closed her eyes. The squad didn't have time to bury their rescue, but, hopefully, the teams coming after them would. After all, the Brotherhood only recycled the bodies of raiders and bandits, not friends.



With that taken care off, Flashman stepped into the nearby building. Standing in the doorway, he could see loads of decrepit barrels, two bodies, and shelf, all lit by fire in a centrally placed barrel. Something glimmered in the shifting light of the flames, and Flashman rummaged through the shelves.



I don't think I'm goin' to melt any robots soon, but who knows.

Nothing else left to do, he flipped the switch. Outside, a rusty gate slid open with great creaking and screeching.

I wonda' why the bots closed it.



The radio crackled.

Robots. Audio contact on the other side of fence.

Right then. Hold the gate, I'll see if I can flank them.



Inside his suit, Flashman couldn't hear much. And the fence continued on till it reach a dried canal.

As such, Flashman decided to check the area out, see if there's any danger of getting flanked themselves.



Bossman, we're engaging robots at the gate. Two of them, Ice seems to be handling it. Providing assist, over.



Not much could else reached Flashman, only infrequent faint sizzle of lasers and robots calling out damage.



Flashman didn't found much. The sandbags were positioned to cover the flank if the enemy advanced down the street like the Brotherhood did.



However, the position was compromised by the ladder leading down to the canal. Flashman could make out another set of ladders reaching up to a wooden pier on the other side, and decided to check it out.

There was actually a small brook down at the bottom of it, and the whole place had was covered in broken crust. It was likely the water levels rose during winter and rainy season, but the place remained mostly dry during the other times.



Climbing up the ladder, Flashman found the path along the canal blocked by two enormous mounds of broken barrels, greater than any man could ever hope to traverse or move without mighty technological help - hell, even magic helpless there. The way forwards was barred by another rusty gate, made from impervious rusty aluminum tubing and indestructible rusty sheet metal. Cursing his luck, he turned around to head back.



Be advised, I'm returning to position, don't light me up.

Da metta cole-harts did botheration on beenie, but I fix'd up tha structcha.

Outside of conversations about shotguns and medicine, Stitch was a little hard to understand. But Flashman had relatives that spoke Cock-Ringing Slam, and if you get Cock-Ringing Slam, you can get anything. Like, now, Stitch said that Stein had been roughed up by robots, but he fixed him up.



With the robots in the street dealt with, Flashman decided to scout ahead. There were two kinds of scouting in the squad: the stealthy one where Ice or Mandy sneak around and report back the enemy positions, and "recon in force", where Flashman ran head till he found somebody shooting at him.

Getting power armor made him a lot more confident with force recon.



Bloody 'ell, what is this?



A Mr. Handy wannabe for sure, that floating ball with metal tentacles was unmistakable. Yet the other robot was much stranger: a massive tracked chassis with a two-handed torso on top... and the hands ended in spikes. Why would someone make such a thing?

An ambush plan was quickly formulated. They only needed to spring the trap.



It went south fast. Despite plasma melting away pars exterior and interior, and 50 cal punching huge rounds in the chassis, the lifter bots rolled forward. They managed to take down of them, but not before it savaged Stitch and Flashman badly. The other robot chose to run away, giving the soldiers time to patch up and reload.



Ice, escaping the scuffle unchafed, was the one who did the most heavy lifting. Using her new laser rifle, she harassed the bots from afar. The spiky-handed one didn't want to get back in the fray, and the securibots were content to hang back and trade lasblasts.



With the robots off-line and the wounds licked, it was time to check out the warehouse. It was best not to think too hard about what happened to the civilians inside, or even set up a light. The gloom of the dusk already revealed too much, and they chose to ransack the corpses without much looking.



Ice crept up the second floor walkway to check out a closet, the last thing to do in this place.

She didn't even notice where las shots came from. Bleeding and nearly passed out from the pain, she fell back, firing the laser rifle with one hand.

Seeing her stumble like that out of the warehouse, Stitch had to break out the doctor bag. Synthetic blood, stimulants, growers, skin grafts... all the good stuff that has kept the squad going. Of course, Ice would need a real medical evaluation back in the base, maybe transplant some tissues, but the Brotherhood was nothing if not experienced in patching people up.



Now that's just uncalled for!

Flashman was doing more "force-recon" when came up to a graffiti shooing BoS away. Those were always strange, considering that BoS never had to hang quotation marks around the word "liberation" and were actually saving large numbers of ingrates from worse stuff.

He also destroyed a robot hiding near a factory building. To Flashman's surprise, it was carrying a WW2 firearm.

Guess I offed the founding member of the Robo-Anachronistic Society.



Another robot was waiting to ambush him, but the hole in the fence must have confused its logic circuits. Flashman shot him easily enough. He was running low on 50 cal, and that was troubling.



The full extent of "troubling" became apparent when the squad - well, Flashman, Stitch and Ice - had to assault the factory. Two securitron were firing from the inside while Flashman's M2 eventually fell silent. Nostalgic for the days of punching raiders and with Ice providing long range support, Flashman ran inside to punch the robot. It was worse than fighting super mutants hand to hand, but he eventually managed to knock the sensors offline, which sealed the fight.

No matter how strong and skilled he was, and how Power Armor increased the strength of his punches, melee was something that had not more place in the battlefield.

Oh, if only he could get back to punching raiders...



Another BAR. Flashman sighed - as the primary user of 50 cal ammo, he felt like he was declawed, a relic of times that has no further role in the changing face of war.

The fact that there was only enough ammo for one BAR magazine didn't help either.

I mislabel BAR as a heavy gun here, though in fact it's small arms. I don't know how I brain farted like that, then again, the devs were the ones who put the gun waaay too late in the game



While Flashman was moping over his gun situation, Ice went to check upstairs. The lock wasn't hard to shimmy.



It was hard to say why the civvie inside had died. Maybe he had experience grievous wounds before, and crawled in here to die?



What's stranger was that he had some medical supplies and a gun that was more advanced than anything else found on the corpses outside.

All right, you lot, it seems that we have to clean the scrapyard next to this dump. Reload, patch up, and then we'll see what we can do about the barricades outside.



God-damn it, Stitch, watch where you're shooting!