-of the truck as my psychokinetic barrier strains to keep the heat isolated. A picture of my environment forming in my mind, I reach outward with my psychokinetic abilities just as whatever just got fired at us causes the truck's armour to redden.
The truck breaks hard, soldiers grabbing onto their seating in an attempt to stay upright. Lieutenant Orwich looks at me, then at the sealed rear of the truck. I nod, pressing the switch that releases the doors and causing natural sunlight to leak into our compartment.
Yeah, sitting inside a metal box under this sort of attack? You'd get to feel what a TV dinner feels like in a microwave.
Lieutenant Orwich points. "Everybody out!"
Enclave soldiers are trained and motivated to a degree that only the most highly skilled NCR soldiers can match. There's no pushing, no shoving and definitely no panicking. Instead they get out as the truck comes to a halt and the ball turret mounted light machinegun on the front opens fire at something we can't see.
Hooray for martial discipline. Pity it comes at the cost of them being nice,
regular human beings.
The lieutenant and I are the last ones out, the side of the truck glowing brighter as… Some sort of radiation weapon hits it again. We're on a… Partially restored section of the Interstate 94. Survivors from Heaven's Gate who fled from the Crimson Acolytes cleared it of pre-war wrecks in order to extract their steel and radiologicals, and while the road itself is mostly in okay condition there's no immediate cover other than our trucks. The soldiers are hitting the tarmac-flecked concrete while they try and spot where the attack is coming from.
Because in the Fallout universe, they put tiny nuclear reactors in
cars. The only reason they didn't in
real life was that they couldn't make them small enough
safely.
Lieutenant Orwich glances up at me. "We get our guns back now?"
The other trucks are pulling to a halt, guns pointing towards where our truck is shooting. I quickly glance at my Geiger watch, and… We're not truly into the radiation belt just yet, but we're close enough that everyone's going to be on a RadAway drip after this. I'm at a half-crouch; my force field, armour and psychic abilities mean I'm a lot safer than the disarmed Enclave soldiers and I need information.
...Better to trust them and let them fight for their lives. You'll probably need the extra hands.
Who the hell uses pure radiation weapons around here? No one I can think of.
Three other trucks open fire, while another drives up alongside ours to cover the hole in its armour. I gestures down the convoy. "Second truck from the rear. Stay in cover unless they get closer."
Until ambushers pop up on the other side too, because why would things be as
simple as a lone gunman?
Lieutenant Orwich nods, rising to a sprinter's crouch. "Evans, Lewis, get moving." Two of the soldiers scramble up, dashing towards the rear of the convoy using the cover the trucks provide. "Everyone else, stay down and wait your turn. You know who this is?"
I reach my mind out towards the pilot who's supposed to be providing air cover.
Ah, good, he did have air support on overwatch. Surprised they didn't see this coming, though. Bad luck?
**Jeri, what's going on?**
**[Picture of a ruined town, confusing heat and radiological flares which mean nothing to me twinkling sporadically.]**
Because
of course a psychically-boosted Paul is going to be capable of perceiving direct visual input from others.
**Meaning?**
"Davis, O'Shaughnessy, go!"
Ah, if only they could have this conversation in bullet-time aka VATS.
**Can't see shit, Krono. You know how alla this radiation messes up the sensors.**
**Can you at least put some fire downrange?**
And given the armaments on their flyers, that's a
lot of fire.
**I can shoot up that ruined town, but there could be other people in there.**
WHOOOOSH!
Acceptable losses, methinks, if raiders have taken up residence.
Shields on the truck providing cover to us flare as the frontal armour heats up-. I throw up a shield, feeling the pressure of… Gamma radiation, it's a gaser, and a big one. The side door of the truck is flung open as the passenger dives-
BANGBANGBANGBANG!
A particularly
messy form of energy
weapon, given that living things do
not like Gamma Radiation.
-out an instant before the ammunition starts cooking off, bullets ripping into the lightly armoured-
"Aghuargh."
Ouch. Bad luck for
those boys.
-interior. I wince as the driver collapses into a bleeding lump, then catch sight of two Ghost operatives shimmering into invisibility as they activate their stealth suits and run in the direction of our attackers.
**Link up with infantry and provide fire support at their direction.**
Hopefully not directly. Given that kind of high-tech firepower, it's not unreasonable for them to be able to detect stealthed soldiers.
"Scott, Vaughn!"
**Sure thing chief.**
And the pilot naturally knows to be wary of ground-based fire, since they would have
seen the energy bolts.
"Stuart!" Lieutenant Orwich glances back at me. "Mutie Chief! Head in the game!"
"Just coordinating our efforts, lieutenant." **Does anyone have a visual?**
Since Krono probably isn't doing the
typical 'hand-to-temple pose that tells
readers bystanders that psychic stuff is going down...
**[A window in the second floor of an old office building. Something inside it moves.]**
I take a moment to **[get the bird's eye view of that location]** from Jeri and calculate the angle… Good enough.
Bad sniping practice. This is why a
good sniper never shoots from the same place twice at this range... Getting found usually tends to result in return fire being labelled 'Dear Grid Co-ordinates...'
**Jeri, hit it.**
Lieutenant Orwich crawls forward to check on the gunner. A little stunned, but basically alright. She scrambles back into the front compartment of the truck, psychic energy gathering to try and keep the driver alive while she readies a stim-pack plunger.
Thank goodness for Fallout's near-magical healing supplies.
In the distance I see the invisible saucer's disintegrator cannon opens fire, pale blue streaks of light raining down-
-**[on the building, bricks and metal coming apart but something glowing yellow tanking the hits.]**
...Well, that's
not good, is it?
I try reaching out in that direction with my mind, but radiation messes up remote viewing and… I can't feel a mind over there. Which means that it's probably a turret, or.. another robot. Yellow force fields are pretty darn tough, so it's-.
Plumes of dust erupt from the ground between us and the town, yellow glows appearing from each of the newly created holes and then moving towards us at speed.

...Because forcefields are colour-coded by durability? Though I bet that's merely a side-effect of the generating process for something that tough.
**[The Ghosts take cover, showing an image of large… Robots, or some type of novel power armour. They have a force field tower shield on their left arm and what looks like a multi-barrelled energy weapon with an axe bayonet mounted directly on their right.]**
**Let them pass you and fire on them from behind. Jeri, hit them.**
Whoopee, war-bots of some kind. Leftovers from the war roving on automatic, or someone's garage pet project?
The robots are approaching at a loping run, far faster and more organic looking than anything RobCo ever managed. They remind me a little of the C-series, but lighter and with longer legs. They'll be here-
"The fuck?"
So, something like
these? Well, that leads to a possible culprit: an AI super-computer with malign intentions...
-in fifteen seconds, more or less.
**Break out the pulse weapons and anti-armour.** "Lieutenant, get yourself a gun. We'll need to flank them to avoid the shield."
Great. Best way to make
friends, I suppose, fighting side-by-side for your life.
I draw my plasma pistol, and take a moment to wish that someone with mech-empathy was here. I can sort of interface with electronic systems psychically, but I'm not good enough at it to get through to robots that have already locked on.
I see the robot's gun arms come up as they enter effective range and open fire, targetting the gaps between the trucks with high accuracy. Rate of fire's not all that high, but those shots would melt through a normal person if they-.
Probably venting a level of built-up heat that would be unpleasant for a human, hence the long time between shots...
The saucer opens fire with its disintegrator cannon, the robot it targetted diving to the side to evade the shot with incredible agility. All of the others then raise their shields over their heads, and the second robot targetted takes a short volley without any-
CRACK!
Oh, for... Seriously, are these guys even from
this universe? Nothing
else popped through the cracks when Krona fell, did they?
-difficulty, but the position leaves it open to a gauss rifle shot from our column which hits it square in the chest. The robot is knocked off its feet, but turns it into a roll and leaps back into action with only a small amount of visible damage.
CRACK!
...And they're bullet-resistant. Hoo-
bloody-ray.
Shields back down, the gauss shot hitting and being turned aside by the yellow energy barrier. Disintegrator bolts-.
Gamma guns go up and open fire. I can't see the shots-.
Evidently they don't
like air support, so they're taking action against it.
The air shimmers, the saucer becoming visible as it twists in the air and tries to climb!
**I'm hit!**
And there goes the flyer. This fight just got
harder.