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Sico smiled faintly. "Let's keep it that way." The first truck rolled out of the station gates. The second followed thirty seconds later.
The next morning dawned not with fire, but with thunder.
Not the kind of thunder that rolled naturally out of clouds, but the artificial roar of vertibird rotors splitting open the cold sky like a bone saw through marrow. It came low and fast from the north, cresting over the shattered treetops and frost-capped rooftops like some war-born bird of prey. One vertibird was uncommon. Two was cause for alarm.
But this was four.
Sico stood at the edge of the upper balcony outside the war room, his coat still damp at the hem from walking the yards before sunrise. He didn't flinch at the sound—didn't even reach for his sidearm. He just narrowed his eyes against the gusts kicking up from the inbound fleet, watching the silhouette of steel fins and Brotherhood insignia slash across the gray morning light.
The Freemasons courtyard responded as trained: soldiers snapped to attention along the barricades, turrets rotated and locked onto tracking vectors, but no one fired. They weren't here for a fight.
At least not yet.
By the time the vertibirds began to land in staggered sequence just outside the north perimeter, Sico was already descending the stone steps from the HQ. The wind off the rotors kicked up dust and scattered paper slips from the checkpoint logbook. Brahmin brayed nervously in their pens, and two engineers ducked into the forgehouse, shielding their faces.
The first boots hit the ground like a strike force—but moved like diplomats.
The Brotherhood of Steel never arrived quietly. Even in peacetime, they treated every deployment like a declaration of relevance. Power Armor shone with meticulous polish, bright against the pallor of mid-winter dawn. The red insignia of the Brotherhood glared from every shoulder plate. Knights moved in formation, forming a protective wedge as their leader stepped down from the central vertibird.
Paladin Danse.
Even out of armor, the man moved like he'd been built, not born. Broad-shouldered, posture squared, eyes flinty and scanning—not for threats, but for context. He didn't walk with a gun drawn, but with a mission held just beneath the skin.
He spotted Sico immediately.
The two men approached each other without hesitation, and without flourish.
"Commander Sico," Danse said, his voice a deep, gravel-smooth baritone.
"Paladin," Sico replied, offering a handshake. "Didn't expect an airshow."
Danse clasped his hand with a firm grip. "Didn't want any misunderstandings."
Behind him, more figures emerged from the vertibirds—Knights, Scribes, a few Initiates carrying supply packs and data slates. They didn't scatter. They assembled, quietly and precisely, their lines tight and orderly along the outer yard like steel-backed witnesses to the coming conversation.
"You've got a full house," Sico observed.
"We're expanding our logistical operations east of Boston," Danse said. "We've established a forward supply depot in the ruins near Lynn. But we're hitting a bottleneck."
Sico arched a brow. "Water?"
Danse nodded once. "And we heard your broadcast."
Sico gestured toward the HQ. "Come inside. No point shouting over turbines."
Danse gave a sharp signal to a Knight-Captain, who nodded and began ordering the rest of the Brotherhood contingent into a temporary holding posture around the perimeter. No weapons drawn. No helmets on. But alert and ready.
They moved inside.
The meeting room within the Freemasons HQ was warm—wood-paneled and dimly lit by brass lanterns and one salvaged ceiling fan that wobbled gently with every slow rotation. A map of the Commonwealth covered one wall. Another wall held filing cabinets, radio equipment, and a shelf of books whose spines bore titles like Civic Infrastructure: Post-Collapse Theory and Hydrochemical Stabilization in Low-Resource Environments.
Magnolia and Robert were already there when Sico walked in with Danse.
Robert stood with arms crossed, his dark eyes fixed on the Brotherhood leader with polite but obvious skepticism. Magnolia sat at the long table, her notes already arranged, pen in hand, gaze steady. No one spoke right away.
Danse broke the silence.
"I'm not here to make threats," he said. "We're not here to press claims. The Brotherhood isn't interested in destabilizing your operations, or Sanctuary's sovereignty."
"That's a change," Robert muttered.
Danse turned his head slightly, just enough to show he'd heard it, but didn't rise to the bait.
"We need clean water. Not just for us, but for those under our protection—townsfolk near the coastal ruins, scavenger teams, farmers in our patrol zones. The Commonwealth is too dry and too poisoned. We've tried setting up our own filtration system, but the runoff from the old military sites makes it near impossible to purify on-site."
"And you're asking us to supply you," Sico said.
Danse nodded. "Buy from you. With caps. With trade. With loyalty, if that matters."
Magnolia raised an eyebrow. "Define loyalty."
Danse didn't blink. "We won't interfere with your operations. We won't challenge your water routes. And if raiders come for your convoys—ours will help defend them."
That made the room pause.
Robert glanced toward Sico. "That's a pretty hefty carrot for someone who once called us 'fractured civilians playing dress-up.'"
Danse's jaw flexed—just slightly. "And I was wrong."
That, more than anything else he'd said so far, earned him a long look from Sico.
The Brotherhood didn't apologize. Not ever. Not really. For Danse to even admit a mistake—however minor—meant this wasn't posturing. It was need.
Sico stepped around the table and took a seat, folding his hands atop the dark oak.
"Alright," he said. "Terms?"
Danse pulled a folded document from the inside pocket of his jacket and laid it on the table. Magnolia reached for it immediately, unfolding it with care. Her eyes skimmed the lines, scanning the numbers, the allocations, the payment tables.
She whistled softly.
"You want one shipments per week," she said. "Each with 10.000 bottles minimum. That's more than we're sending to all of western Boston right now."
"I know," Danse said. "We're willing to pay. 8 caps per bottles."
Robert scoffed. "That barely covers the filtration cost, much less protection, fuel, labor, and risk."
"We'll add military escort on high-risk runs," Danse said. "And spare parts. You need fusion regulators, microfusion cells—we'll supply them."
Magnolia looked up sharply. "Microfusion cells?"
Danse nodded once. "We've got stockpiles from pre-war depots. The Elders have authorized it."
That silenced the room again.
Energy was everything. Purified water gave life, but fusion cores kept it moving. They kept the walls lit, the radios humming, the Vertibird in the sky. Sanctuary's stocks weren't low—but they weren't infinite, either.
"Why now?" Sico asked, voice quiet.
Danse's voice followed suit.
"Because I've seen what happens when we wait too long to ask for help."
He looked not at Sico, but out the window behind him—toward the sky still carrying the echo of their arrival.
"We've lost men trying to pump water from irradiated lakes. Lost families under our protection because we thought we could solve everything with firepower. But this…" he gestured at the folded paper, the room, the very walls around them. "This works. You built it. We'd rather work with you than try to replicate it poorly and waste another year doing so."
Sico leaned back slightly, then looked to Magnolia.
She didn't answer right away. Then finally said, "The numbers are tight. But if we stagger deliveries and scale our reserve output, we could meet the Brotherhood's request. But only if they hold to their side. No short pay. No broken promises."
Danse nodded. "We don't intend to break either."
Sico tapped his fingers on the tabletop.
He didn't love the Brotherhood.
He didn't trust them, either—not entirely. But he trusted their need. And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.
"Two-week trial period," Sico said at last. "Twenty crates per shipment. You escort our trucks. We rotate engineers. If your people don't cause problems and the payments stay clean—we expand."
Danse stood straighter. "Agreed."
"Any aggression on the roads, any unauthorized detours—and we end it. You understand?"
"I do."
Magnolia slid a second sheet of parchment across the table—already written in her careful hand. "You'll want to initial this."
Danse pulled out a pen.
He didn't hesitate.
As the ink dried, and the terms were sealed, Sico looked out the window at the Brotherhood ranks standing in neat formation.
Sico let the last word settle like dust on the hardwood. The contract lay between them, still warm from the ink of Paladin Danse's signature. Beside it sat Magnolia's crisp ledger and Robert's untouched cup of cooling tea.
He leaned back in his chair, hands steepled loosely beneath his chin, and tilted his head toward Danse.
"That everything?" he asked, tone neutral—part curiosity, part caution. Not quite dismissing, not quite inviting.
Danse hesitated. A rare thing.
The Brotherhood Paladin looked down—not at the contract, not at the floor, but somewhere inward. When he looked back up, the flinty edge in his gaze was softer. Not dulled, just… worn smoother by circumstance.
"There is something else," Danse said. His voice had dropped into a lower register now—less official, more personal. "We're interested in food."
Magnolia blinked, halfway through capping her pen. Robert raised a single dark brow, arms still crossed.
Sico said nothing—just waited.
Danse cleared his throat, eyes flicking toward the map of the Commonwealth pinned on the far wall. He walked toward it slowly, the way a man might approach a memory he hadn't decided whether to revisit or not. His gloved hand hovered near the green marker that labeled Sanctuary. Then it moved east, past Drumlin Diner, down toward the coast—until it landed on the triangle etched over The Castle.
"I know you've built more than this map shows," Danse said. "I know Minutemen Plaza has vertical fields now. That the Castle has irrigation channels dug straight into the bay. That Sanctuary's greenhouses are functional year-round."
He turned back to face them.
"The Brotherhood isn't starving. But we're close."
Silence again, that same dense kind that settled after the shots of an execution or the final word of a treaty. Magnolia uncapped her pen again. Robert uncrossed his arms, slowly.
Sico stood.
"You've got depots. You've got scav teams. A working supply train from the Appalachians to the north rail spurs. How?" he asked plainly. "How are you running low on food?"
Danse didn't flinch. "We focused on metal. Energy. Defense. Purifiers and engines and armor plating. We built fortresses—but not fields."
He sighed. A weary thing. Honest.
"We overestimated how long our MRE stockpiles would last. Some turned. Some were stolen. Some… we issued to settlements too far out to sustain themselves."
"And now they need you more than ever," Magnolia murmured, mostly to herself.
Danse nodded. "We're not pulling support. But we are stretched."
He stepped back toward the table, laying down a second folded paper. This one wasn't a contract. It was a request list. Precise columns, typed on pre-war feedstock paper with a typewriter's steel-toothed rhythm. It bore the Brotherhood seal in red wax.
Magnolia drew it closer, scanning quickly.
"Corn, razorgrain, carrots, potatoes… tarberries?" She blinked. "You want tarberries?"
"They hold up in long storage," Danse said. "And they've got antioxidant properties. Our med-scribes use them in chemical synthesis. Especially for wounds sustained in irradiated zones."
Robert leaned over to glance at the list. "I've seen less greedy Vaults."
Danse gave him a look, but again didn't rise to the jab. "This isn't a tribute. It's trade. We're not asking for charity—we're offering compensation."
Sico tapped a finger against the table, considering.
"And what are you offering in return?"
Danse pulled another item from his coat and placed it beside the request list. It was a flat case, no larger than a toolkit, black and velvet-lined inside. When he opened it, a soft blue glow radiated upward. Six fusion cells sat snugly in individual mounts, next to two small coils of gold filament, and a crystalline lens wrapped in protective mesh.
"Medical-grade laser optics. Calibrated capacitors. Unspent cells. We've got crates of them."
"Stuff our own scribes have barely managed to reverse-engineer," Robert said under his breath, leaning in.
Danse let the box remain open.
"We also have access to Enclave-origin synth tissue," he added, almost reluctantly. "Reclaimed. Stabilized. It can be used in skin grafts, burn repairs, or cybernetic housing."
Sico looked to Magnolia, whose eyes had gone slightly wide. "Can we use that?"
"Not yet," she admitted. "But… if Curie gets her hands on this? Maybe."
Danse looked at Sico now with full clarity.
"We want to buy water. We want to buy food. But more than that—we want to stop treating you like a wildcard. You've proven something out here. What you've built in Sanctuary, in the Castle, in the Plaza—"
Sico narrowed his eyes at the mention, but Danse kept going.
"—you've done what the Brotherhood hasn't. You've made the Commonwealth sustainable."
It wasn't praise. It was observation. And that made it more powerful.
Sico turned away for a long moment, moving to the window behind the table. The courtyard was still active—Brotherhood knights in formation drills, Sanctuary troops resuming patrol cycles. The air smelled like coal smoke, frost, and old decisions.
He watched a mechanic cart a barrel of welding fuel past a row of stacked crates marked SANCTUARY GROWN. It wasn't just a label anymore. It was a flag.
He turned back.
"One month," he said. "A pilot program. We allocate two shipments of food from Sanctuary and Minutemen Plaza. In return, you give us two crates of laser optics, medical fusion cells, and one crate of fusion regulators."
Danse gave a short nod. "Agreed."
"You deliver the tech here. You get no say in how we distribute food on our end. Any attempt to reroute it, intercept it, or claim it—deal's off. You understand me?"
"I do," Danse said.
"You bring a scribe," Sico added. "One we trust. To work with our people. Teach what you can. Learn what you must."
Danse hesitated, then nodded again. "That's fair."
Magnolia slid another sheet from her ledger—half-prepared, anticipating the moment. She began writing without a word, her pen moving with clean, practiced grace.
The air inside the meeting room was still thick with the scent of warm ink, old paper, and the faint static hum of the overhead filament lights. Paladin Danse had just nodded his assent, the glow from the open box of Brotherhood tech still casting a faint blue shimmer across the table's worn oak grain.
Sico didn't sit. He remained standing, the weight of his coat falling heavy at his sides, his gloved fingers curling against the leather-trimmed edge of the table. Magnolia had already begun drawing up the official addendum to the new agreement, her pen gliding with precise, practiced strokes. Robert, however, kept his arms folded, his eyes still scanning Danse as if trying to spot the hidden clause that hadn't been spoken aloud.
And then Sico said it.
"Well, if there's nothing else," his voice even, but ringing with quiet finality, "I want Piper to broadcast this to the Commonwealth. Let them know the Freemasons Republic and the Brotherhood of Steel are on a truce—we've agreed to trade."
Danse blinked once. He didn't flinch, but his posture shifted slightly. The word "truce" hung in the room like a drawn breath—tense, significant, irreversible. The Brotherhood had never been much for public diplomacy. Their operations had always been veiled behind metal, policy, and intimidation. But this wasn't just diplomacy.
This was change.
Danse gave a small nod of approval, but it came without any hint of smugness or pride.
"You want to tell the world we're working together?" he asked. Not incredulous—just clarifying.
Sico met his eyes. "I want them to stop waiting for us to shoot each other. I want the raiders to see unity and start running. I want the farmers on the edge of nowhere to believe—maybe for the first time—that this isn't all just going to burn again."
Danse said nothing, but something in his expression shifted. The ghost of a thought passed behind his eyes—doubt, maybe. Or memory. Or hope.
Robert finally uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, speaking for the first time since the trade agreement was signed.
"You know what this means, right?" he said, voice low, looking directly at Sico. "People are going to think we're joining them. Or being bought by them. Or worse—becoming them."
Sico turned to face him. "Then we tell the truth."
Robert didn't argue. He just sighed. "That's always been the risky part."
Sico walked past him toward the door, motioning for Magnolia to hold the documents for now. "Come on," he said. "Let's go make some noise."
By the time they reached the broadcast tower on the north wing of the HQ, the sun had risen high enough to burn off the morning frost but not the weight of the cold. Pipes hissed with steam beneath their boots, and the faint static of open channels buzzed through the antenna array above. A small knot of engineers adjusted receivers on the rooftop, watching the sky the way farmers once watched clouds for rain.
Piper was already there.
She stood at the center of the main room, headset slightly askew, one boot resting on the rung of her chair like a conductor mid-symphony. Her hair was tied back with a red strip of worn cloth, and her coat was slung over the back of her seat, revealing the black undershirt with a frayed "Press" tag still pinned above her heart. She was speaking into the mic with one hand on the switchboard, her voice easy, fluid, and familiar.
"…and in other news, today's convoys reached Tenpines Bluff and Abernathy Farm without incident. If you're tuning in late, that's clean water, on time, and guarded all the way. We call that progress, folks."
She looked up as Sico entered, and one corner of her mouth quirked upward.
"Well," she said, leaning back, "you've got that look again."
"What look?"
"The 'I'm about to make someone nervous on the airwaves' look."
Sico smirked. "Am I that obvious?"
Piper handed him the headset.
"Only to me."
Danse stepped into the room next, and the subtle tension that always followed the Brotherhood into a room didn't go unnoticed. The engineers shifted. One of them—a boy barely twenty, still wearing a cap with the old Sanctuary flag patch—stiffened slightly at the sight of the Brotherhood sigil on Danse's shoulder.
Piper noticed too. Her expression didn't change, but her voice lost some of its playfulness.
"We doing this live?" she asked.
"Yeah," Sico said. "Straight to open frequency. Then rebroadcast every six hours."
"You sure?"
"No."
That made her laugh—a short, sharp thing. "Good. Honesty sells."
He slipped on the headset and adjusted the mic as Piper flicked the signal wide.
"Clear line," she said. "You're on in three… two…"
The red light blinked on.
Sico took a breath.
"This is Commander Sico, speaking from Sanctuary HQ, on behalf of the Freemasons Republic."
He paused for just a heartbeat, letting the signal stabilize.
"I'm speaking today to all corners of the Commonwealth—from the coast of Nahant to the ruins of Worcester, from the wreck of the Prydwen to the glowing edge of the Glades. This is not a warning. This is not a threat."
His eyes drifted toward Danse, who stood with arms behind his back, unmoving.
"This is a message of intent."
The mic captured it all—the low hum of electronics, the wind against the tower, the faint creak of the building's timber.
"Effective immediately, the Freemasons Republic and the Brotherhood of Steel have entered into a trade agreement. That means what it sounds like. No fighting. No sabotage. No covert raids on supply routes. This isn't an alliance, and it isn't submission."
He let that hang.
"This is a truce. A working truce. We give them food and water. They give us tools we need to keep this Republic running. And if anyone threatens our convoys, the Brotherhood's got our backs."
He could almost hear the disbelief radiating out through the Commonwealth.
"But let me be clear," Sico continued, voice firm now. "We are still the Freemasons Republic. No one owns us. No one commands us. Sanctuary, Minutemen Plaza, and the Castle answer to no one but the people who live and work within their walls."
Behind him, Piper tapped one finger against her notepad, scribbling shorthand.
"We made this deal not because we were forced to—but because survival isn't enough anymore. We want more. We want order. We want a Commonwealth that doesn't eat itself alive every spring. And if that means trading with old enemies to build a new future?"
Sico nodded slowly, even though the mic didn't see it.
"Then so be it."
He reached forward and flipped the channel off.
The red light died.
Silence followed—not heavy, not tense. Just still.
Piper leaned back. "Well," she said, "that's gonna rattle some radios."
"Good," Sico replied.
Danse gave a short nod of approval, then spoke low. "You took a risk."
"We all did," Sico said. "Might as well be honest about it."
Magnolia entered just then, carrying the finalized trade documents for both the water and food agreements, sealed and stamped with the Freemasons sigil. She handed them off to Robert, who would file them in the Vault archive under Trade Protocols – Year 1. Behind her, the Brotherhood Initiates were beginning to pack their field crates, preparing for departure.
Danse turned to go. At the threshold, he paused.
"We'll begin deliveries of the tech crates within three days," he said. "You'll have a scribe in your war room by then. And a medical liaison for the synth tissue."
"Good," Sico said.
"Just one more thing," Danse added, glancing back over his shoulder.
"What's that?"
"If we're wrong about this—if either of us breaks this truce…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
He didn't have to.
Sico nodded once. "We won't be."
Danse left without another word.
Outside, the vertibirds spun back to life. Their turbines roared against the midday cold, kicking up snow dust and trailing vapor like war ghosts stirring from slumber. The Knights moved with clean, precise efficiency, boarding in formation. The escort didn't linger.
Within minutes, the sky held nothing but the echo of their departure.
Piper stood beside Sico on the balcony now, arms tucked tight against the wind, her breath clouding in front of her.
"You think this'll stick?" she asked.
Sico didn't answer right away.
He looked down at the compound—the workers still loading water shipments, the guards changing shifts, the children darting between the stilt-walls of the rebuilt market square. The same people who had once stood silent and cold to watch a man die by firing squad now moved with purpose, with momentum.
________________________________________________
• Name: Sico
• Stats :
S: 8,44
P: 7,44
E: 8,44
C: 8,44
I: 9,44
A: 7,45
L: 7
• Skills: advance Mechanic, Science, and Shooting skills, intermediate Medical, Hand to Hand Combat, Lockpicking, Hacking, Persuasion, and Drawing Skills
• Inventory: 53.280 caps, 10mm Pistol, 1500 10mm rounds, 22 mole rats meat, 17 mole rats teeth, 1 fragmentation grenade, 6 stimpak, 1 rad x, 6 fusion core, computer blueprint, modern TV blueprint, camera recorder blueprint, 1 set of combat armor, Automatic Assault Rifle, 1.500 5.56mm rounds, power armor T51 blueprint, Electric Motorcycle blueprint, T-45 power armor, Minigun, 1.000 5mm rounds, Cryolator, 200 cryo cell, Machine Gun Turret Mk1 blueprint, electric car blueprint, Kellogg gun, Righteous Authority, Ashmaker, Furious Power Fist, Full set combat armor blueprint, M240 7.62mm machine guns blueprint, Automatic Assault Rifle blueprint, and Humvee blueprint.
• Active Quest:-