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(A/N: I hope everyone give my new novel Skyrim a chance and added it to their library, also give power stones on Skyrim!)
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Above them, the afternoon sun dipped lower, casting long shadows across the yard. And this time, those shadows felt less like omens and more like wings waiting to be used.
The training yard didn't explode into celebration so much as it exhaled into it.
Relief moved through the crowd in waves from quiet laughter first, then voices rising, then hands clapping shoulders, then the unmistakable sound of people realizing they had been holding their breath for days. Someone whooped. Someone else laughed too loudly. A few soldiers actually sat down on the dirt like their legs had finally remembered they were allowed to stop working.
Mae leaned against a crate and laughed again, this time not trying to hide it. The sound cracked halfway through and turned into something wetter, messier. Chen noticed and passed her a canteen without comment. Mae took it, wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, and drank like she'd crossed a desert.
Rhea hugged Jansen as it was quick, awkward, more of a collision than an embrace but he didn't pull away. He just stood there, eyes still on the Vertibird, nodding once as if committing the moment to memory.
Mel stayed where he was for a few seconds longer than anyone else.
He didn't raise his arms. He didn't smile right away.
He just rested a hand on the fuselage, feeling the residual warmth through the metal, the faint vibration that hadn't fully settled yet. A machine at rest, not exhausted. A difference he could feel all the way down to his bones.
Only then did he step back.
Only then did the world start to move again.
Preston reached him first, clapping a hand on his shoulder with a grin that was half joy, half disbelief. "You pulled it off."
Mel shook his head. "We did."
Preston nodded. "Yeah. You did."
Piper had her recorder up now, voice animated, eyes bright. She pivoted between people, catching fragments with Mae's laugh, the pilot's grin, MacCready's grudging admiration. This wasn't a headline yet. This was a moment. The kind that aged well.
Magnolia stood near the edge of the group, arms crossed loosely, smiling in that restrained way of hers that meant she was already calculating what this success would enable. She met Mel's eyes across the yard and inclined her head. Respect. Not celebration, but something deeper.
Sarah Lyons spoke quietly with her officers, posture finally easing. The tension that had coiled in her shoulders since the alarms days ago had unwound, just a little. She looked toward the Vertibird, then toward the sky, then back to her people.
"This changes things," she said.
Sico had not joined the cluster.
He stood a few paces back, hands behind his back again, watching it all with the same calm he wore when cities fell or rose on his word. But if anyone looked closely and a few did as they would have noticed the shift. The calculation had changed.
The board was bigger now.
He turned to a nearby soldier. Young. Alert. Trying very hard not to look like he was buzzing with excitement.
"You," Sico said.
"Yes, sir."
"Find Sturges. Tell him I need him here."
The soldier nodded sharply and jogged off without question.
Sico returned his attention to the yard.
The Vertibird sat there, quiet and solid and real.
Not a promise anymore.
A capability.
Sturges arrived about twenty minutes later, tool belt still hanging low on his hips, goggles pushed up into his hair. He slowed when he saw the crowd, eyebrows lifting as he took in the scene with the Vertibird, the smiles, the lack of smoke.
"Well I'll be damned," he muttered.
He spotted Sico and made his way over, weaving through soldiers and scientists alike. "Boss," he said, voice easy as ever. "Guessin' this went better than the last time I heard about it?"
Sico allowed himself the faintest hint of amusement. "It did."
Sturges scratched his chin and looked back at the aircraft. "She fly?"
"She listens," Sico replied.
Sturges grinned. "That's even better."
Sico gestured for him to walk. They moved a little away from the noise, toward the edge of the yard where the land opened up into cleared space and half-marked foundations.
"I have a new project for you," Sico said.
Sturges's grin widened. "You usually do."
"There's room here," Sico continued, pointing. "Beside the existing factories. I want another one built."
Sturges followed the line of his gesture, eyes already measuring distance, terrain, access routes. "Factory for what?"
"Vertibirds," Sico said simply.
Sturges stopped walking.
Turned.
Looked at him.
"…Plural?" he asked.
"Yes."
Sturges let out a low whistle. "Alright. That's… alright, yeah, that's big."
"There's more," Sico said.
Sturges snorted. "There's always more."
"Beside the factory," Sico continued, voice steady, "I want a large open yard. Big enough for takeoffs, landings, maintenance rotation. And adjacent to that—"
"A hangar," Sturges finished, eyes lighting up.
"A hangar," Sico confirmed. "Enclosed. Reinforced. Capable of housing multiple Vertibirds at once."
Sturges was already nodding, mind racing. "We'll need height clearance. Steel framework. Reinforced trusses. Probably pre-war schematics if we can get 'em, but I can improvise."
"You will," Sico said.
"And security?" Sturges asked, already knowing the answer.
"Extensive," Sico replied. "Watchtowers. Perimeter fencing. Controlled access points. Redundant power. No blind spots."
Sturges rubbed his hands together. "Motion sensors?"
"Yes."
"Hardpoints?"
"Yes."
"Fallback positions?"
"Yes."
Sturges grinned, teeth flashing. "You're buildin' a nest."
Sico met his gaze. "I'm building a future."
There was a beat.
Then Sturges nodded once, sharp and decisive. "Copy that, boss."
He glanced back toward the yard toward Magnolia, who was laughing now, actually laughing, surrounded by others who were riding the high of survival and success.
"I'm guessin' this ain't a charity build," Sturges said.
"No," Sico replied. "It is not."
Sturges chuckled. "Alright then. I'll go talk to the money."
He headed straight for Magnolia.
She saw him coming and lifted an eyebrow. "That grin usually costs me caps."
"Depends how you look at it," Sturges said cheerfully. "Ever wanted to invest in air superiority?"
Magnolia laughed, shook her head, and gestured for him to sit. "Talk."
Sico watched them for a moment, then turned back to the yard.
Mel stood with his team now, arms crossed, finally smiling without restraint. Mae was talking animatedly, hands flying. Chen listened, nodding, already thinking ahead. Rhea leaned against a crate, exhausted but satisfied. Jansen sat on the edge of the landing pad, staring at the Vertibird like it might get ideas again if he looked away.
Piper didn't jump into it right away.
She waited until the noise softened, until the laughter spread out into pockets instead of crashing over everything at once. She'd learned, over years of chasing stories through rubble and politics, that the best words came after the first rush. When people stopped performing and started processing.
She clipped the recorder more securely to her jacket, thumb hovering over the switch for half a second.
Then she clicked it on.
"Piper Wright," she said quietly, almost to herself at first. "Sanctuary Hills. Late afternoon. First successful Vertibird test flight under Republic command."
She looked up, scanning the yard like a hunter picking trails.
"Let's see who history sounds like today."
She started with the soldiers.
Not officers. Not anyone with medals or authority. Just two troopers leaning against a barricade near the perimeter, helmets off, faces still dusty, eyes bright in that stunned, slightly shell-shocked way that came from watching something impossible decide to work.
One of them noticed her approaching and straightened instinctively.
"Relax," Piper said with a grin. "If I wanted a salute, I'd go bother Sarah."
That earned a nervous laugh.
"Names?" she asked, holding up the recorder.
"Uh... Private Cole," the first one said. "This is Ramirez."
Piper nodded. "Alright, Cole. Ramirez. You two were here for both tests, right?"
"Yes, ma'am," Ramirez said.
Piper arched an eyebrow. "You can just say Piper."
"Yes... uh, Piper."
She smiled. "Good. So. Be honest. What did you think was gonna happen this afternoon?"
Cole snorted before he could stop himself. Ramirez shot him a look, then sighed. "We thought it might… you know. Scream again."
Piper nodded. "Fair."
Cole rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, last time? When the alarms went off? I thought we were about to watch a pilot die in front of us."
There it was.
Piper leaned in slightly. "And this time?"
Ramirez looked out at the Vertibird, now quiet, surrounded by engineers and guards. "This time… it felt like watching someone finally get their footing after slipping on ice."
Cole grinned. "Yeah. Like, like it stopped fighting gravity and started working with it."
Piper smiled wider. "That's poetic for a soldier."
Cole shrugged. "Guess we're learning."
She clicked off the recorder for a second, then back on. "Last question. What does this mean for you?"
Ramirez didn't answer right away. He thought about it. Really thought.
"It means," he said finally, "that next time someone calls for help? We might actually get there in time."
Piper let the silence hang for a beat.
Then she nodded. "Thank you."
The pilot was harder.
Not because he didn't want to talk, but because everyone else wanted to talk to him. Soldiers clapped him on the back. Engineers congratulated him in low, intense bursts. Someone handed him a bottle of something brown and strong, which he accepted and didn't drink yet.
Piper waited until he found a quiet moment near the edge of the pad, helmet resting on the ground by his boots.
"Mind if I steal a few minutes?" she asked.
He glanced up, recognized her immediately, and laughed softly. "Guess that was inevitable."
She sat on a crate across from him. "Name for the record?"
"Lieutenant Harris," he said. "Republic Air Corps. I guess."
"Guess?" Piper teased.
He smiled. "Feels weird saying it out loud."
She clicked the recorder on. "Lieutenant Harris. First question's simple. How'd it feel?"
He leaned back, staring up at the sky for a second before answering. "Like holding the reins of something that finally trusted me."
Piper blinked. "…You've been talking to Mel, haven't you?"
Harris laughed, rubbing his face. "A little. But it's true. First test? I felt like I was wrestling a beast that didn't know if it wanted to exist. Today?" He exhaled. "Today it felt like flying."
Piper softened. "Were you scared?"
"Yes," he said immediately. No bravado. No hesitation. "Terrified."
"And you did it anyway."
He nodded. "Because if I didn't? Someone else would. And I'd rather it be me, knowing what went wrong last time."
Piper let that land.
"What does it mean to you," she asked, "that this thing works now?"
Harris looked back at the Vertibird. "It means the sky's not just something we look at anymore."
Mel tried to dodge her.
Not out of arrogance. Out of exhaustion.
He was halfway through a quiet debrief with Mae and Chen when Piper approached, recorder visible. He saw it, sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Five minutes," he said before she even spoke.
She grinned. "I'll take four."
Mae smirked. Chen rolled her eyes affectionately.
Piper clicked on the recorder. "Mel. Lead engineer on the Vertibird project. For people who don't understand machines, what changed between last time and today?"
Mel thought for a moment, choosing words carefully. "We stopped trying to make it perfect."
Piper tilted her head. "That's… not what people expect."
"No," Mel agreed. "Perfection's rigid. Real systems need flexibility. We redesigned it to fail gracefully instead of catastrophically."
Mae leaned in. "Translation? We taught it how to argue without throwing a tantrum."
Piper laughed. "I'm keeping that."
Chen added, deadpan, "We also stopped assuming physics cared about our feelings."
Piper beamed. "How close did you think you came to losing everything?"
Mel didn't deflect. "Close enough that I'll never forget it."
"And yet," Piper said gently, "you went again."
Mel looked past her, at the Vertibird, at his team. "Because stopping would've meant accepting that fear gets the final say."
Piper clicked the recorder off for a second, then back on. "Last thing. What's next?"
Mel didn't hesitate. "Iteration. Training. Scale. And eventually, trust."
She spoke to Mae next, then Chen, then Rhea and Jansen together.
Mae talked about sleepless nights and grease-stained hands and the joy of seeing data flatten instead of spike. Chen talked about logic trees and humility in code. Rhea spoke softly about materials and stress and how metal remembered pain. Jansen barely spoke at all, just said, "It stopped screaming. That's how I knew."
Each voice added texture.
Each perspective turned the machine into something human-adjacent.
Preston Garvey surprised her.
She expected idealism. She got something heavier.
"Preston," Piper said, falling into step beside him. "Thoughts?"
He sighed, rubbing his temples. "I keep thinking about the people out there. Settlements we couldn't reach in time. Calls we answered too late."
"And now?"
"And now," he said, "maybe that changes. Maybe help doesn't have to arrive after the damage anymore."
Piper nodded slowly. "You think the soldiers are ready?"
Preston looked at the yard, at the troops laughing, at the Vertibird casting a long shadow. "They'll be ready because they'll believe it's worth protecting."
Sarah Lyons was all steel on the outside, but Piper caught her at just the right moment, watching a squad joke near the barricades.
"General," Piper said. "Mind if I ask what this means tactically?"
Sarah snorted. "Always straight to tactics with you."
Piper grinned. "Occupational hazard."
Sarah folded her arms. "It means mobility. Oversight. Rapid response. It means I don't have to choose which fire to put out because I can't reach both."
"And for the soldiers?" Piper asked.
Sarah's gaze softened. "It means they know someone's watching their backs—from above."
Sico was last.
Deliberately last.
Piper approached him as the sun dipped lower, casting his silhouette long across the dirt. He watched the yard with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had just seen a plan survive first contact with reality.
"Mr. President," Piper said, recorder in hand.
Sico smiled faintly. "I wondered when you'd come."
She clicked it on. "You've overseen this project since the beginning. Why?"
Sico didn't answer right away.
"Because the world ended once," he said finally. "And it did so partly because power was hoarded instead of shared, weaponized instead of safeguarded."
Piper raised an eyebrow. "And Vertibirds aren't weapons?"
"They can be," Sico said calmly. "Or they can be lifelines. The difference is intent and oversight."
Piper leaned in slightly. "And you trust yourself with that?"
Sico met her gaze without flinching. "I trust the systems we've built around me. And the people willing to question me if I forget why this matters."
He gestured toward the yard. "This isn't about dominance. It's about reach."
Piper nodded, recorder humming softly. "History's going to have opinions about this."
Sico smiled. "History always does."
Sico let the silence settle after his last words.
The sun was low now, bleeding orange and gold across Sanctuary, stretching shadows until they overlapped and blurred together. The Vertibird sat at the center of it all, half-lit, half-shadowed, like it hadn't fully decided which world it belonged to yet.
Piper clicked off her recorder.
For once, she didn't immediately say anything clever.
She just looked at him.
Then she tucked the recorder back into her jacket and let out a slow breath. "You know," she said, "most leaders would've tried to spin this already. Big speech. Flags. Marching music."
Sico smiled faintly. "And you would've seen right through it."
"Damn right I would," Piper said, smirking. Then her expression shifted, curiosity sharpening. "So what now, Mr. President?"
Sico turned his gaze back to the yard, to the people still talking in clusters, to engineers leaning against crates, soldiers sitting on the ground laughing like they'd just survived a storm.
"Tomorrow," he said, "I want the Commonwealth to hear this from someone they trust."
Piper's eyebrows rose. "You're not about to say my name, are you?"
"I am," Sico replied calmly.
She tilted her head. "Careful. I charge extra for propaganda."
"This isn't propaganda," Sico said. "It's transparency."
He turned to face her fully now. "I want you on Freemason Radio tomorrow morning. I want you to tell people exactly what you saw today. No embellishment. No fear-mongering. No speeches written for you."
Piper searched his face. "You want me to say it plainly."
"Yes," Sico said. "That the Freemasons Republic now has its own air force."
The words landed heavy.
Piper let out a low whistle. "That's gonna shake things."
"It should," Sico said. "But it shouldn't scare them."
She crossed her arms, considering. "You know Diamond City's gonna panic."
"They panic when they don't know," Sico replied. "You'll give them knowledge."
"And the Brotherhood?" Piper pressed.
Sico's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "They'll hear it either way."
Piper studied him for another second, then nodded once, sharp and decisive. "Copy that."
She smiled, fierce and bright. "Tomorrow morning. Freemason Radio. No sugarcoating. Just the truth."
Sico inclined his head. "That's all I ask."
She took a step back, already mentally outlining her broadcast, then paused. "For what it's worth?" she added. "This one matters."
Sico watched her go, already moving with purpose, and felt a small but genuine sense of relief. Some truths needed the right voice to carry them.
Then he turned.
Mel was standing near the Vertibird again, hands on his hips, listening to Mae ramble excitedly while Chen pointed at a datapad and Rhea argued softly about alloy fatigue. Jansen sat nearby, quiet as ever, but his eyes followed every word.
Sico approached without urgency.
Mel noticed him and raised a hand, signaling his team to give him a minute. They drifted a few steps away, still talking among themselves.
Sico stopped beside him.
"Walk with me," he said.
Mel nodded, falling into step as they moved away from the aircraft, toward the edge of the yard where Sturges had earlier been measuring ground with his eyes alone.
Neither spoke at first.
Finally, Mel broke the silence. "You're going to want numbers."
"Yes," Sico said. "I am."
Mel exhaled. "Figures."
They stopped near a stack of crates, the distant hum of Sanctuary settling into evening rhythm behind them.
"When Sturges finishes the factory," Sico said, "how many people do you need to start producing Vertibirds?"
Mel didn't answer immediately.
This wasn't a question you rushed.
He stared out at the cleared land where foundations would soon rise, mentally populating it with workstations, cranes, assembly lines, stress rigs, calibration bays.
"Bare minimum?" Mel said slowly. "To build one at a time, safely?"
Sico nodded. "Start there."
Mel rubbed his chin. "Thirty-five. Maybe forty. Engineers, machinists, electricians, materials specialists, quality control. And that's assuming we don't want to rush."
"And if we do want to scale?" Sico asked.
Mel huffed softly. "Then we're talking sixty to seventy. Not counting logistics. Not counting security. Not counting training."
Sico absorbed that. "You already have your core."
"Yes," Mel said. "But they're veterans. They'll burn out if we lean on them too hard."
"And recruits?" Sico asked.
Mel nodded. "We'll need apprentices. People we can train alongside production. That slows things at first, but it pays off."
Sico's gaze sharpened. "How long until the first production Vertibird?"
Mel hesitated, then answered honestly. "If the factory's done on schedule? Three to four months for the first unit. Longer if we're careful."
"I want careful," Sico said immediately.
Mel let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Good."
They stood there, watching as Sturges' team began placing temporary markers in the dirt, already sketching the future into the ground.
"There's something else," Mel said.
Sico turned to him. "Go on."
"We'll need pilots," Mel said. "Not just Harris. Dedicated training. Maintenance crews trained to fly in emergencies. Redundancy."
Sico nodded. "Already being planned."
"And oversight," Mel added. "I don't want these things rolled out without protocols. Flight rules. No cowboy nonsense."
Sico's mouth twitched. "You sound like you don't trust me."
"I trust you," Mel said. "I don't trust momentum."
Sico considered that.
Then he smiled. "That's why you're still alive."
Mel snorted despite himself.
They walked back toward the yard as the light faded into dusk.
Piper stood near a radio tower now, already talking animatedly with a technician about signal range and broadcast timing. Magnolia and Sturges were deep in conversation, caps changing hands metaphorically if not yet physically. Soldiers filtered toward mess areas. Engineers gathered their tools with the careful reverence of people who knew they'd need them again tomorrow.
The night didn't end loudly.
That surprised a lot of people.
After everything from the test flight, the interviews, the quiet understanding that something fundamental had shifted, you might've expected fireworks, speeches, maybe even a celebration that ran until dawn.
Instead, Sanctuary settled.
Lights dimmed one by one. Guards rotated shifts. Engineers slept where they could, boots still on, hands still smelling faintly of oil and metal. The Vertibird was rolled into a temporary enclosure, canvas stretched tight over steel ribs, watched by two sentries who treated it less like a machine and more like a sleeping animal.
Sico stood on the balcony of the old house that now served as his office long after most of the lights were out.
He didn't sleep much that night.
Not because of anxiety.
Because his mind was already living in the consequences.
Morning came clean and cold.
Fog clung low to the ground, curling around the foundations of half-built structures and drifting through Sanctuary's streets like a cautious visitor. The air smelled of damp earth and fresh-cut timber. Somewhere, someone hammered rhythmically as construction never really stopped anymore.
Piper woke before her alarm.
She lay on her back for a moment, staring at the cracked ceiling of her room, recorder resting on her chest like a weight. Not a bad weight. A familiar one. The kind that came with stories that mattered.
She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and exhaled.
"Alright, Commonwealth," she muttered. "Let's talk."
Freemason Radio occupied a reinforced pre-war broadcast building just outside the old cul-de-sac, upgraded piece by piece until it could punch its signal clean across most of the Republic's territory. Antennas bristled from the roof like metal thorns, humming softly as technicians ran last-minute checks.
Inside, the studio was small but solid.
Piper stepped in, nodding to the techs she recognized. Some looked nervous. Others were smiling outright.
"You ready?" one asked.
She adjusted the microphone height, rolled her shoulders once. "Born ready. Terrible at it, but born ready."
That earned a laugh.
The red light flicked on.
A familiar hum filled the room, the sound of the Commonwealth listening.
Piper leaned in.
"Good morning," she said, voice steady, warm, unmistakably hers. "This is Piper Wright, broadcasting live on Freemason Radio."
Across the Republic, people paused.
Farmers leaned on their tools. Caravan guards turned up volume knobs. Families gathering for breakfast fell quiet. In outposts and settlements, radios crackled to life.
"I'm not here to sell you a dream today," Piper continued. "And I'm definitely not here to tell you everything's perfect. If you've lived in the Commonwealth longer than five minutes, you know better."
A few chuckles rippled through listeners.
"But yesterday," Piper said, "I watched something real happen. Something that worked."
She described it plainly.
The Vertibird lifting into the air. The silence before it did. The way people held their breath. The way it came back down without fire, without screams, without loss.
"I spoke to soldiers who thought they were about to watch someone die," she said. "And then didn't."
She spoke about Mel and his team without mythologizing them. About grease-stained hands, sleepless nights, arguments over tolerances and code that refused to behave.
"I spoke to the pilot," she said. "Who told me he was terrified. And flew anyway."
Across Sanctuary, Mae listened with her arms crossed, jaw tight. Chen closed her eyes for a second. Jansen stared at the floor, embarrassed and oddly proud all at once.
"And I spoke to the President," Piper continued. "Sico. Not about power. Not about conquest. About reach."
She let that word sit.
"Here's the part that matters," Piper said, voice firm now. "The Freemasons Republic now has its own air force."
The words hit like a bell.
In Freemason territory, the reaction wasn't fear.
It was relief.
Cheers broke out in some places with unrestrained, joyful. In others, people just nodded, a weight easing from their shoulders. Guards slapped each other on the back. Settlers smiled, thinking of how long it took help to arrive last time.
"This doesn't mean war," Piper said, anticipating the fear. "It means response. It means oversight. It means that when something burns, when someone calls, the answer doesn't have to crawl across the wasteland anymore."
She paused.
"And if you're worried? Good. Questions mean you care. Ask them. Demand transparency. That's how this works."
The red light glowed steadily.
"I was there," Piper finished. "I saw it. And I'll keep watching."
She clicked the mic off.
For half a second, the studio was silent.
Then the techs erupted.
Someone whooped. Someone else wiped their eyes. One of them just shook his head, laughing softly like he couldn't quite believe he'd heard those words spoken out loud.
Outside, Sanctuary reacted in waves.
Cheers echoed down streets. Radios blared the last line again and again as people replayed it. Kids ran around pretending to be Vertibirds, arms outstretched, making terrible engine noises.
Preston stood near the guard tower, listening to the rebroadcast, a slow smile spreading across his face.
"This is gonna change things," he murmured.
"Yes," Sarah Lyons replied beside him. "It already has."
Sico listened from his office, arms folded, eyes closed.
Not smiling.
Just breathing.
Far to the east, beyond Freemason borders, the reaction was very different.
The Brotherhood of Steel received the broadcast through intercepted channels within minutes.
By the time Piper's voice faded from the final replay, the emergency klaxons were already sounding.
Red lights flashed through the steel corridors of the Brotherhood's main stronghold. Power armor boots pounded against metal floors. Scribes abandoned terminals mid-calculation. Knights snapped helmets into place with practiced urgency.
The war room filled fast.
Elder Maxson stood at the head of the table, jaw clenched, eyes hard. Around him gathered Paladins, Knights, senior Scribes which the core of Brotherhood authority in the region.
A holotape player clicked off.
Silence followed.
"They have an air force," one Knight said, disbelief edging his voice.
"No," a Scribe corrected quietly. "They have independent air capability."
Maxson slammed a gauntleted fist onto the table. "Don't soften it."
A Paladin leaned forward. "This comes after confirmed reports of an operational anti-air gun."
Another voice chimed in. "Which we already considered a threat."
Maxson's eyes burned. "This changes the equation."
A Scribe activated a map projection, Commonwealth terrain overlaid with Brotherhood patrol routes, known Freemason installations, and now, red markers indicating potential air corridors.
"They can move faster than us," the Scribe said. "By orders of magnitude."
"They can bypass choke points," another added. "Overwatch from above. Rapid redeployment."
"And strike," someone said quietly.
Maxson rounded on them. "You think they didn't plan this?"
The room went still.
"This wasn't accidental," Maxson continued. "They didn't build an AA gun for defense alone. They didn't restore Vertibirds because they like flying."
A Paladin frowned. "With respect, Elder, Piper Wright explicitly—"
"Piper Wright is not neutral," Maxson snapped. "She's embedded."
That stirred murmurs.
"They claim transparency," Maxson went on. "They claim benevolence. But you don't build layered air defenses without intent."
A Scribe swallowed. "So… hidden agenda?"
Maxson's lips curled. "Control."
He paced slowly.
"They've been consolidating territory. Infrastructure. Loyalty. Now air superiority."
He stopped, turning back to the table.
"They're preparing to dictate terms."
The room buzzed with tension.
"What are your orders?" a Paladin asked.
Maxson straightened. "Increase patrols. Fortify all positions. No Vertibird flies near our airspace without challenge."
"And if they cross it?" someone asked.
Maxson didn't hesitate. "Then we treat it as hostile."
A Scribe hesitated. "Elder… if they wanted war, wouldn't they strike first?"
Maxson's eyes narrowed. "Smart enemies don't rush."
The meeting dragged on, voices overlapping, fear threading through steel discipline. They spoke of countermeasures. Of sabotage. Of intelligence gathering.
But beneath it all was something newer.
Unfamiliar.
The Brotherhood had ruled the skies uncontested for too long.
And now?
Now someone else had learned how to reach them.
By midday, Sanctuary felt different.
Not louder.
Stronger.
Mel stood inside the Science division, watching new recruits cluster around his second-in-command as explanations began. Datapads changed hands. Questions flew. Nervous excitement buzzed through the room.
Eighteen had become twenty-one.
Enough to dream bigger.
He thought of the factory rising just beyond the hills. Of production lines not yet built. Of Vertibirds not yet imagined.
Outside, a child's laughter drifted in through an open window. Mel smiled faintly, as the sky was no longer empty. And for the first time, neither was the future.
______________________________________________
• 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:-