As we got to the golf club we all activated our noise makers. When the ghouls were eventually piled up at the walls and gate I slammed a fist against the gates lock and the ghouls started pouring out. We all immediately bolted as a horde chased us. It was slightly terrifying but also fun. I tore through the Main Street with at least 100 ghouls on my ass as the others lured smaller groups through the urban ruins.
Only one of us fell while running but two of us backed him up as I rushed in and snatched him from his group. I found the nearest stable building I could and helped him ontop of it while taking his noise maker.
Half an hour later we all jumped the guard rails of the road and dashed for the legion base entrance. In a line we chucked our noise makers into the enemy base and ran for cover in the bushes by the road. By the time the ghouls climbed out of the town area the legion camp was swarming and making lots of noise. We disappeared behind our cover and the ghouls crossed the street for the legion camp entrance.
Screams erupted as legion troops drowned in a flood of unfeeling flesh. Gunfire echoed from the camp as anyone with a gun started shooting the mass of scarred bodies. Five minutes in and gunfire started from our own forces. Multiple explosions shook the buildings in the base with the sniper tower getting toppled by what seemed to be a grenade machine gun.
Our own company slowly made themselves known by exiting the town and firing explosives at multiple locations on the outer walls. The ghouls were failing now but that meant we were already inside. As the runners and I left the bushes I started hearing the distant cracks from the rangers 50 cal rifles. As our men took to the holes in the walls I dashed for the entrance to see what had happened past it. Most of the ghouls that had survived only had a limb or two so I slowly entered past hundreds of corpses. Beside the rubble of the fallen tower I looked to the main building and saw the centurion of this place hanging from the ledge of his building with large chunks of armor missing and lots of blood splatter.
I brought up my new rifle and took aim at the first man in red I could see. He was aiming a rifle somewhere on his other side and didn't know what killed him as I let out a burst that dropped him instantly. I dropped three more enemies then got charged by an idiot with a machete. His blade bounced off my armored arm and I swung my opposite fist at him. His chest exploded as my hand sunk in, spraying me with blood and meat chunks.
I yanked back my hand and took aim again. A single shot cracked the head of another legion soldier as he jumped at a comrade from the east side company who had overextended. As my company moved in the assault quickly became more of a clean up. The few buildings that remained standing were shattered open by explosives and flooded by bullets an even flamethrowers. The northwest company, with some kind of engineering group, made a small kingdom near the slave pens and erected a small tower with multiple snipers.
The cleanup lasted the next week as we hunted anyone who had escaped. I'd even managed to grab the centurions thermic lance and his hunting shotgun. I'd even dug up a shishkebab which I sold for a nice bit of cash. The week after clean up was spent making this place into an NCR outpost. Additionally lots of farmers from the NCR would be moved here as the land was found to have low radiation and good fertility.
On the third week the battalion started preparing to move out. That was when I was called into the command tent once again. I was met with Colonel Moore and Major Puller. Moore spoke before I could move. "At ease soldier. Major Puller here is staying at this new outpost to command it till someone is sent to relieve him. I however am taking this battalion east into the Mojave where we will be moving to take over Hoover Dam. For your abilities and services, going above and beyond the call of duty we will be feild promoting you to the rank of technical sergeant. As such you will be moved under my command and will go to Hoover Dam alongside me."
I blinked at the news. I'd expected something from this but not a massive promotion or to be taken to the Mojave with her. I'd expected that once I showed off my exoskeleton for her. I went to ask a question but she spoke before I could. "Do you understand what I've informed you of?"
"Yes ma'am" I answered. After I answered the major reached into his pocket and pulled out a technical sergeant rank patch and slapped it onto my arm after removing the private rank patch. The major then nodded to the colonel and left the tent. I looked to her and she began speaking. "As you are now one of my subordinates I can now speak to you freely. I've spoken with many people and have discovered a lot about you. Specifically that metal skeleton you wore in the race and the battle. It significantly improved your combat prowess and enhanced you massively. I'm sure you and many others are aware that I was made a colonel because I could no longer enter combat due to an injury. I want to know if that creation of yours would allow me to go back into combat, and if it does, if you would make one for me to use."
Internally I smiled like I was the joker winning against Batman. On the outside I simply raised an eyebrow and spoke. "I could easily make an exoskeleton for you if I had what was needed. If it would get you back into combat is something that would be determined by the injury." She nodded at my answer and responded. "I'll have the needed resources provided to you to make the exoskeleton, as you call it, and once the first one is finished we'll then see if it works for me."
"You could simply use mine. It wouldn't be hard to adjust it for you to use. While it's not as good as anything I could make with proper materials it would probably be fine." I said. She snapped her eyes onto me as I stopped speaking. She practically lunged and grabbed my arm, then spoke. "Let's go, the sooner I get back to combat readiness the more support I'll give your project."
I responded by nodding and leading her out of the tent and to my own. Lots of eyes watched us but both of us easily ignored them. She waited outside my tent as I brought the exoskeleton out. I had her step into it and started strapping it on. I only needed to adjust a few things to make it fit her, then adjust the movement with my still shitty computer.
By the time it was ready a large group of officers and some rangers had gathered around to watch. The second I told her I was done she took off like a train that didn't need tracks. The collapsed tower became a target for her and a few troopers began tossing bricks and concrete chunks for her to reduce to rubble. Most of the officers were simply laughing at her but a few, mostly the rangers, looked interested.
She then found an LMG and began destroying the makeshift range so guys had thrown together. As she played around I started work on a project I had never gotten to start. With my new rank I now had the authority to take three grenade rifles and a grenade launcher. I took them all apart and cut the rifle barrels in half. I then had a few engineers fabricate the other needed parts and I put the all together.
I tested the design at the now demolished range, reducing it further with each six shot reload. This time the rangers practically pryed it from me. I drew up the basic schematics and gave it to both colonel Moore and the rangers. I made a few more with the help of the engineers and sold the lot to Major Puller. With that done as the week ended I began the third project I'd drawn up in my time here.
It was a backup energy weapon mounted on the forearm. An armored fission battery on the lower back with connected with armored wires to laser emitters on the forearms. It was my most complex creation as I worked on it even while we travelled. I couldn't make its firing mechanism anything in the weapon so I designed a headband to pickup brain wave signals. The specific signal was linked to a key phrase to trigger the firing without a chance of misfiring from thinking the phrase for no reason. Thinking the key phrase would trigger a burst of laser fire wherever you aimed.
I'd made the actual tech easily enough while we were going to the Mojave, but the time consuming part involved perfecting my key phrase. I had to train myself in using it in the specific way that gave the signal to fire. I'd set the phrase to be 'You may fire when ready' in a snotty, superior voice. When I correctly thought that, my laser emitters would blast away at my target.
After finishing the laser I started work on a new exoskeleton. This version would be way better than my first as I now had proper support. As we crossed into the Mojave via the NCR Mojave Outpost had fully rebuilt my computer and made the programming of the exoskeleton better as I now had the time to do it. As the engineers worked on fabricating the parts for the exoskeleton I worked on the complex stuff.
As we travelled anywhere we went got cleaned of every sensor module and fission battery. Those where the only things I couldn't make from scrap as the stuff to do so was to rare or to difficult to fabricate. I completed the second exoskeleton when we got to Sloan. Colonel Moore attempted to go up Black Mountain to test the new exoskeleton but an order from General Oliver came down and ordered her directly to Hoover Dam.
I could guess that Oliver was ordering us straight there due to the legion moving up. He likely wanted extra forces to keep the dam securely under NCR control. As we followed the road up to the 188 trading post I managed to convince Colonel Moore to stop for a day as we stripped Repconn HQ for everything it was worth. I organized a lot of stuff to be moved around so that we had a few empty wagons to carry everything we got from the place.
As we got to the large building we set up camp and made a decent wall built up on the barriers made pre-war. I prepared a squad of 30 infantry with myself and three others in new exoskeletons. As we entered I immediately blasted the tour bot and the janitorial bot. I yanked the key to the planetarium from an arm and went straight for the second floor of the room. I snatched the card and went to the security door.
I slipped it into the wall terminal after messing with the clunky box and the door lock clicked open. I entered with men at my back and blasted the next bot. A kick opened the small storage room and I sent some men in to grab everything. I climbed to the next floor and easily found the floors card and subdued the bots. The third floor didn't have the destruction from in game and I took security by remembering the luck based answer to the bot on this floor. I navigated to the main control terminal of the building and shut down security after hacking through the defenses. I didn't have something like a pipboy so I had to spend the next five hours going through code to pieces together the password and use it. After shutting down security I hunted down the Q-35 Matter Modulator. Its project data was another two hours to get to on a terminal on the first floor. After I took that stuff I sent in anyone I could that wouldn't destroy what they were looting.
They eventually declared the looting finished some time near eleven by dragging twelve small sentry bots outside. Alongside the sentries were 23 Mr.Handys, five protectrons, and two eyebots. I quickly hooked all of the functional bots to what had been the main control terminal and got them all moving. I had the engineers throw together some mort carts and attach them to sentry bots. We even slapped some wheels on an entire server and hooked it to a sentry.
Many of the bots didn't work but that was fine, as long as we got them the damage didn't matter unless it was total. At 2 in the morning I finally settled down to sleep as we'd be passing through the 188 and getting to Boulder City the next day.