Two weeks passed as I taught people how to drive and helped make more vehicles. Most of them ended up being pickup trucks but I diverted lots of materials for tanks design. The tank track ended up being simple enough and we put some together on a frame. We then installed two engines for each set of tracks and then built the frame of the tank.
The armor was massive welded plates with a thick and tough frame to hold it all. We then installed a control system and expensive, heavily armored cameras for sight. Last was the armament of four automatic laser rifles and a thick ball turret with a grenade machine gun. I made sure every system of the tank was impenetrable to prevent any attempts by legion force to destroy or cripple it with anything less than powerful explosives.
Even the tracks had a thick armor skirt to prevent easy long range explosives. After I showed it off to the officers, most notably general Oliver, I was given more resources and manpower and ordered to make more. Unfortunately over the next month we only produced two more tanks but made up for it with multiple trucks and some armored vehicles with heavy machine guns.
As the days pass I continue to work on tech and anything that interests me. As I turn 18 years old the idiot in the BOS group brings something to me. While working with an engineer they had found some kind of drug stash. The idiot with his brotherhood education recognized some of the exotic drugs and identified a strange mix of drugs. He brought the drugs to me and with one look at them I called to the MPs of the dam.
While I and the BOS group were testing the drugs to see what the unidentified and mixed stuff was the MPs arrived. I looked at them and spoke "A large drug stash has been found. Many of the chems are yet to be identified. The user and or users need to be found yesterday. I want them dragged here and strapped to a table." I looked to a trooper and spoke again. "Tell the general I need a low level lock down of the base. No one gets out. And send a medical team down here, we may need them."
As the MPs rushed to hunt down the perpetrators and the trooper went to get a lockdown I continued to study the drugs. I put the easy chems to the side, things like buffout, jet, med-x, calmex, daddy-o, day tripper, mentats, turbo, x-cell, psycho, fixer, addictol, and stimpacks. A lot of drugs.
A few hours later and the MPs drag three men in, one an engineer, and two corporals. We tie them all down and I have the MPs start interrogating them. General Oliver and Colonel Moore show up with some of the medics and I give them a report on what happened. I show the medics what we have on the unidentified stuff and one of them recognizes one of the mixes.
Buffout, med-x, mentats, psycho, and addictol. The mix is apparently a well known combat drug mix but is never mashed together into one drug. The MPs finally got something useful from the druggies at this point as one of them describes a mixture based on the identified one. It used all the previous ones and added daddy-o, x-cell, and fixer. This turned out to be the other unidentified drug.
He claimed it was his most popular and powerful drug as it made a person feel like a god for about an hour. He also turned out to be lying as he also made another version that added jet and more psycho. As colonel Moore handled the druggies and the MPs, Oliver lifted the lockdown and I began discussing testing for these new combat drugs.
He didn't like it but he had to admit that these mixtures, when done right, could give a regular trooper the temporary power of someone in power armor. Or make them a killing machine based on the second mix. The general accepted my testing proposal but limited it to death sentence criminals or other captured enemies. While I didn't like killing most people and felt some guilt for their deaths, others certainly deserved their punishment.
A few months passed as prisoners were sent to me and I studied the drugs of this world. It was all insanely complicated but with help I was able to make a stable and effective combat drug for proper trials. The end result contained buffout, calmex, daddy-o, hydra, jet, med-x, mentats, psycho, steady, turbo, x-cell, addictol, fixer, and cateye. This compound made a normal man into a super soldier without making him addicted to anything. The side effect however leave the user paralyzed for a day and incredibly stiff for the week after.
Many of the test subjects died to execution rather than something like overdose as the extreme mixture usually let them attempt an escape.
The second version was even more deadly and difficult to test as I removed calmex, daddy-o, and steady while adding more psycho. This combination had much the same results but made the user an intelligent berserker. After we made stable and effective compounds we immediately ceased experimenting and started producing and training.
Over another month we trained every soldier we could on using the compound they named God Complex and trained a few on using the psycho version named Slayer.
As time flew by tension skyrocketed as the legion advanced more. General Oliver demanded more firepower and pulled multiple grenade machine guns from back home and we made four more tanks and five more armored trucks. We also made more of the recharger weapons and a lot more exoskeletons, each of them now armored. My freely given rotary grenade launcher design had been capitalized by the military and we got a massive shipment alongside plenty of ammunition for them.
As tension escalated due to the legion building the fort across the river I began fortifying my robots. The protectrons had long been scrapped for their invaluable components. The eyebots now functioned as high flying eyes in the sky for the general. The sentry bots were hidden security in multiple valuable areas. The Mr.Handys and their other models were heavily reinforced with more armor and better weapons. Their three eyes were replaced with one armored eye connected to the body and two arms with lasers. The main hand had been replaced with a small plasma gun, the buzzsaw with a ripper, and the flamethrower with an automatic laser. We now had seven tanks and multiple armored vehicles with unarmored vehicles all ready for anything they were needed for.
Tensions came to a head as legion force pushed across the river in various ways and the fort started daily attacks. As shit started going down Clay and I started working on plasma weapons. We found out, via some destroyed plasma weapons, that if we got the plasma hot enough it could bounce on vaporized material. This led to the BFG. It was a vehicle mounted plasma cannon that lobbed a large ball of super plasma. The ball would bounce around as it hit things and vaporized them. At some point it would cool down enough that it would explosively fall apart, flinging plasma everywhere.
It ate up ammunition but a few shots over the walls would scare off the legion attacks by vaporizing most of them. Eventually I started making a heavy laser sniper rifle with multiple focus attachments and a large MF breeder hooked up to it. Oliver immediately put it on a tower and had a ranger stationed there day and night using night and thermal vision to turn the heads of legion idiots to ash.
I continued to work on long range weapons but the furthest I got was designs for artillery. I remembered in game that the battle of Hoover dam had been fought at the dam and them pushed back to Boulder City where it was annihilated to route the legion with massive losses from explosives. I didn't want that to happen but it didn't help as the legion made a massive push the second we weren't prepared. One of the soldiers who wielded a Slayer chem got shot and the chem shattered into his wound.
He went berserk and because of the wounds location went a bit crazy. He was quickly detained and rushed away for medical treatment but the legion assault slammed into us with lots of snipers and a flood of legionnaires. I and twenty of the now forty exo soldiers were at the wall near to the berserkers station and responded immediately with extreme force.
The tanks roared as their GMG shredded anyone they aimed at and our own heavy weaponry was a chainsaw cutting grass. The legion died in swathes as we overheated energy weapons over and over again while ballistic weapons tore apart flesh till we had no bullets left and barrels melted. Reinforcements arrived after a ten minute slog of mass genocide of legion troops flooding towards us.
I knew the legion was big and had massive numbers but this amount should be a crippling blow. As reinforcements arrived a blob of super plasma arced over us and ping ponged through the charging army. I ordered two tanks to the front as the mass of legion bodies screamed for our lives. One tank quickly became a mountain of blood as the gunner continued to fire even as blood and ash blinded them.
The second tank shook the dam as it went up in a nuclear blast from a suicide vest made of plasma explosives. As the two tanks I sent forward fell into the enemy tide I ordered all weapons free. I counter wave of metal, laser, and plasma blotted the sky in grey, red, and vivid green. This attack however didn't last long as we were forced to pull back and the frontlines entered melee.
A single order had exo soldiers and troopers alike counter charge with extreme drugs turning them into superhumans. The melee lasted 30 minutes as flesh shredded flesh. Each exo soldier was like a giant standing atop a mountain of bodies of the lives they had ended. Orders came from the top to let the further onto the dam to funnel them even more.
We pulled back slowly as to not give the enemy time to charge. As we pulled back grenades shot in mass at the tide of lightly armed flesh. Troopers with rotary grenade launchers unloaded everything they could to give us precious seconds. As the grenades stopped flying the enemy charge resumed and I was forced to draw my 12.7mm smg and my extended heavy ripper.
I and my men stood as a wall of blades. The ocean of bladed flesh slammed against us constantly as we struggled to hold. The fight continued in this way with more strategic waves of legionnaires hitting us and small breaks as grenades rained down. I felt like collapsing multiple times but my exoskeleton kept me fighting at even the smallest muscle movement.
At some point we found that legion was attacking from behind so the dam was completely locked down and remaining surface forces were ordered to retreat to transport and escape. With the dam locked down feild commanders were the only officers left. I held the vanguard as a retreat began. Tanks and armored vehicles became sardine cans while everything else became armored by NCR soldiers clinging on the sides.
Unfortunately space for everyone simply didn't exist. Everyone left behind was under my command and I ordered use of God Complex. With the drug we were all gods of war and cut through the enemy in a fighting retreat. The vehicles were dust in the wind when I pulled my trump card out. While colonel Moore was technically the owner of the mini nuke from the vault I had simply stealthily transported equipment to another location.
A flip of a small switch on the back and I threw the bomb into the mass behind us. I ordered my men to charge through at full speed and we carved a path by running through people. I'd definitely have nightmares about this if I survived. My back tingled a few seconds later as the world turned black and white.
Everyone still standing tumbled and rolled as our uncovered skin got lightly burned. We got back up immediately but were forced to a stop as we rounded the road to Boulder City. In front of us was a makeshift wall of debris, stone, and scrap. Standing atop it was an enemy I easily recognized from the game. Vulpes Inculta with his stupid wolf headdress and goggles, a stupid and cocky smirk in his face.
I immediately took aim alongside my men but massive metal wire nets flew from the cliffs to our side. The second they touched us we all instantaneously collapsed from a massive surge of electricity seizing our muscles and causing our exoskeletons to freak out.
I didn't get to see much after that as my emergency Slayer injection activated and my world turned a blurry red as blood vessels in my eyes popped and I went berserk.