Vulpes went to answer but I spoke up. "My name might as well be Brutus for all it matters, Kai zar. And as for your legion, it wasn't much trouble to face them. Only problem we had was the pyrrhic numbers you threw at us to be cut down."
Was it really stupid to insult the man and his armies? Yes. Was it great to see his glare deepen at me? Also yes. I went to throw another insult but was gagged from behind. I tried to resist but some kind of baton struck me in the back of the head. The rest of the conversation was blurry but I tried to listen. The familiar man and I were then dragged out and forced to carry crosses. We were then given the partial Jesus treatment as we were led down a long twisting road lined with legion. Whips cracked against our backs as we shouldered the massive weight of what seemed to be power poles cut at a certain length.
We eventually staggered our way down to a point on the road where we had a clear view of Hoover Dam with the NCR flag flying high above it. I could see the troops on the dam spot us and report it as a flood of NCR came out of the dam and its structures. I could see the distinct glint of hundreds of scopes aimed at us, including my heavy laser sniper on a tower. I smiled in their direction and continued to drag my cross to a large hole.
Whips cracked against us as we slipped our crosses into holes and pushed them upright. Some menials then anchored the crosses in place and we were slowly and painfully tied to the crosses with a small metal bar to stand on and our hand tied at the wrists to the arms. I'd fallen multiple times to the ground and been whipped all over, one of th hits nearly taking an eye as it sliced my eyebrow apart.
Stilt ladders were put up sometimes to feed or water us but most of the time our sustenance was harsh sunlight and the jeers of enemies. I spoke with the unknown man may times, quickly finding out who he was. Joshua Graham, the Malpais Legate and the small ranged demon from the battle. It seems that in the week I was out he had been heavily tortured and had nearly lost his mind.
I'd had to help him massively in our walk as his body continued to fail him. We'd been reduced to bloody, earth burnt states with only blood stained rags to hide our dignity. He was immensely depressed the week of us hanging out on the crosses. One of the menials had put burnt and torn flags of NCR and Legion on us to prolong our suffering.
As the days passed into two months I finally began my escape plan. I'd continuously pulled at the ropes on my wrists till my scab covered wrists started fraying my binds. I'd convinced, or at least annoyed, Joshua into doing the same. As soon as the menials came back and the guard was lessened I snapped the rope and shoved the menial the nine feet to the ground. I latched onto th ladder and slid down on my burnt feet and calloused hands. I hit the ground and charged the menial for his small knife. Joshua was a little faster, a knife already in his trembling fingers.
The second a legionnaire got to me I slid from his machete swing and jabbed my knife into his throat. He collapsed gurgling as I yanked his blade from him. I ran for the Dam as Joshua put his new machete from another man into the head of some idiot who tried to tackle him.
The second we broke away we heard gunfire. We continued to stagger for the NCR walls as chaos erupted. The distant NCR wall opened as a tank drove through with exo soldiers rushed out. I looked back to find a mob of legion chasing us and I slapped Joshua's back to usher him forward. After 3 full minutes of our staggering sprint two more tanks exited the walls and began annihilating the chasing enemies. We fell into the arms of an exo soldier who grabbed us and ran. I practically passed out as we were carried to a medical room inside the dam.
I woke a few hours later with Joshua in a bed beside mine. They had probably assumed he was important and likely not an enemy as the legion clearly hated him and the NCR didn't have images of any legion leaders.
I left the bed quickly as it seemed the doctors here had done me some good. Likely some kind of diluted stimpack drip and lots of other drip types. But drips weren't enough, I needed food. I moved as stealthily as I could to the nearest canteen I could remember. A nurse almost caught me but a well placed storage cabinet hid me from her glance.
When I finally got to the canteen a lot of the troops were staring at me but the chef obviously didn't care. He gave me a lot more than I asked for so I assumed he knew about me having just been saved. It probably helped that I was in a hospital gown. As I sat down colonel Moore and paladin Clay entered. Moore practically stomped over to my table and sat. Clay however grabbed some food and some kind of desert that he gave to Moore. It looked like coffee pudding but I'd never had any.
Clay sat beside me and put a clean looking energy weapon in the table. I recognized it immediately, the blaster cannon. It looked like a thick oval tube with a square on one end and a long cylindrical tube on that. The oval was cut up at certain points and a pistol grip was attached with a long trigger. It had the folding stock I'd designed where it could clip to the front both as a smooth barrel or an under barrel grip. The sights were basic irons but that was enough for a weapon just past being a prototype.
It reminded me of the smoother blasters from Star Wars but missing the elegant curves. Most of what I was looking at was the shell, meant to make the blaster just a bit tougher and to protect the more fragile bits inside. The best part about this weapon was the cost. Its only part that could be considered expensive was the power pack. Costing two micro fusion breeders it dealt the damage of a plasma gun and had fifty charges at full capacity.
It recharged at 3 per second, much better than other recharger weapons which I'd previously solved with a massive charge capacity. As I looked at the blaster cannon I immediately saw multiple changes I could make. Adding attachment rails would allow for easy customization. Better iron sights. An easily removable charge pack. A removable stock in case users didn't want it. A heat shield for the barrel as heat still leaked into it according to Clay.
I set the weapon down after going over it and ate my meal. With Moore still glaring at me I grabbed some more food and ate again. As I finished I took a third helping and went back to the hospital room and set the food beside Grahams bed on a table. I then layed down and looked to Moore. "Give me a report."
I promptly gave her the report she asked for and was stunned by the man in bed being Joshua Graham, the malpais legate. She immediately got up to have him taken to a cell but I snatched her wrist and pulled her back. "We can use him colonel. He hates the legion now. He's become extremely religious and wants to atone for his sins. If we use that we can make him a very dangerous asset against the legion. I've also found that he has no issue with the NCR. We can make him an ally unlike most. The rangers would probably love to take him and transform him into an asset."
She looked at me then to the man in bed and asked "How good are our chances of doing that?"
I responded "Our chances are good if we treat him right. Give him what he needs and support him in his atonement. I'm sure we could find some other religious men to go with him. We could send him to an area to deny the legion land, resources, and slaves."
She nodded and left the room, likely to speak with Oliver. She was a hardass most of the time and usually wanted to wipe out enemies of the NCR, but she could still see reason. Clay who was standing by the door had his eyebrow raised as she left but shook his head and approached me. We spoke for a few hours before he left to let the doctors speak with me. He acted a bit strange at points, looking at the chair beside my bed, dropping into his thoughts.
I was finally given leave from the hospital a few days later after speaking with General Oliver and Joshua. I'd helped mediate their conversation and set up the situation Joshua was in. He accepted taking NCR troops to an area that turned out to be Zion. They would be given decent support from NCR traders to arm the tribals and fight legion expansion.
He was happy enough that he could atone by helping others and spreading his faith. The men we were sending with him were all at least a bit religious so they'd all work well together. It was a week later that we sent a small caravan of three armored trucks to make their way into the old national park.
In my third week back my mind snapped when I woke in cold pitch black. I'd yanked my blaster cannon from my side table and opened fire at my room. Clay and multiple others entered and found me inside after I'd melted the gun with a massive amount of shooting. They pulled the melted gun from my slightly burned hands and dragged me to the hospital.
I was put to sleep with some drugs and woke to find two exo soldiers stationed in my room on Moores order and a therapist that general oliver had called over from Shady Sands around three months ago. I'd explained what had happened to me as a very bad nightmare combined with my rooms lights busting from a bad circuit and a power surge that dealt some damage in other places.
"Colonel Moore called me to her office and informed me of president Kimball sending a request for the military to by the exoskeleton production rights for mass production, all while giving me a withering glare for 'nearly killing myself.' I easily signed production rights to the military which gave me a massive pay increase.
Later as I entered R&D to go to my office Clay gave me a smirk while everyone else began whispering and the two girls started giggling. I didn't know what that was about so I simply ignored it. Days passed as I recovered and created till Clay finally came to me. "I believe it's time Kane. I've done what I can and the mission needs to happen. A large and dangerous piece of technology was found and one of mine will leave a door or two open."
I simply nodded at him and stood. I went straight to my secret tech stash and pulled out some items. I tossed a suit to Clay and called some in base rangers to me. They all got suits tossed to them as I put on my own. Supposed weapons were passed around and I quietly gave mission details. We left the base in the dead of night and took the quietest vehicle we had. An hour of driving took us to an abandoned area with construction vehicles and a crane. One ranger climbed the crane and took overwatch while the rest of us entered through the fence with small snaps of wire cutters. We got through multiple doors and into the tower of Helios One with ease.
Powerful tranquilizers took out any threat inside besides a paladin doing repairs to a turret while in his armor. We climbed the tower till we found Elijah working obsessively on a terminal. His drooping and baggy red eyes stared at the terminal as he typed away. A tranq to his neck went completely ignored as he flopped onto his desk. I slipped a small computer device from my backpack and downloaded then deleted everything I could.
My men slowly and quietly carried Elijah away as I hunted for anything about Archimedes 2. Eventually I found the main terminal and purged everything after stealing all data. We went out the way we came while putting anyone knocked out in positions to make it look like Elijah had left while knocking them out himself. With a small welder we fixed the entrance and slipped away back to the vehicle. We took Elijah as close to the nearby ant hole as we could and tossed a few grenades inside after putting multiple holes in the old man.
We ran back to the vehicle and drove back to the dam. I had the mission sealed under order of General Oliver with only the president able to know about it. As I went back to bed I saw colonel Moore give me a nod from her office as I passed. I didn't doubt that she knew what I'd done. My sleep that night was particularly satisfying as I knew that the Brotherhood would now be making NcNamara the elder and we could finally start talks for an alliance.