I was crawling through the vents, toward the armory, when I first saw a mercenary and, more importantly, an outsider. He had on a dirty set of pre-war clothes, with a combat vest and metal shoulder pads. What was most interesting though, was the symbol on his shoulder pads, which was a skull with a pair of guns below it. We saw all this as we saw him walking down the hall near the grate in the vent system that we nearby, no doubt patrolling. But what was most shocking was that he was walking along side two of our own security guards. I guess that even though I knew about this, I still wasn't prepared to see it myself.
After seeing the mercenary, we continued on for another few minutes until we reached the armory. After reaching it, we saw that it was guarded by a security guard and a mercenary. We were prepared for this however, so Chris went to the vent inside the armory while Max went to one around the corner of a nearby hall. I kept watch at the front entrance. A minute later, there was a *cling* inside the armory. After looking at each other for a moment, the Vault guard said "I'll check it out.". After that, he opened the door to the armory and shut it behind him. Just after the door closed, John rushed toward the mercenary from around the corner. Too surprised to do much, the mercenary was immediately tackled and, after a quick choke-hold, knocked out.
I lept down from the grate above to help carry the slaver into the armory, which held an equally unconscious vault security guard. After securing the guards in handcuffs and gagging them, we went to work on securing all that we could from the armory. After about 19 minutes and reapplying the knockout status to the guards, we had everything we needed, secured in four small crates.
One of these crates held boxes and military containers filled with grenades, ammo, and weapon attachments of many kinds. The second held spare parts and cleaning kits for the weapons we got, along with a variety of knives, machetes, and shock batons. The third one held armor and uniforms, while the fourth held the guns.
While many of the guns were pistols, mostly 10mm with an occasional revolver or desert eagle, there were plenty of higher grade weapons too. We grabbed many combat rifles, combat shotguns, sub-machine guns, M4A1 carbines, some hunting rifles converted for sniper use, and even a grenade launcher! When we did leave the vault, we were definitely set for action.
As we started to drag the crates into a vent , Max said "Hey guys, come check this out." What he found surprised us. Inside a box in the corner of the room were two heavy machine guns and a laser rifle, with what must have been about a hundred rounds for the laser rifle and close to a couple of thousand for the machine guns. We quickly agreed to take them and, after setting up a little surprise, left with the five crates, heading back to the junk room.
25 Minutes later
As we arrived back at the junk room, we quickly learned that the other two raids were a success, and that only the clinic raid had to take down a guard, another slaver. The clinic raid managed to scavenge tons of medical supplies. When we had started the raids, we agreed to leave a third of the medical supplies and half of the food behind, so the vault doesn't die off. Even so, we still got a lot from the other raids. There were 2 crates of stimpacks, Med-X, Rad-X, blood bags, antiseptics, bandages/gauze, antibiotics, and various medical tools and books from the clinic raid. Meanwhile, Lucy and Dusk got about three months worth of canned food and one month of preserved water.
A few minutes later, we activated the distractions in or near each of the raised areas, which were made out of explosives and gas. After we waited a moment, we rushed toward the elevator nearby, pushing four wheeled carts with all the gear we got. Besides having to subdue a couple of security guards on the top floor waiting to use the elevator, we successfully got to the garage.
I quickly made a couple of checks on the jeeps to make sure they were good. Once I gave the thumbs up, everyone started to load the crates into the jeeps. "Hey Adam!" John said, getting my attention. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" He happily said, showing me one of the machine guns and them pointing to what looked like a gun mount inside the jeep. "Alright, you and I will be the gunners.". I said, not sure how to feel. On one hand, it would make me more exposed to gunfire. On the other hand, it was a machine gun…
I ended up going with what I said, and After attaching the gun mounts and the guns themselves, John and I mounted our positions.
"Alright, is everyone ready?" Everyone nodded. "Ok good, Chris, you're driving this jeep with me, Lizzy, Beth, and John. Roy, you're driving the other jeep with John, Alice, and Nat, alright?" More nods. "Alright, let's do this!"
At the open Vault entrance (random mercenary POV)
I was pissed. I wanted to try my luck at finding those runaway brats, but no! Jackal decided to put me as guard with the group druggie and our two worst shots, and this was all because of the one slave that got away on the last run a month or so ago! It wasn't my fault either, since I was already shot in the leg and outgunned, as the guy had an assault rifle compared to my double-barrel shotgun.
'Knew I shoulda chosen one of those ak's from New Vegas.' I thought as I light a cigar. I was contemplating whether or not to offer one to the druggie, when I suddenly heard the moving of steel sliders and a generator. "What the hell?" One of the bad shots said, stepping forward to get a closer look. All of a sudden I heard a screech of rubber on concrete and bullets starting to fly. As I raised my gun, I realised that the generator I heard wasn't a generator at all, but an engine. You want to know how I realised this, why I found out when I saw two jeeps barrelling toward the front entrance.
I tried to move out of the way, but a bullet hit my leg, sending me tumbling to the ground. As I looked up, I saw with horror that one of the jeeps was about to drive over me, carrying the very kids that the other were looking for. "FFFFFUUUUU-" I yelled, just before being run over by the jeep, ending the life of another vermin in the wasteland.
At the open Vault entrance
On Billy's jeep
"H-hey, I think I ran over one of them." Chris said, worriedly trying to focus on driving or avoiding bullets from the few slavers that didn't run or were gunned down. It was good that it was just Mercenary's, because I'm not sure if I could of shot Vault a security guard. I know that they were enemies as well, but for all I know, they might've been forced to do this. It also made it worse that I might have known them.
"I was pushed out of my thoughts though when Beth said "Guys, we got a problem!" I looked back to see a few beaten up motorcycles and a scrap covered pickup truck armed with a machine gun head toward us.
"Dammit!" I yelled, swinging my gun around and opening fire on the incoming slaver vehicles. Not knowing we had already seen them, the mercenary were taken by surprise as machine gun bullets rained down on them, driving off or taking out the motorcycles.
However, the bullets simply pinged off of the truck, it's armor holding strong. Luckily, the truck's gunner didn't have this armor, so he ducked down behind the cabin of the truck, firing blindly at us. While he didn't hit us, some of his shots were close, and it looked like he was getting ready to get up again for a clearer shot. 'Come on! come on! There's gotta be something that can help!' I thought as I looked around the jeep. I suddenly saw the grenade launcher we had grabbed back at the armory, just waiting for me to grab it.
Taking the launcher in hand, I fired off a couple of shots, missing with one and hitting with the other. While it wasn't a complete kill, it took out the rear left portion of the truck, likely killing the gunner, and sending the pick-up skidding to a stop. The driver got out and fired a couple of shots off, but by then we were too far away for them to hit, especially since it came from a rusted up pistol.
We kept driving for a while driving for about four more hours until we figured we were safe enough. We camped at an old restaurant for a while, before heading out again at a slower pace. Remembering that our pip-boys, and in this case my CTM, had mapping technology, we found that our Vault was near a slave/mercenary outpost called Elrion, in an old pre-war town. We were currently south of a town called Kettle Falls, which in the distance, just looked like a bunch of concrete ruins.
After deciding not to stay there, we agreed to pass through Kettle Falls and head to a Another town called Republic by heading west on highway 20.
Several hours later
It took us most of the day, but we managed to make it to the outskirts of Republic. Normally it would have taken only an hour or two, but we had to go slow because of various reasons. These reasons included slaver patrols, raiders, which we had to fight once, a popped tire and a couple hours to find one, and travelling through the ruins of buildings and roads and wreckages of old cars.
Due to being awake for so long and so low on energy from all that we've done, we quickly chose a spot to set up for the night, which was a red rocket gas station.
After parking the jeeps inside the garage, checking the building for threats and loot, which were none and very little respectfully, boarding up the entrances, and setting up trip-wire alarms, we all fell asleep.
As I did, I wondered what would be in store for us now. We're on our own, unwelcome in our old vault and likely being hunted down by said vault and it's allied mercenaries. Chris said that it would likely take a few weeks at the least to track us to here, and even then it's unlikely. I wasn't too sure but I knew that Chris was often correct. Besides, I was too tired to argue.
Going back on topic, I realised two things. One was that everyone was mostly looking to me for directing, even Chris. I guessed that by doing that, they sort of made me their unoffical leader, which I wasn't too sure of. The other was the shock of killing people. I knew that they were bad, but it still felt bad to kill people. Although, I'm even more surprised that the shock is barely there. I hoped it wasn't a bad sign, and started to drift off into sleep when I heard a shudder.
Looking up, I saw that it came from Beth. After we got out of the area, we saw that Beth had been the only one to get shot, and luckily it wasn't bad. After applying a bandage, a stimpack, and a shot of Med-X, Alex told her to try to take it easy. Even so, she was determined to help us during the whole trip, and only rested when there was nothing to help with or when we forced her, and that usually didn't last long. It got to the point where she needed another shot of Med-X just to keep the pain down and to keep her from going into shock.
I was a bit worried for a while that she would get addicted to the chem, but John said that she would need a more larger and/or frequent dosage to become addicted. And even then, we could use some addictol to cure her, which we wanted to conserve since we only had about half a dozen shots.
I went over to her, and after checking her to make sure she's alright, I pulled a nearby Vault-Tec blanket over her to keep her warm. I then shuffled to my spot nearby and was soon asleep.
Location: Red rocket gas station
(outskirts of the town)
I woke up to the sound of shuffling. I quickly looked up, thinking that the mercenaries caught us. However, instead of mercenaries, it was just Beth and Max, who were looking through what we stole from the vault, and Chris, who was getting some canned food to probably get breakfast ready.
I layed there for a moment, rubbing my eye and trying to wake myself up, before getting up and walking over to Max and Beth. "Hey Beth, how's your arm doing?" I asked, looking at her with slight concern. "Don't worry Billy, it's doing alright, it barely even hurts."SHe said, slightly blushing. She even demonstrated by moving her arm around, only showing slight pain when she moved it at a wrong angle. "Besides, I already talked to John about it before he went up to the roof to have a look around us."
Nodding, I then asked the second question I had. "So, what did we get from the vault?" She then showed me a professional looking list of all we got.
Items we Stole from Vault 24:
Weapons/Armor:
X2 U.S Army M2 Browning machine guns
X1 U.S Army Laser rifle
X21 U.S Army Combat rifles
X9 M4A1 carbines
X14 U.S Army Combat Shotguns
X3 Hunting (Sniper) rifles
X29 10mm pistols
X3 Magnum revolvers
X2 U.S Army Desert eagles
X19 assorted combat knifes
X7 Machetes
X5 shock batons
X19 U.S Army Survivalist backpacks
X12 Vault-Tec backpacks
X23 U.S Army Kevlar vests
X5 Vault security armored uniforms
X14 U.S Army combat helmets
X3 U.S Army combat chestplate
X18 Fragmentation grenades
X5 Tear gas grenades
X16 smoke grenades (red)
And that was just weapons and armor, there were lists for ammo, weapon parts/attachments, food, water, medical supplies, fusion batteries/cores, and even small scale things like toothpaste or pencils.
"Wow...you guys did great." I said, surprised by how well it was organized. "Thanks, Max helped gather the gear and present it, while I categorized in listed it." She replied, blushing a little more.
I then went and got a few cans of food from Chris and then proceeded up to the roof where Lizzy and John were, looking around at the landscape. I then just realised how different the surface was from what we were expecting. Most of us were either expecting a radioactive, barren wasteland or something similar to the pre-war land. In most cases, it was both and neither. While the land is still fertile, it looked a bit more wilted and dried out. On our way here, I remember seeing patches of land more fertile and patches more dead, and likely radioactive.
"Have you guys seen anything interesting?" I ask, curiously.
"From what it looks like, the town looks pretty intact. Of course, there's the fact that there's more than 200 years of decay and the occasional ruin, but it looks alright." Lizzy said. "From what we've seen as well as from old maps of the place, there's a few places of high interest in town. There a hospital, three schools, two banks, numerous grocery stores, gas stations, and pawn shops, a police station, and a small air force base just north of the town." She quickly listed off, a proud smile on her and Johns face.
"Good job guys, make sure to let us know if you see anything suspicious." I replied, giving both of them their breakfast and started to go downstairs. Before I reached the bottom however, I started to hear a distant noise. I was confused as to what it was at first, but then with dread I realised what it was, right at the same moment the lookouts saw it. "Incoming truck!" Yelled John, as he and Lizzy ran down the stairs.
A couple minutes later
We waited inside the gas station as the truck grew closer, increasing our anxiety every minute. After me, John, and Lizzy ran downstairs, we quickly armed up. Lizzy went back up to the roof with John, both armed with hunting rifles, to act as lookouts and snipers in case things got bad. Meanwhile, the rest of us were positioned inside the gas station, armed with combat rifles, shotguns, and M4 carbines, pointed at the entrances, ready to take any slavers out.