"Alright everyone, form up!" I yelled back to the team, which jogging into the giant room from behind me. After everyone formed up around me, I began giving out instructions. "Alright everyone, let's get into position before I open the door. Richard, you're team will take the left flank, Max your team's going right. Roy, you're team will be center, so get ready for anything. Any questions?" I look around briefly before saying "Let's move it!"
As we moved into position, I wondered how well we would do if the bunker was inhabited, or at least had its defences online. Besides me, there were twelve of us here, divided into three teams. Each team had three militia members and one of the three additions, John, Chris, or Beth, who were on Roy, Richard, and Max's teams respectfully. Besides Richard, each militia member wore reinforced riot armor, along with a kevlar vest. There weapons consisted of either an M4, a combat rifle, or a combat shotgun. The exceptions to this were Max and Richard, who had a laser rifle and sniper rifle respectfully. Each militia member also carried a sidearm, a grenade, a walkie talkie, and two combat knives.
Meanwhile Beth, Chris, and John wore different equipment. They each had kevlar vests and army helmets, as well as reinforced vault security armor. Chris's weapons consisted of an M4, two revolvers, a combat knife, and two grenades. John carried an MP5 submachine gun, an M9 pistol, a combat knife, and a full medical kit, ready to treat anyone who was hurt. Beth had brought a combat rifle, two knifes, a radio to call back to base, and a small assortment of technical equipment. I myself had on a reinforced kevlar vest, reinforced vault security armor, my CTH for head protection, an M4 equipped with an advanced firing mechanism and holo sight, Night Breaker, a combat knife, and two grenades.
Shaking myself from my thoughts, I ran up to the terminal that accessed the large door's mechanism. Quickly hacking into the system, I look back at everyone and ask "Everyone ready?". I receive nods, some hesitant. Looking back at the terminal, I prepare to open the door. 'Here we go' I thought as I typed the command, activating alarms in the room. I quickly back up and watch as the giant door splits in two, going to either side. I also saw a second door behind the first slowly raising upwards, likely acting as a blast shield in case the first door fell.
As the doors raised upwards, I motioned for the teams to follow me before running in myself. In front of me was what looked like a checkpoint with the gate closed. After waiting for everyone, I used my pipboy to hack into the checkpoint terminal before opening up the gate.
Beyond the gate, it looked like a tomb. I counted at least two dozen skeletons. They were lying on the ground, leaning against the green and light gray metallic walls, or occasionally sitting in a chair. To my right was a vehicle depot, and just under a slightly open garage door I could see what looked like a truck. On my left were two rooms, the vehicle maintenance bay and a robot lift for bringing them from the level below. In front of me was a signal sliding door. I went for that, bringing most of the squad with me while those that were left stayed behind to guard the bunker entrance and make sure none of the bunker defences were reactivated.
After opening the door, I lead the squad down the hall towards the door marked 'cafeteria'. Before I go in though, I send two members to quickly check two corridors going left and right marked refueling station and vertibird bay respectfully. After a couple minutes, they rejoin us, along with the guards we had left on the surface, who had been recalled to secure the bunker. One of them walks up to me and says "Sir, Lisa just reported in. She's on her way to the bunker and should be with us within the next few minutes."
After thinking for a moment, I say "Alright, good job soldier." before turning back around and entering the cafeteria, flanked by Roy and another close quarters militia member.
If the entrance area had been a tomb, then this was a massacre. There were well over a hundred or so skeletons that littered the floors of the cafeteria and nearby kitchen. I look at all of the bones and worn uniforms before turning my attention back to the squad. "Alright, let's clear out the rest of this floor. Roy and Richard's teams are to scout out the area ahead of us and secure a safe path to the elevator. Max, your team is going to check out the remainder of the cafeteria, as well as the kitchens and food storage, let's move!"
Five minutes later, we had the first floor cleared and by now Lisa had arrived, along with George, Elza, and a slightly limping Jordan. "Got to admit, didn't think you'd find the bunker so soon." George said, impressed. "Still can't believe this was here the whole time." Elza mumbled, looking around. Jordan remained silent, simply staring in awe.
"Well I'm going to need you guys to stay on this level for now. The other two levels still haven't been checked yet." Max said. "Elza looked slightly disappointed before saying "Alright". George and Jordan just nodded.
I gathered up everyone except for the two people who would stay and guard the top level. "Alright everyone, here's the plan. Once we get down there, we're gonna split up. Roy, you're team will go to the elevator down to the third floor and restart the main generator because I don't think the back-up power will last much longer." The lights in the bunker then flickered for a moment before stopping, staying noticeably dimmer, as if to prove my point. "Max, your team, along with me and Lisa will get to the command center and secure it. Richard, I want your team to move down to the robot storage area and make sure none of the robots are reactivated when the main power comes back on. Any questions?" One of the militia members from Roy's team raises his hand. "Sir, what if we encounter any online defences, like turrets and robots?" "If you do encounter anything like that, I want you to neutralize it, alright?" I respond. He quickly nods, letting silence take over for a moment before I say "Alright, let's go secure ourselves a bunker!"
I jog into the elevator, followed by everyone else. As the door closes and the elevator starts descending, I wondered if bad will happen soon. 'This has been too easy.' I thought. 'Either this bunker isn't very well defended, all of its defences are offline like the colonel said, or we haven't gotten to it yet.' Just then the elevator stopped, and the doors started to open. "Get ready!" Richard yelled as he aimed his sniper rifle at the door. Everyone else aimed their weapons at the door, ready to shoot. In a way, it's like we were expecting an army of robots to come at us, firing bullets and lasers into our small squad. Even so, we all hoped that wouldn't be the case, and the hallway would be clear.
What we weren't expecting was a mister gutsy to be floating just down the hall, cleaning the walls as it floated along. After a moment, the Gutsy noticed us in the elevator and said "Ah good, you're finally here. If you'll follow me, I'll take you to the commander." After some confused looks, we decided to follow the Gutsy.
As we walked the short distance to the command center, I looked around. The walls and floors here still had decay on them, but they seemed to be a bit more cleaner than the level above. I also noticed a few more robots as we walked. Most of them were Gutsy's cleaning the walls and floors and repairing what little damage there seemed to be, but one of them was also a protectron on guard. At this point I also noticed that the turrets here were offline, which confused me. Wouldn't they have activated them to provide more defence. Then again, they could probably just flip a switch or issue a command and have them online.
After another few moments of walking, we reached the door to the control center. Guarding it's entrances were two robots whose models I was unfamiliar with. They were a feminine human shaped robot, and about as tall as one. They were painted military green, and had an oddly shaped head with what looked like a red laser crystal at the center.
"Impossible." I turn around and see that it was Richard who had said this, looking at the two robots. "How are assaultrons here." After giving him a confused look, he calmed down a little and explained "Assaultrons had been developed and put into the old U.S military a year or two before the nukes fell. However, they saw little frontline combat and weren't very common. I thought that they were only in the commonwealth back in Boston and up in Alaska." "Well what if Washington was a place where they were sent in case of a chinese invasion?" I responded. "Doubt it, I know for sure there aren't any in California or the mojave, and a friend of mine hasn't seen any in D.C."
Before either of us could continue, a voice sounded from the now open door to the control center. "That would be because of Governor Faller." Looking back at the door, I saw another assaultron talking to us, except it was slightly different. The body looked slightly more masculine, and the robot itself was painted a light gray. I also noticed that instead of claws like the other two, this one had 5 fingered robotic hands.
"Thank you for bringing our guests here G-35, please return to your previous assignment." The assaultron then said to the Mr. Gutsy that brought as here. "Yes sir!" The Gutsy exclaimed before floating back down the hall. "Follow me." The assaultron told us before walking across from the command center room, opening one of two doors marked 'debriefing room'. In the room was about two dozen chairs, and in front of them was a small pedestal with a large T.V screen behind it. "Take a seat, this will likely be a while." Said the assaultron, motioning towards the chairs. We all sat down as the assaultron walked up to the pedestal, standing behind it while waiting for us to finish sitting down.
"Now that we're ready, why don't I explain who I am before we begin. My unit name is U-12, and I was assigned to this bunker six months before we were hit by the nukes and chemical weapons." U-12 then pointed at Richard "While your right about there being few assaultrons and their locations in the U.S, governor Faller had managed to get his hands on a couple of battalions worth of them. They were spread throughout the N.W commonwealth, and a company of them were stationed here in Republic."
Due to power issues, everything in the bunker was shut down about three years after the nukes fell, and we only got recently reactivated thanks to you turning on the emergency power. Speaking of which, do you mind if some of you can quickly go down to the reactor and turn it on. Our programming prevents us from going down onto the third level."
"Can one of you go down there and turn it on?" I asked, looking at the squad. After a bit of silence, John got up and said "I'll go if one of the robots can show me how to do it."
U-12 just nodded and said "Alright, I'll have a couple a gutsys down there ready to tell me where it is and how to turn the power on." At this, John got up and walked out the door.
""Thank you, so do you have any questions?" We were silent for a moment before I spoke up. "Well, what happens now?" U-12 chuckles at this and says "Well, unless the U.S government survived, which I doubt they did, then your group is in charge of the bunker, and I'll happily assist you in it's operation." This surprises us, since we had a feeling that the bunker wouldn't have been given up this easily. "Well the old government is dead, unless you add those corrupt Enclave, so I suppose we should bring this bunker back into operational status." At this the lights got brighter, and an automated voice somewhere nearby said 'Main Power is now Online'.
As we wondered what to do next, U-12 then surprised us. "If you don't mind, I got a question for you." After saying we don't mind, he then asked us what he wanted to ask. "How did you find this bunker, it wasn't known to the public, and everyone died down here when the chemical weapons hit."
"Well we had found the body of an officer near the hospital. Apparently, the man had managed to seal himself in a room down here, although he still got infected by the chemical weapon. Once it dissipated, he left to go to the hospital, believing that there might have been something there to help him. We heard all of this on a holotape that the guy prerecorded before leaving."
After a moment of silence, the assaultron spoke up. "Well alright then, thanks for answering the question. I guess we'll head to the command center now. It's good to know that Jason died fighting that damn chemical." At this we were confused. We hadn't said his name. U-12 saw our looks and chuckled, saying "I was his personal assistant, and helped him through his four years of being a commanding officer in the army."
At this, we remained silent as we walked to the command center, ready to bring the bunker back to it's former glory.