flipdarkfuture
First time out of the vault
Fallout New Vegas
Ace of the deck
By Flipdarkfuture
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Chapter 1: No Gods! No Masters!
Camp McCarran, south-west tower.
The Sun rose over the eastern mountains, filling Vegas with a radiant glow in the early morn. It was a glorious sight to some, a grim sign to the NCR, and an omen to the Legion, but to Private Hudson it was just fucking annoying.
He slumped against the inner wall of his tower post, dirt-coloured boots touching the rail in front of twitched and pawed his nose "No...I don't wanna be a Lucky Lad snack cake you tap-dancing Deathclaw!" He murmured violently as the sun shone on him. He suddenly yelped as he woke up, and swung his service rifle around, hitting himself in the face.
"Shit!" he yelped, he opened his eyes and looked around. He rubbed the sore spot on his cheek, "stupid sun" he muttered darkly.
Must have fallen asleep again, Sarge ain't goanna be happy. He stood up, hefting a battered service rifle. James Hudson was only 1 year into his service with the Army, and for six months of that year, he'd been stationed in Camp McCarran, utterly terrified half the time because of the Fiends (until recently), but mostly because of Drill Sergeant Mendez. And utterly bored the other half, he did get some excitement one time when he threw golf balls off his post, denting Mendez's favourite helmet, it was totally worth it. He was itching for something new to come into his life, something exciting, something life changing. But that sort of thing never came to him.
He studied the area below his watchtower; a ruined road hugged the wall of Camp McCarran until it got to the Vegas wall and branched off left and right, heading east and west respectively. He hummed tunelessly as he walked around his post, stretching his muscles and rolling his neck as he looked out at the perimeter. He then noticed a huge line of hulking steel creatures walking up from the south-eastern road leading into New Vegas, kicking up a lot of dust. He noticed that some of the creatures carried what appeared to be strange laser rifles and laser gats. "Oh fuck!", he quickly turned around and rummaged through his rucksack, trying to find his radio, knocking several of his things off the tower in the process, when he found his radio, he quickly switched to channel 40. Static answered him. "Goddamn it", he switched over to channel 50 and tried once more, he succeeded. "Umm...Major Dhatri, Sir?" He cautiously asked.
A gruff voice answered back "Yes, Hudson what is it?" Hudson stammered "Umm there seems to be a large horde of...Steel Creatures headed this way, from the southeast road Sir!" Hudson explained awkwardly, "Say again, Private?"
"Just see for yourself sir..." he replied, he clicked off the handheld and checked his ammo. And began to pray.
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Major Dhatri turned off his hand-held, putting it in his breast pocket. And hefted a Old World M-4 Carbine and ran to McCarran's front gate, calling over a couple of Privates and even Corporal Betsy and 10 Of Spades, Dhatri stopped and asked them both why they weren't at Hoover Dam
"Because, a Soldier recovering from psychological and physical Trauma, is not allowed to take place in any large scale operations Sir." Corporal Betsy replied, clearly she was a bit pissed about it.
"Alright then, what about you Spades?" Dhatri asked
"I-I-I-I- would never abandon my-my-my-my Partner, Si-Sir!" Ten Of Spades proudly stated, no-one challenged him about that topic.
Dhatri nodded "Good enough, son." They continued to the gate, stopping at the sand bags. Dhatri motioned for the gate guard to open it up, with a mechanical screech the Gate slowly slid up its rusting rails, finally coming to a stop five seconds later. Dhatri and his group ran outside and towards the outskirts, towards the steel creatures. "Close the gate private! We ain't back soon, bring the rain!" Dhatri shouted as they ran down the dusty and broken road. Behind them, the guard grimaced and nodded. he shouted back "Yes sir, good luck!"
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At the head of the line of Knights and Paladins, Ramos studied his surroundings, the ruined husks of old buildings lined the side of the New Vegas side of the Road, limiting one's view when looking at New Vegas from a distance. The long line marched past the road that branched off to the North, leading to New Vegas. Ramos then noticed a group of NCR soldiers running down the freeway towards them, the line started to break into squads to engage them when Ramos shouted
"Stand down! We're not here to fight them!" The line of soldier mumbled and whispered as they got back into formation.
Hardin barged his way through the line towards Ramos, he sighed inwardly as the angry man stomped towards him. "Yes, Head Paladin?" Ramos enquired, Hardin thrust his face in front of Ramos "What the fuck are you playing at Ramos? Those are NCR shitheads coming towards us and you want us to stand down?" Hardin shouted. Ramos stopped dead in his tracks, bringing the company to a halt, he turned and looked Hardin square in the eye "Yes, I do because we're not here because of them! We're here to fight the Legion at the Dam, the Courier and his Securitrons will be the ones who will drive off the NCR, peacefully." He struggled to drive off the urge to disconnect Hardin's air supply. "Now shut the fuck up and get back in line!" Ramos said as he shoved past Hardin, and stalked towards the NCR soldiers.
Major Dhatri was surprised to see a lone Paladin relinquish his weapon to one of his subordinates and walk up the Road alone. Corporal Betsy's hands bunched up into fists as she watched the Steel Figure walk up towards them, the Privates on either side of her trained their rifles at him, she doubted a few rifle shots would even dent that armour. Major Dhatri relinquished his rifle as well, handing it to one of the Privates; the private blinked, and took the weapon with shaking hands. "I'll be back" Dhatri said, and walked towards the lone Paladin, unarmed.
They met in the middle of the Road, standing a few metres apart from one another, everyone was silent as they stared at each other. Ramos removed his helmet and cradled it in his arm "senior paladin Ramos, brotherhood mohave chapter." he thrust his armoured hand in a greeting.
"major Dhatri, New California Republic Army, Mohave detachment" Dhatri replied. he craned his neck, studying the long line of soldiers in the distance "May I ask why a large group of brotherhood soldiers are heading towards the Dam?" Ramos shrugged "The Courier needs our help in driving the Legion back". Dhatri couldn't place who he was but he remembered what he did. "Courier...Courier...oh crap, what the hell is he up to now?" he groaned "What is he doing now?".
Ramos raised a eyebrow "You know him?", Dhatri laughed "Know him! Boy he helped this base get back on its feet!". He then turned to Ramos, a question forming "Why are you Brotherhood pansies taking this route? The I-95 would make more sense, it runs closer to the banks of the 'Rado."
"Simple, we don't to give the Legion a premature heart attack just yet, we'd like for them to piss in their collective pants during the battle." Dhatri was actually surprised by that. All stories he heard painted the Brotherhood as a stubborn pack of Old World hang-ons hiding inside old suits of armour. Not so with these guys. He didn't want to admit it, but he agreed with their plan. he sighed. he was going to cop hell for doing this. He called out to the assorted troopers "Back to McCarran, soldiers. Let them pass." he turned to Ramos, "If he's fighting the Legion, he won't do much much better then a whole company of power armoured troops. Good luck."
Ramos returned to the head of the line, he motioned for the whispering and grumbling to stop. "Let's go men, we can't be late for this one."
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Hoover Dam barracks, West quadrant.
A woman in a brown tanktop brushed past Poindexter as he made his way to the rec room. He didn't like the rec room, it was too...plebian for his tastes, why should someone of his caliber have to stoop with the other rank and file morons? He muttered under his breath as he walked down the dirty industrial corridor, lights all along it kept sputtering and winking. Damn lights, we're in a hydro-electric dam, supplying electricity to one of the biggest power hogs around, and it can't power a few lights for itself? He came up to the pneumatic double doors, muffled laughter and shouting coming from within. He curled his hands into fists, and opened the door. A few soldiers and engineers in the corner had commandeered a rare intact couch, haphazardly sprawled across its soft surface. The black and white tv in front of them had the shittiest recepetion possible, due to being in the bowels of a Dam and kilometres away from the nearest intact tv station. He watched with barely concealed contempt as a cartoon rodent skillfully outwitted a larger dim-witted cat.
The group laughed even harder as the Cats head was crushed beneath a primitive anvil. He snorted derisively and walked towards the smoke ensconced poker table, where the other members of his so called 'Squad' waste money and time. Mags looked up from her hand as he walked over "So coming to play Poindexter? We have room for one more sucker" she gestured to O'Callahan, who looked like a lost puppy as he tried to make sense of what was in his hand. the other three players on the table barely noticed as he sat down. One of the three players, a caucasian man with a red beret, puffed a cigar as he rolled his eyes "C'mon Mags, hurry up and lose. Its inevitable."
O'Callahan looked up from his hand "Be quiet and let her decide, mister '1st recon', she'll clean you out in two hands." Gorobets let out a small chuckle as he glanced at him, his eyes narrowed "Is that right, Farmboy? I'd better teach you youngsters how they played back in the old country. Now, the action is on you blondie." a huge condescending smile on his face. Oh, Mags will show him!
Mags looked up at the others, trying to conceal her desperation. Her hand was kaput, and she had already commited in this round. 150 caps were about to dissapear from her life, and she could say goodbye to good'ol dignity too. But she would stand resolute. She would make a move so great that it would compare to Dean Domino. So, she bluffed. "While I would be content to just sit her and watch you grow old, Sir. I reckon I've won the pot here, so I am just going to watch and see what your hand will be. As for me? well lets just say I'm rocking the boat." she folded her arms, trying to keep from laughing, and ruining her gamble, she always got the urge to laugh in tight situations.
Gorobets scrutinised her, trying to ferret out a reaction as he went for his meanest glare possible. If a veteran sharpshooter or punk-ass Ranger wets themselves whenever this look is unleashed. Surely some upstart corporal would absolutely fold under his fury! But now he wasn't so sure, she was crafty and resourceful, and had skillfully wiggled out of every trap her threw at her, perhaps he could go after her private instead. He leveled the stare at O'Hallahan, "so O'Hallahan? You doing good so fa-"
the loudspeaker interrupted him, "all personnel, all personnel, report to your sectors, stand by for orders." the speaker clicked off as the room burst into chaos. The group by the tv rushed out of the room, heading off in several directions, Mags went to stand up, she stuck her hand out to Gorobets "Major, its been fun" Gorobets just nodded and shook her hand "Good luck corporal" and darted out of the room towards his barracks. Mags and O'Callahan grabbed Razz, he complained "Hey! I ain't done armwrestling!" a dark look on his face, Mags rolled her eyes "Plenty of that to go around when the Legion comes a'knocking, come on!" Poindexter rolled his eyes, contempt absolutely dripping off of him "I liked it better at Camp Golf." he calmly walked out of the room, disappearing into the crowd of soldiers and engineers.
The two soldiers dragged their comrade towards the lockers. A cabinet swung noisily in the abandoned rec room, and the pile of cash on the table forgotten. There was solderin' to be done.
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Author's note
I really don't like including Author's notes as I think they break immersion in the story, but this one is needed.
As you probably guessed this fic starts just before Hoover Dam, and will chronicle the first year and a half of a independant new vegas, the Courier and his companions won't be the only people who I will focus on. All sides will get the spotlight. Even Ullysses will have a chapter or two. There are chapters that wills also focus on the DLCs, most importantly, Dead Money, Lonesome Road and Old World Blues.
For now, stay tuned, viewers! And have a pleasant time in post apocalyptia!
Ace of the deck
By Flipdarkfuture
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 1: No Gods! No Masters!
Camp McCarran, south-west tower.
The Sun rose over the eastern mountains, filling Vegas with a radiant glow in the early morn. It was a glorious sight to some, a grim sign to the NCR, and an omen to the Legion, but to Private Hudson it was just fucking annoying.
He slumped against the inner wall of his tower post, dirt-coloured boots touching the rail in front of twitched and pawed his nose "No...I don't wanna be a Lucky Lad snack cake you tap-dancing Deathclaw!" He murmured violently as the sun shone on him. He suddenly yelped as he woke up, and swung his service rifle around, hitting himself in the face.
"Shit!" he yelped, he opened his eyes and looked around. He rubbed the sore spot on his cheek, "stupid sun" he muttered darkly.
Must have fallen asleep again, Sarge ain't goanna be happy. He stood up, hefting a battered service rifle. James Hudson was only 1 year into his service with the Army, and for six months of that year, he'd been stationed in Camp McCarran, utterly terrified half the time because of the Fiends (until recently), but mostly because of Drill Sergeant Mendez. And utterly bored the other half, he did get some excitement one time when he threw golf balls off his post, denting Mendez's favourite helmet, it was totally worth it. He was itching for something new to come into his life, something exciting, something life changing. But that sort of thing never came to him.
He studied the area below his watchtower; a ruined road hugged the wall of Camp McCarran until it got to the Vegas wall and branched off left and right, heading east and west respectively. He hummed tunelessly as he walked around his post, stretching his muscles and rolling his neck as he looked out at the perimeter. He then noticed a huge line of hulking steel creatures walking up from the south-eastern road leading into New Vegas, kicking up a lot of dust. He noticed that some of the creatures carried what appeared to be strange laser rifles and laser gats. "Oh fuck!", he quickly turned around and rummaged through his rucksack, trying to find his radio, knocking several of his things off the tower in the process, when he found his radio, he quickly switched to channel 40. Static answered him. "Goddamn it", he switched over to channel 50 and tried once more, he succeeded. "Umm...Major Dhatri, Sir?" He cautiously asked.
A gruff voice answered back "Yes, Hudson what is it?" Hudson stammered "Umm there seems to be a large horde of...Steel Creatures headed this way, from the southeast road Sir!" Hudson explained awkwardly, "Say again, Private?"
"Just see for yourself sir..." he replied, he clicked off the handheld and checked his ammo. And began to pray.
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Major Dhatri turned off his hand-held, putting it in his breast pocket. And hefted a Old World M-4 Carbine and ran to McCarran's front gate, calling over a couple of Privates and even Corporal Betsy and 10 Of Spades, Dhatri stopped and asked them both why they weren't at Hoover Dam
"Because, a Soldier recovering from psychological and physical Trauma, is not allowed to take place in any large scale operations Sir." Corporal Betsy replied, clearly she was a bit pissed about it.
"Alright then, what about you Spades?" Dhatri asked
"I-I-I-I- would never abandon my-my-my-my Partner, Si-Sir!" Ten Of Spades proudly stated, no-one challenged him about that topic.
Dhatri nodded "Good enough, son." They continued to the gate, stopping at the sand bags. Dhatri motioned for the gate guard to open it up, with a mechanical screech the Gate slowly slid up its rusting rails, finally coming to a stop five seconds later. Dhatri and his group ran outside and towards the outskirts, towards the steel creatures. "Close the gate private! We ain't back soon, bring the rain!" Dhatri shouted as they ran down the dusty and broken road. Behind them, the guard grimaced and nodded. he shouted back "Yes sir, good luck!"
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At the head of the line of Knights and Paladins, Ramos studied his surroundings, the ruined husks of old buildings lined the side of the New Vegas side of the Road, limiting one's view when looking at New Vegas from a distance. The long line marched past the road that branched off to the North, leading to New Vegas. Ramos then noticed a group of NCR soldiers running down the freeway towards them, the line started to break into squads to engage them when Ramos shouted
"Stand down! We're not here to fight them!" The line of soldier mumbled and whispered as they got back into formation.
Hardin barged his way through the line towards Ramos, he sighed inwardly as the angry man stomped towards him. "Yes, Head Paladin?" Ramos enquired, Hardin thrust his face in front of Ramos "What the fuck are you playing at Ramos? Those are NCR shitheads coming towards us and you want us to stand down?" Hardin shouted. Ramos stopped dead in his tracks, bringing the company to a halt, he turned and looked Hardin square in the eye "Yes, I do because we're not here because of them! We're here to fight the Legion at the Dam, the Courier and his Securitrons will be the ones who will drive off the NCR, peacefully." He struggled to drive off the urge to disconnect Hardin's air supply. "Now shut the fuck up and get back in line!" Ramos said as he shoved past Hardin, and stalked towards the NCR soldiers.
Major Dhatri was surprised to see a lone Paladin relinquish his weapon to one of his subordinates and walk up the Road alone. Corporal Betsy's hands bunched up into fists as she watched the Steel Figure walk up towards them, the Privates on either side of her trained their rifles at him, she doubted a few rifle shots would even dent that armour. Major Dhatri relinquished his rifle as well, handing it to one of the Privates; the private blinked, and took the weapon with shaking hands. "I'll be back" Dhatri said, and walked towards the lone Paladin, unarmed.
They met in the middle of the Road, standing a few metres apart from one another, everyone was silent as they stared at each other. Ramos removed his helmet and cradled it in his arm "senior paladin Ramos, brotherhood mohave chapter." he thrust his armoured hand in a greeting.
"major Dhatri, New California Republic Army, Mohave detachment" Dhatri replied. he craned his neck, studying the long line of soldiers in the distance "May I ask why a large group of brotherhood soldiers are heading towards the Dam?" Ramos shrugged "The Courier needs our help in driving the Legion back". Dhatri couldn't place who he was but he remembered what he did. "Courier...Courier...oh crap, what the hell is he up to now?" he groaned "What is he doing now?".
Ramos raised a eyebrow "You know him?", Dhatri laughed "Know him! Boy he helped this base get back on its feet!". He then turned to Ramos, a question forming "Why are you Brotherhood pansies taking this route? The I-95 would make more sense, it runs closer to the banks of the 'Rado."
"Simple, we don't to give the Legion a premature heart attack just yet, we'd like for them to piss in their collective pants during the battle." Dhatri was actually surprised by that. All stories he heard painted the Brotherhood as a stubborn pack of Old World hang-ons hiding inside old suits of armour. Not so with these guys. He didn't want to admit it, but he agreed with their plan. he sighed. he was going to cop hell for doing this. He called out to the assorted troopers "Back to McCarran, soldiers. Let them pass." he turned to Ramos, "If he's fighting the Legion, he won't do much much better then a whole company of power armoured troops. Good luck."
Ramos returned to the head of the line, he motioned for the whispering and grumbling to stop. "Let's go men, we can't be late for this one."
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Hoover Dam barracks, West quadrant.
A woman in a brown tanktop brushed past Poindexter as he made his way to the rec room. He didn't like the rec room, it was too...plebian for his tastes, why should someone of his caliber have to stoop with the other rank and file morons? He muttered under his breath as he walked down the dirty industrial corridor, lights all along it kept sputtering and winking. Damn lights, we're in a hydro-electric dam, supplying electricity to one of the biggest power hogs around, and it can't power a few lights for itself? He came up to the pneumatic double doors, muffled laughter and shouting coming from within. He curled his hands into fists, and opened the door. A few soldiers and engineers in the corner had commandeered a rare intact couch, haphazardly sprawled across its soft surface. The black and white tv in front of them had the shittiest recepetion possible, due to being in the bowels of a Dam and kilometres away from the nearest intact tv station. He watched with barely concealed contempt as a cartoon rodent skillfully outwitted a larger dim-witted cat.
The group laughed even harder as the Cats head was crushed beneath a primitive anvil. He snorted derisively and walked towards the smoke ensconced poker table, where the other members of his so called 'Squad' waste money and time. Mags looked up from her hand as he walked over "So coming to play Poindexter? We have room for one more sucker" she gestured to O'Callahan, who looked like a lost puppy as he tried to make sense of what was in his hand. the other three players on the table barely noticed as he sat down. One of the three players, a caucasian man with a red beret, puffed a cigar as he rolled his eyes "C'mon Mags, hurry up and lose. Its inevitable."
O'Callahan looked up from his hand "Be quiet and let her decide, mister '1st recon', she'll clean you out in two hands." Gorobets let out a small chuckle as he glanced at him, his eyes narrowed "Is that right, Farmboy? I'd better teach you youngsters how they played back in the old country. Now, the action is on you blondie." a huge condescending smile on his face. Oh, Mags will show him!
Mags looked up at the others, trying to conceal her desperation. Her hand was kaput, and she had already commited in this round. 150 caps were about to dissapear from her life, and she could say goodbye to good'ol dignity too. But she would stand resolute. She would make a move so great that it would compare to Dean Domino. So, she bluffed. "While I would be content to just sit her and watch you grow old, Sir. I reckon I've won the pot here, so I am just going to watch and see what your hand will be. As for me? well lets just say I'm rocking the boat." she folded her arms, trying to keep from laughing, and ruining her gamble, she always got the urge to laugh in tight situations.
Gorobets scrutinised her, trying to ferret out a reaction as he went for his meanest glare possible. If a veteran sharpshooter or punk-ass Ranger wets themselves whenever this look is unleashed. Surely some upstart corporal would absolutely fold under his fury! But now he wasn't so sure, she was crafty and resourceful, and had skillfully wiggled out of every trap her threw at her, perhaps he could go after her private instead. He leveled the stare at O'Hallahan, "so O'Hallahan? You doing good so fa-"
the loudspeaker interrupted him, "all personnel, all personnel, report to your sectors, stand by for orders." the speaker clicked off as the room burst into chaos. The group by the tv rushed out of the room, heading off in several directions, Mags went to stand up, she stuck her hand out to Gorobets "Major, its been fun" Gorobets just nodded and shook her hand "Good luck corporal" and darted out of the room towards his barracks. Mags and O'Callahan grabbed Razz, he complained "Hey! I ain't done armwrestling!" a dark look on his face, Mags rolled her eyes "Plenty of that to go around when the Legion comes a'knocking, come on!" Poindexter rolled his eyes, contempt absolutely dripping off of him "I liked it better at Camp Golf." he calmly walked out of the room, disappearing into the crowd of soldiers and engineers.
The two soldiers dragged their comrade towards the lockers. A cabinet swung noisily in the abandoned rec room, and the pile of cash on the table forgotten. There was solderin' to be done.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's note
I really don't like including Author's notes as I think they break immersion in the story, but this one is needed.
As you probably guessed this fic starts just before Hoover Dam, and will chronicle the first year and a half of a independant new vegas, the Courier and his companions won't be the only people who I will focus on. All sides will get the spotlight. Even Ullysses will have a chapter or two. There are chapters that wills also focus on the DLCs, most importantly, Dead Money, Lonesome Road and Old World Blues.
For now, stay tuned, viewers! And have a pleasant time in post apocalyptia!