New Vegas: Blood Ties

Tom realised Yasmin was trying to get him out of her business, usually he would keep on going, but he decided to comply, "My home?", Tom paused and searched his mind, "My home was a town called Saam in Albion, after leaving town with my two friends, Rachael and John, after 3 years of wandering we made it to the pre-war town of Liverpool, from there we went to the Americas, from that we carved a life, me and Rachael stayed in the east as John left for Mexico, the capital was where I met David, but thats enough about me, your probably bored already".
 
"No, I want to hear more about me.", jokes David to Tom. He then looks into the distance, scanning the terrain for anything that looks remotely dangerous.
 
Like David and Tom, Carib could see Yasmin stiffen at the mention of home. Everyone had a past, not many were proud of it. Some could accept and others, but he supposed it was all measured at varied degrees. One persons savior is another's devil.

He remembered the plasma burn. Whoever Yasmin was, she definitely rolled with a hard crowd and probably pissed off some hard case folks. The Ex-Ranger would keep his own counsel on the matter. It wasn't his place to pry and he doubted she was Legion, since the Legion was primarily patriarchal. A raider perhaps or a harrier? He doubted she was Enclave, considering most Enclave personnel that had been active would be well into their middle age or advanced years.

He looked at David and took measure of the man. Whatever David said, one thing for sure, he was far from common and he was definitely military. Whose military, well that was the mystery now, wasn't it.
 
Tom looked back at David and chuckled back at him, "She asked me, I tell her, although I do know I go on sometimes". A shiver was sent up Tom's spine as he thought of Albion and home.
 
Carib was curious, "How is the Land you come from? Is it as ravaged as these wastelands or does a different kind of evil stir that would cause you and your companions to flee the shores of Albion?" The Ex-Ranger did have a good idea the devastation was global, and when Carib looked at old maps during his time with the Followers he could see the world was large.
 
"Well, Albion, was certainly...unique, the isles were a melting pot, the pre-war culture still collided after the war, raiding groups weren't even up to it, there was groups of maniacal pre-war sports fans, the pre-war military was still roaming about, and that's just the start", Tom paused for a couple of seconds, "Tell me if i'm boring you".
 
Yasmin smirked and blew the few loose strands of hair out of her face. "I think it takes more than two sentences to start boring somebody, Tom."
 
Tom looked at Yasmin and chuckled, "That's just my line for springboarding onto a conversation, but if you want me to continue..", Tom paused, "Just let me know".
 
The Fun Begins

Yasmin chuckled and kept walking, checking her pipboy regularly. The noise of their boots crunching on the dirt and rocks was strangely pleasing to her, it was comforting hearing so many boots behind her that were there to back her up. The walked up a hill that ended abruptly over a small canyon.

And then it hit her. That loud, rapid humming. They sounded like tiny drums.

Yasmin dropped to the ground and turned around to the procession of men behind her and hissed “Down!”

She kept as close to the earth as she could and dragged herself forward to look down. A swarm of cazadors had amassed and were buzzing all over the floor of the canyon. It wasn’t a big closed off thing now that she looked at it, but more of a crevasse that opened on both sides. they could climb back down and walk around, but chances were unless they went way out of their way, the cazadors would see them passing and swarm out.

She bit her lip. The humming made the scar on her stomach ache and she felt a bit woozy. The memory of the excruciating pain and almost dying because of one of these fucks made her head swim. She bit her lip harder, drawing blood, and forced herself out of it.

She turned back to the others and whispered as quietly as possible while still making herself heard.

“We have about 3 options. And I don’t like any of them. Either we attack from here, try sneaking past and risk getting attacked, or go way out around this and waist time.” She closed her eyes and frowned, thinking of him. “The last one isn’t an option, the second is pretty much suicide, so…..” She opened her large blue eyes and stared at them all, gravely. “I guess we all take a target and try to get it killed before the spares reach us. But be warned, there’s more of them than there are of us. These guys take more to kill that a big horner and they are wicked fast. So who’s lacking a good ranged weapon? They are deep down there, but it won’t take them a minute to get up this ridge. We need to drop them as fast as possible.”
 
Carib crawled close enough to Yasmin, he reached on his side and pulled out an incendiary grenade. Steadying himself, he got the LMG in position, a belt of ammo already in place, all he had to do was wrack back the charging handle and he'd send rounds downrange.

"The incendiary will kill most of them, shock and leave the rest in a fragmented format. I can lay down fire, since this is the most casualty producing weapon we have. You can pick off the bigger ones with your sniper rifle and the rest can choose their kills. That's my suggestion. Unless anyone here has a Fatman, because if you do, I want learn your packrat skills."
 
Yasmin nodded. "Good plan. If we snipers can get headshots that should take a couple out. That'd be your signal to throw the grenade. Though the way they skitter around, it'll be tough to hit their heads."


She looked at the other snipers. "You guys good at tracking a target? Though even a head shot isn't enough to kill these some times. Either their brains are too small to garentee a hit, or they are located god knows where."
 
"Head shots are too costly. Go for center of mass. Worst case scenario if you don't hit anything vital, you may yet cripple the wings or stun them. If you hit the antenna they will frenzy and that would buy us a moment. We don't want them coming within a meter of us." Carib slowly drew back the charging handle, bringing the weapons bolt into the ready position. Like most machineguns, the LMG fired from the open-bolt position.

"Just say when."
 
Tom nodded at Yasmin and Carib, lining his sights up to where the cazador was most likely to buzz up to next, he was going to cut off the insects head from it's abdomen.
 
David aimed at the cazadors. Carib had tld them about aiming at the centre of mass, but he already knew that. He made a plan of what bugs he was going to shoot at, based on how close they were and how large they were. He waited for the order to fire.
 
Mark assumes a half-kneel position and readies his weapon, he then picks a target and aims.
 
(There's 8 cazadors in total, all visible)

Yasmin brushed some sweat off of her forehead and looked at the others then gave a nod. She took aim at one of the larger insects carefully, then fired. The bullet hit home, tearing through the cazadors head and it was down. It was luck that it had blown such a big hole and killed it, now for body shots. But the first bullet had been enough of a warning to the cazadors between the exploding head and when the rest of the barrage hit that the humming had grown to a deafening drone.
 
The cazadors were now frenzied towards where Mark and the others were, those monsters were relentless.

Mark fires several times on one cazador until it's down, then aimed at another, they were getting close, too fast. By the time he made his second kill they would be too close for comfort. Mark pulled the trigger repeatedly putting one shot after another on the cazador until it dropped, right in front of him, this one seemed to have been an assist rather than a full kill. He hoped the others were making kills too. If maths were correct they would have to have dealt with them just in time.
 
The incendiary grenade had landed just in front of the cazador swarm. While most cazadors began to converge on the humans they sensed, the last three got the worst of the thermite grenade which exploded and peppered them with burning them at 5000 degree Centigrade heat. They were crispy critters by than.

One cazador was hobbled in mid flight as small speckles of thermite destroyed its right wing. Another's legs were burnt.

Going flat, Carib aimed down the iron sights of the LMG and fired short rapid bursts. He watched one bounce as the the surplus rounds hit the insect from abdomen to throat. Carib would make it a point to extract the venom glands when he got a chance.
 
Brad walked over to the others and saw all the cazadors. He was shocked. Whenever there were dead bodies in a cazador swarm around red rock, the bodies were never cazador's.
 
Tom looked around, not getting a chance to fire, "Aw c'mon, I was looking to rip one of them buzzers up!" Tom said cheerily, "We could've just went round, considering we just wasted some round and an incendiary, but hey, time is of an essence", Tom lowered his voice, "Apparently".

Tom got heated now, he didn't like things being wasted if they didn't have to be, he looked at Yasmin, "Hey, if we're the only ones to know about this bunker, how come your making a big deal about saving time, doesn't make much sense if you ask me", Tom just realised he had burst out, but hopefully the others would see his point.
 
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