New Vegas: Blood Ties

Carib nodded his acceptance of Tom's thanks and turned towards Yasmin, "It should be alright. The Crimson Caravan is also fairly close to the Gunrunners facility as well. I can probably do some shopping while your on the mend."
 
Yasmin smiled. "Great. We should get moving then. I won't be able to go as fast with this limp though." Yasmin added, slightly darkly. She hated feeling like a lame brahmin. And was all to aware that if this had happened while she was still under Rufus' pack, they'd have put a bullet in her.
 
Later that night...


Yasmin’s lower back ached by the time they arrived near the Crimson Caravan’s gate. Rather than taking a break, they’d forged on through the night because it’d be so much faster – and ultimately safer, she’d added so nobody would start complaining about danger. It was uneventful, apart from sneaking passed some Fiends which always stayed around the caravan.

Yas called them to a stop by the corner of it. “Wait up, I need a break for a minute before we get in there.”

~And a bit of a disguise…But they’ll no doubt figure that part out for themselves.~ She thought as she tucked her hair into her jacket so it looked shorter and coved the huge plasma scar on her neck and did up her jacket so it hid her figure. She put her sun glasses on now that there would be enough light to see to hide her eyes and her mole and stood up, nothing more to do to hide who she was. She took a drink from her canteen, aware of how they were looking at her.

“Don’t ask. Let’s just find somewhere in there to sleep, then refuel and rebuild in the morning.”

She began towards the gates.
 
David raised an eyebrow at Yasmin disguising herself. Again it seemed she was trying to hide more secrets from them. He shrugged and followed her to towards the gates.
 
Pawnsy exited his "medical" tent washing the blood on his hands off with a rag.Last procedure of the night and it had to be the cheapskate gambler who didn't want to pay for the MedX. Pawnsy scanned the Crimson Caravan compound, stopping at Midas sleeping with the other Brahmin,and nodded. The gambler he was operating on walked out of the tent an angry scowl on his face "That better have been worth the 50 caps" Pawnsy turned to face him "Maybe if you weren't such a scrooge and payed up for the MedX you wouldn't be screaming like a baby the whole time" The man starting heading off before Pawnsy stopped him "Listen though buddy,For being the first non Crimson Caravan asshole I operated on today,here have this." Pawnsy pulled out an inhaler of Jet,the man's eyes widened in suprise."Isn't this stuff addictive,like really dangerous addictive!?" Pawnsy made a quick "pfff" sound "Don't worry back in the day Redding had a cure which your's truly got a hold of,if you feel addicted just come here and I'll give you the antidote. Now enjoy,drink,gamble enjoy Vegas before NCR ruins it" The man looked around in case anyone was listening and walked off towards the glistening lights of Vegas. Pawnsy didn't have an antidote,he just had more Jet,something he knew could eventually land him a free gambler's suit in exchange for his grimy old one.
 
Brad looked in his bag. He was dangerously low on food. He didn't have enough caps to go to New Vegas and get sufficiant supplies from playing blackjack.

"I have to go to gun runners real quick."

He walked to the kiosk where a Protectron was standing.

"WELCOME SIR OR MADE-"

"Yeah, sure, whatever. How much can I get for these?

He unloaded his plasma rifle, laser pistol, small energy and mf cells, and salvaged chems. The robot named it's offer.

He accepted it. Now he'll have plenty of cash for food and stims.

Hen then realized that the supplies would be useless if he had no protection. His 10mm was okay, but not good for taking on a legion of fiends.

He purchased a cowboy repeater and some .357 rounds.

He walked back to the Crimson Caravan entrance and entered.
 
Yasmin kept her head down as she pulled open the gate for the others and walked in. She looked at the guys. “I’m off to see if we can get some place to sleep here tonight. Restock or whatever.”

Keeping her jacket tight around herself, she walked along the broken road to one of the two back buildings, which she knew to be the office of McLafferty. She opened the door and took note of the old, trim looking woman behind her desk and the guard in the corner. McLaffery looked up as she approached.

“Yes?”

“I was wondering if there was any place me and my company could stay during the night?”

The old woman’s grey eyebrows knitted together in a scowl. “I didn’t realise that we were providing a hotel service here. Here I thought we only did caravans. How careless of me.”

Yasmin tried not to glare. This wasn’t going to be easy. “It’s just for one night, and I have plenty of caps to pay you, whatever your price.” She pulled out the bag and let it thud on the desk with a metallic chink. “It’s just another form of business. We won’t cause trouble, some of my men have things to sell to the shops here and we’ll be gone in the morning.” She raised her eyebrows under her glasses. “Please?”

McLafferty stared hard at Yasmin for a long time and Yas could feel the sweat beginning to appear on her neck. “Alright, fine. 60caps and you can have the cabin across from this. It’s boarded up, so you’ll have to pull it down yourself. I don’t remember it being particularly cosy before we shut it up, but it’s all we got. The guard’s and caravaneer’s barracks are not available to the public.” She raised an eyebrow in a challenging manner, wanting Yasmin to argue as she held out her hand. “Deal?”

“Deal.” Yasmin said and shook, then gave her the caps. She turned and walked out while McLafferty informed the guard that they’d be staying in the abandoned cabin and to tell the others not to shoot her when she started tearing down boards.

Yasmin came out of the office, followed by the guard who followed his orders, feeling a great swell of relief. She hated times when her past was given the opportunity to bite her in the ass. McLafferty had never seen her, personally. But descriptions had a way of spreading. Though it was years ago. Yasmin was sure she still set of raider bells to people that old and wise, but apparently McLafferty wasn’t going to ask questions, so she didn’t have to give answers. She trotted over to the cabin and looked at the door. It was boarded up tight, alright. And she had the nasty feeling there might be a skeleton in there. But it was a room. She took out her knife, dropped her bag, and set to prying out the screws.
 
David looked around, and decided to help Yasmin get the boards off the abandoned cabin. He walked over, pulled out his own combat knife, and started to help her pull of the boards.
 
Yasmin grunted as one particularly hard one came off in two pieces. “Aw, shit…” She muttered to herself, then turned around to see David. She raised an eyebrow at him. “What do you think you’re doing? I don’t recall saying that you could be part of my group this time. After all the shit you gave me, why would I?”
 
David turned to face her and said,"Have you ever been lied to? Not just small lies, but a really big one, so big it affects you and the way you live. I have, when I was in the enclave. The president of the enclave, John Eden, told us we were rebuilding humanity. It turns out we were building the steps to genocide. My commanding officer, who had been like a father to me, had his head blown off, protecting their big plan. The rest of my squad went missing because they were ordered to fight and never stop against a alrger group. And to top it off, after I was the only survivor, I find out from random merchant that a group I had been part of my entire fucking life was planning to kill everyone. I had been manipulated, and I was too naive to see it. You've been lying to us. You told us that the bunker was empty, and we almost walked into a trap. We were lucky it was fiends, if it had been the brotherhood, I doubt any of us would've made it out alive. Now, you are going up against a base of fiends. I refuse to see good men die, my friend included, for your personal mission. After what you did, they still trust you enough to do this, and I refuse to let them make the same mistakes I did. You don't want to explain why you want to find this Evan, fine, but I will not see anybody get killed over a lie. Not again."
David pauses, stares angrily at Yasmin, and then goes back to taking boards off the door. Once he is finished, he throws away the boards and walks into the building, to find something to sleep on.
 
Pawnsy sat with the other caravan workers around the "employee" fire they looked up from their conversations as he sat down but continued when they saw who it was."How was the chop shop today Pansy?," asked one of them "It was fun I got to cut open more of you without being able to charge a thing. Let me say that Mclafferty is a bitch holding me to a contract older than her." The group laughed. Pawnsy was the joke of the caravan.He came wanting a safe place to keep Midas while he got the lay of the land and instead got shackled to the compound because his old employer forgot to sign him off the caravan guard list 70 years ago.Now Pawnsy had to work the last 2 days for free fixing all the Crimson Caravans "owies" and "radscorpion boo boos." He listened in to the groups chatter something about strange group renting a nearby shack, he didn't care too much,Pawnsy was just happy to hear people speak normal english. The only other people he spoke with for the last 6 months were speaking broken latin or with a thick Orleans accent.
 
Yasmin followed David in. “Yeah, nice sob story. You can want to protect them all you want, but they are big boys and make their own decisions. If Tom decides to follow me, I’ll take him on. But not you and all your self-righteous bullshit. I made a guess and it was wrong. Any ulterior motives were my own. Now if the guys want to follow me on finding Evan, they will be expected to risk their asses. Or they can cut and run at the first sight of trouble, I don’t care. He’s my mission and I’ll do whatever it takes to get him. But you’re not coming too, David.”
 
Brad entered the gate and saw the last board being pulled off. He walked to the building, swaggering due to tiredness. He didn't get much sleep last night.

He entered the building, dropped his duffel bag on the floor, and flopped onto a bed.
 
David is about to reply to Yasmin when Brad walks in. Preferring not to create an awkward situation, David whispers to Yasmin,"This is not over."
He then lies down on an old mattress and then lay down on it.
 
Yasmin crossed her arms, glaring down at him. ''I had to pay for this cabin, so if you intend to sleep here, you better cough up 20. I'm not letting yoy freeload here just to fuck off in the morning.'' she kicked his bed to make sure he wouldn't ignore her and dust came floating off it. Eveything in there was covered in it.

In the back of her mind, Yasmin noted to flip her matress and beat it well before sleeping on it.
 
David scowled then left the cabin. He would have to sell his carbine. He handed it to Blake, and took the caps in return. He came back, and handed Yasmin her share of the caps. He then lay down on his bed.
 
She took the caps and stuck them in her pocket feeling victorious and vicious. It was nothing compared to her in her raider days, but she liked getting to stretch her proverbial bitch legs. She walked away from David and checked out the rest of the cabin. There was a bathroom with a few toilet stalls and some showers. The showers spluttered for a bit and spat out rusted water, but nothing else. No surprise. She walked back into the main room. Empty foot lockers and filthy beds. McLafferty was getting away with robbery charging 60 for this. She started to admire that woman. She sat on the bed nearest to the toilet and dropped her bag then flipped the mattress over sending a wave of dust through the room. Coughing, she beat it for a bit sending more dust out. When it was near clean, she used her bag as a pillow and lay down. She was pretty sure she heard a radroach crawling round, so she kept her knife in hand. Sleeping was gonna be hell.
 
Brad stirred around in the lumpy mattress. Something wasn't right. He quickly sat up. It had hit him.

He had forgotten about the Khans.

How could he forget something like that? He'd just sold his decent plasma rifle for a cowboy repeater. He'd be doomed if the Khans attacked after he'd parted with the others. He took his 10mm out of his duffle bag, turned off the laser beam, and kept a good grip on it. It comforted him somewhat. Still holding his pistol, he drifted into sleep. All seemed well.

That is, until his grip tightened in his sleep. Firing the pistol with a deafening BANG!
 
Carib stood outside in the old prewar chair staring into the fire. His mask was on his lap and his carbine was laid against the right arm rest. He was thinking back to the faithful day that the Legion had tried to take the Hoover Dam. The Legion may not have taken the Dam but they hadn't retreated either.

What was he going to do? He swore he'd never leave the region till either NCR pulled out or the bodies of the Legion were floating down in the Colorado river. Everyone else had settled in the cabins while Carib preferred the cool night air. Taking a sip from a Nuka-Cola he purchased from the vendor, Carib sat back and relaxed.
 
David jerked up as the gun fired a shot. He saw Brad with it , and checking nobody had been hurt, He stood up and walked over, and then took the pistol from Brads hand. He said to him,"What kind of idiot holds a gun in his sleep? You could've killed somebody. Luckily you haven't, but now we have to answer to the crimson caravan, who have most likely heard the shot. Way to go, asshole."
David switched the safety on the pistol on, and unloaded it.

(New Reno, the Khans can't get into the Caravan compound because the CC is affiliated with the NCR, and so they would be shot at and its too far into NCR territory anyway. You have put Brad into a awkward position)
 
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