Adams Air Force Base
Jul. 30th, 2011 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aaaaaaaagh_sky"Your job is simple today," Paladin Tristan had said. "Anti-materiel duty. Doesn't matter if it's Vertibirds, laser turrets, combat robots, or artillery installations- oh, yes, there are several of those on the base. Take Mjolnir and your big green friend and destroy anything the Enclave could turn on us."
"Ground vehicles too?"
"Ground vehicles especially. Those things are atomic detonations waiting to happen. Get to the highest ground you possibly can and take them out before the rest of our ground forces arrive. If there's Enclave troops near them, so much the better, but you'll have Fawkes covering you for that. Don't waste Mojo on infantry if you can avoid it. Once you've cleared an area, move up and find more stuff to destroy. And for God's sake keep one eye on the sky. The Paladins can take out the robots and the turrets if they have to, but you're the only chance we've got against those Vertibirds. Take them out the instant you have a clear line of sight. Any other questions?"
"...no sir."
That was two hours ago, in the Metro tunnels. It felt like forever. They'd crept out of the tunnels, there'd been the initial turrets, two men on the ground with heavy ordnance- more turrets- the first Hellfire trooper and the coughing sputter of his incinerator just before the splattering rain of flame-
And then it all blurred together to the point where she couldn't remember how long it had been since she and Fawkes clambered up the metal stairs and electrocuted absolutely everything in sight, or smashed everything that was left after Mjolnir's blaze left Ellen temporarily blind. How long had she been perched on the edge of the roof, watching truck after truck explode in a shower of irradiated shrapnel?What had happened between then and the moment she'd realized the distant thudding sound she was hearing was the younger, smaller cousin of the artillery guns in the Anchorage sim, or between them and the moment she staggered back from the guns' location, watching electric arcs wreathe their massive barrels in furious blue fire?
There were deathclaws. She remembered seeing those- they ran at her, claws spread, beady eyes glittering, and then they... something. Some of them exploded and fell to ash. Some... she wasn't supposed to waste Mojo on the ground troops, but surely creatures who could cut through her armor with one swipe of their claws were different? She didn't have Vallincourt's device any more, somebody else did, it was all she could do...
And the Vertibirds kept coming. Kept rising over the buidlings, thupthupthupthuping through the smoke and the radiation. Kept wheeling around her position, wherever it might be. They didn't last long.
They never lasted long.
She'd fired on the first one. She'd known how it would look, she'd seen Mjollnir in action, right? She'd known. Only... she hadn't. It wasn't the same. The Bailey targets, the Milliways ones, they were targets and there wasn't anything left afterward and that was fine, okay? She could- she'd done that before, that wasn't-
When Mjolnir struck a Vertibird out of the sky, it exploded. It didn't disintegrate, it exploded. There were pieces afterward, flying every which way, tumbling to earth in foul-smelling flames and smoke. You had to dodge them if they fell towards you- she wasn't used to that. Not that it was hard, it just- she wasn't used to that- it was different to flee a car's explosion, to shelter from a grenade. This was here is what you did, here's the evidence, right in your face, and it might take your head off for what you just did.
This was blades of metal long enough for Fawkes to use as a sword scything through the air overhead as the only thing that had ever held them together came apart and scattered to the winds.
This was the moment- brief, fragmentary, unforgettable for ever and ever and ever- of seeing something that wasn't shrapnel tumbling away from the blaze of light, something that might've- something.
It took, from what Paladin Tristan had told her, three or four men to fly a gunship Vertibird. One pilot, one co-pilot, forward gunner, rear gunner. Sometimes they only put in one gunner, to spread the love around, was how he put it. That was a gunship. Those were the dangerous ones. There were troop transports, though- pilot, co-pilot, six to eight passengers, maybe a robot or two. She'd seen them in the Wasteland too many times.
Don't waste Mojo on infantry, he'd said-
One Vertibird. Two trained pilots. Possibly six to eight ground soldiers. Maybe combat robots. All of them downed with one pull of the trigger, before they could put so much as a foot on the ground, or even catch sight of the battlefield below. Before anyone else was even in danger.
Paladin Tristan would call that a bargain.
"Ground vehicles too?"
"Ground vehicles especially. Those things are atomic detonations waiting to happen. Get to the highest ground you possibly can and take them out before the rest of our ground forces arrive. If there's Enclave troops near them, so much the better, but you'll have Fawkes covering you for that. Don't waste Mojo on infantry if you can avoid it. Once you've cleared an area, move up and find more stuff to destroy. And for God's sake keep one eye on the sky. The Paladins can take out the robots and the turrets if they have to, but you're the only chance we've got against those Vertibirds. Take them out the instant you have a clear line of sight. Any other questions?"
"...no sir."
That was two hours ago, in the Metro tunnels. It felt like forever. They'd crept out of the tunnels, there'd been the initial turrets, two men on the ground with heavy ordnance- more turrets- the first Hellfire trooper and the coughing sputter of his incinerator just before the splattering rain of flame-
And then it all blurred together to the point where she couldn't remember how long it had been since she and Fawkes clambered up the metal stairs and electrocuted absolutely everything in sight, or smashed everything that was left after Mjolnir's blaze left Ellen temporarily blind. How long had she been perched on the edge of the roof, watching truck after truck explode in a shower of irradiated shrapnel?What had happened between then and the moment she'd realized the distant thudding sound she was hearing was the younger, smaller cousin of the artillery guns in the Anchorage sim, or between them and the moment she staggered back from the guns' location, watching electric arcs wreathe their massive barrels in furious blue fire?
There were deathclaws. She remembered seeing those- they ran at her, claws spread, beady eyes glittering, and then they... something. Some of them exploded and fell to ash. Some... she wasn't supposed to waste Mojo on the ground troops, but surely creatures who could cut through her armor with one swipe of their claws were different? She didn't have Vallincourt's device any more, somebody else did, it was all she could do...
And the Vertibirds kept coming. Kept rising over the buidlings, thupthupthupthuping through the smoke and the radiation. Kept wheeling around her position, wherever it might be. They didn't last long.
They never lasted long.
She'd fired on the first one. She'd known how it would look, she'd seen Mjollnir in action, right? She'd known. Only... she hadn't. It wasn't the same. The Bailey targets, the Milliways ones, they were targets and there wasn't anything left afterward and that was fine, okay? She could- she'd done that before, that wasn't-
When Mjolnir struck a Vertibird out of the sky, it exploded. It didn't disintegrate, it exploded. There were pieces afterward, flying every which way, tumbling to earth in foul-smelling flames and smoke. You had to dodge them if they fell towards you- she wasn't used to that. Not that it was hard, it just- she wasn't used to that- it was different to flee a car's explosion, to shelter from a grenade. This was here is what you did, here's the evidence, right in your face, and it might take your head off for what you just did.
This was blades of metal long enough for Fawkes to use as a sword scything through the air overhead as the only thing that had ever held them together came apart and scattered to the winds.
This was the moment- brief, fragmentary, unforgettable for ever and ever and ever- of seeing something that wasn't shrapnel tumbling away from the blaze of light, something that might've- something.
It took, from what Paladin Tristan had told her, three or four men to fly a gunship Vertibird. One pilot, one co-pilot, forward gunner, rear gunner. Sometimes they only put in one gunner, to spread the love around, was how he put it. That was a gunship. Those were the dangerous ones. There were troop transports, though- pilot, co-pilot, six to eight passengers, maybe a robot or two. She'd seen them in the Wasteland too many times.
Don't waste Mojo on infantry, he'd said-
One Vertibird. Two trained pilots. Possibly six to eight ground soldiers. Maybe combat robots. All of them downed with one pull of the trigger, before they could put so much as a foot on the ground, or even catch sight of the battlefield below. Before anyone else was even in danger.
Paladin Tristan would call that a bargain.