If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead, be sure to check out my Patreon!!!
Go to https://www.patreon.com/Tang12
___________________________
He left the room and made his way back down the hall, boots echoing once more. Outside, the Republic was waking to another day. Another breath of survival.
Then Sico went to the Freemasons HQ and went to the war room still bore the signs of urgency from earlier in the day — scattered maps, half-drunk mugs of coffee, and the faint smell of burnt wiring from a terminal that had overloaded during the convoy's comms relay. The lighting was dim now, filtered through a single lantern hung from the ceiling, casting amber glows across the walls of tactical overlays and pinned reports. It was late — nearly midnight — but the three figures inside moved with the weight of those who'd long accepted that their hours of rest came after duty, not before.
Sarah stood at the large central table, arms crossed, eyes scanning a cluster of hand-drawn maps and topographical overlays. She wore her uniform jacket open at the throat, dark curls pulled back in a tight braid, her expression sharp and watchful. Preston sat across from her, sleeves rolled to the elbows, one hand tracing a red line across a worn highway marker on the map, murmuring to himself about patrol blind spots.
When Sico walked in, they both turned, immediately straightening — not out of formality, but habit. Respect tempered by war.
"You made it," Sarah said. "Didn't think we'd see you before two."
"Lang cracked," Sico said without preamble, stepping into the lantern's light and pulling the war room door closed behind him.
That brought both heads up. Preston's brows arched. "Already?"
Sico nodded, stepping toward the table. "He was Vance's second. Called himself Captain Lang. Carried himself like someone who still thought he mattered."
Sarah gave a dry smile. "I've known the type."
"He broke after two hours. Psychological pressure, enhanced serums, standard conditioning breakdown. He gave us everything."
Preston leaned forward. "And?"
Sico looked between them, his face unreadable. Then: "There are no other remnants. Not according to him."
Sarah tilted her head slightly, skeptical but listening.
"He said Vance pulled everyone in — every Gunner cell from the north, the eastern ridges, even a few from the Glowing Sea perimeter. Some from the old NCR bunkers, west of the river. Two hundred, give or take. That was the final stand. Vance convinced them this was it. One big, coordinated push."
Preston gave a low whistle. "That's a hell of a move."
"It was desperation," Sarah said. "He knew they couldn't keep splintering. He wanted one last show of force."
Sico nodded. "Exactly. Lang swore up and down there's nothing left. No one out there. No more command structure."
Sarah narrowed her eyes. "You believe him?"
Sico took a breath. "Yeah. I do."
That hung in the air for a long moment. A silent, subtle shift in the weight they all carried.
Preston ran a hand down his face. "Then we did it."
"No," Sico said. "We won. There's a difference."
He reached out and tapped the edge of the central map with one gloved finger. "Now we hold it."
They all leaned in instinctively. This was the second battlefield — quieter, colder, but just as critical. If the Gunners were truly broken, then the Republic had its first real chance at breathing room in years. But a chance wasn't a guarantee.
"Let's go over everything," Sico said.
Sarah turned the map toward him. "We've logged the last three months of patrols. These blue lines — that's our current structure. Every three hours, six patrols: two northeast, one east to the lake, two south to the outer farms, and one rover between checkpoints Alpha and Delta."
"Too many gaps in the west," Preston said, stabbing a finger at a faded grid. "We've had two reports of raider scouts testing our fences up near Back Creek. And this stretch here — west of Route 76 — no movement in six days."
"No local scouts, either," Sarah added. "Civilians are getting nervous."
Sico studied the map, eyes scanning the patrol arcs like a surgeon tracing fault lines on a skull. Then he looked up.
"We need to reorient."
Preston nodded. "What do you have in mind?"
Sico began moving small stone markers across the map — a habit he'd picked up from the old Minutemen briefings, before maps were digitized and automated. Tactile, physical. It made things real.
"We pull one of the southern teams back," he said. "Split them — one detachment does southwest sweep every 12 hours, the other rotates with checkpoint Alpha. That gives us better coverage on the farms and keeps a presence visible."
Sarah raised an eyebrow. "Won't that leave the outer marshes underpatrolled?"
Sico shook his head. "We compensate by redeploying the rover patrol. Make it a double team, rotating between Delta, Route 76, and the high ridge. We add an aerial scan every two days — I'll get Nash to put one of the drones back in the sky."
Preston scribbled on a notepad. "That gives us overlap coverage every six hours from the ridge line down through the Back Creek perimeter."
"Exactly," Sico said. "If anything's crawling back out of the woodwork, we'll see it coming."
Sarah frowned thoughtfully. "And what about the inner districts? The water lines, the food stores? We've got fewer trained guards since the deployment. If someone starts testing our logistics, we'll bleed out from the inside."
Sico glanced toward the rear of the room, where a second map — the Republic's interior grid — was pinned to the wall. He walked over and studied it a moment.
"We'll expand the Civil Corps' mandate. Sarah, I want Magnolia to draft another dozen recruits by week's end. Start basic drills. Sidearms, batons. Keep them on interior duty only — storehouses, water plants, armory outposts."
"They won't be soldiers," she said.
"They don't have to be. They just need to be visible. Confident. People need to see we're not hollow on the inside."
Sarah nodded. "I'll handle it."
Preston looked up from the map. "What about the prisoners?"
"They'll talk," Sico said. "Lang already did. Others will follow. We'll get transcripts out to you both by morning — cross-reference any names we don't recognize. If any of them were trying to splinter off or run solo, we'll know."
Preston made a low grunt of agreement. "I'll have Lita pull two squads to go through the list. Quietly. Don't want rumors starting before we confirm anything."
"Good," Sico said. He stepped back to the table and leaned on his palms. "Now let's talk about infrastructure. We need a list of everything we can restore with the manpower we've got — I want our energy grid stable by winter. If we have to reroute hydroelectric flow from the river station, we do it now."
Sarah pulled a second notebook out of her satchel and opened it. "I've got partial repair logs from the old Minutemen stations. Some of the gridwork can be piggybacked from their old towers, but we'll need engineers. I'll reach out to Madison in the morning."
Sico nodded. "She's in the Capitol Zone?"
"Yeah. Still working on Prime's re-integration systems. But she said she'd make time if we needed her."
"Tell her we do."
Preston cracked his neck, then leaned back. "You know, I never thought I'd see the day we were talking about patrol routes and power grids instead of ambushes and supply theft."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Sarah said.
"No," he said with a half-smile. "It's a good thing. Feels strange, that's all."
Sico didn't answer right away. He just looked at the map again, his fingers absently tracing the route between the northern towers and the western farms. Then, without lifting his gaze, he said:
"This is what we're fighting for. Not just survival. Continuity. Civilization."
Sarah met his eyes. "And if we build it wrong?"
"Then we fix it," Sico replied. "And if it breaks again, we fix it again. That's what being the Republic means."
The war room fell into quiet again — but this time, it was the quiet of understanding. The kind that only came after months of fire and steel, after sacrifices measured not just in lives, but in choices.
Outside the window, the night deepened. Patrol lights flickered along the southern road. Somewhere, a dog barked in the civilian quarter. And above it all, the stars glittered cold and ancient, untouched by war, indifferent to the struggles below — but watching, just the same.
Sarah closed her notebook. "I'll draft the patrol orders and send them down before sunrise."
Preston stood, stretching his back. "And I'll make sure Nash's drone gets a fresh battery before first light."
Sico nodded. "Then get some sleep. Both of you. We're not done. But we're further than we've ever been."
They left the war room in silence, one by one, boots thudding softly against concrete as they moved through the half-lit corridors of the Freemasons headquarters.
Sico stood over the Castle's shoreline map, the contours of salt-worn seawalls and tidal flats outlined in ink and satellite render. His jaw was set, gaze unblinking, not just calculating — commanding.
"We're not sending Ronnie another trickle of support," he said firmly. "We're sending a damn show of force."
Sarah glanced up, brow raised. "What are you thinking?"
"Four Sentinels," Sico said flatly. "On top of the four already stationed at the Castle."
Preston let out a low whistle.
"That's eight in one place," Sarah said, eyes narrowing. "That kind of concentration—if anything goes wrong—"
"It won't," Sico cut in. "The four stationed there can't roll out. Too close to the shoreline. The moment they leave the wall's arc, they're sitting ducks. Too many hatchlings, too much acid spray. They'll get swarmed and shredded before they get five clicks out."
He stabbed a finger down onto the southern gate of the Castle on the map.
"But four more rolling in from the north? Behind our own troops, cleared approach path, solid ground under them? That gives us mobile firepower the Mirelurks won't be ready for. We use the Sentinels like anchored artillery, box them into a triangle around the Castle's inner perimeter."
Preston nodded, already pulling a fresh manifest clipboard from a stack. "Four Sentinels, routed from which place?"
"Sanctuary of course," Sico said. "They're already prepped with the latest shock-absorb chassis and got acid-retardant plating installed last week. They can stand a Queen's bile burst longer than any others we've got."
"Got it," Preston murmured, scribbling notes.
Sico turned toward Sarah next. "We're sending 15 trucks. Seven are supply rigs — food, water, medkits, fusion cells, turret ammo, power cores, acid neutralizer tanks. I want those seven loaded and ready by sixteen-hundred."
"And the other eight?" Sarah asked.
"Soldiers," Sico said. "Nine trucks total for troop transport. Infantry, engineers, sappers, support medics. Load 'em tight — and quiet. Don't let this convoy tip the civvies off that something's wrong. If word gets out, panic will spread all the way back to Warwick."
Sarah was already keying orders into her Pip-Boy. "Seven supply, nine troop. What about armor? Escorts?"
Sico looked up. "Eight Humvees. Full recon loadouts. Flank the trucks, staggered positioning. Anti-air isn't needed, but make sure the front two and back two each have one machine gun mount. I want those ready to lay suppressive fire the moment the lead Sentinels break formation."
Preston gave a low grunt of satisfaction. "Now that's a convoy."
"We're moving heavy," Sico said. "And we're moving tonight. Assemble everything by seventeen-hundred hours. I want the first wheel rolling before sundown. I'm riding in the lead Humvee."
Sarah blinked. "You're going?"
"Damn right I'm going," Sico said. "If this Queen shows up, I want to see her myself before we blast her to hell. Preston's coming too. MacCready and Robert as well. We need field leadership. No more remote oversight. No more delegation. We go, we fight, we hold."
Sarah didn't argue. Not because she agreed without doubt — but because she understood. Some fights needed to be led from the front.
"Then I'll coordinate the loadout and reroute supply chains from Concord," she said. "I'll keep back here with Nash and Sarah Two. If we need to call in airlift or pull the backup garrison from Lexington, I'll make the call."
Sico gave a short nod. "Good."
The room moved like a mechanism suddenly wound tight — a living machine of logistics and urgency. Maps were gathered, manifests printed, radios sparked to life. Technicians relayed to the hangars and motor yards. Quartermasters barked orders. Troop sergeants scrambled squads together. The compound shifted from daily routine into crisis mobilization in a matter of minutes. Power Armor squad are fixing and preparing their power armor.
By midday, the massive weight of the operation had taken form in the loading yards.
The four Sentinels stood like iron gods at rest — their massive frames lined with heat-dissipating vents and the new gleaming sheen of acid-retardant coating. Workers in patchy coveralls scurried around their legs, double-checking cable hooks and fusion core integrity. The low hum of sentinel reactors warming up gave the entire yard a pulse, like the heartbeat of war itself.
Near them, seven long-bed trucks were being loaded with crates stamped in red paint: "AMMO", "FIELD RATIONS", "FUSION CELLS", "MED-X/BLOOD PACKS". Forklifts weaved between pallets, drivers shouting numbers back to quartermasters with notepads. The logistics teams had been running drills for months, and it showed.
The nine troop transports were already half-loaded with gear and troops. Rows of soldiers in full combat armor set stood under a hot afternoon sun doing final kit checks. MacCready stood among them, sunglasses pushed high on his head, giving a soldier one of his signature lopsided grins while adjusting the man's helmet strap with a practiced hand.
"Never strap it too tight, kid. You'll pass out before the Mirelurk even gets to you."
A few yards away, Robert was overseeing the medical loadout. He was ticking off a clipboard beside a mound of blood packs, surgical tape, trauma gauze, and field morphine. He moved with brisk, precise efficiency, barely reacting to the buzz of machinery or the barked orders around him. When a quartermaster handed him a half-full crate, Robert just said, "This won't do," and sent the man running back to the stockroom.
Preston strode into the main garage, checking in with Humvee mechanics. The Humvees had been fitted overnight with double-mounted machine gun turrets and extra armor plating along the wheel wells. Their black-and-gray paint shimmered slightly under the sun, the insignia of the Freemasons Republic freshly stenciled onto their doors — a rising eye framed by oak leaves.
Sico, meanwhile, walked the entire perimeter of the convoy alone. He checked each Sentinel. Each vehicle. He spoke to squad leaders personally — not with grand speeches, but short, direct affirmations. Words meant for warriors, not banners.
When he came to the final truck, he looked up at the sun hanging low in the sky. The light had turned golden, shadows lengthening.
It was time.
He turned to his field comms officer. "Get the convoy marshaled. We move in twenty."
"Yes, Commander."
The call went out over shortwave and loudspeaker. Engines roared to life. Sentinel cores surged. Humvee tires screeched into position. Soldiers and Power Armor men climbed into their trucks with practiced ease, gear clanking and boots thudding in unison.
Sico climbed into the front Humvee, sitting in the passenger seat beside Preston, who gave him a look halfway between anticipation and grim readiness.
MacCready climbed into the second Humvee, slapping the side of the truck as he hauled himself in. "Let's go kill some seafood."
Robert followed, sliding into a truck already loaded with combat medics, calmly slipping on his gloves.
In the distance, the Castle waited — and beneath the earth near its crumbling seawalls, something ancient stirred.
"Convoy!" Sico called into his radio. "Roll out."
And with that, eight Sentinels, 15 trucks, eight Humvees, and over 150 soldiers rumbled out of the Republic's heart. Toward the storm. Toward the Castle. Toward the Queen.
________________________________________________
• Name: Sico
• Stats :
S: 8,44
P: 7,44
E: 8,44
C: 8,44
I: 9,44
A: 7,45
L: 7
• Skills: advance Mechanic, Science, and Shooting skills, intermediate Medical, Hand to Hand Combat, Lockpicking, Hacking, Persuasion, and Drawing Skills
• Inventory: 53.280 caps, 10mm Pistol, 1500 10mm rounds, 22 mole rats meat, 17 mole rats teeth, 1 fragmentation grenade, 6 stimpak, 1 rad x, 6 fusion core, computer blueprint, modern TV blueprint, camera recorder blueprint, 1 set of combat armor, Automatic Assault Rifle, 1.500 5.56mm rounds, power armor T51 blueprint, Electric Motorcycle blueprint, T-45 power armor, Minigun, 1.000 5mm rounds, Cryolator, 200 cryo cell, Machine Gun Turret Mk1 blueprint, electric car blueprint, Kellogg gun, Righteous Authority, Ashmaker, Furious Power Fist, Full set combat armor blueprint, M240 7.62mm machine guns blueprint, Automatic Assault Rifle blueprint, and Humvee blueprint.
• Active Quest:-