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The soldiers training below were trying—hard. But they were working with what they had: grit, old rifles, scavenged boots, and field ingenuity. They deserved more.
It was the kind of cold that bit deep.
Sico adjusted the fur lining of his coat, tugging it tighter as the wind swept low across the snow-flecked ground of Sanctuary's testing yard. The old school parking lot, now converted into a proving ground for weapons, armor, and field vehicles, had been cleared of ice earlier that morning—but already the cold had crept back, a thin layer of frost curling along the concrete like lace.
Mel had called the night before, voice buzzing with equal parts excitement and nerves, practically vibrating over the intercom. "She's ready," he'd said. "Tell them all. Bring everyone."
So Sico had.
Now, standing at the edge of the lot beside Sarah, Preston, Magnolia, and Piper, he could feel the quiet tension in the group—like flint and steel held just an inch apart. Everyone was bundled in thick winter wear, the dull gray sky above doing little to cast warmth. Their breath steamed out in little clouds as they stood around a rusted oil drum, flames crackling inside for warmth.
Behind them, the engineering staff and a handful of Mel's workshop crew milled about near a series of repurposed freight containers that served as staging areas. Most of them were wide-eyed with anticipation. A couple looked like they hadn't slept.
"Remind me again why we're doing this outside and not in a nice warm garage?" Piper asked, blowing into her hands.
"Because it wouldn't be a proper field test if we didn't feel like our eyebrows were going to freeze off," Sarah muttered, stamping her boots. "It's about conditions."
"It's about showing the vehicle can handle what our people have to handle," Sico added. "Snow, wind, bitter cold. All of it."
Piper sighed dramatically. "I miss the Glowing Sea. At least the radiation kept you warm."
They all chuckled, even Magnolia—who had been uncharacteristically quiet, eyes scanning the yard like a cautious accountant watching someone play poker with her caps.
"It better work," she said softly, voice wrapped in velvet but edged with flint. "Congress will ask me where every bolt and bullet is going."
Sico gave her a reassuring nod. "They'll see this thing fly, and the vote'll be unanimous."
Preston's arms were crossed, but his body was still, grounded like bedrock. "Assuming it doesn't blow up."
"Mel wouldn't let it roll out unless it was ready," Sarah said.
A nearby door creaked open.
And then he emerged.
Mel stepped out from behind the hangar wall, his dark coat stained with grease, goggles pushed up into a tangle of gray-streaked hair, face flushed from the warmth of his work. He looked like he hadn't shaved or slept, but his eyes—those eyes were blazing with pride.
"Presenting!" he called out, arms wide as he beckoned toward the door, "the MF-1 Recon Vehicle! I call her—'The Growler.'"
From the open hangar, a low, guttural rumble rolled out into the yard.
And then it appeared.
The motorcycle emerged slowly under its own power, guided by one of Mel's techs. It was angular, stripped-down, functional. The body was a matte black mixed with salvaged steel plating, the wide tires knobby and rugged. On the right side, the sidecar jutted out like a predator's jaw, built low to the ground, housing a swiveling .308 belt-fed machine gun with a reinforced stabilization rig.
Its design was brutal, beautiful in its honesty. A creature of war and survival.
"Sweet Mother of Atom," Piper breathed, halfway between awe and disbelief.
"Hot damn," Preston muttered.
Sarah just stared. "Looks like a death wish strapped to an engine. I love it."
Magnolia arched an elegant brow, the corner of her mouth twitching. "What's the return on investment?"
Mel grinned. "One vehicle, built in under sixty hours. Using nothing but scavenged parts, repurposed Vault-tec frame elements, and about one-and-a-half fusion cells. Fully modular. Engine burns methane or fusion. Gun fires .308 rounds, can be swapped out in the field. Top speed: fifty-five. Operational range: over two hundred miles."
Sico stepped forward, taking it all in.
The sound of the engine—it wasn't deafening like a traditional combustion system. More of a growl, hence the name. A fusion-assist combustion hybrid. It hissed slightly with warmth, and every piece of it seemed hand-fitted for efficiency, speed, and survival.
"Who's riding it?" he asked.
Mel looked over and nodded toward two figures approaching from behind the hangar. "Your test crew."
The rider was a woman in her early thirties, face scarred from some long-forgotten skirmish, eyes focused like a hawk. The gunner was younger, maybe mid-twenties, with a coil of ammunition over one shoulder and a slow grin on his face that suggested he'd been waiting his whole life to fire a machine gun from a moving vehicle.
"Specialist Riva and Corporal Nash," Preston said, recognizing them. "Two of our best."
"They volunteered," Mel added. "After a small argument over who got to ride first."
Sico turned to the group. "Alright, let's see what this thing can do."
Mel waved to his crew. "Run the test route!"
A series of metal gates creaked open along the far end of the yard, revealing a carefully arranged obstacle course: stacked barrels for weaving, sandbags for tight turns, uneven terrain, a jump ramp built over a pile of old cars. Further down, metal mannequins—painted red, with crude faces—were set up in clusters, simulating enemy raiders.
The engine gave a low roar as Riva kicked it into gear.
And then The Growler moved.
Fast.
Faster than anyone expected.
It tore across the yard like a predator unleashed—snow and gravel spraying behind it, the engine snarling low. Riva handled it with confidence, weaving between barrels with expert precision. Nash manned the sidecar gun, shouting something that no one could hear over the growl and wind.
Then came the jump.
The bike didn't falter.
It hit the ramp clean and soared for a second—wheels off the ground—before landing with a crunch that sent up a small cloud of white dust. Suspension held. No visible damage.
The mannequin cluster came next.
Nash opened fire.
The bark of the .308 filled the air. Sharp, deliberate. Controlled bursts.
Mannequins exploded into shrapnel. One lost a head. Another crumpled backward. The gun's recoil was absorbed almost entirely by the stabilizer mount—Mel's own design, no doubt—and the vehicle never lost momentum.
It looped back toward the crowd, pulled a perfect wide turn, and came to a stop in a tight drift that threw snow across everyone's boots.
Dead silence.
Then Piper said, "Okay, that's going on the front page."
Mel beamed like a father whose kid just won the Regional Science Fair and punched a Deathclaw on the way home.
The applause had barely begun—just a few claps and scattered whistles of admiration—when it happened.
A sound cracked through the air, sharp and unfamiliar. Not gunfire. Not the growl of the engine. Something else.
Something wrong.
The Growler was pulling around for one more loop—Riva easing off the throttle to let the vehicle coast in front of the crowd—when the sidecar suddenly lurched sideways. A shudder passed through the frame of the motorcycle like a tremor in steel.
Then, with a sickening screech of stressed bolts and sheared welds, the entire sidecar snapped free.
It didn't flip. Not right away. Instead, it skidded—like a hockey puck across ice—veering dangerously close to the edge of the lot, metal scraping concrete, the heavy machine gun spinning slightly on its mount as it caught the ground.
Nash was still inside.
"DOWN!" Preston shouted instinctively, shoving Magnolia backward.
Riva cursed and yanked the bike away, tires squealing as the motorcycle tilted onto two wheels briefly before she recovered. She didn't crash, but the shock had her hands white-knuckled on the grips, boots skidding against the ground as she fought to bring it under control.
The sidecar wasn't so lucky.
It slammed into one of the sandbag walls near the mannequin range—hard. The gun mount twisted sideways, and the whole car crumpled into itself with a terrible crunch of metal.
Nash was thrown forward from the impact, his body slamming into the twisted frame before flopping limply to the ground beside it.
Silence swallowed the yard.
For a second, it felt like the world had frozen. The wind held its breath. Even the fire inside the rusted oil drum seemed to dim.
Then everything snapped into motion.
"Medic!" Sico's voice was sharp, commanding. "NOW!"
Two trained field medics sprinted across the snow-slicked concrete from the east hangar, one with a red-marked satchel slapping against his hip. Sarah and Preston were already moving too, closing in on Nash's body like instinct-driven wolves.
Mel was frozen.
Still standing near the hangar's mouth, his mouth slightly open, the pride drained from his face like a leaking coolant line. His hands twitched at his sides.
"No," he muttered. "No no no no—"
Sico reached him and grabbed his arm. "Snap out of it, Mel. You hear me? What happened?"
"I—I don't know," Mel stammered, blinking hard as if trying to reprocess the last ten seconds. "That shouldn't have—it was bolted—welded—it passed every check—"
Sico didn't waste time with reassurances. "We'll figure it out. Right now we worry about Nash."
He turned back toward the crash site. Magnolia had followed the medics, her usual calm replaced with a tight, knotted urgency around her eyes and mouth. Piper hovered near the edge, camera forgotten around her neck. She'd always been good at keeping her cool under fire, but right now, even she looked shaken.
Sarah reached Nash first, skidding down on her knees beside him.
"Pulse?" she asked, voice flat, calm. The calm of a soldier who had seen worse—but never wanted to see it again.
One of the medics pressed fingers to Nash's neck. "Weak. But present."
"Cervical collar. Stabilize spine. Don't move him until we get a reading on internal trauma," Sarah snapped.
They worked quickly, slipping a polymer collar around Nash's neck and setting up a brace under his back. Blood was already soaking into the snow under his shoulder.
"He's got a dislocated arm at minimum," one medic said. "Maybe broken ribs. Possibly more."
"We're taking him to the clinic," the other confirmed. "Shoulder rig took most of the hit. He's lucky."
Mel stumbled forward at last, his breath clouding in front of his face as he tried to make sense of the scene.
"Let me see it," he said, voice low and hollow. "Let me see the weld."
Preston stepped in front of him. "Give them space. Nash is priority one. You'll get your inspection."
Mel didn't argue. He didn't move. He just stood there, eyes locked on the bent, half-buried sidecar like it had betrayed him personally.
Riva finally parked the motorcycle and climbed off, slow and stiff. She pulled off her helmet—her face pale, lips tight.
"That wasn't pilot error," she said immediately, walking toward Sico. "I swear to God. I didn't hit anything. I didn't stress the turn."
Sico nodded. "No one's blaming you."
She exhaled sharply, eyes glassy with adrenaline. "I could feel it—just before it went. The torque shifted under me. Sidecar was pulling right, then suddenly it just… gave."
Sico patted her shoulder, steady and firm. "Go get checked anyway. You took a bounce yourself."
She hesitated, then gave a sharp nod and turned toward the medics now wheeling Nash onto a collapsible stretcher.
The snow continued to fall, just light flakes, but now they seemed colder somehow. Less like nature, more like judgment.
The emergency response team cleared the test yard within minutes. Nash was wheeled into the clinic, Riva followed close behind, and the vehicle—both motorcycle and sidecar—were quarantined inside the west maintenance hangar under double-sealed tarps.
Sico called an emergency session in the command hall—an old pre-War auditorium converted into a war room with holoboards and repurposed blackboards now used for strategic planning and tech reviews. The mood was grim.
Mel stood at the front, behind a chalk-dusted table with pieces of blueprints scattered across it like broken promises. He was shaking, slightly. Not from cold. Not anymore.
Sarah stood with her arms folded, jaw tight. Preston leaned against the wall, face unreadable. Magnolia sat at the table with her legs crossed, fingers steepled before her mouth. Her eyes didn't blink often.
Piper sat on the stage steps nearby, taking notes. Her camera lay unused.
Sico stood near the center, arms behind his back, the room waiting for his lead.
"Mel," he said quietly. "Start from the top."
Mel took a breath that sounded like a collapsed lung. "The Growler's sidecar is designed to detach manually in an emergency—if, say, it's disabled or compromised, the pilot can jettison it using a hydraulic latch."
"Like an ejector seat," Piper murmured.
"Exactly," Mel said. "But the system's mechanical failsafe shouldn't trigger unless there's both manual input and high-impact conditions. I checked it ten times. It was secure."
"Could it have been a flaw in the hydraulic latch?" Sarah asked.
"No," Mel said flatly. "Or if it was, it didn't show in the stress tests. I ran mock field tests all week. We used the same pressure simulations we use for power armor joints."
"What about material fatigue?" Magnolia asked. "The cold?"
Mel looked down at the papers. "…Possible. But not probable. The steel used for the coupling arms is fusion-treated. Same alloy used in old Vertibird struts."
Sico stepped forward, picking up one of the blueprints. "But it did fail. Which means something went wrong. Not theoretical. Actual."
Mel's face twisted, pain evident. "I need to tear the whole rig down. Examine the coupling welds, the trigger system, the sensor mounts. It could be a single misaligned shaft. Or a defective valve. Or just a bad weld."
Finally, after a while—after the adrenaline had drained and the emergency lights dimmed, after Nash was stabilized and sedated in the clinic's recovery bed, after the engineers had come and gone, murmuring over toolboxes and data pads—Mel finally found the cause.
He stood alone in the west maintenance hangar, the crash tarp now pulled aside, revealing the wreck like a corpse on a slab. The lanterns overhead buzzed faintly, casting slow-moving shadows as he crouched beside the dismantled sidecar and pointed his penlight into the inner coupling assembly.
It was all there. The truth.
A misaligned shaft. A defective valve. And a bolt—frozen solid in its sleeve—that had snapped under torque it was never designed to take.
Mel let out a breath and sat back on his haunches. He didn't speak. Just stared at the wound like a doctor realizing the scalpel had been in his own hand the whole time.
He heard the heavy footfalls before the door opened. Sico didn't knock. He just stepped inside, coat still buttoned to the collar, gloves tucked into his belt.
"You've been in here all night," Sico said.
Mel nodded slowly, his face hollowed out by exhaustion and self-loathing. "It's all here."
Sico didn't interrupt. He walked over to the workbench, where parts had been laid out in precise, almost reverent rows. Weld lines marked with grease pencil. A cracked coupling ring pinned to a clipboard with paper clamps. Engineering printouts scattered like forensic evidence.
Mel stood and turned to face him, eyes dark beneath the overhead light.
"It wasn't one failure," he said. "It was three."
He moved to the sidecar's sheared mount, pointing as he spoke.
"First, the shaft that connects the sidecar's stabilizer arm to the underframe. It was misaligned by about two millimeters. Not enough to show up in standard diagnostics, but enough to warp the connection slightly under load. Over time, that torque stress built up."
He gestured to a corroded valve assembly.
"Second—this valve, part of the hydraulic failsafe. It had a defective seal. Manufacturing flaw. Probably from a pre-War batch I salvaged from an old army depot. The seal weakened under the cold, so when the pressure built up during the ride…"
"It triggered," Sico finished.
Mel gave a dead smile. "Premature ejection. It treated it like an emergency detachment. But the locking bolt… should've held it. Except…"
He turned the bolt between his fingers—snapped clean near the head.
"This bolt was frozen in place. Water must've gotten into the sleeve during a snowstorm, then froze solid overnight. When the latch fired and the pressure shifted, the bolt couldn't flex. It snapped."
Sico looked at it all, not with blame, but with the heavy patience of command. The pieces were small—miniscule even—but the consequences had nearly killed a man.
Mel dropped the bolt onto the bench with a clatter. "All that tech. All those hours. And it came down to a frozen bolt and a bad valve. We were testing weapons, Sico. Weapons. And I gave you a malfunction."
"You gave us innovation," Sico said. "The malfunction is part of the process. You know that."
Mel shook his head. "Not when lives are on the line. Nash almost died because I missed something I should've caught early. That's not innovation. That's negligence."
Sico let the silence sit for a long time before answering. "No one's blaming you."
"Maybe they should."
Sico leaned against the edge of the bench, arms crossed. "You've never failed us before, Mel. And you didn't fail now. You found the problem. You owned it. You'll fix it. That's what matters."
Mel ran a hand through his unkempt hair, stained with grease and grit. "Tell that to Nash."
"I will. When he wakes up."
A long silence followed. The lantern buzzed. Somewhere outside, a snowplow rumbled past the front gate.
Finally, Mel said, "I'll rebuild it. From the frame up. No salvage. New parts only. I'll bring in the fabrication crew tomorrow morning and start a full debrief with my techs."
Then Sico said, "Good. As tomorrow we need to test it again. The next Congress meeting's near, and we have to show them the perfect test ride."
The words didn't hit like an order. Not a command. Not even pressure.
They hit like trust.
Mel closed his eyes for a second, letting that settle somewhere deep in the pit of his ribs—behind the guilt and under the layers of anxiety that had been gnawing at him for hours now. He took a breath. It still tasted like dust, grease, and shame, but at least now… there was resolve in it too.
He gave a short nod. "Then I better not sleep."
"You will," Sico said, more gently now. "Eventually. After the work's done. But you don't go into that test tomorrow on shaking knees. Understood?"
Mel glanced at him sidelong. "You giving me a medical order now, Commander?"
"I'm giving you a human one."
That earned the smallest smile from Mel—quick, brittle, but real. He reached for a cloth and wiped his hands, stained black with a dozen kinds of grit. The hangar was quiet now, a kind of sacred stillness between battles. The sidecar sat like a gutted beast under the tarp's edge, lights glinting off its exposed frame. Evidence of pain. And promise.
"I'll need to requisition a full set of cold-tolerant replacement bolts," Mel muttered, mostly to himself now. "We'll heat-seal them. No reuse. I want total resilience this time."
"You'll get it," Sico said. "Write the order. I'll sign off. Priority one."
Mel nodded, already drifting back toward the workbench, the inertia of engineering pulling him back into the orbit of problems, numbers, and weld points. But Sico didn't leave. Not yet.
Instead, he moved beside the wreckage, kneeling slightly to look beneath the frame, like he was paying his respects to a fallen comrade. Then he looked up.
"You're rebuilding this because it's the right thing to do. But you're not doing it to absolve yourself."
Mel didn't answer.
Sico stood. "Because there's nothing to absolve. We push boundaries here. We innovate. That means mistakes. That means learning. We take every step forward with the ghosts of the last step in our shadow."
"I just didn't want anyone dying in that shadow," Mel said quietly.
"And you stopped that from happening. You saved Nash with your designs. That ejector mechanism—flawed or not—kicked in when it needed to. It got him out. Don't forget that."
Mel didn't respond. He didn't need to. His silence wasn't stubbornness—it was reflection, and Sico had learned to respect the difference. After a moment, the commander nodded once and backed toward the exit, his boots echoing on the metal decking.
He paused at the door, coat collar raised against the early morning frost beyond. "You're not alone in this, Mel. Not ever."
And with that, he was gone.
The smell of fresh steel and heated polymers filled the air like incense. Mel stood in the middle of his domain—hooded eyes tracking every line of movement, every bolt turned, every circuit soldered. The shop was humming already, crews moving with a blend of urgency and reverence. This wasn't just a rebuild. This was atonement.
The old frame had been scrapped overnight. Melted down in the reclamation forge and ground into base metal. Symbolic and practical. A clean start. Fresh alloy segments were being laser-cut now, the arc torches slicing through reinforced plating like butter. Sparks leapt from the machines, dancing like fireflies across the bay floor.
Mel had summoned his senior engineers—Clive, Reina, Darius, and Jun—before dawn. The moment they'd seen his eyes, they hadn't asked questions. They'd just gotten to work.
"Tolerance on the new valve seal?" Mel called out.
"0.002 millimeters variance," Reina replied, not looking up from her data slate. "Polymer core with a triaxial weave casing. Fully cold-rated."
"Double the sealant layer. I don't care if it's overkill. I want it cryo-tested."
She nodded and flagged the change on her slate.
Jun and Darius were on the frame now, bolting in the sidecar's new stabilizer shaft—this time triple-checked against torque simulations. Clive had modified the hydraulic ejection system with a manual override and a heated bolt casing that pulsed warmth in micro-intervals to prevent freezing. Genius-level work, under pressure. They were engineers, yes—but artists too, and Mel had never been prouder of them.
He moved through the shop like a conductor, his voice low but precise, guiding, correcting, improving.
"Hydraulic pressure threshold?"
"Boosted by fifteen percent with reinforced channels."
"Impact limiters?"
"Foam-core with shock dispersion gel, built into the wheel mounts."
"Safety redundancies?"
"Tripled. If one fails, two more kick in. Fail-safes on the fail-safes."
Mel let out a breath. "Good. Keep going."
Sico returned just before lunch.
He didn't say much—just nodded to Mel and walked a slow, deliberate circle around the nearly completed machine. It looked different now. Sleeker. Heavier. More precise. Even the paint job was subdued—matte steel with a new serial number etched into the undercarriage: RX-77A-V2.
"What's her name?" Sico asked, half-joking.
Mel gave a dry chuckle. "If she survives today… Redemption."
Sico smiled. "Let's make sure she earns it."
The winds were sharp out here, pushing over the edge of the hill and down toward the frozen valley floor. Sanctuary's eastern field had been cleared and salted, large enough for speed, turns, and stress testing. Safety barriers had been erected. Medical crews stood by, just in case. Word had spread. People were watching—some from the hangars, others from the walls.
But no one said much.
Everyone remembered what had happened last time.
Nash was still in the clinic, unconscious but stable. Mel had visited him that morning before coming to the shop. He'd sat by the bed, just for a few minutes. Not to say sorry. Just to be there.
Now he stood beside the new RX-77A-V2 as the test pilot—Adams, a combat-tested Minuteman with years of vehicle experience—strapped in. He gave Mel a nod of confidence, then lowered the goggles over his eyes.
Sico approached, arms crossed, watching the final checks.
"You sure?" he asked Mel quietly.
Mel nodded. "Triple-checked. This time, we overbuilt."
Sico gave a signal to the crew. The test would consist of three phases—low-speed maneuvering, stress tilts, and emergency detachment. The sidecar had been rebuilt with a simulated weapon mount too, just in case Congress wanted to see how fire-ready it could be.
"Phase One," Mel called out. "Low-speed run. Go."
Adams kicked the ignition. The engine roared to life—not wild like before, but smooth, refined. Powerful. He eased the machine forward, wheels crunching across salted gravel, then turned into the first lap of the field.
Smooth curve. No wobble.
Sico's jaw tightened. He said nothing.
"Phase Two. Speed ramp and tilt stress. Go."
Adams accelerated. The bike moved with clean authority now, hugging the ground even as he tilted the handlebars hard into simulated cornering stress. The sidecar leaned with it, the new stabilizer shaft visibly absorbing the shock without sway.
Cheers started to build from the perimeter—quiet, then growing.
"Phase Three," Mel said. "Emergency eject. On my mark…"
He watched the telemetry panel. Everything read green. Perfect pressure. Stable frame. No warnings. No dropouts.
He gave the nod.
Adams hit the override.
THUNK-CLACK!
The sidecar detached in a clean, controlled arc—sliding to a stop along the foam-lined barrier with minimal bounce. The decoupling system had worked flawlessly. No valve error. No torque failure. Just a clean, beautiful cut.
Silence held for a moment.
Then came the applause.
Sico let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He looked over at Mel, whose hands were trembling slightly—relief spilling through his nerves like a flood.
________________________________________________
• 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:-