Chapter 30: Chapter 30

To get my mind off the results of my ‘donation’ to the vault’s gene pool, I went for bringing up one of my more ambitious tasks to the top of the ‘to do’ list. With the girls with me in the stealthed Zippy Lid, I scanned the coast on a sunny wasteland day for my target. Turns out, it wasn’t hard finding a stuck sub from up high.

With nowhere to land, I jumped off the shuttle after double checking my instructions to the girls. You’d think the Zetans would account for aquatic situations, but nooo…

Splashing into dirty and irradiated sea water was not a nice experience. The water felt clammy and I felt films of grime clinging onto me. Still though, I made a quick swim to the periscope, giving a wave before clearing the debris-covered hatch and opening it.

Boarding the submarine, I tasted stale decaying air that forced me to really focus on what I was doing instead of giving into retching my guts out. Glad I didn’t bring the girls here. I walked slowly to the bridge, meeting the same military jacketed ghoul as in the game.

Before the good captain could speak, I butted in first, keeping my hands raised in a show of peace. “I’m not here for trouble.” He should understand English, right? Please don’t let that be a change in this reality. Thankfully, the ghoul nodded once and his body posture relaxed just a little.

“I’ve got an offer for you, an exchange.”

There was a second of Captain Zao being thoughtfully silent, and then he nodded again for me to continue. “Go on, I am listening, stranger.”

“I can help you repair your vessel, get it all up and running again. If you want, I can also...ah, put your crewmates here to rest.”

His eyes narrowed dangerously. Not too surprising, since I just announced that I knew stuff I wasn’t supposed to know yet. “How do you-”

I interrupted again, really not wanting to waste too much time here. I know treatment plants that stank less. “Irrelevant. I’m just here to help you get your submarine up and running again, and in exchange, once I’m done, I get to keep whatever ordnance you have left.”

The pause this time had a dangerous edge to it, but the captain eventually gave a relenting nod. “I...accept. That you know of the Yangtze and its state is, as you said, irrelevant, so long as you can do as you claim.”

“Cool, now let’s see. Reactor issue, right? I’ve got just the thing.”

I quickly blitzed the rest of the sub, clearing out the other ghouls while resetting sections of the sub’s bulkhead. Microleaks here and there were patched, along with the fucking air circulation system and other electronics. And then I finished by resetting the reactors in front of the dumbfounded commie captain. He probably only understood that I somehow got the reactor to work just by touching it.

“Who are...did Guanyin send you?”

Eh?

“Uh, no. Just someone who’s interested in a trade. So, mind showing me where you keep the stuff?”

In the end, I was led to the storage for six tactical nukes, and the lone malfunctioning SLBM. Easy enough to just plop down the teleport beacon and remote pickup each cargo to be sent back to the Tupile, though having a dumbstruck audience was kinda fun.

I let him keep his torpedoes on the off chance that he’d need it on the way back. How the captain would navigate his sub by himself, I don’t know, but I wished him all the best as we finally exchanged names. “I’ll look you up if I ever start touring your side of the world.”

Captain Zao smiled and bowed. “May we meet again then, Sev.”

Having gotten what I came for, I got out and swam to shore, throwing some ambushing mirelurks in the direction of what I assumed were raider fortifications. Ignoring the erupting sounds of gunfire, I found a pier and walked to it, then placed a mini nuke at the edge.

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I hurried away to the seawall and then cloned out a rifle to plink away at the warhead. It went off with a blinding and deafening blast after my second shot, and the blastwave shredded the pier and detritus all around. I scanned the surroundings, noting that the blast hadn’t attracted any attention yet. Remembering what crappy conditions I was in, I quickly resetted my gear to rid myself of the stench, then waited.

A moment of waiting and then I heard the familiar near-silent hum somewhere in front of me. A section of the sky suddenly dropped just a few feet in front of me, revealing the familiar interior of the Zippy Lid, along with Piper beckoning me in. It was a simple enough dash and jump to land inside, and the girl easily dodged me to close the doors.

Cait piloted the ship out as I got up. “Nice work. Got a hang of handling this?”

“Yeah, harder than the tank, but way quicker to work with once I got used to it.”

As I swapped with her for the controls, I gave a brief summary of what new goodies I’ve gotten us. The idea of a city-levelling nuke got their attention, though the girls didn’t ask what target was I going to use it on. Shame, I’d offer them to give their suggestions, but maybe we can discuss later.

Now, with the Yangtze gone, I did a quick scan of the rest of the coastal waters. Other than floating ship hulks and other minor debris, it was all clear. I now had a clear-ish foundation for my main base in Boston Harbor.

It was not the ideal option, but considering the circumstances, it was the most convenient at the moment. Having an arcology situated out in the waters between Fort Strong, the Minutemen’s fort and Spectacle island would hopefully make it out of reach for most people, and maybe might chase off the Brotherhood of Steel from setting up shop at the half-sunken airport.

Plus, having control of the area meant I could project more easily along the continent’s coast and theoretically have an easier travel to places like say the Capital Wasteland. Maybe pay a visit to see what an atompunk post-apocalypse New York would be like?

Anyway, daydreaming aside, I had the Zippy Lid stay in hovering mode while the door lowered open. I cloned out and dropped concrete slabs to form a large vertical square tunnel, selecting and fusing them into long sections as they sank into the sea. Once the tunnel started jutting out of the waterline, I sank it further with a few more sections, then checked in console and...yes, yes I could claim that little patch of underwater land now.

Change the tunnel’s composition from concrete to Zetan ship metal, and then select the contents...and look, no more filthy seawater in my waterproof vertical tunnel. I expanded on the surface opening, reinforcing it and then adding on more concrete slabs to serve as a landing pad for the Zippy Lid.

Neato, about an hour used just for the startup. Now, the city sim fun begins.

“So girls, welcome to the groundbreaking of what will be the Caladan!”

No response, other than Piper’s amused smirk. Meh, should’ve gotten the ribbon, giant scissors and chrome shovels.

I led the girls down the vertical drop, all three of us ignoring the fact that we took a forty-ish feet fall. A teleport beacon was dropped for convenience, and then I got to work, expanding outwards and downwards to first get the perimeter of an underwater settlement, which would eventually breach the waterline and rise up into the clouds.

Eventually. Right now, phase one was to keep things relatively hidden and secure underwater, with maybe just a few easily hidden bits like ventilation and such sticking out of the sea. Phase one also meant tunneling under the river to meet up with New World 81’s own tunnel network, and then setting up a high speed rail transport of sorts.

Still waiting on the research bots on that breakthrough, but first thing’s first.

The girls teleported back to New World 81 while I continued working, since I gave them some measure of authority to oversee the outpost’s running. Unless there was an emergency, in which case they’d pop back here to tell me.

Which reminds me, next research will definitely have to be a signal booster for radio, maybe using the Tupile for satellite broadcasting. I could also run a landline along the tunnel, though I’d need to know what lines exactly to run.

Anyway, wish I had the old Sim City 2000 track to build along to.

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