Chapter 87: Chapter 83

The breakthrough had gone better than expected. Sarah Lyons led the chapter - her chapter - through the barricades and ruins of the Capital Wasteland and fought off the harassing Ou- No, they fought to keep the Brotherhood of Steel off their backs.

Casualties were thankfully light and the tenacious rearguard had forced Casdin and his brothers to keep their distance.

Sarah had been surprised when a familiar voice hijacked the local channel as the ruins of the Capital Wasteland were still visible behind their backs. She had expected to get Sev’s attention by causing a ruckus right outside of his lands. Instead it seemed that the Nexus had eyes even this far out of their lands.

Sev was as polite as when she had met him, though after she explained the situation and gave her request, he had firmly rejected the notion of accepting refugees or giving sanctuary. The Nexus did not care for enclaves or foreign entities setting up in its lands.

So Sarah and her chapter declared their defection.

They had agreed before the breakout, just as the Brotherhood had chosen to cast them aside, they would similarly discard their allegiances to it. It was an easy choice for most of them who held and owed their loyalties almost entirely to Owyn Lyons rather than the Brotherhood, and had taken the late Elder’s ideals to heart.

If the Brotherhood of Steel would not carry on those virtues, Sarah and her chapter would either fight to uphold them by themselves, or they would take up arms with any faction that shared them. It was a good thing that Sev gave them the opportunity to take the latter option.

With the sudden arrival of the Nexus’ forces, literally dropping from the sky, the fighting retreat froze. Sarah herself couldn’t help but stare as the comms was once again hacked and she heard Sev issuing a threat presumably to Elder Casdin and his brothers. The confirmation of that came when she heard the treacherous elder’s voice.

“This is not your business, outsider. Don’t you dare presume to threaten the Brotherhood of Steel.”

Sev’s reply was clearly making light of the angered Henry though. “One, it is my business. I have received and accepted the request for political asylum. And two, it’s a reasonable warning. The Nexus does not take kindly to reckless, uncivilized aggression.”

Sarah bit back a chuckle as she heard Casdin sputter, but Sev continued seemingly without care or notice. “So do you want to talk about this like adults, or do I get to show off the new kill animations for the Strigoi?”

There was a tense moment of silence before Elder Casdin vented his wrath. “This is not over. You have no idea what your little stunt has cost you and your jumped up little kingdom. The Brotherhood will come for the Nexus, we will stomp over your wasteful delusions, and we will claim the technology off your undeserving hands.”

“I’ll take that as a formal declaration of war then,” Sev said still unimpressed. “Which is nice. Good to have a proper war to see how our protocols hold up. The Nexus looks forward to the Brotherhood’s impending invasion. For the history book’s sake, send a proper army, yah?”

For a moment, Sarah expected the shooting to start, but instead Henry Casdin led his chapter back with a curt order. The comms went out right after that, and the dropped robots slowly rose up from their small impact craters to stalk over to her position. They were the same massive things that had rescued her team before, which meant that Sev had came prepared for unrestrained violence.

The local channel went live again with Sev’s less taunting voice. “So, welcome aboard, new potential citizens. Medics will be tending to your wounded shortly, and then we’ll get you to the Nexus where we can hammer out the details of your entry.”

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As they milled about and waited, the hulking robots fanned out to form a perimeter. Worried whispers were traded between the former brothers and sisters of the Brotherhood. It wasn’t so much abandoning their allegiance to the Brotherhood of Steel, but more of worry of their future within the Nexus.

Would there be some hidden price to pay? Would they remain together? Would they be given harsh tasks?

Sarah couldn’t assure the worries, because she felt it herself. She could only hope that the Nexus would not betray her trust.

Minutes later, the shadows cast from the skies were the only warning of their transport’s arrival. They were sleek fixed winged crafts, unlike the rounded vertibirds with their rotors. Yet these aircraft were capable of landing vertically. Sarah noted the twin engines behind the craft looking completely unlike anything she’d seen in her chapter’s archives, and also saw the faint glow underneath the craft, likely the source of its levitation.

Once they landed, a squad of Nexus soldiers jogged out from doors along its fuselage, carrying blocky pistols. The apprehension Sarah and her followers felt were quickly dispelled after the first beams from the weird weapons fully healed up a grievously wounded scribe, even restoring her shrapnel-shredded face. The rest of the wounded took the beams from the healing guns, and once everyone was able to walk, they were escorted to the transports.

Slightly over a hundred and fifty brothers and sisters had survived following Sarah Lyons to the vague safety of the Nexus, easily a third of the chapter before the Outcasts stormed the Citadel. None had taken up the offer to flee or turncoat. As the four transport crafts lifted off and ferried them to the Nexus, Sarah really hoped then that it would be as welcoming as Sev sounded. She owed her brothers and sisters that much.

*****

Frustration filled Elder Henry Casdin as he led his brothers back to the Capital Wasteland. The sting of humiliation ran deep, and it was a sentiment shared by the rest of his chapter. Yet he knew that getting into a fight with the unknown Nexus was far from the right move at the time.

They would need time to prepare, and the ruling council would have to be informed. The arrogance of Sev of the Nexus would be his downfall, Henry swore it. It would take a heavy commitment from the rest of the Brotherhood, but to claim the much fabled technology from the Nexus, the cost of brothers and resources would be worth it.

It had to be.

For now, it was time to consolidate the chapter’s legitimacy and reassert control over the Capital Wasteland. The wastelanders needed to know that they would no longer be pampered, and that the Brotherhood would no longer tolerate their poor custodianship of priceless relics. Those that did not cooperate would finally be dealt with in the proper fashion.

At the same time, the Citadel would be repaired and refortified. While Lyons had sacrilegiously destroyed much of the remaining inventory, the contents were mostly replaceable. More importantly, the remains of Liberty Prime remained practically untouched by Lyons’ people before they left.

It would be a mistake Henry was happy to capitalize on. They had managed to make the mighty weapon operational once, with the proper skills from the west, they would bring it back online again. The Nexus would pay dearly for maintaining their delusional sense of superiority.

It was an entertaining thought, one that brought a savage grin to the elder’s face. It might take months, but the success he would carve out would surely earn him significant consideration amongst the council.

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