Fallout 2 - Navarro Ch. 07

"Matty said Cara's were much worse." Edward told the rest of them.

"Cara?" Cord asked.

"My front isn't bad," Cara told the others, shrugging. "My back looks like a piece of jerky though."

"Cara," Cord pulled her into his arms.

"I think I can speak for my Commander when I tell you that you'll be allowed to stay if you like." Dornan told Tia and Matty.

"What about Melinda," Cara asked. "She's bound to cause trouble. Especially now."

"Hale, I want you to take Hunter and Taka and the truck and dump her off at NCR."

"You want us to leave now?" Hale asked.

"Yes. I think that if we let her stay any longer she may become dangerous. Especially now that she can't control the other women. I'll let Kali and Quinn know what's going on."

"You're looking at three days buy foot," Taka said. "So maybe a day there and back by truck, maybe less, if there's no trouble."

"That's acceptable." Dornan said.

Melinda had been standing outside the door and heard every word that had been said. She wanted to scream and rage but that would give her away. Instead she would do something infinitely more sneaky. And worse.

She made her way down to the third level of the vault to the main computer. She knew that Quinn and that cold fish doctor were up in the medical bay at the moment and nobody would find out what she'd done until she was long gone. She opened a panel on the main computer terminal and grabbed a nearby tool that had been left and hit the first thing she could see. A piece of chip flew up and hit her.

She reached down with a satisfied smile and grabbed it, placing it in her pocket. It would make a nice souvenir of her time here. She shut the panel and put the tool back exactly where it had been in the first place.

She quietly made her way back to the room that had been assigned to her. She packed her small bag, with the hidden pocket and put it under the bed. She had been quietly picking the pockets of the raiders for months. She wasn't going to stay and be Jethro's bitch forever. She wasn't stupid. She knew that sooner or later he would tire of her and she wanted to have a contingency plan.

"Sergeant Dornan's asked me to take you to NCR today." Hale said, walking in without knocking. "Let's go."

"Better sooner than later." Melinda told him as she pulled off her clothes. "I'm just going to change into some traveling clothes."

Hale made a derisive sound and turned away so that she could get dressed. The woman's tits were really too big, he thought to himself.

"I'm ready." Melinda said, brushing by him, grabbing her bag out from under the bed and stuffing her outfit in it.

Hale didn't offer to search the bag, he figured it was too small to hold anything more than her skimpy outfit. A gun would have fit awkwardly in it. He escorted her out to the truck and they left for NCR.

000

A few days later Dornan and Hale stood outside the vault cavern and waited for the Virtibird to land. Even before the pilot had shut down the engines, Jason had hopped out, followed by the ever faithful Ian.

"You just couldn't wait, could you?" Dornan asked shaking hands with Jason.

"Nope." Jason said with a grin.

"I'm surprised you lasted this long," Dornan told him.

"Yeah, well, Ian kept reminding me that I had responsibilities."

"For all the good that it did me. Here we are." Ian told Dornan.

"Jason, this is Captain Chris Hale. Hale, Base Commander Jason Smyth."

"Sir." Hale saluted.

"Nice to have you on board Soldier." Jason said and he and Hale shook hands.

"You should have waited for me to shut the engines down completely," Culluch said walking up to Jason and glaring at him as he took off his flight helmet.

"Jesus, Culluch is that you?" Dornan asked. "I didn't recognize you without your egghead gear."

Culluch was dressed in combat armor, with plasma pistols strapped to his sides.

"Like Kali, I'm multi-talented, Sergeant Dornan," Culluch said with a sniff.

"Culluch! I'm glad you're here!" Kali said striding out of the vault cavern.

"Salute your commander!" Dornan barked.

"Sorry, sir," Kali said saluting Jason.

"That's okay." He told her with a wink.

"What's the problem Kali? I-" he stopped and grabbed the item she held in her hand, to take a closer look at it. "Shit!"

"Exactly." Kali told him.

"What's wrong?" Jason asked.

"This is the vaults water chip." Culluch said showing it to Jason.

"It's broken." Jason said stating the obvious.

"It wasn't before," Kali said. "It's one of the first things that I checked."

"Holy crap." Hale said. "I figured that bitch went too easily."

"You think Melinda did this?" Dornan asked.

"The rest of us are planning on living here." Hale said. "I think we all want to have drinking water, not to mention hot showers."

"Can you manufacture a new one?" Jason asked Kali and Culluch.

"I guess I could." Kali told him uncertainly.

"You guess?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"Easy commander," Culluch told him. "She doesn't know much about this old vault technology."

"So we go and get one from Vault City." Ian said as if it were easy. "They have extra, don't they?"

"They might not even let us into the city." Culluch said. "I guarantee that they won't give us a chip, even if they do have a large supply of them in vault storage."

"They will if we drop in by virtibird and have enough fire power to back ourselves up." Jason said with an evil grin.

"That bitch Lynette won't know what hit her." Culluch said with a chuckle. "God, I love your style Commander."

"Okay," Jason said rubbing his hands together. "Let's have a tour of the vault. And I'd like to meet the rest of Hale's people, and our new recruits."

"Follow me," Dornan told him. "I'm sure you'll be happy with the vault. We've all pitched in to make sure it's been cleaned, while Kali and Quinn have gone through and made sure the important things work."

"Can't wait.