Radiance Ch. 06

Their small bodies were peppered with holes where it appeared someone had rained automatic gunfire down on them, a fact further backed up because when Seven took a step forwards his feet made a tinkling noise from all the spent brass cases littering the ground.

"Their brood mother tried to shield them," Visa said quietly with a very obvious note of anger in her voice as she pointed at a lone female deathclaw who was close to the nest, her body was absolutely riddled with holes, it indeed appeared that she had died trying to shield her young from harm.

That's when Seven noticed something, "I know who did this" he said and they all spun to look at him before turning to look where he pointed.

There were four human corpses not far away and both Visa and Ven ran to them with a determination in every step, both Wisp and Seven also hurried to their side and what they all saw sent a resonating pulse of anger through every single one of them, the four fallen humans were dressed in Enclave uniforms.

"Fucking bastards!! These claws were hurting no one!! They came here to have a home away from humans! A safe place to raise their young!" Ven roared angrily flexing his claws like he wished to tear the already dead Enclave soldiers apart.

"S-Should we bury them?" Seven said and all three of his companions whirled towards him wearing masks that were a mixture of pure anger and surprise.

"Bury them!!? After what they did here!!? Are you fucking serious!!!?" Visa almost screamed at him.

Seven glared at her angrily, normally he would have shrunk into a mouse-sized figure under such fury, but his own anger surfaced under the accusation here, "I'm not talking about those scumbags! They can rot in the fucking sun for all I care! I meant the fallen claws!! It doesn't seem right to me to just leave them out here for the crows and mole rats to eat" he yelled back and now it was Visa that seemed to shrink.

"O-Oh my apologies Seven, I misunderstood, I-I-I believed you were siding with your own kind here," she said quietly.

Seven angrily kicked the nearest body to him barely moving it, "THEY are not my kind, we might share a face and possibly a species, but they are not my kind, a true human would not murder children in their nest no matter whose children they are, these are animals nothing more" she snarled darkly glaring at the four fallen humans.

Wisp placed a hand on his shoulder and patted it when he jumped, "The ground is too hard, it's solid rock" she said softly.

Seven growled angrily, the whole thing had both saddened and angered him greatly, though he wondered to himself would that anger have existed if he hadn't met Visa and Ven?

In just over a day this pair had not only broadened his horizons but changed his views rather a lot, they'd showed him that not only humans could think for themselves and had the sentience which a lot of humans believed made them the pinnacle of creation, so were they not worthy of the same respect and care?

Grated there was no way to tell if these claws were sentient ones just by looking at them, but there was obviously some higher thought process here, in the fact that the brood mother had sacrificed herself to try to save her young, a selfless act like that was not the deed of an unthinking animal'

"I have an idea but I'll need your help Wisp," he said then before awaiting acknowledgement he strode a few steps outwards and he focused hard, the pain began immediately but he ignored it as best he could, holding out his hands the invisible tentacles flew from him each heading for a fallen claw, tenderly they lifted every single one that he saw and floated them over to the train car with the fallen hatchlings, gently he piled them together before adding a few other things from the surrounding area.

"Wisp hit the nest with your laser," he said through gritted teeth and Wisp instantly clicked onto what he was doing, there was a whine from her head cannon as it charged before she unleashed a single low power shot into the pile of dead branches that was lined with a verity of things to give the hatchlings a comfortable place to sleep, it ignited.

"Now they can be together as a family in death and hopefully rest," Seven said trying to steady himself as the pain made his senses pulse.

Visa stepped up and steadied him, "I have seen this funeral rite before, some human tribes we saw on our travels used it, even though they were not of your kind and you owed them nothing you have done an honourable thing here Seven I will not forget it," she said sounding a little choked up.

Ven stepped up and placed another hand on his other shoulder as they watched the whole thing begin to burn lighting the surrounding area in a golden glow, "Nor will I, this world needs more humans like you and far less like them" he said jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the fallen Enclave soldiers.

Seven just nodded, "Let's see if there's anything left and get out of here," he said quietly and they nodded before splitting up to search the remaining grounds.

Seven couldn't help but wonder what the Enclave had wanted with the claws, why come to this remote out of the way place just to kill a bunch of deathclaws who were just like Visa had said hurting no one, it wasn't like they had made their nest next to a human settlement and were threatening it, if anything it appeared he claws had gone out of their way to find a place away from humans, plus in his experience the only humans the Enclave ever tried to help were their own, so what had they been doing here?

"Hey look at this, I think I know what the Enclave were up to," Wisp said suddenly and he turned to find her standing next to something, well two somethings actually.

When he got closer he realised that there was a long pole with a noose at one end and what looked like a much larger version of the collar that he'd had on, "They were trying to capture them, but my guess is it went south when the claws didn't want to come quietly" Wisp said.

Visa picked up the collar and snarled at it before crushing the metal disc between her huge hands, "They wanted more experiments and slaves" she growled menacingly.

The search or the remainder of the place came up with very little of any use, so leaving the funeral pyre glowing in the distance the little group headed off for their second point, they walked in silence this time, even the usually jovial Ven walked with his shoulders slumped and his tail drooping behind him, the massacre had obviously affected all of them pretty badly.

Eventually, they arrived and found what appeared to be a shack just a bit smaller than their own up against a cliff, "I smell gun powder" Visa said warningly and they went on alert.

Wisp was the first to reach the door to the shack and she looked at it, "The lock's been melted out with something" she said pointing to a surprisingly high tech lock that had been fitted to the door, as she swung the door silently open on its hinges they instantly saw that the wooden exterior was a kind of camouflage as the entire inside was made of metal.

Wisp instantly pumped some charge into the capacitor of her head cannon making it whine slightly as she stepped inside followed by the two claws who had to stoop and squeeze to get through before finally, Seven entered with his laser rifle in the shoulder.

The door led them to a staircase that led down into a much wider area, they instantly saw the bodies strewn around at the bottom of the stairs, by the crude way there were dressed and by their god awful hair cuts they were blatantly a group of raiders.

There were shelves everywhere and by the look of them they had been emptied in a hurry, "looks like some robbing bastards bit off more than they could chew here" Wisp said panning her headlamp over the bodies that all had laser holes burned through them, plus by the look of the bottom of the stairs which was utterly pockmarked by scorches it looked like the raiders had charged headfirst into automatic laser fire.

"Hey check this out, here Seven put this in the slot on that Pipboy and hit play," Wisp said lifting a little yellow and orange device from one of the shelves and throwing it to him.

It reminded Seven of the little tapes he'd see Dr Chalmers recording her vocal notes on during her experiments, he pressed a button on the bottom of the pipboy and a slot popped open, the device slotted in perfectly and he hit play.

"This is Paladin Sato to any brother or sister who finds this, the safehouse was breached by a tribe of savages at oh two hundred on the seventeeth, they used a plasma lance to cut through the lock but after they breached they were not expecting me to be waiting for them with a laser gattaling gun at the bottom of the stairs, one of them was able to pop a flare through the door with a flare gun before they fell so I have decided to pack up and move everything I could carry using the brahmin they brought to empty the place, I have relocated south to set up a secondary location, I will forward the co-ordiantes to the Eldars once the site is set up and secure, the only things I wasn't able to take were the benches a few cases of food and that old prewar T-45D a brother brought in two weeks ago from a crashed vertibird, pity too, the damn thing was in mint condition which is pretty rare for something that old, if you find this do me a favor and take it back to the HQ, I'd really like to either strip it or maybe fix it up and give it to the Eldar as a gift, not oftern you find ne in that condition, ad victorium Paladin Sato out" a male voice said out of the speaker on the pipboy.

Seven popped the tape and without thinking he put it in his pocket, "Well that explains why this place is empty" Wisp said sounding a little disappointed.

"The speaker box mentioned he left some boxes of food behind we should see if we can locate them, then the trip will not have been a wasted one," Ven said.

"True, we should search these bodies as well see if the raiders had anything useful on them, given how taken they are with robbing other people's shit I'm sure they won't mind if we rob thiers," Wisp said then she turned to Seven.

"Ok thanks to your nimber fingers and thumbs you search these guys me and the claw twins here will find those food boxes and whatever else that Paladin guy mentioned," she said making Seven baulks.

"Really? I gotta search the bodies?" he moaned and Wisp held up her hands.

"Not exactly made for rifling pockets," she said before turning and heading off in among the shelves with the two claws in tow.

Seven switched his headlamp on and looked down at the bodies groaning again, yet again he seems to have landed the sucker job, but still, he began to rifle starting first with a woman who didn't look a day over twenty-three who had a neat burnt hole where her right eye should have been while her left one stared at him with a silent accusation behind its glassy surface.

"Fucking waste of life" Seven muttered as he rifled them all, he seemed to be finding a lot of Nuka cola bottle caps for some reason and each of them seemed to have them in little pouches, so rather than throw them away he poured the collective two hundred caps into one bag and packed it away, it had to have some significance, the weapons they were holding were mostly a collection of crude pipe weapons which were little more than bits of old pipe duct-taped onto cut wooden blocks that had been carved for them, Seven couldn't understand how they didn't just explode, he guessed they just worked.

Infact the only salvageable thing that had seemed to be in any way good condition seemed to be on what was blatantly the leader by his higher-quality junk armour, seven found a bolt action hunting rifle complete with a scope and a handful of .308 cartridges, which even though he had the laser rifle seemed like a good investment because the scope would at least let him see things at distance and given the size of the bullets he guessed they would hit pretty hard, so he checked it over and put it on his shoulder.

Just as he was standing up Wisp's excited voice called in from somewhere in the back, "Seven!! Seven come here you gotta see this, we found something for you!!" she yelled.

Seven turned towards the direction of the call and headed off through the empty dusty shelves he came to a wall with a cage door set into it that it looked like either Wisp or the previous occupant had opened, he stepped into the cage and found both claws stood holding three large boxes each of what looked like tins and other packages but it wasn't that that Wisp was pointing at excitedly, it was the hulking metal suit that was stood up against a yellow rack frame like an oversized naughty child sulking in the corner with its head bowed.

"This will even the odds somewhat don't you think?" she said happily.

It reminded him of the suits that the Enclave wore, just older and a lot less impressive looking, but it still looked powerful, stencilled next to the huge white star on its green painted chest was T 45D, so this is what the guy on the tape had been going on about, a set of power armour.