Jace stood on a hillside outside Olivia Satellite Station.
The sun had risen, its light slanting across the gray-white buildings.
He had not brought the minigun.
The power armor was already bulky enough.
If he carried that thing too, turning around inside the bunker would be a pain.
He only had a combat rifle slung across his back, while the sniper hunting rifle taken from the Raider’s corpse rested in his hands.
Codsworth floated behind him, all three of his “eyes” fixed on the satellite station.
There was a man on the roof.
He wore ragged clothes and had a pipe rifle on his back.
He leaned against the railing, smoking.
Every now and then, he swept his gaze around, but most of the time he just stared at the cigarette in his hand, bored out of his mind.
Jace lay down and braced the sniper hunting rifle on a rock.
Through the scope, the Raider’s head sat steadily inside the crosshairs.
Five hundred meters.
The light was just right.
Jace took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The gunshot cracked across the hillside.
Through the scope, the Raider’s head snapped back, and his whole body flipped over the railing, hit the ground, and stopped moving.
Jace lowered the rifle and stood.
“Let’s go,” he said.
The bunker door was on the back side of the slope, out of sight from the satellite station roof.
The two of them circled around, and just as they reached the entrance, the gravel underfoot suddenly shifted.
Three Mole Rats burst out of the ground, shrieking as they lunged at them.
He raised his foot and stomped down on the lead one’s head.
The Mole Rat’s head burst open.
Its body twitched twice, then went still.
The second lunged at him.
Jace turned sideways and brought his other foot down.
Codsworth’s circular saw was already spinning.
The third had barely poked its head out before the saw cut into it from the side, spraying blood across the door.
Jace took a deep breath.
Then he pushed open the bunker door.
Behind it was a staircase leading down, poured from concrete and very solid.
The power armor only made dull, heavy footfalls on it, unlike the creaking it made on wooden planks.
The moment he stepped down the stairs, something stirred in his mind.
If he remembered right.
He looked up.
A Tesla arc device was mounted on the ceiling.
Blue electricity leapt between several metal spheres, ready to strike at any moment.
Jace raised the combat rifle and aimed at the center of the device.
Bang!
The arc device exploded, sparks flying everywhere and blackening a large patch of the ceiling.
A Raider poked his head out and glanced this way.
He saw Jace.
He saw the power armor.
His mouth had just opened, but before he could shout,
Jace was already in front of him.
A metal hand seized his head and twisted.
Crack.
The Raider’s body went limp.
Jace casually leaned him against the wall.
At the end of the corridor was a security door.
The red light on it was lit, and the door was locked tight.
Jace glanced at it but did not stop.
He kept going down.
Basement level two.
Around the corner from the stairwell was an open space.
Several broken tables, a pile of crates, and a fusion generator powering the base.
A dozen or so Raiders were gathered together, doing who knew what.
The moment Jace walked in, they all turned their heads.
Then every one of them raised a gun.
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
Bullets came at him like rain, striking the chest plate of the power armor and ricocheting off with sharp clangs.
Jace took a step back, shielding Codsworth behind him, and raised the combat rifle.
Numbers appeared above the Raiders’ heads all at once.
VATS: 4/4
He pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The chest of the first Raider with a double-barrel shotgun burst open.
Bang!
The second, also holding a double-barrel shotgun, had just raised his weapon when his head exploded.
The remaining Raiders froze for half a second, then kept firing.
Pipe pistols, pipe rifles.
Their bullets hit the armor and failed to leave even a scratch.
Jace stepped back and made room.
Codsworth rushed out from behind him.
The circular saw cut into the first Raider’s stomach, and the flamethrower blasted the second Raider in the face.
Screams mixed with the stench of burning flesh, filling the room.
Jace raised his rifle and picked off two more.
Bang!
Bang!
Two Raiders dropped.
The rest began backing away.
Just then, a door on the side of the room was kicked open.
CLANG!
A woman charged out.
She wore armor hammered together from scrap steel and carried a minigun in her hands.
The barrels gleamed, the ammo belt was clean, and it was obvious the weapon had been wiped down and carefully maintained over and over.
It looked nothing like random junk picked up in the Wasteland.
Ack-Ack.
She saw Jace, saw the power armor, and saw the corpses all over the floor.
She did not run.
She pulled the trigger.
Bzzzz.
The minigun began spinning, and bullets poured out like a storm.
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang!
The barrage forced Jace a step back.
The bullets could not pierce the armor, but the impact was still there.
It felt like being hammered again and again with a sledgehammer.
He was driven back repeatedly, unable to even raise his gun.
“Jace!” Codsworth’s voice came from the side.
Jace gritted his teeth and forced one step forward against the hail of bullets.
Another wave slammed into him.
He was pushed back again.
At that moment, a Raider suddenly rushed out from the side.
His eyes were bloodshot, drool ran from his mouth, and he gripped a knife in his hand.
He was high out of his mind, completely gone.
Jace did not know whether he was trying to help Ack-Ack or simply wanted to cut something.
Jace’s eyes sharpened.
He shifted aside, letting the knife miss, and grabbed the Raider by the collar in the same motion.
Then he threw him.
The drugged-up Raider flew toward Ack-Ack like a sack of potatoes.
The minigun was still sweeping.
Pff, pff, pff, pff!
His body was riddled in midair, blood and flesh bursting apart and splattering across the floor.
But the corpse still slammed into her.
Ack-Ack was knocked to the ground.
The minigun’s muzzle swung upward, sending bullets into the ceiling and shattering a row of fluorescent lights.
Jace charged forward.
He stood over Ack-Ack and looked down at her terrified face.
Then he raised his foot.
Pff.
The fight was over.
Jace bent down and picked up the minigun from beside Ack-Ack.
More than half the belt was still left, and the barrels were still smoking faintly.
He turned around.
The remaining Raiders were running for the exit.
Jace raised the minigun.
Bzzzz.
Bullets swept across them.
Three Raiders fell.
The last one or two rushed toward the exit and vanished.
Jace lowered the gun and stared at Ack-Ack’s corpse.
She lay on the ground, her head already crushed, blood leaking out and spreading into a dark pool beneath her.
The minigun lay crooked nearby.
The Pip-Boy on his wrist vibrated.
The screen lit up, and a line of text appeared against the amber background:
New Available Perk Points: 1
Jace glanced down.
Current Available Perk Points: 2
He paused.
One point from killing those two Raiders earlier, and now another from this fight.
“Someone got away,” Codsworth said, floating over.
Jace slung the minigun onto his back and picked up the combat rifle again.
“Should we chase them?”
Codsworth looked toward the stairwell.
“Forget it.
We will not catch them.
Once Raiders get into open ground, they run faster than wild dogs.
Let’s search this place first.”
Man and machine stepped over the corpses, some still twitching faintly, and began looting the base.
Jace returned to the first floor.
The security door was still shut, the red light blinking on it.
He walked over, raised his foot, and kicked it twice.
The door did not budge.
He kicked it again.
Still nothing.
“…Fine,” he muttered.
This door was not opening by force.
He remembered that in the game, this place was something like an intelligence room.
It needed a terminal or a key.
On the desk opposite the door sat a terminal, dusty but still lit.
Jace walked over and stood in front of it.
He raised his hand, one huge metal finger hovering above the keyboard.
He started trying to hack it.
As expected, the attempt failed.
Jace withdrew his hand.
Expert-level military encryption.
His advanced Hacker perk could not crack this.
“Then I’ll have to find the key.”
He returned to basement level two.
The corpses from earlier were still scattered everywhere.
The smell of blood mixed with gunpowder, thick enough to choke on.
Jace stepped around them and headed deeper into the corridor.
At the end was a rusty sheet-metal door.
Jace raised his foot.
CLANG!
The door panel flew out of its frame, smashed onto the floor, and kicked up a cloud of dust.
Behind the door was a room.
A grain storeroom.
Dozens of large wooden crates were piled along the walls, filled to the brim with food.
Razorgrain, Mutfruit, Tato, all heaped high.
But those were not what made Jace freeze.
It was the nuclear waste barrels in the corner.
Several yellow metal drums, stamped with the trefoil symbol, were piled in the corner of the storeroom.
“What is this…?”
“Radiation sterilization,” Codsworth said, floating over.
“It is a common way of preserving food in the Wasteland.
This food was probably stolen from nearby farms.”
In Jace’s memory, by the time Sole Survivor came here, only a few Radroaches were left.
They continued farther in.
At the very back of the room was a table covered in dust.
A key lay on it.
Beside the table sat a skeleton in a military uniform, probably a pre-War soldier who had died here and never been collected.
Jace picked up the key.
“This should be it.”
He returned to the intelligence room on the first floor.
Jace inserted the key into the lock and turned it.
With a click, the door opened.
The room was not large.
Two desks, several chairs.
Two metal cabinets stood against the wall, their doors open and their interiors empty.
But the desk was not empty.
A mini nuke sat in the most obvious spot.
The round green body looked like an oversized metal pineapple.
Jace stared at it for several seconds, then reached out and picked it up.
Heavier than he had expected.
He gently placed it into his backpack.
There was also an unlocked box on the desk.
He opened it.
Inside were two 10mm pistols, along with several boxes of ammunition with bright brass casings.
And something cold and hard.
A cryo mine.
He put all of it into his bag.
There was also a safe in the corner.
Dark gray metal, more than half a person’s height, and solid at a glance.
Jace walked over, grabbed the handle, and pulled hard.
He raised his foot and kicked it.
It did not move.
He kicked it again.
Still nothing.
Jace stood in front of the safe, staring at that dark gray lump of metal.
Two kicks could not open it.
Brute force was not going to work this time.
He looked down at the Pip-Boy on his wrist.
Current Available Perk Points: 2
He opened the perk list and scrolled down.
Perception.
Locksmith.
The screen flashed.
Perk acquired: Locksmith [Beginner]
Knowledge transfer complete.
Hint: This perk requires hands-on practice for best results.
His head swelled slightly, that familiar feeling of something being stuffed into his brain.
He took a moment to steady himself.
Then he looked down at the safe.
Now he knew how to open it.
He rummaged across the desk and found a rusty bobby pin, left behind by some Raider, no doubt.
Click.
The door opened.
Inside lay a dozen or so stacks of cash, long since useless paper.
There was also a small box of bullets, a few pieces of jewelry, and a folded document: the U.S.
Covert Operations Manual.
Jace picked up the document and unfolded it.
Introduction to Human Blind Spots
Essentials of Sneak Movement
“…Good stuff.”
The bones of two soldiers, empty metal cabinets, and the safe he had opened.
Everything had been taken.
He turned and walked out.
Back on basement level two, the corridor still reeked of blood and gunpowder.
Codsworth was floating in the middle of the hallway.
“Did you find it?” Jace asked.
Codsworth raised a mechanical arm.
In his metal claw was a thin necklace.
A silver chain, with a small oval pendant.
The surface was slightly worn, but its original shine was still visible.
Jace took it and weighed it in his hand.
Very light.
He opened the pendant.
Inside was a tiny black-and-white photograph of a woman’s face.
“Yeah.
This is it,” he said.
He put the necklace away and got to work.
The corpses still lay there, weapons scattered all over the floor.
He glanced around.
Pipe rifles, pipe pistols, several rusty machetes.
He bent down, picked up two pipe rifles that looked usable, and tossed them toward the entrance.
Then he picked up a few pistols as well.
“You want that junk too?” Codsworth asked, floating over.
“Backups,” Jace said.
“Someone will be able to use them eventually.”
He did not touch the scrap-metal armor.
It was too ugly, not even worth picking up.
But the food could not be left behind.
He went to the storeroom and began carrying the wooden crates out one by one.
Razorgrain, Mutfruit, Tato.
If a crate was too heavy, he poured half into the canvas bag.
Food sterilized by radiation was still food.
“You want all of this?” Codsworth was a robot, and it had been too long since he had seen humans.
He had little sense of what food meant anymore.
“…Are you planning to empty the entire satellite station?” he asked.
“All of it,” Jace said.
“I’m not leaving it for the Raiders.”
He made one trip, then a second, then a third.
A small mountain began forming by the entrance.
He went back again, collected the boxes of military rations in the corner, and took the fusion core from the generator while he was at it.
He also took Ack-Ack’s minigun.
Even though he already had one, this one still worked, and more than half a box of ammunition remained.
“That should be about it.”
Jace looked at the mountain of food and the boxes full of weapons and ammunition, then studied the terrain outside.
He needed a way to take everything in one trip.
He went out, dismantled the iron fence outside the satellite station, added a few wooden doors, and made a simple sled.
Using the thick rope the Raiders had left behind, he tied dozens of boxes of weapons and food tightly to the boards.
The food alone weighed nearly 750 kilograms, about 1,653 pounds, enough for the three members of the Abernathy family to eat comfortably for two full years.
The wooden boards bent slightly under the weight.
Jace stood at the front.
The power armor’s hands gripped the thick rope, which pressed against his shoulder.
“Up.”
He braced his core and pulled hard.
The boards slid a short distance across the ground, then began moving steadily.
It was like pulling a huge suitcase, except it was filled with the blood and tears of who knew how many farms.
Codsworth hovered beside him, all three mechanical arms loaded with things like a moving shelf, steadying the boxes so they would not topple over.
“I truly cannot believe you can haul this much at once.”
Jace did not look back.
“Let’s go.
Red Rocket truck stop first.”
On the way, he paused again.
The door to the satellite station was still open.
The key was still in the lock.
There were still bits and pieces left inside.
Forget it.
Whoever came here next could have them.
Jace did not look back.