Fallout 4: Rebirth At Vault 81

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And then, without waiting for a response, he moved on—back up the ridge, back into the shadow, the way he came. Because that was the job, and the job wasn't done yet.

The wind cut through the ruins north of Sanctuary like a slow exhale from a dying god. It rustled dry grass and stirred dust into quiet spirals around the empty road where the ambush had failed. A black bird—maybe a raven—circled high above the wreckage of the attempted raid, coasting on a thermic drift, watching the world below with the patient, endless eyes of something that remembered before the bombs.

MacCready leaned back against the rust-flecked panel of the lead truck, his gloves soaked with blood—some his, most not.

The fighting had ended fast, but not without noise. Five of the Red Vultures were dead. Two more had crawled off into the hills to die alone. One lay barely breathing a few paces behind MacCready, wrapped in the dusty remains of a tarp, his wounds bound loosely—not out of kindness, but for questioning. If he lived.

The rest of the team was securing the perimeter, rotating overwatch on the ridge while the trucks were being patched enough to move. MacCready's voice was quiet as he adjusted the radio headset and flipped through to the secured command frequency.

"Iron Nest, this is Black Lantern," he said. "Come in."

There was a short pause—then a click of static, followed by the gravel-edged voice of Sico.

"Go ahead, Lantern."

MacCready exhaled through his nose, almost a sigh. "We hit contact at the choke. Red Vultures. Fifteen strong, mixed weapons. Coordinated ambush."

Silence for a heartbeat. Then: "Your team?"

"Minimal injuries. No casualties. Convoy's intact. Private Brigg took a round to the leg, but he's stable. No breaches to cargo. Raiders routed. Confirmed KIA: five. Two more probable. One captured alive. Barely."

MacCready paused, then added, "They knew what they were hitting, Sico. This wasn't an accident."

The line stayed quiet for a moment.

Then Sico's voice returned, calm but clipped. "Understood. Return to base. Bring the prisoner."

"Copy that. We'll ghost the rest of the route, link up on your west patrol road."

"Good work, Lantern. I'll see you when you get in."

The transmission ended with a soft click. MacCready slid the headset off and stood, back cracking as he rolled his shoulders.

A few feet away, the convoy's sergeant approached, helmet tucked under one arm. His cheeks were still red from adrenaline.

"We ready to roll?"

MacCready nodded. "You'll take point. We'll run silent behind you. If that bastard back there tries anything, I'll handle it."

The sergeant glanced back at the bound raider, who coughed weakly and muttered something unintelligible through broken teeth. Then he looked back at MacCready and gave a short nod.

"Thanks," he said. "For saving our asses."

"Next time," MacCready said, mounting his rifle on the sling and turning away, "don't need saving."

Back in Sanctuary, the wind was different.

It pushed gently through the open windows of the Freemasons HQ, stirring the sheer cloth curtains Sarah had hung in her corner office. The sun slanted in through the wide panes behind Sico's desk, casting long rectangular shapes across the polished floor and over the edge of an old, battered map table where several pins marked trade lines and patrol routes in colored string.

Sico stood near the map, his coat draped over the chair, sleeves rolled to the elbows. His shirt was sweat-darkened at the back from moving too quickly across the compound. He still held the radio receiver in one hand, staring at nothing in particular, the silence in the office coiling around him like the echo of a gunshot after the smoke had cleared.

He'd heard everything MacCready said.

He didn't repeat it to himself, didn't try to rationalize or soften it. Raiders. Fifteen of them. Organized. They knew the route. Knew the cargo. Knew what to hit and where. That kind of precision didn't come from a random gang of pill-popping lunatics.

That came from reconnaissance. From motive.

From someone paying attention.

He set the receiver down.

The knock came seconds later.

"Come in," Sico said.

The door opened, and Sarah stepped inside, followed in order by Albert, Magnolia, and finally Preston Garvey, the brim of his hat already tucked low over his brow. Each had the same expression: alert, unreadable, and waiting for whatever weight Sico was about to drop in the room.

They gathered loosely around the map table. The door clicked shut behind them.

Sico looked at them for a moment before speaking.

"We were hit."

Albert's eyes narrowed.

"Convoy?" Magnolia asked. Her voice was too still.

"Yeah," Sico said. "About three clicks north of the fork on 111. Choke point, just before the northbound fork. Red Vultures."

Preston muttered a curse under his breath.

"MacCready called it in," Sico went on. "Fifteen hostiles. Coordinated ambush. Used high ground to suppress. Tried to breach the trucks before they hit the bottle point."

"And?" Sarah asked. "Our losses?"

Sico met her eyes. "None."

The room let out a collective breath.

"Brigg took a round to the leg, but he's alive. Rest of the unit held. MacCready's Commandos flanked from behind—cut them off. Vultures didn't expect backup. They folded. Five dead, two wounded and fled. One captured."

Magnolia's brow creased. "A prisoner?"

"Barely," Sico said. "MacCready's bringing him in."

Albert leaned forward, his knuckles on the map table. "If they knew where we'd be… then this wasn't an accident."

"No," Preston agreed. "They were watching."

Sarah crossed her arms. "That kind of timing means someone was listening in. Or had eyes inside Oberland, Greentop, maybe even Somerville. Word of mouth can kill you just as fast as a bullet."

Sico gave a quiet nod.

"That's why I called you in. We can't treat this like another raider hit. This was deliberate. That means we're being tracked. Maybe followed. Maybe infiltrated."

Magnolia stepped to the side, pacing once before speaking. "They went for the water. That's what this was about. Not weapons. Not meds. Water."

Albert's eyes flicked toward her. "You think someone put a bounty on our shipments?"

"I think someone doesn't like the idea of clean water not under their thumb."

Preston pulled a small notebook from his vest, scribbled something down, then looked up. "How'd the troops do?"

Sico answered quickly. "Better than last time. They kept formation, held ground, stayed calm under fire. Could've broken, but they didn't."

Magnolia gave a small nod of approval. "That's something, at least."

"I'll recommend unit commendations," Sarah said. "That convoy could've been butchered."

"But they weren't," Sico said. "And now we have a prisoner. Which means we might get answers."

Preston looked up from his notes. "If he survives."

Sico glanced at the clock on the wall—11:47 AM.

"They're due back before thirteen hundred. I want us waiting."

Magnolia arched an eyebrow. "You want us all in the yard?"

"No. I want us in the South Interrogation Block. If this raider's breathing, I want him sat down in front of us before he can lie to someone else."

Albert's tone was cool. "You think this is bigger than Red Vultures?"

Sico nodded, slow.

"I think this was a test. Someone wanted to see how hard they'd have to hit to break us."

"And we didn't break," Sarah said.

"No," Sico murmured. "But that doesn't mean they're done."

By 12:53, the trucks rolled back through Sanctuary's main gates under a bright, angry sky. The wounded were sent immediately to the clinic near the greenhouse, Brigg hobbling under the arms of two squadmates. MacCready followed the rest in, unspeaking, eyes sharp.

Behind him, bound and bruised, the raider was hauled off the rear truck. Two Commandos led him with rough efficiency toward the interrogation block—an old pre-War detention bunker refurbished with hard walls, armored locks, and zero exits that weren't deliberate.

Sico waited with the others outside the door. When MacCready reached them, he gave a silent nod to Sico—eyes saying everything his voice didn't have to.

Then Sico turned to the group.

"Let's see what the Commonwealth's been whispering."

He opened the door, and they followed him inside.

The metal door of the South Interrogation Block groaned open on rusted hinges, the sound echoing like a warning down the low-lit corridor. The interior smelled faintly of cleaning solvent, old blood, and the damp concrete of a vault that had seen too much and forgotten none of it. Thick walls, recessed lights, no windows. One chair in the middle of the room. Another across from it. And a drain in the center of the floor that wasn't for plumbing.

Sico stepped inside first, his boots slow and heavy on the floor. Behind him came Preston, Magnolia, Albert, and Sarah. MacCready was already there—leaning against the far wall in the shadows, arms crossed. His eyes didn't move from the prisoner seated in the middle of the room.

The raider looked worse than he had an hour ago.

A busted lip. Two fingers splinted roughly. A deep purple swelling under one eye. His armor had been stripped off, leaving him in a blood-crusted undershirt and shredded cargo pants. They hadn't shackled him—no need. The man could barely sit upright.

Yet his chin was still lifted. Defiant.

Sico sat opposite him, slow and deliberate. He didn't raise his voice.

"What's your name?"

The raider blinked slowly, like it was hard to focus. He coughed once, and a fleck of blood hit the floor near his boot.

"Fuck you," he muttered, voice cracked and gravelly.

Sico didn't react.

Albert leaned in from behind. "You're in a Republic compound. Surrounded by armed soldiers. You're not getting out of here unless we let you."

The raider smiled—more a sneer than anything else.

"And why would I want out? I die in here, or I die out there. That's the deal."

Magnolia crossed her arms. "You've got that backwards. Out there you just die. In here, maybe you talk first."

Still, nothing.

Sarah stepped forward next, her voice gentler—but firmer than it sounded. "Tell us who gave the order. That's all we want. We know your crew didn't come up with this plan on their own."

The raider let out a quiet laugh, one that rasped up from deep in his chest.

"You think we need some grand plan to take what's ours?" he said. "You roll through the Commonwealth with painted trucks full of clean water and expect no one's gonna notice?"

"We expected trouble," Sico said. "Just not stupidity."

"Then maybe you should've expected more bodies."

That did it.

MacCready stepped out from the shadows. His boots hit the floor with a slow, measured rhythm, and his gloves were still stained from the field. He didn't speak until he was close—close enough for the raider to see the old kill lines carved in the haft of the combat knife sheathed at his belt.

"See, here's the problem," MacCready said calmly. "You're mistaking survival for leverage. You don't have leverage. You've got borrowed time."

The raider met his eyes, jaw tight.

MacCready knelt slowly in front of him. "I've seen a lot of people try to die proud. Doesn't work. Not in a room like this."

Sico didn't say a word.

MacCready stood again, turned slightly, and then—without warning—lashed out with a sharp elbow to the raider's ribs.

The man gasped, folding partway over, then groaned as MacCready grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked his head back.

"You want to be a hero?" MacCready hissed. "Wrong building."

There was a beat of silence.

Then MacCready pressed two fingers into the broken side of the man's face—where bone didn't sit right beneath the skin.

The raider screamed. A short, sharp cry that echoed against concrete.

"You think we care if you bleed on the floor?" MacCready growled. "We've bled more than you'll ever understand."

Preston shifted slightly, arms crossed. He didn't look away.

Another twist of MacCready's fingers. Another scream.

Then the raider broke.

He slumped forward, breath shallow, drool trailing down his chin.

"Okay," he rasped.

MacCready paused. "Say it."

The raider coughed again. Then, with effort, he looked up at Sico.

"It wasn't… just us. Our boss—Drenner—he's the one. He's testing you."

"Testing," Sarah echoed. "What does that mean?"

"Wanted to know how many guards. What kind of backup. If you had eyes in the hills. Said he'd pay double if we could bring back info… or a truck."

"A truck," Albert repeated. "They were gonna steal the whole damn thing?"

"Or just the water," the raider said. "That's all they wanted. Sell it east. Or up toward Quincy. People'll kill for clean caps. And water's caps now."

Sico leaned in. "And this Drenner—he planning to hit us again?"

The raider laughed weakly. "Every. Time. He said he'll hit you every time you roll out. Unless you start paying to move through."

"Protection racket," Preston muttered.

"Worse," Magnolia said. "He's trying to make the Freemasons look like they can't defend their own cargo."

The raider nodded, eyes beginning to roll. "Said if we hit you twice, maybe folks would stop trusting your runs. Said the water don't matter if the name on it gets you shot."

MacCready stood still for a moment, then stepped back toward the wall.

The prisoner slumped again. Whatever strength he had left, it was spent.

Sico looked around the room. "We've got a name. Drenner. He organized the raid, planned the ambush, and promised more."

"And he's selling stolen water," Sarah added.

"Or planning to," Magnolia said. "We stopped this one. Next time, he might send better men."

Preston tilted his head. "Then we send better warnings."

Albert looked to Sico. "What now?"

Sico didn't answer right away. He stared at the raider—then at the floor.

Then: "We bury our wounded. We double the guard on the next run. And we send word to our outposts—anyone hearing Red Vulture chatter, they report immediately. No delays. No exceptions."

"And Drenner?" Sarah asked.

"We find him," Sico said. "And we end him."

The air in the interrogation room had shifted. That dense, sour pressure of violence had lifted—but it left a residue. The kind that clung to skin and clothes and settled in the lungs like ash. The raider was slumped unconscious in the chair now, shallow breaths rasping from his split mouth, the blood on his shirt darker and wetter than it had been when they started. He wouldn't last long. And honestly, no one in the room looked like they cared.

Sico stood slowly, rolling his sleeves back down with deliberate calm, like a man putting his armor back on.

"Alright," he said, voice steady. "Let's move."

They exited in silence. One by one. Boots on concrete. MacCready was the last to leave the room, pausing briefly at the threshold. He glanced back at the broken raider, some unreadable flicker in his eye—then he stepped out and pulled the door shut behind him. It clicked with finality.

Outside, the corridor stretched ahead under flickering ceiling lights. No one spoke until they reached the wide stairwell at the block's east end, where sunlight poured through cracked glass and dust shimmered in the air like snow.

Sico turned at the top of the stairs and faced the team.

"MacCready," he said, voice firm. "You're not done."

MacCready raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"I want Drenner found," Sico continued. "Tracked. Tagged. And removed."

There was no flourish in the words. Just weight.

"You're leading," Sico went on. "Take the Commandos. Work from the hills. Quiet and wide. I don't want a full frontal war unless we have to. But if he shows himself? I want him erased."

MacCready's jaw ticked once.

"You're not just hunting raiders this time," Sico added. "You're hunting rot. This is political now. Every gang that sees Drenner get away with this will test us next."

MacCready nodded once, slow. "Understood."

"I want updates at every node checkpoint," Sico said. "That means intel back every 48 hours. You lose sight of him, you report. You find him, you surround. You make sure he's never seen again."

MacCready gave a grim smile. "We'll do it silent. Won't even leave bones."

Sico didn't smile. But he nodded.

Then he turned to Preston and Sarah.

"I want you two to double the escorts on all outgoing convoys," Sico said. "No more ten-man details. I want twenty. Full squads. Rifles, grenades, and a damn good reason for anyone thinking twice about throwing a punch."

Preston folded his arms, nodding. "We can pull from the central militia reserves. They're green but steady."

"Pull them," Sico said. "I want them drilled by week's end. Shadow patrols too. Run rehearsals for ambush response. Vultures won't be the last gang to sniff out our supply lines."

Sarah was already making mental notes, her fingers twitching as if she could feel her clipboard even without it. "I'll get with Lt. Moss. We'll start overnight drills and rotate shifts on the highway entries. That'll give us coverage at both ends and enough flex to reinforce a convoy mid-run."

"Good," Sico said. "I want those trucks moving like they're carrying the future. Because they are."

There was a quiet moment then. Just for a breath.

An hour later, MacCready stood on the tarmac at the Freemasons' outer yard, scanning the faces of his team as they gathered around the commandeered vertibird. It hadn't flown since Quincy—fuel was a nightmare to maintain—but it still ran, and its transport capacity meant they'd be airborne within the hour, headed toward the hill trails near the old National Guard training camp west of Bedford.

He counted seven heads, including himself.

Silas, his spotter. Tall, quiet, a former Gunner sniper who didn't talk unless it mattered.

Two rookies—Jenn and Miguel—both with stable hands and decent nerves, pulled from Sanctuary's new commando pool.

Brick, the heavy, ex-Brotherhood, still carrying a mini-gun he called 'Momma.'

Luca and Renner—old blood, both of them. Had followed MacCready since the Slocum's Joe campaign the year prior. Trusted.

MacCready adjusted his pack and stepped up onto the back ramp.

"This isn't a sweep," he said. "This isn't some post-war cleanup. We're hunting a planner. That means trails, informants, and patience. We don't go loud unless I say so."

He scanned their faces. They were listening. Good.

"Our target is Drenner. Used to run hits for the Blood Fangs, then went off-chain. Organized, paranoid. Has a holdout somewhere between the Med-Tek ruins and Fort Hagen. We'll start in the sprawl, then fan out."

Miguel raised a hand. "You think he's already on the move?"

"Almost definitely," MacCready said. "But if he's smart—and I think he is—he'll want to watch what happens after the raid. Raiders always assume they have time. We're going to teach him different."

The wind picked up. The vertibird's rotors started spinning.

"Load up," MacCready ordered.

They did.

Within minutes, the transport lifted off, kicking dust in a wild storm across the gravel lot as it pulled into the sky.

From the command walkway, Sico watched them disappear eastward like a hawk watches a storm cloud forming on the horizon.

He stood still for a long while.

Then he turned and headed back into HQ.

Back in the operations wing, Sarah was barking orders into her pip-boy, pacing between map tables and the comms desk. Preston was out in the yard, directing unit formations and assigning patrol sectors with Lt. Moss and Captain Dunley.

Sanctuary's walls had never felt so alive.

Men and women moved with purpose, weapons checked and re-checked, armor laced tighter, radios calibrated. You could smell the shift—like something in the town's bones had decided it wasn't going to be prey anymore.

Sico entered the war room again, and Magnolia was already there, arms resting on the edge of the table as she studied the known outpost locations with new eyes.

"They'll try again," she said without looking up. "Not the Vultures maybe. But someone. The second they think our shipments aren't worth the risk, we lose the initiative."

"They won't," Sico said. "I won't let them."

She turned toward him now, brows drawn.

"This is bigger than water," she said. "You know that, right?"

"I do," he said. "But water's the front."

Magnolia tilted her head. "And what's the war?"

Sico didn't answer right away.

He looked down at the map—at the long, tangled lines of trade routes, danger zones, townships, and ruins.

At the fractured Commonwealth trying to pull itself back into coherence, one painful inch at a time.

Then he looked back at her.

"It's belief," he said. "The war is belief. Whether people believe we can hold. That we can deliver. That we're not just another gang with a flag."

She studied him for a long moment. Then nodded.

"And what do you believe?"

Sico's gaze hardened. "That we're the last shot this place has before everything slides back into madness."

Magnolia gave a small smile—half approval, half defiance.

"Then let's act like it."

He nodded once and moved to the table.

Out past the north gate, the convoy depot was quiet again—repaired trucks lined up in their bays, men cleaning weapons, engines being tuned.

But everyone had heard about the ambush now.

They knew what the Vultures tried to do. They knew about the Commandos, the kill zone, the blood left in the dirt.

And they knew Drenner's name.

Somewhere out there, in the broken edges of the Commonwealth, a man thought he could test the Republic.

________________________________________________

• Name: Sico

• Stats :

S: 8,44

P: 7,44

E: 8,44

C: 8,44

I: 9,44

A: 7,45

L: 7

• Skills: advance Mechanic, Science, and Shooting skills, intermediate Medical, Hand to Hand Combat, Lockpicking, Hacking, Persuasion, and Drawing Skills

• Inventory: 53.280 caps, 10mm Pistol, 1500 10mm rounds, 22 mole rats meat, 17 mole rats teeth, 1 fragmentation grenade, 6 stimpak, 1 rad x, 6 fusion core, computer blueprint, modern TV blueprint, camera recorder blueprint, 1 set of combat armor, Automatic Assault Rifle, 1.500 5.56mm rounds, power armor T51 blueprint, Electric Motorcycle blueprint, T-45 power armor, Minigun, 1.000 5mm rounds, Cryolator, 200 cryo cell, Machine Gun Turret Mk1 blueprint, electric car blueprint, Kellogg gun, Righteous Authority, Ashmaker, Furious Power Fist, Full set combat armor blueprint, M240 7.62mm machine guns blueprint, Automatic Assault Rifle blueprint, and Humvee blueprint.

• Active Quest:-