[b][color=004b80]The Smoker - Western Brotherhood of Steel - Eastern Kentucky[/color][/b]

A match in the wind.

A crack, a strike of flame, a small flickering light in the dark. It seemed to float and dance in the air, before calloused hands moved it to light the pipe dangled precariously from a man’s lips as he sat reclined in a wicker chair. A sudden shake of the hand, the flame was extinguished, the blackened match dropped into a pristine crystal ashtray. Brown eyes watched the soot stain the once glistening glass, fingers clasping the pipe in between them pulled the pipe to his lips.

Inhale.

Fingers moved, leaving a small trail of smoke from their path.

Exhale.

A cloud of grey wisps sighed into the air, eyes turned upwards, looking up at the night sky in a brief gap from the rainclouds.

“Onscreen.”

The command was simple, a flickering dull projection shining onto a flat plaster wall. The smoker’s eyes cast themselves around their surroundings as the scribe checked their connection was secure for the tenth time. An old airport or something, or an airfield, hard to tell what with the burned-out buildings and ramshackle scaffold structures that had been there. Wendell something or other in Kentucky had been its name and location. Had, his orders were simple, get in and out with no witnesses. It had been a raider settlement, or maybe not, either way it didn’t matter. Their cover was Vertibirds and Advanced Power Armour mark 1, blame it on the Enclave in the event of discovery. That was if the bastards still existed. Rumour was they’d moved east, and then been destroyed, or scattered to the winds. 

Three vertibirds, night attack, IR scopes from half a mile out with close up silenced submachine guns and CQC systems had made short work of any of the occupants, about twenty-seven of them. When they were done they’d set thermal charges, make it look like a fire and a raider attack. With war all around, who’d question another burned out settlement on the edges of a war? It'd be just another ruin in a wasteland full of ruins. For now, it served as the temporary HQ of the Mobile Recon and Reaction Force of the Western Brotherhood of Steel. The scalpel in the armoury of the one true brotherhood, a black-ops team formed to gather intel and execute missions, people and whoever needed killing without a trail leading back to the west.

“Drone link onscreen.”

They had the tools to get it done. Three vertibirds with fusion engines for transcontinental range, theoretically at least. Lab tests had said the same, whether that was true in the field remained to be seen, but they didn’t need to go that far. Yet. And other goodies, such as the access to specialist equipment, like the bespoke made to measure weapons his force hoisted. And the latest in reconnaissance goodies the scribes could make. Case in point, a prototype turboprop high altitude recon drone, problem was the further the link, the less secure and stable. Hence his mission, establish a temporary forward position to allow a server connection without risk of signal-intercept by the Midwest.

Also the fact that if it crash-landed, a squad to be with a close enough reach to recover it was a strategic necessity. So, here he was with three Vertibirds, two for his squad, one to act as a mobile server/control centre to co-ordinate the drone’s recon systems. And that was what he was looking at on the projection, staring into the very belly of the beast. This cult, or whatever the hell it was, that was what they’d been sent to establish.

So, with the newest brainchild of the aviation division of the scribe’s military science branch, they were going to do just that. And at a steady two hundred miles an hour, the drone was holding a steady beautiful pace over the skies of Charleston, West Virginia. Just what the hell was he looking at? The smoker wondered that as he felt a headache building at just whatever was onscreen. A giant pile of skulls, like something out of those pulp horror novels and Mongol conquest histories he’d read as a kid.

Psychological warfare.

He’d practiced it before, this was what was happening here. Subjugate the local landscape with something that would cow them into non-rebellion. Kill the rebellious and build a pile of skulls out of them and anyone else who disobeys you. Simple, effective and quite a pragmatic decision he had to admit. The legion crucified, these cultists seemed to build monoliths. Both had emerged through stunning acts of brutality to rule large swathes of America and threaten pre-established polities, evidently fortune favoured the brutal.

“Focus on grid two.”

A click as the image brought up an area of the city in the shadow of the monolith, figuratively speaking as the monolith wasn’t that big. Factories pouring out armaments, slaves toiling on production lines as pyres burned bright in the night. He was impressed, these cultists certainly meant business. For the next hour, the drone scoured the Monolith-ship of Charleston, block by block a full run-down was made. Before finally the Smoker clicked his fingers, a hand beckoning for the secure line back to the west. It was handed to him, a crystal-clear voice on the other hand reaching his ear.

“Confirm code over.”

“Surgery One this is Scalpel One, authorisation three sixty-nine alpha foxtrot. Confirm code long range security coverage over.”

“Scalpel One this is Surgery One, five forty-two gamma tango. Code A-OK over.”

“Surgery One this is Scalpel One. Radio check, we have you loud and clear over.”

“Scalpel One this is Surgery One. Loud and Clear. We have Sixty secs on the clock, go over.”

“Surgery One this is Scalpel One. Request permission for remote full kill mission over.”

A pause. The smoker took a drag from his pipe as ten seconds passed on the clock before a reply came.

“Scalpel One, this is Surgery One. Mission approved. Slash and Burn. Out.”

The phone clicked, the smoker let himself grin, before setting aside the phone and standing up, pipe in mouth, hands on hips, giving orders as he was born to do.

“We have a-go. Lock primary targets on the monolith and what looks like the explosives factory, set command for HE burst. Prep secondary line-up for spread on the guardhouses.”

The screen turned red as crosshairs were laid on the targets, missile systems activated, confirmation of launch status.

“Fire away.”

Two lances of light emanated from the cameras viewpoint, lighting up the night as mini-nuclear warheads struck true. The trails were followed by four more one after the other in quick succession, four plasma-tips bathing the night in green light. A moment went by as the drone increased speed and changed position, rotors shifting to increase altitude and banking to afford a picture of the aftermath. A panorama of death and destruction. Wheat before a burning scythe.

“Kills confirmed.”

“Success achieved. Terminate mission.”

The order was an immediate reply, a suitably immediate response. The projector screen flickered out as the scribes set a course back to home. North over Detroit airspace and then north of midwestern airspace, and then a direct route over khan airspace. Invasions of sovereignty, but to avoid potential midwestern outrage over potential violation of their more developed airspace, and thus more likely to detect them, was necessary.

They’d link up with the drone over cincinatti and set it to follow-my-footsteps mode, and as they did that. The only trace that anything had happened would be when the High Elder saw fit to announce their hand behind this apparent act of god to the wider world. For now, the smoker took a final puff on his pipe, before boarding the vertibird, its engines roaring as they took off, doors whirring shut as behind them, thermal charges ignited. And as they settled into the night, the fires burned in their wake.

For the next few hours, silence was the order, until finally, they passed north of midwestern space and a more direct connection home was established. The smoker giving his field report to the overwatch committee back in Electric City.

“Surgery One, this is Scalpel One. We have a tier three point five plus power facing us, tribal elements with industrial capability. Religious fanaticism suggests destruction of iconography a solid psychologically damaging strategy. In short, destroy their monoliths and factories and they should fold like a house of cards.”

Pause.

“Further suggestion that Midwestern Brotherhood military elements weaker than previously theorised, recommend increase in reconnaissance levels to ascertain accuracy. To be blunt-”

The smoker’s hands moved to prepare a tobacco pipe for landing as he spoke.

“-They must be pussies if they can’t deal with some lousy tribals.”