[u][b]Indianapolis - Indiana State Library - Roof[/b][/u]

Major Harding smiled grimly as the first Vertibird slowed to a stop, hovering about ten feet off the roof of the building as the crew began pushing boxes out the door, thudding one after another into the roof below. As soon as the last case was dropped, the pilot applied throttle and the aircraft began to move forward again, banking away from the building as troops swarmed forward to retrieve the boxes and take them below before the next Vertibird arrived. The last few hours had been a mess, between the Legion indiscriminately killing off the locals...and he'd had words with Wilson himself about what he thought of that...and the Cult staging their counterattack before they were ready for it, he'd have better days. The Legion could fight, he didn't deny that, but had Wilson and Barnaky given thought to what they were going to do if they did this in the IRD? His Company commanders already had problems with the men hiding civilians...most, but not all, women and children....and these were Wastelanders, and camp followers of Raiders. As arrogant and feckless as Detroiters are, they still were civilized people and putting them up on crosses and hauling off their women would not go down well at all with the rank and file. 

Harding pushed his gloomy thoughts into the back of his mind and returned his attention to the matter at hand. The fighting at the Historical Society, two blocks East of his position, was reaching a critical phase....he had to move fast before the Legion Century there was overrun. He had committed Bravo Company, backed up by half of the power armor troops attached to his Battalion, to fighting through to them, but the Enemy seemed determined to wipe them out and he needed to commit his Reserves, but he couldn't do that until he had repulsed the attack on his own headquarters. Brigade was trying to put out a half-dozen fires across Downtown already, so they couldn't release more men to him....but they could, and did, move him to the top of the list for the scurry bots. The Cult liked to play with feral ghouls and mutated creatures in the sewers. Knowing this, the boffins back at Omaha had adapted Calculator bots to sneak into their house and piss in their Sugar Bombs. The Cult counter-attack came before they could be deployed for their first full-scale combat test, but now was as good a time as any.

[u][b]Basement - Several minutes later[/b][/u]

The Cult warriors, preparing their remaining beasts for another assault on the stairwells, dove for cover as the enemy above began to hurl grenades down the stairs. The mole rats and dogs howled and screeched as they went off, with loud bangs and flashes. But the warriors had little time to reflect on why the enemy had used stun grenades instead of the usual frag grenades when they heard movement from the next floor, beyond the stairs.  Pleased that the Enemy had finally decided to engage them , they began firing up the stairwell and the beast masters loosed their charges. The half-starved and frenzied creatures bounded for the stairs unbidden, but within seconds the horrid cries of pain and even fear the beasts emitted, cut off within seconds, made it clear that something had gone wrong. But the blood-lust induced by the miasma from their respirators could not be denied, and with a shout of "PH´NGLUI SOTH!", the Cult warriors rose to engage the enemy. But there were no Brotherhood soldiers, just a loud mechanical skittering across the floor as dozens of metal, spider-like things skittered down the stairs and scattered in all directions. They began firing at them, but there were far too many, and they moved too fast.

From the floor above, the Knights smiled in their suits as they heard the panicked firing and screams coming from below as the scurry bots made short work of the defenders below. 

"Bet they didn't see that coming", the Knight-Sergeant said with a smirk. After seeing what the scurry bots did to the Cultist's creatures, he almost felt sorry for the poor bastards.....almost.