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The two men stood in silence, the wind pulling the scent of smoke and salt through the blood-soaked air. Behind them, the Freemasons Republic dug in — scarred, bloodied, but unbowed.
The wind dragged in across the Atlantic, thick with the scent of brine, burned flesh, and old blood. The beachhead was scarred, cratered and slick with Mirelurk gore — and yet, the line held.
Sico stood near the edge of the forward position, eyes narrowed beneath his hood as the surf hissed and receded a few feet down the shore. He didn't move. Not for the sound of shifting boots, not for the engineers hammering in turret pylons behind him, not even for the low, predatory groan of the sea that echoed like a threat.
He raised his left arm, pressing two fingers to his wrist comms.
"Castle Command, this is President Sico. Come in."
A second of static crackled back, followed by a familiar voice laced with grit and fire.
"This is Ronnie," she said, exhaling sharply, probably with a cigar clenched between her teeth. "We're up. Gate's shut, turrets are rearmed, internal perimeter's stable. We've got wounded but the medics are on them. No fatalities that I've been told. Preston and MacCready's boys are already helping patch the wall. You want the full report?"
Sico didn't answer immediately. His eyes scanned the retreating Mirelurks, still gathered in clusters near the shallows like an alien army awaiting the signal to rise again. He'd seen enough battles in his life to know this lull was temporary. The Queen hadn't shown because she didn't need to. Yet. She had tested them. Measured their strength. And now she was planning her next move.
"I'll take the full report when I see you in person," Sico finally said, lowering his voice but keeping it sharp. "We're not moving out. I'm setting up camp just north of your wall, outside the eastern slope. This isn't over. We dig in now, reinforce the beach and wait for her to show herself. When she does, we hit from both sides — Castle interior, and our outer formation."
"Copy that," Ronnie replied without hesitation. "You'll get no argument from me. And Sico?"
"Go ahead."
"That Queen's been toying with us for weeks. First the bait runs, then the night hits. This was the first time she got that close. I don't think she's coming to test us again. Next time? She'll be here to end us."
"I'm counting on it."
Ronnie went silent for a second, then chuckled under her breath. "You always did like the hard fights. Alright. I'll prep the interior for synced assault protocol. If she comes, we open the gate again. Same play, but this time we'll have teeth on both ends."
Sico clicked the comms off and turned toward Robert and the power-armored squads that now stood in a loose circle around a growing central position. Already the troops were moving with practiced speed — engineers dragging out coils of razor wire, guards setting up short-range AA emplacements, medics digging in the triage tents. Portable lights were being staked into the sand, illuminating the murky coastline with a sterile white glow.
The convoy trucks had fanned out behind the initial landing position and were forming a ring of defense, their armor plates turned outward like old-world phalanx shields. Sico stepped through them, his boots crunching down onto cracked shells and half-buried detritus. He passed a cluster of soldiers using crowbars to pry open a supply container, revealing fresh power cells, cryo-grenades, and field ration crates. Another pair of techs were reinforcing a Sentinel's leg brace, welding sparks dancing in the sea wind.
He stopped when he reached the engineers laying the first turret base on a concrete slab they'd found half-buried in the sand.
"Focus the platforms to the southern crescent," Sico ordered, nodding toward the curve of the beach. "Make a semi-circle here. Set rangefinders to sweep ten meters offshore. If the Queen breaches within that zone, I want the automated systems online before the first man fires."
"Understood, President," one of the lead engineers said, marking the adjustments into her terminal.
Sico stepped back. He looked over the formation — battered but alive, organized and disciplined even after hours of chaos. They had held. And now, they would turn this ground into a killing field.
Behind him, Robert approached. The commander's second-in-command still had splashes of Mirelurk acid crusted on his boots and one deep tear in his sleeve, already wrapped with gauze and tape.
"Wounded are stable," Robert reported. "Medics say four critical, but they'll make it. That new pressure foam you authorized saved a couple limbs."
Sico gave a short nod. "How many casualties total?"
"Seventeen injured. No deaths."
The words settled in Sico's chest like a breath of ice. No deaths. Against a full-scale Mirelurk assault.
"We hold this camp here until further notice," Sico said. "Start rotating units for rest. Two-hour watch shifts. Humvees cycle engine heat to the tents. I want no one freezing out here."
Robert raised a brow. "You think she'll come at night?"
"No," Sico said. "She's smarter than that. But I want us ready anyway. I want her to see lights on the coast and realize she's not facing a soft target. Let her think we're unprepared."
Robert gave a slow grin, small but sharp. "You're baiting her."
Sico turned back toward the black waves, his cloak fluttering in the wind.
"She needs to die. And she won't show unless we look like a threat worth ending."
He fell silent for a moment, then added:
"When she comes… we finish this."
An hour passed.
Then two.
By midnight, the beach had been fortified into a forward fortress. Barbed coils ringed the approach. Three rows of turret platforms lined the ridge overlooking the surf, synced with the Sentinels' fire-control units. Mines had been buried in strategic crossfire zones — not enough to detonate by sea swell, but plenty to take a heavy crawler's legs out from under it. The engineers had rigged sensor arrays to the cliffside above, forming an aerial mesh net over the coast.
And inside the Castle, the fortress had become a hornet's nest.
Ronnie's men — those not wounded — had braced the inner gate with steel supports, stacked sandbags in a double arc, and repositioned the interior Sentinels to form a last-ditch firing squad that could obliterate anything that broke through.
Every window slit, every stone hole in the parapet, now held a sniper or a spotter.
Torches burned along the old castle walls, supplemented with high-beam LED panels the Republic had mounted atop floodlight tripods. The whole place glowed like a war-temple in the mist.
And still the sea waited.
Sico stood on the edge of a sandbag platform near the first turret row, staring into the dark. A storm had begun to churn on the horizon — faint lightning, no thunder yet. The clouds coiled like ink in the night sky, and the waves struck the sand in slow, rising pulses.
"She's coming soon," Robert said, stepping up with two cups of steaming caf. He handed one to Sico.
The commander didn't speak. Just took a sip. Let the bitter heat sit on his tongue.
"Every instinct I have," Sico said eventually, "tells me she'll come at dawn."
Robert sipped his drink, eyes scanning the shadows.
"Then let's make her regret crawling out of whatever hell she calls home."
They stood in silence, shoulder to shoulder, watching the storm gather.
Below them, the beach shimmered in eerie light. The turrets blinked in their idle state, scanning. Sentinels loomed like iron gods in slumber. Soldiers rested in rotation, while others kept watch from trench corners, weapons in hand, staring into the night as though daring it to come alive.
The sky broke in bruises of red and amber, a cruel, bleeding light that spilled across the Atlantic like an omen. Dawn was coming — but there was no warmth in it, no calm.
Only tension.
Sico stood on the makeshift command platform, staring out over the surf. Behind him, the coastal encampment hummed with nervous, grinding readiness. It was the hour before the storm — the final breath of silence before all hell crashed ashore again.
Robert was already awake, pacing along the turret rows, double-checking shell feeds and calling out readiness signals to squad leaders. Engineers moved between emplacement positions, adjusting rangefinders and syncing the artillery nests built overnight.
The wind carried with it the smell of copper and acid. The sea, once a restless giant muttering in its sleep, now went quiet — too quiet.
Then came the first sound.
It was not the screech of a hatchling, nor the gurgling moan of a spitter.
It was something deeper.
A vibration, felt before it was heard — in the boots, in the ribcage. A low, seismic rhythm, like the heartbeat of something monstrous rising from the depths of the earth.
Sico stiffened.
Robert, further down the line, turned slowly toward the surf.
The sea began to part.
Not dramatically, not like a biblical miracle — but like it was being shoved out of the way. Water heaved and churned in unnatural motions, waves breaking against something not yet seen. The shallows exploded in foam and silt as creatures began to pour forth, pushing through the surf in endless ranks.
The Mirelurks had returned.
First came the hatchlings, dozens of them, hissing and skittering like armored rats. Then the spitters and snappers, charging behind them in their crablike gait, spraying acidic bile as they frothed across the sand. Warriors followed next, their chitinous bodies pocked with scars from the night before. They were relentless. Unafraid. Unified.
And behind them, the sea boiled.
Sico's voice broke through the radio channels like thunder.
"Hold positions. Wait for visual on the primary. Fire on my mark."
Turret servos whirred to life. Sentinel cannons rose and adjusted. Missile pods on the back of the Humvees swiveled with soft beeps.
Then, from the depths, the ocean erupted.
She rose like a leviathan, a mass of shadow and armored flesh larger than any tank, larger than the Castle walls themselves. The Mirelurk Queen breached with a scream that shook the bones of every man and woman on the line. Her shell gleamed like oil in the new light, soaked in barnacles, seaweed, and blood. Her claws were the size of vehicles, jagged and curved like butcher's hooks.
Her eyes—black, bulbous, shining—fixed on the Castle with a terrible intelligence.
And then she roared.
Not a roar like any known beast. It was a psychic tremor, a death-knell. A signal.
The horde surged forward.
"OPEN FIRE!" Sico bellowed.
The beach exploded.
Turrets screamed. Rockets lanced through the morning air, slamming into the Mirelurk lines with thunderous force. The first row of hatchlings evaporated into bloody mist as shrapnel carved through their fragile bodies. Sentinels locked on and unleashed hell, their autocannons stuttering in bone-shaking rhythm, tearing through warriors with each burst.
Grenades arced in graceful, glowing trails. Mines detonated beneath the sand, sending geysers of fire and claws high into the sky.
And yet—they came.
The Queen lumbered forward through the surf, impervious to the chaos around her. Her legs shattered the shallows with each step. Acid hissed from her gaping maw, dousing the ground before her and melting the bodies of both friend and foe.
"Target the Queen!" Sico barked. "All Sentinels, main guns, now!"
All eight Sentinels at the front opened fire simultaneously, unleashing a thunderous volley. Explosive shells struck her head-on — but instead of collapsing, the Queen reared back, her shell cracking, but not breaking. Chunks of armor sloughed off, revealing gleaming, wet muscle beneath.
"She's still coming!" Robert shouted. "Two hundred meters and closing!"
Sico slammed a fresh power cell into his plasma rifle and vaulted over the sandbag wall. "All squads! Fall to Phase Two! Draw them inward — we're baiting her to the kill zone!"
The beachside formation began to contract, falling back in disciplined bursts. Infantry squads leapfrogged through the defensive trenches, covering one another while continuing to fire. Engineers remotely detonated the final line of mines — a deafening blast that momentarily slowed the horde — but the Queen pushed through, shrieking with fury.
From the Castle, the main gate groaned open.
Ronnie's voice came over comms. "Castle interior locked and loaded! You got one chance to draw her in!"
Sico sprinted down the makeshift trench, shouting orders. "Squad Gamma, flank left and drop smoke! Bravo, hit her under the abdomen when she clears the trench wall! DO NOT let her see the gate opening—"
But it was too late.
The Queen turned toward the Castle, sensing its power, its threat.
She changed course.
"NOW, FIRE EVERYTHING!" Sico screamed.
The Castle erupted. Snipers, rocket launchers, machine guns, all let loose at once. A pair of anti-tank cannons mounted to the interior towers unleashed their payloads, striking the Queen dead-on in the thorax.
She screamed.
For the first time, she bled — real blood, arterial and thick, spraying into the air like black syrup.
She reared back, claws flailing. Dozens of Mirelurks broke formation to shield her, crawling over her like armor, sacrificing themselves in waves.
But the Republic didn't stop.
Sico leapt onto a crumbled concrete pile, raised his rifle, and opened fire. His plasma bolts tore through a spitter's face, then another, and another.
The Mirelurk Queen shrieked again—a guttural, mind-piercing sound that rattled teeth and froze pulses. It was the scream of a dying god, furious and unbowed, and it drove the remaining hatchlings into a frenzy. They surged forward in a tidal wave of claws and bile, scuttling over the remains of their brethren, heedless of the bullets, the flames, the death awaiting them on every inch of beach.
Sico didn't flinch.
His boots splashed into blackening surf, blood and saltwater soaking his combat trousers. Around him, the line held—not through magic or miracle, but through the sheer discipline of the Freemasons Republic. The front was a butcher's alley. Every inch of sand contested, every breath paid in blood. And still, they fought.
From the Castle walls, Ronnie Shaw's voice barked into his earpiece.
"Sico—artillery is standing by. I've got five artillery loaded with high-yield rounds. You want the Queen dead, we can kill it with the artillery."
"Do it!" Sico growled. "But keep your line short. Don't rain hell on our heads!"
"Copy that. Adjusting trajectory. Stand clear of grid nine-echo!"
Above, the air cracked like a lightning storm. The Castle's artillery fired in sequence—thoom, thoom-thoom, thoom!—each detonation shaking the foundation of the beach and sending geysers of smoke and fire into the sky.
The first shell landed just behind the Queen, blowing apart a dozen of her kin. The shockwave sent her reeling, cracking her back plates open like a boiled crab. Her shriek faltered, then turned into a roar of desperation.
The second shell landed nearer the surf, obliterating a nest of warriors that had attempted to flank right. Chitin and limbs flew like confetti. Sico could feel the concussion in his chest.
The third—a perfect hit—landed directly in front of the Queen, flinging sand and corpses into the air and rocking her onto her hind legs. It left her exposed.
"NOW!" Sico yelled, throat raw. "All Sentinels—direct fire! Open her up!"
Eight Sentinel tanks, lined shoulder to shoulder like ancient war elephants, focused their cannons on the gaping wound beneath the Queen's shell. In one symphonic moment of death, they unleashed.
The blasts tore through her undercarriage, igniting her insides. For a second, she simply stopped moving—massive, frozen, silent—then, with an unholy gurgle, collapsed onto her side, half of her body liquified from within. Her claws twitched once. Then again. Then stilled.
A cheer rose from the lines—raw, ragged, euphoric.
But Sico didn't celebrate. Not yet.
Because the horde didn't stop moving.
"They're not retreating," Robert snarled, stepping up beside him. His armor was scorched, bleeding in places, but his eyes burned bright with fury. "They're suicidal."
"They're loyal," Sico replied bitterly, watching as the remaining Mirelurks—some bleeding, many limping—pressed forward over the fallen Queen. "Or controlled. Doesn't matter. Either way…"
He raised his rifle again.
"We finish it."
On the western flank, Preston Garvey came out from the Castle to push.
His coat was torn, the brim of his hat gone, but his aim was true. Laser musket in one hand, revolver in the other, he strode across the burning beach like vengeance incarnate. Behind him, his squad advanced with ruthless precision—Commonwealth veterans, forged in fire.
"Don't let 'em scatter!" Preston shouted, pointing his musket toward a knot of Mirelurk spitters that had broken formation. "Cut them down! No survivors!"
To his left, a demolitions specialist hurled a frag mine into their path. It detonated with a meaty boom, sending the crablike beasts flying. One tried to rise—Preston put a round in its eye.
"Push left! MacCready, your side's breaking!"
On the far edge of the front, MacCready with his team pursued a retreating wave of Mirelurks who'd turned tail. They weren't cowardly—just desperate, maybe attempting to regroup in the marshlands to the north.
Not on his watch.
"Move your asses!" MacCready snapped, sprinting through ankle-deep mire as laser fire lanced past his head. He slid behind a ruined tank trap, popped out, and dropped a warrior with two shots to the thorax. "Nobody's escaping this beach. Not today!"
He fired again—click. Empty.
"Reloading!" he called, ducking behind cover. "Cover me!"
His squad answered in kind. A torrent of gunfire lit up the retreating horde, chewing through their ranks. A Mirelurk with half a face and a shattered claw stumbled forward, clicking weakly—MacCready blew its head off mid-stride.
When he finally stood, breath heaving, all that was left were bodies. Dozens of them. Strewn across the muck like discarded armor.
"Clear," he muttered. "For now."
Back at the center, Sico pressed the advantage.
He didn't wait for the horde to crumble. He forced it.
"Squads Alpha, Delta, move up! I want overlapping arcs—don't let them form up again!"
Ronnie's voice returned in his ear. "I've got two more salvos ready to drop. You call the coordinates."
He scanned the field quickly, eyes flicking to the right where a dense cluster of warriors had regrouped behind a beached freighter wreck. "Marking grid seven-bravo—ten meters west of the rust pile. Do it now."
Seconds later, the wreck vanished in a flash of white and flame.
The shockwave flattened the group instantly. Some were vaporized, others flung into the surf like dolls. The few that remained stood dazed, legs broken, clawing at the air in confusion.
Sico marched forward, rifle raised. "End them."
His squad moved like wolves. Ruthless. Silent. Efficient.
They cleared the area in less than two minutes.
All across the beach, the battle ground toward a brutal end.
Mirelurk hatchlings fled in scattered bands, some darting into the cliffs, others toward the shallows. Many didn't get far. Flamers and miniguns tore them apart mid-flee.
The Sentinels rolled forward, their tracks crushing shell and sinew, their cannons sweeping the field for movement. Every once in a while, a shriek would rise—then be silenced in a thunderclap.
Ronnie's voice crackled again, lower this time, with a hint of awe.
"That's it… That's all of them."
Sico didn't respond immediately.
He was still scanning. Still listening. Waiting.
But there were no more clicks. No more hisses. No tremors in the sand, no movement in the sea.
Only silence.
The kind that settles after something terrible has been exorcised.
He slowly lowered his rifle.
"All units…" he spoke, his voice weary but resolute, "stand down. Begin sweep and burn."
Across the field, weapons lowered. Soldiers let out shuddering breaths. Medics moved forward from triage tents, checking pulses, dragging the wounded to safety. Engineers began the grim work of gathering the bodies.
Not just of the enemy.
But of their own.
Hours later, the sun finally broke fully above the horizon.
Its light washed over a battlefield transformed—not into peace, but into aftermath.
The Mirelurk Queen lay still at the center, her body half-sunken into the sand like a felled monument. Smoke coiled from shell craters and shattered equipment. The beach, once wide and wild, had been reduced to a ruin of blood and shell fragments.
Sico sat on a crate near the front, helmet off, his face caked in ash and salt.
Ronnie approached from the Castle wall, boots crunching over debris. She looked older in the morning light—her lines deeper, her eyes more haunted.
"We counted over four hundred kills," she said, voice low. "A hundred of those from the artillery. I don't know how many you put down yourself."
"Enough," Sico murmured. He glanced at her. "Any losses?"
"Seventeen dead. Thirty-six wounded. Two Sentinels out of action." She exhaled through her nose. "Could've been worse."
"Could've been better."
Ronnie looked at the Queen's corpse, towering even in death. "That thing… it knew where to go. Knew where we were weak. You think it was just instinct?"
"No." Sico stood slowly, wiping his face with a rag. "That thing had purpose. I saw it in her eyes. She wasn't just an animal. She was leading."
"Controlled?"
"Maybe," he muttered. "Or maybe the Commonwealth's gotten darker than we thought."
By afternoon, the pyres were lit.
Dozens of them. Lined up along the cliffs above the beach, stacked with Mirelurk corpses. The smoke rose into the sky in thick black columns, staining the air for miles.
The Republic made no secret of its victory.
It wanted the world to see.
MacCready stood beside one of the pyres, arms crossed, chewing a cigarette. "Smells like hell."
Preston nodded grimly. "It was."
They watched in silence as another stack went up in flames.
Behind them, soldiers raised the Republic's flag high above the ramparts of the Castle—tattered, but flying.
Sico arrived last.
He didn't speak.
Just stood there, beside them, staring into the fire. And for the first time since dawn, he allowed himself a single, exhausted breath. It was over, for now.
________________________________________________
• 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:-