FO4 | Book 1: Bombs on Monday Morning ✔️

Ch 6: Promotion to General

I had been on the road for only ten minutes or so before I came across these giant, mutated, naked mole rats. Dogmeat managed to take down most of them with ease, but it left me startled. I wound up going all the way back to Sanctuary for my Power Armor.

The battery life was half full. I didn't know what that meant in terms of how long it would last versus the distance I had to travel, but I chanced it anyway. I followed the roads east until I came across a quaint little town called Tenpines Bluff, the town Preston had marked for me.

There were only a total of two settlers here. One, a stout man with brown hair and a mustache, was tending to a pot over an open flame surrounded by cinder blocks. The other, a female with short black hair and sleepy-looking eyes, was weeding a few red plants growing on vines — probably the 'tatoes' Sturges mentioned. They looked a lot like tough-skinned tomatoes.

I walked up to the woman in the small field. "Hi," I greeted her.

She looked up and her eyes went wide at the first sight of me. Perhaps the suit of Power Armor threw her off. "What do you want?" she pressed. "We don't need any more trouble around here."

"Did you ask the Minutemen for help?"

"You're with the Minutemen? I didn't really think you fellas still existed." She relaxed. "We sent word with one of them passing traders, but honestly I never expected anything to come of it. Most people don't put much stock in the Minutemen these days, after Quincey. Bad business, that."

I didn't consider myself a part of Preston's "Minutemen," as far as I was concerned, but she didn't need to know that. I was just here to do Preston a favor and help these people out. So, I cut straight to the chase. "What do you need help with?"

"There's a Raider gang that's been giving us trouble for weeks. Stealing food and supplies, threatening to kill us all if we don't pony up. We know where they're coming from, but we can't go up against a gang like that."

I bit my lip. I wasn't about to throw myself head-first into a Raiders' den for nothing. "Will you be willing to join the Minutemen once I've dealt with those Raiders?"

"We'll certainly give it a good long think. People have gotten used to not being able to count on you folks. That's not going to change overnight. They're holed up at Walden Pond. You know where that is?" When I shook my head, she gave me directions. "Think you can manage?"

"I'll give it a shot. If I don't come back, you'll know what happened."

She frowned at that last bit and returned to her work.

I didn't want to put on airs. I barely had faith in myself and wasn't built for this kind of work. I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up if it turned out I couldn't follow through with their requests.

It was already getting dark outside since the work with Sturges took longer than expected. I tried running in my suit to my destination, but it just drained my battery twice as fast. I was at thirty percent battery already. At least it gave me an idea of how long these fusion cores lasted. How did people in the armed forces manage?

I traveled northwest for almost two hours. Dogmeat never left my side. He seemed to enjoy traveling around. He was quiet and never asked anything of me; I was beginning to like him more than most people.

I came to a small house on a hillside with an electricity tower standing not far in front of it. It wasn't quite on my destination list, but I was close enough to it to investigate without getting too off-trail. Hoping to find something useful inside, I made my way toward the building but quickly noticed the zombie-like monsters littering the ground. Alerted by the sound of my clanking armor, they rose up from the ground like ancient corpses, moaning and groaning.