Excerpt - Chapter 19
There had been an attack up the road heading to Searchlight. It had been a month ago, but rumors traveled in a somewhat sporadic manner out here in the Mojave and they also tended to get repeated. Private Jed Fischer couldn’t get the thought of an entire caravan, protected by a large number of mercenaries with high-end weapons, and so very close to Charlie Station, out of his head. He lit another cigarette, the flare of his match settling an eerie orange glow over his and his partner’s faces. “Did you hear about the caravan near the over pass?”
His partner was a slightly older man, but not by much. Despite only a few years separating them Meyers treated him like a child, a straight from the west rookie, when he began to talk like this. He couldn’t understand that talking about these things was just another form of men whistling as they walked passed graveyards. Fischer needed to talk about these things. “Yeah, I heard.” He clipped his words as he shoved Fischer’s cigarette hand away with a glare. “You know, for all your talk about the horrible Legion you tempt their wrath an awful lot. You know they don’t like shit like that.” He meant cigarettes and all manner of similar substance, which anyone who knew the private well enough would know just how much he indulged in when he got leave to go to the strip.
Fischer dropped his match and ground it into the dirt with his heel. He would just opt to ignore Meyers’ bitter mood tonight.
Meyers didn’t seem interested in letting the subject rest as they walked along their normal patrol route. He quirked his face into a dark smile, and with his usual snarky flair told the other man, “well, I know that if we ever run into any of those skirt-wearing assholes they’ll take you first. So what the hell, go ahead and smoke that thing.”
Private Fischer flicked the build-up of ash from the tip of his cigarette and scanned the area around them, pretending to not hear Meyers’ assertion. Unfortunately, he was probably right. After the tale passed along from the scorched town of Nipton, Fischer had no doubt just how serious these Legion guys were about their version of morality.
“They could be watching us right now,” Meyers continued his condescending rant, lifting his arms up like he was holding something he was about to launch, “just waiting until they have you in their sights, perfect angle, and boom! One minute you’re sucking ash and the next you have a spear in your side.”
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