I held out my hand curled in a fist.
"To a good kill." I said with a grin.
Boone looked at the offered fist and lightly tapped his own against it.
"Damn right." he said firmly.
"Come on. We have to get back to the ladies." I said waving him to follow me as I started walking back to the gate of the Strip.
The Securitrons moved fast as by the time we got there Vulpes's corpse had already been disposed of and all that said it had been there was a bloody stain on the cracked concrete. The bots didn't so much as twitch when we walked by them and into the Strip again. -
To no surprise at all Jess was nowhere to be seen while Veronica was waiting outside the Lucky thirty eight.
"Having a chat with House I assume?" I asked as we walked up.
"Yeah, said the chip was actually his and was important." she said looking confused.
"How long ago was that exactly?" I asked eyeing the securitrons o the strip.
"About ten minutes ago. Why?" she asked not understanding why that was important.
Almost the moment she asked the faces on the securitrons changed from the mean mug cartoon cops to angry army soldiers as missile ports opened and closed.
"That, that is why." I said with a chuckle.
"What the hell!?" she exclaimed in horror.
"I assume the Brotherhood never took apart a mostly intact Securitron before? A nifty but not well known fact is that they were in a sort of trial mode this entire time and not fully activated. Now they are. This new upgrade comes with grenade and missile launcher usage along with self repair protocols." I said motioning at the bots cycling those new things and in real time repairing themselves to peak operating ability.
"I am suddenly very glad no one knows where my family is." Veronica said with a horrified expression.
"No, House does know. He's long since traced the squads you lot send out back to Hidden valley. He'll be wanting to kill you all soon I'd wager." I said calmly.
"WHAT!?" she screeched.
"House is literally one of the people who is diametrically opposed to your peoples beliefs. The fact you have survived this long is because you didn't pose any threat to him or his plans. But what he's planning on doing in the future? Oh you would be serious thorns in his side. Best to wipe you out preemptively in his opinion." I said honestly.
"I have to warn them!" she said as moved quickly.
Grab her shoulder to stop her "Hold on there. Before you go and do that ask yourself a question. Will they even listen to you?" I said seriously before releasing her shoulder.
"I have to try!" she said with a face that made it obvious she knew the answer to that question.
"Then go. You haven't much time." I say with a nod.
"Also part of the plan I assume?" Adam asked as we watched her rush away.
"I'm not saying House is wrong about the brotherhood but going straight to genocide without any attempt at trying to relocate them is a bit far in my opinion. At least this way no one can say they hadn't been given a chance." I say frankly.
"We are going to be the executioners aren't we?" Boone asked with a dark expression.
"Most likely yes." I say honestly.
"It's Bitter springs all over again." he said with a hard expression.
"Not exactly. In this case there are only a handful of truly innocent casualties. Every soul in that bunker is trained and if necessary ready to die for their beliefs. Besides there's a good chance Jess will flat out tell House no. At that point he will send a force of Securitrons or just tell the NCR where the Brotherhood is and let them deal with it. The point of me revealing this was never to stop it. But to make it so when it happens the Brotherhood doesn't get caught with their pants down. If they run away like any logical person might even better." I said seriously.
"And if they don't?" he asked seriously.
"Then what comes next is not something we should care about as they chose it for themselves. I've given them a chance at salvation. If they ignore it or worse dig in then they have only themselves to blame." I say with a shrug.
"And the children?" he asked darkly.
"Obviously we aren't going to kill kids. House won't care about that anyways since those kids will likely die anyways. The wasteland is not kind to unattended children. Even if they somehow survive and come for revenge that will be years into the future. A time by which we will likely be long gone." I say frankly.
"You really don't sugar coat anything do you?" he asked almost morbidly amused.
I shrugged "Why would I? Leaving out details gets people killed and there's nothing pretty about a lot of this stuff. If I tell you exactly what we will expect you aren't taken by surprise when it happens. Consider it preseasoning if you like. A bit of preemptive numbing." I said casually.
"Could have used people like you in command when I served in the NCR. Would have saved me sleepless nights." he said tiredly.
"You won't find anyone like that in command. This might work fine for a group like ours that are all hardened individuals to various degrees. But in an army that is comprised of barely grown men and woman and people who grew up in relative safety it would create deserters by the bushel. That's the trick to recruiting and holding troops. You romanticize it and only after they can't leave do you let the experience really become visible. Or you can do what the Legion and Brotherhood do and train your soldiers from childhood so the shock of real battle is not nearly so visceral." I said with a helpless shrug.
Boone went quiet with that as I wasn't wrong. He knew just what sort of hell actual combat was. He was one of those young hopefuls once after all. He knew I was right, he'd seen it himself how the reality broke some people. He himself had personally seen people desert during the bloody times. For those who had experience like our group my method worked but for new or still unbloodied soldiers it would cause far too many problems.