Chapter 113: On the Trail.
With the ceasefire in full effect and the conclusion of the peace talks between the Avian people who called themselves the Valkyries and the Brotherhood of Steel not to mention the Free Peoples of the Wastes, there were celebrations aplenty in the capital city of the Avians.
To cement their newfound alliance both sides had sent a permanent envoy/ambassador to represent their party's interests to the other's base of operations.
As the trusted neutral party between the two Raymond facilitated this exchange and more than that he even got the technology exchange underway with groups of Brotherhood Knights now being escorted into the ground-based territory of the Valkyries and true to their word both parties were sharing both the technology and knowledge gained equally.
Oliver was the envoy the Valkyries had assigned to the Brotherhood due to his experience dealing with them while from the Brotherhood a Chief Scribe called Darius Lancaster was brought up to the floating city.
The Valkyries decided that it would be a good idea if they attached a small team of their Featherguard to Raymond's team as the Brotherhood had done in order to not only put a positive face out there for the people to see but to represent their interests among the Free Peoples.
So a team of three Featherguards two males and a female of three different genus arrived the day before Raymond and his people were due to ship out from the floating city, all to be placed under the command of Jewal who thanks to some creative negotiating from both Raymond and an impassioned plea from Kight Hill had now been reinstated to her previous role and her honour restored.
"So what's the deal have you managed to speak to Seven and Wisp?" Jack asked Raymond as he carried his bags down into the little airship that was sitting in the dock ready to drop them off back on Terrafirma.
"Seven yes though I couldn't get hold of Wisp herself Malakai informs me that they are involved in a rather sensitive mission at the moment," Raymond said as he passed bags over to Lia who was standing in the back of the airship helping the team to load up.
"So?" Jack asked sounding almost eager to be heading on to yet another adventure.
"He wants us working on the new Enclave problem, he's concerned about the intel the Brotherhood intercepted about this mass operation they are apparently launching and he wants us on the ground investigating it, he also told us to make sure that we share everything we find openly with our new allies, he's stoked about this budding alliance we have going," Raymond said sound rather proud of himself.
"As are we, this is a tremendous accomplishment Raymond and a massive step forwards for not only the region but quite possibly the whole country, this could very well be the dawning of a new era we are standing upon the precipice of if we can prove without any shadow of a doubt that humans and non-humans can work together for the betterment of one another then there is no reason that this idea cannot be picked up by the other Brotherhood factions and sections countrywide, soon you could have chapters of the Free Peoples partnered with their new Brotherhood allies all over," Paladin Wright said handing her own kit bag over to Lia in what Raymond felt was a distinct show of trust.
"We agree, with peace finally once again reigning over our beautiful lands and skies we can now turn our attention to stepping outside of our lands alongside our new allies and showing the common people of this place that not only do we not bare them any ill will but we stand ready to aid them if we can," Latisha Firetail said in a high-pitched and very singsong voice as she too handed over a large kit bag to Lia to stow for them.
Latisha was one of the new Featherguard soldiers that had been assigned to Raymond's team by the Elders, she was a Condor Geneus and as such was a fair bit larger than her two other new comrades who were of the Golden Eagle Genus and the Raven Genus.
Infact she stood taller than both Raymond and Lia coming in at just about 8ft tall and anyone could see her size wasn't just restricted to height, she had muscles that could make just about any Super Mutant jealous.
She also had a personality to go with her size living up to the name Firetail as she was outspoken and somewhat loud but not bad-natured.
Her massive metal-covered talons clattered on the deck plating as she climbed over the edge of the ship and dropped down to the decking to help Lia with the loading of the gear which the large Claw girl was lifting and moving to hand to some of Jack's Ronin who was in the hold stowing everything.
"So where has our glorious leader told us to start looking?" Cho asked appearing from the hold.
Raymond had already noticed that she seemed to be spending quite a lot of time with Ronin these days and more specifically with Jack and just the simple thought made him smile, the big mutant guy really did deserve to have someone who could make him happy in his life, though if either of them had decided to take that step yet was a bit of a mystery.
"He's placed that in our hands, he told us to work as closely as we could with our new friends and to use our talents wisely, he also told us to be on the lookout to either undo any potential sabotage or damage that the Enclave may have already inflicted on the region as well as to also help anyone we can along our path, but he did advise possibly trying to seek out these Minutemen we keep hearing about as given their nature of being embedded in all the local settlements as a kind of widespread militia they might be able to either aid us or at least point us in the right direction," Raymond said.
"A sound strategy and one I wholeheartedly approve of, I've been trying to get my superiors to sit down with the leaders of the Minutemen since we got here, but until now every attempt has fallen on deaf ears though with what has happened among the Elders I believe I know why, though I do have some knowledge on them which I would be happy to share if it helps," Paladin Wright said dropping down onto the deck with a heavy thud before helping Lia and Latisha with the bags.
"Excellent that will be most useful, well then we have a baseline plan, once we're back on Terrafirma we'll have a sit down to go over what intel you have on the Minutemen and see if between us we can come up with a plan to facilitate an approach that won't result in shooting," Raymond said.
"Sounds good," Paladin Wright said and with that they got the loading finished.
Once the airship had dropped them off on the ground and they'd unloaded everything they waved goodbye to their pilot as the little shit ascended back up into the clouds.
Raymond decided that the warehouse they'd used to host all the meetings was as good a place as any to host the sit down so the team got themselves into the building and set up to plan.
"Ok from what I understand the Minutemen leadership operate out of an old civil war fort they simply refer to as the castle, it's a fair old walk from here but not a hard one as the ground is pretty flat and we can follow the roads, though we may have to pass through some pretty dodgy regions filled with feral Ghouls, not so friendly mutants and everyone's favourite cuntbags the raiders," Paladin Wright said using her armour's headlamp as a projector to project an image of a regional map onto the table they were all gathered around.
"Feral ghouls won't attack us for the most part, if we encounter any area infested with them me and my team can run ahead of the main force and divert them away, which should make passing through a fair bit easier and quieter," Jack said.
"Same thing applies to the mutants?" Latisha asked curiously and both Raymond and Jack shook their heads.
