Radiance

Chapter 124: For The Love of The Motherland.

With the threat from the Enclave eliminated for the time being and their captive securely locked down so that escape would be impossible Raymond's group and their new Scorpian friends retreated to an old factory they had seen on the trek over here that they had earmarked as a potential hold up point should they need it.

It required a bit of cleanup to get all the bugs and feral Ghouls out of the place but that didn't take them long and pretty soon they had it all locked down and Zixxy could see that Paladin Wright was positively chomping at the bit to talk to their mysterious new friend.

So as everyone gathered around the war table while Jack's Ronin guarded their rather unhappy captive Zixxy sat atop of Luca's power armoured shoulder watching everything go down.

"So Sasha you are a member of the Brotherhood correct?" Paladin Wright asked and he nodded his grizzled head.

"Da Sargent Sasha Belochovich of the Second Free Roarmer squadron at your service Paladin," Sasha said with a salute before handing over his Brotherhood tags to her for inspection.

"Second Free Roamer Squadron? You mean the Cossacks? What the hell are you guys doing all the way out here? Last I hear you guys were operating down in DC?" Paladin Wright said scrutinising the dog tags before handing them back to him seemingly satisfied by their authenticity.

"Pardon the interruption but for those of us that don't speak Brotherhood, who are the Cossacks exactly?" Raymond asked.

"A partisan group made up of Russian and European military survivors that were on US soil when the shit royally hit the fan, their nations had sent them here to help us with the Chinese invasion predominantly recognising that if the US fell to them then their own problems would get infinitely worse given our vast military and economic might being in Chinese hands being a very bad thing, so a few of the nations that could send detachments predominantly of their special forces groups like Spetznaz, SAS, Foreign Legion etcetera here to help us out, the vast majority of the troops sent came from the Russian Federation and when the bombs fell word has it that most of them survived by seeking shelter in the deepest parts of the DC metro system," Paladin Wright explained.

"Da this is correct, many generations were born, raised and even trained in those accursed tunnels but eventually we made our way to the surface, a Brotherhood force found us and we took them home to meet the parents so to speak and from there because of the military nature and background of the people they inducted us into the Brotherhood and the Roamer squads were formed or the Cossaks as we are known to most," Sasha said.

"Okay, so that's the who I guess but what is a Roamer squad or Cossack and what do you do exactly?" Raymond asked.

"The best way is to think of us as saboteurs and scouts, is our job to get into places that maybe have good technology for the Brotherhood and call it in for local chapters to collect, or to call in big targets like Enclave base for them to hit, or if we can to get in ourselves and blow it up, you know to make much noise and a big headache for jackbooted fucks," Sasha said with a chuckle.

"So you're kinda like a special forces team then?" Raymond asked.

"Da our parents trained us from birth in ways they were trained in by their parents, all of us grew up with a gun in hand and fire in our belly," Sasha said with a nod and a grin.

"They are not 'kinda' like special forces teams, they are special forces teams, the exploits of the Cossacks are something of a myth and legend in the circles I travel in, they are very good at what they do and they answer only to the Elders so any requests for actions to be carried out by them have to come through the main HQ to be approved," Paladin Wright explained.

"Da this is true and this gets me on to why I am here, my team was called upon by a chapter to investigate some strange things happening in a place called Far Harbour, so we were dispatched to investigate but before we could arrive our Vertibird was shot down by Supermutants, we survived crash but had to start making our way on foot, this did not go well," Sasha said sounding rather morose.

"What happened to the rest of your team, Sargent?" Paladin Wright asked and Sasha reached down and took off his belt before removing what appeared to be Brotherhood dog tags that he had sewn into the rear of it and handing them to her, there were five in all.

"They need to be added to the Great Chain Paladin so they are never forgotten," he said softly as she looked down at the collection of small silver discs in her hand before closing her fist around them.

"They will be Sargent but I need to know what happened so their deeds can be properly recorded," she said softly.

"As I said we survived the crash but thinking on it now maybe it would have been kinder if we had not, first we encounter large cult, crazy people who worship big moth creatures, they attack us and set a whole host of these creatures upon us, we wiped them out but not before we lose both Misha and Veronika, there were so many that they blotted out the sky above while crazy people swarm us on the ground below, we were lucky to live that day, we bury bodies, salvage armour and scuttle what we cannot carry," Sasha said softly.

Zixxy could feel the pain radiating from the man in waves and she could feel the raw truth in every word he spoke without having to probe his mind at all.

They all sat silently letting him continue his story.

"We should have turned back then but all Cossacks are taught from birth, only two things matter, people to your sides and mission at your front, what is behind is for the past to worry about, you worry only of future and what it brings, must always be ready for it so we meet it head on, so we push on following map we get from trader we meet on road, he also warned us of Radiers in the area, we did not take him seriously, this was mistake, we were arrogant and foolhardy, we thought that we are best of Brotherhood what threat could mere Raiders pose to us, Victor and Lisa both find out hard way that they posed very great deal of threat but we made them pay in blood for our fallen brother and sister, we leave not one standing, make whole area safer but it costs us dearly, now only is me and Thomas left," he said hanging his head low as he recounted his tale.

"What happened to Thomas?" Paladin Wright asked in a soft voice and Sasha's eyes went to their Spectre captive.

"They happened to him, our power armour ran out of power, it was badly amaged after the many battles we had endured, the fusion cores were near exausted and we felt it would be better to scuttle them then to let them fall into hands in which they did not belong, so we scuttled our suits by overloading what was left in the cores, shortly after this we encountered an Enclave team, we were out gunned and out flanked so we did only tthing we could, we ran, Thomas was wounded but would not let me carry him to safty, he said it would only slow me down and get us both captured or killed, so he took our last grenades and our last plasma cartridges and he set a trap for them, he gave me his tags before I left and is good thing he did as I heard blast of his trap from very far away, I hope he took many bastards with him, he was good brother till the end, but in the end it did not matter, I had heard that large contingent of Brotherhood had come here to Boston so I head here in hope that I can reach outpost and tell our story, but I get captured by these fools before I get there, but now at least the tale of my fallen brothers and sisters is told and they will not be forgoton or lost to time," Sasha said.

Paladin Wright nodded her head gently and closed her fist fully around the tags before placing them carefully into a pouch on her belt.

"I will make sure that their names are added the the record personally Sargent, their names and deeds will forever be a part of the Chain that binds us and all others like us together," she said and Sasha nodded now looking absolutely exhausted.

"Thank you Paladin, may I ask what is to become of that one?" he asked nodding at their rather quiet captive who simply sat there glaring at all the large super mutants surrounding her.

"Oh don't you worry Sargent, she's got a date with our resident interrogation specialist and let us just say that the methods of the Free Peoples are a lot more effective than either our own or theirs are," Paladin Wright said giving Zixxy a knowing nod.

"Worry not Sasha there will be no secret she can hide from me, what she knows soon I will and then you all will," Zixxy said and Sasha glanced up at the little alien who was still perched on the pauldrom of Luca's armour.

"Da this is good, my only hope is that what you will learn will save more lives, then my brothers and sisters will not have died in vain," he said.

"Sounds to me like they didn't die in vain to begin with Sasha, destroying both a cult and a huge Raider outpost were noble deeds indeed, undoubtedly those regions are now far safer thanks to your actions and undoubtedly the good people of those areas will forever remember the kind power armoured soldiers that came to them in their time of need and removed the oppression from them, deeds like these do not go unnoticed and it is my belief that right now people are feeling like finally someone heard their prayers and sent them an answer thanks to you guys," Raymond said.

"Well said my love, well said, yes you should be proud of what you accomplished Sasha, you travelled far, fought hard and stuck to your principles when it would have been too easy to have given in and become like the very people you fought against just to survive, but you did not, you stood tall and proud and you fought, always remember that," Lia said as she stood proudly next to her husband.

"This is very strange group indeed but you speak many wise words from many different mouths, thank you one and all and thank you, especially to Nightstalker girl Riss for freeing me, I will not forget this act of kindness," Sasha said causing Riss to nod as she hugged her husband from behind.

"Do not mention it SSSSasssha, it issss what we do," she said.

"So what's our next move?" Paladin Wright asked and Raymond turned to Zixxy and gave her a knowing nod.

"I do believe this where I come in," Zixxy said gently patting the side of Lucas's head so that he lifted her down from his shoulder and she had to admit she rather liked the feeling of being manhandled by him even if it was kind of an illusion thanks to his power armour.

As she walked over towards their captive the woman seemed to spring to life and began struggling against her bonds with very obvious fury as she tried to avoid Zixxy's touch.

Suddenly a very large green hand appeared on the woman's shoulder and squeezed hard enough to fully get the woman's attention.

"While we pride ourselves on being nothing like you animals this is happening whether you like it or not but in the spirit of how this group of ours operates I'll offer you a choice, you can deal with her or you can deal with me and let's be fair I'm no psychic so my methods of validating information are a little......cruder," Jack softly growled in the woman's ear.

She looked up at the large super mutant with eyes as wide as dinner plates but Zixxy could still see the fury in there that she was trying to mask with her fear response, oh this one was good.

"Pain would not get anything of any use," Zixxy warned and Jack gave her a grin.

"What do you take me for little one? Oh no, pain is rather useless as a way of extracting information but fear, thats a whole different kettle of fish indeed, I mean there's nothing quite like having someone watch a pack of feral Ghouls tear a freshly caught radstag limb from limb and pull its guts out and start chewing while the poor sod is still screaming and kicking to loosen someone's tongue when they realize that they are their next meal," jack growled giving the Spectre a spectacularly dark smile that sent a shiver down Zixxy's spine let alone their captives.

The woman used her head to gesture towards Zixxy and Jack nodded knowingly.

"Yeah that's what I thought, but I warn yer lassie fuck her about and I'll drag out down to nest of those fuckers myself and who knows by the time we get there I might not even care about getting answers anymore," Jack snarled deeply.

Zixxy saw Paladin Wright and Jewel both glancing at Raymond as if trying to gauge whether he would actually allow something that heinous to happen or not but to his credit Raymond simply glared at the woman stoney faced and gave nothing away, the man really did know how to put on a good show when it was required.

"The more you struggle the more this will hurt and the longer it will take so it would be better and kinder for both of us if you did not because let me explain something to you, there is literally nothing you can do to prevent me from pulling the truth from your mind, how long it takes and what state you are in afterwards will be fully on you," Zixxy said and with that, she grabbed both sides of the woman's head and forced her consciousness into her mind.

Near instantly Zixxy was presented with a landscape that resembled a very large hedgerow maze that stood so tall on either side of her that she couldn't properly see the tops of the hedges, but what she could see was the grey gloomy sky above her head.

Zixxy sighed heavily and nodded, "Yeah I figured as much, you know this is an old trick to try and prevent psychic invasion right? My people used to use this trick for a form of entertainment, we call it mind maze running though I will admit the hedges are a nice touch, it's kinda nice to see a bit of greenery for a change, usually, its just dark tunnels or non-descript corridors so this is kinda a nice change, though the fact that you are aware of such a technique intrigues me, as it means you have indeed trained to try and resist psychic invasion and who trained you in such a method and why is going to be somthing else I will seek answers to while I am in here," she said setting off int othe maze but not before pulling a trick out of her own little tool kit.

Back on her own planet maze running was actually incredibly common among friends, they would learn a secret and they would lock it away within their mind and challenge their friends to beat their mental defences in order to learn it.

Not a single one of her friend groups or family had ever managed to defeat Zixxy at this game due to the fact that Zixxy knew something that the vast majority of people had no clue about, a person's mindscape was not solely their own when two or more minds were cojoined.

It was a common belief that the mind doing the invading was at a disadvantage as they were currently inside of the mindscape of another person, but in reality, this was simply not the case, vast amounts of studies done to increase her own abilities had shown something rather surprising to Zixxy, both minds were on even footing as it was more like the two minds were joined together rather than one inside the other.

The reason that the invader saw the images that the invaders threw up as defences was simply because both of their brains were trying to make sense of the situation and to process the raw data that they were being barraged with, but the reality was a far more simpler affair.

The reality was that the two minds were joining together much like to strings of cotton being woven together evenly, so if you understood this you could manipulate the link to your own needs but you needed to be subtle or you would break the bond by overloading the mind you were linking to.

The mind is both an incredibly powerful thing and an incredibly fragile thing, so the trick with manipulating one was to be subtle, to keep the tweaks you applied small and unnoticeable in order for it to not fully reject you which would result in you having to start from scratch.

It made Zixxy smile that this little nugget of information was something that not even her own people fully understood apart from the rare individuals like herself.

Zixxy held out her hands to her sides and two small silver orbs appeared hovering next to them, "Go map it out," she said softly and instantly the two orbs shot off into two different directions at once.

As her orbs flew out of sight Zixxy held out her hands in front of her and a large scroll of paper appeared before her which she simply plucked out of the air, as she looked at it an image of the maze began to appear as her two little mental probes sent back information that her brain translated into a map for her to follow.

The best part of using this particular little trick was that every little dead end and trap that the Spectre woman set up in place to ensure her or slow her down became blatantly obvious to her as they were clearly marked out for her to avoid, it was like she was drawing an image of the inside of the woman's mind.

At what was almost a leisurely pace Zixxy strolled through the maze following her map and she knew that the woman would be aware of both her progress and the fact that her carefully laid traps were not working, this would crank up both her desperation and her anxiety as she came close to something of importance, these were good little indicators to look out for when she approached something hidden or of value.

As she walked she felt that she was closing in on something of value as she could feel the woman's mind trying to reorganise things in order to try and obscure something from her and according to her little map that something was a door in one of the branches ahead.

Zixxy smiled to herself as she reached the place where the door had been marked only to find that there now stood only hedges in its place.

"Oldest trick in the book lady and not one that's going to fool me," she said reaching through the image of the hedge and gripping the handle through the illusion before turning it.

See that was the funny thing about long-term memory, while you could repress it or even try to obscure it you couldn't move it or remove it without causing significant trauma to the brain in order to pretty much unwind the connections that were formed when the memory was, so no matter how hard she tried to hide the memory from her it was exactly where it always was and had always been.

Zixxy stepped into a room that appeared to be a classroom of some kind, as she looked around it was filled with teens who were on the younger end of the spectrum though it was difficult to know exactly how young they were.

In the group, Zixxy instantly picked out the woman whose mind she was currently invading by the aural glow that emanated from one of them and she wandered over to stand next to her.

She like every other teen in the room was dressed in a light grey uniform that had Enclave emblems embossed onto them and as she looked around she realised that they all had the same haircut to the millimetre, hell even their stationary was identical and identically arranged on their desks.

Suddenly an older woman walked into the room and stood before the class, she was dressed in a mixture of an Enclave officer's uniform and what appeared to be a lab coat.

She was tall, standing over six feet tall with a very lithe and slender form, she had long blonde hair that was tied in a tight bun at the rear of her head and piercing blue eyes that peered at the teens through a set of black-rimmed spectacles that were perched on the tip of her nose.

"Greetings students, welcome to psyops one oh one, in this class, you will receive the gifts and training to not only extract information from the unwilling but to feel the guilty and the liars from across a room without ever interacting with them," the woman said in a shrill and very unfriendly voice.