Max saluted the Paladin, and stood waiting for the Sentinel. He still didn't have an idea of what was going on, just that he was assigned to some new squad nicknamed "Cold Steel", and that they were "The best of the best". Max hadn't heard of them before, and any of their missions. So how could they be the best of the best, Max didn't know, and didn't really care. But sometimes he contemplated these sorts of things.

"Well what is 'Cold Steel', some new special ops team. Do you know where we are going?"

Max leaned against a crate. It supported his weight, even in his Power Armor.

I shrugged, "I don't know, I just really don't, well, you should ask the Sentinel when you can, he can explain it," I muttered, "I'm getting a bit old for this, but I'm fine I guess, memory isn't what it used to be anyways," I sighed, "Better check your equipment, if it fails you're gonna be pretty damn screwed."

Max looked at the Paladin. He didn't know where he was from, but he certainly wasn't a Western Brother. He looked around, everyone seemed to be in a commotion. He looked back at the Paladin.

"What part of the brotherhood are you from?"

I grinned at him, "Hell and back is where, I've lived here in the Capital Wasteland since I was a kid. Luckily when the East Brotherhood detachment was sent, I had just survived a raid by some idiots, I was the only survivior, my whole family killed I noticed them setting up in the Citadel. They found out what I did to live and they signed me up, been fighting all over since." I said to him, with a half-grin, "I lost a couple of buddies when the Outcasts started up, but since they've joined back we've had some good times, I got this paint job from one of my mates too, he owed me," I grinned fully.

"What about you kid? Where you from?"

(OOC: lol woo Aussies)

IC:

When Patrick had arrived back at the vertibird it was bustling with brotherhood. More knights and that paladin. Everyone was either talking or checking their weapons. Patrick decided to check out his own stuff.
The power armor was in check and so was his recon helmet. He then went about checking his grenades and laser rifle he didn't want them to malfunction in the midst of battle.

Max smirked, he didn't take to being called a kid. He had deserved the right to be given respect, after all he had fought in many battle with the Western Brotherhood. They all gave him respect, and max thought that the Paladin should show the same, not calling him a "kid".

"I'm from the Western Brotherhood. I've fought in many battles, and have taken on my share of Muties in the past. Infact my last operation in the West, I was taking on three Muties with my squad. One surprised me, and through me against a rock. I hit hard, but luckly most of my armor took the shock. I killed that same mutant who threw me by shooting him in the chest. I've got his head mantled back home. Hopefully, this thing with the Enclave won't last much longer."

Max took a breath, he was getting irritated by the Paladin's remark stil.

"I'm surprised that the Western Elders even allowed us to come and help you. I figured that since Elder Lyons and those bunch of lackies calling themselfs "The Lyons Pride" were here, you all couldn't hold your own. It just goes to show what happens when you go AWOL, and get greedy."

Max quieted down, and stood waiting for the Sentinel.

I looked up at the man, "So, your saying your insulting the group of people who probably saved the Capital Wasteland and got more tech than you guys could ever hope to get?" I chuckled, "The Western Brotherhood might seem all great and mighty, but while we had the Lone Wanderer here we managed more than anything could ever be hoped, so don't insult us, otherwise I'll show you just how much I've learned over the last 40 years of surviving out here. Oh and don't forget, you don't know a thing about this landscape, I know more than you could ever hope, 'kid'." I finished, I didn't like people insulting the people who'd saved my own life.

I looked back down at my weapon, almost wishing I could hurt this guy a bit, but I refused, I looked back up at him, "It's really too bad the Lyon's Pride isn't still here, then I wouldn't have to get stuck in a squad full of Outcasts, the Old Brotherhood and the New Brotherhood. A terrible mix, I don't think we'll last very long like this," I muttered, half to myself, half to him.

Max thought for a moment on what the Paladin had said. He laughed to himself in his mind about the landscape remark the Paladin had made. What wasn't there to know, it was all wasteland to him. Hardly anywhere to hide unlike Lost Hills. Max looked at the Paladin with a smile.

"Well its good too know that atleast one of the Paladins on the East coast is tough." Max chuckled at himself, and held out his hand still smiling.

I laughed myself, I shook the man's hand, "Well, thanks, your tough enough yourself, welcome to the D.C hellhole," I said, grinning at him, "Need any help just call, I'll be happy to help, I guess, but don't worry if it takes ages for me to get to you, I am older than everyone else in this squad I'm pretty sure," I muttered, I laughed again, "Ah, the good ol' days of the 40's, I loved those days, I was just a kid then."

Edward

Edward walked back to the Vertibird where he noticed there was quite a crowd gathering. It was time to tell them what they were up for.

"Paladin Harrow" he called out to his friend. The Paladin came over and he proceeded to give him orders in a low tone, "I want you to stand behind me and look menacing, if anyone questions me, glare at them and make them feel uncomfortable as hell. I found some info at the Labs about where we should hit first, and I'm going to explain this to everyone before we leave. Your my wingman, so back me up, alright?"

He called everyones attention to him as he walked over and yelled, "Stand in a line, men, or I will make you run laps into next year!"

They all complied and he started his speech, he had always been told he was good with words.

"Brothers, I believe you are the best of the best. In the Wastes, you wanna find the best, you come to the Citadel. I came to the Citadel for better than the best. I came for the best of the best. And I found them, and they are standing right here in front of me.

"Ever since the listing of the Lyons Pride as MIA we have been crippled when it came to small, impossible missions. We had to send in an army if we wanted to win, and the Brotherhood never comes to lose. We needed a Elite Team. We now have an Elite Team. Congratulations on being picked for it by the way.

"This team is going to be the Brotherhood solution for small, suicidal missions and the advance team for the main body of the Brotherhood Army. Specially trained, geared and equipped Enclave Killing machines. But, more than that, you will be heroes. To your Brothers. To the Wastelanders. And to the Enclave. But the Enclave won't see you as a good heroes, they'll see you as Villains, and you will targeted over and over again. Your part of history in the making.

"Welcome to Cold Steel gentlemen. We head out now, get on the bird."

Max smiled, and looked up at the Paladin he had previously spoken to. He lept into the Vertibird and took his place. It was fairly comfortable, at least for a guy sitting in a heavy thick suit of armour. He looked at the group amassing inside, and smiled. Max looked over at the Paladin and smiled.

"So tough guy, what's your speciallity? Mine's to kill and grill any and all Enclave who stand in the Brotherhoods way, along with Muties." Max smiled, and looked on.

I grinned right back at him, "My specialty? Knowing exactly what the enemies going to do, picking it out then shooting the [Censored] out of them till they fall down dead, pretty hilarious huh?" I chuckled out, I looked over at Edward, I grimly smiled, "Sir, I was wondering, where's the first place we're gonna hit? It'd seem kinda funny if we went out on a suicide mission straight away," I muttered to him, as he was sitting right next to me, Max on one side, Edward on the other, "Oh and sir? What would you like me to call you?"

Edward

"Call me Edward when we are just talking to each other, but if I'm talking to the squad as a whole, call me Sentinel Shield. I think I'll tell everyone where we are headed first now, so listen up."

Edward walked over to the door and slammed it shut, effectively shutting out the training noises from outside.

"Listen up boys. Our first target is a base the Enclave have been setting up at the old Springvale school. Megaton is getting nervous as hell and we've been sent to go clean up and shut them up. Not too hard, Simms reckons theres between 10-20 Enclave whole up in it. Lets head out."

Edward jumped up in the [censored] pit and started the engine. "Cold Steel to Citadel, requesting permission to leave in Cold Steel Vertibird 1." Edward spoke into the radio.

"Permission granted Cold Steel. Steel be with you." came back the voice from the radio.

"Hey Pete, know anything about Vertibirds? I could use a co-pilot!" he yelled back into the sitting area.

As the vertibird began was just about ready for take odd Patrick was starting to get nervous about the mission. He had faced off against muties before but the enclave they were a whole different league. He had heard the stories they had superior armor, weapons and an unknown amount of soldiers and supplies. Who knows what they could have deathclaws or even hellfire troops. He thought he'd better ask the sentinel.

"Sentinel Shield do you have any idea what kind of heat the enclave are packing. I mean how much Intel do we have?"

Edward

"Intel is just coming from what we heard from Lucas Simms, their 'Sheriff'. We don't know much, but I'm presuming it is a small amount of their regular troops. If they were strong enough, they would have attacked Megaton awhile a go. But, Simms also said he heard rumors about them kidnapping wastelanders and testing stuff on them, but I think that was just a story people had been telling to keep others away from it. We should be fine."

He pulled the Vertibird up into the air when he was finished speaking and flew over the walls of the Citadel and towards Megaton. They passed over several fights between Mutants and Raiders, and were shot at a bit, but nothing the Bird couldn't take. Hmm, maybe Edward should nickname the Vertibird.

"Hey guys!" he spoked into the loud speaker, "just so you know, the Vertibird you are currently flying in is now officially nicknamed Big Bird. Enjoy the rest of the flight.

I watched as everyone filed onto the Vertibird. Some of the men boarding looked like they needed medical attention already, but I was fairly sure that they were just scars. Before my eyes could adjust to the darkness, the vertibird had taken off. A Sentinel was shouting something up front, but the voices blurred it out. I heard something about Springvale. And Megaton. When I was a child, I had gone to Megaton. The bomb in the centre was huge. Apparently, the Lone wanderer had disarmed it recently. Even as I stewed in my own thoughts, I heard the Sentinel speak yet again.

Young

It seemed odd that this small elite task force was equipped with nothing but small arms and laser weapons. Fine for lightly armored infantry, but anything armored such as a Vertibird would be a problem. As a result, the Scribe had dragged a missile launcher and Gatling gun onto the Vertibird. Although he couldn't carry both at the same time, he hoped one of his newly appointed squad mates would do some of the heavy lifting. Along with that he brought plenty of ammunition to keep the ordinance alive.

To his understanding, apparently their purpose was for small suicidal missions. The squad will be heroes to everyone; they'll be remembered and recorded in the annals, blah, blah, blah; they're going to become martyrs.

"Great, we're going to die." Young muttered incoherently to himself.

He looked over to his right to see a Knight and Paladin chatting with one another. Apparently their specialties were both killing stuff. That's tactical. It seemed like most of these men were just thrown into this new squad in under 10 minutes. Without training on how to work as a specialized team, how was this squad supposed to battle effectively against an entire platoon of Enclave soldiers?

Young adjusted his scribe robe, wanting to look his best before he got vaporized by a green bolt of plasma. After that he withdrew Energy Cells from his side and loaded his AEP7 Laser Pistol, the cells entering with a click. He quietly held his weapon by his side, and looked towards the Vertibird controls.

He was curious to why they would bring a Scribe on such a mission. Although Young was well trained in the weapons he maintained; it seemed odd that they would bring him on a Search and Destroy mission. Perhaps the Sentinel hadn't assigned him his role yet.

Young leaned backed in his seat and let out a deep breath, trying his best to enjoy the flight.

"Testing on wastelanders?" Patrick felt sick at the thought.
He hoped it was a rumor as well. The ride was a bit bumpy what those muties and raiders shooting Patrick had never been in a vertibird only seen them fly over head. Patrick had never seen Megaton only heard about it through GNR he was excited about seeing it.
Sitting next to him was a scribe.
"Hey I'm initiate er sorry Knight O'Conner what do you specialize in?"

Edward

He needed to test this squad, and this would be an excellent way to do it. The Brotherhood had known of a heavily defended base in Springvale for a while now, and had not been able to do anything about it. The only thing keeping the Enclave from attacking Megaton had been the threat of being bombed by newly placed Artillery on the walls of Megaton. In fact, the Enclave where no where near the school. They were underground.

The estimates on the amount of men there was actually from 40-60 and these were either Tesla or Hellfire units. This would be a real test for the men he had recently selected.

But, he didn't want anyone to die, so he had one of the Scribes hack into their system and give control of the turrets and robots to the Big Bird control panel, if the Cold Steel men where in too much danger, Edward could fight of the Enclave with the robotics and distract them with the Micro-Nukes loaded up on Big Bird while the guys made their escape.

While they fought in the tunnels, he would also watch them on the cameras that had also been hacked, and evaluate whether they had a place on the squad.

There were two people, however, that he was sure he was going to keep on the team. Scribe Young and Paladin Harrows. He had been assured before he left that he would not be able to find better people suited to their fields. He decided to call them into the Cockpit and tell them the plan.

"Harrows, Young! Report to the Cockpit" he spoke into the loudspeaker again. They entered soon after and he sealed the door behind them so the others could not hear.

He filled them in on the situation and gave them a choice.

"You guys are on the team no matter what. Harrows Elder Rothchild assured me you were on of the best soldiers and leaders the Brotherhood had to offer, and Young, your supposedly the best with tech in the Brotherhood too, and I'll need you for that reason. What do you want to do?"

Young

Scribe Young blinked his eyes twice, snapping out of his own thoughts. He sat up on his seat, and held a hand forward in greeting to the Knight.

"Nicholas Young, Tech Scribe. Mostly weapons and armor research. I've been maintaining the supply at the armory mostly." He paused and peered closer at the Knight. "Say weren't you an initiate before? I've seen you around the citadel before. Congratulations on your promotion." The last words were spoken half heartidly, it seemed rather cruel to promote an initiate to knight to be on this apparent suicide mission. It's almost as if they were all disposable.

When he was called to the front, Young listened carefully to Sentinel Shields. Hellfire units were the elite of the Enclave, and an entire platoon of them only made them more formidable. With the heavy armored robots too, this whole plan seemed very reckless.

"Sir, redesignating the targeting parameters for their robotics seem to be a good first move. The Enclave would not be fully wiped out by their own tech, their soldiers are too well trained for that after the events in Raven Rock. They'd be softened up slightly, but still a strong force to be sure for any Brotherhood force." Young looked back to the other passengers of the Veritibid before turning back to Shields. "Plus our main goal should be exterminating Enclave forces through the most effective way possible. Tests and training should just be a byproduct."

Edward

"Ok Young. Lets keep these boys safe. You stay and monitor them while I go in with them. Trust me when I say no one who is with me will die. I also have one last trick up my sleeve. See that button there? That will deactivate the power down in the tunnels. I'm equipping everyone with night vision targeters like my own, so that would give us a huge advantage. They are also producing Sentry Bots down their, so hacking into their robots will be more effective than you presume. Sound good?" he asked.

I sat there, listening to the conversation going on between the Scribe and Edward. It seemed solid enough to keep everyone alive, I grimaced, I still didn't like the idea of such a small group of us. I decided to speak up, "Ah, sir, or Edward, considering it's only the three of us, considering we have about, I don't know, 6 people going in, how much of a chance do we actually have?" I muttered, "Sure, we're all highly trained, but the Enclave have better tech and weapons, their training is decent too, I heard you say about the 'emergency' plan, but will that be enough to keep us alive in a terrible situation?"

Young

Young nodded his head firmly, much more confident now that a plan had been formed. To some extent, the scribe was disappointed he was being assigned to simple monitoring from the Vertibird. Except now he knew it wasn't as much of a suicide mission as he had thought, but he still wasn't fully convinced that no one with the sentinel would die. No matter how good Brotherhood soldiers were before, holotags were always collected.

It was very convinent that some smart scribe managed to hack Enclave control to offer so much support from their own weapons. It seemed the Enclave were relaxing on their security measures with their new numbers. They'll regret that.

The scribe still wished to get down to ground zero, whether during the fighting or after. They may have a production factory established underground if they were able to create advanced constructs like sentry bots. Lots of tech to be salvaged. Young just hoped the place wouldn't be completely decimated by gunfire and explosions.

Edward

"Ok, here is the plan. Young stays here and controls the Enclave equipment. If he senses we are in trouble he can radio me or hack something to keep us safe. I'll lead the group and Harroww here will follow up the rear. We get in, plant some Micro-Nukes around the place and take out some of the Enclave to see how well these soldiers can fight, then get out and Scribe Young can pick us up and fly us out, where we will detonate the bombs at a safe distance. ETA to landing, 1 minute. If you have any objections speak quickly or go out and distribute the night vision."

I nodded, Edward made sense, I stood up, "I'll distribute the Night Vision goggles, I guess I'll just tell them that they might need it if something goes wrong," I muttered to him, I walked over to the storage compartment in the Cockpit, opening it up I saw, evenly placed, a stack of Night Vision equipment. I grinned, I picked as much up as I could, then walked back into the main compartment of the vertibird. "Alright, here's some equipment, night vision equipment, get it all suited onto your armor, it's in case something goes completely wrong, use it sparingly, I don't how much powers in these things," I yelled out to everyone. I then dropped the equipment in the place where I was sitting before.

I then returned to the Cockpit and got some equipment for myself, "Well, Edward, I think that we're set to go, we'll be ready as soon as we touchdown."