Servius Curius Proculus Vespillo
The conversation was tense, it seemed, between those who would at a glance have been close allies. That set him on edge; Were Brotherhood Knights usually so fractious? The way they spoke of Heeling to some elders commands made him suspect there might have been some kind of schism. Was there a Brotherhood civil war on the east coast he did not know about? It would not surprise him, truthfully; The Brotherhood had ever been stubborn and it was in that stubbornness that he frequently found foolishness. In the West, the Chapter the Legion had destroyed proved to be stubborn beyond all reason. Outnumbered often four or five to one, taken frequently be surprise and ambushed in the rocky valleys and mountains, the Brotherhood never properly adapted their tactics. They did not become swifter not more versatile nor more silent, but instead met them as though it was open warfare. By the end of the war, when the Legion had captured so much armour and equipment as to close the technological advantage gap quite sufficiently on that front, utilising missile launchers, high powered rifles and laser rifles against the Knights and Paladins, the Brotherhood had still rarely turned to subterfuge and instead still fought as though they had a significant advantage over the Legion. Their overreliance on their own technology came back to bite them, pulse grenades were highly effective against them and the Brotherhood clearly hadn't expected such weaponry; there were cases where the legion had been able to completely fry the circuitry in the BoS power armour and cause it to freeze up or cause the servos to be disabled at which point the BoS were relying entirely on their own strength to move, which had made them extremely easy prey in melee combat (the Legion would later encounter NCR heavy troopers who were equipped in Power Armour that had been stripped of its servos; these soldiers were likewise extremely easy targets in melee combat where their sluggish nature made them unable to fight effective. He would never understand what it was about profligates that made them want to rely so heavily on very specific things, it had led to their downfall time and time again while the Legion triumphed time and time again!) It had turned that campaign into a bloody massacre before the end, where the Brotherhood were overwhelmed and slaughtered by the legion almost entirely.
He recalled fighting there in the early days of his career. His first kill had been a raider woman, but his Second had been a Brotherhood Scribe of all things. He had fought alongside some of Caesars more veteran legionaries and it was something of his baptism by fire; subduing the Tribals in the region after the Brotherhood had been wiped out had been when he had truly proved himself worthy of a promotion- ironically, after making the same mistake the Brotherhood had made.
For the Brotherhood had been used to fighting mostly tribals and seizing advanced technology from them with ease. Unsurprisingly, low quality firearms, sticks, stones and rusted blades had proven completely ineffectual against their power armour and the Knights and Paladins had come to see themselves as near invincible. When they encountered the Legion, they saw them as little more than tribals and had expected an easy fight. It must have been a shock to them when the Legion proved not only an effective and well armed military force but a powerful enemy who claimed the area and pushed them from it in but a few short years. And when Servius helped to subdue the tribals of the region after this conflict, that was when he earned the agnomen of Vespillo, for he made the exact same mistake about some tribesmen that the Brotherhood had made about the legion; he had begun to see himself as far above them, for after having defeated the Brotherhood, how could some tribals with sticks and stones threaten him? He almost paid for that mistake with his life at the barrel of a gun, something he had never forgotten.
The Legions enemies, it seemed, did not learn so swiftly from the lessons they were dealt. The mistake of seeing the legion as little more than an army of ill-equipped tribals was a mistake made by almost all the Legions civilised enemies- and it was one Caesar had been all too happy to promote, for that mistake gave the Legion power. The machete and the sword, weapons which had become heavily recognisable to outsiders as part of the Legions armoury, were part of this very image; defeating NCR and even Brotherhood in melee made them seem like some crazed wild men who would charge machine guns with sticks. The NCR especially had their morale decimated by facing the legion, likely because the quality of their individual soldiers and their motivation was so poor.
The truth of their tactics was far more nuanced, obviously, and Servius had seen first hand the obscene stockpiles of weaponry and ammunition the legion had built up in its conquest... but the effect this mistake had on enemy morale was undeniable; Being fired upon by guns is all too common in the wastes, especially for soldiers, and forgotten quickly in retold stories of war. Being rushed by a bunch of screaming fanatics with swords, barely escaping with your life as your friends are hacked apart? That is a potent story, far more likely to be remembered by listeners when the battle is retold... even if gunfire was more common in the battle itself.
Once an enemy unit had been worn down and were few in number and ammunition, it wasn't uncommon for a Decanus to give an order to draw blades and charge. The sheer ferocity of such a charge of screaming warriors, the stories which one had heard about the efficiency of the Legion in melee and the unexpected nature of a melee charge would cause most soldiers to break ranks and try to rout almost immediately, and which point they were easily run down and hacked apart or shot dead as they broke cover by marksman who had held back in reserve. When used at a key point in a battle, this would allow these legionaries to then pour through and flank the enemy, pushing in with gun and sword and sowing chaos as the legion collapsed upon its foe- The trick, as Servius later learned, was always to leave one direction open for the enemy to flee. If the enemy thought they had an avenue that was clear, then either their courage would falter and they would end up in a panic stricken race towards it in the hopes of escaping the storm, or their officers would a tactical retreat that would likely break down into chaos in the hope to avoid facing the legion in tight melee. Either way, it would displace them from their positions and make them far easier to annihilate. He could recall many battles where the legion had been outnumbered, even, and if the enemy battalions could have but been turned around and stood their ground they would have won the day in a landslide- yet instead they fled, like sheep chased by dogs.
When the battle was told by the few survivors or onlookers, it would be heard as though the Legion had massacred their better equipped enemies with nothing more than old lawnmower blades. And then, they would be amazed by how 'slight' the resistance of the soldiers would have been, and the Legion would seem like an inexorable wild man horde. Which was, of course, exactly what they wanted everyone to think. Legion war was as much psychological warfare as physical fighting, involving complex stratagems that one didn't expect of tribals. They didn't mount their capture enemies on crosses for the fun of it, they didn't unleash mongrel dogs into the enemy lines because it looked cool; they did it because it spread fear. Their strategies were designed to win them the battle, yes, but the true genius of it all was the
fear. It became the ultimate tool of the Legion.
The Brotherhood Chapter the NCR had fought on the west coast had many of the same problems from what he understood; their commanders were blinded by their hubris and arrogance in their superior technology and equipment, as well as their greed in seeking more of it, and they had held an inherently indefensible position against the NCR whom they expected to be unable to defeat their superior technology. With the BoS outnumbered even worse than the Brotherhood the Legion had faced, the NCR issued higher calibre weapons to their troopers and rangers and overran the brotherhood, destroying them nearly utterly but for a few survivors who had fled into the wastes... and even then, those survivors refused to recruit outsiders in spite of their imminent destruction. He wasn't sure, then, whether it would have been better if they had been overcome by fear and fled immediately into the wastes in panic than stood their ground against the NCR. The Brotherhood on the west coast, it seemed, were never let down by the rank and file, but rather betrayed by their leaders. It was a waste of life; standing your ground and following your orders to the end out of bravery is honourable, but it is on a commander to spend the lives of his men, not waste them. The Brotherhood, it seemed, lacked for good commanders but had no lack for good soldiers. And now, if this had caused a schism on the East Coast? Perhaps the Brotherhood was well and truly doomed from its failure to learn from its own history. Ironic.
But before long their exchange was done, and to his surprise the Brotherhood Paladin said that he didn't understand a word Servius had said. Bah! Then the Brotherhood may as well have written their mottos in jibberish if they couldn't even read them. Again, of course, he supposed he wasn't too surprised by the Brotherhoods hubris, nor by the fact that they didn't understand what they were even talking about. Many of the scribes captured in the West had barely known anything about their own history.
"
They do not even speak the tongue, such arrogance to claim for themselves words they can not understand. Ad victoriam meos clunes." Servius scoffed and muttered near silently to himself so that few, if any, could hear him, shouldering his rifle as he followed after them. Babies babbled, blurted words they didn't understand. Men should know better; words carry weight because you understand them, using words you cannot understand is like hanging paintings as a blind man. Why then should the Brotherhood claim a motto in Latin, when they do not speak it? An absurdity of the highest magnitude.
**
He watched the machinery that the Brotherhood Decanus had referred to as 'decon' work with a wide eyed look; he'd not seen anything quite like this before. The chamber itself reminded him of one near the entrance to one of the Vaults he'd taken a contubernium too to scavenge from back in Colorado, but that hadn't been active (Indeed, not much in that place had been, even the lights were dead... and it seemed more like it was meant to be some kind of prison camp for its inhabitants than as a safe haven, the rooms were tiny and there were fences and guard posts everywhere. Some of the rooms even seemed dedicated explicitly to torture... Even by the standards of the legion, he would have felt like a prisoner in a camp like that)
Stepping into the bunker, Servius noted the hum of a reactor and the lighting that clung around them. It seemed cosy enough, as far as underground bunkers went. A little musky perhaps, but that is to be expected from underground and air tight facilities, given that they couldn't risk any contamination from that radiation stuff.
It was in this dim light that he first caught a sight of the holotags and belongings on the beds; he stepped over carefully and examined one of the holotags. He reached out and took it in his hand, moving it to look over it before letting it fall again with a light grunt. Requiescat in Pace. Had their lives been spent, he wondered, or wasted?
Then Servius turned and stepped off to the size, unzipping the hazmat suit carefully and stepping out of it with a heavy sigh, happy to be breathing air through his own nose rather than the mask again - which smelt horribly of plastic and rubber. He peered down at his creased tunic and straightened it out lightly. Out of the suit and bearing some of his uniform, though not all of it, Servius felt much more normal... Though without the trappings of his rank and culture, it still felt wrong. He felt naked.
Bah, by the hairs on Caesar's head, what was the point of going without.
He took his Cingulum militare from his backpack and fastened it around the waist, fixing his Pteruges into place. He wrapped his scarf around his neck again and brushed the sweat from his brow. He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of one of the bedposts. There, that was better.
Servius unfastened the power armour from his shoulders and wrist, running a finger momentarily along the red X mark on it before laying it down carefully onto a counter and rolling his shoulders, glad to have taken the burden off. He took his helmet from his head and set it down, attaching the plume again and staring down at it for a few moments. Then he placed his rifle down alongside it, keeping his Sword by his side as ever as he turned to face the group.
He saw first that Khaliya had stepped out of her power armour and he examined her for a moment, then darted his eyes to the Paladin to whom she talked; he couldn't hear their words but body language alone let him know it wasn't particularly good, as did the expression Khaliya's face. That was troubling again, more trouble between the two of them? He hoped that it would not interfere with their mission.
With that, Servius went about directing his attention to the bizarre BoS soldier with the hat for a moment with some bemusement for several moments as he folded his arms over one another. It reminded him of the hats the NCR patrol rangers used to wear, he had heard them referred to by many names over the years. 'Cowboys' was one he had heard come up alot, and indeed there seemed to be a great fascination in the west with these 'cowboys' and their lifestyles. He had once come across a talking robot with one of the most obscene and outlandish accents ever, complete with flinging around 'pardner' and 'howdy' like it was a comma. Most of the westerns, thankfully, had not been that extreme with their accents. The softer accents some of them had were actually somewhat soothing, but there were a few with strong ones - and then there was always one or two who clearly wanted to become one of these 'cowboy' stereotypes, speaking with all the jargon and lingo and singing Big Iron and Jingle Jangle Jingle whenever they got the chance. It was quite amazing actually, he supposed, how many times he had heard those two songs sung or playing over the radio just by sneaking up on NCR camps and patrols, capturing them as prisoners or simply passing through neutral towns - and how many different stereotypes of the west he could find among them. Surely, one of these stereotypical exaggerating aspirants had not found their way so far east, and certainly none of them naturally emerged in the east- right?
Then Marvin spoke and interrupted his train of thought, and so Servius turned his attention to the ghoul, smirking a little. Exciting, eh? He supposed that was one way of putting it, it had certainly been quite the journey. Many creatures he had never encountered before had come out to play, what with those powerful flying monsters? They'd claimed the life of one of their own, which was certainly worrying... to have lost someone so soon into the journey was concerning, though perhaps not unforeseen; their intel going into this place seemed to be extremely limited, perhaps the Brotherhood would be capable of shedding more light on the matter- if they could get over whatever had driven a wedge between them, that is, which he wasn't too sure given the tone. Then again, they had led them to this place in the end after all, so perhaps all hope was not lost
"
Yes, do tell us about your purpose in this place- and of it, you have been here longer, your knowledge of it will be more comprehensive." Servius said as he looked towards the BoS types, glancing to the cowboy hat that sat on one of their heads for a moment before looking back down to their helmets. T-51 power armour. By now he recognised it well, the eyes of that helmet gave him memories. Knight Girdeux had been wearing it when he managed to get the blade underneath it, at the junction between the head and the helmet he had forced it in with an almighty thrust- straight through the suit beneath, fitting between the frame and the helmet and piercing into her neck. He'd almost fallen then himself; not just in the fight with her, where a single powerful blow from her arms could have shattered his bones into dust, and where he ducked and weaved around her like a man possessed, his heart leaping into his throat. Indeed, there were many occasions where it seemed extremely close, but he had always been just about able to evade her knife... but when she fell as well; His hand snagged under her holotags after the blade was forced into her neck and as she fell over the side of the bridge, she almost took him with her.
Indeed, but for the holotag snapping and him fortuitously grabbing onto one of the old cables that hung from it, he'd have fallen into the deep and rocky waters below from which he doubted he would have emerged. He and a couple of recruits and headed down there afterwards to scavenge from it, and although they managed to get underwater they were unable to retrieve any of the pieces of her power armour from the lake; her laser weapon was retrieved from the bridge, though. Servius still carried her holotag now, partly as a trophy and partly in her honour.
She'd been a good fight, a very good fight, one from which he was extremely fortunate to have emerged from alive. She too had been the last of her unit who had foolishly tried to recover a cache of laser weapons from the Legion with relatively little ammunition and support of their own (and subsequently ran out during the firefight, as the Legion would later discover when they looted the corpses for weapons and armour) and still fought on until the very end bravely. She had destroyed a section of the bridge with a plasma grenade in a last ditch effort to kill the Contubernium pursuing, and although only one of their number had died, it caused a large chunk of the old bridge to crumble away into the water and left the legionaries dashing for safety. When the dust had settled, it left only Servius and a badly wounded Marcus on the bridge with her, the rest of the Contubernium on solid ground. Had she been able to kill Servius, she doubtlessly would have escaped to trouble the Legion another day. Although she was clearly junior in their ranks and had been let down by her commanders, she faced the Legion without fear, with great intelligent, ability, cunning and the traits of a natural warrior.
That was perhaps one of the many moments that had proven instrumental in giving him a respect of the Brotherhoods rank and file, even if he found some of the strategic and tactical decisions of their leaders and the Brotherhoods inflexibility completely baffling. Their rank and file had many of the attributes that made for a good army, but were too few in number and relied far too heavily on their equipment.
He had heard that the East Coast Brotherhood was more successful, clearly in spite of whatever schism he was detecting here. It was said they had greater numbers and a great flying fortress, as well as a small fleet of vertibirds. If this was true, and these Brotherhood proved to be as adept and skilled as the average rank and file of the West, then perhaps with the right leadership they would come to dominate the east coast completely. The quality was certainly there in the average Knight and Scribe he had encountered, and Khaliya seemed competent - though her argument with Jeremiah and now these newcomers was giving him the impression that perhaps things were not quite as well as they had first sounded. He had once heard a word or two about some kind of Brotherhood 'outcasts' on the rumour mill but it was very limited, he had assumed that they had vanished completely... but if a schism had developed and it had reached this point, then perhaps said outcasts were still active and this entire thing would be their downfall, just another sign of their ideological and dogmatic inflexibility and their poor choice in leaders.
He somewhat hoped not; from what he had seen so far of the east coast, it needed a powerful stabilising force. Perhaps for the East coast, the Brotherhood could provide it - though then again, they had historically proved extremely incapable at that too. The territory the Legion had taken from them had been poorly governed at best, overrun with tribals and raiders and the occasional civilised community regarded the BoS as little more than raiders who stole and hoarded advanced technology. That had always seemed to be their main goal and one of their key weaknesses; a complete greed for and over-reliance on advanced technologies. One day, perhaps the Legion would spread as far as the East Coast, and then perhaps proper law, order and civilisation could be established. Or perhaps the Brotherhood would come to their senses and make some real progress. Either way, it was sorely needed; Raiders, Tribals, Mutants and Gunners seemed to dominate almost everything for the past few hundred miles west, and the latter were effectively just the former with better gear.
Madness, all of it. It reminded him of the lawless and wild regions the Legion had conquered. Even the NCR would have been better for the East Coast than this anarchy.
Regardless of whatever their overall abilities, goals and decisions would ultimately be worth for this Eastern Coastline, here within this Necropolis he was glad of their presence. That military quality and bravery he had identified in the Brotherhood... it was good to have that on one's side when they were in the jaws of a city of the dead.
