"...I-I'll take option one." Officer Manning answered begrudgingly, after weighing the options, I presented him with.
"Smart man." I commented.
"On to the next thing now. What you're going to do now is sit here like you've been doing until I get back. And when I do, I'm going to have you recall all of your men outside the facility and gather them in the largest room inside this installation. You got that?"
"Understood." The now former Enclave officer answered.
"Good. I'll be back in a short bit." I said as I turned around and began walking towards the blast door I sealed shut originally with Mechu-deru.
"Oh, one last thing, don't try anything funny, because if you do, you will meet your end soon thereafter. And I assure you, it will be anything but pleasant if you decide to throw away the one chance I'm giving you." I said threateningly while using my bloody aura to its fullest and meaning every bit of it. This resulted in Officer Manning beginning to sweat and looking quite nervous, as if he was being stared at by a wild beast ready to rip him to shreds.
The second I was done issuing my warning, I turned back around and continued moving towards the blast door to go deal with the Enclave personnel spread throughout the facility. Knowing he was watching my back thanks to my perception field, I took this as an opportunity to showcase a smidgen of my abilities by phasing through the main control room's door with Ghost. Once I was past the door, his eyes widened and his jaw fell, making somewhat of an O shape.
This guy appears to be intelligent enough to at least understand that going against me at this time would mean certain death, so I should be able to wrap up this entire operation of mine with minimal issues or even none, possibly... But in the event he decides to not cherish the chance I gave him and his troops, I'll just use this as an opportunity to harden myself mentally, train my skills, and gain a boat load of exp.
Getting the result I was looking for, I spent the next half an hour rapidly moving throughout the station like a wraith, disabling every Enclave soldier, separating them from their power armor, disarming them of any weapons, and moving them, as well as whatever other personnel that were working within the facility, to the station's cafeteria.
As soon as I finished rounding up the last of the Enclave forces within the facility, I proceeded to the security room. When I arrived there, I took control of every system, console, and terminal within. Which gave me control over all the turrets here in the interior of the facility, as well as those located outside that I spotted with Amata.
From there, I made my way to the largest space in the station and rigged up a trap for the Enclave troops that would be gathered here when I returned to the main control room. Rigging up a total of 10 pulse grenades, I walked back to the main control room again to deal with the last part of my plan. Minutes later, I came walking through the blast door and was greeted by Officer Manning, who was waiting patiently in his chair just like I had told him to.
"Alright, we can move on to the next part. Recall your men to the largest room, including those within the Rockland Car Tunnel."
"Understood." He responded before following my orders to a T.
"All Enclave personnel. This is a code yellow. Return to the station and gather in the barracks immediately." Officer Manning said over a sort of portable radio he had next to the main console.
"Rodger, we're on our way back." Four different voices responded back, probably the squad leaders of the exterior troops.
...
"So, what happened to my men inside?" Officer Manning inquired, worried about the current conditions of his comrades.
"I disarmed them, rounded them up, and locked them up inside the cafeteria temporarily."
My answer seeming to have put the commanding officer at ease, I got in contact with Amata via my encrypted radio and relayed the current situation to her.
"Do you want me to remain where I am and keep watch over the area?" She asked.
"Yes, I have everything under control over here, so just keep watching over the surroundings."
When I was finished talking to her, I called up Don next and gave him the down low and told him to move up with the robots to the entrance of the Rockland Car Tunnel. Having taken care of that, I turned my attention to officer Manning. "
"Get up and follow me to the Barracks." I ordered the older caucasian man.
Hearing me, he got up and silently followed my lead out of the control room and into the gray concrete halls of the station that were covered in metal pipes and wiring. It took a good number of minutes, but we eventually reached the location.
"Stand at the center of the room and wait for your men to arrive!"
Right as I told him that, I displayed another one of my abilities and toggled my power armor's stealth field on, turning my massive frame invisible almost instantly. Seeing the man not as surprised as last time, I moved silently to the door they would be coming through and stood off to the side of it.
The minutes ticked on by, and before I knew it, his men started streaming into the room orderly as expected of soldiers. After waiting patiently for a couple minutes longer, the last of his men arrived. So I triggered the rigged-up Pulse Grenades I had planted and rigged around the room, setting off multiple EMP blasts at once, instantly disabling and immobilizing every Enclave soldiers' power armor suit.
With every single one of them seized up in their power armor suits, I moved from soldier to soldier, removing them from their protective armor, disarming them, and then knocking them out. I did this all while ignoring whatever profanity they decided to spew at me, as well as Officer Manning, who looked on guiltily but resigned to whatever fate I had in store for him and his troops.
This went on for several minutes, but when I had processed the last Enclave soldiers, I began hauling their asses to the facility's cafeteria and dropping them off there. As I was moving them from the barracks to there, I gave officer Manning his Plasma Defender back and told him to watch over them while I was moving them over.
Around 20 minutes later, I had the entirety of the Enclave moved over to the cafeteria, thus I began waking them up one by one to move onto the next step in my plans. After dealing with some of the more difficult ones via running electricity through their bodies courtesy of my Annihilator Power Armor, I had them all under control. The moment I did, I began explaining their current situation to them with the help of officer Manning. It didn't take long to explain it to them and give them their options to choose from, which were the very same ones I gave to their commanding officer not that long ago.
A number of them looked conflicted, and before long, one of the braver of the bunch spoke up. "What are we supposed to do about our families if we decided to betray the Enclave and switch to your side? You can't just expect us to betray them and let our families suffer the repercussions of our actions."
"Mm, that is reasonable... Will the Enclave go after your families if they presume you guys to be dead?" I replied.
"No." A number of them answered right away.
"Okay then, so here's what I'll do. I'll guarantee each of your families' safety when I go to raid and take over Raven Rock."
They all looked amongst each other and the very same soldier who piped up previously did so again. "I know you were able to take us out and capture us all alive, so it's a given that you're an extremely capable individual. But I don't see how you could ever breach Raven Rock's defenses, let alone attack the base without us. Which would no doubt result in our families being executed long before you could reach them and bring them to safety."
If these men weren't all highly trained troops, with many of them being scientists, I wouldn't be bothering to go through all this hassle to convince them to join my side. That said, there aren't many opportunities to gain extremely well-trained soldiers and scientists, thus they're more than worth the trouble.
"Let me show you all." I told them before enabling Ghost and phasing through the solid concrete floor of the military installation and rapidly popping up behind them unbeknownst to them.
Releasing a short cough to regain their attention, which had the side effect of startling many of them, I picked up where I left off. "As you just saw, if there is somewhere I wish to go, there is very little one can do to stop me, at least to my knowledge. Therefore, no matter how conventionally tough the defenses of Raven Rock may seem, they will be of no use in stopping me from entering and making the place my own."
"And before any of you interrupt me, I'm not finished yet."
"I know some of you will bring up the Bradley-Hercules satellites and their powerful abilities, but those fellas are now under my complete control, including the ones you had no control over. Thus, the Enclave has no way of gathering intel or making any real move in their current state, meaning they're basically stuck hiding in their bunker until I'm ready to deal with them. That is unless, of course, they want to take the chance of making a move when there are multiple orbital weapons platforms training their weapons on them from orbit."
"Do I need to go on or would you all like to be reassured further?"
...
"No, that is enough for me. Nevertheless, I hope you can guarantee our families' safe return above all else."
"What's your name?"
"Martin Anthony Woods or Marty for short, sir."
Surprised to find he had the same last name as my own, I didn't think much of it and promised the young man, brave enough to speak up. "I'll give you my word. That when it comes time for me to make my move, they will be prioritized."
After going through that recruitment effort of mine, I managed to convince 93 out of the hundred plus troops stationed here. The other 7 of them, on the other hand, chose not due to their indoctrination and started to get rowdy again. So, not wanting to waste any further time on 7 people that were obviously too far gone in the Enclave ideology, that their life preservation was nonexistent, I quickly unsheathed the Commando Knife from my waist. I then utilized the energy I gained from Martial Weapon Master and put a knife sized hole in the foreheads of all 7 of them from afar in a split second, surprising just about every former Enclave personnel.
Following my execution of those 7 Enclave soldiers, I stored their bodies before they started producing large pools of blood where they laid. Which again surprised the crowd of personnel there even further, including the ones that weren't as surprised by their former colleagues being executed from afar with a large knife the size of a short sword.
The second I dealt with the bodies, I calmed down those who were affected by what they had just seen, mainly the ones that were in noncombat-related roles, and assured them that nothing would happen to them as long as they were my people and didn't betray me. Once I finished sorting that situation I created for myself out, I had Don make his way through the Rockland Car Tunnel and bring the robots that could pass through the maintenance door.
Waiting patiently for several minutes, he arrived at the scene rather quickly and when he did; I had him keep an eye on them until I returned with Amata in tow. A couple of minutes later, I was back up top where I left Amata previously, and as soon as I got there, I explained the general situation to her. When she understood the gist of what was going on, we jet packed down from our rocky elevated position and made our way inside the facility.
It took us a couple of minutes to reach the facility's cafeteria, but when we did, I looked towards Don and gave him a brief rundown of the situation. Finished explaining it to him as well, I looked at the crowd of 93 former Enclave personnel and thought about whether or not to take off my power armor helmet.
I haven't introduced myself yet, nor have I shown my face, and with them needing to know who their new leader is at some point, I might as well do it now, since there is nothing that can threaten my life here.
As I arrived at that decision, I removed my power armor helmet, attracting everyone's attention, and especially intense attention, from the few females among them who were gazing at me heatedly.
Ahh, the problems one has to face for having a handsome face.
With all eyes on me, I began introducing myself. "Now that I've taken care of what I needed to, I think it's about time I introduced myself. My name is Harold Todd Woods, the man who will be leading you all from now on."
Whilst Marty was looking surprised to hear that the man who will be leading them going forward had the same family name as himself, I added further. "As for what my goals are, it mainly consists of taking over the capital wasteland first and then the areas surrounding D.C. And when those objectives have been accomplished, it will be time to take control of the rest of the former United States and beyond to restore civilization to what it once was, minus the many political issues that put the world in its current predicament."
"Any questions?" I asked the crowd before they started discussing among themselves, including Officer Manning.
They continued discussing amongst themselves for the next several minutes and eventually had Officer Manning step up and ask. "We have a few questions."
"Go on."
"Why did you come raid and take control of this satellite relay station?"
"Well, with my goal being what they are, it's only a matter of time before I come into conflict with the Enclave at some point due to the fact that our goals clash and me wanting to take possession of both Raven Rock and Adams Air Force Base. Also, the Enclave having an orbital weapon at their disposal is not exactly something I want to have to worry about. Hence, why I came here, infiltrated, and took control of this satellite relay station."
"Moving on to our next question, what's going to exactly happen to us from this point forward?"
"Since you guys decided to make the wise decision and take option 1, that means you are now considered my people and a part of my group. So with that being the case, everybody here will first be moved over to our base before then getting assigned a room of your choice."
"Once you've received your room, either I or Amata will assign each of you to whatever area that you excel at, whether that is something related to the sciences, production, combat-related, or something else entirely. And if any of you decide you want to try out or swap to a different field down the line, that can also be accommodated as well when the necessary resources are there for that. Which shouldn't take all that long, given the speed at which things have been progressing as of late."
Seeing a number of them beginning to become interested, Officer Manning asked. "Our final question is, how are you going to accomplish taking over the wasteland when we, the Enclave, couldn't?"
"First off, my personal abilities are pretty ridiculous compared to most humans, as you've seen thus far."
As they were nodding their heads in agreement, I went on. "But that is nothing but a small amount of what I am capable of. I can easily take on Deathclaws and Super Mutants bare-handed and come out of it completely unscathed wearing nothing but plain clothes. Second, my production and resource acquisition capabilities are constantly improving as each day passes, which you'll be able to see as soon as we arrive at my base."
"Third, I know the location of many valuable technologies that will assist me with my goals, such as matter-energy replicators, orbital lasers, and alien technology. Fourth, I know the locations of all military installations across Earth, as well as the location of large resource depots that should have been left untouched due to them being hidden." I answered, which they seemed to accept for the most, although somewhat skeptical about some of the parts understandably.
"Does that answer all of your questions?"
"Yes, that's all the questions we wanted to ask at the moment." Officer Manning replied.
But before I could say what I wanted to say next and get everyone moving to the Vertibirds to head to their new home, one of the soldiers inquired. "So what's going to happen to our weapons, armor, and other equipment?"
"Your weapons, armor, and other equipment will be confiscated for the moment, so your power armor can be upgraded. As for your weapons, they will be swapped over to ones that are significantly better than what you had been issued previously by the Enclave. That aside, when it comes time for you guys to be issued your new loadouts. whatever equipment was taken from you originally will be returned."
"Adding onto that, if you need or want additional gear, you can head to the warehouse area of the base, and look through the variety of weapons, armor, specialized ammunition, and other equipment we have sitting there. And once you've found what you want, just ask the robots watching over and working in that area if you're good to retrieve whatever equipment you're interested in." I responded.
Waiting a few seconds to see if anyone else had any questions among them, none did. "Alright, if there are no more questions for the moment, then we can move on to getting you guys transferred over and set up in your new home." I said lastly, before putting my power armor helmet back on and getting everyone moving to the Vertibird aircraft that was parked just next to the entrance of this station.