I decided to give him and his team a few minutes of privacy before I ask him for an answer. Thought I'd lie if I were to say that I didn't fear his answer, after all despite didn't stay with them for too long, neither one of them mistreated me or made me feel like some slave, rather they accepted me as one of their own, without asking anything in return.
After what seems to be an eternity, Mike alongside the rest of his team finally turns towards me. When I saw them looking at me, I start sweating, fearing the worst, when out of nowhere all of them start laughing at me. Mike walked beside me and put his hand on my shoulder.
"C'mon Dante, you know how much we love Eddie right?"
"Yeah, so much that you would put a bullet in him if you got the chance."
"See, I only wish the best for our dear leader. Bad jokes aside, you told the truth right? We can finally become free?"
"Depending on some variables, but in theory yes, once everything is done, you and your boys will be free and with a job, if you accept my invitation."
"I'll be honest with you young man. I lived most of my life working for other people, I've seen the best, and the worst parts of being part of a criminal syndicate. However at the same time, those were the only times I felt alive and because of that, I might just bite the bullet and join you, though that won't mean that I will die for you."
"I don't need people to die for me. I need people to fight side by side with me when the time comes."
Once Mike and his team officially joined me, we returned to the correctional facility, bringing the body of the guard with us alongside the loot we managed to find along the way. Eddie wasn't happy when he learned that one of his loyal men died, but when he heard that the rangers did this to him, he almost freaked out calling every single one of the convicts back to the facility, locking the place down.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Hayes was tasked by Major Knight with one of the most dangerous and at the same time important missions in his entire tour in the Mojave. He alongside eighty-nine troopers was to take back the NCRCF that was lost to the powder gangers once the war in the Mojave started.
Even though he had enough troopers to turn this battle into an attrition war, most of the troops, regardless of age, had seen very little action before this engagement. While it was true that the company had been involved in a long-range patrol around the Mojave and two operations involving weapon seizure from the gunrunners, most of the troopers barely even fired their rifles once at a living target. Despite that, Hayes' only saving grace was the squad led by Corporal Meyer.
Meyer, was one of the two senior rangers that deiced to take part in this operation more as a backup than anything else, thought for Hayes, Meyer's help would be more than he could ask for considering how unbelievably hard it would be to fight a foe that is well entranced in their base.
At the same time, some of the more experienced powder gangers were aware of the NCR troops' equipment shortcomings and their relative lack of experience in practicing the art of war on a real battlefield, though most of the convicts could care less if they fight against super mutants, paladins or even whores.
It took them four days, but when they were done, all around the correctional facility trenches had been dug and sandbags put in place for the upcoming siege. Surprisingly enough, in these four days, only three powder gangers had been killed when they tried to climb in the towers for whatever reason unknown to Meyer and Hayes.
Even though the ranger and the lieutenant hadn't seen Dante, both of them knew that the lack of resistance was somewhat related to the boy, otherwise, who could have dug those defenses so easily and without an enemy to fire at them?
As Hayes was trying to figure out what was in Eddie's head, he heard from his walkie-talkie a cry coming from the forward trench. Once he took the radio and ask for Intel, the woman that had the radio informed him that the powder gangers were observed coming towards their position. Rather than doing something stupid like ordering his troops to open fire, he took his binocular and indeed at about one hundred and fifty meters away from the front trenches facing south, a group of around twenty powder gangers was slowly crawling towards them.
While Hayes was considering his alternatives, one of the soldiers from the front trenches engaged the convicts, and soon after him the rest of the troopers.
Seeing his soldiers firing without being ordered to do so, Hayes knew that this would be the decisive battle that would either doom his company or hopefully help him conquer the facility.
After seven of the convicts were killed and more than half of the surviving convicts were injured, they retreated. Yet not even a minute after what was left of the convicts retreat, a small explosion hit the ground all around the frontline as the convicts used some homemade mortars to fire their dynamites at the NCR.
One such projectile indirectly hit a few troopers, injuring most of them and rendering that trench almost defenseless. Thankfully for them, the brave convicts that thought this would be their chance found themselves in the open ground against an mg.
Before the adrenaline rush had even subsided from this first taste of combat, one of the troopers that got unscratched from that blast saw another large group of the convicts moving into position on their flanks seemly without any obstacle.
Sadly before he could even inform the lieutenant that they might have lost one trench, the trooper heard some of his comrades yelling "incoming" as more explosions raged in the evening.
"Clearly, these bombs land anywhere and everywhere, except where they aim them right?"
While he could barely hear poorly, the trooper tried to reassure himself as he counted the seconds between the explosions, the gunshots, and the thumps of bullets hitting the ground all around him.
A makeshift mortar round exploded right behind his trench sending the trooper in shock. Even though there was no pain whatsoever, the young trooper felt the shrapnel embedding into the soft flesh of his back and legs as well as his left arm. Just as he tried to get up on his feet and fire back, he saw a man jumping into his trench before a knife found its way into his chest.
The trooper tried to fight back but before he could even retaliate, another dynamite fell right into his trench killing everyone including the powder gangers that managed to reach it.
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