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Chapter Text

“Checkmate Two-Six, Checkmate Two-Six, report status, over! Checkmate Two-Six, do you copy?!”

“Bishop Three-Five to Command, we are covered in infantry, requesting immediate fire support! Grid square Delta Zulu Tango, Six-Five-Niner! Command, please acknowledge!”

“Sequoia One-Seven falling back to Phase Line Charlie! Southern flank is folding! Repeat, southern flank is folding! Legion forces pushing hard through the pass! Recon estimates forty plus! Recommend you reinforce Battalion CP on the double!”

-----

The screams of the dying filled the NCR’s channels as wave after wave of Legion troops threw themselves at heavily fortified positions. For every NCR rifleman that fell, three, four, even five of Caesar’s Legionaries perished in a hail of bullets. But the Legion had reserves – many of them, and the defenders only so much ammunition. More importantly, they had only so much will to fight.

No one dared to desert, no one was stupid enough to lay down their arms – they all knew what the Legion would do to them if they even tried to surrender, but as the battle dragged on, as their comrades fell - lifeless heaps beside them - they began to waver.

The Legion, meanwhile, pushed all the harder.

-----

“O'Hanrahan! Where is my Fifty cal?!”

“Jammed, Sarge! Working on it!”

“Work faster!” Mags buried her face into the dirt of the slit trench as a spray of bullets plowed into the ground all around her. She rolled onto her belly, brought her rifle up and peered down the sights, lining the iron rings up with the enemy shooter in the distance. She squeezed the trigger three times, felt the weapon kick against her shoulder three times, was rewarded with the Legionary crumpling as the first round took him in the shoulder and the next two tore through his boiled leather breastplate and into his chest. “Razz! They’re going for our flanks!”

Over to her left, her squadmate was crawling out of his own fighting position, staying so low to the ground that all she could really see of him was his Mohawk rising up from the dirt. “I got this! Covering fire!”

She raised her rifle up over her head, not even looking where she was shooting, and emptied the magazine downrange in a desperate attempt to keep the Legion troopers suppressed. The return fire slowed, became sporadic, but the group of four swinging around to her squad’s left was still on the move.

“Frag out!”

Razz hurled himself to his feet, a grenade primed and ready in his hand. He reared back and heaved it with everything he had. He didn’t even look to see where the toss landed, instead diving right back to the ground immediately after the throw. But Mags saw the fist-sized explosive land right in the middle of the flanking enemy formation, saw them try to dive away in a futile effort to save themselves. She saw the grenade detonate; she saw the shrapnel tear the Legionaries apart.

“Yes!” She whispered fiercely, her grin feral as she slapped a fresh clip into her rifle. But there was little time to celebrate. The bulk of the Legion force, realizing that their first plan had failed, had decided to throw subtlety out the window. Several ranks broke straight forward – a massed assault right down the barrels of NCR guns. A half dozen or so Legionaries fell to shooters from other Republic squads stationed on either side of hers, but there were many more behind them. “Private!” She nearly shouted herself hoarse. “I need that MG! NOW!”

“Consarnit! C’mon, c’mon!” Several feet behind Razz and Mag’s foxholes, Private James O’Hanrahan had given up on subtlety as well, resorting to main strength to try and force a stuck brass casing out of the ejection port of his Browning M2. He gave the side of the weapon a good, solid thump with the heel of his hand and the empty shell went flying away. “All right!” he crowed in triumph. “Ok, hurry up, Poindexter! Get that belt in, get that belt in!”

Just a few short weeks ago, the spindly trooper wouldn’t have even known which end of the gun the bullets came out of, never mind be able to combat load a heavy machine gun in almost no time flat, but things had changed quite a bit in such a short span of time. His slender, nimble fingers threaded the ammunition belt through the feeding mechanism and he slapped the cover down, making the weapon ready to fire. “You’re loaded, James! Shoot!”

“Spot for me!”

“Ten-o’clock! Cresting the ridge!”

The machine gun let out a harsh *THUMP-THUMP-THUMP* as the stocky farm boy triggered off a quick burst that tore down a Legionary who’d gotten just a bit too close for comfort.

“One-o’clock! A trio coming out of the ravine!”

With deadly precision, O’Hanrahan traversed the gun to his right, swinging the barrel around and putting another hail of rounds on target. He stitched one burst, then another, and another, splashing bullets across three of Caesar’s infantrymen who’d burst from a dry streambed, machetes raised high. All three went down, bodies tumbling into a single, tangled pile.

On and on it went, wave after wave of Legion troops charging the beleaguered NCR squad, only to be pushed back each time. The corpses piled up, testament to Mags’ accurate rifle fire, Razz’s ferocity, and O’Hanrahan’s proficiency with the machine gun.

“Cease fire, boys! Cease fire!” The blonde rose to her feet, turning to face the rest of her unit and made a vicious downward chopping motion with her hand. A few more rifle cracks echoed from beside her, but then the shooting stopped completely. She slung her rifle back over her shoulder. “Nice work, squad. Safeties on, at ease.”

O’Hanrahan watched the retreating Legionaries with obvious skepticism. He doffed his helmet, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “I may be seeing their backs right now, but I reckon they ain’t done with us yet, Sarge.”

“No, they’re not, Jimmy. Not by a long shot.”

Razz popped a fresh clip into his rifle and worked the charging handle. “Let ‘em come. I still got plenty of lead left for ‘em.”

“Dial it back, Private. They’ll be back soon enough. And probably with more bodies to throw at us, too.” She sighed and flexed her fingers, already feeling them starting to cramp up now that the action had come to a lull. “Check your ammo and get yourselves some chow, then report back here on the double. We are holding this line, gentlemen. They want this ground, they are going to have to TAKE it from us. And we are damn well gonna make ‘em bleed for every last inch of it.”

Chapter Text

“Sergeant Wallace?”

It took her a minute to realize the voice was speaking to her. She looked up from the can of cold beans she’d been nursing for the past half hour and set it aside in disgust. “Lieutenant Sullivan.” Her first instinct was to salute, but she stopped herself just in time. The Legion wasn’t in the habit of assassinating NCR officers in the field, but why take the risk? She settled for turning the almost-salute into a somewhat natural looking pass of her hand through her hair. “Sorry about that, sir, most people don’t bother to use my real name, anymore.”

He nodded, but there was a gentle frown on his face. “Never did figure out-“

She shrugged. “Margaret Wallace. ‘Mags.’”

“Ah.”

“So what can I do for you, sir?”

“Just running a quick check on the line. Give me a sitrep?”

“My unit’s squared away and ready to fight, sir, just point us at the enemy.”

“How’s your supply situation?”

“Decent enough. Could use a few more rounds for our Fifty here, but I already checked with the Quartermaster and he’s tapped out.” She shook her head. “We’ll make do.”

“All right. Dig in deep as you can. Ranger patrols report that the Legion’s pulled back a ways, but it looks like they’re massing for another run at us sooner rather than later.”

She nodded gravely. “That’s affirmative, sir. We’ll be ready.”

“Good.”

He’d just turned to go when she called out to him. “One more thing, Lieutenant?”

“Go ahead, Sergeant.” He slowly turned back to face her, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, lighting one for himself and offering her one.

She waved a hand. “I don’t sm- you know what, now’s a good time to start.” She chuckled dryly. “Thanks, sir.”

“What were you about to say?”

“Any word from Wright?”

Sullivan shook his head and scratched the back of his neck, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “None. Courier cut herself a path up to McCarran three days ago with some of her friends, hoping to shanghai anyone she could, but she hasn’t made contact yet.”

“Understood.”

“I know she said she’d be here, Sergeant, but there are a lot of Legionaries out there, and we can’t count on anyone else to fight our battles for us.”

Mags sat up straighter, one hand clutching tighter at the barrel of her rifle which was leaned against the sandbag wall she was seated on. “No, sir. Don’t worry, Ell-Tee, we will hold our ground. The Legion isn’t getting by us.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Carry on, Sergeant.”

The Lieutenant drifted away to make the rest of his inspections, easily disappearing amidst the blowing sands. As soon as he was gone, Razz, who was ostensibly asleep a few feet away, cracked an eye open. O’Hanrahan looked up from tinkering with the unit’s “Ma Deuce,” their heavy machine gun, and Poindexter pulled his nose out of its customary hiding place: a book of some sort.

“So she’s not coming.” It was nothing short of a miracle how six and a half feet of tall, strong country boy could look so small and dejected, but he managed it.

“Just because she hasn’t, doesn’t mean she isn’t. But yeah, it’s not looking good. We may have to send Caesar and his boys to hell all by our damn selves. You three up for it?”

“You know me, Boss. I always like a good tumble.”

“This isn’t a game of Grab-Ass with the Legion, Razz.”

“That’s not what I- fuck you, Sarge.”

She chuckled. “And you, Four Eyes?”

Poindexter sighed dramatically, closing his book with a melodramatic flourish and laying it down in his lap. He carefully peeled off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I suppose I’ll just have to be. Those brutes stand to interrupt the meeting of my book club tomorrow evening.”

“You have a book club? I love to read.”

Poindexter eyed his Mohawk-sporting companion with a healthy dose of skepticism. “Really?”

“Oh yeah. La Fantoma, Tales of Chivalrie.”

“Cretin.”

Chapter Text

“Oh, that ain’t fair! Since when does the Legion use fucking mortars?!”

“Since they heard you were going to whine like a sniveling little bitch about it. Now shut your goddamn trap and keep your head down, Razz!”

Mags was getting rather used to eating dirt. It’d gotten to the point where she almost couldn’t remember what life was like when she didn’t have the taste of Mojave sand and grit in her mouth.

A Legion shell burst in the air uncomfortably close by, the pressure wave stealing the breath from her lungs and leaving her ears ringing, but thankfully not doing anything worse. Shrapnel peppered the area around her, jagged shards of red-hot metal burying themselves in the dirt she was using for cover. It went on like this for what seemed like hours – little *Thunks!* and *Whumps!* in the distance, followed by that eerie, high-pitched squeal as the rounds came screaming down on their heads, almost like crows swooping down on a field littered with carrion. The explosions tore at their eardrums; the concussive force of the detonations hammered at their chests.

She saw more than one trooper lose their nerve at the assault: a ways to her left, one soldier curled up at the bottom of his foxhole, clutched his knees to his chest and half-sobbed, half-screamed as the barrage continued, seemingly with no end in sight.

But it did end. Eventually the enemy fire slackened, stopped completely. Heads emerged from their trenches and were immediately shouted back down.

“Nobody move! Stay in your foxholes!” Mags bellowed to her squad and anyone else nearby who could hear. The fine, wispy little hairs on the back of her neck were standing up: a sort of homegrown danger-sense she’d cultivated over the years. The shooting had stopped, but she didn’t trust it. It was a trick: a lull in the barrage to lure the troopers out of their shelters… get them out in the open where they’d be vulnerable to another round of shelling.

A cry cut through the uncanny silence that had fallen over the NCR line – weak, but unmistakable, like a wounded animal howling for the rest of its pack.

It was hard for O’Hanrahan to speak, his mouth was so dry, but he still managed to get the words out. “Who… who is that?”

Every last one of Mags’ instincts was telling her to stay put, but she couldn’t ignore those cries for help. She rose into a crouch, clutched her rifle tight, and turned towards the sound. “I don’t know. But you stay here. I’m going to go check.”

------

Running while hunched down was hell on the back, hell on the knees, and you looked pretty goddamned stupid doing it. But it made you less likely to get yourself shot while moving from Point A to Point B. The “not getting shot” part was a really compelling reason to make the trade.

She slid into the foxhole feet first, pulling her entire body into it as fast as she could as if expecting someone to take a potshot at her, or for more bombs to start falling from the sky at any moment. Neither happened, but being careful had kept her alive this long, she wasn’t about to mess with a winning formula.

The Legion had started their bombardment in the dim hours before dawn, so down at the bottom of the foxhole, there was hardly any light to see by – and since the troopers stationed along the line were under orders to maintain noise and light discipline, Mags couldn’t just turn on a flashlight, or she’d risk giving away her position to the Legion artillery spotters. The only good news was that the hole she was in was small enough that there wasn’t much room to search. She found the wounded man after only a few seconds of fumbling around in the dark.

“Trooper? Trooper, can you hear me?” she whispered, pitching her voice just loud enough to be heard.

“W-who-” The responding voice was weak. Hoarse. It trembled with fear and pain.

“Wallace. Fifth Squad.”

“M-Morales.”

She recognized the name. “From Third. Where you hit?”

“My… my leg. Hurts.” He was speaking through gritted teeth, and his words were slightly slurred. She frowned, realizing she’d have to risk a little light if she was going to help the wounded man. She slipped her arms out of the sleeves of her uniform jacket, then unfolded it as best she could to form a little tent to block the light. She slipped a little penlight from a pouch at her hip, flicked it on and held it between her teeth, playing the beam over the injured trooper’s leg.

What she saw made her grimace: shrapnel had torn through the limb, shredding the trouser leg around it so messily that it was hard to tell what was cloth and what was meat. The injury was horrible, and yet Morales wasn’t screaming. She wondered why, and spared a quick glance up at his face. His eyes were glazed over, she saw an empty Med-X syrette by his hand. “How many of those did you take?”

“Had… had three in my aid kit.”

Her eyes went wide. One dose was usually enough for most average-sized folk. Two was risking systemic shock and unconsciousness. Giving someone three was pretty much euthanizing them.

“Fuck…” she muttered, carefully raising her head out of the trench so she could check the line. It was still quiet, but-

“INCOMING!”

Instinct took over, and she flung herself back into the dirt, going prone on top of Morales to shield him from the worst of whatever came their way.

The shelling went on for minutes, but the Legion had moved on to target another section of the line, and this barrage was easier, not to mention shorter, than the last one. When she finally pulled herself back upright, she could smell smoke in the air, see it wafting across the line, and like before, a strange, spooky calm had settled over the NCR positions.

She bent down to check Morales. He’d lost consciousness, gone limp, but he still had a pulse, weak and thready though it was. There might still be a chance for him, if she could get him help in time.

“Medic! Medic up!”

A young woman with closely cropped brown hair came rushing up just under a minute later. Over one shoulder was an olive-drab colored satchel with a red cross stitched onto the side. She immediately started digging into it with both hands, searching for supplies.

“Chambers? That you?”

“Yeah, Mags. What’ve we got?”

“Morales. Leg got torn up by shrapnel, but that’s not what I’m worried about. Goddamn kid stuck himself with three syrettes of Med-X.”

Chambers blanched. “Oh, Jesus.”

“Can you do anything for him, Becks?”

“Not out here. He needs an aid station. Can you help me get him off the line?”

Mags threw a glance back at where the rest of the Misfits were waiting. She couldn’t see them in the dark, but she knew they were there. “I gotta get back to my post.”

“I can’t carry him myself, Mags.”

The blonde sighed, her fingers opening and closing and opening again as she tried to bleed off some nervous tension. Her squad needed her, but so did Morales. And she knew Chambers wouldn’t leave a wounded man to die all by his lonesome. The kid might not make it, but if she didn’t help get him out of harm’s way, Chambers would perish right here alongside him. “Ok. Ok, but we gotta make this fast.”

“Right. Lemme look at the leg real quick, get him prepped, and then we move him.”

-----

“Well?” Poindexter was nervously fingering his sidearm as Mags came loping back to their position several minutes later.

“Morales from Third Squad,” she said, her voice weary. “Took a shrapnel burst to the leg.”

The Misfits had spent so long on “garrison duty” at Camp Golf that they hadn’t had much time to really get to know a lot of the other squads serving on the line. But it didn’t matter. When you were staring down a century or two of the Legion’s finest over a pockmarked field littered with bloated corpses, suddenly every other trooper serving out there with you became your best friend. O’Hanrahan frowned, his always expressive features clearly exhibiting concern. “Bad?”

Mags nodded. “He had a bunch of syrettes on him. He took ‘em all.”

The stocky private sighed and shook his head. “Now why would he go and do a fool thing like that?”

“Because he’s young and he panicked? Don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. Chambers and I got him to the aid station. It’s in their hands now.” She sighed too. “I hope you’re ready for today, boys. We’re just getting started, and I promise you it’s gonna get interesting.”

Chapter Text

“First Platoon is falling back!”

Mags was sure she hadn’t heard that right. That last bullet that’d pinged off the side of her helmet must’ve scrambled her brains some. It was the only explanation for the sheer crazy that’d just come waltzing in through her ears. “What?!”

Poindexter was screaming at her, waving a handheld communications receiver in her general direction. “Call just went out over the tac net! First Platoon is withdrawing! We’re falling back to Rally Point Whiskey with the balance of Second Platoon right after!”

She shook her head in complete disbelief. “That’s insane! We retreat now, we’re done! The Legion takes this ground, they seize the road leading straight to Battalion CP, and Caesar owns the Dam before nightfall. We can’t leave!”

“Those are our orders, Wallace!”

“Well, fuck ‘em!”

O’Hanrahan looked up, his jaw set in a grim line, but his brow furrowed with anxiety. “I ain’t no coward, but we can’t stay here, Sarge. Ma Deuce is running dry. I got one more belt and then I’m done.”

Mags spared a glance down at the M2. The heavy machine gun was a major asset to their squad, and one of the few things keeping the Legion from just overrunning their position with sheer numbers. Without it, O’Hanrahan was right: they weren’t likely to hold for very long. She clenched her fists tighter around the barrel and grip of her rifle, drawing strength from the heft of the weapon in her hands. “Then there’s only one choice,” she said, her voice ringing with determination. “Poindexter, raise the Ell-Tee.”

“Gambit Six, Gambit Six, this is Two-Five, do you read?”

“Six Actual, go ahead.”

“Six Actual, message from Two-Five Actual, standby.” Poindexter tossed the radio to Mags.

“Lieutenant, word is we’re pulling back!”

“Command wants us covering First Platoon’s retreat! Then they’ll turn and cover us while we fall back!”

“You know what happens if we give up this ground to the Legion, sir! It can’t happen!”

“Not my call to make, Sergeant!”

“Sir, I have a plan!”

Sullivan’s voice was temporarily drowned out by the sound of an explosion from his side of the transmission. Static crackled over the line for a good quarter of a minute. When he came back, the Misfits could hear the unmistakable chatter of gunfire very close to the Lieutenant’s position. “I’m listening. Make it fast!”

“Hill 117. Second Rangers are up there. Legion’s been wasting troops trying to root ‘em out so they can funnel troops past that area. We relieve the Rangers, move the rest of Second Platoon to hold the base of the hill, we got a chance.”

“That’s suicide, Sergeant. You’ll never break through their skirmish line without armored support.”

“It’s either that, or we die right here on the vine. They got plenty more troops, and they’re going to keep right on coming. Then it’s Legion crosses for all of us.”

The Misfits traded astonished glances with each other, but eventually Razz offered up a grim nod. “Fuck this noise. I’m in.”

O’Hanrahan had kept firing his machine gun through the conversation and only now did the weapon click empty. He nodded, too. “I’m not just going to sit here and let them get me. If the Lieutenant’s for it, I’ll go.”

Poindexter rolled his eyes. “Do I get a say in this?”

The tall farm boy chuckled grimly. “Sure do. But the rest of us are probably gonna be leaving. Don’t think you’ll be wanting to stay here all by your lonesome.”

“So in other words, you’re not really leaving me much of a choice, then, are you? I just want to be clear about this.”

Mags glared her squaddies into silence and spoke into the comm. “Lieutenant? My men and I can lead the way up the hill, but we won’t get far without the rest of Second Platoon watching our sides. Are we doing this or not?”

There was a short pause as the Lieutenant considered his options. They weren’t pretty, and no matter which way he went, things would get bloody. But finally, “All right, Sergeant. We’ll be right behind you.” He let out a shaky breath. “Godspeed.”

Mags cut the transmission and tossed the receiver back. “You heard the Lieutenant, gentlemen. Let’s go take us a hill.”

-----

“I’m empty!”

“Last one, Sarge! Don’t miss!” Razz tossed her a spare magazine and she snatched it out of the air then slammed it into her rifle in one smooth, practiced motion. Mere seconds later, she had her weapon braced on top of the sandbag wall, the barrel pointed at the Legionaries trying to climb the hill towards their position. There were dozens of them – more than she cared to count, more than she had ammo for – streaming towards her, her squad, and the few beleaguered Rangers still stubbornly manning the Hill 117 fortifications. Even if every shot hit, even if every hit killed, it wouldn’t be enough, and their entire position was in very serious danger of being overrun.

She’d led them here, she needed to find some way to lead them out. But it seemed the only way out was through – or maybe it was more appropriate to say “over” – the bodies of the Legion troops swarming up the hill. But how could they fight when they had nothing left to shoot with?

“Targets! Targets left!” O’Hanrahan’s voice was strained as he pivoted to try and engage the Legion troops sweeping in from their southwest.

Mags swore. A two-man team of Rangers had been watching that space. She could only assume they were gone.

The lead man in the Legion formation bounded forward faster than anyone expected, his right arm reared back, machete raised high overhead ready for a savage killing blow. He let loose a bloodthirsty cry as he slashed the weapon downwards at the farmhand’s head, and the big man just barely ducked out of the way in time. With surprising grace, he swiveled on his back foot, shifted his weight forward and rammed his shoulder into the Legionary’s chest, sending him sprawling onto his back.

Poindexter rushed forward into the sudden gap between the two men, nine-mil drawn. With almost preternatural calm, he shot the downed Legionary in the head, then fell back as more Legion flowed in like water through a crack in a dam.

Razz darted over to try and help, but the young man couldn’t get a clean shot. There was too much movement, too many bodies shuffling around too close. Snarling in frustration, he shouldered his rifle and a wicked little knife appeared in his hand instead, the blade serrated, with little trenches cut into the metal, ostensibly to keep blood from running down onto the handle and making the user’s grip slippery.

As O’Hanrahan grappled with another Legionary, and Poindexter did his best to find a clean line of sight so he could use his sidearm, Razz waded into the fray. He found an opening and his arm lanced out, that vicious knife seeking flesh, finding it, and sending a spray of hot blood flying into the air.

Mags could smell it, swore she could even taste it from where she was: that oddly bitter, coppery tang that turned her stomach. Her instincts screamed at her to leap into the brawl, to help the rest of her squad, but her brain knew where the real threat was: down below, more enemy troops were pressing on their position. She was still free to shoot, so she shot.

She put a few more rounds downrange; two more Legionaries went down, one bleeding from the neck, another clutching at a gaping hole in his thigh. The first wound was almost certainly fatal – the second, probably just as, if slower.

The rest of their friends went bolting for cover, and she had a harder time finding targets. She caught one more in the shoulder – it was the only part of him she could see jutting out from behind a boulder, and he went down hard, the shot spinning him around to dump him face down in the dirt.

And that was all she had time for – more Legion swarmed in, emboldened by the fact that the only gun firing in the entire sector had been hers. Instinct made her raise her eyes from her rifle sights, just in time to see one of Caesar’s minions raising a blade at her.

She flung her rifle up just in time, catching the impact on the steel of the barrel, but it was so powerful that it sent tremors up her arms all the way to her shoulders and numbed her fingers. She turned, slanting the rifle along the diagonal to try and use the momentum of the attack to slide the point of the blade away from her body. It mostly worked, though the tip of the blade scored a thin, fiery line against the top of her forearm. She hissed, teeth gritting against the pain, then hooked her ankle behind her attacker’s back foot where all his weight was balanced, and swept it out from under him. He toppled, and as he went down onto his back, she whipped the rifle around in her hands, crunching the stock of it into his nose – once, twice, three times, four times. He’d stopped moving after the second hit, but she cracked him twice more after that just to make sure he wouldn’t ever be moving again.

“It looks like they’ve stopped. The rest are just sitting down there. Waiting.” Poindexter grimly loaded another magazine into his pistol and shook his head, plopping himself down against a sandbag wall for support. Down below, near the base of the hill, a large mass of Legion troops just sat, seething, weapons at the ready, but making no further moves to charge their position or press on further towards the Dam.

“I don’t like this,” said O’Hanrahan. “What’re they waiting for?”

Mags grimaced. “They’re rallying for another push on us.” She heard the gunfire from the rest of the NCR stationed on or around the hill intensify, and the Legion put their heads down, but the barrage lasted for only a few seconds. Her fellow soldiers simply couldn’t keep up that kind of volume for long.

There wasn’t much choice, and she knew it. She had only one order left to give, and it wasn’t one any NCR trooper wanted to hear when facing veteran Legion soldiers. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then looked each of them in the eye. “Squad. Fix bayonets.”

Chapter Text

“Ursa Six to all NCR units in the vicinity of Hill 117… Rolling Thunder is in effect… I repeat, Rolling Thunder is in effect. Deploy green flares immediately at your position to indicate you are combat effective. We will abort strike mission on direct visual contact with this countersign…”

Mags felt her heart leap into her chest and her stomach sink into her knees. She didn’t have the slightest clue what NCR Command meant by “Rolling Thunder,” but they were broadcasting practically in the open about it. That was bad. Very bad. She looked at the rest of her squad and found nothing but horrified expressions looking back at her.

“Did I just hear what I thought I just heard?” Poindexter asked. His voice was whisper quiet.

“Yeah.” Mags struggled to form the words around lips that were chapped and a throat that was closing up on her. “Flares. Now.” She pointed sharply at the largest man in her unit and the smallest. “You two. Up on that ridge. Double-time. Go!” Poindexter and O’Hanrahan bolted for a broken ridgeline a short distance away, and about a minute later she saw two plumes of bright green smoke rising from their position. Further off in the distance, another two plumes of smoke signified where Fourth Squad had ended up. There was no sign of Third.

The oath that left her lips was brief but none the lacking in its comprehensiveness or filthiness.

The Legion had obviously seen the flares go up as well, and while they may not have known what exactly those flares had meant, they knew they signified something important. Even now they were rallying for another assault. And if they came now, there was little the Republic troops still holding out on the hill could do to stop them.

Suddenly the radio clutched in her hand squealed again. She jumped at the noise, then fiddled with it, tuning the signal so she could hear it more clearly. The voice came through muffled with static, but it was clear enough to make out. “Ursa Six to NCR unit at Grid Square 57 Charlie, identify, over.”

“Command, this is Gambit Two-Five Actual, do you copy?”

“Acknowledged, Gambit Two-Five, report status!”

“My unit’s pinned up here with the remnants of Second Rangers. Casualties: Nine dead. About times two wounded. We are bingo ammo, Command. Need immediate support. Whatever you can get us!”

“That’s affirmative, Two-Five, stand by, Rolling Thunder will be over your position in less than one mike. Be advised, this is a danger-close situation.”

“Gambit copies all, Ursa. We’ll be ready.” She turned to the rest of the NCR troops still fighting for their lives. “Help’s on the way, boys!”

Not for the first time that day, Mags found herself facedown in the dirt. Only this time, the explosions going off all around her and angling down the slope of the hill were from her own side.

It’d started with an odd buzzing, like a bloatfly hovering by her ear, the drone of its wings getting nearer and nearer until suddenly it was -right there,- drowning out all the other noise around her. The gunfire, the screaming… it all faded away, buried under that eerie, mechanical hum.

She risked a glance up, saw the shining, silvery metal shape winging overhead. Enormous doors opened in her belly, but all she could see inside was black – at least until the bombs started falling.

“Holy shit…” Razz whispered from beside her.

“Down! Everyone down!”

Nobody needed to be told twice.

Metallic, cylindrical canisters, about as long as a man was tall, fell from the belly of the plane. They plunged towards the Legion troopers swarming up the hill. But instead of impacting the ground, they split open several hundred feet above, each canister fragmenting into dozens of little bomblets that dispersed far and wide before exploding in a cloud of deadly fire and shrapnel over the attacking Legionaries.

The Legion charge stalled as ranks of dead and wounded piled up at the front of the formation, and the survivors dived for cover to avoid the deadly tempest of flying steel.

But deadly as that single plane had been, it was only a single plane. When its ordnance was expended, it turned for home: to refuel, to rearm, and when it did, it left behind plenty of Legion still capable of fighting and all the more ready to wipe clean the profligate stain upon that hill.

“Command… Command, they’re still coming… ETA on another pass from that bomber?”

“’fraid that’s a no-joy, Two-Five. Nellis reports they won’t be able to get that plane back to you in time for it to be of any help.”

Mags let out a sigh as the Legion forces down below picked themselves up and made ready for another rush up the hill. “Then we may have a problem here, Command.”

-----

“Stand fast, Two-Five. Chatter on the net. We have a heavy cav unit coming your way. Patching you through now. Callsign is ‘Grizzly.’ Good hunting, Gambit!”

“Roger that!” Raz glanced at her and mouthed the words to the same question she was asking herself: “Heavy cavalry?”

What the hell did that mean?

Just then, Poindexter and O’Hanrahan came barreling down the hill towards their position. The shorter man was in the lead, screaming and flailing his arms. He carried a pair of binoculars in his hands and was pointing excitedly at something in the distance. Mags grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him to the ground. “Poindexter! Stay low, you idiot! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

If he was in any way perturbed by the rough treatment, he didn’t show it. Instead, he just thrust the binoculars into her hands and pointed again at the distant horizon. “Look!” he implored, “Look!”

O’Hanrahan crouched down next to them, keeping his bulky frame behind cover as best he could. He shook his head. “Well, that just about settles it, Sarge. I think Short-Stuff’s done up and lost his marbles.”

Razz had his own binoculars and was peering through them. He let out a low, impressed whistle. “Holy shit…” he whispered. “Little man ain’t foolin’. See for yourself, Sarge!”

Mags growled. “Damn it, you two, what the hell is wrong with- well, I’ll be a gecko’s uncle…” She wasn’t sure she could trust her eyes. And if she didn’t know better, she would’ve sworn what she was seeing was the result of some Psycho-induced head trip. But there they were…

Charging across the open towards the bulk of the Legion forces were three dozen, honest to goodness… bears. And atop the back of each one was an NCR trooper, rifle held high. She squinted, peering harder through the binoculars until she could make out the lead riders in the formation. There at the front of the pack, a few familiar features leapt out at her: a pair of bold, red berets from the NCR’s famed First Recon Element. “She made it after all…” She shook her head, not quite believing it. "Goddamned delivery girl actually got through."

Mags’ radio squealed, jumping to life right there in her hand. “Gambit Two-Five, Gambit Two-Five, do you copy?”

She laughed. She couldn’t remember when she’d last done that – or even when she’d last wanted to. “You’re late.”

“Sorry about that, Gambit. Had to round up a few friends.”

“Better late than never, Grizzly. Our coordinates are-“

“No need, Little Pip’s got your position, we’ll be there in a jiff. Cass, Veronica, cut us through, ladies!”

An enormous cloud of dust obscured her view of the oncoming reinforcements, but down below, she could see the Legion forces hurriedly trying to form a skirmish line to repel the counterattack. She doubted they’d make it in time and grinned as the sounds of combat came through over the still open communications channel.

“Yeeeeeehhhaaaww! Head ‘em up, Winona!”

*RRRRRRAAAAWWWRR!!*

The sudden roar of several dozen angry bears nearly blew out Mags’ eardrums, even through the tinny speaker of the radio, but it was still the sweetest damned music she’d ever heard.

Razz let out a whoop, raised his rifle in the air, and his voice echoed down the side of the hill. “Awwwww, YEAH! Bear cavalry! You fucked NOW, bitches!”

The rest of the Misfits looked at him as if he’d gone mad, until eventually, with a small snicker, Poindexter took a few steps forward to stand beside him. He nudged his glasses up from where they were slipping down his nose and nodded, almost gravely, though the grin pulling at the corners of his mouth gave him away. “Quite.”