Chapter Seventy-Seven

Nellis Air Force Base. The Mojave Wasteland.

Colonel Gwynenya Ionael stepped out of the Arvus Lighter, which was is a small, general purpose cargo shuttle that is widely used by the Imperium of Man for many tasks, both in space and on the surface of planets, and stepped on to the tarmac of the air force base that her forces had taken mere hours ago. It had been decided that the Imperial expedition required a greater military presence in this world and the Rogue Trader had selected the air force base.

According to the information that had been shared with her the Nellis Air Force Base was a pre-War United States Air Force base which was once the United States Air Force warfare centre and while Ionael didn't know exactly what that meant she figured that this base had been a very important location. Given what was happening here it would soon again be important.

Many years after the Great War it became the home of the Boomers, a xenophobic group who were originally inhabitants of somewhere called Vault 34. Once settled here they used the remaining defensive structures and their own stockpile of heavy arms, to keep any strangers away from this place using extreme violence.

Not that this had mattered much to the Imperials. While the defences of the Boomers had been quite capable of keeping out savages and scavengers. Sadly for the Boomers the Imperials had been able to drop people directly down into the base under the cover of darkness. This had allowed the 2nd Thrax Regiment to take the base with little in the way of losses. Those that hadn't died fighting would be put to work somewhere far from here under the watchful eyes of their new masters.

Now it would be the 2nd Thrax regiment using those defences to keep outsiders away. Not that the Colonel planned to have the soldiers under command simply defending this place. She would be sending out teams to deal with threats and recover any technology of value. Their time here was limited, and so the Colonel planned to get as much done as possible.

"Good afternoon Colonel" said Major Lutherus Gemim her second in command, who wasted no time in making her report "As far as we can tell the base is mostly self-sufficient, the savages were growing its own crops using water pumped in from a nearby lack. That won't be near enough to support a proper garrison, but it will help".

Keeping the base supplied would be the problem of whatever officer she left in charge here, most likely the major, as she wanted to return to the east as soon as possible there were still a lot of operations going on over there, and she didn't want to miss out. The fight against the super mutants was going well and the Colonel wanted to be the one to drive them back to whatever hole they'd come from before she destroyed whatever it was down that hole. Aside from that there were still plenty of raiders and dangerous creatures that needed to be dealt with.

"I want this place operational as soon as possible" said Ionael as she began her inspection.

Looking around she could see the most obvious structures were the control tower and the hangars to the west. There were two unused runways that stretched parallel to each other over in the east, and they took most of the space within the base's perimeter. Once repaired they could be used by the support craft of the Imperials and the vertibirds that the cogboys had been fixing up.

"Colonel, Major!" a scout called out "We found something while scouting out the area".

What the scouts had found turned out to be two Brotherhood of Steel paladins who looked to have been shelled to death while trying to scout out this base.

"So there's a chapter out here" said the highest ranking Imperial Officer.

The Brotherhood Chapter that the Imperials were allied with hadn't been in contact with their fellows in this part of the world for some time, and while the Brotherhood Chapter under the command of Elder Lyons had welcome the Imperials the same might not be true for the other chapters. As long as they didn't interfere with Imperial operations the Colonel didn't much care what the Brotherhood got up to and if the Lord Captain wanted to make contact with the local chapter that was up to him. In her view it would be better to keep the Rogue Trader out here in the east where a diplomat and trader could be of better use to Imperial efforts. Thrax should be meeting with the NCR this very day as part of his duties.

"Find somewhere to store to the bodies" the major ordered "And don't touch their equipment".

If Lord Thrax did wish to try talking with the local Brotherhood Chapter than he would want these bodies since returning them with their armour and weapons intact could be considered a gesture of goodwill by the Elder of the chapter. If not well the Enclave had the better equipment and she felt sure that she'd not finished dealing with them.