Chapter Seventy-One

Vault 79. Appalachia

As far as I knew during my time The United States Bullion Depository was located at the Fort Knox which had became active in the 1930s, and had been used to house a large amount of the federal gold reserves. In this universe, at some point before the Great War, all the gold from Fort Knox was secretly moved to Vault 79 for storage in the case of nuclear war, and Fort Knox was completely emptied of gold.

After the war, the Vault remained sealed, awaiting orders from the outside to be opened should the Vault's gold deposits ever be needed. Not that this seemed likely to ever happen as even if I hadn't come here for the gold there was no one in this world who really needed it. Trade was built around water, ammo, weapons and other useful stuff. I on the other hand had a use for gold as while it wasn't one of the more sort out metals in the Imperium of Man it still had value and if nothing else I could use it to pay my crew.

According to the detailed files of the Brotherhood of Steel, who had started sharing information with us, at an unknown point in the past, there was a mutiny led by a Secret Service agent nicknamed "Shorty" among the inhabitants of Vault 79, which killed many of them, and I imagined that time had finished the rest of them off.

By 2103, rumours of the Appalachian treasure drew people seeking it out to this region, and they enlisted the help of a Vault Dweller to obtain it. After they breached Vault 79, the remnants of the Vault's Secret Service detachment allowed them to leave with some of the gold. I wondered if those treasure hunters had been disappointed by what they found as they couldn't eat the metal or shoot gold at their enemies.

The Brotherhood of Steel had provided more than just some information to aid in my treasure hunt they had crude maps of the Vault's levels. No one I'd spoken to knew how they'd gotten this information and it didn't really matter since the Ad-Mech had a form of ground penetrating radar that gave them a much better idea of what was going on down there.

"We detect no signs of life Lord Captain" said one of the enginseers who was providing aid for this operation as getting into a vault can be tricky "As expected the vault's reactor is still active so it may be defended in other ways".

There could be quite a few robots and sentry guns within the vault and so I was glad I wouldn't be sending troops from the 2nd Thrax Regiment down there or any of our new allies as the losses would be high. The Ad-Mech group who made up part of this expedition had their own warriors and it been agreed upon that they'd be better suited for this operation.

In exchange for their efforts I'd get all the gold and they'd get all the technology in the vault. A simple deal that I and the red robed cyborgs should both profit from. I had come to this world to gather tech to trade with the Ad-Mech, so letting them just have all the tech in Vault 79 might seem foolish, however I did need their help and I wanted that gold as part of my plans. Besides the Ad-Mech were my allies not my minions I couldn't demand that they work for me.

As a Rogue Trader I had more than my own fortunes to worry about. I had to ensure that every member of my crew got wages, something to eat, a bed to sleep in, plenty work to do, and some kind of entertainment. While many Imperial citizens never got to see much of their own world or any other I wanted better for the people in my care. So I would need to arrange some sort of shore leave and in this dimension there was only place to go for that sort of thing.

Sooner or later I'd need to talk to Mr House over in New Vegas so that I could start sending crew and members of the Imperial Guard on shore leave. For that I needed money that had something backing it. Hence why I'd come here for a lots of gold as not only could I make coins from the metal the gold itself I'd have tangible proof of my wealth. As a Rogue Trader I was allowed to mint my own money as long as I had something real to trade as moving lots of resources around isn't easy. Its just a lot simpler to use coins when making deals and then later on provide the goods.

In the Imperium the forms of currency could be quite varied but unlike in my world they were not Fiat based, which is when a government-issued currency that is not backed by a commodity such as gold. Fiat money gives central banks greater control over the economy because they can control how much money is printed. Most modern paper currencies in my home universe, such as the U.S. dollar, are fiat currencies. In the Imperium the money would be back a world's mineral wealth or its food production, in the case of Hive Worlds the value of currency depends on industrial output rather than simply having value because a government decided it did. Even manpower was a valuable commodity as were how many regiments could be raised from the population.

"So are we just going to stand about out here and watch?" asked Sarah Lyons.

Elder Lyons had sent his daughter and her elite squad to aid me in my operations so that I would have experts in Wasteland survival with me. In return they got to learn more about my operations and while we were allies they'd be fools not to have someone keeping an eye on me.

"Being a leader often means having to stand around and sending other people off to risk their lives" I said "I'm sure you haven't always led from the front. Besides the Ad-Mech are better suited to handling this situation than we are".

There would be other vaults with other treasures within. As for my forces well the regiment was going to be focusing its efforts on taking out The Enclave as quickly as possible so that they couldn't get in my way.

"I already have people fortifying The Citadel" I was now saying "and you have more recruits than you can handle".

Given the size of my crew it wasn't at all hard to find a few hundred young people willing and able to go join the Brotherhood of Steel. The ideals of the Brotherhood weren't hard to grasp and while the worship of the Emperor might become an issue we had chaplains and commissars to help handle such matters.

"I get the feeling that you'll see plenty of action over the next few months" I assured the Brotherhood solider as I decided that she look sexier holding a Bolter "The Imperium is going to change this world and you'll be in the thick of it".

One step at a time, gold first and everything else would follow.