70 Chapter Seventy

The Citadel. The Capital Wasteland.

Sentinel Sarah Lyons had both seen and heard about some weird shit during her life. She'd seen super mutants as tall as some buildings, massive bugs, a battle robot march to war and she'd once watched helplessly as a Deathclaw bit the head off one her squad mates despite him wearing his helmet, only for a well aimed sniper shot to take down that monster when a bullet when through its eye. Sarah Lyons had even fought alongside the Lone Wanderer as they battled to bring to life Project Purity.

Yet recent events had somehow become even stranger. Mere days ago they'd been contacted over the radio by someone claiming to be in space ship currently in orbit over the Capital Wasteland. They weren't even aliens, someone called Lord Captain Thrax insisted that he was human and from something called the Imperium of Man which was a space empire. It sounded like science fiction to some within the Brotherhood.

Naturally many had thought that this was a prank of some sort, however when the shuttlecraft, that she would later learn was called a Arvus Lighter, touched down outside of The Citadel in what had once been a car park she started to wonder if this wasn't simply some kind of joke. The shuttle was much like their own veritbird and you couldn't just fake that sort of thing. Only the Enclave and the Brotherhood had that kind of technology.

Sarah wondered if this could still be a trick. Perhaps she was wrong about who had access to such technology. These visitors could be from some part of the world that they didn't know about yet. Only when the shuttle lowered its ramp and soldiers started to march out did Sarah Lyons begin to believe that the claims of these people might just be true.

She thought this because the guards of their important guest, who were all women she noted, looked far too clean to belong in this world, and she could tell that their equipment had been manufactured recently. It appeared too new to be repurposed tech from before the Great War and while she knew laser weapons when she saw them she didn't recognised the models used by these visitors. She was already wondering how they'd compare to her own battered laser rifle.

None of their guests wore power armour either because they didn't access to that technology or because they'd not wanted to appear overly threatening. Sarah hoped that their suits would give her squad The Lyons' Pride an advantage should the strangers turn hostile. Plus it helped that their visitors hadn't brought along any heavy weapons.

Sarah became very focused when a man came down the ramp. He was without a doubt the most well-dressed person she'd ever seen and his choice in clothing was strange. His boots and trousers were practical, and he carried some sort of pistol, only smart in the Wasteland, as well as a sword for some reason. His jacket was rather odd, it had a military style to it yet it was not very practical. She thought he looked a little dashing like some hero from an old TV show.

Once the Lord Captain, this had to be the man that her father talked to over the radio, had shaken hands with Elder Lyons, the Rogue Trader signalled for his guards to start bringing out of the shuttle some crates which turned out to contain some of their laser weapons, examples of both pistols and rifles. Sarah knew that the Brotherhood could do with these weapons yet she also knew that gifts often came with a hidden price tag.

"And this is my daughter Sarah, leader of the Lyons' Pride" her father introduced.

By now Elder Lyons had begun to make introductions, both herself and Head Scribe Rothchild would be attending the meeting with Lord Captain who as it turned out had brought a scribe of his own who seemed quite interested in how the Brotherhood safeguarded their technology. Sarah had never seen anyone liked the red robed figure who looked more like a robot than a man. She'd actually thought it that someone had robed a robot at first. In reality he was a tech-priest who worked for someone called the Archmagos and they worshipped machines.

"Your power armour is interesting" said the cyborg "I hope that we will be able to acquire some samples so that can produce our own copies".

That caught all the Brotherhood by surprise.

"You can manufacture new sets of power armour?" questioned Rothchild.

They could repair existing sets well enough and they'd salvaged a lot of equipment from their battles with the Enslave, but they'd never been able to create new sets of power armour.

"His Glorious Aspirations is blessed with a fully functional manufactorum" informed the Lord Captain "As long as we can feed the forges enough raw materials we'll be able to supply you with plenty of weapons and armour. Assuming that we can come an arrangement".

Well that explained the crates, they were samples of product that the Lord Captain wished to sell. This made sense given that one of his titles was that of Rogue Trader. Sarah didn't understand what a manufactorum could be so she could only imagine a factory inside a space ship. That was something she wouldn't mind seeing.

"We should talk inside" said Elder Lyons.

As they moved the Rogue Trader, the cyborg and the female guards got a chance to see where the training took place. There was no one out here right now as the Elder hadn't wanted their visitors to mistake the sounds of training as any kind of attack.

Once they got inside they began to move to the meeting room The Citadel had not looked so good for as far back as Sarah could remember. It had been cleaned from top to bottom so to give the best impression to their guests, but Sarah didn't think that people who had nice new gear and the ability to produce new tech would be impressed.

As soon as everyone was seated in the meeting room the discussion began.

"I'll be direct" the Lord Captain started by saying "My people are interested in acquiring as much of your advanced technology as possible. That means your robots, power armour and plasma weapons".

All things that the Brotherhood had in very short supply.

"We also are willing to accept information that can led us to acquiring this technology for ourselves" added the red robed cyborg.

The Lord Captain spoke again.

"In exchange we're offering a large amount of laser weaponry, and other manufactured goods depending on your needs" said the Rogue Trader "It may even be possible for us to produce power armour and plasma weapons for you. If nothing else we can offer you aid in the form of manpower. We brought with us an entire regiment, the Thrax 2nd".

Sarah picked up on that last part.

"How large is this regiment?" she asked.

There was no delay in the answer.

"Roughly ten thousand fighting men and women" said the Lord Captain "Along with some armoured support and artillery".

Assuming that the Rogue Trader wasn't lying then he had more than enough soldiers to overwhelm the Brotherhood in mere moments. If these Imperials could in fact wield such a force it would explain how they could simply give away laser weapons.

"With that many fighters you could simply conquer the Capital Wasteland" pointed out Scribe Rothchild "So why do you wish to ally with us?".

Sarah felt that this was a good question.

"Because we are on an expedition" said the Lord Captain "We don't have the resources to sustain the regiment for more than a few months and this world doesn't have the means to support us".

Simply keeping the Brotherhood supplied took a lot of work. The new water purify helped a lot with that, but it had already stretched the Brotherhood's limited resources even further as they tried to get clean water to as many people as possible.

"We can return" the Lord Captain was now saying "But only if we have good reasons to. So we need to get as much done as we can over the next few months. This will involve cleansing as much of the Wasteland of threats as possible while we try to acquire any technology you have that is of interest to us".

Again it was Rothchild you seemed to know what questions to ask.

"If you came here in a space ship as you claim what technology could we have that could possibly interest you?" the scribe.

It was the red robed cyborg who answered that. Sarah didn't understand most of what he had to say, but she began to understand that this Imperium had lost access to a lot of the technology that humanities past empires could use due to a series of problems. They had power armour and plasma weapons of their own it was just that they were hard to produce, and so having access to the more primitive versions of such would be a boon to them as it would allow them to arm the many of their warriors with armour and weapons that were easier to produce.

The tech-priest required the aid of the Lord Captain to get all that across, and Sarah was left wondering what sort of people could produce space ships and somehow not be able to make an easily mass produce plasma weapon. These Imperials were a strange lot and they had some funny ideas about technology.

As Rothchild asked more questioned it become clear even to Sarah that the Imperials had mastered laser weapons even to the point of mounting them on star ships and that they a great understanding of other technological matters, but it was hard to understand because of all the technical terms that were mixed with silly sounding terms. She didn't question their views on such matters as it didn't seem wise to risk offending these guests.

The daughter of the Elder ended up deciding that it didn't really matter why they wanted certain bits of technology and not others. She was more interested in these Imperials not destroying the Brotherhood and what they could get from an alliance with the Imperium.

"Mostly what we need form you is information" the Lord Captain was now saying "Ideas of what targets to hit as we begin to cleanse the mutants, ghouls and raiders from the Wasteland. Deploying thousands of fighting men and women is not easy task so we won't be marching an army into the ruins of DC. Instead we'll send in squads and clear out targeted areas. The fighting men and woman can also support your efforts".

He had more to say.

"Given our time restraints and the fact that our resources aren't limited it would be best to focus on the biggest threats while helping the human settlements to defend themselves" said the Lord Captain "We can train locals to use our weapons, build fortifications that sort of thing".

As the Lord Captain spoke more about his ideas Sarah couldn't help noticing how quickly everyone was accepting this. The Rogue Trader hadn't offered much in the way in proof that he could do anything he'd suggested and yet aside form Scribe Rothchild no one was really questioning Lord Thrax. Her father was deep in thought even as the Rogue Trader discussed what the Brotherhood would like in return for training some of his men in the use of power armour.

The younger Lyons couldn't help wondering if the Imperials had some way of making people more agreeable to their ideas, but she dismissed that and began to wonder if the Brotherhood of Steel was simply more desperate than she'd realised. They did badly need an ally, any alliances, and these Imperials had so much to offer. They couldn't really afford to refuse any help.

In her future Sarah could foresee many late night planning sessions. Her elite squad were often sent on the most dangerous of missions. If this Rogue Trader hoped to go after the biggest threat and the biggest prizes then she would be well suited to coordinating those efforts with him. Perhaps this would allow her to learn more about that the Imperials were about and what they could do.

She also wouldn't mind spending some time with the Lord Captain. He seemed like a very interesting person.