The team finally collapsed into the shade of the gas station, dropping their rucksacks near a row of abandoned coolant pumps. They had only been on the road for three hours, but Case felt like his ankles and feet were being ground into dust.
Back in Big Mountain, his life had been a series of high-speed, high-intensity skirmishes against robots—deadly, but brief. He realized now that he wasn't conditioned for the grueling, rhythmic torture of a long-distance desert trek.
"I can literally feel my feet boiling," Case groaned, his fingers fumbling with his laces as he kicked off his boots to let the heat escape.
"The Mojave will cook anyone if they let it, Case. I can guarantee that," Amelia said, her voice strained as she took a long, measured gulp from her canteen. She wiped her mouth with the back of her glove, looking toward the shimmering horizon. "But we've barely scratched the distance. The journey is still a long way out."
Markus was struggling just as much as Case. He was a man built for the internal cooling and hydraulic exoskeleton of Power Armor; stripped of that mechanical support, he felt every ounce of his own weight. He let his heavy G3 rifle thud onto the cracked concrete and leaned his head back against a rusted pillar, sipping water with a slow, rhythmic intensity.
Milla, however, looked like she had just stepped out of a spa. She sat perched on a crate, breathing easily and showing no signs of the salt-stained exhaustion plaguing the men.
"Listen, I know that stealth suit is a miracle of science, but Milla... how the hell are you still this fresh?" Case asked, gesturing vaguely at her lack of sweat.
Milla offered a sympathetic, almost playful smile. "Internal temperature regulator, cardiac monitor, a spine-integrated exoskeleton, and mini-servos at every joint. It looks like a simple undersuit, I know, but goddamn... I feel like a different species in this thing."
"I really should mass-produce that stuff for our long-range recon," Case muttered, leaning back against a cool patch of concrete and staring at Milla's suit with a mix of envy and professional interest. "Look at us—we've covered barely any distance compared to the scout teams we send to the Dam, and we're already flagging. If we can modify our combat armor to include a specialized undersuit—something like the Riot Gear's aramid layer but with those extra X-13 features—that would be golden."
Markus didn't even open his eyes. He just gave a weary thumbs-up, the canteen still pressed to his lips as he continued his slow, methodical rehydration. Case, meanwhile, pulled his marksman carbine across his lap. He performed a ritualistic check of the magazine and the action, briefly oiling the bolt mechanism. The rhythmic click-clack of the metal was the only thing keeping his mind off the throbbing in his heels.
Amelia was the first to break the respite. She stood up with a grunt, her armor clanking as she shouldered her rucksack with practiced ease. "Gotta go, kids. Sunlight's burning, and we're better off moving while we still have some lead in our pencils."
Milla hopped down from her crate, looking entirely too light on her feet. "Agree. The longer we sit, the stiffer those muscles are going to get."
"Shit… what are you women even made of? I really wonder," Markus commented, finally hoisting himself up. He moved with the stiff, gingerly grace of a man whose knees were currently filing a formal protest.
They stepped back out from under the shade of the rusted awning. The heat hit them like a physical wall. Now Case really regretted they didn't steal any jeep from the Farmstead, the NCR would have claimed it now, too late for that.
The team lifted their rucksacks and headed to Highway 95, the long trek that would take two days, and they were barely covering some distance. He wished he could call someone, asking them to bring a jeep, then lifted off.
Very well, it was a wish anyway.
The team continued their grueling trek toward Charleston. As they merged onto Highway 95, the civilian caravan traffic began to thin out, replaced by a chillingly organized military presence. Case scanned the horizon, his brow furrowing. In the game, the NCR always felt like it was hanging on by a thread, but here, the reality was different.
Scattered across the desert were reinforced checkpoints and interlocking sandbagged positions. The sheer logistical power of the Republic was on full display, a sprawling military machine that the game had never quite managed to capture. Still, all things considered, they were still spread thin. Maybe for each ten kilometers, they could find a checkpoint.
As they approached Primm, the road was completely severed by a formal blockade. Two olive-drab NCR jeeps—salvaged but functional—were parked nose-to-nose, flanked by eight soldiers with rifles leveled.
"Checkpoint?" Case asked, his hand hovering instinctively near his carbine.
"Should we go around? Cut through the open desert?" Milla suggested, her voice dropping to a low whisper.
"Nah, they'll see us on those flats and start pot-shotting," Amelia countered, her eyes fixed on the soldiers. "But I think you can try the approach, Milla. Get eyes on their manifest, see why they're locking down this specific stretch."
"Alright," Milla replied. "Just give me a signal if you need the shooting to start."
She stepped off the asphalt and into the shifting dunes. To the naked eye, it was as if she simply dissolved. Whether it was the high-tech refractive index of the stealth suit or just the blinding glare of the sun on the sand, the silhouette of her tan robe vanished.
As the desert wind kicked up small funnels of dust, Milla became a ghost in the heat haze, moving toward the flank of the NCR blockade.
"Now, let's try talking our way through," Amelia muttered, her hand nowhere near her holster but her posture taut.
They approached the security checkpoint. One of the NCR soldiers, a man with a sun-beaten face and a jagged scar across his chin, stepped forward. He raised his hand sharply, pointing a finger at the Rangers and signaling them to halt. The Rangers complied, standing their ground in the middle of the shimmering asphalt.
"Toll," the soldier said flatly, not even looking them in the eye. "Pay up. You're leaving NCR territory now."
"Toll?" Case asked, his voice echoing slightly under his headgear.
"Yes, haven't you heard? This is our territory now," the soldier explained, sounding like he'd recited the speech a hundred times today. "Which means it falls under NCR law. As per the Republic's frontier regulations, every traveler who passes through a designated border area must pay a transition toll."
"Ok," Case said, trying to keep his cool. He didn't want a firefight with the Republic on his first day back. "How much?"
"Two thousand caps."
"Say again???" Case's eyes went wide. He had expected fifty, maybe five hundred at the absolute high end for a "protection fee," but this wasn't a toll—this was highway robbery.
The soldier didn't blink. Behind him, the other seven troopers shifted their rifles, the metallic snick of safeties being clicked off echoing in the silence of the desert. "Two thousand per group. Or you turn around and walk back to Nipton. Your choice, merc."
Amelia stepped forward, her voice dropping into a dangerous, low growl. "Wait a damn minute. I've been through California before, and there's no damn toll at the border. Are you extorting us? Extortion is a criminal offense in the Republic, last I checked."
The soldier's face twisted into a sneer. "Sharp one, aren't you? Tell you what—new price. Hand over your gear and your rucksacks, and maybe we don't bury you in the sand. We ain't going to ask twice."
Suddenly, the NCR soldiers raised their rifles in unison, leveling them at the Rangers' chests.
"Shit…" Case muttered.
Then, without a single signal from the team, the lead soldier's head suddenly erupted in a spray of crimson, his helmet spinning into the dirt. A second later, the man to his left dropped with a hole through his throat.
Milla was working from the shadows.
Case didn't hesitate. Time seemed to slow as he activated his VATS-BT. The world turned a sharp orange. He snapped his marksman carbine to his shoulder.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
With precision, Case put a round through the temple of every soldier aiming at him before they could even register the muzzle flash. The rhythmic thuds of bodies hitting the asphalt followed in quick succession. Silence returned to the highway, broken only by the whistling wind and the ticking of cooling jeep engines.
"Phew... that was too close," Case panted, lowering his rifle.
Milla's voice crackled through the radio, sounding breathless but sharp. "Great. Just great. Now we've officially killed NCR soldiers. This mission just got a lot more complicated."
"What was that, Case?" Amelia asked, her eyes wide behind her tactical visor. Even for a seasoned veteran, the sheer speed of Case's reflex—clearing the rest of the squad before they could even squeeze a trigger—was nothing short of inhumane.
"You get used to it, Captain," Milla replied, her voice reappearing as she shimmered back into view near the sandbags, her tan robe discarded to reveal the sleek, dark lines of her stealth suit. "He's got… enhancements."
"Shit, the NCR is going to respond in minutes once they miss a radio check," Amelia muttered, her mind already racing through the military fallout. "What do we do now? We've got a pile of bodies and a very loud mess."
Markus stepped over a fallen soldier, nudging a discarded helmet with his boot. "Well, we can blame it on a random mercenary group. No witnesses, right? Besides, they didn't see our faces under the helmets, and we aren't wearing any known faction colors. To the NCR, we're just another group of heavily armed drifters who didn't want to pay the toll."
Case nodded, his heart finally slowing down from the VATS-induced adrenaline spike. "I agree. We don't exist, and as far as the Republic is concerned, these guys met some bandits who were better shots than they were."
"Fine. Let's… steal the jeeps and get the hell out of here," Amelia decided, heading for the driver's side of the lead vehicle. "If this is how far the NCR's reach has gotten, then we need to put some distance between us and this highway. If we move fast, we should be home free toward the Vegas outskirts."
"Yeah, let's get out of here asap."