Fallout 4: Rebirth At Vault 81

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Kara and five others peeled off from the line, weaving through old train tracks and sliding behind debris piles. One threw a shock grenade—an arc mine that detonated midair and sent a cluster of raiders spasming to the ground, twitching as their weapons clattered from numb hands.

The basin erupted into chaos.

Snow became smoke, and silence became screaming.

As Kara's team veered toward the tunnel entrance beneath the watchtower ruins, the first real resistance surged up like a snake from the underbrush. Drenner's men—dozens of them—poured from hidden bunkers along the southern incline, clad in patched combat armor and old-world insignias, some of them wearing masks shaped like wolf snouts or skulls welded from scrap metal. This wasn't just a band of outlaws.

It was a damn army.

"Contacts on the left!" Kara shouted, diving behind a collapsed tank turret that had been long since fused to the dirt. A hail of bullets peppered the wall above her as three of Drenner's riflemen advanced, crouching behind old rail carts. She slammed a fresh magazine into her rifle and barked, "I need cover fire!"

Two of her squad members rose in sync and unleashed suppressive bursts, the rattle of their automatic rifles drowning out the sharper crack of incoming shots. The air turned into a storm of lead and snow.

On the right flank, the Power Armor units pushed forward like metallic juggernauts, carving a brutal path through the chaos. Lieutenant Harrow's T-60 stomped into the center lane and use the plasma cannon at his hand to a fortified sandbag nest. A hum, a pulse, then—

FWAM!

Green fire tore across the field, disintegrating the barricade and the defenders behind it. Screams echoed over the noise as molten debris showered down.

"Right side cleared!" Harrow's voice barked through the comms. "Pushing into breach!"

Behind him, the three cargo trucks had moved into a temporary holding pattern, parked behind the ridge with a team of medics and mechanics holding the rear. One of them was already pulling a wounded soldier from the back of the second truck, blood soaking the snow beneath her as the field doctor began shouting for more gauze.

"Where the hell are they coming from?!" one of the medics yelled.

Robert didn't stop to answer. His boots pounded over cracked concrete and twisted steel, weapon tight to his shoulder as he moved with Echo team through the breach. "They've got fallback nests buried all over the place. Sweep and clear as you move!"

Just ahead, MacCready ducked behind a rusted engine car, bullets ricocheting off the metal around him. He kicked aside a dead man—one of Drenner's scouts—and grabbed the grenade from the guy's belt.

He pulled the pin and tossed it low.

THUMP.

The explosion wasn't big, but it was enough. Three men who'd taken up position behind a barricade went flying backward, limbs flailing as shrapnel tore through the air.

MacCready was up a second later, advancing with that same lean-footed stride he'd learned from years dodging death in the Capital Wasteland. "We need that tunnel clear in five minutes or we're boxed in."

"Tunnel's sealed," Kara said, breath hitching as she crouched beside him, dust streaked across her cheek. "Blast door came down. Must've triggered a lockdown."

MacCready swore. "They're bottling us up."

Robert slammed the side of his fist into the nearest wall. "Not for long."

He turned to Delaney, who had just arrived from the ridge with a shoulder bag full of explosives and a face full of soot. "How thick?"

Delaney knelt beside the tunnel entrance and examined the hinges. "Pre-War steel. Reinforced. Fusion-cut welds. Might take two charges. Maybe three."

"You've got ninety seconds," Robert said.

Delaney got to work.

Up above, the sniper team continued to rain hell down on any enemy foolish enough to rise from cover. Keene was now tracking movement from one of the higher towers, picking off runners attempting to flank the squad from the far left ridge. "Got one headed for the truck line!" he called through comms.

"Copy," said a voice from the rear. A sharp crack rang out a second later, and a Drenner scout folded mid-run, face planting into the snow with a smoking hole through the back of his neck.

Back inside the basin, Drenner's men began to adjust.

No more panic. Now they were regrouping, forming tighter formations behind their cover, moving with purpose. They'd figured it out—this wasn't a raid. This was a full-blown assault. And now, they were responding like a military unit.

"They're pulling back from the outer yard!" MacCready yelled.

"Fall-in defense pattern," Robert muttered. "They're luring us in."

"Then let's not disappoint."

Delaney stood. "Charges planted!"

Robert held up a closed fist. "Everyone brace!"

The tunnel door burst inward with a dull boom, smoke curling from the entry point as metal fragments clanged down. Inside: darkness, long and cold, with flickering floodlights embedded along the walls and the sound of distant boots—lots of them.

Robert pulled down his visor. "We breach."

Echo squad entered with blades drawn, rifles high, flashlights sweeping every crevice.

The interior of Drenner's base was worse than expected.

The walls weren't just steel and concrete—they were layered with reinforced bar stock and old tank plating. The air smelled of oil, gunpowder, and recycled oxygen. Crates lined the halls. Weapon racks, comm stations, lockers, bunks. This wasn't a temporary hideout. This was a command center.

"They've been living in here for years," Kara whispered. "No way this was built in six months."

Robert didn't answer. He was scanning a terminal.

A soft beep echoed through the hallway.

"Command frequency match," came MacCready's voice from further ahead. "This is Drenner's command hub."

As if on cue, red lights flashed overhead.

A voice—rough, amplified, and familiar—rang out from an old PA system:

"So. You finally made it."

Robert and MacCready froze.

"That's him," Robert said. "That's Drenner."

"You came with fifty men," Drenner's voice boomed, casual, almost amused. "You brought your power suits, your elite commandos. Thought you'd scare me back into the hole I crawled out of."

Robert clenched his jaw.

"You don't understand," Drenner continued. "You've already lost. You've exposed yourself. I have eyes in Sanctuary. Do you know how many of your people are one whisper away from joining me?"

MacCready rolled his eyes. "What is it with assholes and speeches?"

Then came the gunfire.

From side corridors and hidden bunkers, Drenner's remaining soldiers attacked. The corridors erupted in fire and fury. One of Echo squad's riflemen was struck in the chest, collapsing instantly. Another lost her footing on blood-slick tile as enemies surged forward, teeth bared beneath gas masks.

Robert shouted over the roar, "Hold this line! Set up a fallback perimeter!"

Power Armor stomped forward, soaking up bullets and firing in bursts of controlled hellfire. The Tesla rig swept one corridor clean with a blast that shorted the lights, bathing the hallway in strobe-lit madness.

MacCready dove through a side door with Kara, flanking left. They found a control panel marked "Sector B" and keyed in a bypass code. The blast shield lifted to reveal a lower tunnel—a service corridor leading deeper.

"We can flank them," Kara said.

"Let's go."

As they advanced, Delaney's voice came through comms: "Secondary surge on the enemy flank. More soldiers—look Brotherhood trained. Tactics match."

"They're ex-military," MacCready said, breathing hard. "That explains the defense."

Inside Sector B, the lights flickered on, casting a pale yellow glow over a row of computers and two dead bodies slumped in chairs. One screen still blinked.

MacCready stopped. The name on the login?

CHRIS.BECKETT

His blood went cold.

"Son of a bitch," he whispered. "He wasn't just a leak—he was a builder. He helped design this."

Before he could say more, gunfire rang out again, this time from within the corridor behind them.

"They're regrouping!" Kara called out. "We've got to move!"

Back in the main hallway, Robert's squad was slowly advancing again, pushing through the last line of entrenched gunners. He paused long enough to reload, glancing toward the ceiling where Drenner's voice had fallen silent.

"This ends today."

The firefight deep inside the bowels of Drenner's underground fortress had changed tone—less chaotic, more coordinated. The randomness of a cornered gang was giving way to structured defense, overlapping fire lanes, and deliberate fallback points. For MacCready, who had spent half his life studying the difference between panic and planning, the shift was unmistakable.

This wasn't just resistance.

It was command.

MacCready ducked behind a cracked support beam, his breath hitching in his chest as bullets bit into the concrete just inches from his shoulder. Kara slammed into cover beside him, eyes wild and rifle nearly empty.

"We're not pushing them back anymore," she said, reloading with shaking fingers.

"I know," MacCready muttered, wiping a smear of blood off his cheek that he wasn't even sure was his. "They're buying time. Someone's pulling the strings back there."

Kara nodded grimly. "You think it's Drenner?"

MacCready peeked over the beam, just enough to catch a flicker of motion near the far end of the corridor. A group of enemy fighters were pulling back in tight formation, covering one another with practiced precision. And at the center of them—

"There," MacCready whispered. "See him?"

Kara followed his line of sight.

The man moved differently than the rest—taller, broader, his black combat coat whipping behind him with each stride like a banner. His face was half-covered by a scarf, but what could be seen was all angles: sharp jaw, steely eyes, hair cropped close to the scalp. He carried a battle rifle across his chest, and every so often, he raised it and fired with terrifying accuracy—striking Power Armor joints, visors, weak points.

"That's not Drenner," Kara said. "Too young."

MacCready's eyes narrowed. "Then that's the bastard running the floor."

As they watched, the man paused to shout something over his shoulder. Three defenders peeled off and rushed toward a side corridor. Another pair took position behind a blast shield that hadn't been up five minutes earlier.

"He's giving orders," Kara said. "Real ones. That ain't a raider."

"No," MacCready agreed. "That's a soldier. And if I had to guess—"

"He's Drenner's second," Kara finished.

MacCready looked down the hall again. The man had ducked through a reinforced doorway now, disappearing deeper into the facility, but the damage was done.

He had seen enough.

He toggled the comms line. "MacCready to all units. Be advised—we've got command presence on the ground. Not Drenner, but close. Suspected XO. Coordinates uploading now."

On the other end, Robert's voice came through. "Saw him. Tall guy with the scarf?"

"That's him. Leads like he's done this before."

"Then we cut the head."

The battle raged on around them.

The corridors were filled with overlapping fields of fire now—turrets embedded in ceilings, retractable blast doors cycling open and shut at pre-programmed intervals. Every meter gained came with a price. Two more Echo squad troopers had already gone down—one caught in a crossfire trap, the other crushed beneath debris from a triggered ceiling collapse.

Even Power Armor wasn't immune. Lieutenant Harrow's suit had taken a direct hit from a flak grenade, and though he still moved, the servo hiss that accompanied his steps was off-tempo now, wounded.

"They're bleeding us slow," Robert said into comms. "They know they can't hold forever, but they're not gonna make it easy."

Back near the control room, MacCready led Kara and two others through the side corridors, chasing the route their mystery commander had taken.

The deeper they went, the cleaner the layout became.

The corridors had lost their rusted, jagged edges.

Gone were the cracked concrete walls and exposed piping of Drenner's upper fortress. Down here, deeper into the earth, things took on a different character—smoother, cleaner. The geometry was uniform, the colors dulled into institutional greens and off-whites, with the occasional faded Vault-Tec poster barely clinging to the walls. That was the giveaway.

MacCready slowed his pace, hand outstretched to halt the squad behind him. His eyes scanned the hallway ahead as his boots fell silent against the smoother floor plating. The air had a different kind of weight down here—cooler, damper, with a faint metallic tang he hadn't tasted since the last time he stepped foot in a Vault.

He raised his rifle and flicked the flashlight attachment on. The beam landed squarely on a rusted number painted in faded yellow on the wall.

"Vault-Tec," Kara breathed behind him, stepping up beside him, her voice just above a whisper. "Jesus… he's in a Vault?"

MacCready stared at the doorplate, partially covered in grime but still legible: VAULT 77 – SUBSECTOR D.

"Looks like it," he muttered. "No wonder the defenses got tight. We're not in a bunker anymore… we're in a damn tomb."

The corridor widened up ahead, and the Vault door loomed like a yawning mouth at the end of it. Unlike most Vaults they'd come across in the Wasteland, this one was already open—its massive gear-shaped blast door fully retracted, the hydraulic arms silent and still, long dormant. But what struck MacCready wasn't the door itself—it was the cleanliness of everything just beyond it. The sterile lighting flickering from recessed ceiling panels. The lack of grime. The faint, ambient hum of still-functioning power systems.

"This place is… operational," Kara said, incredulous. "Or at least parts of it."

MacCready gave a single nod. "Means Drenner's been here for a while. Months, maybe years."

One of the Echo troopers behind them—Donner, a wiry man with a cracked lens on his helmet—whistled low. "I thought all the good Vaults were looted dry. This one looks fresh."

"Too fresh," MacCready replied. He toggled his comms again. "MacCready to all teams. Drenner's base is inside an abandoned Vault. Repeat—he's fortified a Vault. Forward teams regroup on my beacon. We're moving in."

Static crackled, then Robert's voice: "Roger that. Copy coordinates. I'm bringing the heavy guns."

But even as reinforcements converged, the uneasy silence around the Vault door felt unnatural. MacCready had been through enough deathtraps to know when one was brewing.

"Stack up," he said quietly, nodding toward the entrance. Kara went right, Donner and Brice took the left. Their weapons were tight to their shoulders, breaths controlled.

MacCready stepped through first.

And that was when all hell broke loose.

The moment they crossed the Vault threshold, muzzle flashes lit the hallway like strobe lights at a rave gone rabid. Gunfire erupted from hidden slits in the walls, automatic bursts raking across the entry corridor. MacCready dove left, rolled behind a support beam as bullets punched sparks from the floor where he'd just stood.

"Ambush!" Kara shouted, voice ragged through the comms.

The Vault came alive in violence—automated defenses and entrenched shooters opening up in deadly coordination. From behind overturned medical carts and repurposed security barriers, Drenner's men unleashed hell, pinning Echo squad at the entrance.

The second-in-command was there, unmistakable.

He moved with brutal precision, standing behind a repurposed Vault security terminal that had been turned into a command post. His coat was still whipping behind him, the battle rifle barking in his hands. He wasn't just leading from the rear—he was in the thick of it, ducking and weaving between his squad as he laid down fire, picking off Echo troops with surgical precision.

MacCready peeked around cover and returned fire, forcing one gunner into hiding. "That's our guy!" he shouted over the din. "Kara—flank left!"

She was already moving, slipping between two scorched lockers and vanishing behind a side passage.

The Vault had been modified. Walls that once held dorm rooms and classrooms had been torn down and refitted into kill zones. Turrets extended from ceiling panels on motorized arms. Reinforced blast doors created choke points every twenty feet. The architecture was still Vault-Tec—but the tactics were all Drenner.

Donner got clipped in the thigh trying to cross the hall, collapsing behind a supply crate with a strangled cry. Blood smeared across the floor tiles beneath him. "I'm hit!" he groaned.

"Stay down!" MacCready called. He slid across the polished floor, bullets chasing behind him, and dragged Donner behind a chunk of metal plating torn from the wall. "You stay awake, you hear me?"

Donner nodded weakly, gripping his thigh.

"Brice!" MacCready barked. "Suppress the hallway. I'm taking Kara in."

Brice leaned from cover and unleashed a volley with his light machine gun. The booming report filled the hallway, shattering lights and forcing Drenner's men to duck.

That was all the time MacCready needed.

He sprinted into the side passage Kara had taken. The hall curved, following the Vault's ring-like design. He kept low, checking corners, ears ringing from the volume of gunfire behind them.

He found Kara crouched at a junction, breathing hard, sweat streaking down her dirt-smeared face.

"Back way to the command post," she said, nodding forward. "I scouted it."

"You see him?"

"Not from this angle. But he's close."

MacCready nodded and checked his rifle's mag—eight rounds left.

They moved in tandem, rifles up, breath held.

The side hallway exited into a maintenance tunnel, the kind Vault-Tec engineers used to bypass the main thoroughfares. It was tight, dark, lit only by flickering emergency lights and the soft blue glow of backup generators humming along the wall.

They emerged behind a broken segment of wall that spilled into the command post chamber.

Drenner's second stood just ten meters away.

He hadn't noticed them—yet.

But Kara's foot grazed a loose wrench.

Clink.

The man spun like a machine—rifle rising—eyes locking onto them.

MacCready fired first.

The shot caught the man in the shoulder, spinning him half-around. He staggered, but didn't fall. Instead, he raised his rifle with his other hand and loosed a spray that forced MacCready and Kara back behind cover.

"He's wearing body armor!" Kara shouted. "Heavy composite!"

MacCready cursed. "Figures. He's not just Drenner's XO—he's his war dog."

The man barked something in a language MacCready didn't recognize—sharp, guttural—and two of his soldiers broke from their posts to reinforce him.

"We can't hold this position!" Kara growled. "We need to pin him down!"

A distant rumble echoed through the Vault.

MacCready glanced back—Robert's reinforcements were arriving.

Then the hallway behind the command post exploded inward.

With a roar of fire and smoke, the blast tore the barricade apart. Chunks of scorched metal and a mangled turret arm spun through the air. Out of the smoke stepped Robert, Power Armor gleaming, flanked by five more suits and a full platoon.

"Party's over," Robert said.

Chaos descended.

Drenner's men tried to fall back, but now the angles were working against them. From both the front and rear, Sanctuary's troops surged forward. Kara and MacCready took the left flank, driving hard. The XO fired again and again, blood staining his coat, but his shots were wilder now—less disciplined. He was cornered, and he knew it.

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• Name: Sico

• Stats :

S: 8,44

P: 7,44

E: 8,44

C: 8,44

I: 9,44

A: 7,45

L: 7

• Skills: advance Mechanic, Science, and Shooting skills, intermediate Medical, Hand to Hand Combat, Lockpicking, Hacking, Persuasion, and Drawing Skills

• Inventory: 53.280 caps, 10mm Pistol, 1500 10mm rounds, 22 mole rats meat, 17 mole rats teeth, 1 fragmentation grenade, 6 stimpak, 1 rad x, 6 fusion core, computer blueprint, modern TV blueprint, camera recorder blueprint, 1 set of combat armor, Automatic Assault Rifle, 1.500 5.56mm rounds, power armor T51 blueprint, Electric Motorcycle blueprint, T-45 power armor, Minigun, 1.000 5mm rounds, Cryolator, 200 cryo cell, Machine Gun Turret Mk1 blueprint, electric car blueprint, Kellogg gun, Righteous Authority, Ashmaker, Furious Power Fist, Full set combat armor blueprint, M240 7.62mm machine guns blueprint, Automatic Assault Rifle blueprint, and Humvee blueprint.

• Active Quest:-