Northeast Camp Alpha
There are few things in life quite as reassuring as the knowledge that you have the best engineers in the world on your team. Captain Stewart Devlin owes his life to the engineers of the Enclave several times over: the men and women who tend the Vertibirds, the technicians who develop and maintain his suit of Tesla armor, the weapons-meisters who make plasma weaponry not only usable but safe and reliable day in and day out. Every single one of them has always come through in the clutch for him. Always.
Which is why, when the call went out a year ago for volunteers to capture deathclaws alive and bring them back to Raven Rock for research, Lieutenant Devlin asked 'why' and then 'how', and then stepped forward to volunteer. When his team came back with not one, not two, but three living deathclaws in tow thanks to the extensive work of Enclave chemical and weapons specialists, he was promoted to Captain on the spot and sent back out again. The Enclave has a good two dozen deathclaws at their disposal, all because of Devlin and his team. The way Devlin sees it, it's really because of the engineers. If it weren't for their hard work at developing both a fast-acting paralytic and a reliable delivery system for it, Devlin and his squad would never have come back alive that first day. (Okay, Janowski didn't make it even with the darts, but you've got to break a few eggs to make an omelet, right?)
And if it weren't for those engineers, the Deathclaw Deployment Squad wouldn't be in business today. Because it's one thing to snag a gigantic, mutated monstrosity of a lizard and bring it back alive. It's quite another to make use of it. The cyber-animal specialists of the Enclave had long ago worked out how to produce useful fusions of canine brains and electronic control mechanisms; they came through with flying colors when asked to turn their work to the task of bending deathclaws to Man's will. There are ten humans in Stew Devlin's squad. They're in charge of the four most obedient deathclaws in existence. Each of the massive lizards obediently trotting along the perimeter of Northeast Camp Alpha has a band of circuitry encircling most of its head, implanted by the techs at Raven Rock back before the base was destroyed. Without that band, they're nothing but wild, bloody-minded animals. With it, they're lethal force on a leash, the ultimate weaponization of Man's dominion over the natural world. Devlin's seen them tear apart those feral irradiated things that used to be human, only to turn back to their handlers and obediently wait for their next command. He's seen them rip the greenskins apart like they were made of tissue paper, and stop in the midst of what should've been a feast because they hadn't been told it was okay. He's seen them gut men in power armor. (Not recently, this was back at Raven Rock when they were testing both the obedience band and the creatures' efficacy against armored prisoners.) It is truly amazing, absolutely breathtaking, what the work of truly great engineers can do. You can bet your life on it. Every man in the Deathclaw Deployment Squad already has. Devlin himself most of all.
Which is why it takes him a minute to realize something is beeping that wasn't beeping before.
And why it takes him another minute to realize that there are two figures approaching the camp, one human, one greenskin.
And why he never realizes that the last sound he hears is the whistling of razor-bright claws through the air behind him.
Which is why, when the call went out a year ago for volunteers to capture deathclaws alive and bring them back to Raven Rock for research, Lieutenant Devlin asked 'why' and then 'how', and then stepped forward to volunteer. When his team came back with not one, not two, but three living deathclaws in tow thanks to the extensive work of Enclave chemical and weapons specialists, he was promoted to Captain on the spot and sent back out again. The Enclave has a good two dozen deathclaws at their disposal, all because of Devlin and his team. The way Devlin sees it, it's really because of the engineers. If it weren't for their hard work at developing both a fast-acting paralytic and a reliable delivery system for it, Devlin and his squad would never have come back alive that first day. (Okay, Janowski didn't make it even with the darts, but you've got to break a few eggs to make an omelet, right?)
And if it weren't for those engineers, the Deathclaw Deployment Squad wouldn't be in business today. Because it's one thing to snag a gigantic, mutated monstrosity of a lizard and bring it back alive. It's quite another to make use of it. The cyber-animal specialists of the Enclave had long ago worked out how to produce useful fusions of canine brains and electronic control mechanisms; they came through with flying colors when asked to turn their work to the task of bending deathclaws to Man's will. There are ten humans in Stew Devlin's squad. They're in charge of the four most obedient deathclaws in existence. Each of the massive lizards obediently trotting along the perimeter of Northeast Camp Alpha has a band of circuitry encircling most of its head, implanted by the techs at Raven Rock back before the base was destroyed. Without that band, they're nothing but wild, bloody-minded animals. With it, they're lethal force on a leash, the ultimate weaponization of Man's dominion over the natural world. Devlin's seen them tear apart those feral irradiated things that used to be human, only to turn back to their handlers and obediently wait for their next command. He's seen them rip the greenskins apart like they were made of tissue paper, and stop in the midst of what should've been a feast because they hadn't been told it was okay. He's seen them gut men in power armor. (Not recently, this was back at Raven Rock when they were testing both the obedience band and the creatures' efficacy against armored prisoners.) It is truly amazing, absolutely breathtaking, what the work of truly great engineers can do. You can bet your life on it. Every man in the Deathclaw Deployment Squad already has. Devlin himself most of all.
Which is why it takes him a minute to realize something is beeping that wasn't beeping before.
And why it takes him another minute to realize that there are two figures approaching the camp, one human, one greenskin.
And why he never realizes that the last sound he hears is the whistling of razor-bright claws through the air behind him.