A few days after the Covenant incident, the Minutemen wasted no time pressing their advantage. With morale high and new volunteers swelling their ranks, Preston ordered an eastward push. Their first target was Taffington Boathouse, a farmstead long abandoned after its owners fell to the swarms of bloodbugs that infested the canals.
The fight was brief but grisly. The volunteers cleared out the nest, discovering two half-rotted brahmin carcasses—one sprawled in the pen near the boathouse, the other collapsed at the front of the house, long since picked clean by insects. On the upper floor, Macready found what remained of Mary Sutton, her journal still clutched in her hands. Margaret's note within spoke of the growing swarms, pointing to the drainage at the end of the canal where the bloodbugs seemed to spawn endlessly.
It was a hard victory, but the site was secured. Taffington's fertile ground and water access made it a valuable strongpoint for the Commonwealth. Volunteers pitched campfires under the stars that night, proud to be reclaiming the ruins.
But celebration was short-lived. While scouting the area, Macready led his men south and stumbled into Malden. There, the ruins were a battlefield. Super Mutants had fortified Medford Memorial Hospital, its broken windows bristling with gun barrels and the streets patrolled by hulking brutes. To the east, hordes of feral ghouls poured from the ruins of Med-Tek Research, slamming into mutant barricades like waves. And threading through the chaos, the disciplined gunfire of the Gunners echoed from a fortified block, turning the streets into a three-front warzone.
Macready had seen enough. He pulled back his team before they were swallowed by the crossfire, then snapped open his radio.
"Starlight, this is Bravo. We got a hornet's nest in Malden. Super Mutants dug in at Medford. Ghouls out of Med-Tek. And Gunners making a play for the middle. Requesting reinforcements before this whole damn block sets itself on fire."
Back at Starlight Drive-In, the request landed heavy. Curie was still in recovery after her ordeal in Covenant, and Z11 had not yet returned from escorting Nate. Team 404 remained on station, sharpening blades and cleaning rifles but holding in reserve until Sarah gave the word.
Sarah stood over the map of Malden, her gloved finger tracing the reports. A war on three fronts. If the Minutemen ignored it, the whole region could collapse into chaos—any settlement nearby would be crushed in the crossfire.
Her choice was swift, the tone of command cutting through the hall.
"We can't let Malden turn into a breeding ground for mutants and mercs. Prep Anti-Rain Team. I'll lead the strike myself. Team 404 holds position here until I give the signal."
The order rippled through the staging area. Men checked weapons, volunteers strapped on scavenged armor, and Sarah's Tactical Dolls synced comms for deployment. The Minutemen had proven they could tear down illusions of safety at Covenant. Now they would march east—not to expose another lie, but to carve order out of outright war.
Sarah's boots hit the broken pavement at the edge of Taffington's canal as she gave the order.
Sarah: "AR Team and I will cut the path through to Medford. Once it's clear, you'll have a corridor to reinforce you, Bravo team, Macready—you've march straight to the police station at Malden Center. Hold it, fortify it."
Macready nodded, adjusting the bandage at his arm but refusing to show weakness in front of the volunteers.
Macready: "Police station's as good as ours. Just don't get swallowed by that hospital, Commander."
Sarah allowed herself the faintest smirk before turning to AR Team. The Dolls tightened formation. M4A1 silently checked her rifle, STAR-15 muttered a quick readiness report, SOPMOD bounced on her heels with her usual manic grin, and M16A1—aloof as ever—lit a cigarette despite the stink of the marsh.
The march east was tense. The cracked highway bent toward Malden's ruins, and soon the silhouette of Medford Memorial rose like a rotting husk at the western edge of the city.
The hospital's exterior defenses showed themselves quickly: a super mutant with a board of rusted nails pacing the parking lot, a mutant hound sniffing at the wind, and—worse yet—a suicider hunched inside the east-side office, its bomb's blinking light cutting through the shadows like a warning. Across the street, sporadic gunfire barked from Malden Center as Gunners clashed with scattered mutants, each side too busy with the other to notice Sarah's approach.
Sarah (low, into comms): "AR Team, stagger advance. M16, smoke cover on my mark. SOPMOD, you've got point suppression. We clear the lot fast—quiet if we can, loud if we must."
M16 exhaled smoke and flicked her cigarette.
M16A1: "Since when do we ever do it quiet?"
The first shots cracked. SOPMOD let out a wild laugh as her rifle spat hot lead into the pacing mutant, dropping it before it could roar. STAR-15 swept right, putting controlled bursts into the hound, cutting it down mid-charge. The suicider stirred, its beady eyes glowing with frenzy.
M4A1: "Contact east parking office—Suicider!"
Before it could burst into the open, Sarah fired a chem canister from her launcher. The cloud ignited with a dull whump, collapsing the shack around the suicider in a shower of splintered wood and flame. The explosion that followed rattled the parking lot like thunder, setting off car alarms that had somehow survived two centuries which somehow give chain reaction of small nuclear explosions.
The noise drew attention. From every floor of Medford's shattered facade, guttural roars answered. The hospital's lobby erupted as more mutants poured in, some hurling grenades from balconies, others charging down the stairs with rusted blades.
Sarah slammed into cover behind a collapsed gurney as bullets, nails, and teeth shredded the lobby around her.
Sarah: "Front's blown—AR Team, breach and clear! We take the lobby, Now clear the hospital!"
M4A1 led the push, precise and calculating even under heavy fire. STAR-15 covered the flanks, disciplined as ever. SOPMOD reveled in the chaos, spraying the stairwells with suppressive fire as she cackled. And M16, smoke curling from her lips, calmly lobbed a grenade into a balcony that rained mutants like fly.
As they pushed into the west hallway. With Sarah took point, chem launcher raised. The first room to the right was cleared fast: a bed, rusted sink, containers overturned, no threats. Left room was tighter — a desk with an advanced floor safe and an inactive terminal. SOPMOD crouched, gave it a look, but Sarah waved her off. "Later. Clear first."
The stairwell loomed ahead, mutant growls echoing faintly above. North and east doors both funneled into the same chamber — bloodstains, broken tiles, and drag marks leading upstairs. Sarah motioned upward.
The west door was stubborn — an advanced lock. STAR-15 planted a breaching charge, quick and dirty. Inside: broken terminals and collapsed cots. Nothing of value. The second doorway gave them more: a hallway splitting into a maintenance room on the right and a generator room on the left. SOPMOD grinned, hauling out a still-viable fusion core. Between the two hulks of machinery, a filthy mattress marked where mutants had been resting for some time.
Eastward, the hospital opened into wide support columns and a dead elevator shaft. M16A1 muttered, "Heh. Classic kill zone," as she covered the angles. Beyond, they found the nurses' station — overturned clipboards and half-shredded patient charts — leading into a ring of hospital bedrooms. In the center sat a collapsed operating room, its ceiling caved into rubble. Above, movement scratched and echoed faintly. Mutants.
As Sarah marked the map on her SHD watch, then pushed the circle further until they reached another nurses' station and a staircase. Some mutilated human bodies, fresh, scattered across the floor told them someone had fought here recently — or worse, been eaten here. They looped back into the column room, confirming the floor clear.
West doorway: another hall, eerily quiet. The stairwell linked back to the first floor. To the east, a collapsed floor blocked the main passage. They crossed carefully, shifting into a hallway beyond. Rooms lined the corridor, one holding a mag-locked cage with equipment inside. STAR-15 started probing the terminal. Sarah only nodded once: "Mark it. We're not leaving any tools for mutants."
Northward, they reached the sealed Medford Operating Theater. The lock screamed for a key. Sarah dug into her satchel, produced one scavenged earlier from the nurses' station on the second floor. The door hissed open.
The reception was dim; a single terminal hovered on the desk, its screen sputtering. Sarah tapped it and cut power to the overhead speakers — the pre-war music died, leaving a thin, brittle quiet.
Beyond the glass the operating theater yawned: lights swinging on exposed wiring, overturned instrument trays glittering in the gloom. In the pit the Super Mutant Overlord loomed, a mass of scarred flesh and old wounds, pups coiling at its feet. It turned its bulk toward them and roared, a wet, triumphant sound.
"You come to kill me?" it bellowed. "Kill me if you can — and then watch the south pour in. You cut one head and a dozen crawl out from the marsh. This place feeds us; you cannot stop the tide."
Sarah didn't answer. She didn't give the creature the courtesy of words. Her visor painted the beast in hard heat bands; her finger found the trigger and stayed there.
"Disregard comms," she said into her headset. "No chatter. Focus fire. End it now."
The theater erupted. SOPMOD's suppressive wall stitched the balconies, STAR-15 and M4A1 swept the flanks, and M16A1 placed a precise charge to ruin the Overlord's footing. Sarah drove her chem launcher forward and punched a blister of incendiary mist into the mutant's path. It staggered, claws slashing at the air, roaring impotent threats about tides and swarms.
They finished it before the threats could mean anything. Coordinated, brutal, surgical—bursts to the head, a collapsing charge that collapsed the Overlord into broken bone and a last, defiant gurgle. The pups lunged and were cut down in a single, mercyless sweep.
When the smoke cleared the pit was still. The menace in the theater had been ended, not argued with. Sarah holstered her launcher and looked up at her team.
Sarah keyed her comms."Medford secure," she said evenly, scanning the pit one last time. "Bravo, MacCready — corridor's yours. Maintain hold position. I've got new intel — more mutants are moving in from Everett Estates."
Static crackled before MacCready's reply came, his voice strained under the noise of distant gunfire."Damn it… that's just perfect. We've got Minutemen volunteers coming in and a few Gunners and Raiders pulling back, but we're still outnumbered! And all this noise? It's drawing ghouls out of the ruins too!"
Sarah didn't hesitate."Copy. We're coming out to support. AR Team — ditch whatever we're doing. Move, now!"
SOPMOD groaned dramatically as she checked her rifle."Aww, but there's so much loot!"
M4A1 gave her a flat look at SOPMOD."Targets outside or loot here, pick one."
SOPMOD grinned, chambering a fresh round."Easy choice — more targets!"
Sarah shook her head with a grin, already motioning toward the exit."Then move your ass, soldier. Let's remind them why they call you anti-rain."
The night sky over Malden burned orange with tracer fire and explosions.
MacCready's line had collapsed into chaos — super mutants swarming from the south, while feral ghouls poured out of the cracked streets and broken subways. The air was thick with screams, gunfire, and the guttural bellows of mutants locked in brutal melee with Minutemen volunteers.
From the upper levels of the hospital, Sarah could see it all. She didn't wait."AR Team — we're moving to the parking lot! Suppression pattern delta! Keep the pressure off MacCready's flank!"
M16A1 swung her grenade launcher low. "Copy that. Let's clean this up."
Moments later, the hospital's entrance erupted in fire and lead. M4A1 and STAR-15 formed the front line, laying down precise bursts that cut through the mutants charging the barricades. SOPMOD, laughing like a maniac, hurled explosives from the second-story window, turning ghouls into smoldering piles before they could close in.
For nearly two hours, it was a grinding stalemate — the mutants were relentless, and the Minutemen were running out of ammo. Then the low, heavy roar of rotors cut through the battlefield noise.
A Vertibird swept in from the south, its spotlight slicing through smoke and debris. Twin miniguns spun up, carving a bloody arc across the mutant ranks. Bodies flew. Those not torn apart turned and fled into the ruins, their courage shattered.
The tide shifted instantly. Silence fell, broken only by the whine of the Vertibird's engines as it banked low over the hospital.
Sarah raised her rifle, squinting through the haze. The paint on the aircraft's hull caught the firelight — white and black insignia, the unmistakable seal of the Brotherhood of Steel.
Her jaw tightened."…Brotherhood."
MacCready's voice crackled through the comms, half static, half disbelief."Hey, Big Sis… you call them in? Thought you and the tin cans weren't exactly on speaking terms."
Sarah's expression hardened as she tracked the Vertibird circling overhead."Negative. I didn't request their help. They're probably running an op near Everett Estates."
There was a short pause before M16A1 muttered quietly over the squad channel,"Or watching us."
The Vertibird circled once, then broke low over the crossroad south of the hospital. Its side hatch opened midair — three armored figures dropped hard into the street, servos whining as their power armor absorbed the impact.
Two Knights formed a perimeter instantly, rifles sweeping the smoke-choked ruins. Between them landed a Paladin — broad-shouldered, armor scorched but unmistakably maintained. His voice carried over the chaos as he barked orders to his men, the mechanical hiss of his T-60 servos echoing in the night.
Sarah froze for a moment, eyes narrowing through her visor. She knew that voice.
The Vertibird climbed and veered away, leaving the trio standing amidst burning wreckage and scattered mutant corpses. When the wind cleared the smoke, the Paladin's faceplate lifted.
"Danse…" Sarah muttered under her breath.
MacCready's voice came through the comms again, strained but laced with irony."You've gotta be kidding me. That's Paladin Danse? Heard The guy holding at Cambridge Police Station?"
Sarah's tone was flat, unreadable."Affirmative. He's Brotherhood… and he's not here by accident."
Down below, Danse was already organizing a forward line, his booming commands rallying his Knights as they mopped up the last of the mutants. He turned briefly toward the hospital, his eyes catching Sarah's silhouette framed in the shattered window.
Recognition flickered across his face — and something else, harder to define. Respect. Wariness. Maybe both.
"Well well, Commander Sarah," he called through his helmet speaker, voice carrying clear across the ruined street. "Didn't expect to find you leading Minutemen in this sector."
Sarah stepped forward, rifle slung across her chest. "Likewise, Paladin. Looks like your timing saved a lot of lives."
Danse nodded, his posture rigid. "The Brotherhood doesn't stand idle while abominations threaten civilians. Everett's is festered of muties — we intercepted their movement north. Consider this… a fortunate intersection of objectives."
Sarah's gaze stayed cool. "Fortunate, sure. But make no mistake — the Commonwealth isn't your hunting ground."
Danse regarded her for a long moment before replying, his tone firm but not hostile. "And yet, here we both are — cleaning up what others let rot."
The tension hung in the air, heavy as the smoke drifting between them.