The first thing that greeted her over the bridge the next day was a child in leather armor, her angelic little face aiming in over the barrels of a shotgun. Huey, her dogbot of the day, charged the child, catching her attention. The shotgun barked, and Nora felt a few pellets bouncing from her helm. On instinct she aimed and fired her rifle in one motion, and the body of the little girl fell lifeless against the bank of the hillock behind her.

 

Nora knelt by the side of the child, tears in her eyes. She couldn’t have been older than twelve. But she was already a murderous little barbarian, ready to kill a stranger at first sight. She closed the eyes of her first kill in this new world, wondering how she was going to deal with the new nightmares. Huey crowded up against her, his tail wagging, imparting what comfort he could. She started to pet him, then drew her hand back from the cold shell of his body, while the robot whimpered.

 

Almost perfect, she thought. But not quite. No soft fur to stroke her hand across. No warm breath on her face. “You did good, boy,” she told the dog, who through no fault of his own was not a real canine.

 

Huey made a noise deep in his throat, the beeping of a machine. Nora wasn’t sure what was going on, until she heard the voices all around her.

 

“Well, lookie here,” said a male voice, coming from the top of the small hillock. “And she killed Natasha’s little girl. What was shame.”

 

“I think we should string her up from a tree,” said another.

 

“She’s beautiful," said a third. “And from the looks of her just out of a Vault. I think we should give her a traditional Wasteland greeting.”

 

Nora turned her head and looked up, to see three of the filthiest specimens of male humanity it had ever been her displeasure to look upon. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and saw two more of the Raiders step into sight. All had guns pointed at her, and she was sure that if she made a move with her rifle she would catch enough bullets to put her down, despite her makeshift armor.

 

Huey continued the beeping that she thought must be his version of a growl.

 

“How cute. She has a toy dog.”

 

“Well, if you hadn’t missed your shot earlier we could have real dog tonight.”

 

Without warning one of the men, the largest, stepped forward and brought a sledgehammer down on the head of the robot. It let out a couple of beeps and collapsed, a large dent in its head. One of the ruffians grabbed her and jerked her to her feet. Her rifle was tossed aside, as was her pistol and knife. They roughly stripped her of her armor, then her Vault suit, finally ripping her underwear from her in frustration. She stood in front of the men naked, shivering from fear and shame.

 

“She’s fucking beautiful. And look at that skin. So clean.”

 

And they were even more filthy closeup. They stank, as if they had never bathed. Of course, with the radiation in some of the water hereabouts that might be a good idea.

 

“Here’s how its going to go,” said the largest Raider, what had to be their leader. “We are all going to fuck you. And I for one want to see those pretty lips wrapped around my dick. So no biting, or we will bash your brains out with the sledge. Understand?”

 

All Nora could do was nod her head, too frightened to even speak. Here she had been, so sure of her abilities, and these wilderness trained men had surrounded and taken her without a fight. She wanted to live. She needed to live, so she could rescue Shaun. If she died there would be no one who even knew he existed. So she had to perform well through her gang rape.

 

“Let’s bring her back to camp,” said the youngest of the Raiders, leering at her. “We might as well be comfortable while we make use of her.”

 

“Okay,” said the Leader, grabbing one of Nora’s arms in a tight grip that was sure to leave a bruise. “Someone get her rifle and gear. I want to test that thing out, after we test her out.”

 

It was a short walk through some woods to get to the small smokeless fire. Dirty furs were arrayed around the fire, five of them. She hoped that meant there were no more guests coming to this party. Five were bad enough, but add more and the hopelessness began to add up. The leader spun her around and flung her hard onto some of the furs, while the others started to pull down pants to reveal dick of various sizes, all starting to harden at the sight of the woman cowering on the furs in front of them.

 

The leader knelt by her side and presented an exceptionally large cock to her. “Blow me, bitch. And remember, no biting.”

 

“I want some of that pussy,” said the second largest of the group.

 

“All you’ll wait,” growled the leader as Nora licked the cock head in front of her, trying to do a good job so these monsters would let her live. “I got dibs on the pussy. Just let her give me some head.”

 

“Come on, Buzzard,” complained the man who had stated his wish for her pussy. “You’ll split her open with that thing, just like the last one. Let some others warm her up.”

The leader nodded, then closed his eyes as Nora sucked on the head of his dick. The second in command pushed her knees apart, climbed on board and shoved his respectable cock up her pussy in one thrust. Nora had always been tight, and had found that the best way to accommodate a large cock was to take it slow and let her tunnel stretch. There was no going slow with these barbarians, and she grunted in pain as the cock pushed into her.

 

“Watch the teeth, bitch,” growled the leader, giving her a hard smack to the face.

 

Nora blinked back her tears and went back to work on the cock, sucking it in until the head was at the entrance to her throat. Her jaw hurt from fitting the monster into her mouth, and the taste was gagging her. Buzzard grabbed the side of her head and thrust his cock into her throat. Nora almost panicked as she lost her ability to draw in air.

 

Shaun, she thought as she forced her throat to relax. She had to survive, for Shaun. Both men hadn’t a care for her feelings through the ordeal, and kept thrusting away.

 

“How's that pussy?” asked one of the bystanders.

 

“Tight, but dry as a bone. Don’t you like the attention we’re giving you, cunt?”

 

Nora closed her eyes, wishing the men would just go away. But they had one thing in mind, and they were single minded pursuing it. It wasn’t sex. Not really. It was violence, strong brutal men letting her know that she was nothing more than a fuck toy in their hands. Just as she thought she was on the verge of passing out Buzzard’s dick swelled in her throat, and spurt after spurt of thick come shot into her stomach. The one fucking her let out a grunt and shot his load into her pussy.

 

All Nora wanted to do was run down to the river and clean their filth off of her. Unfortunately, they were of a mind to cum in her until they were empty, and she had hours of this to look forward to.

 

The hours passed, the men taking her in the mouth, pussy and ass. Her anal penetration hurt like nothing she had ever felt, and she was sure they were going to split her open down there. Just like her pussy, the first man to cum in her ass provided lubrication for the rest.

 

“You passed your audition, cunt,” growled Buzzard, looking down on her like she was a piece of meat that he would be having for dinner. “As long as we find you useful, you live. Hell, we might even feed you. But rest assured, punishment for killing the kid is coming. You just don’t know when its going to strike. Now tie her up.”

 

Two of the men secured her wrists and ankles with ropes, expertly tied. They kicked her off the furs and let her lie on the cold hard ground, whimpering in pain, wondering how long she was going to have to take this. As long as it takes, she thought with resolve. She couldn’t let these men kill her. And now she had something other than rescuing her child on her mind. There was now revenge. Against these five and all of their ilk.

 

When the men were all snoring away, in their fatigue not even leaving a guard, she started to work on the ropes with her fingers. Nora had long dexterous fingers, and she had learned how to get out of these type of restraints both in the search and evasion games she had played as a girl, and during her Escape and Evasion courses in the Pacific. They had done a good job, but after some work she had found a weak point in the knots. She held in her whimpers of pain from the raw mess they had left of her genitals and anus. Finally she had a lose end, and she patiently worked it until she was down to a last knot, with soon succumbed to her efforts. She forced herself to rest for a moment before tackling her ankles, letting the blood flow back into her hands. The feet were not as difficult, as she had full use of her hands.

 

She lay in the darkness for a moment, contemplating her next move. She could sneak away, back to Sanctuary Hills, without her weapons and equipment. Or she could try to kill these men, taking her revenge and ridding the Wasteland of filth that didn’t deserve to live. The helpless rape victim wanted to do the former, the Fleet trained warrior the latter. Finally, with rage clouding her vision, she crawled to the side of Buzzard and quickly pulled her knife, sheathed on the belt of his discarded trousers, and plunged it through his throat and into the spine. The man thrashed once, his eyes opening wide, before falling back in the limpness of death.

 

Nora held in place for a moment, waiting for one or more of the men to wake and come at her. They continued to snore away, testament to the potency of the liquor they had been drinking during her rape. Crawling to the side of the next raider she put a hand on his forehead and slashed his throat with the razor-sharp blade. This one thrashed a bit, his eyes opening wide as he tried to take in a breath and failed. The woman waited, tense moments, making sure the remaining three were still sound asleep, then moving to take care of another, this time repeating the thrust through throat and spine that seemed to work well in silencing them quickly.

 

As she killed number four the fifth came awake, blinking in confusion for a moment before he was on his feet and coming at her.

 

“Bitch. I’m going to rip your head off.”

 

Nora got to her feet, standing in a fighting stance, blade at the ready, just as she had been taught in the several special warfare schools she had attended. The Raider was having none of that, and drew a wicked looking homemade pistol which he started to point her way. Something flashed out of the night, beeping its anger, and Huey landed on the man’s back, his sharp claws ripping through flesh, filling the air with more of the iron scent of blood. The robot’s jaws locked on the shoulder and bit in, and the Raider went frantic trying to get the bot off of him. Nora slid forward, her knife striking in a quick series of jabs, stomach, solar plexus, throat. The Raider folded up on himself, leaving Nora standing alone and naked in the night, panting from fear and exhaustion.

 

Huey released his man, then limped over to her. The last she had seen him he was lying on the ground, obviously a wreck. Whomever had built the robots had included some kind of self-repair function, and while still not totally right, the bot would move. And he could fight.

 

Nora dragged her equipment down to the river that separated Sanctuary Hills from the rest of the world. She shivered with disgust as she felt the seed of the men dripping from her. That had to go, and she would risk a little bit of exposure to rads to clean their filth from her. She had the meds to cure exposure, after all. As clean as she could get, though no amount of scrubbing could rid her of the feeling of being filthy, she put on her Vault suit and armor and limped back to Sanctuary, the dogbot by her side.

 

“What happened to you, mum?” asked Codsworth as she limped into her camp, greeted by the other dogbots. Huey lay on the ground, while his two companions went to work on his with extruded components. She wasn’t sure if he would be fully repaired, but he could definitely help to defend the camp.

 

“I was captured by Raiders, Codsworth,” said Nora, trying to keep her tone even and failing.

 

“They didn’t…”

 

“They gang raped me,” she said, the words pouring forth along with her tears.

 

“Oh, my. Well, this should show you that you need to stay here, where it’s safe.”

 

Nora nodded, realizing that what the robot servant wanted wasn’t going to happen. She needed to keep moving forward. While the rape had been a horrible experience, it could have been worse. She was still alive, and her enemies weren’t. And she would take every opportunity that presented itself to send more of them into the hell they belonged.

 

Despite her exhaustion she felt that she needed to take some time to unwind. Playing with the radio dials she found a couple of interesting stations. One had a gruff voiced creature calling itself a super-mutant, extolling the virtues of its kind to the world. The other had what seemed a young woman, pushing her herbal remedies which she swore were as good or better than any meds. She cracked into the files on the computer by jacking in her Pip-Boy, thankful that the Raiders hadn’t tried to destroy the wonderful device. Those files taught her much more about this world and it creatures, though it left her with more unanswered questions.

 

That night the horrible dreams returned. With the addition of being raped, along with the helpless feeling it had brought on. And the faces of the men she had killed. Sure, they were monsters and needed killing, and sure she had killed in the past. But the people she had killed had been faceless nonentities in aircraft or hidden on the ground. She had killed these up close and personal, and that brought a whole new level of horror to the enterprise.

 

*     *     *

 

“What are you doing out here by yourself, boy?” she asked the beautiful dog that was waiting for her at the Red Rocket service station. It was an almost perfect German Shephard, though from breeding or a chance arrangement of genes she couldn’t tell. The dog approached, tail wagging, a doggy smile on his face. Dewey, her dogbot for the day, seemed to accept the canine, and obviously the dog had been around robots.

 

Nora went to a knee and opened her arms to welcome the dog, who moved in and accepted the hug as he bathed her face with his tongue. Nora ran her hands over his fur, luxuriating in the feel of a living creature that didn’t mean her harm. Her fingers found the collar around the dog’s neck, proof that he had once been owned, though there was no evidence of an owner currently.

 

“Dogmeat?” she said as she read the name plate on the collar. What an awful name, she thought. The dog responded to the name though, tail wagging. “You want to come with me, boy?”

 

The dog huffed a bark, and Nora knew she had a new traveling companion. Now, how to handle him. He was vulnerable, despite his speed and natural weapons, and she would have to do something about that. But first she needed to explore this location.

The Red Rocket was picked over, though she did find some items of interest. Including more of the workbenches, that same as she had found in Sanctuary Hills. Whoever had placed these here had intended for the location to become something else. Well, maybe later.

 

Dogmeat started to bark and growl, and the sound of squealing came to Nora’s ears. She ran out to find her two canines, living and robodog, confronting large, hairless, bucktoothed rodents. Dewey was in the process of ripping one apart, while Dogmeat was trying to defend himself from a trio closing in on all sides.

 

“Get away from my dogs,” she yelled, dropping her rifle to hang on its strap around her neck and drawing the old officer’s sword she had found among Nate’s effects. Ammunition might become a problem in the future, and she thought she would have no trouble with these overgrown rats.

 

Her first and second strikes took down a pair of rats, but the third moved in with speed and slashed through her Vault suit and into the front of her left calf. It hurt like hell, and a wave of weakness soon spread from her leg up through her body. Poison was her first thought, and she tossed the sword the ground and started to service the rodents with her rifle. A quick two to three round burst put paid to each one, and in less than a minute she stood among a dozen rodent bodies, her dogs on the lookout.

 

Nora pulled a syringe from her medkit, something that had been labeled antidote. She wasn’t sure if it was for a specific poison, or universal, but the way she was feeling she needed to try something. A wave of cool relief overcame her after she shot the contents of the injector into her arm, and within minutes she felt ready to go on, reminding herself to see to the leg when she got home. Infection was probably a very real issue here, and it would do to succumb to something so simple, and so deadly, while she was out exploring.

 

She found the cave mentioned on the computer terminal in the station. Down a small slope and on the side of the building, it screamed lair. She was about to pass it by, but thought she needed to search places as she came to them. Besides, she had the two dogs, and they had proven a match for the rodents. When six of them erupted from the Earth, to the background clicking of rads on her Pip-Boy, she realized her mistake. The dogs held them at bay while she took them out one by one with single shots, including the largest she had seen so far. She hurriedly searched the cavern, finding all kinds of good things. Ammo, some armor pieces, even some electronics from a time when such could be thrown away.

 

Outside of the cave she checked her rads. Not bad, yet, and she decided to wait to use a med until she had a lot of rads to cure. She was up in the air on whether she wanted to probe into Concord. From what she could see, there were a lot of barely damaged buildings in the town, probably good lairs for whatever. Since she wasn’t sure what that whatever was, she thought it might be best to just squat outside and observe.

 

Her mind was changed at the sound of gunfire from a house right on the edge of the town. A half dozen Raiders were attacking something in that house. She didn’t know what, but if it was an enemy of the Raiders it was likely a friend of hers. No guarantees, and the rape the other day had taught her caution, something she really hadn’t needed in the past. In civilization she was mostly safe, as long as she avoided definite threat locations. In the military she always had backup, though that had been in short supply when she had been making her way through Chinese territory back to her own side.

 

One of the Raiders was hit by a burst of automatic fire, falling back in a splash of blood. The others fired into the house, moving forward, screaming threats and boasts as they attacked. Nora thought they were awful warriors. No tactics, simply bum rush everything and hope they had the numbers to carry the day. If there was only one opponent in that house they might just have enough, though the unseen shooter took out another before they reached the door.

 

Nora aimed in carefully on the head of a Raider, holding her breath for a moment and squeezing the trigger. The rifle bucked into her shoulder and the head of the Raider rocked forward, a red mist manifesting about it. The Raider pitched forward into the house, while another backed out to try and find what had killed his companion. Another shot, another Raider, and then there were two. A burst of fire from the house and the last ran out, looking over her shoulder. To catch a 5.56mm in the chest, dropping her to the ground in a cry of pain.

 

Nora walked forward, dropping her rifle to hang from its straps and pulling her 10mm. She aimed in on the Raider’s head, then squeezed the trigger, killing the barbarian instantly.

 

“Who's out there?” called out a woman’s voice from the house.

 

“A friend,” said Nora. I hope.

 

“Come on in. But keep your hands in the clear.”

 

“Fuck that,” said Nora. “If that’s the way you want to play it, then have a nice day.”

 

“Wait. Please come in. I need your help. We need each other, believe me. Just keep your weapon lowered and I’ll do the same.”