The whole banzai, near-suicidal charge had been worth it.
The Legion offensive stalled before it ever truly began. Their artillery was gone, their staging areas in disarray, and whatever momentum they'd hoped to build bled out in confusion and internal reorganization. No shells crossed the river. No ranging shots were fired. The old-world structures on the western bank remained unseen, unregistered, and—most importantly—unmarked.
From across the river, Legion patrols probed cautiously, never pushing far enough to risk another disaster. Scouts advanced, then withdrew. Command elements shifted locations. Supply trains rerouted.
For now, the dam remained a rumor. A shape in old maps. A structure not yet worthy of Caesar's full attention.
That delay mattered.
It bought time—days, maybe weeks. Enough for the Rangers to reposition, to reinforce, to send warnings west. Enough for the Mojave to breathe.
But it came at a cost.
Bodies were pulled from the river. Gear was recovered in fragments—rifles bent out of shape, armor split open, packs torn apart by shrapnel and current. Some of the younger Rangers never came back at all.
It had been costly.
Case hadn't been the only one sent on a mission that bordered on suicide. Teams were dispatched along the river, into the dark, tasked with disabling guns, cutting supply lines, or drawing fire away from more vulnerable positions. Some succeeded. Some vanished. A few were only found days later, if they were found at all.
The veterans paid their share too. Several came back wounded—burns, broken bones, shrapnel that would never fully come out. For every fourty Legionnaires they killed, the Rangers lost one of their own. On paper, it was an impressive ratio.
In reality, it meant something else entirely.
Legionnaires were plentiful. Trained fast. Replaced easily.
Rangers weren't.
A Ranger took time to make. Years, sometimes decades, especially the vets. Training and experience were built the hard way. They cost caps to equip, supplies to maintain, and more than that—they cost people who knew them, relied on them, and expected them to come back.
Every loss left a gap that couldn't be filled quickly, if at all.
The Legion could afford to bleed.
The Rangers couldn't.
Back at Farmstead, the quiet felt unnatural.
The Legion had pulled back in a hurry. Rangers rolled through Hoover Dam in trucks and battered armored vehicles, stripping whatever they could from abandoned convoys—crates of ammunition, rifles still warm from use, boxes of parts stamped with old-world markings.
Case sat on a folding chair overlooking the highway, shoulders wrapped in bandages, an IV line running down his arm. The pain had dulled to something manageable, thanks to a steady Med-X and Stimpak drip doing its work. Every breath still reminded him he'd almost died—but it no longer felt like it was happening right now.
Jacob stood beside him, arms crossed, eyes on the road.
"I told you not to play hero, kid," Jacob said at last. There was disappointment in his voice—but not anger.
Case shrugged carefully. "What choice did I have? If that gun fired, we were screwed."
Jacob was quiet for a moment. Then he reached out and rested a hand on Case's head, careful not to press too hard.
"I know why you did it," he said. "And I won't pretend it didn't matter." He sighed. "But you have to think about your own safety too. I don't want to bury another kid."
Case looked up at him. "We're Rangers. Desert Rangers. People out there rely on us. If it's not us holding the line, then who is? You really think we can just let slavers roll over the Mojave?"
Jacob's jaw tightened—but there was pride there too.
"No," he said quietly. "No, we can't."
He glanced back toward the camp, where wounded Rangers moved slowly between tents, and trucks rumbled past loaded with captured gear.
"But listen to me," Jacob continued. "Those men you ran into? They weren't regular Legionnaires. They were assassins. Veterans. Caesar's best." He looked back at Case. "And you didn't just survive them. You hurt them. Badly."
Case shifted in his chair. "More or less."
Jacob let out a dry, almost incredulous chuckle. "Kid… it's a miracle you're still breathing." He shook his head slowly. "What you pulled off out there—that wasn't something a young Ranger is supposed to survive, let alone execute."
He rested a hand on Case's shoulder, firm but careful.
"The Legion's pushed back," Jacob said at last. "But if they regroup and come again in force… we won't be able to stop it the same way. We need to make sure they never cross the dam."
Case nodded slowly. "What does Centcom say?"
Jacob's jaw tightened. "General Marigold made the call. We're reaching out to the NCR." He glanced down at Case. "Scouts are already moving in. Our reps laid everything out—the buildup, the artillery, the timing. No room for misinterpretation."
Case was quiet for a moment. "So it's official."
"Looks that way," Jacob replied. "This won't be a short fight, kid. It's going to be a long one—between the bear and the bull."
Case leaned back carefully, eyes drifting toward the sky. "This place is getting interesting by the minute." He paused. "Do they help us for free?"
"No," Jacob said flatly. "But they'll understand the stakes." He let the words settle. "The Legion isn't probing this time. They're planning. And Caesar doesn't commit like this unless he believes there's something on this side of the river worth the blood."
Case's fingers tightened around the arm of the chair. "The dam."
Jacob nodded once. "The dam."
Case thought to himself. He knew what the Legion was capable of. They must be stopped, by any means necessary, else, the whole wasteland would suffer the same fate that he did. He wouldn't stand it.
All or nothing.