Before you have time to consider the reasons for those creatures pulling off, your heart drops into your stomach as Daisy’s bird seems to fall out of the sky.

You nearly bend the stability bar with your augmented strength as the Vertibird finally reaches the detonation point. You chose The Sentinel as good a detonation point as any. Considering the suspected yield, a small peak like Sentinel shouldn’t impact the explosion too much. You remember a relatively flat plateau at the Southern edge, still above most of the valley but a good staging area.

If it wasn’t for your pipboy map, you wouldn’t know what you’re looking at. Zion has turned into a green carpet with little geographical difference. Daisy finishes her descent and is now hovering fifty yards above the canopy. Too close for comfort but you need the incendiary munitions to drop to half the tree level below the canopy.

You give a thumbs-up to Ulysses and the two of you begin dropping what napalm and incendiary grenades you have left out of the Vertibird. Within seconds, plumes of flame shoot up from below and consume everything in reach with a cleansing fire. You idly wonder if Big Mountain has any sort of pesticide that would make your job a thousand times easier, but you file that under “to do sometime later and monitor the progress.

Not nearly enough foliage has been burned away for your tastes but that’s why Ulysses has the incinerator. Daisy lowers her craft around 30 feet from the ground floor and both couriers drop off their respective sides and hit the still-burning jungle floor.

[I’m sure everything in this godforsaken valley knows we’re here. Let’s get this over with.]

Ulysses blinks his helmet lights green in confirmation and begins burning a greater clearing for the nuclear device while you hold overwatch with your tri-beam. But no creatures scurry out of the dark jungle and these few precious minutes allows enough space for Daisy to lower the bomb to the floor and you to disconnect the straps from the VTOL.

“I think we’re in the clear.”

A rumble shakes the ground, causing Ulysses to take a knee and you to grab onto the bomb for support.

YOU HAVE LEFT MY SANCTUM BEFORE, ALIVE. THIS TRANSGRESSION, I WILL NOT ABIDE

The voice rumbles through your brain and causes your vision to dim as your head pounds with pain.

Ulysses regains his footing, and runs over to you.

“Courier, we have incoming targets.”

You can’t seem to catch your breath and your body feels sluggish and drained.

“Ulysses..did…what was that voice?”

He shakes his head as the helmet bobs its lights back and forth across your vision.

“What voice?”

The earth shakes again, dropping both of you to the ground.

>1d100, BO3 (DT90)