Operation Touchdown

Operation Touchdown was the failed attempt by the Appalachian Brotherhood of Steel to wipe out the scorchbeast threat by destroying what they thought was the main nest in the glassed cavern, on January 29, 2095.

Background
After the emergence of the Scorched Plague around 2083, the rapidly exponentially growing threat forced the Brotherhood to make it their mission to eliminate the disease. However, its spread via infected people and creatures was minuscule compared to its spread by gigantic flying bat mutants named "scorchbeasts."

To this end, they focused their main efforts on killing the scorchbeasts. They began actively fighting scorchbeasts by luring them into a kill zone with sonic generator devices built by Scribe Takano and Scribe McNamara.

Eventually the threat began to be too much for the Brotherhood to handle, and by 2093, they had consolidated their forces to Fort Defiance and the Thunder Mountain power plant. By January 2094, out of desperation, they resorted to more aggressive measures to secure supplies from not only the Responders and Free States, but also by ignoring salvage rights claims, souring relations with the rest of Appalachia.

Needing to eliminate the threat, the Brotherhood debated using the automated nuclear silos of the region against them. This was dismissed and more conventional means were devised.

Battle
The crux of these efforts was Operation Touchdown, a mission to eliminate a major scorchbeast nest in the glassed cavern. Unknown to the Brotherhood, the cavern had been used by Thomas Eckhart and the Enclave as a laboratory to experiment with compounds developed by Arktos Pharma in an attempt to create a virus to raise the DEFCON level for a retaliatory strike against China. Paladin Elizabeth Taggerdy, Knight Johnny Moreno and other members of the Brotherhood entered the caverns, determined to end the threat of the scorchbeasts once and for all.

The strike force encountered heavy resistance from the Scorched, yet managed to push through into the glassed cavern with some casualties. However, the strike team grew ever smaller as they continued to encounter threats such as mirelurk queens and fog crawlers before finally reaching the heart of the nest. While placing bombs, the team realized the nest was in fact a lab and where the scorchbeasts were originally created. As they realized this, the team was surprised by a large scorchbeast. In the ensuing battle, the last surviving team members, including Paladin Taggerdy and Knight Johnny Moreno, were slain. Operation Touchdown was a failure.

Aftermath
After the operation, no scorchbeasts were seen for a few weeks, leading the rest of the Brotherhood to assume the operation was a success, albeit one with a heavy cost. This was not the case, and the scorchbeasts returned in greater numbers. Both Thunder Mountain and Fort Defiance fell simultaneously to the plague by mid-August 2095, with all members manning their posts until the end.