Community:Fanfiction/Camilla at Sea

Camilla at Sea is a work in progress fanfiction by RurinGas. Its first chapter released on February 22nd, 2023.

Background
This story is a prequel to Camilla on Ice, set 16 years prior, and before Camilla first arrived in Appalachia.

Prologue - Back To The Beginning
The story has already been told. We know what caused Camilla, head of a thriving Raider gang, to lose her status and awaken over a hundred years later in the Late-23rd century. But what if I told you this was just one adventure in a lifetime of thrills and spills? Indeed, the story involving her journey to Vault 113 in 2110 and at age 35 is possibly one of the most notable misadventures she's had. However, what if we wound the clock backwards some years? No, not to the time of Appalachia's settling in 2102 to 2104 where she first entered the region along with former members of the Diehards, but to before even that...

To the year 2094...

Chapter 1 - Landlocked
Camilla rolled off her bed onto the ground, giving an audible "oof" and groaning as the impact almost knocked the wind out of her. Eyes half open, and hair amess, the 19 year old Camilla pushed herself up off the ground, and sat on the edge of her bed. She checked the alarm clock on what could generously be called her bedside table. Yep, unsurprisingly, the clock had not miraculously fixed itself overnight, same as the past 17 years since the bombs ceased its operation. It still read around 2:05, just as it did the day the bombs fell. Camilla was just a toddler when that all happened, but like the rest of the wasteland, she had not escaped it's consequences. She slugged herself out of her bed and tiredly shuffled out of her house. Though, calling it a "House" was quite liberal. Chateau Camilla was far more of a metal awning than it was a building, no bigger than a bathroom in most pre-war buildings, and lacking any kind of wall save for the ruins of some pre-war structure that served effectively as one. The 'wall' was decorated with a single tattered poster that Camilla had smuggled out of the latest salvaging gig she had got, it was an illustration of a picturesque seaside village, a bright blue sky and a small alley of old looking houses, at the end of which stood the open arms of the sea.

"Wakey Wakey, layabout!" came a shrill voice. Camilla looked up and saw a man arriving at her shack on mechanical horseback, a man she was all to familiar with, and loathed seeing. Joseph, her boss. The man was slightly rotund, puffy in face and dressed in a slate grey suit of some Italian cut that was clearly not tailored for him. His limp and withered string tie did not do his look any favours, as he excluded a particular sense of bloated pompousness; the kind you only develop if you're born with more power than sense, and take no measure to humble or relate yourself to anyone with even so much as a penny less than you. Camilla stared at him, scowling. She did not want to address him any more than she had to, though she knew that simply ignoring the pompous prick would cause more problems than she cared for, the least of which being that bruising his ego would likely send him off on an ear-blistering tirade about his own grandeur to try and reinflate it.

"Good." puffed Joseph, sensing the hostility but revelling slightly in the kind of immunity his power gives him. "You're joining Team G for today, you're starting in about 30 minutes, best hurry up" he pompously instructed, peering down his undersized glasses at Camilla. This was Camilla's job, the one she'd been effectively born into. Joseph ran the Louis Family Salvage Operation, a position he'd inherited from his father, who had died over 2 years ago but was no less of a bourgeois caricature. Camilla's job, much like the job of everyone else living within the 15 miles of territory that the Salvage Operation owned, was to comb the ruins of the nearby towns and cities for either anything of note, or whatever was on the quota for that day. This day however, there was no quota, so she just had to pick up roughly anything of note. As she arrived at what was she assumed was at some point a town square, she saw Site G had been set up.

Inspired by pre-war archaeological practises, an area had been cordoned off with an border of fraying twine, about 300 meters long and 300 meters wide. Camilla and 19 other people comprised Team G, each member of which would cover a 1 meter column of this space and slowly progress up it, picking through the scraps and ruin as they went. After each person completed their column, they would cycle right to the next column and scan that one, making sure the person previous had not missed anything. It was a thorough process that lasted dawn til dusk, leaving the scavengers' fingers bruised and bloody from digging through scrap concrete and shattered glass. Throughout the whole process, each group had a supervisor that watched over them, assuring that none of the team slacked off or stole away with any salvage.

At the end of the day, each worker was payed 50 shillings, a kind of scrip named after some ancient pre-war currency, and part of the grand prison each person within the Salvage Operation's territories was trapped inside of. Shillings could be spent inside of the Operation's territories, but had no value anywhere else. If anyone wanted to leave, they could, but would have to do so effectively penniless... As Camilla dug through her first column, the supervisor espoused the same usual phrases he always did; "Hard work is happy work", "A day of work, a lifetime of fulfilment", "Mr Louis Appreciates Your Efforts" and so forth... The same slogans that had long since devolved into white noise to the ears of any worker that overheard it.

Camilla's findings for the day were a few pieces of pre-war currency, and some rare fabrics. A pitiful find for one person for one day, but with every person in a 15 mile radius doing the same thing, Joseph was able to gain a years worth of salvage in just a couple days. And for no work on his part, as he sat in his mansion drinking gin and tonic. She stood in a line that felt like a mile long, hell it might have actually been a mile long, each and every member exuding a sense of fatigue and hopelessness... Even those small few that attempted to keep a positive demeanour had the vague aura of hopelessness plain to see behind their false smiles and fake laughs... When it came her turn; the supervisor took her scavengings, stared at them for a moment, then tossed them into a pile of the hundreds of other findings that had been presented by others before her, before he ushered her to move on.

Thus was Camilla's life, this same routine every day for the past 6 years ever since she had turned 13. She received her pay and skulked off to the pub, where she settled down for the night, drinking along with the other Salvage Operation's members. The pub was a pre-war structure, a rare intact structure amidst an ocean of wreckage, likely surviving by merit that it was recessed slightly underground, as the roof was clearly the most scorched area on the building. It became a regular routine among the workers to come up with new ways to insult Joseph, and even after so many years they had not failed even once to devise fresh and new barbs. It wasn't as if Joseph himself would ever visit the pub, in the years she had done this, he had not paid it so much as a cursory visit even once. The latest bout of barbs were particularly potent pieces, ones ill-advised to repeat in polite company, but ones that were enough to make the whole bar erupt in a cavalcade of laughter and giggles.

And, as the evening wound off into night, Camilla and the other workers wound up their jeering and drinking and decided to head home. Her closest friends lived at opposite ends of the Operation's territory, and so the group bid eachother a good tidings until tomorrow (or, about as well as they could, inebriated as they were) and disappeared off into the darkness of the night. For what little that Joseph actually provided them, his supervisors had ensured that the roads in his territory were safe, and surely that was something to be accredited thought Camilla, as she staggered down the ruined avenue back towards her home. It was not an especially long journey, roughly 15 minutes on a good day, so for Camilla in her current state, it would be about 30 minutes.

As Camilla returned home, she lazily slammed down her day's earnings on her quote-unquote bedside table and flopped aggressively onto her bed. As a sharp wind blew through her wall-less house and fluttered her moth-eaten bedsheets, threatening to blow them away were it not for Camilla's own weight holding them firmly to her bed. She imagined all her friends were repeating very much the same routine at their own respective homes. And as her addled mind drifted from consciousness, she wondered if this would ever change. If like her parents she would be stuck in this bottomless well of servitude until she died. It has been almost 4 years now since they died. She hadn't been present at the time, it was during a workday and she was assigned to a different scavenging group back then due to her inexperience... According to the Operation Occurrences newsletter, the closest thing to a newspaper the Operation's territories had, a massive collapse of a Pre-War structure that Team K was scavenging inside of caused all hands to be lost, with the exception of their supervisor. It wasn't like she ever had time to mourn, work marched on, even the fallen rubble that crushed her parents bodies was made just another site for a new Team K, and it quickly became yesterday's news. Filed away along with the multitudes of other scavenging accidents, and forgotten...

Tomorrow, maybe, was another day...

Chapter 2 - Hope
The following day was much the same as the one before it, alot of meandering and tedious work... Today, her team was assigned to the wreckage of some old Pre-War museum, Joseph was hoping for some real treasure on this salvage operation, and made sure to emphasise to the team that he was expecting results from them. It was supposed to be a day of digging and scavenging like any other, however...

A gun.

Camilla's eyes lit up at the sight of the firearm. It looked crude, more like an old bicycle pump, and looked damaged, but was certainly a gun. Camilla had only seen posters and pictures of them before, and she knew instantly that this was the sort of finding that Joseph was talking about. She could hand this in, probably be set for a few weeks at the least... Or... Camilla looked around, no witnesses, the Supervisor was busy abusing some poor new employee who was in tears over his bruised and bloody fingertips... Directly to her left was the edge of the search zone, they'd only just started searching this area, so their search parameters wouldn't be expanded for another week. If she managed to angle her throw so that it landed just below a small outcropping of concrete rubble, it would remain convincingly hidden for the time being... She could use it...

Unlike other areas in the wasteland, pre-war laws on gun control hit the Operation's territories hard. Guns were present for a time, and aided in the intitial conquering of the Operation's territories, as well as it's first few years of enforcement and prosparity; however their numbers were small and as time passed became only fewer, poor local knowledge on gun maintanance as well as the ever decreasing number of bullets (let alone those in the correct calibur) and the knowledge of ammo production had rendered the scant few functioning models as merely collectors items. If what Camilla had just found was functional... This could be her ticket out of her servitude.

Camilla continued to do her day's labor, trying to act as unassuming as possible. Her haul for the day was significantly diminished by the fact she did not turn in her primary find, but the hope it represented was more than worth the cost. She met with her friends briefly and walked with them to the pub, however after a short while and her friends became sufficiently inebriated and absorbed in their own conversations, she quietly slipped out the back door and returned to the search zone. Snaking her way through the streets proved to be the most difficult part, with each road being patrolled by atleast two rozzes, the local police force, intended to prevent unauthorized access.

With some effort she made it past the rozzes, and gingerly walked through the pitch darkness, taking care not to trip on any outcroppings or slip on loose rubble. If she caused any rubble to fall or roll and create a loud bang, the rozzes would be alerted for sure. Clambering on her hands and knees, trying to feel around the ground for the string borders of the search zone and then following it around proved a slow but safe tactic. It took her about an hour or two to feel her way and finally find the gun she had hidden. She hadn't been able to analyse it very closely upon discovering it, but even if the pitch blackness she could feel the pitting and weathering of the metal of the gun.

Sequestering the weapon in her pockets, next was the equally difficult task of escaping back through the rozzes and back home. She took a beat to think; getting caught at this point would mean the end of her life, she'd be treated as a terrorist insurgent and executed... Looking around for anything to trigger an epiphany, she locked eyes with a green glass bottle laying on its side, only stopped from rolling by a large slab of building. In a flash of inspiration, she picked it up and once she got as far back near to permissible territory as she dared to before initiating her scheme, she slapped herself around the face a few quick times. One of the oldest ruses there is, false drunkenness. The bottle pushed the boat out, and the redness of her cheeks caused by slapping herself would sell the idea, now all she needed to do was act her heart out.

Grasping the bottle firmly by it's neck and stumbling was the core of the act, as well as making sure her every step bowed to the side slightly causing her to frequently veer to one side. She also made sure to mumble to herself, and pause occasionally in feigned fits of giggling. The likelihood of her getting caught wasn't certain, however with how well-patrolled the streets of the Operation's territories were it was certainly high, and if she was not already in the midst of the act when caught, the rozzes would catch onto her lie and her chances would be dashed. Camilla continued her act for some time, eeking closer to home bit by bit, until her paranoia was proven justified and four rozzes surrounded her out of the blue, shining torches in her face and inquiring why she was out of the permitted out-of-hours zones. This was make-it-or-break-it time, Camilla continued her act and feigned confusion, slurring her words slightly and trying her utmost to seem convincingly spaced out...

As Camilla flopped down onto her shabby bed, she silently celebrated her success. The rozzes had bought her routine, and chalked her being in an unauthorized place up to drunken confusion, one even escorting her back home to assure that she did not get lost a second time. The escort required more acting, but not much, Camilla was able to just repeat things she'd already said to further the confusion angle or just claim to be nauseous which afforded her bursts of silence to think up the next portion of her act. Once the rozz that escorted her had left and was sufficiently out of her range, Camilla sat up and examined her hard-earned prize in closer detail.

The gun was in disrepair, but was overall functional. The metal pitting was severe though, to the degree that Camilla could not discern any inscriptions determining make or model, or even if there were any to begin with... Camilla would need to spend time repairing the gun, aswell as acquiring ammunition, before enacting any escape plan. Camilla silently cursed and placed the weapon in a hiding place near her bed, in a secret compartment of her bedside table. It was probably just as well, she thought, as she would need to actually devise a plan to enact, and the gun repairing gave her a period of time to think of one.

''Soon, Camilla thought. Soon would be the dawn of a new day...''

Chapter 3 - Seabound
Camilla hadn't been keeping a track of the days it had taken for her to repair the hand-cannon, she guessed it might have been a month or two since her little stealth recovery operation. Since then, Camilla had spent most of her time afterhours fixing the device, pocketing any useful scrap she happened upon during her workday, it proved to be far easier to spur-of-the-moment hide pre-war keyrings and small scraps of metal on her person by simply sliding it up her sleeve and sequestering it in a makeshift pocket she had made in her sleeve. Based on how many beyond-repair weapons she had stumbled on and been able to tear parts out of, Camilla assumed that where the group was salvaging from was once some kind of pre-war weapons storage, like an armory or museum.

It took longer than it maybe should have due to Camilla's inexperience with gun maintenance, the topic of guns was never a popular one in the Operation's territories even before the war, so she had no reference material for how to actually repair the thing, merely educated guesses and trial and error. In the end though she had managed to repair it to a functioning state, albeit probably not how it was originally put together before the riots. She even replaced some outdated components with newer ones, switching out the worn and limp rubber wipes with the scraps of some kind of self-healing plastic that Vault-Tec was selling before the riots... Now she had to tackle the troubling topic of bullets. She had absolutely no idea what calibre the gun she had just repaired actually was.

She couldn't afford to quit at this point, not at so little a hurdle. And besides, she wasn't planning on actually killing anybody, did she strictly even need bullets? No, she didn't. All she needed was for everyone else to think she did. That was the crux of her plan. And it was happening today.

It was roughly 6:50am, the workday started in 10 minutes. The security rotas would also change over at about the same time, the night guards being replaced by the day guards. Her plan was to take advantage of that brief gap. She would disguise herself as part of the dock-working crew, and at the moment the change happened, she would slip past the rozzes and onto the pier. There was her prize. Her daring, ballsy, crazy goal of a prize.

The Magpie.

Joseph always bragged about it to the workforce, his own personal recreation of a 1700s Brigantine, about how he and his bourgois friends would go just off the coast every weekend and get drunk on fancy wines and indulge in rich cheeses. Today was a Friday, and the ship should by this point be primed and ready to take to the ocean. It took approximately 30 seconds for the security guards to notice, just enough to get a head start. As the rozzes swarmed en-masse, the other members of the Operation workforce stationed on the pier merely watched on in shock and awe, Camilla's only regret was that she wouldn't get the chance to see this reported on the front page of tomorrow's newsletter. As Camilla ran closer to the ship, an array of rozzes stationed aboard it swarmed out and guarded the entrance to the ship, readying themselves to strike down the rapidly approaching criminal. Camilla barely had the opportunity to notice them as she reflexively jumped at the ship, her face hitting the wood and ropes decorating the hull, and as the adrenaline coursing through her veins built up, she leapt and bound up the side, climbing onto the deck of the ship and rolling over the wooden gunwhale, clattering down onto the wooden floorboards of the weather deck with a loud thump as she caught her breath after all the exertion.

But her work wasn't over yet, she stumbled to her feet, light-headed and lungs burning from overexertion, and climbed the stairs to the ship's wheel fast as she could manage, and turned it all the way to the right, away from the pier. But that was not all, she had just enough time to climb back down the stairs and start winding the capstan to haul the anchor in before the rozzes began boarding the ship and reaching the top deck. Adrenaline hit Camilla again, and she was able to wind the capstan up sharpish before the rozzes began taking strikes at her. She was so close, so close, it couldn't end this way, it CAN'T end this way... Clumsily dodging blows, and beginning to panic, Camilla scarpered for the main mast of the ship, climbing up the titanic trunk as the rozzes began calling in ranged reinforcements, they wouldn't be long. Camilla hurried, her hands were raw as could be and the skin on her palms tore and bled as she ascended the narrow line that trailed up the main mast. There must've been around 30 rozzes on the top deck now, shit... She pulled herself up to the top of the sail, barely. Her arms were beginning to shake from all the physical exertion, she couldn't take too much more of this...

Ignoring her growing exhaustion, Camilla sidled across the wooden yard to the port-side yardarm. Pulling a spare bit of scrap metal out of her pocket, Camilla set to work cutting the restraining rope. It was fairly blunt, but it was the best she had, and after a short period of time the sail unfurled on it's left side, the wind quickly filling it and causing the ship to veer slightly. The rozzes on the top deck were caught off-guard as the boat began to turn away from the pier and slowly advance, many lost their balance at the sudden, sharp motion. She was so almost there, the ship was actually moving now. All Camilla had to do now was sever the rope other side of the sail, then the sail would fully unravel and the boat would shoot off out of port, and she would be home free. She eeked to the opposite side, her every muscle burning, but she was almost there. She began sawing at the rope, each action labored with overexertion but fuelled by a desperate hope to escape, until finally...

The white sail full opened, and filled with wind. All the rozzes were thrown off their feet as the ship went from zero-to-sixty, from a full stop to full sail. The ship shot off like a bullet, and the motion threw Camilla from the mast back to the wooden floor of the top deck, knocking the wind out of her and likely breaking more than a few ribs that she would have to have attended to some other time. Spluttering and gritting her teeth through the experience, Camilla rose to her feet and pulled out her gun. Her legs were shaking from tiredness and she could barely breathe, but that didn't matter. She aimed the gun at one of the rozzes on the ground "You have... You have two options" she said through strained breaths "You can... either jump ship and return to your jobs... Back at the Salvage Operation, or.... You can die right now...."

Several of the rozzes looked behind them, the ship was rapidly leaving the port, soon any return would be impossible. Many of the rozzes looked at eachother in worry, trying to devise some kind of combined action. In the end, they made a deal with Camilla; on account many of them were unable to swim, they would exchange everything on their person in exchange for being able to use an onboard rowboat to return home. Camilla agreed; netting a fair amount of valuables and weapons to begin her new life with.

''Camilla had left her birthplace, but she had found her new home. And a new day had dawned.''

Chapter 4 - Sea Legs
It took Camilla a while to figure out the basics of navigating a ship. She had never had to operate such an intricate and complicated thing, fortunately the fact she was alone at sea with a fair stock of food and drink in the hull (No doubt intended as a buffet for Joseph and his friends for their weekend sailing trip) meant she had effectively nothing but time to get to grips with the ship's operation. It took her a couple of weeks, anchored patiently and alone, far from civilization, but she was able to learn. Camilla began to wonder why more people did not take to the seas in lieu of staying on the scorched earth. As her supplies diminished though, Camilla elected to cut her "training" off there, and set sail in search of more.

She sailed alone for a couple days. Operating the ship alone was no easy feat, but in terms of just navigation she could just about manage it, albeit by occasionally locking the ship's wheel and dashing about the deck of the ship to manipulate various pieces of rigging and rope. She traced the coastline south for a while, navigating away from the Salvage Concern's large territory towards a location that she hoped would be more amicable to her. Eventually after a couple false-starts, she found one. A small array of isles located the furthest south one could possibly trace the land. Scillonia. The island was fairly large and remarkably intact, evidentially it's remoteness had largely spared it from the impact of both the riots and the Great War.

Camilla gingerly set to work docking the ship. She hadn't exactly been able to practise this while sailing until now, and there were many people on the dock watching her approach. Locking the wheel so the ship wouldn't veer to the side, Camilla vaulted over the aftcastle's rail onto the main deck, and ran for the masts. She would then begin reeling the sails in one by one, slowly reducing her acceleration. Camilla was able to get the mainsail down before realising that she may have cut her approach a little too close. Running like her life depended in it, Camilla grabbed the appropriate foremast sail's rigging and began reeling it in, while also quickly moving towards the anchor's capstan, and pushing into its handles with her back, turning the mechanism and lowering it into the water. Camilla was able to fully reel in the foremast sail just as the anchor hit the seabed. As it did, the ship lurched to a stop as the anchor (fittingly for it's name) anchored the ship to the ground, reducing the very last of it's speed to naught. Camilla heard the wood of the ship creak and moan and it was strained by the anchor's tug, but she had succeeded in reducing the ship's speed well enough, and the ship's integrity held. Nonetheless though, the Stempost and some of the ship's bow collided with the wood on the dock, causing a clattering bang of wood-on-wood, though only causing superficial damage to both.

The inhabitants of Scillonia were taken aback. They'd had ships sail into their port before, but only small fishing boats from the nearby mainland fiefdoms that had arrived for barter and the like, never a ship as large or ostentatious as this. Camilla let out a brief sigh of relief, before grabbing a length of rope and tying her ship to the dock, and striding down it towards the herd of townsfolk, putting on a confident face. "Ahoy, fair folks!" She spoke at them, hands in the air as she approached in an attempt to seem non-threatening. "Worry not, I come in peace for food and supplies". The townsfolk looked at eachother with a hint of incredulity, silently communicating their shared distrust of the strange girl in front of them, before one of them piped up "Well we don't give 'em for free!" the feeble voice yelled. Camilla simply grinned in response.

The Scillonians had not seen Salvage Operation equipment before, it took them some time to properly apprise their batons, uniforms, and other armaments; and the prices they gave them we're pretty lacking. She estimated she'd be able to sell them for almost twice as much back home, but she would have to take what she could get. The townsfolk gave her money, a currency she couldn't identify, likely some kind of local coinage. Money she immediately spent on her requisite supplies. Restocking food and water, buying ammunition, and purchasing clothes. Camilla looked herself over, she was still wearing the rags of a Salvage Operation worker "Perhaps a change of outfit is in order..." she thought as one piece of clothing on display stuck out to her. The island seemed to have a long history of naval forts, and like many naval forts, those got turned into museums once they lost their usefulness. And like many Museums, these all got raided and looted once society collapsed, and their contents sold. What Camilla was looking at was an old Blue Frock Coat ensemble, and as luck would have it, it was in her price range. She had lived so long in destitution, she deserved something... Extravagant.

Upon picking it up, Camilla was approached by the shopkeep. "Ahhh, keen eye you've got there, luv!" he said, and continued on to try and sell Camilla an expensive item he kept behind the counter. A complimenting blue hat. The shopkeep said it had quite a story, appeared out of nowhere some years back, they found it pinned to a tree by a lone arrow, but no-one on the island owned a bow. Camilla silently rolled her eyes, a tall tale to try and stoke her interest in the item no-doubt. Still though, she thought, it did look nice, and complimented her new blue frock coat quite nicely...

Camilla returned to her ship to change into her new clothes, fortunately the ship had a Captain's cabin to give her a little privacy. The Coat fit her like it was tailored for her, and the hat felt right when placed on her head. Finally, she felt fully and wholly free of the Salvage Operation. She wasn't a worker anymore, she was her own person. As her new leather books thumped satisfyingly against the ground and she gripped the ship's wheel ready to set sail, Camilla looked back, intending to bid the isles farewell, and noticed an even larger crowd had assembled outside her ship. Camilla hopped over the aftcastle railing again and walked onto the pier to confront them.

The group confessed that they wished to leave the island on her ship. She had left an impression on them, a stranger sailing in in such a fanciful ship and trading so many interesting goods they'd never seen before and buying so many interesting things, they wanted a part of that success. Camilla was taken aback, but elected to hide the fact that she was only just beginning herself and accepted their suggestion to join her crew. Atleast now she would not have to sail the hulking thing all by herself.

Camilla gripped the ships wheel, and grinned. "Alright men!" she barked at her new subordinates "Reel in the anchor, and hoist the main sails! Say your goodbyes, we set sail!" the crew all cheered in agreement as they set to work, most of them far more adept at the basic running of a ship due to living a lifetime in a port town.

As Camilla's hair, as well as her coat and new hat, billowed in the increasing wind as the ship set sail, she laughed. Yes, this would do nicely.