It was five in the morning, and I hadn't gotten any sleep. Still, it was better for them this way since I could guarantee their safety, at the very least. This was quite a quiet night for Mojave Wasteland that was. I expected the reds from the Legion to come after me, but nope, I didn't have any sight of them.

Potentially speaking, there were three or four Legion squads that went through the road down below. They hadn't seen my face, luckily. Most of them were going to Searchlight, for some unknown reasons. Still, those people were also bringing slaves.

In fact, another patrol was coming, and this patrol looked big. I borrowed Jensen's binoculars to see how big that patrol was. They were bringing ten slaves, all of them children accompanied by a decanus and ten more legionaries running security.

From here, they were using ballistic weaponry, which meant they belonged to a much more experienced unit and not recruits. It would be stupid to engage them, especially with the protection that Bob's caravan provided. I just watched from up here, sitting down and watching even though I wanted to act.

Suddenly, the head of the decanus got blown off by an unknown source. I couldn't hear gunfire, but the head got literally torn apart by something that should be a bullet. The patrol stopped on its trace. Only one faction that I could think of doing this, and that was the NCR.

The legionaries scatted like scared ants while guarding the slaves. Without the decanus, the order in that squad crumbled instantly. The Legion wasn't well known for its tactical knowledge and anti-sniper tactic, so it was expected for them to go in multiple directions. Some were hiding behind the highway pillars, while some were hiding behind the slaves while holding their guns.

Then, some people approached the legionaries from behind. They were barely visible, but I could make several small details on them. They were not wearing ranger uniforms or the usual NCR trooper uniforms. No, their uniforms were camouflaged. They were wearing helmets with an unknown attachment on top of it and they all held weapons with suppressors.

'Weird, NCR didn't have this kind of equipment, as far as I remember.' Their weapons were similar to NCR Assault Carbine, but much more modernized, more like our modern military. Their helmets were not regular combat helmets like the ones that I currently wore either. Who were they?

One by one, the legionaries fell to the ground from the sniper attack. However, the legionaries that were hiding behind the stones and the pillars were not in a safe position either as the unknown soldiers started approaching their position.

Quietly, all of them fell into their demises as well as the unknown soldiers fired their suppressed assault carbines into the hiding legionaries. They were clean, and they were fast. They were much more similar to a veteran ranger than an ordinary ranger, similar to Agna, but they were definitely not the rangers.

Only one legionary was left standing, and that one legionary was hiding behind the slaves. What a coward. I thought the Legion consisted of a bunch of brave and suicidal people that would fight for Caesar under any condition.

Hiding behind one hostage, huh? That one was rather coward. Eventually, the legion held one of the hostages and pointed a pistol at the child's head, probably threatening that he would kill the child if the unknown soldiers didn't let him run.

However, the unknown soldiers continued charging forward tactically. They unloaded their weapons at the legionary without killing a single hostage. I'd prefer to call them operators, considering they really reminded me of one from Call of Duty or something. These guys were skillful, but they weren't as gung-ho as Ranger Agna.

They untied the hostages, disable their slave collars, alongside with giving them a hug and candy. Then, I noticed another finer detail that I missed. There was a cliff on the other side of the road, and one of them began to rappel down from the cliff. I took a closer detail at the person rappelling. He was wearing a bonnie hat, with a large rifle with a suppressor on his back, definitely not something that the NCR or the Gunrunners produced. He was also wearing camouflaged equipment.

Heck, they were almost invisible on this dark night if not for the full moon right above my head. Nevertheless, these guys were operators, not rangers. The operator then pulled all of his rappelling equipment away and eventually ran to those other squads of operators near the slaves.

The sniper walked to one of those operators and pointed his finger in my direction. Wait, I had been made? I immediately ducked down and kept seeing with my binoculars. The other operator shook his head and then nod in my direction.

Then, fear stroked me like nothing before. He put a gesture. He put two fingers to his eye and then pointed his two fingers at me, indicating a very loud phrase, "I can see you." Then, the sniper pulled his sniper from his shoulder and aimed it in my direction.

I immediately moved away from the position and walked to my campfire again. No way I'd peek at them again, and who were these people? They weren't NCR. They weren't Legion. Could it be that they were some sort of mercenaries? I'd ask Bob when he awoke, but damn, those people would give me nightmares.