“Welcome to MacArthur Air Force Base," the rather proud military woman declared, her voice carrying the weight and authority of her years despite its giving hoarseness.

Ellen Santiago: "I'm Colonel Ellen Santiago Jr.—leader of this little Enclave detachment out here in this godforsaken stretch of Montana."

The elegant older woman sat rigid behind her Ebony desk, her posture unwavering despite the years bearing down on her frame. One hand rested lightly atop a ceramic cup of bitter black tea rests on a fine china saucer, long gone cold, untouched. With the other, she adjusted a silver hairpin with practiced care, ensuring not a strand of her neatly coiled bun had slipped loose.

As she reached up to secure a loose pin in her hair, the silver-streaked strands were drawn tighter into a no-nonsense bun. The motion was slow and exact, her eyes appraising—eyes that missed nothing Ellen wasn’t bare, for she wore a faded but immaculately kept military robe hung from her shoulders, the fabric worn and ragged in places, cinched tightly at the waist with a braided leather belt. As she tugged the front of it straighter, the faint insignia of a fallen world briefly caught the light.

Then she frowned—deep lines etching into the weathered skin of her face.

Ellen Santiago: "Now, listen close," she said, her voice dropping like the edge of a drawn blade.

Ellen Santiago: "You better not be one of those damn fool Wastelanders my daughter insists on dragging through here—idealists, scavvers, anarchists... I’ve had my fill of them." She narrowed her eyes.

Ellen Santiago: "This isn’t a playground, or some half-assed commune. This is a command post. And I didn’t claw my way through two decades of hell just to let some sunburnt drifter come sniffing around my walls. Understood?"

She didn’t wait for a response—she never did. In Colonel Santiago’s world, questions were answered before they were asked.