Brad Zaxxon's Arc

Chapter 7 of 9

The war diary told Brad what the raiders wanted. The scouting photos told him where they gathered. A pancake house sat at the center of it, marked on a map found inside a sealed supply crate. Brad's team had confirmed the place already. Armed raiders. Ghouls turning in the church shrine. Radiation thick enough to kill. Brad spread the field notes across the table in the garage. He would not send his own people into that. He needed a scalpel, not his Rangers. Donovan dropped his worn notebook beside the photos. "Oh man, this is worse than the map said," he told Brad. "Twenty to twenty-five fighters in the barracks. The shrine's hot. Real hot." He tapped a picture of thin figures standing among the crowd, skin sloughing. "Half those people are already turning. You send regular guns in there, you're burying regular guns." Brad pulled out a clean order sheet and wrote. He crossed out and corrected as he went, but the meaning held. "Hire Lieutenant Parks and her team of six for the camp assault. They're expensive. They're the best at hitting camps, and they carry their own weapons." He signed it and slid it to Fredrick Carr. Fredrick was the quiet ex-special-forces cat Brad had brought in to build the trade center, the one who'd already raided a wreck site clean and come back without a scratch. "Find her. Bring her in." Fredrick read the sheet once. "She costs." He folded it into his jacket. "So does dying." Then he left. He was back inside the week with Parks and her six. Lieutenant Ann Parks walked into the garage like she owned the door. Brown and tan tabby, grey-green beret, camouflage that hadn't seen a spot of rust. Her people spread out without a word and checked corners. Fredrick, who said little to anyone, stood a step closer to her than he stood to most. That told Brad enough. Parks studied the photos while Donovan talked her through the radiation counts. She didn't flinch at the shrine or the turning crowd. "We hit at dawn. Two teams. We clear the barracks first, then burn the shrine from outside." She looked at Brad. "Your Rangers take the ridge above the barracks with the mounted 122mm on the truck for support fire. At my signal fire 4 quick rounds into the barracks then my team will move in. Stay ready things will no doubt get interesting.” "That's why I hired you," Brad said. "Three weeks," Parks said. "We rest, we rehearse, we go." She held out a hand. Brad shook it. The order was pinned to the board. Parks and her team took the far end of the garage and started laying out gear. Brad had his scalpel. But the timeline was set now, and it wasn't his. In three weeks they would attack St Alphonse's and his Rangers provided artillery support and reinforcements when needed. It’ll be a tough battle but better to fight it now while the raiders are relatively weak now rather than later when they’re a lot stronger.