Fredrick Carr's Arc

Chapter 10 of 11

The team gathered in Brad's command office the night after the ridge scout. Fredrick pinned his field notes beside a new board that had grown all week. Carr and Ann marks covered it now. Surveillance photos of the shrine. Arrows drawn across the perimeter. Someone had circled the church door twice in red. Lieutenant Ann Parks stood at the board, not Brad. Fredrick had recruited her six-person team for this exact job, because Rangers couldn't survive the radiation and ghouls at St Alphonse's. She wore grey-green camouflage and a faded beret. She traced the ridge line with one claw, calm as a surgeon. "My team watched the camp two days," Parks said. "The ghouls move at dawn. The raiders sleep late and sloppy." She tapped a photo of figures near the barracks. "We hit before either wakes." A repaired eyebot hovered by the door, its dented camouflage shell turning slow. It had carried her team's footage back from the valley. Parks played the clip on a cracked screen. Fredrick saw the shrine glow on the counter overlay. He saw the chained thing the ghouls fed. "When?" Brad asked. He leaned over the table, glasses pushed up. "Tuesday," Parks said. "Three in the morning. Two teams. Barracks and shrine at once." She looked at Brad. "We need your artillery on the ridge. Same strike window. Three a.m." Fredrick studied the board. "Why three days out? Why not tomorrow?" "Because the ghouls are moving in four days," Parks said. "They leave the shrine and march for the vault road. We hit while they're still home. One day's margin. No more." She wrote it on the board. Tuesday. Three a.m. The red marker squeaked. Brad was quiet a moment. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Heh. So we don't get to think long." "No," Parks said. "We don't." Fredrick already knew his piece. Amy Gill of the Atomic Cats held the relay network that tied the vault, HQ, and the feed tower together. Her lines would carry the strike timing to the ridge gun crew. Donovan had the channel open. Fredrick would run the coordination between Parks's team and Brad's artillery. "The guns can be laid by Monday night," Fredrick said. "Shells are counted. I'll ride the ridge myself and spot for them." Brad set both hands flat on the map. He looked at Parks, then at Fredrick. "Alright. We do it." His voice dropped low. "Between you and me, I don't like sending anyone into that heat. But if those ghouls reach the vault road, we lose the hospital, the trade, all of it." "Then it's Tuesday," Parks said. Brad nodded once. "Three a.m. Tuesday. Destroy the camp. Ready your teams." Fredrick pulled the marker from the board and drew the final arrow. Barracks. Shrine. Ridge. Three lines meeting at one hour. The plan was set. In three days the valley would burn, or they would.