Fredrick Carr's Arc

Chapter 3 of 11

Fredrick brought his six new hands back to the base and reported to the operations center. The desert-camouflage command post sat quiet in the heat, its map boards crowded with pins. Brad had left a folder on the table. Fredrick opened it. Base expansion reports, and two notes clipped to the top. Kira wanted three more med-techs added. Sinclair had written a single line: we need patrol vehicles. He read the reports twice. The base had walls and workers now. It had no way to move them. No trucks meant no patrols, no supply runs past the fence line. Fredrick set the folder down and keyed the radio. Donovan answered fast. "Oh man, you saw Sinclair's note. Yeah. We've got hands but nothing with wheels. Can't run a trade center you can't drive out of." "So where do we get them," Fredrick said. A new voice cut in, calm and flat. Sinclair. Fredrick had met him only in passing, the black and brown recon officer from Red Hills who had helped weaponize salvage against the raiders. Sinclair did not waste words. "I've been mapping it, friend," Sinclair said. "The scattered raiders left vehicles behind when Brad shelled their camp. Light armored patrol rigs. One's a Foxhound with a working machine gun mount. Good tan-and-rust camo. Combat-ready." "And the catch," Fredrick said. He knew there was one. "The catch is survivors," Sinclair said. "Not many. But armed. They're guarding the rigs at the old wreck site. Anyone who walks in gets shot. That's the deal." Donovan came back on. "Dangerous, but doable. I can jam their radios from the garage relay. Blind them for maybe ten minutes. After that they'll know something's wrong." Fredrick looked at the folder, then the map. Six hands. Twenty-four short. But he had Captain Hills and four soldiers, and Greymire had vouched for them. "We take the vehicles," he said. "All of us agree?" "Agreed," Sinclair said. "Foundation built on wishes won't hold trade weight. You want a center, you need wheels." "You bet," Donovan said. "I'll cut their comms on your mark." Fredrick loaded Hills and the crew before dawn. He carried his 1911, but Hills passed him something heavier from the truck bed. A compact automatic rifle, dark frame, long barrel. "For close work," Hills said. Fredrick took it. They moved on the wreck site with the light still grey. Donovan killed the raider radios on schedule. The guards never got their warning out. Two shots from Hills's crew ended it fast. No losses. Fredrick climbed into the tan Foxhound and turned the key. The engine caught. The machine gun swiveled clean on its mount. They drove three patrol rigs back through the gate. Fredrick parked the Foxhound by the operations center and cut the engine. The base had wheels now. But Fredrick noticed that the surviving raiders had started to group into small bandit gangs. They weren’t a threat to the base in any way but could be problematic for traders. Fredrick thought “War never changes.”