Kira Dallas's Arc

Chapter 4 of 13

Kira spread her research files across the table at HQ. The patrol was two days behind her now. The ambush map sat beside the papers, its crossed marks facing the team. She tapped the stack of notes. "These ghouls kept formation. Someone trained them, or they trained themselves. Either way, my supply road is marked." Tammy leaned over the papers. The medic had bagged Conner's radiation burn on that road, and she had not forgotten it. She studied the specimen labels, then straightened. "You won't shoot your way through disciplined ghouls on open ground. Not without losing people." She pointed at one line of Kira's notes. "But these fatigues, the dry tissue, the old packs. That's dead material. Fire. Burn the ambush points before they can hold them." Kira held the idea a moment. Fire was crude. It was also final. "We'd need something that burns on impact. Across two sites." "Oh, I can help with the sites." Donovan dropped into the chair across from her. He pulled his worn notebook from his map case and flipped it open. Pages crammed with handwriting and taped scraps spilled out. He ran the Rangers' radios, and he traded gossip the way other men traded ammo. "I've been pulling threads from my contacts. Those two marks on your road? They're staging posts, not full camps. Light guard. The ghouls rotate in and out at dawn." He tapped a scrawled timeline. "Hit them before first light, nobody's home but the ones you want gone." Brad had been quiet by the wall. He pushed off it now, green glasses catching the light. Eight years in the Rangers had taught him when a plan was worth money. "Then you want incendiary rounds. One fifty-five." He almost smiled. "Heh. Here's the thing. Sid's been running vehicle repair out of the garage. Fixing scrap trucks for anyone who pays. That cash has been piling up." Kira looked at him. "You have a supplier." "Between you and me, yeah." Brad tapped the table. "A hauler out past the trade post has a crate of desert incendiary shells. Scorched casings, heat-stained tips, hundred-and-eleven rounds. He wants coin, not barter. The garage repair money covers it clean." Kira ran her verification in her head. A seller who named a count. A payment that cleared without favors. A plan built on Donovan's timeline, not guesswork. It held. "Make the trade," she said. "Spend the repair fund. I want those shells here before the dig moves." Brad was already standing. "I'll have them by tomorrow." The next afternoon the crate arrived. Kira pried the lid. Eleven dozen shells lay packed in oiled straw, casings dark with old scorch. She lifted one, felt its weight, read the stamped marking. Real. Counted. Paid for. She had the fire now. But burning the staging posts meant striking first, out past her own perimeter, on ground the ghouls still watched. The ambush line was hers to break before her supply road would open.