Kira Dallas's Arc

Chapter 6 of 13

A week after St Alphonse's fell, the shrine was gone and the road was clear. Kira turned back to the work she had set aside. Three rooms on level three remained unexplored. She pinned her plan board to the wall and read it one last time. Living quarters first. Engineering second. The security station last, because it held the entrance to level four. She tapped the board. "We finish this today." Mary Long arrived with a folder of supplies tucked under one arm. The grey tabby nurse set stimpaks and antirad on the table in neat rows. "Enough for the whole team," she said. "Checked the seals myself." Kira ran a claw over one seal and nodded. Mary had earned that nod months ago, treating burns underground without once complaining. Logan came up from the engineering room with grease on his two-fingered hand. He ran salvage for the Atomic Cats and knew these machines better than anyone. "Engineering's live," he said. "Old coolant lines. Don't bump them." He wiped his hand on his jacket. "Touch the wrong valve and you'll learn why I'm short two fingers." He said it flat, like a weather report. Sinclair Feldman unrolled a blueprint across the table. The Red Hills recon man had decoded the prewar layout overnight. His paw traced the security station. "Here's your trouble, gal." He pointed to a marked door. "Main access to level four runs through the security checkpoint. Weapons storage sits right beside it. Robot control too." He looked up. "We clear that room blind, we might wake something that shoots back." Kira studied the blueprint. The checkpoint, the storage, the control stations. She matched each one against her board. "Then we clear it in order," she said. "Quarters and engineering first. Security last, with you reading the panels." Zelda said “bio reading from the living areas shows 10 to 15 life forms about the size of ghouls roaming around in there. Also there are about a dozen smaller life forms in engineering, possibly the annoying rad rats.” Kira realized the sections would have to be cleared one at a time to avoid casualties as much as possible. Kira tapped her finger on the living quarters area on map, “Ok, we do this slower now, otherwise lots of people could get hurt. Prepare and get rest, tomorrow we start clearing the living area.”