Baker raised his hand.
David tongued his cheek for a moment, hesitating as he tried to remember his name. “Yes… Baker?”
“Yeah,” the Private replied with a nod, lowering his hand. “When you say little, you wanna quantify that a bit more?”
David raised a hand, tilting it back and forth in the air. “Well, it’s little compared to some of the other suburbs,” he replied. “Pre-war, there were about seventy-five thousand people living there.”
“You and I have very different definitions of little,” Baker retorted.
The communications expert grimaced. “My apologies,” he said, putting a hand to his chest. “The good news is, you aren’t going to have to go very deep into Redmond to get what you’re looking for.” He pointed to a circled area on the southeast portion of town. There were several large white-roofed buildings making up a substantial shopping center. “According to our satellite imagery, the trucks you need to complete your mission are in this shopping center on the southeast portion of town. Now, the satellite imagery also shows a heavy zombie population, but you will be embedded with a moderate sized strike force who will be there clearing out the town.”
“How big?” Short asked, without raising his hand.
David glanced at him. “We’re sending a team of seven hundred and fifty to secure Redmond. A squad of a hundred will be tasked with escorting you to the site before rejoining the others. You are to get in, secure half a dozen trucks, and head out.” He slid over to the larger area map. “Now.” He took a deep breath. “This is where things get tricky.”
“Pretty sure it’s all tricky,” Kent quipped, “but go on.”
“With the trucks secure, you’ll be hopping on highway five twenty south,” David continued, “which will lead you to your destination. Unfortunately, it also means you have to go through the town of Overlake. It’s smaller than Redmond, but the last images we have show a significant presence of zombies on the road.”
“Can we go around them?” Mason asked.
David shook his head. “Wouldn’t recommend it,” he admitted. “A lot of the surface streets are covered in trees, but the areas where we can see the road appear to be crowded. You’re going to just have to push through.”
“And what are we supposed to do when those fuckers get wedged in the wheels?” Baker asked, throwing up his hands. “Or stall out the engine?”
Kent smirked. “You could always hitchhike.”
“Would you pick me up?” Baker scoffed.
Kent winked at him. “Not after hearing your Cabo story.”
Laughter rippled through the group again, and Bretz waved a hand to get them to settle down.
“The most difficult portion of this drive is up next,” David said, raising his voice a bit to get them to focus, “the four-o-five interchange. The good news is, you’ll be on the ground, so no risk of running off of a bridge. The bad news is, it’s most likely going to be densely packed.”
Mason leaned his hands on the table. “So, how are we supposed to get through there?” he asked.
“Air support,” David replied.
The soldiers glanced around at each other and nodded, impressed.
“Air support, huh?” Baker asked, rubbing his hands together. “What we got?”
“Two Apache gunships,” David replied. “They’ll need a thirty-minute window to arrive, so you’ll have to plan accordingly, but call them in and they’ll clear a path for you here.” He pointed to the stretch of road.
Baker raised his hand, and the communications expert reluctantly motioned to him.
“If we have Apaches,” the Private began, “then why are we risking our lives to go block these bridges? Why not just blow them to hell and call it a day?”
David looked at Kersey, who appeared to still be half asleep.
The Captain startled when he realized everyone was looking at him and cleared his throat. “Because somebody way above our pay grade has decided that infrastructure like this has to be spared,” he explained. “They feel like this city is going to have to be usable once we take it over, and we won’t have the manpower or resources to repair the bridges.” He took a long gulp of his coffee.
“Great,” Baker said with a sigh, “so we’re expendable, huh?”
Bretz patted his shoulder. “Nah, bud, just you,” he said, “they’re actually rooting for the rest of us to come back.”
There was another light round of chuckles, and Kersey raised his mug to David to encourage him to continue.
“Okay,” his friend said, “once the gunships clear the way for you, the first target is the five-twenty bridge over Lake Washington. Two trucks will need to block this off to protect our soldiers who are advancing from the east. The other four trucks are to keep going towards the main target, which is the I-five bridge just north of downtown.”
They leaned over to have a look at the bridge, seeing a major interchange just south of it.
Bretz pointed to it, tapping his finger. “That interchange going from the five-twenty to the five looks problematic,” he said. “Can we call in the Apaches to help us out there?”
“Unfortunately not,” David replied, shaking his head. “They have a one-way ticket to the ships just offshore. In order to get more people on, they had to ditch a lot of non-essentials, like missiles and fuel.”
Mason scratched his head. “So how are we supposed to get across, if we can’t get to the bridge?” he asked.
David tapped an area on the map. “Just to the east of the target, there is a small surface street bridge,” he explained. “This should let you get across so you can block it from the north. Once you do that, you just have to sit back and wait on reinforcements to arrive in a few days.”
“And if they don’t?” Baker wondered.
“Hope the water below is deep enough for a high dive,” Mason replied.
Baker shook his head. “Comforting.”
“Any questions?” David asked. When there was no answer, he took a step back, happy to concede the floor. “All right, Captain?”
Kersey took a deep breath and approached
