"But they’re still coming."
The words echoed through the radio network.
For a brief mont, nobody answered.
Because everyone already knew it was true.
The bomb strike had erased an entire section of the battlefield.
Thousands of infected had died.
The northern approach was a smoking wasteland filled with burning corpses and overturned earth.
Yet beyond the fire.
Beyond the smoke.
Beyond the crater.
The infected were still advancing.
Back at Outpost Echo, the defenders barely had ti to breathe.
The silence following the bomb strike lasted less than thirty seconds.
Then the shooting started again.
"CONTACT NORTH!"
A spotlight swept across the battlefield.
Hundreds of infected erged through the smoke.
Their bodies burned.
So were missing arms.
Others were missing chunks of flesh.
Several were still on fire.
None of them stopped.
The machine guns opened up imdiately.
BRRRRRRRRT.
BRRRRRRRRT.
Twin M240s hamred the advancing mass.
Bodies dropped.
Heads exploded.
Torsos tore apart.
The survivors climbed over the dead.
The walls shook beneath the constant recoil.
Sergeant Reyes fired three controlled shots.
One infected collapsed.
Another appeared behind it.
Then another.
The horde had beco endless.
A machine gunner yelled from the southern wall.
"They’re through the vehicle line!"
Reyes turned.
The southern sector was becoming critical.
The wrecked buses and cargo trucks that ford the outer barricade had finally disappeared beneath the sheer weight of infected bodies.
Thousands were pushing through the gaps.
Climbing over twisted tal.
Crawling beneath chassis.
Forcing their way forward.
The Mk19 gunner imdiately shifted fire.
THUMP.
THUMP.
THUMP.
Forty-milliter grenades arced into the mass.
The explosions ripped open huge gaps.
Blood sprayed across burning vehicles.
Body parts flew through the air.
The infected kept coming.
"Keep firing!"
The defenders obeyed.
No one needed encouragent anymore.
Everyone understood what happened if the walls fell.
Far above Pampanga, the F-16s continued their attack runs.
Viper Lead checked his remaining fuel.
Not great.
Not terrible.
His weapons page looked worse.
Almost empty.
The battlefield below remained completely insane.
The infected stretched across kiloters.
The pilot keyed his radio.
"Viper Lead, in hot."
The aircraft rolled hard to the left.
The targeting pod locked onto another concentration moving through a flooded rice field west of the outpost.
Thousands.
Again.
Always thousands.
The pilot switched to cannon.
The pipper settled.
The aircraft descended.
Then—
BRRRRRRT.
The M61 Vulcan ca alive.
The six-barrel rotary cannon unleashed a torrent of twenty-milliter rounds.
The stream of fire walked directly across the field.
The front ranks vanished instantly.
Bodies shredded apart.
Water exploded upward.
Mud erupted.
The attack run carved a path hundreds of ters long through the infected formation.
The F-16 scread overhead.
Then climbed sharply away.
The pilot checked the damage.
The entire section had been devastated.
Hundreds dead.
Maybe more.
Then movent resud.
The survivors simply filled the gap.
The pilot cursed.
"This is ridiculous."
Back on the ground, the battle continued getting worse.
The western wall suddenly erupted into shouting.
"LEFT SIDE!"
"LEFT SIDE!"
An infected had managed to climb onto the outer concrete barrier.
The creature launched itself over the top.
A rifleman shot it midair.
The body crashed onto the fighting platform.
Another infected appeared imdiately behind it.
Then another.
The defenders reacted instantly.
Gunfire erupted along the wall.
Several infected made it over.
Not many.
Enough.
The fighting beca personal.
A soldier smashed the buttstock of his rifle into an infected’s face.
Another drew a sidearm and emptied the magazine into a crawler reaching for his boots.
The wall remained secure.
Barely.
Sergeant Reyes grabbed his radio.
"Command, this is Echo Actual."
"Go ahead."
"We have infected reaching the wall."
A brief pause followed.
Then—
"Ground QRF is six minutes out."
Six minutes.
Still too long.
A nearby machine gun fell silent.
The gunner imdiately shouted.
"Barrel change!"
Another crew moved forward carrying a replacent.
The old barrel glowed orange.
The new one locked into place.
Seconds later the weapon resud firing.
BRRRRRRT.
The constant wall of sound returned.
Above the battlefield, Viper Two made another pass.
This ti he selected a road approaching from the northeast.
The thermal feed showed a dense stream of infected moving between abandoned houses.
The pilot ard his final Maverick missile.
The seeker locked.
Tone confird.
"Fox."
The missile dropped away.
Its rocket motor ignited imdiately.
The weapon accelerated toward the road.
Seconds later—
BOOOOOM.
The entire street vanished beneath the explosion.
Several buildings collapsed.
Vehicles flipped.
A massive fireball illuminated the countryside.
The blast wave killed hundreds instantly.
The road disappeared beneath rubble.
The pilot checked the result.
The stream stopped.
Then another route appeared.
The infected simply diverted around the destruction.
The pilot stared.
Then laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was insane.
Everything tonight was insane.
The radio crackled.
"Viper Lead, status."
The lead pilot answered imdiately.
"Low fuel."
"Low ammunition."
"Still engaging."
The command officer paused.
Then replied.
"Understood."
anwhile, back at the outpost, things reached a breaking point.
The northern wall disappeared beneath infected bodies.
The outer ditch had beco a mountain of corpses.
Thousands of dead infected ford ramps leading toward the barriers.
The living climbed over the dead.
The dead beca stepping stones.
One infected nearly reached the firing platform.
A defender dropped it with a burst from his rifle.
Another took its place imdiately.
Then another.
Then another.
The horde wasn’t attacking anymore.
It was drowning the outpost beneath sheer mass.
The floodlights flickered.
The smoke grew thicker.
Spent brass covered every fighting position.
n shouted over the noise.
Weapons cycled continuously.
Nobody stopped firing.
Nobody could.
Then suddenly—
A distant sound appeared from the south.
At first nobody noticed.
The gunfire drowned it out.
Then it grew louder.
Engines.
Lots of engines.
Heavy engines.
Reyes looked up.
Several soldiers looked toward the road leading back to Basa Air Base.
The sound continued growing.
Closer.
Closer.
Then the radio operator looked toward Reyes.
His eyes widened.
"Sir."
"What?"
The operator listened to his headset.
Then grinned.
A real grin.
The first one all night.
"Ground QRF just checked in."
Several soldiers imdiately looked toward him.
"How many?"
The operator listened again.
Then answered.
"A lot."
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