bestfiction Chapter 213: Tedium of Zombie Siege
Chapter 213: Tedium of Zombie Siege
The thought settled heavily in his mind while the tactical display continued filling with red.
The fighters were killing thousands.
The artillery was killing thousands more.
Outpost Echo was holding.
The northern front had slowed.
The southern front had not.
Ryan stood beside him with both arms crossed, eyes fixed on the drone feeds.
For once, he said nothing.
That alone told Adrian enough.
Another officer hurried toward the central table.
"Sir, helicopter flight is entering engagement range."
Adrian looked toward the southern feed.
"Show me."
The screen changed.
Thermal imagery from a reconnaissance drone appeared across the main display.
The southern horde stretched across broken roads and abandoned farmland like a black river.
Thousands of fast variants moved near the front.
Behind them came the slower infected.
And behind those came more.
The line did not end.
The operations officer spoke quickly.
"Attack helicopter group consists of four AH-64 Apaches and six AH-1Z Vipers. They’ll engage the leading fast variants first."
Ryan finally spoke.
"Good. Kill the sprinters before they reach anything useful."
Adrian nodded.
"Authorize weapons free."
The order went out immediately.
Far south of Basa Air Base, the attack helicopters flew low over dark fields and abandoned settlements.
Their rotor blades chopped through the humid night air while sensor turrets scanned ahead.
Inside the lead Apache, the pilot kept the aircraft steady while the co-pilot gunner worked the targeting system.
The thermal display was almost solid white.
"Jesus."
The gunner adjusted zoom.
"Command was not kidding."
The pilot looked ahead through the night.
"Targets?"
"Everywhere."
"Pick the fast movers."
The gunner locked onto a group of sprinting infected moving along a road toward the base’s outer defensive zone.
"Lead group acquired."
The Apache’s chain gun turned.
Then fired.
BRRRRT.
The 30mm M230 cannon hammered the road.
Explosive rounds struck the running infected and tore them apart in bursts of fire and flesh.
The first group disappeared.
The gun shifted.
Fired again.
Another line of infected collapsed.
Beside the Apache, the Vipers entered the fight.
Hydra rockets streaked from their pods.
WHOOSH.
WHOOSH.
WHOOSH.
The rockets slammed into the fields and erupted in bright orange flashes.
Dirt and bodies launched into the air.
The southern approach lit up with explosions.
The horde broke apart in sections, but it did not stop.
It simply flowed around the craters.
The helicopters kept firing.
Rockets.
Chain guns.
More rockets.
More cannon fire.
The entire southern front became a killing field.
Back at Outpost Echo, the defenders could hear the battle in the distance.
The dull thunder from the south rolled across the land like a second storm.
Reyes stood on the northern wall, rifle still hot in his hands.
The pressure around the outpost had eased, but only slightly.
Bodies were stacked so high beyond the wire that some infected were crawling over the piles and dropping near the inner barricades.
A soldier beside him fired until his rifle clicked empty.
"Reloading!"
Reyes stepped forward and fired over him.
One infected dropped.
Then another.
Then another.
The soldier slammed in a fresh magazine and resumed firing.
The radio operator shouted from the tower.
"Sergeant, ground QRF two minutes out!"
Reyes looked toward the south road.
The sound of engines was louder now.
Heavy diesel engines.
Tracked vehicles.
Armored vehicles.
Then the first headlights appeared.
Not civilian headlights.
Military.
A convoy burst through the darkness from the direction of Basa.
M2 Bradleys.
JLTVs.
MRAPs.
Strykers.
A pair of Abrams tanks rolled at the rear, their turbine engines whining loudly beneath the thunder of battle.
The soldiers on the wall cheered.
The convoy did not slow.
The lead Bradley turned off the road and aimed directly toward the western flank of the horde.
Its 25mm Bushmaster cannon opened fire.
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.
Explosive rounds punched into the infected mass.
Bodies burst apart.
The coaxial machine gun joined in.
The turret traversed smoothly, cutting through the horde in wide arcs.
Another Bradley joined.
Then another.
The JLTVs spread out and their roof-mounted M2 Brownings opened fire.
The MRAPs stopped near the road and dismounted infantry behind cover.
"Dismount! Dismount!"
Soldiers jumped out and formed firing lines behind armored vehicles.
Rifles cracked.
Machine guns roared.
Grenade launchers thumped.
The ground QRF slammed into the horde’s flank like a hammer.
Inside one Abrams, the gunner tracked a dense cluster pushing toward Outpost Echo’s western wall.
"Target mass, infantry type, nine hundred meters."
The commander answered instantly.
"Canister."
"Up."
"Fire."
The 120mm cannon thundered.
The canister round exploded outward like a giant shotgun blast.
Thousands of tungsten balls ripped through the horde.
The front ranks vanished.
A wide lane opened through the infected mass.
The loader already had another round ready.
"Up."
"Fire."
BOOM.
Another canister round tore through the horde.
The Abrams rolled forward slowly, coaxial machine gun firing nonstop.
The infected in front of it were crushed beneath the tracks if they came too close.
One Hunter-like variant sprinted from the smoke toward a Bradley.
Fast.
Too fast.
"Hunter! Hunter left!"
The Bradley turret snapped toward it.
The Bushmaster fired.
THUMPTHUMPTHUMP.
The first rounds struck the creature’s chest and shoulders.
It staggered but kept running.
The gunner kept firing.
The 25mm rounds chewed through its torso until the creature finally collapsed and rolled beneath the vehicle’s front armor.
The Bradley lurched over it.
The infantry cheered.
Then more infected came.
Always more.
Back at Basa Command, the tactical display showed the QRF engagement unfolding in real time.
Adrian watched the convoy icons slam into the western flank near Outpost Echo.
"Good."
Ryan leaned closer to the screen.
"Echo might hold."
"Might."
Adrian did not like that word.
Another analyst spoke.
"Sir, northern front slowed by thirty percent after HIMARS and fighter strikes."
"And the south?"
The analyst hesitated.
"Southern front still advancing."
The main display changed again.
Attack helicopters continued hammering the southern approach.
Explosions tore through the fields.
The Apaches and Vipers were causing massive damage.
But the horde remained too wide.
Too deep.
Too organized.
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
"Send another fighter package south."
"Already preparing, sir."
Ryan looked at him.
"If this keeps growing, we’ll be fighting in shifts."
Adrian nodded once.
"We will."
The room went quiet again.
Not because anyone was surprised.
Because they all knew he was right.
This would not be over by morning.
Outside, more aircraft engines roared across Basa Air Base.
More fighters taxied toward the runway.
More helicopters lifted from the pads.
More artillery systems received new target coordinates.
The base had stopped resting.
It had become a weapon again.
And beyond its walls, across the dark fields of Pampanga, the infected kept coming.