RNP Chapter 206: QRF Part 1
Chapter 206: QRF Part 1
Outside the walls, the horde continued growing.
Sergeant Miguel Reyes stood on the observation platform while staring through his binoculars.
The situation had gone from concerning to alarming in less than ten minutes.
The first horde had already reached the outer obstacles.
Hundreds of infected were tangled inside razor wire while machine guns shredded them apart.
Normally that would have been enough.
Normally the problem would already be solving itself.
But not tonight.
Because beyond the first horde, more were coming.
Thousands more.
The moonlight revealed movement across nearly every direction surrounding the outpost.
Roads.
Rice fields.
Drainage canals.
Abandoned neighborhoods.
Everything seemed alive.
The infected were converging from all sides.
The radio crackled again.
"Outpost Echo, this is Basa Command."
Reyes immediately grabbed the handset.
"Go ahead."
A different voice answered this time.
Calm.
Professional.
Operations staff.
"We’re reviewing drone feeds now."
The sergeant waited.
Then, the command officer spoke again.
"Jesus Christ."
That wasn’t something Reyes normally heard from Command.
Which honestly worried him more.
The command officer continued.
"Confirming multiple large infected concentrations converging toward your position."
"Copy."
A pause followed.
Then.
"Hold your perimeter."
"We’re dispatching QRF."
That earned a few relieved looks inside the tower.
Quick Reaction Force.
Good.
They would need it.
Reyes immediately answered.
"Estimated arrival?"
The command officer didn’t hesitate.
"Ten minutes."
The sergeant looked toward the growing hordes.
Ten minutes suddenly felt very far away.
The first infected finally reached the walls.
The machine guns immediately intensified.
BRRRRRRRRT.
M240s hammered the front ranks relentlessly.
Bodies piled against the outer wire.
More infected climbed over them.
Then died.
Then more climbed over them.
The process repeated endlessly.
Spent brass rained across bunker floors.
Barrels glowed faintly red.
Gunners rotated weapons regularly to avoid overheating.
The entire perimeter had become a continuous wall of gunfire.
Yet the infected kept coming.
One machine gunner looked over his shoulder.
"Sir, this is getting ridiculous."
Reyes didn’t disagree.
The horde wasn’t thinning.
It was growing.
Then another transmission arrived from Command.
This time sounding noticeably more urgent.
"Outpost Echo, drone surveillance confirms approximately thirty thousand infected moving toward your sector."
The tower became silent.
Several soldiers slowly looked toward the radio.
Thirty thousand.
Nobody said anything for several seconds.
Then one guard quietly spoke.
"...Thirty thousand?"
The radio operator swallowed.
"That’s what they said."
Reyes immediately picked up the handset.
"Command, repeat estimate."
"Three-zero thousand minimum."
The command officer sounded grim now.
"And still growing."
The sergeant slowly lowered the radio.
Nobody liked that answer.
Nobody.
The largest horde ever recorded around Pampanga hadn’t even reached half that number.
Yet somehow, tonight.
Something was gathering them.
Then the radio crackled again.
"QRF airborne."
That immediately caught everyone’s attention.
Several soldiers visibly relaxed.
Because everybody knew what QRF meant around Basa.
It meant aircraft.
And aircraft meant firepower.
Lots of firepower.
Far away inside Basa Air Base, klaxons had already activated across portions of the airfield.
Ground crews rushed across the tarmac.
Fuel trucks moved.
Armament teams worked rapidly beneath floodlights.
And sitting near one of the hardened aircraft shelters—
An A-10 Thunderbolt II waited.
The aircraft looked old.
Brutal.
Almost ugly.
But nobody questioned its effectiveness.
Not after the apocalypse.
The Warthog had become one of Atlas’ favorite aircraft for dealing with large infected concentrations.
Because few weapons on Earth could match what its nose carried.
The pilot climbed into the cockpit while ground crews completed final inspections.
The aircraft commander, call sign Reaper One, adjusted his helmet and checked flight systems.
Green.
Green.
Green.
Everything looked good.
The tower transmitted clearance moments later.
"Reaper One, cleared for immediate departure."
"Copy."
The engines spooled louder.
The twin turbofans roared beneath the night sky.
Then the aircraft began moving.
Minutes later, the Warthog launched.
Its landing gear lifted from the runway while the aircraft climbed aggressively into the darkness.
Back at Outpost Echo—
The situation continued worsening.
The outer wire obstacles had almost completely disappeared beneath piles of infected corpses.
Several machine gun positions were already reporting barrel changes.
The ammunition expenditure was becoming ridiculous.
One gunner shouted over the noise.
"How many of these bastards are there?!"
Nobody answered.
Because nobody knew.
The infected just kept coming.
Wave after wave.
The horizon remained filled with movement.
Then suddenly, the radio operator looked up.
"Aircraft inbound."
Several soldiers immediately looked skyward.
At first, nothing.
Then someone heard it.
A distant roar.
Low.
Fast.
Growing louder.
The sound cut through the gunfire.
Through the infected screams.
Through everything.
Several veterans immediately recognized it.
One of them grinned.
"Oh thank God."
The roar intensified.
Then—
A dark silhouette appeared overhead.
Low altitude.
Fast.
The A-10 Thunderbolt screamed across the night sky directly over the outpost.
The soldiers below erupted into cheers.
Because everybody knew exactly what came next.
Inside the cockpit, Reaper One studied the targeting display.
The infrared image looked absurd.
The infected filled entire sectors of terrain.
Thousands upon thousands of heat signatures moving toward Outpost Echo.
The pilot actually laughed.
"Well."
He keyed the radio.
"Command, I found your horde."
Static crackled.
Then Command answered.
"How bad?"
The pilot stared at the display.
"...It’s worse than the briefing."
The radio went quiet.
Then Command simply replied.
"Understood."
The pilot rolled the aircraft into attack position.
The targeting computer immediately highlighted the densest concentration.
Thousands of infected packed together.
Perfect.
The pilot smiled.
"Let’s go to work."
The Warthog descended lower.
Much lower.
The infected never looked up.
They never understood what was coming.
The aircraft crossed directly over the leading edge of the horde.
Then the pilot squeezed the trigger.
The world exploded.
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT.
The GAU-8 Avenger came alive.
The seven-barrel rotary cannon unleashed a storm of 30mm depleted uranium rounds directly into the horde.
The sound arrived almost after the destruction.
The cannon fired nearly four thousand rounds per minute.
An absurd amount of firepower.
The front ranks of the infected simply ceased existing.
Bodies exploded apart.
Limbs vanished.
Entire clusters disappeared beneath the stream of armor-piercing rounds.
The attack run carved a massive trench through the horde.
Nearly two hundred meters long.
The soldiers on the walls stared in disbelief.
Even though they had seen it before.
It never stopped being impressive.
The Warthog climbed sharply afterward.
The pilot looked back toward the damage.
A huge section of the horde no longer existed.
Yet somehow—
The infected continued advancing.
The smile faded slightly.
"Command."
"Go ahead."
The pilot looked at the display.
Then quietly answered.
"We’re going to need more aircraft."
The radio fell silent briefly.
"That bad?"
The pilot stared toward the horizon.
The infected stretched far beyond visual range.
Moving.
Gathering.
Converging.
Like an army answering a call.
Then he answered.
"Yes."
Back at Outpost Echo, Sergeant Reyes watched the destroyed section of the horde.
Hundreds of infected had died instantly.
Maybe thousands.
Normally that would have broken any attack.
Normally that would have ended the fight.
Instead, the gap immediately began filling again.
The infected simply kept coming.
Endlessly.
Relentlessly.
From every direction.
The sergeant slowly picked up the radio again.
His expression had become grim.
Very grim.
Because for the first time since the apocalypse began, he wasn’t sure the walls would hold.
And somewhere beyond the darkness, something was driving them forward.