The southern perimeter had become a wall of nonstop fire.

Every section of the defensive line was fully engaged now. The infected no longer attacked in loose waves. They crashed forward continuously, piling over their own dead while Hunters sprinted between them searching for weak points in the defenses.

Inside the trenches, soldiers were already running on adrenaline alone.

"Ammo!"

A crate of 5.56 magazines slid through the mud toward a rifleman whose hands shook from nonstop firing. Beside him, an M240 machine gun thundered continuously, the barrel glowing faintly orange while the gunner swept streams of 7.62 rounds across the charging infected.

Bodies collapsed by the dozens.

Still not enough.

The infected kept climbing over them.

Further down the southern line, one of the M1 Abrams tanks reversed hard as infected swarmed too close to its hull.

"Left side! Left side!" the commander shouted through comms.

The coaxial machine gun rotated immediately.

The gunner opened fire point blank.

The 7.62 rounds shredded infected climbing directly onto the tank’s armor while infantry nearby added rifle fire into the mass surrounding the vehicle.

Then a Hunter appeared through the smoke.

Fast.

It sprinted through the burning wreckage of destroyed vehicles before leaping directly toward the Abrams turret.

"Hunter incoming!"

The commander barely reacted in time.

The tank’s roof-mounted .50 caliber machine gun erupted violently, the heavy rounds tearing chunks out of the creature midair. The Hunter slammed into the side of the turret instead of the hatch, claws scraping across the armor plating while it tried forcing itself upward.

Inside the tank, the loader grabbed his sidearm instinctively.

"Get this thing off us!"

The infantry nearby redirected fire instantly.

M4 carbines cracked nonstop around the tank while one soldier climbed onto the rear hull carrying a combat shotgun.

Boom.

Boom.

The buckshot blasted into the Hunter’s face repeatedly at near point-blank range.

The creature shrieked and turned toward him immediately.

Too late.

An RPG gunner fired from twenty meters away.

The rocket slammed into the side of the turret in a violent explosion that engulfed the Hunter completely.

The Abrams rocked hard from the blast.

Smoke covered the vehicle for several seconds.

Then the commander’s voice returned over comms.

"...We’re still operational."

Several infantrymen nearby actually laughed for half a second out of pure stress relief before turning back toward the advancing horde.

Then the sky above them suddenly rumbled.

Different from artillery.

Deeper.

Heavier.

One of the soldiers looked upward through the smoke.

"...Gunship."

Above the battlefield, the massive silhouette of an Lockheed AC-130 emerged through the clouds while circling the southern sectors of Basa Air Base.

Its sensors immediately locked onto the battlefield below.

Inside the aircraft, operators stared at thermal displays completely saturated with hostile movement.

"Jesus Christ..." one of the crew muttered.

The battlefield looked alive.

Everywhere they scanned—

Movement.

Thousands upon thousands of heat signatures pressing directly against the defensive line.

The fire control officer quickly designated targets.

"Danger close approved?"

The pilot glanced toward the coordinates.

The infected were almost on top of the trenches now.

"Approved."

The gunship banked slightly.

Then the side-mounted 40mm cannon opened fire.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Explosive rounds rained downward into the infected masses just outside the perimeter, blasting entire clusters apart while dirt and bodies erupted upward from the impacts.

The effect was immediate.

Huge sections of the charging horde disappeared beneath the barrage.

Inside the trenches, soldiers looked upward as explosions walked directly across the infected only meters away from their positions.

"Holy shit!"

Then the AC-130 unleashed the 105mm howitzer.

The massive cannon thundered from the side of the aircraft.

A second later, the ground exploded.

The shell landed directly inside one of the densest concentrations of infected pushing against the western trench network. The blast vaporized everything near the impact point instantly while shockwaves rolled across the battlefield.

Entire rows of infected vanished.

The defensive pressure eased for the first time in minutes.

"Gunship on station!" someone shouted excitedly.

Back in the command center, Adrian watched the AC-130 fire missions update across the tactical display.

"Keep it circling over the pressure points," he ordered.

"Yes, sir."

Outside, another sound suddenly joined the battle. It sounded fast and aggressive.

The distinct roar of jet engines approaching low altitude.

Several soldiers instinctively looked up.

Then the first Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II screamed overhead barely above the battlefield.

"Warthogs!"

The A-10s descended aggressively toward the southern kill zones while their targeting pods locked onto dense infected concentrations surrounding the defensive perimeter.

Inside one cockpit, the pilot lined up the gun run carefully.

"Danger close confirmed."

The reticle stabilized over the horde.

Then the GAU-8 Avenger opened fire.

BRRRRRRTTTT.

The sound tore across the battlefield like a chainsaw from hell.

Streams of 30mm depleted uranium rounds ripped through the infected masses, carving a visible corridor straight through the swarm. Bodies exploded apart beneath the impacts while dirt and debris blasted upward in enormous sprays.

The A-10 continued the strafe directly along the outer barricades.

BRRRRRRTTTT.

Another section of the horde disappeared.

The soldiers in the trenches actually screamed in excitement hearing the gun runs overhead.

"FUCK THEM UP!"

The Warthogs pulled upward briefly before circling back for another pass.

Now the battlefield became something even worse.

Tank fire.

Machine guns.

Artillery.

AC-130 bombardment.

A-10 strafing runs.

The southern approach to Basa Air Base transformed into a gigantic slaughter zone illuminated by nonstop explosions and tracer fire.

Hunters continued charging through the chaos.

And they kept dying.

One Hunter sprinted directly through artillery smoke before an A-10 pass caught it mid-charge.

The 30mm rounds literally tore the creature apart.

Another Hunter leapt into a trench line only for an AC-130 40mm shell to land directly beside it, vaporizing both the creature and nearby infected instantly.

Still, more emerged from the darkness beyond the battlefield.

One infantry officer looked through his optic and felt his stomach sink.

Because beyond the burning kill zones, he could still see movement stretching endlessly southward through the night.