Chapter 327: Silverpeak Hive - V

The second Phantom run obliterated Box Five.

Phantom One crossed the release point first and opened its bay over the industrial basin, dropping another programmed string across the concentration packed underneath the streets, while Phantom Two approached from farther east with a separate pattern intended to catch anything trying to leave the area.

From above, there was little to distinguish the infected from the district around them once the first bombs landed.

Buildings were continuously engulfed by dust.

Roads folded into the underground passages below them, while exposed biological growth and thousands of infected disappeared together as one impact followed another across the strike box.

The western side went first, followed by the central freight blocks, and by the time the pattern reached the northern edge, most of the original Radar contacts were already gone.

The surviving infected tried to scatter through whatever routes remained.

Some reached the roads outside the strike area and ran into artillery.

Others remained underground and were buried when the structures above collapsed into the passages.

Phantom Two’s bombs reached them next.

The second pattern crossed the eastern half of the box and tore through another section of the industrial basin until the red mass on the Advanced Radar broke into smaller pieces, each one disappearing as another blast rolled through the district.

"Box Five taking good effect," Phantom One’s Mission Systems Officer reported.

The pilot was already turning away.

"Should we turn around again?"

"You want to take a picture?"

The officer watched the picture update. Most of the contacts were gone.

A few hundred remained scattered beneath damaged structures, while smaller groups continued moving through underground routes that the bombing had not completely destroyed.

"Southern Command to Phantom One. Leave the rest to the ground teams. Other Phantoms will handle the rest."

"Copy your last, Southern Command. Phantom One, RTB."

"Phantom Two, RTB."

...

As they returned to their Airfield Bases, the ground teams cleared the surviving infected.

The MDC soldiers were still recovering from the latest psychic pulse.

Some had blood beneath their noses. One sat against the side of a damaged building while a Medic checked his eyes, and another remained crouched behind a Guardian with his rifle across his knees.

The Golden Eagle squads were in better shape.

Vanguard Four-Six returned to its previous position, while one of the Riflemen raised his weapon and dropped three infected nearby.

As the fighting around the block thinned, one marker remained near the center.

"Squad, hold on!"

He pinged the marker’s location and the rest of the squad focused on it.

"Southern Command, this is Vanguard Four-Six. We got a situation here."

"We got you on Radar, Vanguard Four-Six."

"There’s a strange large marker near our location. Possible Tier 1 infected, maybe stronger. It survived the Phantom runs. Requesting immediate CAS."

"Affirmative. Hold down the marker. Air support is on the way."

The squad leader lowered his rifle and turned toward the Missile Infantryman.

"Get a lock on that target!"

The Missile Infantryman raised the launcher while the marker stayed buried beneath the ruined industrial block.

The targeting system pulled the Radar contact into his HUD.

"Locking."

The squad leader switched to the rest of the formation.

"Machine Gunner, cover the eastern opening. Guardians, keep those ruins boxed in. Vanguard Four-Six actual to armor, don’t let that contact leave Box Five."

The nearby vehicles shifted around the edges of the destroyed strike area while the Missile Infantryman’s guidance solution continued tightening.

One Vanguard covered the wider road leading west, another took the northern exit between two collapsed warehouses, and both Guardians angled their autocannons toward the gaps that still remained through the rubble.

The contact moved.

"Target shifting north."

"Hold it there."

The Missile Infantryman received a valid solution.

"HEAT ready."

"Fire."

The missile left the launcher, climbed above the damaged buildings and corrected toward the Radar marker while the squad remained behind cover.

The missile disappeared into the dust.

A blast rolled through the ruins.

The marker jerked sideways.

"Hit. Target’s still active!"

The squad leader watched it move several meters through the debris before stopping against the northern side of the strike box.

"Give it all you’ve got! And send the next fucking missile!"

The Missile Infantryman selected another HEAT round.

"Tracking."

The contact started moving again before the second missile finished its lock, but this time the rest of Vanguard Four-Six was already collapsing the space around it.

The northern Vanguard MBT fired.

Its shell crossed the broken industrial block and smashed into the ruins ahead of the marker, bringing another section of the warehouse down across the route the contact was taking.

The western Vanguard followed against the opposite side, not aiming for the creature itself but destroying the clearest path it could use to escape Box Five.

Both Guardian APCs opened up at the same time.

Autocannon rounds hammered through the openings between the collapsed structures, tearing apart whatever infected still moved around the heavier marker while chunks of wall, steel and concrete fell across the remaining gaps.

The Machine Gunner caught anything spilling east.

Riflemen and Army Soldiers took the smaller contacts trying to break through the sides, their fire spreading across the frontage while the Missile Infantryman kept the heavier signature inside his guidance picture.

The marker changed direction again.

"Northwest!"

The Vanguard covering that side traversed with the marker and fired as soon as the lane opened.

The shell struck the edge of the processing building ahead of the contact and tore most of the lower floor open, forcing the marker back toward the center of the ruined block.

"Target still moving! It’s quick as hell!"

"Keep it boxed!"

The second HEAT missile launched.

It climbed above the collapsed structures before correcting sharply toward the Radar-fed solution, and while it descended, both Guardians continued tearing into the surrounding ruins so that nothing smaller could interfere with the strike.

The missile disappeared behind the dust, followed by another explosion rolling through Box Five.

The contact itself finally became visible through the dust.

Something huge smashed through the side of a ruined building, covered in concrete dust and pieces of twisted reinforcement, yet it had barely reached the open street when the nearest Guardian’s autocannon shifted onto it.

Thirty-millimeter rounds struck across the chest and shoulder, staggering the creature.

The Machine Gunner immediately moved his fire onto the damaged side while several Army Soldiers joined him with their 6.8 mm rifles, concentrating into the cracks opening across the hardened surface.

The MDC soldiers finally saw what had survived the Phantom run.

The infected was enormous, standing at more than three meters tall.

Its body looked as though somebody had layered dark metal directly across the flesh, with overlapping plates covering the chest, shoulders and arms while smaller sections continued hardening around the neck.

"What the fuck is that?"

"Target! Get the fuck down!"

The squad leader pointed toward the creature as if the answer could wait.

The Tank lowered itself and grabbed a huge piece of rubble from the ruins.

"Destroy whatever it’s holding!"

Both Guardians shifted onto the arm and upper body, their autocannons hammering the creature before it could throw, while the western Vanguard fired straight into its torso.

The 120 mm shell threw the Tank sideways into the remains of a storefront, and the second Vanguard sent another shell through the structure before it could regain its footing.

The building collapsed around it, but its marker remained active.

"Still there!"

The Missile Infantryman was already preparing another HEAT round.

"Third missile ready."

"Send it!"

The launcher fired again.

At the same time, the Guardians adjusted toward the edges of the collapse while the infantry kept the surrounding infected away from the kill zone, leaving the heavier contact nowhere useful to go.

The Tank burst out through the rubble before the missile reached it.

Its speed caught even the MDC soldiers off guard.

For something that large, it crossed the first part of the street frighteningly fast, but the Golden Eagle formation had already built the entire frontage around preventing exactly that.

The first Guardian APC caught it from the left.

Autocannon rounds hammered into the legs and lower torso.

The Tank changed direction, but the second Guardian APC took over from the right, forcing the creature to turn again.

A Vanguard shell landed ahead of it and destroyed another section of road.

The HEAT missile arrived from above, striking its damaged shoulder.

The explosion ripped most of the metallic plating away from that side and threw the Tank onto the pavement, yet the creature planted one arm against the road and forced itself upright again.

It roared and turned toward the launcher position.

The MDC soldier behind the Guardian stared.

"How is that still alive?"

The Army Soldiers shifted their fire into the exposed shoulder while the Machine Gunner walked his bursts across the opening, and the nearest Riflemen concentrated on the same damaged section whenever the creature turned toward them.

The Tank tried to harden itself again. Dark material crawled across the wound and began covering the exposed flesh.

The squad leader saw it. "Don’t let it rebuild!"

Both Guardians concentrated on the shoulder.

Autocannon rounds broke the forming layer apart faster than it could close, while another Vanguard shell hit the creature across the opposite side and sent it rolling through the street.

The Tank finally stopped trying to escape and turned toward the nearest Guardian APC, dark material crawling back across its damaged shoulder while it lowered its body and charged.

An MDC soldier near the vehicle dropped to the ground and desperately crawled toward the curb, yet the Guardian remained in place while the Tank rapidly closed the distance.

"What’s going on?!"

Four heavy shots cracked from the opposite side.

The rounds struck the exposed section of the Tank’s shoulder almost together, tearing through the flesh that had not finished hardening and forcing the creature sideways with a loud wail.

"It’s injured?!"

The Guardian pulled away, opening the street behind it.

Four DASF operators were moving through the gap.

Their HCMARs remained trained on the Tank while they spread across the road, and the two on the outside moved wider as the creature recovered from the shots.

The DASF leader checked the same marker the rest of Vanguard Four-Six had been hammering since it first moved beneath the ruins.

"Keep the box closed. We’re going in."

The Tank turned toward them.