Caity watched from the watchtower as the Mutated Animals kept on pushing forward, only to get held in position by the Phasewalker firepower.
Ryan and Eric were behind her. Just like Caity, their duties meant they shouldn’t be charging in the front. Eric was supposed to help Caity in terms of understanding the battlefield and passing down her orders.
As for Ryan, as the Battalion Commissar, he had to keep a hold of the overall situation. If the Company Commissars were supposed to keep an eye on the common soldiers and low-level officers, then it was Ryan’s job to do that to Caity, Eric, and the rest of the Phasewalker High Command. If they did anything wrong that could threaten the whole battle, it was his task to step in and end those threats through whatever means necessary.
“Those Mutants are getting slaughtered out there!” Eric said with excitement in his voice. “These idiots are killing so many of their own! If we keep this up, we can take them all out!”
Indeed. Even as cannon rounds exploded in their midst and machine-guns mowed down their comrades in the front, a small group of the Mutated Animals was still busy slaughtering each other. A Mutated Bear stepped onto a Mutated Chiwawa and crushed its neck, but before the victor could enjoy the price, an incendiary round exploded on top of him and cooked him alive.
For a moment, the battle looked like it was over. Beside him, Ryan wasn’t so optimistic.
“These idiots destroyed a faction with starships and armies.” He added quietly. “And this is just all the Mutated Animals close to Fortress Alpha.”
Caity knew what Ryan meant. If this was just the Mutated Animals from around here, then how many could be around the world, and how could the Phasewalkers possibly kill them all? But for once, she slightly sided with Eric. Sometimes, a pessimistic leader could harm morale. Savor every small victory, no matter how insignificant, and before the soldiers knew it, they might be at the finish line.
After the initial chaos, the Phasewalkers were getting better and better at this. When they realized they weren’t in any real danger, the men and women trained by Section X started demonstrating what they were taught. Artillery units targeted densely populated areas. Machine guns formed a firing net for maximum coverage.
This was another part of Caity’s plan. She was there when the vanguard first encountered the Mutated Wolves. She knew that aside from all the training and weapons, there was still another disadvantage for the Phasewalkers. They have never faced these Mutants before.
Facing a completely foreign enemy could have a huge hit to morale that might potentially become a deadly threat at crucial moments. But now, with hundreds of Mutants slaughtered in front of the trenches like sheep, and their blood and bodies covering the soft soil, their level of intimidation was dropping by the seconds.
Hopefully, this could make the Mutants just another foe that could be defeated, killed, and even captured in the eyes of the Phasewalkers.
In that sense, she killed three birds with one stone.
Speaking of birds, Caity glanced at the local woman. Maria. That was her name. She might have kept her lips tight, but her comrade was much less determined. In fact, Liam spilled the beans almost immediately.
Camp York. A settlement established over a former military base. Ok. It holds over 8,000 survivors in total. Fine. It has a number of military weapons and around 3,000 troopers. Fine.
It has over a dozen Tier 1 Mutant. 4 Tier 2 Mutants. And its leader was a Tier 3 Mutant.
What?
Yep. If animals and plants could be mutated by the Alpha Virus, then so could human beings.
Now, when the Alpha Virus first struck, a lot of people were infected. Most of them turned into brainless beasts who would go after anyone who didn't have the virus. But some of the infected were more fortunate. They somehow survived the virus with their minds intact. Not only so, the virus gave them the same mutations it gave to the beasts.
For those lucky bastards, the Mutations made them superhuman. For some, it meant additional speed or strength. For others, it meant growing carapace that could deflect gauss rounds.
For the leader of Camp York who, according to Liam, arrogantly called himself Apollo, it meant having the power to manipulate flames.
Ryan had no idea what Liam meant by different Tiers of Mutation. Was that something related to the power scale or rarity of the Mutants? Maybe both? But at the same time, he couldn’t straightup ask him. From the way Liam talked about it, such things should be common knowledge in this world. He might need Liam to go back to Camp York alive, so he had to put up the act and avoid any suspicious questions.
Nonetheless, Liam did say that Apollo was able to rule Camp York with an iron fist. Supposedly, he fried a Mutated Lion alive with a single tap. He treated himself as a god, forcing everyone to refer to him as “Lord Apollo”. Only the other Tier 2 Mutants in the camp could get a free pass, but even they were forced to bow beneath his authority.
The other four Mutants of Camp York had different powers as well. They were the upper class of Camp York, the CEOs, doctors, and lawyers of the past. Their powers gave them the right to steal, hurt, and kill most of the survivors from Camp York, but despite their personality flaws, their abilities in combat were not to be ignored.
If the Phasewalkers wanted to use World Alpha to reinforce Earth, they had to expand their influence, and to do that, they had to deal with Camp York. The way of the guns wouldn’t work, at least not now. The Phasewalkers had the backing of a whole world, but their numbers and qualities were limited. In that case, an alliance became the only option.
But alliances could only be forged between equal partners. A lion would never befriend a rabbit because there could be no benefit earned from this relationship. Instead of wasting time on a fruitless pact, the lion would simply devour the rabbit for food and move on to find a worthy being to deal with.
It was the same thing here. Caity knew clearly that the issue at hand was much bigger than just Maria and Liam. Even if she silenced the two, it would only be a matter of time before some other York scouts reported back or some Phasewalker convoy ran into York forces. At that point, there would be conflict. Chances were, the Phasewalkers wouldn't emerge the victors.
In other words, the Phasewalkers had to show their value here and now to prove that they were fellow lions that could provide value to Camp York, and if Camp York wished to devour Fortress Alpha, then Fortress Alpha would be more than capable of fighting back.
So Caity lured the Mutated Animals over to Fortress Alpha on purpose as a demonstration force. Otherwise, she would be more than happy to let the Mutated Animals slaughter each other out in the field to their last.
The Phasewalkers not only had to show off their weapons. They had to prove themselves capable of using them. Otherwise, any self-respecting survivor wouldn’t hesitate to sneak into their fort, slaughter them all, and take their weapons for themselves.
While this entire battle served other purposes, it was also a show for Maria to see.
It was astonishing how fast people change. Caity was just a high school student a month ago. Now, she was manipulating man-eating beasts and superhumans. Of course, before this plan was put into action, it was rushed back over the Portal and given to Section X generals and analysts to look over. Only after a confirmation did the 1st Phasewalker Battalion rush into action.
As the sound of the battle unfolded all around her, Caity did her best to keep a straight face and a clear mind.
“Hmmm...your people seem to be handling this well.”
Maria turned to the sentry and commented. She had to admit she was concerned for the first moments, but she soon realized the fort was under no threat of being overrun. These people were prepared. The Mutants were starting to fill the trenches, but it came at a heavy cost of their numbers. After launching countless unsuccessful charges, most of the Mutant numbers have been reclassified into the body count.
Then again, Maria quietly observed, this was just less than a thousand Mutated Animals, none of whom was even Tier 1, and they were as busy fighting each other as they were moving forward. At most, these Mutated Animals were Tier 0, and the Phasewalkers were the defenders. If it was in Camp York, they could do the same thing. In fact, the York Mutants could do it much better. Apollo could handle an assault like this all by himself.
Suddenly, her eyes widened and her body tensed up as she saw something out of the ordinary. A distance away, another figure leaped into the air, but instead of falling into the spiked pit like countless of its comrades, the figure glided through the air.
It was a Tiger...with gliding wing on its back.
“What the fuck!” In one of the bunkers, Alex heard the Phasewalker beside her swearing. “That’s just unfair! What type of tigers get wings?”
Alex didn't bother with complaining. She quickly snapped around and fired a rifle round at the tiger, but she had no idea where the shot landed. The Mutated Tiger didn't seem bothered at all.
“It’s a Tier 1 Mutant!” Maria held her fist tight. She has seen what upper-tier Mutants were capable of. In Camp York, Tier 1 Mutants were on a completely different level than the ordinary survivors. They were allowed to do almost anything they wished because of the value they provided to the camp. That was unless they infringed upon the Tier 2 Mutants or Apollo, of course.
Stolen story; please report.
Among the 8,000 survivors, only a dozen were Tier 1 Mutants. If Maria was facing such a foe by herself, she might as well put her gauss pistol into her mouth and pull the trigger, just to make it easier.
Artillery rounds kept on landing all around it, but the Mutated Tiger charged forward recklessly. Now that it has made its way past the first line of trenches, it was back on foot again. Slowly, the second line of trenches was within its reach. Behind that were the bunkers where the Phasewalkers took shelter in. If the Mutated Tiger got past the second set of trenches, it would be near unstoppable.
All of a sudden, as the Mutated Tiger got ready to leap and glide once again, the ground it was stepping on suddenly exploded.
Land mines.
“Yes!” The Phasewalker Troopers in a few neighboring bunkers cheered, but it was ultimately proven to be meaningless when the tiger emerged from the smoke. Some of its underbelly skin was torched black, but that was it. That was all a landmine capable of removing the entire lower body of a human combatant accomplished.
Having survived another blast, the tiger leaped forward once again. Multiple machine guns turned their attention toward the Mutated Tiger, but all the bullets were stopped inches into the beast’s flesh. Now dangerously close to the Phasewalker bunkers, the tiger unleashed another roar. In a bunker a short distance away, five Phasewalkers found themselves trembling. Four of them eyed for the exit before one of them suddenly yelled something.
“Keep firing! If we die, we will take that bastard down with us!”
Strapped to his belt and under his uniform was a Shield with black and white coloring.
Suddenly, another explosion came out of nowhere and engulfed the Tiger. This time, as the smoke cleared, the Tiger was already in pieces.
In the sky, 4 AH-1W Super Cobra attack choppers opened fire with their mounted machine guns, drawing lines and lines of blood and gore across the swarm of Mutants.
Bunker-buster rounds. These were ammunitions designed to punch through armored targets like concrete bunkers or heavily protected tanks. The Tiger was dead the moment it decided to follow its animalistic nature and stop moving just to intimidate its prey.
The choppers have been ready in the air the whole time. Caity ordered them to move in as soon as Eric noticed the Mutated Tiger.
Maria gulped. Yes. Camp York was established on an abandoned military base. Yes. The survivors had some military-standard Gauss weapons. But Lord Apollo trusted his own power over any sort of weapons and thus made no attempt to acquire any heavy firepower for the camp.
Maria has never seen fights like this after the military was overrun. The abrupt end to the Tier 1 Mutant Tiger was enough to tell her these men didn't just have the weapons, but they were perfectly capable of using them effectively against anyone that opposed them, Mutants or otherwise.
Deep down, she wondered how these attack choppers would fare against the Camp York Mutants. The Tier 1 Mutants would probably be killed at once. The Tier 2s could survive, but if these people had more choppers...well, at least if Camp York was invaded, Lord Apollo could step in and save the day.
He might be a dictator, but he was also the most powerful entity in the area.
At this point, the Mutants were considering a retreat. They might have been transformed into monsters by the Alpha Virus, but somewhere in their twisted minds, they still have some sanity left. When the urge to hunt uninfected human flesh was overcome by the fear of brutal deaths, retreat didn't seem like such a terrible idea. Plus, it wasn’t like they had no food available. Every once in a while, ordinary local survivors would make their way across the field in a desperate search for food.
They would make much better meals for the Mutated Animals.
As soon as the first Mutants started scattering, Caity saw it. That was the benefit of putting the commander in a safe position with a view of the battlefield. It allowed her, the Colonel, to get a clear grip on the situation without having to worry about dodging bullets.
“Eric, tell Captain Davis to close the net.”
Across the perimeter, outside the horde of sieging beasts, 8 attack choppers lifted into the air. The 1st Phasewalker Battalion had 12 choppers, 4 of which were kept in the base. Caity had the rest deployed, hidden, outside the defenses.
She didn't just want to scatter these beasts. She wanted to slaughter them all. Every Mutated Animal that fled was an additional threat to the future Phasewalker movement in this area.
Inside one of the attack choppers, Captain Davis gripped onto one of the two mounted machine guns on the two sides. Aside from the two pilots, each chopper held four Phasewalkers. Two of them were machine gunners. The 8 choppers quickly got into position behind the swarm.
“Open fire!”
Countless batteries bashed down on the retreating Mutated Animals. Machine guns attached to the choppers themselves. Machine guns mounted on the side. Half a dozen missiles left the side of the choppers and slammed into clumped up Mutants before exploding, consuming everything within its blast radius.
The Phasewalkers had the ammunition to burn. If they ran out of bullets, all they had to do was make a trip through the Portal. This near unlimited use on ammunition was enough to supplement their lack of numbers.
But the Mutants weren’t completely defenseless either. One of the Mutated Animals suddenly stood up. The needles on its back was a clear indication of what it was: a hedgehog. Yet, the once adorable mammal was nothing like what it was before. Its eyes were bright red. The needles on its back were half a meter long each, making them look more like lances than needles.
It was another Tier 1 Mutant, and it quickly snapped around, turning its back to the closest attack chopper. Its needles were given strength as the muscles on its back contracted. Most of the needles were directly pointed at the attack chopper, which has lowered its tip to face down on the Mutant horde.
Inside the cockpit, a look of horror appeared in the eyes of the two chopper pilots as they realized what was about to happen.
“Evasive actions now! Left! Left!”
Too late. Way too late.
A wave of lances darted out from the hedgehog and pierced the attack chopper’s cockpit in a fraction of a second.
The main pilot coughed as he looked down on his chest, only to find two needles sticking out from the front and going clean through. Blood poured out of his lips as the pain overwhelmed him. He reached for the radio, but his hand barely reached it before collapsing.
He was dead.
Beside him, the co-pilot’s head exploded like a watermelon. The half a meter long lance sticking through the headrest of his seat claimed full responsibility for that.
“We’re going down! Mayday! Mayday! Fuck…”
Without the pilots, the attack chopper spiraled toward the ground uncontrollably with four Phasewalkers still alive inside. There was nothing the other Phasewalkers could do but watch as the vessel exploded into a ball of flames.
Six Phasewalkers. Killed in action. They marked the first casualties the 1st Phasewalker Battalion suffered since its creation.
The Mutated Hedgehog didn't do so well either. Four air to ground missiles tore the Tier 1 Mutant to pieces, avenging the losses.
“Damn it!” Captain Davis could hear one of his comrades in the same chopper swear in a mixture of anger and fear. He himself was hit as well. The chopper that went down belonged to the 2nd Airborne Company. It was his troops, the same one that trained with him in Eagle's Nest for weeks, that died in the flames, but he held his teeth tight and directed his anger at the Mutants below.
As for the fear of suffering the same fate...he was a Captain of the 1st Phasewalker Battalion! He refused to be consumed by fear!
“Keep your eyes on those bloody Mutants! Keep shooting! We’re gonna live through this!” He yelled without turning.
“Yes sir!”
“Light them up!”
The battle took another full hour before coming to an end. The Phasewalkers emptied enough arsenal to fight a small war. At the end of the day, every Mutated Animal in the field of battle was either dead or dying. The Phasewalker choppers weren’t able to cut off the escape of every single Mutant, but they still got damn close. The few that escaped shouldn’t be too much of a threat.
Attack choppers flew through the air. Phasewalker infantry and armor moved across the pile of corpses. As the Phasewalkers mopped up the floor, Eric reported the numbers to Colonel Hunter.
“We killed around 1,200 Mutated Animals, including 6 that were much stronger than the others or had some sort of weird power.”
“One chopper of the 2nd Company was taken down. All six Phasewalkers on it were killed in action. Two bunkers were overwhelmed by the attackers. All ten Phasewalkers posted inside were killed.”
16 dead. 16 more names into the Hall of Martyrs.
Caity bit her lips. It didn't feel well, especially not when it was her order that sent these 16 men and women to their death. But it had to be done. If the Phasewalkers dashed into the wild and fought against the Mutants there, the casualties would be at least ten times that number.
It was a necessary sacrifice. Plus, 16 for 1,200 wasn’t too bad. In fact, it could be seen as a clean victory! That was what Caity told herself as she kept her face straight. “What else?”
“We…”
Before Eric could start again, a wave of gunshots exploded from the battlefield. Both Caity and Eric snapped around and moved toward where the shots came from. A dozen sentries followed them.
There, on the battlefield, a Mutated Hound laid dead, but its claws were dug deep into the chest of a Phasewalker. The Hound’s body was riddled by bullets, but killing the attacker wouldn’t undo the damage it has already done.
“What happened?” Caity demanded as her eyes landed on the fatally wounded Phasewalker. “Medic! Where are the medics?”
A medic with white armband ran over and looked over the Phasewalker, but it was obvious that was a futile effort. The man was gone.
Caity felt grief growing from the bottom of her heart. She has seen more deaths today than she did for the 16 years before. Adding one more to that number really didn't help.
“What happened?” She demanded furiously.
Ryan kicked the Hound’s body. He was nearby and saw exactly what happened. “The Mutant was barely alive. When he came over to check to see if it was alive, the Mutant ambushed him with its last dying breath.”
Caity nodded slowly before suddenly drawing her handgun and shooting the Hound’s corpse six times. When that was done, she scanned the Phasewalkers that have converged around her.
“That’s how you check the fucking bodies! If it doesn't have a bullet in its head, it's a threat!”
The Phasewalkers nodded before spreading out. Gunshots echoed out in the field. Indeed. For the Phasewalker Corps, it was worth wasting entire arsenals just to save the lives of a handful of Phasewalkers. As they moved, Ryan walked to Caity, ignoring Eric’s glare.
Caity was in a poor mood and Ryan knew exactly why.
“They died for what they believe in.” He said quietly.
“What they believed in, or what the government believed in?” Eric cut in.
“What’s the difference?” Ryan snapped back. “Our interest is aligned with our world. If our world prospers, we prosper. If our world is destroyed, we won’t survive long either.”
“That is enough. I am not in the mood for some philosophy.” Caity suddenly stood up. Suddenly, she turned around and watched as Maria approached her. A few sentries walked up to greet Maria in caution, but Caity waved her hand and prompted the sentries to back off.
Caity managed her mood as best as she could. It was in cases like this that she wished she was Ryan Carlson. Cold. Distant. Emotionless. Unfazed by the greatest of tragedies.
Having seen all that happened across the battle, Maria has had some thoughts. This faction was experienced and coordinated. They stood their ground against the attackers in determination. The combination of their expertise and their resources was sufficient to set the basis of a relationship between them and Camp York, especially since from what Caity said, they were just the vanguards.
“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Maria Anderson. I am a member of Camp York.” She started, lowering her head in submission. “And if you allow me to return to my camp, I will gladly relay your identity and message to my leader.”
Caity let out a small smile, the first in quite a while.