Chapter 50: Ford's Decision

50 kilometers West of Fortress Alpha. Camp Rebirth.

Ford pulled his fist out of the chest of a Warrior Ant. Green ant blood covered his hands, generating a sizzling sound as the corrosive liquid tried to burn through Ford's body. Yet Ford didn't flinch.

It would take a lot more than some blood from a Tier 0 Mutated Ant to kill him.

But as he looked across the battlefield, he realized a single kill did nothing to help the overall battle.

The trenches that the survivors dug out were filled with black Ant bodies. Not the entire trench, thank god, but the dead Ants were able to create a narrow pathway through the trenches for their comrades to pour through into the camp itself.

The wall of wooden spikes that took the survivors days to plant down crumbled under the mass of hundreds of Warrior Ants. They barely bought a few minutes.

At that point, with the enemies literally in the house, the only option left was to fight. Even for the most cowardly coward, the sight of Warrior Ants coming in from every single direction was enough to tell them fleeing meant certain death. Some did break down mentally from the fear, but most of the survivors chose the smarter way.

Fight. Fight to the death just so their families had a chance of living to see another day.

Out of the 2,000 survivors, over 1,500 of them picked up some sort of weapon to fight back against the onslaught. One year into the apocalypse, they were more than determined and experienced fighters. Gauss rifles. Gauss machine guns. Knives and sticks. All the storage in the armory were carried out and freely distributed among the survivors.

The Warrior Ants weren't invincible. Despite being one meter tall and having giant mandibles, they were no more than Tier 0 Mutants. In fact, they were among the weaker Tier 0 Mutants. A squad of ordinary people armed with knives and courage could take down one of them. Defender-I Rifles could take them down in a few shots. Defender-IIs mowed down Warrior Ants with absolute ease.

But what made Ford and the others desperate wasn't the individual strength of their foes. It was their numbers.

Black Warrior Ants extended into the horizon as far as eyes could see. Their numbers growing with every passing moment, the Ants advanced like a roaring river against the tiny rubble that was Camp Rebirth. The rubble stood, for now, but it would only be a matter of time before it would be washed over and all would be lost. Thousands of the Ants have already been reduced to corpses, with dozens more being slaughtered every second, but their reinforcements were endless.

The defenders of Rebirth didn't have that luxury. Every survivor fallen in battle was one more gap in the defenses.

On the side, a survivor with a Defender-I Rifle screamed as a Warrior Ant leaped onto him and cut him into two from the waist. Blood and guts rained on the Warrior Ant, and the mutated creature shook its body in joy.

Ford let out a furious warcry and charged into that Warrior Ant before it had any hope of fighting back. His power was simple yet efficient: super strength. Of course, there were many more scientific aspects to that, such as enhanced muscular density, not that it mattered in the deadly field of battle.

When Ford came to a stop, the Warrior Ant was in pieces.

Another survivor was backing up while shooting his Defender-I at an encroaching Ant. Ford recognized the survivor as one of his lieutenants. Taking a step forward, he grabbed onto the Ant's mandible and ripped the creature into two.

"Thanks, sir!" The lieutenant exclaimed before taking the time to look around. "Sir, we need to do something! We can't hold any longer!"

At first, the survivors were able to rely on some of the Gauss machine guns and artillery units to suppress the Mutated Ants. That kept the casualties down. But as more and more of those firing points were swarmed and the fight got into melee, casualties rose drastically. The roar of guns and cannons were slowly being replaced by the more and more frequent dying screams.

Ford growled. "Did the messengers make it out?"

"Bob and Scarlett were overwhelmed. KJ got his head bit off. Someone saw Johnson get melted alive by the corrosive Ant blood. I don't know about Zhao." The lieutenant uttered as he landed a few more shots on a Mutated Ant chewing on a body, aggravating the beast. The Ant charged forward and met a quick death in the hand of Ford.

As a Tier 2 Mutant, Ford slaughtered the Tier 0 Mutated Ants like they were, well, ants.

The lieutenant left another part unsaid. Even if Zhao made it out, what were the chances he could find someone willing to help? Most survivor groups would probably just save themselves!

"Then they are a lost cause." Ford concluded. As he slaughtered a few more Mutated Ants, he suddenly thought of something. "A horde this big. An attack this perfectly timed out...there has to be some organization behind this, right? Some leadership. If we…"

He turned back to see what his lieutenant thought about it, only to find the man now headless. Literally. His body was standing here and a Mutated Ant was chewing on his severed skull.

"Fuck!" Ford swore and ripped the Mutated Ant's head off, but that couldn't revive the dead.

Slaughters were happening all across the field. As hundreds and hundreds fell dead, Ford suddenly came to a terrible conclusion.

Rebirth was lost, along with all the ordinary survivors and even Tier 1 Mutants inside. But he wasn't lost. As a Tier 2 Mutant, if he wanted to break out, he still had a chance. These ordinary Warrior Ants had no real chance of stopping him.

But that would mean condemning hundreds of people, people who treated him as the leader and entrusted their lives to him, to death.

The question was simple. Was his duty worth dying for?

In the hellish battlefield, surrounded by the screeching of Warrior Ants and the cries of desperate warriors, Ford found his answer.

The Tier 2 Mutant turned around and aimed at a less defended spot in the siege. The resistance at that point was the greatest, and the casualty among the Warrior Ants meant there would be fewer obstacles. He was about to dive straight in when a strange sound suddenly covered the field.

It...it was coming from the air!

A distance away, in the horizon right above the army of Warrior Ants, a fleet approached.

30 AH-1W Super Cobra attack choppers fanned out in the form of an arc. Behind them, five helicopters with tandem rotors flew on steadily. They were much larger and much more armored than the attack choppers. This was the Ch-47F Chinook transport chopper, each capable of transporting 50 people.

2nd Airborne Battalion. 1st Phasewalker Regiment. Phasewalker Corps.

To the rescue.

"Oh god…" In one of the attack choppers, an Airborne Trooper looked out of the chopper at the Warrior Ants on the ground. He has seen a lot of Mutated Animals and Mutated Bugs, but countless thousands of Warrior Ants...that was a whole different impression. "what the hell…"

"Cut the chatter." Major Blyfield ordered sternly before turning to the pilot. "Get us into the camp! Beware of potential anti-air capabilities!"

"Yes sir!"

As the chopper started descending in altitude, Ryan turned to Zhao. The Rebirth Tier 1 Mutant came along with the trip.

"Your people are still holding. Impressive."

On the ground, the survivors were literally fighting a battle that was seemingly impossible to win. Ryan suspected only the best of the Phasewalkers could do as well as those survivors if they were in a situation like this. These locals were by no means weak. The experience it took to survive the apocalypse was beyond his imagination. Give these survivors some guns and they would form a deadly army.

Zhao smiled proudly.

"Yeah...Ford is one of the bravest people I know. He would never back down."

He had no idea his leader just did.

As they were talking, the attack choppers went straight for the center of Camp Rebirth. The pilots were extremely careful, but it seemed like the melee Mutated Ants had no anti-air arsenals. The fleet of choppers landed in the middle of Rebirth without losing a single unit.

Ford and the Rebirth survivors stared at the fleet of helicopters in wonder. When they got to the ground, some of the survivors raised their weapons cautiously, but not before Zhao jumped down from one of the choppers.

"They are friendly!" He screamed. It would just suck if one of the Phasewalkers got killed by Rebirth troopers in panic.

Across the attack choppers, hundreds of Phasewalkers jumped off their ride and were instantly deployed into the battle. All of them were in Guardian IV armor and carried Defender series Gauss Rifles. The sky-blue sigils on their armors designated them as Airborne Troopers.

These Phasewalkers dashed into battle in squads. They brought with them much more firepower. Defender-IIIs, in the hands of sharpshooters, opened fire rapidly. Every shot from them was followed by a Warrior Ant hitting the ground. Machine gunners with Defender-IIs kept the trigger down and unloaded a hail of bullets on the Warrior Ants, mowing them down like wheat.

"Fire in the hole!" An Airborne Trooper screamed as he lit two Warrior Ants up with an incendiary grenade.

"Maintain a distance! These Ants have corrosive blood!" A lieutenant reminded his troopers. This was something Zhao realized as he fought his way out of Rebirth, and he informed Caity. Before the battle even started, all the troopers on the mission were notified. The lieutenant was just making sure no one would forget about this in the heat of the moment.

Then again, that didn't really need to be said. No one would try to go melee with giant Mutated Ants.

On the side, Zhao dove into a horde of Mutated Ants and expertly slid his Army Knife through the carapace of one Warrior Ant, slaying it with ease.

At least not most people…

Having unloaded all their cargo, the attack choppers used their actions to show why they were called "attack" choppers. The pilots brought them into the air again. This time, they were on pest extermination duty. Mounted Gatling guns rained down death from the air, mowing down lines and lines of defenseless Warrior Ants.

"Light those damn bugs up!" One pilot called out as he sent two air to ground missiles into a crowd of Mutated Ants. The explosion engulfed at least dozens of the Ants.

"What do you call a 20 kill kill-streak?" His peer joked.

Ford felt a wave of relief rushing to his cheeks, as well as a sudden surge of embarrassment. What was he thinking? He was about to leave his own people to die! That guilt was quickly turned to anger, which he promptly directed on the Warrior Ants.

"Kill them all! Take out those fuckers!"

The Tier 2 Mutant charged right into the horde in front of him. Their strikes did nothing to him while he could rip them apart with every hit. Before long, the dozens of foes in front of him were in pieces.

A dozen Airborne Troopers didn't dive into combat immediately. Instead, they remained in the safety of the center of the camp, but not because they were cowards. Instead, they quickly set up three sets of mortars.

"Target 32 degrees North of South! 500 meters!" A coordinator with a set of binoculars screamed, pointing at a flank where the Mutated Ants were about to break through the defenses.

Within seconds, three mortar rounds exploded at that area, sending lines of Mutated Ants into the air and temporarily cutting off any momentum of aggression on that flank.

In all the chaos, Ryan emerged from the chopper. Six Security Troopers stood around him in alertness. Their Deflector Shields ready to fend off attack from any side.

He glanced across the battlefield before locating the person he was trying to find. Honestly, in a wave of survivors, finding a Tier 2 Mutant wasn't that hard. Ordinary survivors couldn't just recklessly jump into the fray and kill everything in their path with their bare hands.

Ryan quickly approached him. Several Mutated Ant tried to come after him, but the Security Troopers beside him took care of the Ants with ease.

"Ford!" Ryan screamed at the Mutant. It took a few cries from Ryan to get his attention. "Mr. Ford! We are the forces of Fortress Alpha! Your friend Zhao found us! We are here to help! My name is Ryan!"

"Gratitude, Ryan!" Ford nodded, taking a break from all the fighting. But as he looked around, his tone darkened. "I appreciate your help, but I hope there are more to your forces than the ones here!"

Indeed. The Phasewalkers did a lot. The attack choppers slew hundreds of Mutated Ants in just minutes. The mortars killed and maimed hundreds more. The Airborne Troopers added hundreds more to the casualties with their Defenders alone.

But on the larger scale of things, this almost seemed irrelevant. The corpses of Mutated Ants almost covered the battlefield, only to be stepped on by more and more of their kind. This Hive was simply numberless. Kill thousands, and thousands more poured in.

Well...the darkness across the horizon was cleared up a little, but there were still too many Mutated Ants to handle by force. There were only 300 Airborne Troopers. Add that to the one thousand or so survivors and the human side was still outnumbered.

But slaughtering all the Mutated Ants was never the plan.

"My people have established a position 30 kilometers from here! Outside the control of these ants!" Ryan had to keep screaming just so Ford could hear him. "We will bring your people to that position via our transports! And then we can escort them to safety through the ground!"

"You want us to abandon Rebirth?" Ford frowned. This camp was forged by the blood and death of countless of his peers. Not just ordinary survivors, but also his fellow Mutants. He couldn't just abandon this camp!

"Rebirth is already lost, Ford!" Ryan argued. He wasn't here to save the camp, just the people. Caity and Fortress Alpha had no need for a random survivor camp. "The only thing we can do right now is to save your people!"

Ford bit his lips. Another Mutated Ant charged forward. Ford growled and punched it in the head, literally causing the Ant's head to explode.

"Fine!" He decided. "We evacuate!"