The Last Bastion of the Living (The Last Bastion #1)(2)

She wondered if something was wrong.

Stomping up the stairs to the platform, she managed to stay close to Ryan and Lindsey. The rotors sliced through the air above their heads as they loaded onto the flying beast. Quickly sliding into a harness near her friends, Maria watched as the other members of the squad took their places. She exchanged smiles with a few while others took the time before liftoff to meditate and pray. Though these were the same men and women she trained with every day and patrolled with on the great wall, this was their first actual battle. None of them had ever seen the Scourge up close. The simulations in the training room had been unnerving, but what would it feel like to actually face the resurrected dead?

Beside her, Lindsey and Ryan were engaging in a wildly pantomimed conversation. A smile flitted across Maria’s lips as she watched them. A few squad members laughed out loud, but the chuckles faded the second Vanguard Stillson swung up into the transport. Buckling into his place just behind the pilots, he swept his dark eyes over his people.

“Keep focused. Stay on target. Do not fear. You know what to do, people, and I know you’re more than capable of coming out of this day victorious,” his deep voice intoned through the feed in her helmet.

Maria knew the plan by heart. The daily drills and debriefings had her dreaming about her role in the battle. It was a nightmare she woke from every night. Yet, she craved the coming violence against the undead. They had destroyed the world and trapped her within the city. She longed for a world without the Scourge and was willing to fight for it.

The tiltrotor lifted off the platform and tilted sharply as it swooped low over the city before ascending to join the other tiltrotors already in formation. Maria felt her stomach drop as the tiltrotor climbed and grinned despite her nerves. Ryan winked at her and Lindsey gave her a thumbs up. The simulations they had all experienced were nothing like reality. Maria found the sensation of flying a little disconcerting.

As the tiltrotor rose above the great wall, the valley that would be their battlefield came into view. The Bastion was tucked into a man-made valley carved out of an imposing mountain range that created a natural barrier of protection. The only pass into the valley had been guarded by a twelve foot thick, ten-story tall gate. The walled city itself had been designed to give shelter to two million people. The valley had contained seven farms, cattle ranches, a lake fed from an underground river, a hydroelectric station, and settlements for the farmers, ranchers, and miners. Originally, the valley had provided everything humanity needed to survive: water, livestock, a mining facility, power. It was humanity’s greatest achievement in the aftermath of the Inferi Scourge infection.

Peering out the front window of the tiltrotor, Maria could see in the distance the enormous gate that had failed to keep out the Scourge. It was a mocking reminder of plans gone awry. Five years after the last survivors of humanity had taken refuge in the valley, the gate had failed. In one terrible day, the farms, ranches, mining, and hydroelectric facilities were lost, along with thousands of people who lived and worked outside the city. No one knew why the gate had failed. It was a mystery none had solved.

Ever since the city had been cut off from its most valuable resources, it had been dying slowly.

“We’re moving into position,” Vanguard Stillson announced. “Remember to dispatch quickly.”

The tiltrotor stopped its ascent and hovered. Through the cockpit window, Maria could see other aircraft carrying the large machines that would create the new perimeter moving into position.

And below...

The massive ocean of the Scourge filled the land before the great wall, their upturned, screaming faces reducing Maria’s insides to jelly. The Inferi Scourge Plague Virus (ISPV) victims, the walking dead, the Inferi Scourge, reached toward the massive machines looming over their heads. The crowd of Scourge reached into the foothills and Maria wondered how they could possibly establish a foothold on the land outside the walls.

Ryan’s hand settled on her shoulder and she gave him a slight smile.

“Piece of cake,” Ryan said, his voice muffled through their helmets since he wasn’t using the feed.

“Walk in the park,” Maria answered.

“A park infested by insane dead people,” Lindsey added.

Nervous laughter was glared into silence by Vanguard Stillson.

Maria’s helmet readout abruptly turned red.

The battle had begun.

The sound of the Maelstrom Platforms on the walls erupting into action startled the soldiers crammed into the tiltrotor. Twisting against their straps, they watched through the ports as the large superposed load platforms (or SLPs) reduced the crowd of Scourge outside the immediate walls into so much bloody pulp. The large, long rectangular guns perched on the city walls were boxy in appearance due to the many barrels packed on top of each other. They were capable of firing four thousand rounds in two seconds flat, and they shredded anything in their path.

The aircraft with heavy machinery payloads drifted out over the destroyed bodies as the Maelstrom Platforms continued to pulverize the Scourge near the walls. In a perfectly timed synchronization of actions, a Maelstrom Platform would fall silent just as an aircraft dispatched its heavy payload onto the blood-drenched ground below. Immediately, the dispatched machine rolled into position on its massive treads and extended long unfolding steel mesh wings. The first to land immediately attached to the city wall and the ones that followed lined up to create a perimeter. Each squat machine was a cog in a mobile wall that the military engineers hoped to use to extend outward into the valley to push back the Scourge.