Stone was a veteran of too many wars, but there was nothing – nothing – like the war against the zombies. He just never expected a soulless group of humans to use the sprinters and shamblers as weapons against the last few reasoning humans on earth. And yet …

The alarm jolted Stone out of a sound sleep. It was still half an hour before sunrise, ten minutes before his internal clock would have awakened him anyway, and the buzzing was so loud it felt like somebody hammering from the inside of his skull, trying to get out.

For two heartbeats, ancient instincts made him paw for a bedside alarm clock. Only then did he realize the bone-rattling BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! wasn't coming from anywhere in his room.

It was the perimeter alarm. It was sounding through the entire complex.

Offutt Air Force Base was under attack.

Since the moment of his arrival more than six months earlier, Stone had considered himself constantly on duty. He slept in an extra pair of (usually) clean BDUs; he had his weapon cleaned and loaded, waiting by the side of his bed. And after a lifetime of practice, getting his boots on only took a single BUZZ! of the alarm. Then he was out the door, into the corridor, shrugging into a parka with his M-16 up and at the ready.

Stone hadn't gotten any younger since he decided to join the forces at Offutt, but he had forced himself back into even better shape than he'd been a year ago. Middle-age was no friend, but it wasn't a deal-breaker either. He had always been a big man, broad-shouldered and thick-necked. Weights and workouts and morning runs had added two inches to an already impressive chest and melted away even the suggestion of a belly. The black ops excursions against the RSA assholes hadn't hurt either. But none of that was going to matter if—

The door across the corridor from his quarters flew open as he stepped past it. He spun, weapon up, and identified Kurt Allen as the younger, faster man barreled out of his own room. Allen was the only other member of the team that had saved Omaha who had joined Stone at Offutt; they'd become fast friends in the months since they'd arrived. Now he was outfitted almost identically. He even wore the same expression of tense, concentrated awareness.

“Sit rep?” Allen asked as he checked the corridor, up and down. He fit the words precisely between the BLAAT!s of the alarm.

“No idea,” Stone said, just as clipped. “Just—”

As if in answer, a deep, unhappy voice cut over the alarm. “Multiple breaches, ground forces, northwest and southeast. Chopper and ground assault at North Gate. Vehicles approaching.”

All bad news, Stone thought grimly. He took an instant to orient himself, then nodded towards the far exit. “Northwest breach for us. Let's go.” They were closest to that quadrant; it was where they could do the most good first.

He and Allen bashed on every closed door with the butts of their rifles as they passed. “Breach!” they shouted. “BREACH! NORTHWEST QUAD NOW!” Stone heard doors open behind him, the sounds of a few feet running – not all of them booted, he sensed, which was just plain stupid. Seconds later he and Allen pounded through the northeast entrance, advanced a dozen yards and stopped. Stone could see ground troops pouring though a wide gap in the chain-link half a football field in front of them and off to the left. The edges of the fences, both inner and outer perimeter, were blackened and twisted. Some sort of explosive, he assumed, maybe with a corrosive cocktail added. A genuine fence-buster that made a big, wide hole.

He heard the sound of the choppers off to his right, but he couldn't be concerned with that at the moment. The announcement had said the air assault was focused on the North Gate, yes, but he'd have to let others deal with that for the moment.

The frigid morning air bit at his exposed cheeks like a nasty animal. It was cold out here, cold as shit. It added to the sense of exposure as they stood there; he felt almost naked with virtually no cover between him and the approaching enemy. Lying flat on the icy ground to present as small a target as possible, then laying down fire as soon as the attackers were within range – well, that could work, he supposed, but it wasn't preferable to ...

“Wait a minute,” he said aloud. Allen – just under six feet, not quite as musclebound as Stone, dirty blond hair just a trifle too long for regulation – took him literally and pulled up short right next to him, rifle up.

“What?” he said, wound tight as a watch spring.

“They're not armed,” Stone said. “Shit, they're not even alive.”

It was almost as if he was wearing telescopic goggles. His vision zoomed forward and saw the approaching attackers clearly for the first time, even in the dim light of dawn: they were shamblers. Ragged, wounded, hungry shamblers, pushing through the breach in slow motion. He could barely see the back end of the mob in the morning mist, but he estimated three hundred, maybe more.

Half a dozen of the men in his squad pounded up behind him. He gave a quick glance over his shoulder and was quietly pleased that they were properly outfitted and armed now. He didn't want anybody slowed down – or worse yet, killed – because they hadn't taken the time to dress for the weather. He had personally chosen and trained each of these men. He expected the best from them, and so far he hadn't been disappointed.

“You four,” he said. “Cameron, Douchet, Blankenship, Trent. You take this bunch. Forward 'til twenty yards, then head and shoulder shots. Hand to hand with bayonets and pikes if you need to, but stop them all. None of them make it to the barracks.”

His men surged forward, past him, moving towards the line of engagement. Allen started to join them, but Stone put a hand on his arm to hold him back. “They can handle it,” he said. “We've seen these guys work before. We need to go to the main gate. I have a bad feeling.”

It was painfully obvious: This, like the breach to the southwest, was a clumsy diversionary tactic. Their perennial enemy, the “Renewed States of America” – God, how he hated that lying name! – seemed addicted to it. But it was plain: Air support was being limited to the assault at the North Gate only. That was where the real action was, and where the real damage could be done.

Stone turned and sprinted northeast across the frozen grass towards the guard towers and barriers that had been built to fortify the gates. It was good work, but it had been built for a specific purpose: to keep the infected out. It wasn't adequately designed to stop an actual armed assault by humans. There hadn't been the time or the matériel to make that happen yet.

Now it was too late.

As they ran, he heard the gunfire erupt from his boys behind him. He allowed himself one quick glance over his shoulder: They were doing the job. Shambler heads were exploding at a distance; his soldiers had long since learned how to economically line up head shots, and they had the ammo to make it happen with a single hit. As the front line of infected went down, the shamblers close behind them stumbled over the new corpses and began to fall as well, but the living soldiers took nothing for granted. As they approached they poured fire into the falling and fallen bodies, just to make sure they would never rise again. Head and shoulders, he had told them. Like the old shampoo commercial: Head and Shoulders, every time. Most of them didn't know what the hell he was talking about, and that always amused him for some reason.

They rounded the corner of their massive barracks where they had been sleeping just minutes earlier, and two things happened at once: A stiff wind from the east cut into them like knives made of ice, and they saw the angry-insect silhouettes of three Apache assault helicopters wallowing in the air just over the watchtowers, laying down gunfire and launching missiles at an almost leisurely pace. There was something odd about those missiles. It took Stone more than a moment to recognize it. They weren't Hellfires; Hellfires were designed to penetrate armor and would simply make a big hole in the ground. No: These were exploding on the surface and throwing out deadly shrapnel with every contact.

“Hydra 70's,” he said to himself. Nasty anti-personnel weaponry. They'd made the same modification on Adan Forrest's own Apache; the Hydras were far more effective against the infected. And the RSA had figured that out too. Meanwhile, return fire from the Offutt troops on the ground had barely begun.

He could already see that the assault troops attacking the North Gate weren't like the shamblers behind him. They were very much alive and heavily armed. No infected first wave here, though the same twisted wreckage of chain-link showed how they had breached the base's perimeter. These were disciplined, fast-moving human, highly trained soldiers, intent on taking territory.

But not doing too much damage, he realized. They're not here to destroy the base. They're here to secure it. It was no secret the RSA was running low on military hardware; this just confirmed the intel they'd been discussing for weeks. This whole assault was as much a resupply mission as a strategic battle. Cold comfort, he thought bitterly, but it's nice to be right.

He scanned the terrain between their position and the front gates and found exactly what he was looking for. He permitted himself one tiny smile.

“There,” he said. “Low and fast.”

They hunched over and sprinted, as quickly as they could, to the tan, hulking vehicle parked fifty yards in front of them. The FPI Cougar MRAP was a diesel-powered box of armor on massive tires, twice as tall as a man and impossibly ugly. It was also an effective Command and Control vehicle that Stone had used on countless missions in the last six months, ever since they'd salvaged it from an overrun USMC armory a hundred miles to the south. That was a mission he didn't care to remember, but the yield – three of these massive vehicles – had almost made it worth it. They had been very lucky; one of them – this particular one, in fact – even had the CROWS system installed, tech that allowed the operator to aim and fire the vehicle's weapons systems without leaving the driver's seat. Most of those had been shipped to combat theaters immediately upon completion. Now that little innovation was going to come in very handy.

He reached the side of the Cougar and crouched behind it, out of view. Both the attackers and the defenders were too busy to notice any movement so far away. As he leaned against the freezing cold cowling, Allen arrived and crouched next to him and took it all in. His cheeks were flushed with a combination of excitement and reaction to the cold. He opened his mouth to say something, but an echoing BOOOM! interrupted. Stone slipped an eye around the edge of the MRAP and looked up to see the fire-blossom of one of the Apache's missiles as it exploded at the base of one of the gate watchtowers. The supports cracked and the tower tumbled like a pine tree under a logger's axe.

Men with guns – some without coats, a few even barefoot – were finally streaming into the wide, flat expanse of frozen grass between the gates and the admin building. In the last year, Forrest's people had basically torn down and rebuilt Offutt, but one major flaw – as far as Stone was concerned – still remained: C&C, at least the obvious part, was still way too close to the edge of the installation, and they were going to pay for that now. Worse, the Offutt troops looked hesitant and disorganized, and Stone knew why: Their leader was out of town.

Damn it, he thought. Terrible timing for us, and probably on purpose.

Stone shuffled sideways, to the back of the Cougar, and dogged open the rear doors. They had stripped down and remade the interior of the troop carrier to serve the purposes of their rescue and salvage operations; he knew exactly what was inside and exactly what he needed.

As he hopped up, he plucked extra clips of ammo for both his M-16 and his sidearm and shoved them into every pocket he could find. He turned, only half-looking, and tossed more of the same to Allen, who stood watch at the open rear doors. Then he slung his rifle over his shoulder and hefted a second, even larger weapon that was racked on one wall, remembering an especially brutal moment during his last tour of Iraq, not long before the outbreak.

He hated to admit it, but this baby just might come in handy.

Enough. He turned and climbed out of the Cougar, closing and latching the hatch behind him. The sound of gunfire and something far worse was growing louder and more rapid on the battlefield beyond the vehicle. He cheated another look and cursed: The RSA ground troops were already establishing fortified positions. Stone watched helplessly as one, then another, then another Offutt soldier fell under fire.

“Goddamn it,” he said under his breath. He moved again to the covered side and nodded at the driver's door to the massive MRAP, five full feet off the ground. “Get this fucker fired up,” he told Allen. “Move towards the gate. Slowly. And take one of those choppers down.” He hefted his weapon again, and he could tell by his partner's expression: He already knew the plan.

Allen grinned and his cheeks flared even more brightly. “My pleasure,” he said. He reached up and popped open the vehicle's door while Stone risked another look at the gates.

For the five hundredth time, Stone thought of the truly amazing sharpshooter Krueger, and wished the irascible old soldier had accepted his invitation to join them here at Offutt. Pain in the ass though he was, the old bastard was a master marksman, maybe – quite literally – the best one alive, but he had chosen to stay and protect recovered Omaha rather than move with them to Offutt. Stone couldn't blame him; they all knew how important the Omaha Fac and its community was, but right now … that asshole could have been picking off key members of the RSA fortifications even now, from a distance, and turning the tide of battle. Or at least slowing them down. But now? No such luck.

The Cougar shuddered abruptly and roared to life with a deep, grating mechanical cough. Stone knew how lucky he was to have Allen as a partner: the man had taken it upon himself to become the ultimate utility infielder, teaching himself to drive, pilot, and even maintain pretty much every kind of vehicle on the base, from motorcycle and ATV to these massive MRAPs and everything in between. And here he was proving himself again, as the armored troop carrier lurched forward.

Stone side-stepped to stay tight behind as it slowly trundled across the field towards their target. No one noticed – not the RSA assault troops, and not the Offutt defense forces, who were still trying to get themselves together.

Guess we'll have to save the day, he told himself. Yet again.

The slippery trot across the icy ground seemed endless, but Stone knew that was an illusion. It just felt that way. Every gunshot, every explosion meant another precious life lost, another irreplaceable bit of battle tech destroyed, and they simply couldn't afford either one – not now, not yet.

Then, abruptly, the Cougar stopped. Close enough, Stone thought, and he knew Allen was thinking the same thing. He looked up just in time to see the Cougar's turret swivel twenty degrees, the long snout of the Browning M2 poking out and lifting, just a little ... and a little more. Allen was controlling it expertly from inside the MRAP. He’d done it before, but never with a target like this in his sights.

The RSA ground troops and Apaches still hadn't noticed them. Good, Stone thought. Stay sloppy. He was already braced when the M2 fired – three shots, evenly spaced, so loud it actually made him flinch.

The Apache nearest them screamed and tilted in the air, then spiraled to the frozen ground like a dropped stone. He saw the crew, injured but alive, scramble from the wreckage and stagger towards the RSA lines.

Now they had been noticed. One of the two remaining Apaches immediately wheeled towards them, all its weaponry retargeting. They had seconds to live.

“MOVE!” Stone bellowed and peeled away, making a wide loop across the grass to put as much distance as he could between himself and the doomed vehicle. His new weapon was heavy in his arms.

He heard the MRAP's door squeak open behind him, but he didn't turn to look. He'd just have to assume Allen could get free before–

The Apache's missile – the last it had on board, Stone hoped – hit the Cougar head on and literally lifted it on a cloud of explosive force. It blew into a thousand pieces that shot like bullets through the air; some of the smallest, fastest debris rocketed past Stone. He put his shoulders up and his head down and ran, straight towards the attacking troops, altering his course just enough to put him directly under the attacking Apache. Freezing air burned his throat.

This was the moment. This is what he'd seen in Iraq, more than once, and he knew it was possible – possible – but he'd never actually done it before.

He stopped. He braced himself and hauled up the M249 SAW and pointed it straight up – as much as he could – right at the underbelly of the Apache helicopter. One hand wrapped around the pistol stock. The other gripped the base of the bipod at the front of the boxy stock.

He pulled the trigger. And the gun roared. He didn't aim for the armored underbelly; he did his best to take out the rotors that kept the damn thing aloft. Though the recoil was surprisingly gentle, Stone's arms and shoulders ached at the vibration of the weapon, but he didn't stop – he couldn't.

The Apache rocked from side to side as the first rounds hit. Bits of tech cracked and twisted off, and it nosed down, looking wounded. It abruptly tipped to the side, exposing the rotor even more completely. Stone kept firing, more and more. He saw chunks of the carbon fiber assembly fly away as the rounds hit the base of the blades and blew the black cowling to pieces.

The Apache's shuddering engine screamed like a wounded animal and it fell, straight down, straight towards Stone.

The soldier back-pedaled as fast as he could, away from the action at the front gate, away from the plummeting tons of metal over his head. He'd never run so fast straight backward, but he knew it was a matter of life and death.

The chopper hit the ground so hard it made the earth tremble. Stone threw himself down, flat on his belly, and heard bits of the Apache whizz past him. He braced himself for the impact of the chopper's debris, but nothing hit. It slammed over him, past him, missed him by inches.

Son of a bitch, he told himself. It worked.

He waited five beats after the worst of it was over, then pushed himself to his knees. Just as he had planned: The cracked and smoking hulk of the attack helicopter was directly between him and the main force assaulting the gate, providing him with just enough cover to approach – carefully.

He looked up and saw the third and last Apache still hovering over the gate ... for a moment. Then it abruptly turned tail and headed south, away from the battle. That was exactly what he had been hoping for: The RSA had just lost two of its precious choppers; it wasn't willing to risk a third.

The ground forces were on their own now.

He'd almost emptied the SAW into the chopper. Now he went on one knee and reloaded, just as Allen stumped up behind him, flushed and breathing heavily.

“Fucking amazing,” he said.

“Yeah,” Stone answered. They'd have to celebrate later – if there was a 'later.' “Looks like our guys are finally getting themselves together. We can help. We might have lost any element of surprise—”

Allen barked out a laugh as something small and hot blew out of the wrecked Apaches. “Might?” he said.

Stone ignored him. “—but if I peel off to the left here, lay down as much fire as I can with this fucker, I think we can take out some of the fortifications while our guys—”

There was a tremendous crashing and shattering in front of them, at the gate. Stone broke off, moved to the side and got a good look:

Two eighteen-wheeler semis – two! – had just hit the already broken gate straight-on. Their grills had been carefully reinforced; they were effectively turned into battering rams with trailers, and they'd blasted through the chain-link without taking on any damage.

The RSA troops had obviously been expecting them. They'd set up off to the left and right, leaving a nice wide path for the semis to pass them and ram directly into the Offutt defenders just as they were pulling themselves together. Stone hissed in shared pain as bodies flew. What return fire they could pull together sparked uselessly off the armored cabs of the trucks.

For one instant, Stone thought the trucks would make it all the way to the HQ itself and destroy it. But they lost momentum and rolled to a halt three-quarters of the way there, deep in Offutt territory, with soldiers ranging all around them, pouring fire into the cabs, the tires, the trailers.

Unmanned, Stone realized. Hell, there might just be a brick on the accelerator.

As they rolled to a stop the back of the trailers fell open, without assistance and clearly on purpose. They had been specially modified, Stone could see that. They levered straight down and thumped against the icy ground, making a ramp as wide as the truck ...

… and sprinters, hundreds of them, poured out of both trucks, already driven into a frenzy by the noise and the smell of human flesh. There were Offutt soldiers all around them, almost crowding them, firing indiscriminately ... and it didn’t matter. The infected launched themselves at the living soldiers, hands like claws, teeth like knives.

The humans fell in a wave of death.

Stone, still semi-protected by the wreck of the Apache, could do nothing but watch as his comrades fell. The smart ones pulled back, put some distance between them and the infected, picking off the fastest and closest ones with careful head shots. But it wasn't going to be enough – not nearly. There were too many sprinters and too few soldiers in too small a space.

And now the second wave of living RSA troops were beginning to advance.

“Shit,” Stone said under his breath. He could still do some damage; hurt the right flank as they advanced if he rolled out and used every round of the SAW to its best advantage. But nothing short of a miracle would going to save the base—

The miracle rose up from the northern horizon, roaring its rage and belching fire.

The US Army's own Apache, armed to the teeth and piloted by Colonel Adan Forrest, had finally arrived.

Chain-gun fire flew from the Apache and tore into the advancing RSA troops, both flanks. Forrest was moving too fast, too low to the ground to take any hits himself. He took out half the RSA troops in a single pass, flew a hundred yards downfield and executed a turn so tight Stone would have thought it impossible. Then he roared back, along an almost the identical path, and did it again, cutting through the enemy like a scythe sweeping through wheat.

At the same time, a side-mounted loudspeaker bellowed, “Soldiers! Retreat to HQ! Now! Double-time! Retreat and defend the compound!” It was clearly Forrest's voice, calm and determined.

The few remaining soldiers that hadn't already begun to run for shelter turned and ran now. The sprinters, less organized, seemed momentarily confused by the movement, and a moment was all that Forrest needed. His Apache rose straight up, out of range of any remaining RSA fire. It seemed to hang by magic in the smoky air, its nose dipping down slightly ...

Missiles slammed into the trucks, one-two-three. The explosion was huge, so powerful it felt like a punch in the chest to Stone, a hundred yards away. Two-thirds of the sprinters fell – broken, head-blown, or simply stunned for the moment. The HQ shuddered but held.

The Apache fired the last of its missiles, right into the struggling remains of the sprinters.

“Riflemen!” Forrest bellowed from his perch. “Marksmen! Clean it up from a distance!” The Apache didn't wait for a response; it spun in the air to look back at the living RSA troops, only to see the last of them limping away, struggling to disappear into the wooded terrain, desperate for cover. Three out of four of the attackers would never move again.

Stone and Allen did as they were ordered. They moved forward, no longer worried about RSA fire from the gate. At the slightest sign of sprinter movement they fired, then fired again. The Offutt troops carefully emerging from the HQ saw them and welcomed them with a shout. It took a long time – the better part of an hour – but they killed every sprinter who'd been set loose, then killed them a second time if they tried to rise again.

The battle for Offutt was over. The good guys had won.

Barely.