306 Towards NAIA, The Mission and The Looming Danger (1/2)

Day 47 – 7:10 PM – Seaside Road, Bay City, Parañaque, Metro Manila

BANG!!! BANG!!!

RATATATATATA!!!

PANG! BANG!

A plethora of gunshots could be heard from the walls beside the gates as the bridge lowered at the southeast side of Bay City. It was to clear the wandering infected on the other side of the moat before the bridge was fully lowered.

Behind the lowering bridge, a huge number of vehicles were waiting. It was a huge convoy composed of both military and civilian vehicles. The largest mission they had in the past was the Philippine General Hospital incident and the number of vehicles at that time was not even a third of the number of vehicles this time. In the truest sense, this was the biggest movement the settlement had since the outbreak started.

Three days ago, unsettling information was disclosed by the military along with the announcement of a mission pertaining to that information.

The information was about the Ninoy Aquino International Airport or NAIA which was just more or less three kilometers from the southeastern corner of Bay City Settlement.

NAIA which was formerly known as Manila International Airport was the largest Airport in the Philippines. Compared to the two of the four areas in Bay City that was the Bay City Settlement occupied, the whole airport was visibly larger. It was one of the two Airports that serviced Metro Manila and also the most known Airport throughout the country.

Before the outbreak, it serviced millions of passengers with its more than two hundred thousand flights, both domestic and international, yearly. Now however, more, not only the prestigious airport was vacated, it was overwhelmed by the infected.

Since the outbreak started, NAIA was one of the places the military barely touched. It was due to various mild to serious reasons.

First was because the area around the airport was densely populated. Not only that many commercial establishments that were populated could be found around the airport but there were also several large areas where squatters inhabited. Compared to the actual residential subdivisions around the airport, the total population in those squatter's areas were way larger.

Second reason was because risk-benefit ratio of going to the area was very low. It was a high risk low benefit thing to do. Just wandering around the area could lead to annihilation than being able to take home that they came there for.

Third and the main reason except for the high number of infected in the area was that early in the first day of the outbreak, in order to delay most the infected from the southeast as they build the Bay City Settlement, they bombed all the bridges, flyovers and highways that goes over Parañaque River. This river flowed from the north to southwest of NAIA and way south of Bay City and to Manila Bay. By bombing those designated places, they forced the infected to be stuck on the other side of the river at the area around the airport. Unless the infected at that time were able to traverse the deep river or climb over the walls at the riverside, they needed to go several kilometers north of the airport to manage and attack Bay City.

That was rather both a good and bad move for the military. Good was because they succeeded the in delaying early attack of the infected towards Bay City while they prepared the settlement. It was also bad, because it hastened the scattering of the infected into other areas like Bacoor, Cavite which was just a few kilometers southwest. Not to mention that the military had to abandon all the survivors stuck on the area around the airport that could have crossed the areas the military bombed. There was also the fact that the military would also have a hard time to enter the area once again.

Nevertheless, the survivability around the Airport was very low. It was because the airport itself was one of the ground zeros of the outbreak.

Back that day, three airplanes, two was in arrival while one was on departure, crashed into NAIA in three different areas. As such, the airport immediately fell into pandemonium. The emergency personnel of course came to the rescue along with the authorities but as everyone could guess, it did not go well.

Like in the movies, military immediately tried to quarantine the whole airport but differently however, they failed to contain the situation. Not only that the squadrons of the military were spread out to deal with other ground zeros but the highly mutated infected from three airplanes were way more than what the soldiers could handle.

After that, the place was neglected by the military. Although it could not be helped just by the fact that the military was mostly lacking in manpower, it was still a bad move.

Since they had already scavenged most of the areas around Bay City for food, water and other necessities, they finally set their eyes on the untouched area around the NAIA.

Like most procedures, they sent scouts to monitor the area first both personally and using unmanned camera mounted drones.

That was when they saw the horrifying situation inside the airport at the expense of the lives of several scouts.

The airport had turned into a hell in the surface of the earth. Millions of infected roamed the terminal and the runway. Flesh like membrane could be seen like webs all across the vicinity of the airport whether it be the walls or the ground. The parked planes became meat driers as the bodies of the airplanes were also covered with the similar membrane.

Long term short, it was an infected nest way larger than Bay City Settlement. Even the population of the two cannot be compared in quantity.

Another thing the scouts found…

Was the type of infected that they called [Z-type: Alpha], the [Leader Type] among other [Leader Types].

Thus, the military could not neglect it anymore and decided to prepare to take action.

The military posted the announcement where they invited both free and private survivor groups to participate with a very high value of compensation. Furthermore, whether it succeeded or not, the compensation was still valid as long as they managed to survive the mission and made an acceptable contribution.

With that, they managed to haul a large number of people to participate in this mission.

BAM!

The lowering bridge connected to the other side of the moat. It was finally time for everyone participating on the mission to depart.

With mostly military vehicles in the lead, the vehicles drove out of the settlement with the sounds of gunshots in the background.

Just behind the military vehicles in the lead, three non-military vehicles could be seen driving at the center of the group of vehicles.