The news spread across Basa Air Base shortly before noon.
By then, the last reports from the defensive lines had already arrived, and every one of them carried the same message.
They survived.
The massive infected hordes that had threatened to bury Central Luzon beneath a sea of corpses had finally been broken apart. Cleanup operations were already underway north of Pampanga, and columns of smoke still rose into the sky, but the immediate danger had passed.
For the first time in nearly twenty-four hours, the base was quiet.
No sirens wailed through the streets. No fighters screamed overhead, and no artillery batteries shook the ground beneath everyone's feet.
Instead, other sounds slowly returned.
