Doomsday Pillars

The group headed back to the Jakarta main base, the National Sports Arena ’Gelora Bung Karno’. It’s only been 3 weeks but the arena has turned into a city of its own. All the survivors from the Jakarta city have already gathered in this place. There used to be more than ten million people living in this city, now the people in this base are probably all that’s left.

Area: 173 hectares

Total Survivors: 165.322

Leader: General Rico

Defense Team:

Company Special Forces 2.421

Military Battalion 8.732

Militia Battalion 9.987

All 160 thousand plus survivors were packed into the several smaller stadiums and sports buildings. Unlike Starbase, this base has too many civilians compared to military personnel. During the first week, the general recruited all who had military experience; Police, Navy, or Airforce. Combined with the force collected before the doomsday, there were more than 10.000 military men gathered. All ten thousand plus were separated into 8 different gates and back with the militia.

As Jakarta base was so close to the city center, the zombie hordes came nonstop. These 10.000 plus men have been fighting endlessly defending the base. The last 3 weeks, the number of military men that died while defending the gates has reached more than a thousand men.

"Open Gate 6, the tank unit has returned!! It’s General Rico!"

"Ready the fighters!"

Each time a convoy returned, they were normally followed by hordes of zombie stragglers. Especially loud tank convoys such as these. Hundreds of men who were guarding the 6th Gate came out with pikes and spears. Unlike the Starbase, they do not have a steel factory, so most of their melee weapons are the military combat knives or were crafted from simple household items. Steel pipes sharpened become pikes, attache a knife and it became a spear. A steel batt with nails turns into a spiked mace. All the rare scavenged weapons such as axes, or sabers were given to the special forces unit.

Within minutes all the thousand zombies stragglers were cleared up. Five tanks followed with the hundred special forces fighters and a bus full of survivors safely move inside the gate.

"Welcome back General!"

"Thank you for the welcoming party, Colonel Andry."

"How was the tank testing general?"

"They were magnificent, gather all the others, we need to have a meeting today."

"Yes General!"

General Rico came out of the base, not just for a rescue, he came to test the new tank units. His team of engineers just managed to modify and activate the 10 tank units ’Badak’. 10 armored vehicles with high explosives canons and machineguns. With these tanks, the general thought the next phase could be started. Before that, Rico decided to see his son Adam first.

"Son, it was so close, if I came a bit later, you and your friends might not have survived."

"..." Adam thought what his father said is true...

"So what do you think? You and your friends, ready to join the military?"

.

"No father I don’t think they will agree, maybe later."

Rico gave it some thought and said...

"Your boys want to rest or are they ready for another mission, there will a very important mission soon, what do you think?"

"Yes, father I... we are ready."

"But I need you to recruit more members, your current numbers are not enough, here take this, these are the spirit stones taken from the last zombie fight, should be around 50 of them, consider it the reward for your last mission."

"Thank you, father."

The general smiled, it seemed he could repair his past mistakes and continue his fatherhood duty.

"What’s with the group name anyway? Misfits? Why not the dragon or tiger group?"

"..."

"Actually... these millennials they... don’t like those kinds of names... it’s either Misfits, Flyingcow or RottenRice, so I chose the first one..."

.

.

"Ok... Misfits... will do then...Good luck with your recruitment, and be careful."

After giving out the stones, the general quickly headed to the meeting, Adam stared at his father’s back for a while, his father currently held a big responsibility, he started to have a positive attitude towards his father.

.

General Rico went into the meeting room. A few minutes later, the meeting started with around two dozen men. These were the high-ranking military officers, cabinet members, and a few civilian public figures. All the men in this room represented the voice of the people.

.

Food, security, and people. This was always the main agenda. Unlike at the Starbase, there were a few things that are different.

First the food. This base has not stockpiled enough food, the supplies sent from the Randalls were only enough for a few weeks, therefore the base needed to rations its food, all survivors will be given limited food per day, most days only once a day. The people were forced to share their supplies or even decided to organize their own scavenger hunts.

Second, security. There were more survivors and less military personnel, therefore the security threats itself were not just from the zombies, but also on the inside. 100.000 men; sad, hungry and desperate people gathered in one place was like a ticking bomb. To increase public security 10.000 men were recruited and trained to be a militia, they have standard training and were equipped with simple weapons. Although not very reliable, at least being in the military or militia would get them two meals per day. This militia would increase the safety of the perimeter and inside the base.

Although General Rico was currently assigned as the commander in chief, he knew little about governing. His main concerns were managing the army to protect the people inside and finding more survivor outside. All the other he left to the people in these meetings.

"So first tell me about our food supplies and the solutions."

Karen, a former cabinet member, and Melissa’s Mother were in charge of this.

"With our current number, our supplies will only be able to hold out for three weeks, one month at most. After that the people will need to depend on their own for food, I suggest we send more scavenger hunt convoys."

BRACK!! A hit on the table.

"More people outside!!? The last platoon we sent was unsuccessful and only half returned!" Colonel Bernard was agitated as his platoon was the one he just mentioned.

.

.

"Calm down or you’re out of the meeting colonel..."

"I’m sorry General."

Rico continued: "What about security?"

"It seems the zombies tend to go more aggressive in the evening and in the morning, those are the most constant attacks with the highest zombie numbers, also we have seen an increasing number of those red zombies, I recommend an upgrade to our wall."

Rico continued: "How many new survivors came to this base yesterday?"

"125 men."

General Rico thought for a while and finally decided:

"It seems there won’t be many survivors left in Jakarta, we will send a few platoons to the city’s outskirts, it’s imperative that all the survivors come to this base within a month. Also, get more people to find and scavenge foods, we need at least another month’s worth of supplies."

"Only one month?" Karen was confused.

"Yes, we also won’t need to upgrade the wall as well. We will be leaving the base."

"..."

"Leaving the base? Do you mean sending a battalion?"

"No!... Everyone. we will all be moving to another base."

"..."