"Prepare everyone, it’s going to be DEFCON 2," Adrian said quietly.

The command center immediately shifted tone after that.

Operators moved faster.

More screens came online.

Additional radar feeds appeared across the walls as surveillance coverage expanded further south. Outside the reinforced windows of the command building, parts of Basa Air Base were already changing posture. Trucks moved. Floodlights activated across sections of the perimeter. Security teams repositioned.

Inside the airspace above Metro Manila, the F-22s and F-35s continued their combat patrol.

"Falcon One, fuel status?" Adrian asked.

The reply came a few seconds later.

"Combat endurance still acceptable, but missile count is dropping."

"Raptor One same here," another pilot added. "We burned more AMRAAMs than expected."

Adrian nodded slightly.

That was the problem.

The flyers didn’t stop coming.

Every engagement burned through expensive missiles and ammunition faster than anticipated.

Then—

One of the radar operators froze slightly.

"...Sir."

Adrian looked over.

"What is it?"

The operator zoomed out the aerial grid further south.

The room immediately quieted.

More red markers appeared.

Not dozens.

Hundreds.

"What the hell..." one of the analysts whispered.

The tactical display rapidly populated with moving aerial contacts flooding northward through multiple vectors. Unlike the earlier flyers, these weren’t grouped in one formation anymore.

They were spread wide.

Like a swarm of insects covering the sky.

"Count them," Adrian ordered immediately.

The analyst’s fingers moved rapidly across the console.

The number kept climbing.

"...Forty..."

"...Sixty..."

"...Eighty..."

The operator looked back up.

"They just keep appearing, sir."

Another radar sweep updated.

The screen became worse.

"...One hundred plus confirmed airborne contacts."

Even the pilots heard the silence over comms.

"Command..." Falcon Two said slowly. "Tell me that’s a glitch."

"It’s not," Adrian replied.

On the drone feed, the night sky south of the city looked wrong now.

Movement everywhere.

The flyers crossed over highways, buildings, rivers, and burning districts in massive numbers, their silhouettes constantly shifting as they beat through the air.

"They’re spreading out to avoid concentrated missile engagement," one analyst said.

Adrian’s jaw tightened slightly.

The earlier waves had been scouts.

This was saturation.

Back in the air, the F-22 pilots saw them visually now.

Even from altitude.

Dark moving shapes filled sections of the skyline.

"Jesus Christ..." Raptor Two muttered.

"There’s too many."

Another radar tone sounded inside Falcon One’s cockpit as more targets flooded his sensor grid. The AN/APG-81 radar was almost overloaded with moving returns.

"Command, we can engage but we don’t have enough missiles for this volume," Falcon One reported.

Raptor One added immediately after.

"We’re already below half loadout."

Adrian stared at the tactical map.

The flyers were still accelerating north.

Toward Basa.

Toward them.

Then he made the decision.

"...Bring the Patriots online."

Several operators looked up immediately.

"Yes, sir?"

"Activate the Patriot air defense batteries," Adrian repeated. "I want full intercept capability."

Outside the command center, further north across the air base perimeter, the MIM-104 Patriot missile system batteries came alive.

Large radar arrays rotated slowly into position.

Generators hummed louder.

Targeting systems initialized.

Missile canisters angled upward toward the dark sky.

Crewmen moved quickly between consoles and launcher trucks, headset communications overlapping constantly as targeting data flowed directly from the command center into the fire control systems.

"Patriot Alpha online."

"Bravo online."

"Charlie online."

Inside the command center, the tactical screen updated again as blue engagement zones expanded around the air base.

"Radar lock capability confirmed," one of the operators reported.

"Feed them the aerial grid," Adrian ordered.

"Already syncing."

Back in the sky, the fighter pilots watched the massive wave continue approaching.

"There’s no way we clear all of these alone," Falcon Two admitted.

"You don’t have to," Adrian replied.

At the Patriot battery command vehicle, warning tones began sounding.

Target acquisition complete.

The radar tracked dozens upon dozens of incoming flyers simultaneously, calculating speed, heading, altitude, and intercept probability in real time.

"Targets locked."

"Engagement authorization received." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

The battery commander took one last look at the incoming grid.

The sky ahead looked packed.

"Fire."

The first Patriot missile launched.

Flames erupted beneath the launcher as the missile blasted upward into the night sky, accelerating violently before angling south toward the incoming swarm.

Then another launched.

And another.

Soon the entire battery line erupted.

Missiles screamed into the air one after another, leaving blazing trails across the darkness as they climbed toward the incoming flyers.

Back inside the command center, the operators watched the intercept trajectories converge rapidly.

"First intercept in five seconds," the analyst reported.

Adrian folded his arms tightly.

Everyone stared at the screen.

The sky exploded.

Multiple detonations erupted across the southern horizon almost simultaneously. Bright flashes lit up the clouds as Patriot missiles slammed directly into the front ranks of the airborne swarm.

Several flyers disappeared instantly.

Others were ripped apart by the blast radius.

Burning debris rained from the sky.

"Direct hits!"

"Multiple splashes confirmed!"

But more kept coming behind them.

The Patriot batteries fired again.

Another volley screamed upward.

This time the explosions came even closer together as the missiles detonated inside the densest sections of the swarm.

Entire clusters vanished mid-air.

The radar count began dropping rapidly.

"One hundred twelve..."

"Ninety-seven..."

"Eighty-three..."

The system was working.

Back in the sky, even the fighter pilots could see the Patriot intercepts lighting up the horizon beneath them.

"Holy shit," Falcon Two muttered as another wave of explosions tore through the flyers below.

Raptor One exhaled slowly.

"That’s a lot of missiles."

"It’s a lot of targets," Falcon One replied.

"Don’t relax just yet, there’s still many more," Adrian said. "Do we still have enough missiles to intercept them?"

One of the Patriot operators quickly checked the ammunition status on his console before answering.

"Alpha battery still has remaining interceptors, sir. Bravo is at sixty percent. Charlie burned through a lot during the second volley."

Adrian kept watching the tactical screen.

The aerial count was dropping, but not fast enough.

The remaining flyers had begun spreading out even wider now, some climbing higher while others dropped dangerously low near terrain level in an attempt to complicate the Patriot tracking solutions.

"They’re adapting again," one of the analysts warned.

Another explosion lit up the southern sky outside the command center windows, followed by several smaller flashes as fragments of burning creatures fell toward the darkened highways below.

"Maintain continuous engagement," Adrian ordered. "Prioritize anything heading directly toward the base perimeter."

"Yes, sir!"