TWD - Zomboid - Chapter 313: Crane Superman Strikes (Patreon)

Luke's pupils contracted.

This time, the Perception warning was even stronger.

It was probably aimed at him.

He reached back, yanked another parachute pack from the emergency equipment, and tossed it to Jill, who had just gotten back to her feet.

"Catch!"

Jill grabbed it instinctively.

But before she could figure out what he meant, Luke had already kicked the cabin door open.

The next second...

"BOOM!!!"

The rocket struck the helicopter's tail!

The violent explosion instantly tore through the rear section of the aircraft.

With its tail assembly destroyed, the helicopter lost its stability and began spinning out of control.

It tilted sharply and rotated through the air, the tortured metal letting out an awful screech as though the entire aircraft might break apart at any moment.

Alarms blared throughout the cabin.

The pilot desperately tried to regain control, but with the tail gone, it was hopeless.

Only then did Jill finally realize the truth.

They were being attacked by a third party.

This wasn't one side turning on the other.

What incredible reaction speed!

Jill had no time to dwell on it.

She immediately strapped on the emergency parachute.

The crippled helicopter was now plummeting toward the ground at terrifying speed.

...

Meanwhile, the other two helicopters had descended into chaos as well.

Chris's escort helicopter was flying along the outer edge of the formation.

From the moment the first rocket brought down one of their helicopters, Chris had been on maximum alert.

He and Crane looked at each other almost simultaneously.

Both men were wary, their hands already resting on their sidearms.

The tension between them was ready to explode.

Each suspected the other side of being responsible.

Then the second rocket struck Luke's helicopter.

Chris immediately calmed down.

There was no way the Commonwealth had launched this attack.

Luke was the leader of the Commonwealth. Who the hell would blow up their own leader?

And if this was supposed to be some kind of staged attack, the price was far too high.

Chris certainly wasn't going to suspect Graham either.

Their president was a decent man. He wouldn't do something like this.

And even if there had been some plan in advance, Graham wouldn't have hidden it from Chris, much less put himself in danger.

That left only one possibility...

Fuck!

There was a traitor!

Abort the deal!

This was an indiscriminate attack!

Sure enough, before Chris could fully sort through the situation, a third rocket came screaming toward them.

This time, the target was President Graham!

Chris's heart sank.

The presidential helicopter was carrying the highest leader of the Southern city-states.

And Rebecca, the head of the Commonwealth's laboratories and an extremely important researcher, was on board as well.

If both of them died, they were completely screwed!

Who the hell was brazen enough to launch an attack like this?

Could it be one of the ambitious figures within the city-state who had been eyeing the presidency for a long time?

"Deploy flares! Cover the presidential helicopter!"

Chris made the decision immediately and barked the order at the pilot.

Several burning decoy flares shot out from beneath the escort helicopter.

Trailing blazing fire, they scattered in different directions, trying to use their intense heat to throw the incoming rocket off course.

But the rocket was an unguided, direct-fire weapon.

It didn't rely on heat signatures at all.

The flares had absolutely no effect.

The RPG continued along its original trajectory, heading straight for the presidential helicopter.

"Damn it! The flares aren't working!"

Chris's eyelid twitched violently.

At the critical moment, he gave another order.

"Team B, maneuver to cover! Get in front of the presidential helicopter!"

His voice over the communicator was resolute.

He was ordering his own teammates to trade their lives for the president's and Rebecca's.

A crisp response came over the radio.

"Copy."

Not a single unnecessary word.

Not even a moment of hesitation.

They were the Southern city-state's most elite security team, led by Chris himself.

Years of training and surviving life-or-death situations together had ingrained obedience to orders into their very bones.

An escort helicopter carrying Team B suddenly accelerated.

Without hesitation, it cut directly in front of the presidential helicopter and faced the incoming rocket head-on.

"BOOM!!!"

The rocket struck the escort helicopter.

A blazing fireball erupted in midair and swallowed the aircraft whole.

The men aboard didn't utter a single complaint.

Together with their helicopter, they became a mass of burning wreckage and plunged toward the hell below.

The presidential helicopter remained unharmed.

"Presidential helicopter, evacuate immediately! Return at full speed!"

Chris roared with reddened eyes.

The pilot acknowledged the order and began maneuvering the presidential helicopter away from the dangerous airspace at full speed.

But just then...

The door of the presidential helicopter suddenly opened.

A figure leaped from the aircraft while it was still flying at high speed!

It was Rebecca!

Everyone froze.

That seemingly delicate female scientist had actually strapped on a parachute and jumped from the helicopter at a time like this?

What was she doing?

Chris couldn't understand it at all.

Crane, however, could roughly guess what she was thinking.

With the identity of the attacker still unknown, both sides had reason to suspect each other.

If Rebecca stayed beside the president, there was a good chance she would be taken all the way back to the Southern city-state.

After weighing her options, Rebecca instinctively chose to trust Luke.

Luke definitely wouldn't die.

Rather than stay aboard the helicopter and become a target, she might as well follow Luke.

That would also give her the perfect chance to collect his combat data up close.

As for the walker horde below...

They all had pheromones on them.

Maybe landing down there wasn't necessarily a death sentence.

That was the madness of a female scientist!

...

Meanwhile, Luke's helicopter had completely lost control and was plummeting toward a high-rise.

The alarms inside the cabin screamed.

The sensation of weightlessness made everyone's stomachs churn.

Luke, however, remained unusually calm.

"Claire, hold on tight!"

He pulled Claire into his arms.

Just before the helicopter slammed into the building, Luke moved.

He kicked Jill straight out of the helicopter, then jumped after her while holding Claire.

"Pull the chute!"

Luke shouted.

Claire immediately deployed the parachute as they plunged into the hell below.

Almost the instant they jumped...

"BOOM!!!"

The out-of-control helicopter slammed directly into the side of the high-rise.

A violent explosion erupted, shattering the windows across half the building.

Thick black smoke billowed upward into the sky.

Luke, Claire, and Jill drifted slowly toward the walker horde below beneath their parachutes, surrounded by flames and smoke.

Crane saw everything.

Rebecca and Luke were both alive.

But once they reached the ground, there was no telling what would happen.

Two important figures from the Commonwealth were now trapped deep inside Atlanta's restricted zone.

That was absolutely unacceptable.

"Chris! Luke and Rebecca bailed out! They're going down into the city!"

Crane turned toward him.

"We still have time. Get down there and pick them up right now!"

Chris frowned deeply.

"No! My top priority is getting the president out of here safely!"

Crane's eyes instantly turned cold.

Without another word, he pulled two hand grenades from his waist.

Then he clamped his teeth tightly around the pull rings.

"I'm not fucking negotiating with you."

Crane stared directly at Chris.

"Listen carefully. Go down there and pick them up right now, or I'll detonate these grenades and your president can fly back to the city-state on his own!"

Even Chris was taken aback by Crane's threat.

"Don't even think about drawing your gun. Even if you're fast enough to shoot me, the moment I go down, my bite will still pull the pin."

"Everyone on this helicopter, me included, will die. And I'll make damn sure your president goes down with us!"

Chris's entire body tensed.

He knew Crane wasn't joking.