Weapon System in Zombie Apocalypse-Chapter 217: Delivery

December 15, 2025 — 06:07 AM

JSDF Enclave – Ridge Airstrip

Steam still hissed from the undercarriage of the C-17 Globemaster III, fogging the chill mountain air as soldiers in worn JSDF uniforms circled the aircraft cautiously. Their boots crunched gravel and frost, eyes wide at the sight of the hulking machine that had somehow landed on their crude runway.

It didn’t look like it belonged here. Not on this forgotten ridge. Not after everything the world had lost.

Yet here it was.

The engines wound down to a low hum before finally cutting off. The roar disappeared. Silence returned—but it wasn’t the same kind of silence. This one carried weight.

The silence of realization.

Of awe.

Then, with a sharp hiss and mechanical groan, the rear ramp of the aircraft dropped.

Out stepped Thomas Estaris, flanked by Reyes and Sergeant Li. Their boots thudded onto Japanese soil for the first time.

Thomas didn’t speak. He simply walked forward with calm, purposeful steps.

The JSDF leadership approached.

Captain Hiroshi arrived first, coat flapping in the wind. He was flanked by Takeda, Nishimura, and Chief Kobayashi. None of them spoke until they stood a few feet away, eyes still scanning the massive transport behind Thomas.

"You weren’t exaggerating," Hiroshi finally said. "You actually brought one."

Thomas nodded once. "Atlas One, Overwatch designation. Fully operational. She held up fine."

Kobayashi blinked. "We didn’t believe it. Even when we saw it coming in."

"Didn’t expect you to," Thomas said plainly. "Belief is earned."

Nishimura stepped forward, still visibly stunned. "That’s a Globemaster. It’s not just hardware. It’s a statement."

"No," Thomas corrected. "It’s a beginning."

Behind him, the bay crew was already at work. Mira and Velez rolled the first drone crate to the edge of the ramp while Li coordinated the offload sequence via wrist terminal.

Thomas turned to Hiroshi. "Where’s your uplink point?"

Takeda pointed toward a ridgeline about 150 meters east, where a cleared patch of earth stood bare, framed with rebar anchors and temporary scaffolding.

"That’s your drone site," he said.

Thomas nodded. "Let’s get it online."

06:30 AM – Relay Ridge

The terrain was cold, hard, and uneven, but it had just enough space to host a drone relay tower and control terminal.

Velez knelt in the center of the space, pulling open the top of the black crate. Inside sat a sealed drone—the Overwatch Sparrow-Class Uplink Unit. Compact, matte-gray, with a folding solar panel on its back and four stubby legs for terrain balancing.

He activated it with a coded thumbprint.

The drone whirred softly, rising a few inches on self-stabilizing gyros before planting itself in the center of the ridge. Small anchors fired from its feet and dug into the ground, locking it in place.

Velez tapped a sequence into his wrist terminal.

"Drone online. Booting signal capture node."

A soft blue glow flickered from the top of the drone.

Mira stepped beside him with the secondary panel. "Signal integrity holding... syncing to Japanese relay format... done. Signal up."

Below, inside the JSDF bunker, a comms officer jumped from his chair.

"Sir, new node just lit up on Channel 5!"

Morita leaned over his shoulder. "Trace it."

"Origin is... the ridge. It’s ours."

Kobayashi turned to Hiroshi. "They’ve done in ten minutes what we couldn’t manage in a month."

07:10 AM – JSDF Command Bunker

The briefing room was warmer now, the heaters running at full capacity to keep the cold mountain air at bay.

Thomas stood at the same table he had sat at during his last visit—this time, not as a guest, but as the one delivering change.

Beside him, Reyes and Mira remained quiet while the JSDF council reviewed the data Velez had just transmitted through the newly activated relay.

"Live feed of our valley. Drone is fully autonomous," Takeda explained, showing the thermal scan to Kobayashi. "We can see Bloom signatures forming within thirty clicks—movement trends, swarm density, even sleep cycles."

Hiroshi nodded. "And this feed is routed through their systems?"

"For now, yes," Thomas said. "But we’ve pre-installed a terminal package. You can break connection if you ever need to. It’s yours."

Nishimura leaned forward, arms crossed. "Why? Why give us all this without conditions?"

Thomas looked at him.

"Because you’re alive," he said simply. "And so are we."

He gestured to the satellite scan on the table.

"We can keep pretending we’re alone. That everyone else failed. That survival means hiding in a valley and waiting to die slower than everyone else. Or—we can make the map mean something again."

Hiroshi didn’t smile. But he nodded.

"I read your relay logs. You’ve got farming operations. Manufacturing nodes. Electricity."

"Correct."

"And now... aircraft."

"Also correct."

Kobayashi looked up from the screen. "You’re building something."

"We are," Thomas said. "It’s not a government. It’s not a flag. It’s a network."

He stepped forward and placed a small metal case on the table. Inside: four encrypted Overwatch relay keys.

"You use those, and you’ll have secure comms with us anytime. If you lose the ridge, you break the keys. That’s your line. No strings."

The room went quiet.

Then Hiroshi spoke.

"Fine. Let’s say we accept this. What happens next?"

Thomas nodded. "Next is simple. You log Bloom migration data and share anything useful from patrols. We’ll do the same. In two months, we’ll rotate another drone set through here. You keep the equipment. We keep the connection."

Nishimura raised an eyebrow. "And the plane?"

Thomas smirked. "She flies home once we’re done offloading. You don’t have the fuel or the runway to house her permanently. But she’ll be back."

Kobayashi studied him. "You really think something new can rise from all this?"

"I don’t think," Thomas said. "I know. Because it already has."

08:00 AM – Ridge Airstrip, Cargo Bay

The last pallet rolled down the ramp—four crates of reinforced ration packs and a power converter module for the enclave’s failing battery station.

Sergeant Li checked off the manifest one final time. "Full drop complete. All systems green."

Velez stowed the drone controller into its padded case.

Reyes approached Thomas at the foot of the ramp. "We’re ready when you are."

Thomas looked over the ridge one more time—the soldiers clearing gravel, the teams connecting antenna wires, the bunker’s emergency light still flickering slightly in the snow-covered breeze.

Then he turned to Hiroshi.

"We’ll be wheels up in twenty. This ridge’ll be cold again by nightfall."

Hiroshi gave a short nod. "And we’ll be watching the skies next time."

"You won’t have to," Thomas replied. "Next time, we’ll call ahead."

They shook hands.

No signatures.

No flags.

Just an agreement among survivors.

Then Thomas turned, boarded the C-17, and the ramp began to rise.

As the engines roared back to life, the JSDF enclave stood quietly on the ridgeline, watching the steel bird prepare for takeoff.

And for the first time in a long time, they felt like the world beyond their valley wasn’t gone.

It was returning.