105 The Convicts

The Star Army's ten thousands of fighters were all standing shoulder to shoulder, creating a battle line about two kilometers long. The army positioned itself on the south side of the Surabaya City as on the north and the east sides of the city were the seas. The plan was to drag as many zombies to the south while Alex's group from the Madura Island on the north will cross the sea by ship.

Although it looked like the army was standing in a simple line, it's actually a carefully prepared defensive formation. Farell, as the commander, has used this tactic several times before. The strategy was similar to the tactics used by the British against the Zulus and other technologically inferior tribes. Essentially, several lines of soldiers are formed behind one another. This tactic is effective in keeping the fighters' endurance against the endless wave of zombies.

There were one hundred funnel pits prepared in front of the army facing Surabaya, the seas to the east, farms, and rivers at the back. The battle line, the funnel pits, and the wooden pikes. There was only one thing left missing with this strategy... the bait.

Farell had everything well prepared, Donnie and his tiger platoon of fifty men was seen leading a group of fighters. These groups were moving into the front of the funnel pits and marched onto Surabaya City. There were almost one thousand of them. These men were not like all the other soldiers. They seemed undisciplined and didn't move in information. All of these men were not even wearing a uniform.

The Tiger Platoon was recognized by their dark green mutated snakeskin uniforms, all the other Star Army fighters would wear a red armband, while the workers wore yellow armbands. These armbands were given as their identification. These one thousand men, on the other hand, wore black armbands, none of these fighters were holding firearms, each of them was given a simple melee weapon. Axes, spears or sabers.

These men were the convict fighters. They were the men found captured during the previous battle. They were mostly slavers, robbers, rapists or just about all the fighters who surrendered after fighting against Star Army. These men were called the convict fighters as they have been convicted guilty of crimes. In this new world, prisoners will be too difficult to manage. All Starbase oppressors were only given two choices: Die or join as the convict fighters.

These convict fighters, depending on their crimes, were given one to six months probation. During this sentenced time, they have minimum rights and were only given one food voucher each day. After serving their time, they can choose freedom or join as a Star Army trainee or citizen. With their status, they were normally given the most dangerous missions, mostly becoming meatshield soldiers or bait like in today's battle. There was another way for these convict fighters to get their freedom before finishing their sentenced period; which is by battle achievements. These battle achievements could only be given by the division commander. Farell promised to give their freedom by giving proof of killing 20 red mutated zombies. These rules were the best way for these convicts to pay for their crimes and also a way to get more experienced fighters.

More than one thousand convict fighters moved forward and went into the streets of Surabaya City. Donnie's Tiger Platoon, a total of 50 men, also went along with them and started opening fire against all the undead they could see...

Tratatatatatatataat.... Tratatatatatatatat

KABOOMM !! KABOOMM!!

Multiple grenades were thrown into the area with the most zombies. Grenades are actually a very bad solution to kill zombies. Unless they blow up on impact, the explosive force will not kill any zombies if it doesn't hit the zombie's head. At the moment these grenades are thrown to make loud noises and attract more zombies.

Most of these convict fighters had their share of fights, except for the red zombies, the first wave of zombies could be easily tackled by the thousands of convict fighters. Although after 15 minutes the zombie wave turn bigger and bigger and it turned into hordes...

Seeing the situation, Donnie decided to give the call:

"Time to fall back"

"Fall Back!! Fall Back!!"

Currently, their main objective to lure as many zombies as possible has been achieved. Donnie started to call all the men to exit the city and retreat back to the battle line. There were currently hundreds thousand of undead that could be seen filling the streets of Surabaya. The thousand convict soldiers followed the tiger platoon closely.

The normal zombies were not as slow as it was portrayed in those sci-fi movies, they could move quite fast, but any normal fighters could easily dodge or outrun them. The scary thing about these zombies was not their strength but their numbers. Most fighters died not during their brutal battle, but their inability to find the right timing to flee or finding the right escape route.

The main concern was still red zombies. Among the hundred thousand normal zombies, there were thousands of these mutated red ones. They could outrun any of these fighters, therefore the fighters needed to retreat strategically. Every 100 meters these fighters would switch places between running and defending. These moves were very hard to perform by experienced soldiers, even worse for these convict fighters... Casualties started to pile up. Most of the casualties happened because of their greediness to get more red zombie heads and get freed from their probation status.

Inside a seven eleven shop, a group of convict fighters was seen fighting a few of the red zombies. The one in the front held a sword was an ex-policeman who was convicted of manslaughter.

"We need to leave now!!"

"There are two more over there!!... We can quickly run after killing those two..."

GROOAAARRR!!!

"!!!... Fxxxxxxx, we are surrounded"

"Let's head out right now!!...!!! Arrrgghhh Help!!"

Mutated red zombies grabbed the poor man and easily tore his head from his body.

SPLATT!!

The scene created horror to all the other convict fighters in the area... They regretted not leaving earlier... More and more red mutated zombie surrounded their group. The group quickly ran to the back exit of the shops, but three more red zombies blocked their escape route...

"That's it... We are doomed..."

Suddenly a figure rushed into the back of these three zombies. With a large ax, the bulky guy swung his ax and cut one of the zombies' head in half... This guy was Donnie, the tiger platoon commander. Another swing of the ax and one more red zombies split in half through the waist.The red zombie dropped flat to the ground but was still moving... Donnie jumped onto the upper half and crushed the head with the bottom of his steel ax.

CRAACKKK!!!

The last red zombie jumped onto him... Before the zombie reached out to him, Donnie threw the big ax with his peak of Mortal Realm strength... BAAAMMM!!The last red zombie got thrown and stuck into the wall...

"Move move!! Quickly!!"

After finishing the last zombie, Donnie and the group ran back to the main army.

Donnie, as the main commander of this assault, did a great job leading his troops, within 30 minutes all thousands of fighters returned back to the defensive lines. There were more than one hundred casualties, but without Donnie's decisive command, many more of these convict fighters would have died on the streets of Surabaya.