Wings of Death

Life at the fort

Life had changed completely for all survivors at the fort. They had to wake up early, help with the basic repairs and manage different sections of the fort. Some of them helped out in the kitchen while some others helped take care of the wounded at the hospital. Most of the young men were put on guard duty for three hours at night so that the soldiers could get some rest. The soldiers treated the survivors as their own family. Most of them got along with each other just fine. Only Blake Morton avoided company. He was often seen playing a flute in some lonely corner of the base.

    Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s daughter had been admitted to the hospital as soon as she had arrived and she was quite stable now. They had trained field medics and highly capable nurses at their disposal. Everything seemed to be going flawlessly. It felt like a new beginning for them. Though things were looking bright the screams of the Bloodwings at a distance often reminded them about the bitter reality which waited outside the walls. The Bloodwings could not get close to the walls due to the defense emplacements. Even though they were safe inside the fort, the soldiers remained vigilant at all times.

Nathan and Alex had got used to life at the fort. It wasn’t bad at all. The meals were hot and the beers were chilled. They even got the opportunity to take part in small arms training every weekend. Almost three weeks had passed since they had arrived at the fort. Everything seemed to be going just perfect.

The scientists were busy analyzing the Bloodwings in greater detail. They also began running tests on human corpses to find out the extent of damage caused by the screams of the Bloodwings. It would rain quite often and this allowed Dr. Erica to run all kinds of tests using the rain water. They collected the rain water in special storage tanks.

After three weeks had passed, the food supplies began to run low. They needed to get their hands on fresh rations. Captain Elijah wanted to go outside and acquire the rations himself but Major Morris advised him to send someone else since he was in charge of the security at the fort. It was decided that Lieutenant Amy Williams would be going outside at night with a squad of 30 soldiers and deal with Bloodwings in the area. Since the soldiers would be carrying heavy equipment it would be difficult for them to collect the rations and bring them back to the base. So, it was decided that a few of the civilians would accompany the soldiers and help them collect the necessary items. Alex, Nathan, Joshua, Margaret and the man with the bushy red beard; Mr. Harris volunteered for the job. The civilians had to move quickly so they were told not to carry any weapons except a couple of flash bang grenades for distractions. They had to collect two kinds of supplies: essential medicines and food items. They chose to carry out the mission at night because they had observed on their scouting patrols that most of the Bloodwings would disappear at night. It was a completely different story on a clear sunny day. They had already lost a squad of 10 soldiers who had been overwhelmed by a large group of Bloodwings. At night and during cloudy days the Bloodwings would only appear in small groups of 20-40. However, on clear sunny days they would form groups which were over 500 strong. They referred to the smaller groups as swarms while the larger groups were called plagues. On the day of their arrival the group of survivors had been attacked by a small swarm of Bloodwings thus it was easy for the military to rescue them. Things would have turned out much differently if a plague had showed up. The soldiers at the fort had never come face to face with a plague but had only heard about such sightings on the radio and the television. When the army and the air force were sent out for the first time they had actually encountered five plagues of Bloodwings and were almost completely wiped out. None of the soldiers at Fort Barton had taken part in the first conflict on that fateful day. The intensity of screams emitted by an entire plague of Bloodwings was so high that people who heard the screams would start bleeding out within 90 seconds. Even Captain Elijah’s squad would be useless in front of them. Thus, it was decided that no one should go outside during the daytime. Lieutenant Amy told her team to be armed and ready by 1900 hours. They would be leaving at 1930 hours sharp. Each of the civilians was handed a map of the area which had the grocery stores and pharmacies marked on them.

The soldiers and civilians were ready within 1800 hours and were handed special equipment for the mission. The weapons expert Klaus Varchovsky had designed special vanadium earplugs for the entire team. He had also modified the night vision goggles so that they could record videos of what the soldiers saw when they were outside. Before leaving Lieutenant Amy made one last announcement.

“Viper team 6, your main job is to clear out the area and eliminate all Bloodwings in the vicinity. Your secondary objective will be to keep an eye out for looters and bandits. The civilians will not get down from the Metal Guardians till I give the command. If any civilian runs into a Bloodwing he/she should toss a flash bang grenade in their direction and make a run for the nearest Metal Guardian. I am also issuing you with these vanadium earplugs. Put them on before disembarking. Once they have been inserted you can only faintly hear their screams. Remember, the earplugs can only buy you time. They do not offer a permanent solution. If you stay out in the open for more than 20 minutes, you will start feeling dizzy and after 30 minutes you will start bleeding out if you still keep hearing the screams. And make sure you do not look into the eyes of the Bloodwings no matter how attractive you find their faces. We have heard reports of people slipping into a trance after gazing into their eyes. Good luck team!”

The team left the fort at 1930 hours sharp. They had to move quickly and gather a lot of supplies so they did not bring any Arch Knight tanks for this mission. Instead the convoy consisted of just 3 Shock Hounds and 3 Metal Guardians. The soldiers were armed with standard rocket launchers and rapid firing grenade launchers. After travelling for three miles they had their first encounter with a swarm of Bloodwings.