Wings of Death

An impossible task

The recent encounter with the acid spitting Blood Demon reminded them once again about their lack of knowledge. While it was true that Dr. Hart and Dr. Grant had been able to learn many new things from the two Bloodwing corpses, it simply wasn’t enough. They still had no idea about their social organisation, breeding patterns, place of origin and their different sub species and classes. Dr. Grant had finished creating the designs for a new water harvesting facility and handed it over to the structural engineer. He was now ready to focus on the Blood Demon. Dr. Hart had already collected the acid samples from the vehicles and started analyzing them. It turned out that the acid blobs were made up of a mixture of 3 different acids. This is what made it so corrosive. They needed to find a substance which would be able to resist the corrosive effect of the acids. The two scientists were busy discussing a solution when Margaret entered the lab.

“No metal can resist the corrosive effect of these three acids combined. We need to find something else”, explained Dr. Hart.

“What about Pyrex glass?  We use it in the lab to hold acids”, replied Dr. Grant.

“We can’t use glass. You are forgetting that glass shatters instantaneously when the Bloodwings start screaming.”

“We can’t use metal, wood, plastic or glass. What other options do we have?”

“What about an alloy?” Margaret’s sudden question had caught their attention.

“It might just work”, replied Dr. Hart and immediately started typing something on the computer. “Titanium is one of the hardest metals known to man and vanadium resists corrosion.  Perhaps we can create an alloy by combining these two. Yes, that’s it! We need a vanadium titanium alloy with traces of steel.”

“We are going to need a large amount of vanadium and titanium to make armored vehicles out of them”, added Dr. Grant.  

“We don’t need to build new vehicles, we just have to coat the old ones with a few layers of the alloy. That should be enough to stop the acid from corroding the metal underneath it”, replied Dr. Hart.

They had small amounts of vanadium and titanium at the lab. It was enough to create a small sample of the alloy. Dr. Hart contacted the Captain and asked him to collect more materials. Though it was easy to create the vanadium titanium alloy, manufacturing a large amount of it was going to be difficult due to the low availability of the raw materials. The Captain knew there was an old military bunker on top of a hill nearby which had titanium doors. They could dismantle the doors and melt them down to extract titanium from them. Vanadium however, was not readily available. It was only used in nuclear research facilities and factories which manufactured parts of rockets and fighter jets. There were no nuclear research facilities nearby and the nearest rocket and fighter jet manufacturing factory was 700 miles away. Unable to find a solution on his own he decided to share the problem with Lieutenant Amy.

Lieutenant Amy suggested that he should take a team and head for the abandoned bunker at night and she would take care of the vanadium problem. Although she didn’t tell him how she planned on getting her hands on the vanadium, the Captain knew she never promised anything unless she was absolutely certain about fulfilling it. There was just one major obstacle in their path, the Blood Demon. It was impossible to walk about freely at night without dealing with it first. The Rain Blaster would be ready by tonight but they could not engage it head on or the consequences would be severe. The safety of the soldiers was his first priority. He needed to come up with a plan to kill the Blood Demon without sacrificing any soldiers in the process. They could not outrun it on foot and they needed to be close to it to use the Rain blasters. Captain Elijah went back to his room and started to flip through the pages of his memory. He went over every little detail of the previous mission. Suddenly, he had an idea. He remembered how Nathan had first killed those two Bloodwings in Dr. Grant’s research facility. An ambush was the only solution! But first he needed bait. Someone needed to catch the Blood Demon’s attention and lead it into a trap.

Captain Elijah asked the Viper squad and the three new recruits to meet him outside the canteen at 6 PM sharp. When the team had gathered at the requested location, he began explaining his plan to them.

“We need to get our hands on a good chunk of titanium. There is an abandoned bunker nearby; its doors are made of titanium. If we dismantle the doors we can melt them down to obtain the titanium required.”

“I have heard that titanium is pretty hard. How are we going to dismantle the doors?” asked Alex.

“We will use a C4 breaching charge on the wall near the door. The whole wall around the door will be reduced to rubble and then we can easily extract the door”, replied Captain Elijah.

“What about the Blood Demon, Captain? Our vehicles have been badly damaged. On foot we will be easy targets for it. The Blood Demon flies much faster than an ordinary Bloodwing. It can easily take out half of our squad if we fight it on foot”, said Alex. He wasn’t willing to go outside without armored support.

“We are not going to engage it head on. We will prepare an ambush and one of us will lead it into the trap”.

“That is going to be very dangerous. Only the Shock Hounds are faster than the Blood Demons but half of them have been badly damaged.”

“You don’t need to worry about it. I am going to be the bait. I want you guys to take positions inside the abandoned buildings on either side of Valmont Street. I will lead the Blood Demon to the ambush spot and then you guys can take it out using your Rain Blasters. It is a narrow street, the Blood Demon will fly straight between the two tall buildings and that’s going to be your golden opportunity. I have marked the buildings on the map. They are each 15 storeys tall. Stay close to the window and wait for the right time. You are going to get only one shot at it, don’t miss”.

The plan was as clever as it was dangerous. The Captain was counting on the Blood Demon to fly between the two rows of buildings while chasing his Shock Hound. If it took any other path, the entire mission would be jeopardized.