Wings of Death

All guns blazing

The supplies brought by Lieutenant Amy’s team were transferred to the hospital and the canteen. They would not need to go out for another week. However, the Lieutenant wanted to go back to the hospital to collect the oxygen cylinders. Oxygen cylinders were indispensable for their vehicles to remain operational. This meant that the bandits had to be dealt with immediately. Captain Elijah did not want to risk any lives and decided that it would be best to move out when it rained. He did not want to engage two enemies at once and put his men’s lives on the line.

A couple of days later there was a light thunderstorm. This presented Captain Elijah with a perfect opportunity to neutralize the bandit camps. He wanted to strike them head on with the full might of the 31st armored regiment. The 31st armored regiment consisted of 6 Arch Knight tanks, 12 Shock Hounds and two standard heavy tanks. The Captain advised the Lieutenant to stay at the base and take care of the survivors. Alex insisted on joining the team since his hacking skills would come in handy if they needed to access the security cameras inside the police station and the movie theater. Nathan also volunteered to join the team. Captain Elijah however refused to take any civilians with him.

“Alex, I know you are quite an expert when it comes to electronic gadgets but I want you and Nathan to talk to the other survivors and try to contact their family members. Find out any information you can about their missing family members and friends”, said the Captain.

Although the friends were eager to be a part of the action they reluctantly agreed to do as he said. Margaret was glad that they did not have to put their lives in danger again. Nathan had already explored almost every part of the military base during the past weeks. He thought maybe interacting with the survivors would make his life a bit less boring. Alex hadn’t even managed to find his own mom and now he had to help these strangers find their families. He didn’t seem too hopeful. Lieutenant Amy had been able to find out the location of her office but she could not be reached on her phone. The place where Alex’s mom used to work was some 100 miles from the base and they could not risk a rescue mission without any confirmation about the survivors. The Lieutenant and Dr. Erica regularly made announcements on the radio and requested people to make contact with them if they were looking for a safe shelter. So far they hadn’t received even a single phone call from outside. Things looked very grim.

Meanwhile Margaret had gone back to Dr. Erica’s lab to find out about her new research. Dr. Erica had been studying the corpses of the people who had been killed by the Bloodwings. Each of the corpses had a small hole in the neck but there were no scratch or bite marks on the corpses. A post-mortem revealed that the corpses had been hollowed out. There was no blood or muscle tissue inside. Just the bones and the organs remained. Dr. Grant was shocked to see the corpses in such a condition. To understand what had happened to the human corpses they needed to study the Bloodwings in great detail. Autopsies of the Bloodwing corpses revealed that their blood wasn’t red but black in color and they had a closed circulatory system. They had the same organs as most birds. What baffled them the most was the fact that all of them had human faces. Their faces looked like the faces of average human females. However, they did not have any reproductive organs. The strange creature baffled them. They weren’t sure if they were capable of giving birth to offspring. When Margaret entered the lab they were dissecting the mouths of the Bloodwings. Though they had human faces, what lay inside the oral cavity was neither human nor animal. They did not have any teeth or even a tongue. Instead their mouth contained an extendable proboscis or suction tube-like organ. Inside the suction tube was a needle-like structure harder than human teeth and sharp enough to pierce flesh and muscles. Everything was clear now. Dr. Erica and Dr. Merlin understood that the Bloodwings used these suction tubes for sucking out the blood from their victim’s bodies. The needle-like structure would help them pierce the skin near the neck region and drill a small hole in it. The Bloodwings would then open their mouths and drain the blood from the victim using their muscular feeding tube. Margaret could not stand the stench of the corpses anymore and walked out of the room. She had seen enough for one night.

Alex had gathered all the survivors in the canteen and now Nathan was ready to talk to them and find out more about their near and dear ones. What followed was a long and emotional discussion. Nathan asked them important questions regarding their close ones and Alex noted down the last known locations on a map. They asked the survivors to call their friends and family members. Just a couple of people managed to make contact on the phone. It was confirmed that 3 more people were still stranded outside. Nathan noted down their contact numbers and informed the Lieutenant about his findings. Lieutenant Amy thanked the boys for helping out and relayed the information back to Major Morris. As soon as the Major learned about the survivors trapped outside, he issued orders for rescuing them at the earliest. All three of them were currently located more than 70 miles away from the base. The military needed to plan its rescue effort wisely.

Outside the base, Captain Elijah’s convoy had managed to reach their first target, the movie theater where the bandits were hiding. The bandits had chosen this building because it had a basement level which was used for storing film rolls. It was a windy night and the skies trembled with lighting. Since it was raining, the Captain and his men could walk around freely without worrying about the Bloodwings. Before launching an attack on the suspected bandit camp, the Captain decided to confirm if there were any hostages inside. He sent out a mini drone through one of the broken windows of the movie theater and scanned all the rooms. There were at least 30 bandits inside and all of them were well armored and equipped with sub machine guns. Captain Elijah announced their entry in his loud booming voice and gave the bandits one last chance to surrender. The bandits refused to lay down their arms and opened fire on the convoy.

“Heavy tanks roll out! Target the building”, thundered the captain. Upon receiving the Captain’s orders, the two heavy tanks pounded the building with High Explosive shells. In a few minutes the whole building had been reduced to rubble. Those who tried to exit the building and make a run for it were mowed down by the Shock Hounds. It took the 31st armored regiment just 3 minutes to neutralize the bandit threat at the movie theater. Their next target was the police station which had been taken over by another group of bandits.

Without wasting any time, the 31st armored regiment headed in the direction of the next bandit encampment. When they got to the location they realized the police station was located at the blind end of a narrow lane. This meant that none of the vehicles could enter the lane. They had to proceed on foot.