Kemp pushed her way through the open hangar doors, stepping out onto the black rock trail that led down the Cage Carriers. A dozen soldiers followed behind her, their black-clad shapes barely visible on the dark mountain slopes.
Beth watched from the Cage Carrier as a dark cloud blocked the pale moonlight overhead. 'Look out,' she said through the open comms link.
She opened fire from sixteen Mech Enforcers, their railguns unleashing a savage hail of bullets that sliced through the air just above the soldiers' heads. Black shapes exploded in a mist of black blood, and some of the soldiers fell to the ground, their screams filling the open comms link as hundreds of fless circled around them. Black shapes dive-bombed in groups, forcing the remaining soldiers to scatter in all directions.
Beth kept the fless at bay with the Mech Enforcers, strafing the sky as she focussed their railguns on the largest shadows in the sky. She hoped that if she killed enough of them the others might back off and leave the soldiers alone. Her plan wasn't working so far. She had inflicted heavy casualties on the fless but they were still attacking in considerable numbers.
Something struck the side of the Cage Carrier, rocking it sideways. It happened again before she could block the attack. She turned five Mech Enforcers around to protect the Cage Carriers while the others charged up the slope, trying to protect Kemp and the other soldiers. Four more Mech Enforcers burst out of Alma Station's open hangar doors, joining the chaos outside. Soon the night was ablaze with the white flashes of proton cannons as the soldiers fired their weapons into the sky all around them.
Beth did her best to be everywhere at once. She tried to protect Kemp's squad but it didn't help that they had scattered far and wide. Some of the fless had broken through, slashing the soldiers with the long, sharp talons. Blood flowed across the black mountain rock, soaking into every crack and crevice. Beth fired short bursts between struggling soldiers, striking the fless that were clinging to their backs. She couldn't avoid hitting one soldier in the leg when he turned suddenly into her line of fire. Everyone was moving at once. It was impossible to be accurate in the midst of such chaotic fighting. She fired again, tearing into wide black wings that flapped above Kemp's limp figure on the ground. She hadn't seen her go down amongst all the confusion. Something slammed into the side of the Cage Carrier, striking with such force that the pilot cab lifted off the ground, rocking to one side. More fless swooped down, their glossy black wings flapping in the sky like wet sheets. Their long back legs trailed behind them, swinging forwards to strike the cockpit with hard black talons. Glass shattered as the Cage Carrier toppled onto its side, and all she could hear was the irate hissing of the creatures outside.
Beth dangled from her bucket seat, held in place by the restraining straps that she hadn't yet unfastened. A sharp talon reached in through the broken side window, slicing through her jacket's combat armour with ease. Crying out in pain, she watched in horror as blood flowed from her lacerated arm. She could see her exposed bone just above the elbow. She tried to use her neural implants to control the pain, but it was difficult to focus while coordinating the efforts of the chaotic fighting outside. Unable to suppress her agony any longer, she released the Mech Enforcers, hoping their autonomous planning routines would be enough to execute her defensive plans without her.
She flinched at the sound of flapping wings nearby, even before fresh agony tore at her arm and hot blood splashed across her combat jacket. She thrashed from side to side, trying to escape the beak that snatched and tore at her flesh. She wanted to open a comms link to Parker but the pain was too much. The sounds of gunfire receded as the world fell dark around her.
* * * * *
Beth opened her eyes to darkness sometime later, immediately aware of intolerable agony down her left side. Using her neural implants, she attenuated the signals from her pain receptors to keep from blacking out again. She was covered in her own blood, and even in the darkness she could see more of the thick liquid splattered across the dashboard and windscreen. When she turned her head, she was shocked to find that her left arm was completely missing. Only the bloody stump of her shoulder remained. The stump was ragged and raw, her flesh torn apart by unseen beaks and talons. Panic overcame her at once, adrenaline coursing through her veins. She tried to reduce the blood flow to her shoulder but she wasn't sure how to do it. It wasn't something she had ever tried before. After several attempts, she only managed to achieve partial control over her vascular system. Blood still trickled from the stump, soaking into her combat jacket as she lay on her side in the overturned Cage Carrier.
Reaching out with her mind, she tried to connect to the Mech Enforcers and was surprised to find that more than half of them had been destroyed - though she couldn't understand how. The others were mostly undamaged. Four stood guard over her Cage Carrier while another three stood beside a pile of bodies on the lower slopes of the Skybreaker Mountains.
'Are you okay?' Beth said to Kemp through the open comms link, her voice little more than a rasp that she could barely understand herself. She waited for an answer but none came.
'What's your status,' Beth said, switching to a wider comms link that was open to everyone in the task force.
A soldier coughed.
'Who's there?' she said. 'Report your status.'
'This is Major Michael Kenard... My status is... I'm okay, I think. I don't know what happened. Some of us made it back to the Cage Carriers but this one is upside down. I think I was knocked out for a while.'
Beth switched her attention to the four Mech Enforcers standing on the slope. Through their eyes she could see several Cage Carries lying on their sides. Some were upside down as Kenard had said. Only three still stood the right way up and they were even more damaged than the others. Their pilot cabins and rear cages had been ripped open from above, leaving jagged metal edges that reflected in the moonlight. Half-eaten bodies lay slumped in the front bucket seats, many without heads, and the ground around them was covered in thick red blood. The blood was smeared across the ground in odd patterns as though several soldiers had been dragged through it while struggling to get away. There weren't enough bodies to account for all the missing soldiers.
Beth turned one of the Mech Enforcers and saw more dead soldiers lying among the shadows in front of Alma Station. Marching the droid towards them, she examined each body in turn, trying to work out who they all were. It took some time to locate and identify Commander Susan Kemp. Her legs were several metres away from her torso, and her head was completely missing, leaving only the exposed ligaments of her neck. Without her jacket's insignia, Beth might not have been able to identify her at all.
They had been taken by surprise, decimated while Beth had been on watch. She couldn't understand how it had happened. She reviewed the data she had received from the reconnaissance drones, but she couldn't find anything useful among their reports. They had seen and heard nothing until the attack had begun, and they were all broken now, their shattered components scattered across the planes. Beth shook her head. She would have to understand it all later. Right now she was bleeding to death. She needed to find some medical supplies before it was too late, and for that she would have to make her way into Alma Station.
The sky was clear, revealing countless twinkling stars, but that didn't make her feel any better. Fear gripped her deep inside. She just hoped the fless weren't planning on returning any time soon.
Carefully, she took control of the nearest Mech Enforcer, moving it closer to her overturned Cage Carrier so it could reach inside and cut through her restraining straps with a heated blade. It lifted her in its thick, armoured arms, its twin railguns slipping beneath her back to form a makeshift stretcher that was far from comfortable. Beth gasped as it accidentally knocked the stump of her shoulder while lifting her out of the ruined pilot cabin. Her mind swam with confusing thoughts as the Mech Enforcer turned and walked up the slope, heading towards Alma Station with her limp body cradled in its arms. She didn't know what she was going to do when she got inside.
The operation had been a disaster. She had to let Central Command know what was happening. Barely clinging to consciousness, she sent a brief message to Parker, hoping it would be enough until she could stabilise her blood loss.
Task force wiped out. Large numbers of fless confirmed in the Southern Territories, invisible to scanning drones.
Commander Kemp is dead. Retreating to Alma Station to seek medical supplies for the handful of survivors.