Chapter 146: Silence is Golden.
With the sound mufflers up at maximum, Clements's power armour took on a very claustrophobic feeling to it.
He almost imagined this was what it felt like to be in outer space as there were no sounds from the outside world and all he could hear inside of the suit was the sounds of his breath hissing through the respirator systems.
Even the sounds of the armour's servos and hydraulics were muted by this system, with only the internal sounds coming through but still sounding like they were taking place behind a layer of thick concrete.
This advanced aural protection system had actually been developed to deal with Banshees in the first place and Clements remembered reading all the briefings about these particular horrors of the wastes though he'd never seen one up close himself.
He checked his weapon and with the reading on his HUD displaying the same read as the weapon's magazine he signaled the team to advance forwards.
Now even with the aural protection the Banshees were still a fearsome threat as it wasn't their only line of attack or defence, though it was their main one.
Clements switched to thermal imaging again as he began to move forwards and no sooner had he stepped out of the entrance to the factory floor than he was hit by what felt like a fucking wall being thrown at him.
Waves of sound so powerful they weaponised the air they were moving through washed over Clements's armour rattling the outer protective plates like roof tiles in a tornado.
Fortunately for him, the aural protection was holding and heard nothing of the powerful shrieks being aimed down at him.
Thanks to the armour's incredibly powerful servos he was able to resist the barrage of sound desperately trying to force him down to his knees which was more than could be said for his synthetic comrades.
Despite their enhanced strength and speed, it seemed that the sheer power of the Benshee's shriek had forced them down to the ground like they were trying to resist the pull of an incredibly powerful magnet and failing.
Clements lifted his rifle and as he raised his head he saw a thermal signature above them in the ceiling.
The creature was clinging to the shadows high above their heads and what was more it was not alone.
There were at least four or five of them up there that he could see but he wasn't exactly worried about the count, he just wanted them dead so he opened fire.
It seemed that the Banshees never actually expected him to be able to resist their power let alone answer it, so they were caught completely off guard by his first salvo of rounds which thanks to his enhanced aiming systems helped to not only keep his weapon on target but to keep it steady as he chattered off a full auto salvo.
The salvo found its target and he saw splashes of red and gold hitting the walls and ceiling around the creature which indicated blood splashes on the cold metal above and behind it.
A shape dropped from the rafters and the others scattered.
Now this was another of the Banshee's abilities, they were in possession of incredible speed both in the air and on the ground, it was also rumoured that they were able to turn themselves into a cloud of mist briefly to allow themselves to vanish from one place and pop up in another.
Hell, there were so many rumours and tales surrounding these creatures that it was hard to tell what was truth and what was fiction but what Clements did know was that they were flesh and blood underneath all the trickery, which meant that they could be killed.
The death of their comrade caused the others in the pack of Banshees to briefly pause their sonic attacks as they scattered to avoid further fire, but this was a grave mistake as it not only allowed Silver to raise her weapon but also both of the synths with them who instantly recovered from their date with the floor.
With inhuman speed both synths raised their weapons and began firing on the rapidly moving shapes as they tried desperately to avoid the hail of fire the team unleashed upon them.
More of them began dropping and Clements swiftly realised that there were a few more than the five he had originally estimated as his own fire claimed its sixth kill causing the creature to drop from the wall it was clinging to.
Now normally when dealing with a nest of creatures like these standing orders from the likes of the Bio-Weapons division were to whittle the creatures down to a manageable level before attempting capture of at least one live specimine for testing and study.
So reaching for his PTT which would allow him to speak to his team through their internal comm systems he pressed it while keeping up his rate of fire thanks to it being on his rifle.
"Looks like we're getting the upper hand guys prep to switch to non-lethal," he said.
"Non-lethal!? Are you fucking crazy?" Silver's voice came back at him through his helmet's speakers.
"Think about it, Bio-Weapons would fucking kill to get their hands on a live one of these, we capture one and we're instantly gonna prove the viability of not only the ESF but of this team as a whole," he said while still firing at one of the creatures which seemed to be trying to dive bomb them causing him to have to dodge out of the way as it threw what looked to be a large hunk of metal at him followed up by a sonic blast to increase its flight speed.
The metal slammed into one of the conveyor belts behind him with ballistic-level speed as Clements answered the creature with some ballistic fire of his own.
Now while he was no-where near as powerful as a fucking pipe being turned into a giant fucking slug, it was more accurate and he clipped the creature's large leathery wing which caused it to spiral into a wall with enough force to cause a spray of what had to be blood from the very sudden stop that it hadn't been expecting.
"I agree, capturing one or two of these creatures would be advantageous to both of our people's for study," Delta two said into the comms as she turned to fire at another of them that had stopped right above her head and seemed to be drawing a massive breath in order to unleash a barrage of sound down directly on top of their heads.
Delta Two's shot hit the creature right in the chest before it was able to unleash it and all that came out of it was a cloud of aerosolised blood that thanks to the force behind it sprayed down onto them like a high-speed monsoon shower before it simply dropped to the floor at their feet.
"Fuck! Fine, what are you suggesting?" Silver asked.
"You still carrying those zap rounds of yours?" Clements asked and from the corner of his eye, he saw Silver look at him before rapidly changing out the magazine on her weapon.
"This had better work or I'm peeling you out of that armour and fucking using them on you," she said flatly before lifting her weapon into the aim again.
"Alright on my mark drive the last four into that corner to the right then you hit them with the zap rounds, everyone clear?" Clements said and there were a series of nods.
"Do it!" Clements said and the team began firing ahead of the four remaining Banchees that were swirling around them causing them to have to change directions rapidly.
This confused the creatures and with a few carefully aimed shots they were able to drive them towards the corner but unfortunately Silver jumped the gun a little, rather than waiting for all four of the creatures to pile into the corner before closing the trap she began firing when there were only three in there.
The zap rounds were essentially a very high voltage shock dart that once embedded into a target would deliver an incredibly high voltage shock to its nervous system rendering it unconscious.
These things were so powerful they could even bring down a charging Deathclaw with only a few shots though funnily enough most troopers in his experience tended not to opt for non-lethal when faced with angry charging Deathclaws unless ordered to.
No sooner had its three comrades fallen from the air than the survivor veered off course and instead of circling the room again as expected chose to smash its way out of one of the dirty windows high up in the ceiling.
It hit the thick glass with a wave of sound so powerful it turned the glass to powder which looked like a cloud of white dust hanging in the air before being carried along with the waves of sound.
The creature dove through the opening and was gone into the sky outside.
"Deltas you two secure the specimens, Silver with me, we're going hunting!" Clements yelled running on the high of blood lust from the fight.
He and his fellow ESF comrade rushed through the doors of the factory floor and back out into the yard where the others were looking on in surprise having heard the battle raging within the place.
Clements could see Sarge gesturing wildly with his arms but if he was speaking he couldn't hear him thanks to the aural protection still being online as he and Silver swept the skies above them for any sign of the Banshee, but it was gone, they had lost it.
Suddenly the comms sparked up and the Sarge's voice boomed through his skull which was arguably close to the Banshee's worst cry in his humble opinion.
"Report!!" Sarge yelled into the comms.
"Banshees Sarge, a whole fucking nest of them," Clements said turning to face the imposing ESF Sargent who was baring down on them.
"Banshees?" Sarge asked and Clements nodded before deactivating his aural protection causing the sounds of the world around him to flood back into his head.
"Yeah there was a whole fucking nest of them in there, never knew they lived communally, we killed a whole bunch of them and even captured three, the synths are currently securing them but the last one of the bunch got away, bust through a window and we were chasing it," Clements said feeling his own heart beginning to slow as the high of battle began to wane.
"You said you captured some of them?" another voice said suddenly and Clements turned to see Sabine approaching them.
"Yes ma'am, we managed to corral three of them into a corner and Silver here hit them with shock rounds, we left the two synths to secure them while we pursued the one that escaped," he said.
"Show me," Sabine said and Sarge placed a hand on her shoulder causing the INT agent to look up at him in surprise.
"You'll need a helmet, ma'am, Banshees are no joke, if one of them wakes up and lets off one of those cries of theirs...well let's just say you are going to be bleeding from every hole in your head for quite a while," he said.
Sabine looked thoughtful for a moment and then nodded before heading over to the equipment pile they'd taken from the Vertibird before returning a moment later with one of their power armour helmets on her head making her look rather funny, kinda like a bobblehead thanks to its size compared to the rest of her body.
"Let's go," she said and Clements nodded before leading them back inside the factory.
In the main room, it seemed that the two synths had shown their worth as a capture team as they had not only hog-tied the three downed Banshees but they had managed to wire their short little snouts shut so that they could not scream.
The three oddly feminine creatures were still unconscious from the shock ammo that was still embedded in their flesh and were sticking up out of their dark brown fur like little darts in a dart board.
Clements was actually surprised at their appearance as they were a lot less threatening than he imagined they would be.
The three of them varied in size from the largest of the group who had to be close to 7ft tall and rather well toned if the large bunched muscles that were showing through her sleek coat were anything to go by.
She was contrasted by the smallest of the group who was barely over 4ft tall and while still pretty well muscled was not a patch on her much larger comrade for size.
It seemed that their wings were made up of retractable leathery membranes that stretched from their wrists to their ankles but by the looks of things could be retracted into their sides so that they could use their arms and legs like a human could, though they seemed to have only three fingers and a thumb on each hand and indeed foot.
Their feet while larger than their hands and were obviously evolved so that they could hang upside down like a bat were also padded underneath, Clements guessed this was evolved so that they could also walk upright like a biped when needed.
Their figures were what caught him off guard the most as all of them were rather feminine, with pinched waists that gave them an hourglass shape thanks to their wide hips and powerful-looking thighs.
Their furry coats also caught him off guard as while they did well to hide their flesh from view they also made them look like they were covered in a coating of brown oil as they were shiny and well groomed, while also being flush to their bodies allowing one to easily see their more feminine curves and accents.
But it was their facial features that threw him for a loop the most.
He had expected them to be grotesque and vile but they were not, sure their features were very much bat-like with large half-oval shaped ears that stuck up off the tops of their heads and looked like they could swivel in every direction like a pair of fleshy satellite dishes.
And sure they had little snouts that stuck out of their faces with a little odd flesy point that stuck up of the tip of their noses.
And yes they seemed to have rather large eyes if their large eyelids were anything to go by.
But their features were also subtle and refined, feminine almost.
This caught him him by surprise as he had read the stories of encounters with these creatures and he had also read the reports of the Enclave's dealings with them and they made them seem like they were well vile and vicious creatures.
But seeing them sleeping like this it was hard to see that really but then he had very nearly had the pannels blown off his armour by nothing more than a scream from one of these things so there was that.
The reports he had read of them also stated that these creatures could disguise themselves as a human and he wondered how they managed to do that looking how they did.
Well, he was sure that the Bio-Weapons and Int departments would get to the bottom of these mysteries as this was the first time anyone had managed to capture a live specimen of one of these creatures, let alone three of them.
This was going to win him some serious brownie points with the ESF head shed of that he had no doubt.
"Let's get them properly secured, I don't want any mistakes here, I'll contact HQ and let them know what we have, good job trooper, keep this up and I see a promotion in your future, this should keep the squints and nerd squad off our backs for the foreseeable future and that alone is worth its weight in gold," Sabine said gesturing to the three unconscious banshees.
Sarge patted Clements on the shoulder and nodded approvingly but never said a word as he began barking orders at the others to grip the Banshees so they could be moved to a more secure set-up to hold them until they were able to ship them out.
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She flew as fast as her wings would carry her.
She flew until her shoulders burned and her legs ached.
She flew until her lungs felt like they were going to explode and her heart threatened to bust its way through her ribcage.
She flew until she left the fogs that protected her colony and kept them safe from the harsh rays of the sun while allowing them to walk and fly around outside in the daylight far behind.
Even then she she kept going, despite the sunlight burning her eyes and despite every breath she took feeling like it was giving her little to no air because the adrenaline coursing through her veins told her she had to until she simply couldn't any more.
Eventually, both physically and mentally exhausted she had no choice but to land.
She set down on top of a large old world factory building that like the one that had been her home seemed completely deserted and only then did Click look back the way she had come.
Her friends, her family, her flock, and her colony, were all gone.
She had never believed the stories her grandmother had told her when she was a little bat, they had amazed and wowed while also scaring her but she had never actually believed them.
She had always thought that they were just horror stories meant to scare the younger bats into behaving for their elders, be good and listen or the metal men will come and get you!
But they were real and they were here!
She had never felt fear like it in her life, she had smelled it from the moment their odd machine descended from the clouds above.
She had never seen the colony elders so scared in her life.
While the younger bats wanted to go and see what all the noise and fuss was about the elders had tried to hide them, to get them into the safety of the hidden roosts while they prepared to try and fend off the invaders.
But in the end, it had all been for nought.
The invaders despite being fewer in number were far more powerful than they were and even their best screams had simply fallen on deaf ears so it had seemed.
The metal that they covered themselves in deflected even their highest-pitch screams like they were nothing.
These were screams that could turn glass to dust and rend most metals like a tree bending in the wind.
But their suits had deflected it and scattered it to the point where it created a maelstrom of noise within their colony and had even managed to confuse their own senses with it.
Then there were their accursed human guns.
Handheld sticks of fire and death that spat metal while belching flames and booming out their calls of death and destruction, plucking her beloved friends and flock from the very air itself with next to no effort.
Click had never felt so lost in her life.
What would she do now?
Where would she go?
There were simply no easy answers to these questions but what she did know is she had to try, something, anything to rescue those that had fallen but had not died.
When she had busted through the window she knew that she was the last of them, her big sister Harmoney had told them that they were going to escape, she had a plan and Harmony was always good at that, she was smart.
The plan was simple, fly in circles around them and hit them from all sides with their best screeches and then when they were confused by the patterns fly up to the windows in the roof and bust out into the sky and fly in four different directions.
This she hoped would confuse them long enough for them to get far enough away that they would be unable to chase them.
But it seemed the metal men had other ideas because as Harmony, Click, their little sister Tuft and Tuft's best friend Tap had all burst into the air and began their flight the metal men had fired something new at them.
These were not the normal bullets that those accursed weapons of theirs normally fired.
These were sharp darts that sent lighting into whatever they hit.
Click had seen a few of them hit the wall and she had seen the lightning burst out along it as they struck, little little blue caterpillars racing away from the impact points.
Those little darts had hit both of her sisters and Tap and had shocked them but as they fell Click could hear their hearts beating, their breathing, the sounds of their life.
They were alive and not dead like the others but she had been unable to reach them as she knew that she was next.
So she ran.
She had followed Harmony's plan to the letter. She had burst out of the window and flown as far and as fast as her wings could carry her away from the metal men, she had left her flock.
Click sank onto the ground as the sheer despair began to truly set in.
She had left everything and everyone she had ever known and loved behind, she had fled out of fear and now she felt like an absolute coward for it.
Granted she was alive and she was still free so there was a chance she could do something about it, that she could get her flock back, but how and what?
Click sat on the cold metal roof of the old world factory and she felt the tears beginning to flow and it wasn't from the sunlight that was hurting her eyes, it was from the despair, fear and hopelessness she felt in her heart.
All her life she had looked up to her big sister Harmoney, she had always had a plan, and she had always been so confident and strong.
She remembered when a group of Mirelurks had wandered too close to their colony and had threatened to move into their territory it had been her sister that had led a group of the other young adults to fend them off and while Click had been too young to participate in that attack she had watched it go down.
She had thought to herself that when she grew up she wanted to be just like her big sister, smart, courageous and strong.
Now she was as old as her sister had been then, she was a young adult now, nineteen years old and responsible for herself.
But now she was responsible for so much more than just herself, she was responsible for the lives of her flock, she had to get them back, she had to save them but how?
She felt like screaming with the pure rage of it all within her soul, it clawed at the inside of her heart and skull like a molerat trying to dig its way out from within her.
That's when she remembered something her great-grandmother had always used to say.
"When you are lost, confused or simply do not know which way to turn or fly, listen to the sky little one, the sky will never lead you wrong, but you must be quiet, for the sky only speaks in whispers, whispers that only the quietest of bats can hear, but if you hear them, they will lead you right," she had said.
At the time Click had just thought it was her great-grandmother being her great-grandmother, she was always saying odd stuff like that.
But now as she thought about it she wondered to herself if there was any kind of truth to it.
Click sat down and crossed her legs over one another, forcing her breathing to slow down and her heart to slow with it.
She closed her eyes and softly spoke.
"Oh great Mother Sky, I know I never speak to you and I never give you thanks for the life that I have or that I have led but please hear me, my flock is in danger and I need your wisdom, please help me to save them, I don't know what to do or where to turn, please help me," she said in the softest whisper she could manage all while fighting back tears.
She sat there for the longest time, so long she didn't know exactly how long but she knew that it was beginning to get dark as she could hear the sounds of the night beginning to reach out all around her and just when she was about to give up and curse herself for being so fucking stupid she heard it.
It was like the faintest whisper she had ever heard in her life and at first, she wondered if it was her own desperate mind playing tricks on her, but the more she swivelled her ears and the better she tuned it in, the more obvious it became.
It sounded like combat.
Cautiously she took back to the air again and flew following the sound while trying to tune out the plethora of other sounds her hyper-sensitive ears picked up all around her.
Eventually, the faint whisper grew into a loud roar and became incredibly easy for her to track, that's when she saw it.
A human town.
There was smoke billowing from various points of the town and a whole host of noises coming from within though oddly only about half of them sounded human.
Slowly she approached it and using a nearby chimney stack from an old factory she landed to wait for night to fall, her eyes would be absolutely useless in the daylight and that blindness would most likely get her spotted but she needed to see what the sky had led her to.
As the day drew onward the sounds seemed to change, they went from the sounds of combat to very different sounds, she even swore she heard laughter and mirth floating up to her from the large metal-walled compound.
Eventually, the accursed sun descended and with every foot it dropped in the sky Click's eyes grew better and better until eventually she could finally see properly.
She really wished she'd had time to grab the day protection goggles that her great-grandmother had gifted her from the time that she had lived in the realm of the sun but now they were little more than an heirloom that she'd passed down to Click as her favourite granddaughter.
According to her great-grandmother, they were once used by humans to protect their eyes from the brightest of lights and she had found them in an old human building that was filled with the odd machines that humans used to move about in when she was no older than Click had been then.
The lenses were made of a thick dark glass that when strapped to your head covered your eyes and beat back the foul sun allowing a Banshee to see as if it were nighttime during the day.
But now that their colony lived in the land of the forever fogs they did not need such things as they could roam around during the day or night but now that Click found herself in the land of the sunwalkers she instantly regretted not bringing them with her.
The human town below her was quite large, with high metal walls surrounding it on all sides like a fort of some kind.
Click leaned over the side of the chimney and she sent out a sonar pulse which given the frequency sounded like a sharp click it wasn't hard to figure out why her mother had named her so.
As the pulse bounced back to her from everything it touched her sensitive ears retrieved the information and her brain pieced it together in a kind of overlay that appeared to her over what her eyes saw.
This gave her a far sharper picture of the world around her despite her eyes being able to see just fine in the darkness.
The image was like a blue pulse image appearing briefly over what her eyes were seeing and lingering for a few moments before fading like someone had fired off a strobe light that rapidly lit the area up and created an image in her mind's eye that her brain overlayed over what her eyes were actually seeing.
But what her sonar revealed didn't make any sense, so she sent out another pulse and then another.
Each time it bounced back it showed massive creatures walking around with humans within the walls of the town and from what she could see they weren't fighting or killing one another but they seemed to be...talking.
This made absolutely zero sense to Click, humans hated everyone and everything that didn't look like them, hell they even hated people that did look like them, so what chance did the other races of the world have when met with the weapons that these creatures could bring to bear?
Every Banshee and she assumed every creature of the world knew that humans didn't fight fair, they didn't use what the great skies above granted them naturally, instead, they forged advantages made of metal and electricity that inflicted death at a distance.
They had no voice that could break glass or soothe the most troubled of hearts.
They had no muscles that could rend metal or beat back mighty foes.
They had no wings with which to soar into the endless skies.
What they did have were guns and metal suits.
That's when she saw something that made her blood run cold and her heart freeze solid like a fist-sized ice cube in her chest.
In the centre of the town was one of the metal men.
As she watched and pulsed them with her sonar Click saw the metal man walk out and begin talking with what appeared to be a Deathclaw of all things, this in of itself shocked Click to a stupor.
Since when could Deathclaws talk!?
But here it was plain as night talking with a metal-covered human right in the centre of the town as if it was the most normal thing in the night.
That's when things got even weirder and a whole lot scarier.
As she watched and listened the metal man lifted off the floor taking the Deathclaw with him, both of them could fly!!
As she watched in horror at this new revelation the metal man did a lap of the town with his Deathclaw companion in tow before like a bullet out of one of their accursed weapons the pair shot off into the night sky moving so fast that not only did they leave an echoing boom in their wake but Click lost sight of them.
Not even her sonar could keep up with them they were moving so fast.
Something very odd and very wrong was going on in this town and she had to know what it was, but she was scared of what she might find.
If the metal men could fly now without the aid of their noisy machines it could mean the end of not just her kind but everyone everywhere.
But despite her fear Click summoned what courage she had left, the endless skies had led her here with the whisper that she had heard when she needed it, whatever secrets this place held it could be the key to saving her colony and more importantly her flock.
So Click took once again to the air.
She slowly made her way down to the town, she was going to have to do something that she thought she'd never have to do since her colony had moved to the endless fog.
It was something she was not sure she even remembered how to do given it was so long since her great-grandmother had taught her the secret of how, but for the sake of the colony and her flock she would have to try, she would have to wear human face.
Gliding silently Click managed to slip past the humans in the four watch towers that were set up at the four corners of the large compound and she landed in between the buildings.
Now all she needed was a donor.
Moving as silent as the blessed night itself Click moved between the buildings making sure that she only used her sonar when she absolutely had to.
She knew that humans could hear her clicks and she desperately didn't need them finding her ahead of time.
Leaning out she spotted exactly what she needed near to the edge of some crop plots.
A young-looking human male was sitting on what looked to be a crate with what appeared to be a pad made of paper in his hands, he was drawing something and her curiosity nearly got the better of her as artists were highly coveted and revered in her colony and indeed among her people.
But she shook it off, she needed to focus, the fate of her flock was at stake and she could not get distracted now, she needed to learn the secrets of this place so that she could bring them back and use them to save her flock.
So moving silently she crept around behind the young human and taking a deep breath she hit him with a hyperfrequency burst at near point-blank range.
This hyperfrequency pulse was no-where near as powerful as her scream but she knew that it would do the job just nicely, she didn't wish to kill the young human as not only did the notion of killing a defenceless opponent not sit right with her but killing an artist was a major no-no for her people.
But the pulse did its job in that it knocked him clean out and she knew that it would keep him unconscious for at least a couple of hours while his senses tried in vain to realign themselves from being completely scrambled to hell.
As the young human slumped soundlessly off his seat she quickly stepped forward and grabbed him before he fell all the way to the floor, dragging him and the pad he'd been holding back into the shadows between the buildings.
QUick as a flash she lifted the human man up and now she properly saw his face which thanks to a quick click of sonar she saw every fine little detail of.
To her great surprise, he was prettier than she would have expected, she would have thought his features would have been twisted and vile but they were not, he looked, normal and handsome.
His scent also caught her off guard, it was spicy and pleasant, with a faint mixture of muskiness and charcoal from the pencils he'd been using to draw.
She quickly shook off the fog that clouded her head, this was not the time for revelations of this kind, she needed those secrets!
So swiftly she leaned his head to one side and leaned in close biting into his neck with the tips of her fangs only, her intention was not to kill it was to learn.
After drawing only a small amount of blood from him she released him and held her hand against the small puncture wounds on the side of his neck allowing them to quickly clot and heal.
She knew her saliva had a dual purpose so she licked the wound site and both wounds sealed up leaving two white scar dots in their place, when her fangs were in the saliva worked to keep the wound open and the blood flowing but when they were retracted back into her jaw her body released another enzyme to it which not only reversed the effect but allowed for rapid healing of those bitten.
It didn't take long for the blood to work its magic, she felt it flowing through her body like a long-forgotten warmth, then just like her great-grandmother had taught her, when the time was right Click let go.
Her body rippled like it was made of water but it was merely her fur warping and changing to match the hue of human skin perfectly, her ears retracted and her snout compressed inwards while her eye sockets shrank.
Her wing flaps sealed into her sides and both her hands and feet morphed as her claws retracted, in mere moments she looked like a perfect human girl, albeit a very naked human girl, now all she needed were some clothes and she would be ready, she was going to do this, she was going to learn the secrets of this place and she was going to save her flock!