****
It came screaming at the plane from above and behind, straight towards Kate as she fumbled to put away her COM and retrieve her holstered weapon. Weltman glanced back at the swooping bird and shouted curses as he desperately worked the controls. The plane lurched clumsily down and sideways, but the creature easily compensated. In moments a half-meter long beak poked through torn wing fabric almost above Kate’s head, even as her scattergun discharged, striking the bird’s head a glancing blow but also enlarging the wing-hole with most of the pellets.
The bird squawked and dropped behind the plane, but Kate’s relief was short-lived. Screaming, the enraged bird flapped strongly to catch up and renew the attack, this time focusing on the orange rudder at the tail-end of the scooter.
It was a good tactic for the bird to use, Kate realized with dismay; even minor rudder damage could bring the scooter down. She opened fire again with the scattergun, this time remembering advice from Weltman and focusing on hitting the base of a wing. However, the plane was bucking violently in the turbulent wind, such that most of her shots went wild. Finally, while firing during a brief moment of scooter stability, she was rewarded by the sight of the crippled bird dropping away, screaming shrilly. She had blasted away one of its eyes.
“Caw, caw, caw,” screamed the others, who, far from being discouraged, seemed only further enraged by the loss of their flock-mate. With startling speed and precision, the remaining crows split up and completely surrounded the scooter, blocking any possible escape. Then while several blackbirds held their positions, several others came in at the scooter simultaneously, through a hail of gunfire from both Kate and John Weltman.
Again the guns were ineffective, but Kate heard a new harsh cry along with the cawing, and suddenly two of the closest crows disappeared in a tangle of black and blue. “Jays,” yelled Weltman, “attacking the damn crows! What the hell!” Then they were both too busy firing again at the remaining attacking crows. They got off shot after shot, but despite the huge size of the creatures, hitting them in a vulnerable spot or even hitting them at all was almost impossible. The scooter and the birds were being tossed about like leaves in the turbulent wind, and it was hard enough to keep their seats in the scooter, let along take careful aim with a weapon.
The scooter shuttered as a crow wing struck a glancing blow near the front of the craft, and then immediately lurched again as another struck the rudder. The craft went into a steady downward spin. John, no longer firing his gun, wrestled with the controls to no avail. “Rudder’s jammed, we’re going down,” John yelled. “We’ll bail out and glide down together, Kate.” He freed himself from his seat and half stood up, turning to Kate with an outstretched hand.
She holstered her gun and started fumbling with her seatbelt, her head suddenly filled with terrifying thoughts of falling through the air to be speared by tree limbs far below, if she wasn’t first torn apart by giant black-feathered monsters.
A monstrous squawking crow appeared suddenly between the two humans, blacker than the storm, one huge, clawed foot clutching the frame next to each of them, throwing the plane into a more violent death spiral due to a thousand kilos of added mass and much added wind resistance, while a thick bill half a meter long struck down at John’s head, striking only a glancing blow but knocking the man off of the plane completely. John slipped out of sight, screaming. A second crow dove after him.
Kate was also screaming as the big bird turned its attentions to her. To the astonished Kate, the big bird clearly squawked “we’ll take the man alive, but you will die now, human,” before drawing back its head for a killing blow.
Abruptly, the massive crow was yanked away from her, and its head was struck a bone-cracking blow by a big bird that grasped its shoulders. Kate gasped, for it was a huge jay, wild eyed and magnificent blue, white, gray, and black in color, much larger than the one in the Captain’s museum and definitely very much alive. The stricken crow dropped away limply, while the jay was away immediately also, striking at another crow that had grasped the prow of the scooter in its talons. That crow too fell away, but still another moved to take its place, though for only a brief instant. An enormous raptor struck it suddenly from above, knocking it down and away. Kate had a glimpse of white chest and white and gray under-belly and wings, and huge angry raptor eyes set to either side of a cruel curved beak, and then it too was gone.
The aircraft spun down faster. The gigantic trees though still far below were much closer; Kate could see their top branches waving like wheat in a wind-swept field. There were huge drops of rain scattered in the wind, and lightning boomed all around them. Struggling in the twirling scooter, Kate finally managed to loosen her seatbelt and push away from the shattered wreckage. Then she was falling free separate from the tumbling plane, with the thick air pressing against her freely tumbling body.
Terminal velocity for a falling human body was a hundred kilometers an hour on Aves, not nearly as high as on Earth but more than enough to kill. Kate remembered to spread out her arms and legs to let the glide suit do its work, but the heavy air pushed so hard that her arms were bent back too far to properly catch the air; the ‘wing’ material was mostly just flapping about uselessly as she continued to tumble, while still falling much too fast, ever closer to a rising green tide of swirling trees.
More rain had arrived also, droplets large as golf balls and small as peas were falling alongside her, joining together into great irregular, baseball-sized globs before being broken up again by the heavy, turbulent air. Air swept past too violently for Kate to even catch a good breath, she couldn’t even begin to scream, though she knew that in a few seconds, since she hadn’t gotten the glide suit to work properly, she would hit the treetops violently and be torn to bits by wind driven branches made of super-strong wood and wind-whipped leaves the size of table-tops.
Immediately above her a bird screamed, then something powerful abruptly grasped both of her upper arms and she was yanked up violently, as great feathered wings beat the air around her a few times, then stopped. Looking about she found that she was suspended above the forest, already below the upper forest canopy but descending much slower. A giant bird held her; she looked up to see that its underside was mostly white and grey. At least it was not a crow; it was a huge jay that held her tightly as it glided forward and down through the gusty wet air. Numbly looking down, Kate realized she was still hundreds of meters above the ground and still dropping too fast for comfort.
“Yaw, yaw, yaw, wailed her jay with ear numbing loudness. Its cry was answered by another of its kind below and ahead of them. Her jay changed direction slightly, dodging between great swaying tree branches agilely as it continued to call back and forth with the other bird, while they homed in on each other’s calls.
They swung abruptly into a small clearing, where Kate was startled to see a human shape below, encased in bright orange; it was John, lying on the ground motionless at the feet of two other jays while huge scattered rain droplets began to pelt them in the increasing wind. She was still coming down fairly fast, but the bird carrying her flapped powerfully when they were close to the ground, such that when Kate was abruptly released from the jay’s grip her feet gently landed on soft forest moss after falling only a few inches.
Not so much from the physical impact as the emotional one, Kate collapsed face-first onto the thick green moss carpet. The spongy moss was softer than Earth grass and several inches thick; it was a perfect place to land, she realized. She turned over to see the gigantic jay standing over her, staring at her intently for a few moments before hopping a few meters away to stand over John. John was alive, she saw, his chest slowly rising and falling, though his head was covered in rain water streaked with blood. The big bird squawked and hopped to join the other jays, while still staring intently at the humans.
Kate lay catching her breath and assessing the situation, shaken and fearful but elated to be alive and not to be bird food, at least so far. Though very
shaken up and her arms were sore from her rescuer’s grip, she wasn’t otherwise injured.
Rain came with a gust of wind. John coughed, and Kate realized that exposed to the gigantic raindrops he could soon be in danger of drowning. She crawled closer to him and cupped a hand over his mouth and nose to shield the rain. Rain from the fast approaching storm was still intermittent, but based on the increasing darkness and growing wind and noise, soon there would be a full deluge. The little moss clearing was a wonderfully soft place to land, but too exposed to the rain. She and John needed shelter. Looking around, she saw moss, more moss, and some small flowers and wild strawberries. Further away, there were five meter tall ferns, and trees of various types and sizes.
The three jays stood not far from the humans squawking at each other until two of them flew off again. The remaining bird, the one that had saved her and was by far the biggest jay, returned to stand again over her and John, looking down at them with huge alien eyes. Though wet and disarrayed it was a truly magnificent creature. It was enormous for a jay; it would have weighed perhaps six hundred pounds on Earth, she estimated. It was squawking so loudly that it hurt her ears. Afraid that it would eat John, she rolled away as a diversion. The jay followed her, studying her intently, its features illuminated by flashes of lightning. The blue crest that crowned its head was raised high, meaning it was excited.
What came next? She still half expected the powerful jay to strike down at her; split her skull as it had done to the crow. Kate still didn't know if they were food to these jays or what, but the savage blue birds had clearly saved them from the crows and weren’t killing them, at least for now. The big jay squawked and returned to John. In response Kate also returned to John's side and knelt on her hands and knees over him to shield him from the worst of the rain and the gaze of the jay. “John, are you alright?” Kate asked anxiously, though quietly, so not to startle the bird. She had hoped John would regain consciousness by now, but he clearly hadn't. He was still unconscious and blood and water drenched his head. She zipped open her glide suit, tore a strip of cloth from her tee-shirt, and whipped his face and hair as best she could, and was relieved that the cut on his left temple wasn’t as bad as it first seemed, though he had lost too much blood. "I've got to keep the rain off you!" she muttered.
To her astonishment the jay that stood above her spread it's great wings, sheltering her and John from the rain.
She anxiously felt for John's pulse and was reassured to find that he clearly had a strong one, though it was too rapid. She examined his legs and arms and torso and found no obvious damage; as far as she could tell, concussion and blood loss appeared to be the main problem. She had to stop the loss of blood and keep him warm. How? Night and the brunt of the storm were coming soon and the chilling rain had already cooled and wetted everything.
There was a brief break in the rain again and from where she lay Kate looked up at the huge jay that still stood above them. It had folded its wings to take advantage of a brief pause in the rain. It was watching her with one, huge dark eye. What was it thinking? Were she and John food, or trophies, or what? It was big enough to completely eat a human. She had seen the historic record of these savage creatures fighting humans to the death. The jays had been the most dangerous of the birds to humans; now she and John were completely at the mercy of this powerful creature. Instead, remarkably, it again spread its great wings over her and John as the rain resumed, acting as a living umbrella to shield her from much of the rising wind and raindrops. Harder rain was coming however, she could hear it battering the forest nearby and raging ever closer. In the coming deluge, not even the jay's wings would provide much shelter; she and John would be drenched and battered.
Only a few meters away a great tree stood. If she could move John there, under the sheltering leaves and to the lee of the wind next to the trunk, perhaps he stood a chance. Would the jay let her move John? She looked up at the jay and pointed first at John and then at the trunk of the tree. The bird remained motionless but attentive. Continuing to watch for adverse reaction from the creature, she crawled and then crouched over John’s legs, and wrapping her arms around both boots, half stood and lifted them at the same time, feeling dizzy from the effort. He was far too heavy; she had lifted his legs and tugged on them but nothing else moved. She stood over him, a foot on each side of his body, straining hopelessly.
Suddenly something powerful grasped the collar of her flight suit and lifted up on her and pulled her towards the tree. It was the big jay, grasping her flight suit in its strong beak, slowly moving both humans towards shelter with incredible strength, while it continued to block the rain with its wings. In a few seconds they were all under the tree, out of the rain and most of the wind, where the big bird released her and shook itself off.
“Thank you,” she muttered automatically, as she dropped exhausted next to the still unconscious sheriff.
“Glad to help, human,” squawked the jay clearly.
Before she could respond, a load cry marked the arrival of first the other two jays, which hopped under the tree to stand near the big jay, and then two huge, screaming, terrifying raptors. Each must mass close to two metric tons and have a thirteen-meter wingspan, she estimated. They were peregrine falcons, Kate realized, frightening and magnificent. The larger one carried a dead crow nearly as massive as itself, while the other one carried a tangle of vines wrapped around a small brown bird. Both raptors hopped close to the sheltering tree also, screaming all the while, while the big jay screamed back at them. The big jay held its ground, while the two other jays glanced nervously back and forth at the falcons and the humans, and tried unsuccessfully to put the larger jay between themselves and both perceived threats.
What did the falcons want, she wondered? What was going on here? Kate held her breath but the birds seemed to be communicating, rather than fighting. The big jay seemed to be doing most of the ‘talking’.
The brunt of the storm finally struck, with terrible lightning, wind, and rain. The humans and birds were well sheltered, however. After only a few minutes the rain stopped and the two falcons carried the dead crow further away and started ripping it to bits and eating it, while the two smaller jays preened themselves, less concerned now with the raptors, but frequently glancing nervously at Kate and John. The dark clouds above receded and filtered sunlight illuminated the forest.
The big jay hopped to where the little brown bird had been released by the falcon, and with beak and claw started fussing with the tangle of vines that were wrapped around it. The little bird cheeped excitedly and the jay responded; the two birds actually seemed to be conversing. As soon as it was free of the vines the brown bird stood up and shook water off of itself. It was a brown creeper, Kate realized. Still cheeping excitedly, it hopped towards her and John, frightening her again. It was small, by Aves standards, but was still huge by Earth standards, and had a long sharp bill.
“Hello, hello,” it said cheerily. “Me Brownie. Brownie Captain Jack friend. Brownie Sheriff John friend. You friend to Captain Jack and Sheriff John? What is your name, human female? Is Sheriff John hurt?”
****