Planet Zar: Nexus

"They're getting faster," he grit into his commlink.

"How many?" Emmerich's static crackle replied.

Armin shut his eyes and willed at his swarm. A cacophony of emotions and indecipherable images flooded his mind from three angles. He inhaled, long and slow, and exhaled clarity. The General's mind view was always the most reliable and she sent him black-white flashes of a hoard of Aberrant, gigantic compared to the human-sized lot he was used to. Eyes bulged in strange places, bones shot out from their flesh like greatswords. They thundered through the black sand with terrifying purpose. The shadowy group Armin spotted was only the first wave of their incursion.

"Too many to count," Armin shot back. "Too many for Donder and Blitzen to handle on their own."

He received a steady grunt in reply.

Armin fired another shot, triangulating with The General and Katze's mind views. This one sank home, jerking the aberrant back. It picked itself up and pushed harder to rejoin the herd.

"Shit."

"We need back up," Emmerich's voice crackled through the commlink. "Send the swarm back to base."

"I need eyes." But Armin shot a mind-command to Geist and The General to swing wide and head back to the compound. They were signal enough to alert the ground crew to head out.

What they needed were more dragons on Gaia. More weapons. More something. If the damned purple dust was so important to the Heimdall they should have allocated more resources to this accursed planet. Gaia was getting angrier and the Heimdall was losing the status quo.

"Give us cover," Emmerich snapped.

The silence broke with the heavy flapping of wings, like the ominous incoming of death himself. Swift and razor sharp.

Armin returned his gaze to the scope as Donder and Blitzen sailed across the black sand and descended upon the hoard. They were no match for the overwhelming number of aberrant, but they tore through the ranks and took to the air, single aberrant dangling from their claws. They crushed heads with a gruesome spurt of black blood. Limp bodies were thrown into the hoard to slow their progress. Armin fired shot after shot, aiming for kneecaps, for necks, for anything to keep the hoard at bay until back-up arrived.

Donder swept low, bonespurs extended and mouth agape in gruesome fury. He snatched a lithe, squirming aberrant from the group and backwinged upward, out of reach of angry, grasping hands. Something massive burst from the center of the group, leaping into the air after him. It had claws as long as butcher's knives. It caught hold of Donder's wingtip and ripped the leather. Donder shrieked and dropped his quarry, whirling on the mutant.

"Fuck!" Emmerich snarled through the comm.

Armin fired. The mutant's wrist blasted open and Donder finished the job of tearing it from his body. He took wing again, muscles straining to keep himself aloft on a torn membrane.

Katze shoved an image of rolling vehicles and heavy guns into Armin's head. Ground troops on their way.

"Call them back," Armin whispered into the comm. "Back-up's coming."

Emmerich's grues circled the hoard and swooped back toward the captain, dripping blood... aberrant and their own.

"I'm sending Donder to you," Emmerich breathed back, shaken. "It's getting worse out here."

"I hate this planet."

Emmerich's retorting chuckle was anything but humorous. "I'll get us home."

If they survived long enough for the transfer.