The steeled avians flapped ever closer, and found themselves in Mary's sights. They screeched and stared at the grounded airship, hungry to add Human to their diet. On her last trip to this giant, floating rock, she'd seen a man suddenly set upon and picked to pieces in a matter of seconds, when their platoon happened to march past a pod of these devils. Fortunately for the rest of her comrades, there was a spingun specialist in the company, and at such close range, the birds were easily made mulch and forced to flee. In this situation, likely the flak ammunition in Carrie's warpiece would prove most effective. Still, her long gun wouldn't be useless here. Their beaks might be made of steel, but the rest of their bodies were flesh and feather, and most of their wings were vulnerable, too. Plus, it wasn't armor-gauge steel, or else they would be rendered too heavy to fly; a properly aimed slug could still punch through it. Properly aiming was the tricky part. Their beaks were curved and pointed in their direction. Almost anywhere you hit them from this angle of attack would mean a likely deflection, even if the impact would still probably concuss the bird out of action.<br/><br/>A few firing solutions were quickly imagined in Mary's head, as she considered how the action would go down as the fleshpeckers approached. Flak was best when fired into the center of a mass, where the shrapnel could most easily find purchase. Smaller weapons would not likely find accurate marks until the birds were nearly upon them, at which point their flying formation would be basically irrelevant. The best thing to do, then, was to make things easier for the flak by taking out the sides of the formation, forcing them to fly in closer groups. She pivoted ever so slightly, found the furthest left pecker in her sights, and began to whisper those strange words to herself again. "<span style="font-style: italic">Zechim klöd...</span>"<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #FF3333">Crack!</span></span></span><br/><br/>She would not be robbed of her opportunity to fire, this time. A shining bullet sailed out of her gun and whistled through the wind, wavering to and fro, arcing in its peculiar way, and covering hundreds of meters before it found the underbelly of its target and made it explode into a plummeting cloud of feathers. This was nothing to the flock, however. She needed to hurry. The lock was pulled open, another projectile slid in, powder added, and then closed in with the lock. Her barrel swung over to the right, rapidly scanning across the mass of animals until she found the right-most one.<br/><br/>"<span style="font-style: italic">Uiah bit baan tub'bei...</span>"<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #FF3333">Kow!</span></span></span><br/><br/>This shot hooked along a breeze, and practically rolled along the top of the unfortunate fleshpecker's beak until the cranium was found and it was permanently alleviated of its insatiable hunger for meat.<br/><br/>Reload. Reaim. "<span style="font-style: italic">Hieri cöl...</span>"<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #FF3333">Pow!</span></span></span><br/><br/>Reload. Reaim. "<span style="font-style: italic">Te b'bei...</span>"<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #FF3333">Chakk!</span></span></span><br/><br/>Two more were swiftly found and popped out of the air. Four, in all. There were so many, however, and they were going to get into the range of the regular long gunners and flak any moment now. She could only continue to whisper her eerie song and pick off the outer stragglers. It would be up to the others to deal with the rest. As she stopped to reload again, she addressed Carrie, who had asked her about ammunition.<br/><br/>"Not many, ma'am," she reported, promptly. She couldn't spend much time talking when there was shooting to do. "Maybe one or two shots. Gun deck. Aft, port side. Bottom crate, under the bola shot."