Death From Above: The Skystrike

The seas of the ocean age now support incredible flocks of seraphs, a clade of relatively small archangels which provide parental care to their newly born young while they pupate, keeping them warm when the ambient environmental temperatures no longer suffice. Seraphs, though derived metamorph birds, are physically and behaviorally conservative and are generally very similar to geese, shorebirds, and cranes save for their quadrupedal gait. Many species find abundant food in and near the temperate ocean, either by wading on the shore or more often by floating on the surface and probing beneath with long swan-like necks to collect a varied assortment of food, from plants to small invertebrates, and sometimes small fish, as this group begins broadening their diets from their mainly herbivorous ancestors. With resources widely available, these birds’ populations now soar as high as the birds themselves. Flocks of hundreds of thousands settle on the water to graze wherever their preferred food accumulates, then take to the sky again to migrate toward a new pocket of richness. They are all highly efficient soarers with wide wings, even though some species have reduced their hind wings considerably to better facilitate swimming, and the larger seraphs can climb to very high altitude, rising over the mist and low-lying clouds to avoid most pelagic predators. Yet wherever a food resource exists, soon some creature adapts to make use of it - and so not even the high sky is safe any longer thanks to the skystrike.

above: a pack of skystrikes target a migrating floatcrane lagging behind its flock; floatcranes are large, buoyant seraphs which forage on an omnivorous diet by floating in vegetated ocean pockets, using their long bills to pick at seaweed, crustaceans and small fish.

The skystrike is part of a recently evolved guild of large, predatory sparrowgulls which diverged only in the early Ultimocene, from seabird-adjacent species that gradually moved their dietary preferences from fish toward larger prey and in particular other birds. Closely related to the glacier raven, the skystrike is equally smart and about the same size, but built rather differently, as it spends less time walking on the ground or swimming. Its legs are small and weak, while its head is massive relative to the rest of its body and has become its primary weapon. Like the glacier raven it is highly social, but the skystrike is even more cooperative, able to orchestrate coordinated attacks on large flying birds in the air, and so behaving functionally much like a flying wolf. Fast flying and with high endurance, skystrikes pursue flocks of seraphs at higher altitudes, usually preferring to drop onto them from above for an added benefit of speed. The heavy beak of the skystrike is a perfectly built weapon to bludgeon prey, but also holds a large hollow sinus which lets the hunter take in cold air and warm it before taking it into the lungs, letting it breathe easy even in frigid high altitudes. Further, the nostril opens backward, toward the eye, so that cold air is not forced inside during high-speed dives. With brilliantly iridescent feathers which shift from blue to green depending on the angle, skystrikes show a similar protective plumage to some archangels that helps preserve their feathers from damage over time flying at high altitudes where the thinner atmosphere filters out less harmful solar radiation.

Hunting skystrikes live along coastal areas with rocky land on which to rest, but will venture hundreds of miles out to sea to hunt and can float on the water when necessary despite their lack of webbed feet. They panic flocks of prey they find over the water in order to force them to break their V-formation and so lose the energy-saving slipstream they would otherwise fly in, and then target those which lag furthest behind. They begin by biting at the hind legs and pulling feathers from the tail to judge the prey’s fitness and ability to defend itself, and if they deem it sufficiently weak, they communicate and decide on their next step via a well-developed vocal language. They work together to restrain it, always demonstrating remarkable coordination, with each individual focusing on a different task. One will go for the neck, others for the wings, and once the prey is restrained it and its attackers descend into a freefall. The skystrikes will try to flip the victim over so its belly faces the sky during the descent and will hold tight until just a few meters above either the sea or solid ground. At the very last moment, one gives a cue and in sync all will break off from the prey and shoot off to the sides as it hits the sea; from such a height, even over water the momentum is usually sufficient to have crippled it if not killed it outright, and killing a grounded bird is then very easy as the pack reassembles, alights atop it, and proceeds to weigh it down, drowning it or crushing the windpipe in their heavy jaws and then opening the carcass to feed.

Skystrike packs are stable over many years, and do not necessarily consist of relatives.They are formed at adolescence, when many unrelated juveniles leave their birth packs and mingle, and so are comprised more so of a group of compatible friends than specifically family members. Skystrikes do not form pairs like most sparrowgulls - rather every adult of opposite sex within a bonded pack unit may breed with any other, and same-sex bonding is equally common. Nesting occurs on rocky islands and coasts, and all adults alternate incubation and raise all chicks as if they were their own. The young generally leave in their third season after spending one year helping the adults raise a brood of younger siblings and so gaining valuable parental experience, but the original founding adults remain bonded for life.

Though the modern skystrike is a formidable predator, an even larger species lived just a few million years earlier, specialized to hunt the now extinct giant archangels over land. As large as a golden eagle, this closely related species was unable to find sufficiently large and abundant prey to support themselves after the stormsonor disappeared.