The Wild Ba’Neesh Chapter Thirty-Three ©2019 Fay Thompson All Rights Reserved

A mistake. Arjan barely dared hope that the footage was real. Before being wiped Eric must have released the Ba’Neesh in some futile gesture of remorse. The fool. The monsters were dumb as rocks as their current detection indicated. Free less than a full day and he already had them under surveillance.

Best intel suggested there were two foreign aircraft and one Tule Soc craft heading toward the facility. And do what? Clearly they knew nothing about the loose Ba’Neesh. Or perhaps, they didn’t care. Arjan had the entire mass of Tule Soc force with him, they had only lost one transport in the national fleet debacle against Citadel. He would arrive in the area in minutes.

He continued to wonder why there had been no intel even hinting at the massive defensive system guarding Citadel. That shouldn’t be possible. Tule Soc maintained spy satellites with eyes on the island at all times. It indicated a completely underwater build in absolute secrecy, a true engineering feat. Well, the upside was that all of the Directorate’s illegal weaponry had been paraded before the International community. He and the Ministers had been fielding calls demanding a full and immediate investigation of this rogue group.

The national alliance that had fronted the decimated fleet, always fragile, had fractured as their ships fell out of the sky. Two thousand men dead. What saved Tule Soc was their back position, the military men had felt the corporation had only a minor role in the offensive. Arjan knew he was alive because of sheer luck, not through any superior strategy on his part. He would take it.

Now, the objective was to drive DireSec away from the facility and to bring them down politically. He was already in heated discussion with the former nation/state of Germany’s national protectorate forces who were in the process of deploying to protect the facility from this widely reviled rogue corporation. It wasn’t what he’d planned but it softened the depth of the Citadel disaster and it might just save his new job. The Ministers were already discussing how to present the situation in positive terms to the full Tule Soc Ministry who would be gravely unhappy at seeing their name in the media attached to this mess.

He replayed the footage on his external device. A small floater running a grid search trying to locate Eric’s body had noted movement in the woods and thought they were seeing a herd. Until that herd passed through an open meadow and they had visuals. Arjan grunted. Finally, retribution would be his.

He sent all but three of the transports on to Fels, those three were over a hundred decent operatives, more than enough to capture these Ba’Neesh before they encountered any other humans. He sent himself a note to identify every operative who was seeing the footage or would see the monsters live, a little memory adjustment would be necessary in the aftermath of this mission.

He kept tracking the three aircraft heading toward the facility. It was suicide. He had ten times the number of Tule Soc operatives and aircraft responding much less the expected protectorate forces. Still, those three craft had managed to take down the first to reach them in the Reserves. Four more small floaters destroyed. He had the techs replay the footage from those aircraft several times trying to understand the weapon. All he saw was a bright light and then the interior footage showed the pilot behaving oddly. Some kind of disruptor ray? The aircraft noted no trace of weapon deployment. If anything, the three aircraft seemed indifferent to the Tule Soc floaters, they didn’t even veer off course. Their lack of concern ate at him.

Elias jerked Mick back and pressed him roughly to the ground. The lagging Ba’Neesh happily squatted, breathing heavily behind them.

Through the trees they could see activity in a meadow. Too many men, all wearing the distinctive uniforms of Tule Soc.

“What did they do to them?” Mick whispered.

“Broadcast stunner would be my guess.” Elias answered.

“Shit.” Mick hated what he was seeing. “They are dragging them off like carrion.”

“There are four aircraft hovering over the area.” Elias pointed out. “I only see forty or fifty operatives. It means they only unloaded one or maybe two of them.”

“Only?” Mick said with heavy sarcasm. “And, what have we got, Elias? Two Soek and eleven worn out Ba’Neesh.”

“Yeah.” Elias agreed. “Crap for odds. Do we just abandon them to their fate?” He said with equal sarcasm.

The operatives were dragging the seventeen Ba’Neesh into a pile taking no care whether they were banging them against rocks or logs. In fact, Mick rather thought they were intentionally being rough. Bastards.

The eleven Ba’Neesh with Mick had crawled up to watch, muttering to each other in Neesh. He could imagine that conversation. At the least, he had to keep these ones from doing anything stupid like running down there to be stunned. It was clear the operatives were counting the ones they had.

“They have a Vrill trace device.” Elias pointed out, gesturing toward two operatives carrying a device attached to a back pack between them. “Once they get it running it will pick us up as close as we are. No doubt they are looking for these eleven to fulfill their count.”

“Fuck.” Mick said, “What the hell are we going to do? Your stunner will like take out one or two while the rest rush us?”

“Pretty much.” Elias’ tone was grim. He knew if he signaled the DireSec aircraft Tule Soc would lock on to their location via the signal, and what? Three DireSec ships against three Tule Soc and how long before they could fly back? And, more importantly, there was a Tule Soc fleet somewhere, they had backup. “Got any bright ideas, that guy is going to turn on the tracer as soon as he gets the pack on his back. Likely they have more than one too.”

Mick was glaring around looking for any trace of Iiyiko, but, apparently she was off gallivanting elsewhere. Bright ideas. He had no desire to land in the hands of the creeps who wanted him brain wiped or dead. They could torture him. Based solely on how they had treated the Ba’Neesh, he wanted no part of their hospitality.

Elias grew thoughtful, there was one weapon. He looked over at Mick. “We could laser them maybe.” He said. “We don’t have the Channels but it might let us get away and take out a few in the process.”

Mick frowned at him. “What laser? You said you had a stunner.”

“I always have a laser.” Elias said enigmatically. “We’re not supposed to use them. They are sort of dangerous.”

“It’s some Order trick thing, isn’t it?” Mick said, “A fucking secret. Well…” He focused at the word Elias and laser.

Elias yelped. “Stop that.” He said roughly.

Mick pressed as Elias moaned clutching at his head in misery.

“Told you it hurt like the devil.” Mick said, finding the memory and stiffening. “You just point and voila? What the fuck.”

“It takes mega juice.” Elias noted that the guy was fiddling with the pack straps, they were running out of time.

“Yeah? How about a chain?” Mick said, looking over at the Ba’Neesh who were tightly focused on their hushed conversation.

Elias rubbed at his neck, he wanted to smack the kid with the header now thumping his brain like a hammer. Chain? His brain fumbled with the word, a Ba’Neesh chain to heal Evgeny? That memory surfaced. He grew excited. Right.

“Fuck yeah.” He gestured the Ba’Neesh in close and then used a stick to draw on the ground. He pointed at them and counted to eleven making eleven marks. They nodded. He pointed at himself and Mick and said, two marking them with X marks. They nodded again, apparently they understood basic math. He scratched on the dirt a line down the middle with one Soek and six Ba’Neesh and one Soek and five on the other.

“But, I’ve never done this laser thing Elias and your memory is vague as shit.” Mick argued.

“Yeah. But, you have my memory of doing it.” Elias said, “So, you remember how to do it. The trick is short bursts, like this.” He lifted his right hand straight up and pointed with his index finger. Mick and the Ba’Neesh were tightly focused on him. “You can say laser aloud or just in your head. You are actually summoning light. The laser is a type of light. Like this. On, off.”

A tight beam of red laser light shot upward to cut a small limb which fell on top of them to much scrabbling and dodging.

“Laser.” The Ba’Neesh sounded gleeful.

“Dangerous.” Elias looked at them. “You chain, Mick and I shoot using your combined Vrill. I’ll go left, you go right and let’s take out the ships, not so they crash on the Ba’Neesh, but to cause chaos. Then we laser the operatives, particularly the one with that pack heading toward us now.”

Edda said, “Fuck.” In agreement, apparently.

“Shit.” Mick said, nodding. He got up and ran right, trailed by five Ba’Neesh. They weren’t exactly trying to be seen but speed seemed more important than stealth. He heard shouting from the Tule Soc operatives, they’d been spotted. Elias yelled out, “position.”

Mick turned to the Ba’Neesh and said, “Chain.”

They grabbed each other’s horn mounts. He nodded. Then he reached out hoping they knew he had to be part of the chain. They burst into Neesh but he grabbed hold of Edda’s mount with his left hand and lifted his right pointed up.

He focused tightly on the Elias memory. This time it felt different, he could feel the Vrill of the Ba’Neesh pressing the memory like a balloon being filled. He looked up, a prayer on his lips. “Laser on, off.” He said, being sure to angle the finger in case it worked he didn’t want to fight another falling limb.

His finger went red hot and he screamed even though it lasted far less than a second. “Fucking A.” He said, watching another limb tumble toward the ground. The Ba’Neesh were nodding and Edda said, “I see.” She was grinning.

Mick discovered Elias was already firing, his laser cutting through the first ship spilling screaming men to splat on the ground and trees. Distance was clearly not a huge problem for the laser. The two halves of that ship thundered as they hit the ground. The remaining three ships were taking defensive action, which meant flying away.

Mick nodded at Edda, “You ready?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just yelled out laser on and then he pointed. It was surreal, a lot like using a gaming glove except for the white hot pain part. He thought he was doing something wrong for it to hurt so much but he screamed through it, spraying curses as much as general wails. On and off, over and over. He hit another aircraft just on the edge of what he could see. It spun in the air and then disappeared out of range of his sight. Then he focused on the operatives running toward him leveling weapons.

It was a whole other thing to cut a man in half. Mick almost threw up. The Ba’Neesh howled and then he realized they were ramping up, their Vrill increasing as the mayhem intensified. They were enjoying the dismembering of men. He got lost in the on and off until he couldn’t find another target. The two remaining aircraft had disappeared, likely were flying out to a safer perimeter or beyond eyesight.

He looked over at the Ba’Neesh who seemed to glow. They kept saying, “Das blut. Das blut.” He could guess they were saying the blood as if delighted. Gruesome. Creepy as fuck. His stomach was roiling but there was no time to hurl, they had Ba’Neesh to rescue.

He raced across the battlefield, trying not to see the dead and their entrails. There were several stray limbs severed from bodies. Edda and the Ba’Neesh were screaming and yeowling, too excited to even think about being quiet. There were a few wounded. The Ba’Neesh used rocks to bludgeon them. Mick made no effort to stop them. These were the Ba’Neesh’ lifelong captors. Who was he to have an opinion about killing them? Maybe later.

They reached the still unconscious pile of Ba’Neesh.

Elias yelled, “Ba’Neesh, attend.” He hit the last word with some Vrill, it brought the distracted and now bloody Ba’Neesh around to look at him and Mick. “We move them into the woods. Now.” Elias continued, grabbing one of the unconscious Ba’Neesh under her arms to drag her toward the woods.

More Neesh chatter but quickly the eleven joined in and together they moved the Ba’Neesh out of the bloody clearing.

“Now what?” Mick asked Elias. He was fried.

“Now we guard them till they waken enough to help us.” He said. “Thing is I think we can use their Vrill in a chain whether they are awake or not. That would make these others a sort of unused battery source.” He grinned a bit, reaching over to place his hand on one of the unconscious Ba’Neesh’s horn mount. This caused the eleven to say something to him in loud terms, he stared them down. “Practice chain with sleepers.” He said, demonstrating. Edda watched carefully as he gestured they should also grab a sleeper’s horn mounts and then he demonstrated a laser again saying, “They may come back.” She nodded.

The eleven pushed and pulled the sleeping Ba’Neesh into positions they preferred and then sat with them, everyone connected. Mick and Elias joined them, wedged on all sides by Ba’Neesh facing outward in a rough circle.

“Typical defense circle.” Elias said. “I think Vrill sharing with them gave them access to our memories.” He continued, as the eleven looked at the two of them and talked and then argued in Neesh, all the while looking outward and upward for incoming enemies.

“We killed men, Elias.” Mick said, his stomach uncomfortable. They were close enough to the battlefield to see the bodies and to see curious animals sniffing along the outside of the meadow. The Ba’Neesh chortled over this and made entreating sounds toward the animals until several ventured out to sample of the human bodies and their parts.

“Oh man, that’s super gross.” Mick said.

“Yeah.” Elias found he couldn’t not look. It was one thing to kill a man from inside a floater, another to cut him in half with your finger laser. It was both disgusting and shockingly satisfying at the same time. What was wrong with him? He noticed Mick was watching the dead too, his expression a weird mix of upset and dark pleasure. What was wrong with both of them? Was it a Soek thing he’d never heard of? He remembered Mael saying something once about Ba’Neesh liking battle that was up close and personal. This qualified. It shifted something inside of him and he was guessing the same for Mick.

Darkness came with more animals arriving to sample the booty. The unconscious Ba’Neesh were wakening, unhappy and disturbed. Elias told Mick they needed to find deeper cover because Tule Soc would be back, likely to nuke the meadow from a distance with some big artillery. They wouldn’t allow the Ba’Neesh to escape.

Mick learned the Ba’Neesh leader’s name was Aenor. She woke irritable and not at all as favorable to finding herself in a pile of Ba’Neesh with two Soek in the mix. Edda did the talking. Mick and Elias just got up and walked away with Mick yelling over his shoulder, “Come on. They will return.”

Some of their intent must have penetrated because all twenty-eight of the Ba’Neesh trailed after the two Soek, still arguing.

Mick pondered that the Ba’Neesh he had been around all seemed to like to argue. It must be a trait. He wondered where Iiyiko was, she had missed everything. He almost felt a sense of worry but it was more like uneasy.

“I’m wiped out.” He confessed to Elias as he stumbled on some root along the narrow, dim path.

“You?” Elias argued back, “I did that healing thing with Evgeny before all of this laser stuff. I could eat anything and want more. We have Vrill drop.” He stumbled too.

It was as if he summoned them, out of the darkness the five Akaitapi appeared, carrying strings of small dead animals dangling from their shoulders, dripping blood down the front of their massive chests.

“Come.” The leader Aapisowoohta said.

Mick was too tired to try to recall her name. He was staring at the dangling small animals. Raw. He couldn’t decide if he would throw up or chomp it down. Clearly it was food. Dinner.

The Akaitapi moved them far more quickly than any of the local Ba’Neesh or the two Soek wanted to go. Clearly, there was a destination and a reason to move fast.

Mick got to punctuating each step with a verbalized curse word. Elias emulated him and soon the local Ba’Neesh around them were all swearing in a colorful array of language.

“We’re going to regret this.” Elias whispered to Mick.

“Yeah.” Mick nodded, “They learn swear words really fast. You notice the Akaitapi are ignoring us. I think we are below them on the food chain. What do you think?”

“As long as they feed us that meat.” Elias answered. “I never thought raw could be a thing I might eat, but tonight, I could eat my own arm I’m so drained.”

Aapisowoohta snorted and then led the group into a small cave opening. The opening was barely large enough to crawl through but the cave itself was much larger and it smelled of creatures, a sort of musty, fecal, acidic odor. Mick could care less. He dropped down and said, “I may never move again.”

The local Ba’Neesh followed suit and surprised both Elias and Mick by laying close against both of them. Clearly, some threshold had been crossed.

The two Soek discovered that the Akaitapi liked roasted meat, if a little on the rare side and one of them told them there was water dripping from the wall further in. He didn’t see how they generated the fire. It just appeared in a pile of sticks they must have gathered earlier. No one moved to drink until long after the meat was warming the insides of bellies. Mick discovered fresh kill cooked over a campfire was about the best tasting food ever. Apparently the local Ba’Neesh agreed with much lip smacking and contented sounds. Life was good.

Neither Elias nor Mick asked about setting a watch. They were too done in to be of any good to anyone. A quick drink, a discreet pee in the depths of the cave and they returned to the Ba’Neesh pile, finding their fur warm and comfortable.

The Akaitapi shared glances and returned to the entrance to protect it with sigils. For the night, it would do. They had much to discuss with their observation of the chain laser. The destruction was intense. What could healthy, well prepared Ba’Neesh and Soek do?

(Well my friends, I was very tired when I started this chapter and I will tell you, I totally wiped nearly a thousand words until I found the right way in. Fatigue was dealt with by resting and eating. Do you like the result?)