The Wild Ba’Neesh Chapter Forty-Eight ©2019 Fay Thompson All Rights Reserved

The new swarm was smarter than the first one. Elias yelled over at Mick, “they are using techs, see how they aren’t running in the easy-to-guess patterns like that last group.”

Mick scowled. That’s all he needed, smarter bugs. Everyone was hurting and already tired.

“Linking?” Freya asked, confused.

“They’re losing.” Serla ran the numbers to calculate Mick’s group response to this second attack.

“Real technicians are manning the bugs, to be less predictable.” Karl said to Freya in German.

She grunted.

“Do you think Mick doesn’t know, that he’s in denial?” Brad asked, “They will be overrun if this keeps up, they just can’t laser them individually, fast enough. Mick was right, he needs something wider.” It felt grossly unfair to Brad that Mick and the others might lose, might die a horrible death, because the Directorate didn’t have weapons good enough for them to defend themselves. “Can’t we do anything for them?” He asked.

Oddly, it was Xasper who answered. “Elias?” He waved to silence the increasingly loud voices filling the command center of the aircraft.

“That you Xasper?” Elias wasn’t exactly chummy with Xasper Detto, the Master Caster.

“During Mick’s rescue of you, I threw a cluster of juice balls threw that eyeball sigil he made. Something Moira has been working on, having me try it out.” Xasper said.

“Balls? Like how many balls?” Elias paused in his shooting to look up, wishing he could see Xasper, not just hear him. Every kid in Citadel made a juicer spitball at least once. They worked on a lesser valuable trait of Vrill to be contained inside the surface tension of spit smeared on the hand. They could be rolled into temporary spit balls that would hold together for mere moments until the spit dried out from the radiant heat of the Vrill and popped with a release of energy. Often these balls backfired on the boys trying to prank someone with them and many a boy had gone to see the medic with palm blisters from a Vrill spitball explosion. It was a three demerit offense.

“You have glycerol?” Moira’s voice interrupted.

“Like in hand cream?” Elias asked. “We have some burn cream in the med kits, I think.” He couldn’t remember how much.

“Glycerol operates like spit, only it lasts a lot longer.” Moira said.

Mick was already scrambling in his med pak to find a half used tube of burn cream and an unopened skin protector tube. He handed both to Elias and went back to shooting.

Elias’ left hand was burned and blistered. “I can’t roll them.” He said. “Mick, you are going to have to roll them and hand them to Aenor.”

“Fill her hand.” Xasper’s voice returned. “Vrill attracts Vrill, the law of attraction in energy.”

“That ball of Vrill marbles you used in the corridors?” Mick was getting excited as his memory of the effectiveness of that weapon increased.

“Yes.”

Aenor came to stand next to Mick, to watch him squirt goo into his hand, rub his hands together and nothing. She scowled. “Give me that.” She used another glob and then spat on her hand and rolled and out came a bright little ball of sparkly intensity.” Mick opened his hands to receive the ball. She rolled another and another, to his mind it seemed to take forever before he had seven and decided he needed to test it.

He turned, stood fully and threw the glowing larger ball at the center of a cluster within the swarm. When the ball hit the ground it didn’t explode, it shattered into the smaller balls which raced in all directions. Three of them hit dodging bugs and exploded. It was satisfying. But, his mental math told him the balls took too long compared to the speed of attack.

Moira yelled out in Neesh, a staccato burst of communication, clearly intended for the Ba’Neesh alone.

“The three with the Beloved throw these from the trees for maximum dispersal.” Xasper translated roughly knowing what Moira intended to say from earlier discussion with her.

Aenor was already yelling out the same Neesh message.

The next hour was the worst with bugs running right up to the Soek who were kicking and screaming while continuing to laser them. By the time the approaching bugs slowed, everyone was in rough shape. They heard cheering from the trees as clearly the Ba’Neesh perfected the spit ball grenades.

Karl lifted his now-shabby boot intending to smash a bot that was damaged enough not to be able to crawl, but still jabbing toward anyone getting close.

“I want that.” Freya demanded, stopping him.

Karl pulled back and figured out how to pick up the hated thing without cutting up his hand. He offered it upward.

“Linked. You sure?” She asked Karl.

“Ja.” He said.

“Cowards.” Freya said. She shook the device and then yelled at it loud. “You think you safe in there, playing with your game stick? I Ba’Neesh. You coward. I kill cowards.”

She dropped back, the sign to Karl she wanted a refuel and he swung around so she could reach Mick’s backpack. She was holding the bug away from her and Elias yelled for Mick to bend his neck forward to be well out of range of it’s flexing talons.

Freya jammed her horn mounts against the pack and said, “If Neeshatari can run dirty electrical signal, Ba’Neesh can too. Die you bastard.”

Mick was knocked forward onto a pile of dead bugs and a few still moving. The bug in Freya’s hand glowed blue briefly and then arced for a moment visually upward.

A technician in an underground bunker heard the Ba’Neesh and saw brief glimpses of the targets and then his hand where it connected to the computing system got hot as electricity raced up his arm to stop his heart. He didn’t even have time to scream.

Other technicians in the room scrambled away from the consoles and the bugs still attacking slowed and looked around in confusion. Aenor and Gisela jumped forward to cut the legs off of two more, grabbing them and running back to jack in to the now curled up Mick, his face pressed hard to his upper thighs as his back felt like it was a rod of pulsing Vrill. One after the other the Ba’Neesh jacked in and the bugs radiated upward. The computing room resounded with explosions as the Vrill chased through the connected equipment and systems to run right into the walls and kill the wiring all the way to the facility junction box.

Aenor, Gisela and Freya cheered, to be echoed aboard the ships.

“An Iiyiko move.” Serla observed, still shocked by what Brad’s system was measuring in terms of Vrill spikes and the location where those spikes had flared up. A town location. Distance hits. More weapons. How to run Vrill backward through existing electrical systems.

Clean up took another few hours but they were thorough, slagging every single bug whether it looked dead or not. Karl was adamant, he said the bugs had programming to pretend dead. He really wanted that Vrill hammer and to better understand why every time Freya killed something his neck got hot and sloppy wet. He had thought she was bleeding but his mind kept suggesting other possibilities, impossible possibilities.

“Mick.” Karl came to stand next to the kid.

“Yeah?” Mick was staggering with fatigue. Those last three jackings had slammed him.

“I want a Vrill hammer.” Karl said. “I like to smash things.”

The Soek mules, mostly wiped out and in shock from a day they couldn’t have imagined, stared over at Karl.

Elias and Mick both faced Karl head on. “A Vrill hammer, Karl?” They said in unison, “You mean like a Thor hammer?” It was instantly funny. Karl as Thor, with Freya riding him.

Far away Neo snickered, a feeling shared by Brad and Serla as well.

“Ja.” Karl nodded. “I will call it bug smasher or head smasher. Do you think this Xasper person can make it boomerang and come back when I throw it? I could throw it at bad guys and blow shit up.”

Mick laughed. “You watched those old Thor vids didn’t you, Karl?” There was nothing else to do. He looked up at the circling drones. “You hear that Thorne? A bad-ass Karl hammer that conducts Vrill and can boomerang back to Karl. Got that?”

Brad wiped his eyes. “I want one too.” He said, after thinking about it for ten seconds.

“A smaller one for me,” Freya piped in to say, with spikes on the sides to kill stuff bloody.

“The nexus points in the fingertips and palm could link into the grip of a hammer-type device, run Vrill into it.” Brad said. “It’s the boomerang part that might be more difficult. A hammer isn’t exactly aerodynamic for throwing.”

Serla exchanged a look with Brad. “Mechanical problems, can be solved.” He grinned too. The kid and the Ba’Neesh were still alive. Then he sobered, the kid and Elias were right, Tule Soc knew they were being exposed, the most dangerous time.

With the second swarm dealt with the core group of mostly Soek arrived at the edge of the woods. They could see the town across the half-mile fire break, a classic exposed kill zone.

Elias dropped down to sit against a tree trunk. “You can’t mean to have us cross that, Mick.” He said as the laughter faded.

Karl helped Freya down and she stumbled. He continued to help her sit next to her friend Steffi, who remained unconscious and to Karl’s eyes, she didn’t look good at all. “We need help here, Mick.” Karl said, fidgeting. His finger hurt. He had acid holes burned in his boots, slices through his pants into his calves and several bite marks all the way up his body like railroad tracks. His entire focus remained on Freya mostly, tangentially on Steffi because Freya was rocking and mumbling something he couldn’t understand to Steffi. “Mick?”

Mick didn’t want to get back up, he’d only just sat. He crawled over on his knees to sit next to Freya. Steffi was in a bad way.

“Did you call for Helewidis?” He asked Freya aloud.

“Yes.” Freya said. “She comes, very tired already. Everyone has some wounding, Mick.”

“Let’s clean Steffi’s wounds and see how bad she really is.” Mick said, shrugging off the weight of his backpack. Gisela arrived with her pack and together they sorted out their depleted med supplies.

“Small flowing water, not far.” Gisela said. “We should move to there. Everyone is thirsty.”

Mick sighed. “Good idea, damn tired myself. But, water sounds fabulous. Come on Elias.” He pulled the pack back on, Karl lifted Freya and then helped Hans lift Steffi. The woods were getting thick with evening shadows which seemed to add to the adrenaline drop.

They could see the town, no doubt full of food while they starved. Mick told his brain to shut it, as Elias said, that fire zone was a death trap. No doubt the entire perimeter of the town was sheltering Tule Soc operatives and now there was less assurance they wouldn’t be using actual guns, illegal or not. Just making it to the perimeter crossed that vital threshold suggesting Mick could win, a potential he knew the enemy couldn’t allow. Mick hadn’t won yet but reaching this point alive was enough to make the enemy desperate. He had no idea how they were going to cross it, but they must.

They heard the small stream before they saw it and it did lighten the mood again somewhat. This time the Soek mules headed straight toward it and began cleaning their own wounds. Everyone’s lower legs were torn up and some had acid burns like Karl.

Karl set Freya right next to Steffi and he and Mick returned to going through the packs. He noted that the other Ba’Neesh had left. He tried to grasp why Mick showed no fear of being in the hands of his enemies with only Elias and two injured Ba’Neesh on his side, and the watching drones, there were now two. He couldn’t quite grasp his own emotional state. The compulsion that had ridden him was a tattered rag in his mind. He glanced at Freya, able to see her more clearly than when he carried her. She was so strange looking with her narrowed face and animal like ears and horns. He tried not to look at her breasts and then got fixated on thinking about them. He’d never been much interested in females; his entire adult life had centered on operative advancement. Sure, he had experimented but found it anti-climactic at best. He’d questioned his sexuality more than once when he didn’t share his friend’s obsessions with partnering up.

Mick cleaned Steffi with as much focused care as he could. Elias was already sleeping in a somewhat uncomfortable position slouched against a tree, covered in wounds. He glanced over at the group of Soek keeping themselves apart. “Think they will try to take me out, Karl?” Mick asked, making no attempt to hide his question from any of them.

Karl squirmed a bit, he could hear the Soek arguing this exact idea, in German. Part of him knew he should be joining them and overcoming the enemy. Enemy? He looked at Freya. Tule Soc had done this to her with the intent to kill her. He couldn’t reconcile his altering feelings.

“You are the target and enemy to some.” Karl said pragmatically.

“You think so?” Mick used some of his refilled water bottle to rinse the filth out of Steffi’s worst torso wound. The fucking rat things had ripped her chest open nearly a foot in length to a lot of blood loss, no wonder her face was pale and drained looking.

“I did.” Karl answered. “Decided those trying to kill me were my enemy. You haven’t tried to kill me directly yet, Mick. Indirectly though, that last battle nearly killed all of us.”

“We got lucky.” Mick said, nodding. “I don’t have an Order background that knows secrets about Vrill use. I crammed on Elias’ class materials but only got into fifth year studies and then Tule Soc brain wiped me. When Master Jeffrey put my brain back together, well, it’s a fucking mess in my head related to what I know or not.”

“Your brain works damn well, Mick. At least for this shit.” Karl gestured around. At that moment he saw Ba’Neesh emerging from the woods. It was like not being sure he was seeing what he was seeing, they were that fluid in the environment. He felt jealous. He called out, “Helewidis? Freya needs help.”

The group of Soek hesitated, hands resting on unused stunners. Clearly they understood their laser fingers only worked with the help of the Ba’Neesh. They could maybe kill one or two and then all of them would die. They were certain of this. What Karl said, what is killing me is my enemy, that made sense. Tule Soc had sent bienenstock. All of them should be dead, twice over dead if this Mick kid and that toxic agent were true. Expendables. As a group they walked back over to stand uneasily outside of the knot around the two badly injured Ba’Neesh.

They watched one of the Ba’Neesh, called Helewidis, jack in to Mick’s pack and then horn the one on the ground. The dying one. Mick was again in that curled forward position, his spine molten. He focused on not passing out.

Jeffrey, aboard the aircraft, pointed. “Something is happening to Mick.” He said aloud, concern heavy in his tone. “Hadn’t healed from the brain wipe. What is direct and continuing contact with this Beloved Channel doing to him?”

(Fatigue catches at me tonight, but, I am well pleased with this chapter. I particularly enjoyed Thor’s hammer. Do you think Thorne will make them?” I might know the answer to that.)