The Wild Ba’Neesh Chapter Fifty-Two ©2019 Fay Thompson All Rights Reserved

Arjan knew the exact moment he had lost, even though his well-trained operatives were still holding their positions and defending the path into the facility. That moment came when the kid’s deployed force field turned away from the facility, Arjan’s planned engagement, toward the town center, toward the impossible assembly of Soek dressed in their Reserves gear. An Army. Then, the same force field that destroyed everything Tule Soc it encountered, absorbed the Soek and grew larger, as if the force field was eating, becoming.

Arjan now realized his forces were fighting with DireSec, not the kid, not the detestable child somewhere inside that force field. His hatred had grown all consuming toward the kid that was inch-by-inch destroying his life. He knew he had no career, no future. Despicable acts would be laid upon him by nationals. His guarded secrets were exposed, because of monsters.

What infuriated him the most was what the force field’s change of direction exposed. This same kid was indifferent to Arjan, his forces, his plans, his entirety. Indifferent. By turning aside, the kid demonstrated Arjan and his forces were conquered while the outcome remained yet undetermined. How was that possible?

“Dieter.” Arjan yelled for his second who was busy with the fight and came reluctantly into the small private office of his boss. He had an end play to execute.

“Sir?”

“I need an isolated communication line, fully shielded. Now.” Arjan said.

Dieter spun to return to his desk, to the many conversations already taking place. Important team leaders requiring directives. What the hell was wrong with Arjan? He coded in the necessary encryption to isolate one of the precious communication lines, adding to that feed full defensive shields.

“Ready, Sir.” He said through his wrist external.

Dieter deflected the still holding offensive conversations to watch his system feeds as Arjan entered several series of codes, none Dieter had seen before. Then Arjan activated the signal direction, a familiar code for the Fels Facility, the Lab. What was Arjan telling the lab systems to do?

The instant the signal activated the power flickered inside the bunker and died, turning everything red under the emergency generators. Then those died. What was Arjan doing? Dieter keyed his shoulder lights on and hurried into Arjan’s office.

“You’ve blown electricity, Sir?” Dieter couldn’t see this as any type of serious advantage.

“No, you ass.” Arjan spun around on Dieter, snarling. “They blew the electrics when I attempted to send the signal. Get the backups running. Fast.”

Dieter retreated, frowning. Arjan was saying that the opposition was keyed to a private Tule Soc communication line specifically to blow the electricity. Why? First the monsters walking inside a force field, clearly intelligent monsters, not the insane animals Arjan said. Now, Arjan wanting to attack the lab. It was a circus of lies and Dieter was responsible for the men out there dying for Arjan’s lies. He was horrified. What was going on here, really?

Arjan paced, waiting for power to return. It took several minutes before he realized every flicker of returning power that was followed by darkness was a backup being blown. DireSec was clearly chasing and blowing all power in the town and area. His mind turned back to that first incident, the inciting incident that had begun this nightmare, a city losing its power. The kid. It all came back to that kid. Arjan had believed the kid dead, that blue hand weapon well destroyed. Denial. He now knew the truth of it. The kid had just destroyed the facility power, anticipated his attempt to gas everyone in the building.

What now? He wouldn’t remain cowering inside a bunker. He turned and nearly ran past Dieter, then through the security door. He knew the external doors were electrically powered, no fire escape doors. Better security over human safety. He swore bitterly already knowing when he reached those doors that he was inside his own prison, unable to escape. How long before the breathable air ran out? He realized, it was the same count now facing the drugged monsters in the bottom level of the labs. He would die with them. They too were in sealed, contained spaces.

He turned and walked back to his office, past Dieter giving him unhappy looks. His second didn’t know both of them were dying. Arjan closed his office door behind him and suffered the continuing stream of external holos showing him the now stationary force field and his forces battering against it, with no progress. He knew the rear of the thing was more vulnerable but DireSec was in full defensive mode there, along with the distinctive uniforms of nationals. Sides, national had finally taken sides and it wasn’t favoring Arjan.

Better weapons. Better defense. Better strategy. He counted off the errors in his thinking, in his choices. He wanted to talk to Eric, to ask him how this had happened. But, Eric too had been a lie. How had a Soek reached top levels in Tule Soc? He turned to his system to run those inquiries, knowing he was using precious system batteries but he needed answers, none of this made sense. At least he could die knowing answers. That became his last hope.

The Turtle’s size grew large enough to encroach on the Tule Soc positions, driving operatives backwards as their larger weapons were tossed into the air, to crash among residences and businesses of the citizenry who were already pressing away from the conflict on every avenue heading outward into the fire zones.

Mick wobbled back to his feet and tried to straighten upright, but his back wouldn’t let him, Edda wouldn’t let him. His brain was a bit Vrill drunk from Helewidis’ thunking gift so he decided he could walk crooked until Edda let up. It was all her fault. His thinking muddled out a pointed mental finger in her direction, only to hear a heated, profane, retort back. Then, realizing Edda was listening, he mentally lowered his finger. He frowned and then regretted that too, his face was hot and tight and his skin felt thicker, like it was harder to make facial expressions because of thicker skin. That made no sense at all.

Mick pushed his way past Karl to what was the front of the Turtle. He was facing a string of big weapons, all firing point blank at him. He looked past the machinery to the men running the weapons. He shook his head. Then Mick made a hand gesture, waving them to the side. It was a clear warning. Most of the operatives had had enough of facing an impervious force field only to have bits of their own weapons showering back on them. All of them were injured. One called it bomb rain. They collectively decided to run for it.

Mick forced the eager Turtle to wait until Mick could no longer see the backs of those running away. He wasn’t here to kill men, he realized, he was here to rescue the youngers. He waved his right claw forefinger forward. “Now.” He said, his voice high and chirpy, totally wrong. He coughed and tried again and managed a lower hoot sound. His English was barely understandable. Great. He hoped that was only when he yelled, not regular talking.

He stepped forward and the Turtle moved with him, at his pace. Elias came up on one side, Karl carrying Freya on the other.

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“My feet hurt, Elias.” Mick said, happier that his regular voice still sounded okay. “Gotta remove these boots. My toes are being crushed.”

Mick paused and the forward movement of the Turtle ceased. It gave Karl a spectacular moonlit view of ground vehicles with mounted mortars popping like pop corn under the forward pressure of the Turtle. He hoped no innocent lives were lost when the flying vehicles eventually crashed. Now all of the Tule Soc operatives in front of them were abandoning their posts. He couldn’t fault them. Lost cause. He’d wanted more personal action but he decided he could settle for survival and these absolutely freak show fireworks.

Mick squatted and pressed the seals on his boots to instant relief. He pushed the boots off and then saw the bizarre shape of his socks. “Oh shit, Elias. I’m afraid to look at them.” He said.

Elias stared. The socks described a shape that wasn’t a human foot. He sucked a breath. He owed the kid for his life a few times, what was sock removal compared to that? He reached over and tugged off the nearest sock in one hard pull. Then he gasped. “Oh, Mick.”

Mick’s taloned foot uncurled exposing long clawed toes with dark pointed nails. One of his toes had migrated around to almost the back of his foot. Elias thought, no wonder Mick’s feet hurt. He reached down and freed the second foot. Did he call that a foot anymore, it was clearly more like a four-fingered taloned-claw with thick, hardened skin that almost looked plated. He poked at it. “It’s hard.” He said.

“I didn’t feel that.” Mick said, flexing his new freed toes. They felt much better outside the boots. Looked creepy as fuck, but felt better. He handed Elias his former boots. “Will these fit you or Otto? I won’t be needing them anymore.” He pushed himself upright and found his balance much improved although the arch of his foot didn’t touch the ground. It was sort of like walking on pads. His talons clicked on the faux-cobbled surface. Noisy. Like Ba’Neesh hoof noisy. He frowned. What would padding look like for long, dark, pointy nails?

Aenor stared at him just like she had stared at his feet. Her expression remained guarded, uncertain.

“I’m still me.” Mick said, a bit sarcastically and then he resented the click-whistle on the end of his words that stole his intended effect.

“Clearly you are not still you.” Aenor answered. “But, Mick enough. We go now to get the youngers, fuck Mick?”

“Yeah, I can walk better now.” Mick said, tightly controlling his tongue when it wanted to slap the top of his mouth at the end. There was a hole in the roof of his mouth. He frowned. That must be where the whistle sounds were coming from. He pressed his tongue to his teeth to find they were all still there, still felt human, like himself.

He walked forward now worrying about that feeling human part. Something was wrong with his back. He was afraid to tell Elias that his backpack felt stuck. Usually he could feel it moving as he walked. It was still moving but not like a backpack. He didn’t want to know. He’d seen his creepy feet, what the fuck was happening to his back? Almost as if the thought caused something, his backpack made a huge popping sound, exactly like an explosion.

“Mick?” Big Bad Karl, Elias and Aenor all asked in unison.

“Yeah. Something is happening.” Mick answered. “Edda exploded, I think. I’m afraid to look just now.”

The Battle Group had reached the half-dozen wide steps leading to the two sets of double doors of the main entrance to the Tule Soc Research Lab Facility. These steps were like the architecture, blunt, straight edged and rather plain. On either side of the stairs were eighteen-inch wide low walls clearly designed for people to sit on them. Except they were sharp cornered and looked uncomfortable. The bottom of the stairs had forty-eight inch square ends topped with granite platforms, again at sitting height. Mick thought they were designed for statues or something but none were ever installed. Just big flat granite squares with too sharp edges, now covered in bird shit splats.

“I think I’m going to rest here, Elias.” Mick said, pointing to the top of the platform. “Aenor, you can manage the door cutting and Karl and the Army can kick them in, right? Power is off in there I’m pretty sure. When the streetlamps went down Serla and his team must have blown it like I hoped. You guys need to move fast to rescue the youngers. Trapped. Karl, I need you and Freya to get the solar blanket up on top of this building, protect everyone. Elias, take Otto’s external and find Mael. Not sure where or whose drone is DireSec. He needs to bring the wind, I think, fill this damn building with oxygen-rich air. I think I need to sit here. That okay?” Mick looked around at his core team. Each of them nodded.

Aenor said, “We need Ba’Neesh on edges of Turtle. I call more.”

Karl nodded and said, “I’m assigning the original eight mules for private guards around you, Mick.”

Mick climbed up on the platform and Elias joined him, already playing with Otto’s external. Otto was one of the original eight and four of them were already circling Mick, their expressions protective, the other four were manning the blanket. The enemy, as Karl was wont to say, was anyone pointing weapons at them and they knew what the Ba’Neesh would say, ‘assist Mick’. Simple orders.

“I need the dead Ba’Neesh.” Mick continued and then pointed to the stairs immediately in front of him. “Any dead Ba’Neesh need to be here. Must see what I have done. Assign teams to bring the Soek dead to this lawn area here.” He pointed to the left of the platform. “Take the Tule Soc dead to the hole in the Turtle and arrange to leave them in a proper area there.”

“You sure you want the dead here, Mick?” Elias asked. It was a difficult request.

“Yes.” Mick nodded. “My psychiatrist used to tell me I needed to face the consequences of my actions, not hide from them. I think I must see them, know them. They are me, mine, forever mine.” He answered. “My dead.”

Elias shook his head but climbed up next to him. He noticed Mick sat funny, knees up, talons flat and sort of hunched forward. He dangled his own legs over the too-sharp edge of the granite. They were surrounded in people moving, a mass of green. People with determined yet confused expressions.

The four Soek carrying the dead halves of the Citadel Ba’Neesh arrived, to find seats. None chose to remove their burdens. Instead they sat quietly on the steps in front of Mick and Elias.

Elias told Otto that Mick needed food and green-clad Soek started to approach to hand over food, some Reserves pack ready-to-eat crud and some with real food from their homes.

“Got Jordy.” Elias said, pleased to have access to tech again. A drone had found them and was hovering overhead above the indistinct top edge of the turtle.

Soek started bringing dead Soek to lay out on the grass.

“Jordy has Mael. He is coming. Brad is here too, Karl got to him and they are going up and over the top of the building.” Elias pointed toward the area where a mass of Soek were using Reserves gear to form ladders to raise the shock blanket.

“Brad has Perisee and Lemista ordering Soek to give the blanket holders a break. Created another team.” Elias settled back into reporting, only regretting that this external was not Vrill based and it wasn’t a top model, still, it was something.

“The youngers?” Mick asked, eating a sandwich slowly, finding his mouth felt slightly smaller.

“Aenor found Serla, Aristeen and Norris.” Elias answered. “Serla says Iiyiko is with them and can ramp in on all the juice needed to cut the doors. He says thanks for the Army of Soek to help, making good progress.

Mick looked up, through the sea of moving green Soek to see the Soek who was Mael Strom striding along with a host of heavily antlered Ba’Neesh surrounding him. The Soek Army parted before this host.

“Mael.” He said, some pleasure in his voice. “He will understand what’s happening to me.”

Elias felt a stab of jealousy at this comment and then he chastised himself. He was… He was… Elias blinked. Was he just a Mick bodyguard? Or what? Did he need a title, a position? He shoved the uncomfortable feelings aside. It had to be enough that Mick was his friend and they were doing whatever this was, together. So the kid liked Mael? He liked Mael too. Mick belonged to all of them. That was the thing.

Mael arrived and stared at Mick in the moonlight. The changes were striking, new head shape, taloned feet and what was going on with his body, tightly hidden by the boy wrapping arms around his knees as if trying to hold his body together?

“Mick? You summoned.” His tone only held an edge of sharpness.

“I did.” Mick said, nodding. He heard the edge. Yeah, a kid ordering older people about. He could see the annoyance of that. “First, can you blow more oxygen into that building and then, later, if you have a moment, I have a problem.” Mick said, “A personal problem.”

Mael regrouped, as he seemed to always do around this kid. He softened. “We got nationals to bring in mobile air circulation units once we understood what Serla was going to do. We’re ready. Serla was bored and guessed like you did at the problem. I have time to sit with you and Elias, would that be okay? Anya needs to talk to you about the dead, so I’ve been told.”

(The battle that collapses. Tricky. Why did Mick really need an army? Secrets. J I am such a terrible tease sometimes.)