The Wild Ba’Neesh Chapter Fifteen ©2019 Fay Thompson All Rights Reserved

The military operations room was situated six floors underground, several miles from the city. It had state of the art military-grade technology currently tracking six Directorate floaters, at a safe distance. Eric and Arjan stood to one side of the room, they were not in this nation/state’s direct line of command so technically they had no power. Their idents clearly positioned them as military guests. It felt awkward.

Two local Reserve Teams had responded to smoke from the first two transporter crashes earlier the day before. They brought responder crews in to suppress any natural fires only to find debris scattered over several miles of land and hundreds of dead bodies from the second battle. It was too late for the military to hide the disaster. Coupled, as it was, to the ongoing electrical crisis in the nearby large city, it quickly became clear that this nation/state was a target of several acts of terrorism. Only now, the military could establish that the Directorate was involved. They had footage to prove that the devastating attack on their clearly marked transport ships had included some kind of blue-light linkage among a group of six Directorate ships.

Publicity fanned the flames of outrage. The nation/state appealed to the International Board of Grievances and was awarded approval to follow the attacking floaters into International airspace to force the floaters down or eliminate them as a threat to other nations.

Eric and Arjan remained quiet. Tule Soc’s Ministry of Defense was of the opinion that they should ride on the coat-tails of this much larger force. Let the nation/state do the heavy lifting. Tule Soc merely wanted to assist and to be certain of the destruction of as many Directorate and Order people as they could manage.

The Directorate was insisting via holo communications that they were not attacking or terrorizing the nation/state, they were retrieving a stolen floater and leaving the nation/state as quickly as possible. They refused to return, citing the virulent language broadcasting from the nation/state toward them. They could not explain the weapon that had destroyed six fully loaded national transporters beyond pointing out that they had witnessed one transporter being hit by what looked like lightening and that ship had hit other ships due to piloting errors. It was a war of words being fought on the sidelines while the world’s gaze followed the six floaters heading away from any nation/state airspace.

Covert departments in most nation/states understood there was a second hominid human-like species living in small pockets around the globe. The exact locations remained closely guarded secrets. The identities of individuals who might be members of this hominid group were protected by discrimination laws even though most nations were attempting to identify suspect persons within their populations. The world public had only glimpsed a few of these creatures in poor quality drone footage thirty-years earlier. Footage that had since been removed from public data storage worldwide.

Tule Soc never admitted to having a colony of non-humans in their control and the Directorate argued these non-humans presented no threat to humanity if they were simply left alone. Several world governments went to great efforts to assist in the hiding of the non-humans in order to gain access to their unique gifts and technologies. The nation/state at the heart of this current event was not on the inside of this information sharing.

Eric caught the attention of their personal diplomatic attache. “Would it be possible to use a small room to review the forensic data from early in the investigation? We seem to be at loose ends here and we would like to be of greater value in predicting what these terrorists might choose to do next.”

Arjan gave him a look but said nothing. Personally, he was content to watch the military exercise in removing the threat from the heart of Ops. But, Eric was his boss. Clearly Tule Soc had underestimated the situation twice reflecting badly on both of their records. Perhaps Eric had insight into some detail they had missed or a way to repair their in-house reputations.

“This way, Sir.” The attache was more than happy to move these interlopers away from the center of activity. While an alliance existed the military must be polite and helpful, but none of the military commanders felt that this Tule Soc group was innocent in the deaths of so many military men even though they had also lost forty operatives. The question remained, why had Tule Soc brought so many unauthorized operatives into the nation/state without proper notification to chase a local terrorist that appeared to have no direct connection to the group?

That question remained firmly at the top of the new alliance as Tule Soc was primarily known for their pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing and its military applications. Their interest in this event remained unclear. Formally, Eric had told the nation/state that they had responded to the offensive activation of the Directorate. Tule Soc recognized the Directorate as associated with other International terrorist events in the past, as well as having made sympathetic statements about the non-human hominids.

Unfortunately, Tule Soc had arrived somewhat before the Directorate, making this assertion hard to support.

Eric and Arjan were left alone in a room with several computing systems. These systems were open, not requiring entry codes.

Eric gestured, indicating their conversation would be monitored. Arjan nodded.

“It occurred to me that we have time to review the initial event again, now coupled to substantial forensic analysis. The military is chasing the terrorists, let’s see what is known about the young man at the center of everything, this Mick Huxley. Where exactly did he come from?”

Arjan nodded. Their own investigation had identified that Mick was both Soek and adopted, a well-known coupling. Where he had come from was far less straightforward.

Eric started with the event in the boy’s bedroom. The hole. Even after two days the military analysis of that hole remained blank. What their experts could say with some certainty was that a blue energy stream had exited the hole and damaged the carpet. They had also identified the energy to have strong Vrill components.

Both Eric and Arjan leaned in to play that again. Strong components, what did that mean? Further exploration of the data revealed that there was more human bioenergetics in the mixture than straight Vrill. That shouldn’t be possible.

“Is that why we keep picking up only traces of Vrill?” Arjan lost his irritation toward Eric.

“Probably. We never did get a read on a lot of Vrill energy anywhere near here, not until that blue hand appeared. It was clearly Vrill. But, we didn’t test its structure.”

Eric had that info on his external and they could clearly see that the energy that had crushed their transporters was not wholly Vrill either.

“What are we dealing with then?” Arjan asked.

“A mixture?” Eric mused aloud. “We can guess the boy has some mixture. We have to consider the possibility he is acting alone. Yes, we see a hole in the footage behind him. We see an arc of energy. We hear him talking, but he was talking to his game too.”

“You are suggesting a lurking ability, manifesting post puberty?” Arjan’s eyes widened.

“We have to consider that a possibility. We have seen nothing else. We have seen only effects. It was easy to think he had some kind of help, but, we don’t really know that. He is documented to having a psychiatrist.” Both of them opened and read that sealed file. “Antisocial behavior, gaming addiction, propensity toward lying to authority.”

“Let’s look at the family history.” Arjan moved to the next seat so they had all four systems running, two Tole Soc and two military. “This seems to center on electronics. What is the family history around electronic purchases?”

In retrospect it seemed too obvious. A quick review of the parent’s financials revealed frequent electronic upgrades and replacements, in particular, gaming systems. It quickly became clear that electronics didn’t fare well in the Huxley household. Everything from smart toothbrushes to muni-transport passes were in constant failure, for at least the last three years. Prior to that the family’s use of electronics seemed fairly standard.

“Puberty.” Eric said.

Four offices away the military analysts were scrambling to switch focus toward a detail they had missed. Electronic damage within the home. When they looked they found eleven calls for service to the residential unit’s power system over the past three years. The problems had escalated. Two new box replacements, even small devices were discovered damaged or no longer working.

“Pull the electronic devices out of evidence.” Commander Harris ordered.

Eric had already moved on, unaware of the scramble his conversation with Arjan was causing.

“We’re going at this the wrong way.” Eric continued. “If he is the singular enemy, why not isolate and take him out?”

Arjan shook his head, he wanted to blow the Ba’Neesh to the eleventh level of hell. He’d seen them in that graveyard. “I don’t see how.” He answered grimly, DireSec has him in their custody now.

“True, and the military is taking corrective action, against the Directorate. That International Appeal allows them to use heavy weaponry once in International airspace. That’s their strategy, their decision. I’m only interested in removing the boy and that weapon he wielded against my team. Let’s call it a personal strategical strike.”

Commander Harris was listening intently. He could tell these Tule Soc operatives had an idea.

“Molcom?” Arjan said. “You know we isolated the boys by its coding and found it was off. We can’t access those codes. No way this government will give them to us either.”

Commander Harris yelled for the override codes on civilian molcom units, specific to the boy Mick Huxley.

“What is off can be turned back on.” Eric said.

“I want that damn molcom activated and then wiped. Take out that weapon’s brain.” Harris yelled again as the Ops team scrambled.

“And deleted.” Arjan added. He supposed there was some satisfaction in so simple an ending. Wipe the kid first, then let the military blow the crap out of DireSec. Surely those two Ba’Neesh were aboard one of those ships. There would be satisfaction in that.

“Those floaters must have energy accelerators on board. That would explain what caused the arc linking one to another.” Eric commented. Rumor within security circles suggested the existence of such devices. So far, no one had captured one to prove it. He wanted one but couldn’t see how they could recover one unless the wreckage of the six ships was over shallow waters. Could he talk the military into planning their attack over such an area of the ocean? They were listening. “If those floaters went down in shallow water it would be possible to salvage their onboard systems and prove this terrorism.” He said.

Harris nodded at his Corporal and told him to revise the strategy for salvage. They would prove they had fully defended their nation/state from terrorists and get a valuable technical device in the mix. Something to compensate for the loss of life.

“How does that explain the first event?” Arjan was re-running the initial electronic attack again. The boy didn’t have an accelerator.

“He was playing a game, right. Full wall screen, holographic response avatars, complete immersive experience. Do you think he got really excited? He did call out for help trying to beat that game’s monster. That’s what was happening at the exact moment of the event. If he does have a latent ability that involves directing energy, he may have pushed in some unknown way and forced energy backwards through the residence, the neighborhood, the local towers and up. To him it may have felt like pressing one of those holographic or virtual control panels. He likely didn’t believe he was responsible. He was just playing a game.”

“But, then he ran.” Arjan said. “He had some awareness because he took stuff, clothing, food, water and other smalls.”

“Yes.” Eric nodded.

“So, how did he immobilize us?” Arjan argued.

“If you flow an electrical current through the body it forms a circuit that can lock the body into a type of frozen position. If electricity is his talent, this effect may be known to him. I didn’t feel damaging current but I certainly felt changes in my body.”

“It fits.” Arjan said.

The military was nodding too. Logic. A single enemy with a formerly unknown ability to move energy. “Do we have that override coding yet?” Harris bellowed. He wanted this over, even better, he wanted to be the person who brought down the threat. No one attacked his nation, not on his watch.

“Medical is working on it, Sir. We are being told it will be another fifteen minutes or so. Also, we will need to be within five miles of the device to activate the brain wipe. The on and off can be done from satellite, but the wipe coding is intentionally restricted to close proximity.”

“Identify our fastest aircraft currently chasing the terrorists. Notify them we will be putting them within range of the blue weapon for a few moments, long enough to transmit a data burst. They should prepare back-up maneuvers for a hasty escape and program those in on auto. Give us a count-down.”

DireSec noted changes in the formation of the fleet chasing them. An attack was imminent. Clearly the nationals had International approval for attack. Arguments being made at the highest level had so far not resulted in an end to the threat. DireSec had its own military allies in flight heading toward them but they were still more than thirty minutes away. With Mael, Xasper and Thorne all too tired to cast again, alternatives were being floated.

Mick wanted to know what Vrill-based weapons were available. Thorne was finding Mick nearly as irritating as Rojer who seemed to have rapidly adapted to being number three on his own ship. “We don’t design those types of in-flight weapons systems.” Thorne explained, again.

“Damn stupid. We are in flight. What the hell are we supposed to do, spit at them?” Mick argued back.

Truthfully, a number of DireSec operatives were agreeing with Mick, they didn’t like feeling helpless with a massive swarm of enemy airships on their tail.

Mick turned on Rojer, “What are you good at? I know Elias is all posh and shit with analysis. I doubt we can analyze the crap out of them while they’re firing rockets up our butts. Brad was saying once over International waters they can fire live ammo at us like old-school bombs and bullets.”

Rojer nodded. “International Alliance is giving them a free pass, sounds like.” He was getting fired up. He could feel his mind straining toward protecting his father from bombs up his butt.

“Well, what fantastic talent do you have? I’ve seen Mael with the Wind and all of that casting stuff which seems clunky as hell to me. What’s your voodoo?”

Rojer didn’t like Mick’s disparaging tone. “I’m good at Speech.” He said. It was his only saving grace at Citadel, it was what had saved him from voc. His voice.

“You mean your pretty-boy voice or that compelling Speech thing? I haven’t processed that class in my head yet.”

“True Speech.” Rojer announced formally. He was actually pretty proud of his voice.

“So, you can compel them?” Mick paused. “How do you reach them? They are like miles away.”

“I can’t. Only if they can hear me.” Rojer shook his head.

“Well, that’s stupid. They are obviously changing formation in preparation of attack. Why not open a channel to them, you know, beg for mercy stuff?”

“I won’t beg for mercy.” Rojer yelled.

“Course you will, you putz.”

“He’s right.” Brad’s voice interrupted what both of them had felt was a private conversation. It was easy to forget others were listening in. “They are obligated by International Law to keep the Emergency Channel open for last minute negotiations. But, transmitted Speech through human devices fails to carry the energy edge necessary to compel behavior.”

Mick scowled. “All these non helpful rules. What about that light thing? It had that edge. I felt it.”

“How would making light help?”

“Light is both particle and wave.” Mick said aloud. “So said my physics text, anyway.”

“Sound is a mechanical wave.” Brad interrupted, getting excited. “Marry the two?”

“Shit.” Mael said, his eyes widening.

“Can we chain the light to the Emergency Channel coded with the Vrill Speech?” Mick asked.

“Fuck yeah.” Brad said.

“We have a break-away ship, man your stations. He is closing fast and hard.” Jordy yelled out.

“I have the Emergency Channel open.” Brad yelled. “Let me figure out these waves, Rojer you ready to Speak, Elias you ready to attach the Light?”

“Yeah?” Both Elias and Rojer were skeptical.

“What do I say?” Rojer asked.

“Stop attacking us.” Mick answered. He felt funny, like a sudden itch in his brain. He reached up to rub at the back of his neck.

“Elias, now!” Brad yelled, “Direct the light at the fleet. I’ve got it. Fucking A. Rojer, tell them!”

Rojer yelled out, “Stop attacking us.”

The fleet pilots jerked, twisting to curve away from the formation turning the skies into instant chaos. The lead fighter banked hard on an auto escape plan.

“That worked.” Elias and Rojer yelled out.

They turned to find Mick collapsed on the console, unconscious.

“Mick?” Rojer reached him first, to shake him but the boy didn’t waken. “What’s wrong with him Elias?”

Elias saw the flashing red alert on his screen. Molcom intervention. “Fuck, they wiped him.”

(I must admit I enjoyed writing this one, especially once it heated up nicely. My mean streak is ramping up here. ::grins::)