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

Aapisowoohta skirted the edges of the slow-moving fire. Parts of it were dying out, the undergrowth too full of water to burn easily. She had seen no lightening and found the fire suspect. The Akaitapi crossed over the blackened mess hunting the source, they weren’t alone. Noise and movement attracted them toward a ravine where two aircraft were hovering. The area was densely wooded and Aapisowoohta could imagine there was no where to land.

These aircraft were dark in color, possibly green, with gold markings and distinct large red and white crosses, clearly visible in the moonlight. They did not look like the Tule Soc craft she had entered in the cave.

The five Akaitapi moved through the fire-ravaged undergrowth carefully, wary of wearing the stink of this place in their fur. At an improved vantage point they were able to look down on a scene of destruction. Aapisowoohta counted nine bodies, badly burned, but their positions suggested fighting, not running from fire. There was a campfire ringed in rocks but strangely, that fire remained lit.

The teams bringing in black bags to carry out the dead were arguing in German, not a language she could translate easily. Then she understood part of the conversation, it centered on two arms cut off from different bodies. Clearly a battle then. What had happened here?

The Akaitapi had met with Serla to hear about the situation at the facility. They had told him they had left the Ba’Neesh in a secure location. They had since found the lie of that statement. A return to the location of the cave found the entrance blown and most of the cave collapsed, but no sign of the Ba’Neesh, no scent of blood or Vrill.

“What do you see, Ssaahkohtssi?” Her second was ring sniffing and dislodging ash.

“Humans never travel light.” She answered, losing interest in the scene.

Aapisowoohta tightened her focus. Ssaahkohtssi was correct. The dead had no gear except a single backpack that looked melted. Laser? Her certainty that this scene was Ba’Neesh related increased.

“We must find them. The fire still burns; this suggests this massacre was recent. Do we head toward the likely location of caves or has their experience in the last one turned them off?”

“I would go to ground were I in their poor condition and post the suggested battle here.” Ssaahkohtssi said, “They cannot have gone far.”

The group fanned out to ring sniff at intervals, seeking any trace of odor, however minimal. The fire had done an effective job of destroying such telltale evidence.

They gathered back together. “We need to pick up their trail outside of the fire area. This ash is as nothing. Let’s find the edges and circle.” All of them knew it would be a lengthy hunt, the fire damage area was substantial and the odors of smoke and ash made the nose scent blind. The reached the end of the fire damage and walked away from each other, noses lowered to the dirt, snorting and snuffling.

The Ba’Neesh remained clumped near the upward stairs to the grate, clearly uncertain. Mick found it darkly amusing that they could collectively decide to attack armed operatives but have trouble deciding what to do in a concrete drain structure.

“We should move them between grate openings, don’t you think?” He said to Elias. “I would think heading uphill or away from that fire, just in case.”

“Right.” Elias said, nodding, they were both using lit torches taken from the dead. “I’ll check it out and you listen. Don’t let them get comfortable as they will likely be hard to move once settled.”

“Fine.” Mick turned to Edda who looked ready to collapse. “We wait and listen for Elias. He will check the pipe for safety, then we move on.”

Edda frowned, he was certain she understood the gist.

“Injuries?” He continued, walking from one to the next. “You show me injuries.” This drew more of a blank. He pointed to the scabbed nick he had suffered when he lasered the inside of the cave the night before. “Injury.” He said again. This elicited grunts.

As he moved along each Ba’Neesh showed him a variety of wounds. Apparently the operatives, at least one or two, had managed to grab for knives. He saw four stab wounds, areas that were swollen and older wounds from that stunning where they had been dragged face down. Although those had been cleaned, all of them were now covered in filth and blood. He arranged them in order of worst off. He looked up to find Elias had returned.

“You didn’t answer.” Elias said, his tone curt.

“Oh, checking wounds.” Mick answered, noting the peeved tone in Elias’ voice. “We need to do triage when we stop. Did you find a place that is between?”

“Triage?” Elias lost his attitude. “How bad are they?”

“Four took knives, survivable clearly, but bad enough.”

“Shit.” Elias said, nodding. “Follow me.” He headed back the way he came, Mick spaced out the most wounded next to a least wounded and showed the least wounded the injury and told them to watch and help. His staccato words had impact. The Ba’Neesh neither complained nor grumbled. They followed Elias. Mick took up the rear. It wasn’t a long walk. He guessed about a quarter mile in, all slightly uphill but not too bad.

As he walked up the line he told those with packs to take them off and then he showed one what the small medic kit looked like. She articulated a description and each pack produced one. He gathered these as he moved forward toward Elias and the most badly injured. Elias had stopped and was now kneeling beside her.

The Ba’Neesh had no clothing. They didn’t need clothing with the natural maturation of their short fur. This fur made Mick forget they were naked. His mind had decided this was Ba’Neesh and he had made it normal even though he had seen Ba’Neesh in clothing.

He and Elias brought out the sterile wipes to scrub around the first Ba’Neesh’s two stab wounds, both were oozing. The rest of the Ba’Neesh crowded in, several creating light enough to see well. They murmured in low tones but were clearly watching. The injured Ba’Neesh kept staring from Soek-to-Soek.

“It’s in a good area.” Mick said. The wounds being too far above the heart to get into the big organs. She was holding her arm carefully though, that told him a muscle or tendon might be damaged. There wasn’t a field treatment for a near shoulder upper chest stab wound besides to clean the area and treat it with an injectable antibiotic followed by possibly closing the wound. He discussed this with Elias who was impressed by the kids clear field knowledge, possibly better than that of Elias.

“My father’s in the Reserves.” Mick explained aloud, as if everyone wanted to know. “I’ve had umpteen first aid classes, at least one a year, often several.” To the Ba’Neesh he said. “They are deep but not near organs. Tendons and muscles took the hit.” She just stared at him. “First we clean, then we use meds, then decide about stitches.” He brought out a small razor which caused a flutter of conversation but no one stopped him.

He used the sterile press cream and shaved a patch that cleared both wounds. This brought on more Neesh dialogue. He could feel the Ba’Neesh being treated, shaking. Shock? “We have a shock blanket in that stuff, Elias?” He asked, proceeding all the way to the stitching and then he paused.

“If there is crud deep in there and I stitch it, it could go septic.” He said, then he settled back on his heels. He had an image out of his Elias memories of a Ba’Neesh with a massive horn thunking the head of another Ba’Neesh. Healer.

He got up to walk from one Ba’Neesh to the next, reaching out to grab each one’s horn mount and then drop it. They made complaint but again, they didn’t stop him. He returned to one Ba’Neesh with a single central horn. It was wide and grown out about an inch or so, heavily blunted. “You are?” He asked.

“Helewidis.” She answered, clearly uncomfortable.

“Come with me, Helewidis.” He gestured her toward the front.

“Edda.” He called out, dubbing her his translator study.

Edda was waiting, leaning slightly to take the weight off her right leg. Her expression was curious.

Mick did a pantomime using his fingers to shape a horn which he placed on his own head. “Helewidis’ horn.” He said.

He leaned in over the wounded Ba’Neesh and acted like he was putting his fake horn on her wounds. “Vrill wound.” He said.

Edda brightened, bursting out in a flood of Neesh.

“Healer.” Mick said, pointing to Helewidis. “Her.”

Helewidis needed some help getting into the exact position and for this the Ba’Neesh crowded in making Elias use his hand torch on the wound.

“Vrill heal her.” Mick yelled out.

Helewidis complied sending a jolt into the wounds.

The injured Ba’Neesh yelped and yeowled and then spewed a flood of Neesh that ended in an upward tone of surprise.

Helewidis had backed up, her horn now bloody, her expression worried and curious both. When the injured Ba’Neesh changed her tone, Helewidis grinned. She patted her horn, “Healer.” She said firmly.

This became the routine for each wound. The Ba’Neesh set about prepping for their turn by washing in the six-inch-wide stream that meandered down the center of the large pipe. It seemed clean enough and in any case neither Elias nor Mick had the energy to argue about drinkable water. It was keeping the Ba’Neesh busy.

As it turned out, each Ba’Neesh wanted a turn and most offered to chain for Helewidis so she had ample power to draw on. There was a lot of Neesh discussion and even Edda’s sore leg was effectively thumped. The entire process tired the two Soek out even more but now they had well-treated Ba’Neesh who were clearly feeling better.

They went through the packs and handed around the ready-to-eat packets and Mick painstakingly showed each Ba’Neesh how to add a purification tablet to the water bottle before drinking. He wasn’t sure they understood why, but they each did what he said. Soon, everyone had eaten, drunk clean water and were reclined against the reasonably clean walls of the conduit.

Mick and Elias discovered six of the nine recovered weapons were slagged, the remaining three they split between them with Elias getting one and Mick two. They passed out the knives they found for the Ba’Neesh to decide who would get one. The rest of the technology they put in a pile. Mick took a watch that had some medical features as well as communication. Elias was assembling the main communications hub and propping it up well away from the water. He murmured to Mick that reception was poor but he could get a bit in and out. They offered sleeping wraps which the Ba’Neesh took after moving together into as close to one pile as possible. They had found both combs and brushes along with two small mirrors. It was like candy. The two Soek listened to the discussions and arguments over these items with wry humor while they took a position at the bottom end, closest to their entry.

Elias chose that location telling Mick that their forensic trace would be on that end, so an enemy was more likely to find them from that direction. Mick didn’t care, he just wanted to sit down and relax.

“You handled all of this pretty well.” Elias said, gesturing toward the Ba’Neesh.

“You mean watching that battle and the medic stuff?” Mick asked, just to be sure they were discussing the same things.

“Yeah.” Elias nodded, “They were brutal.”

“But fair.” Mick said.

That surprised Elias. “What do you mean, fair?”

“They disarmed them, didn’t kill them outright.” Mick said. “They had the superior weapons and by tag-teaming with a Vrill generator partner, they could as easily have lasered them in half as slag the weapons. They gave the men a chance, hand-to-hand.”

Elias hadn’t processed it that way, he blinked. “That’s what you saw, fairness?”

“I saw bad-ass hand-to-hand fighting. My assets.” Mick answered with some care. “Who am I to judge them for evaluating threat from their perspective? I know my brain is hanked from being raised human, and humans only talk about fairness and cowardice, yet historically they like to kill from a distance, make it sanitized. I got the difference on that here today. Fucky bloody, gross, violent, exhilarating shit. Made me barf.”

Elias was centering on Mick’s word choice of assets. Evaluating. He was viewing the Ba’Neesh as his fighting team, like in gaming strategy. Elias couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad way to look at it. It was a useful way to look at it and it suggested a preparation for future battles. Now they both knew completely untrained Ba’Neesh could fight like demons. He wasn’t sure how he was going to think about it, he knew his brain was in shock.

“I know, if one of those operatives had come at me, I would have lasered his head off.” Mick continued. “Does that make me any different, bottom line? I’m Soek, they are my sisters. We are of one.”

“I’m struggling with it.” Elias admitted, “It happened so fast and they didn’t include us, hell, we didn’t even know they changed positions until they started making noise so those guys would shoot at them. Damn, I didn’t think about that, they let those guys make the choice to fire on them. Next time they need to do them first; we are damn lucky none of them took the weapons fire.”

“Shooting uphill, harder to sight a weapon.” Mick answered.

“Do you think the Ba’Neesh knew that too?” Elias said, pondering.

“They had all been fired down on in that meadow and who knows who shot them before or from what angles while in captivity.” Mick answered, equally thoughtful. “They seem to grasp engineering stuff really fast. It’s somewhat in that line, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” Elias nodded. “We need to get them to learn English faster. This miming stuff could kill all of us.

“Yeah.” Mick agreed. “You thinking what I’m thinking, Elias?”

“Yeah.”

Both of them turned to look over at the Ba’Neesh, who had quieted down to listen to their conversation.

“Edda?” Mick called, damned if he would get up and down from his semi-comfortable position.

The Ba’Neesh seemed to feel the same way.

“Fuck Mick?” She answered.

Elias snickered.

“Yeah.” Mick said, louder to be easily heard. He looked over at the unknown Ba’Neesh closest to him, she was one of those who wasn’t so friendly. He pointed at her. She frowned and then rolled her eyes. It was the perfect expression of near disdain. Elias snickered again.

“You tell Ba’Neesh to…” He pantomimed sleep and then he pointed from himself to Elias and back. “Ba’Neesh, sleep share with Soek. Learn English speak.” He mingled his fingers together.

“Mick stupid Soek fuck.” Several of the Ba’Neesh called back. Edda laughed. Then she said, “Yeah.” An exact tonal replica of Mick.

“Fuck.” Elias said. Both he and Mick burst out laughing.

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