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

Mick, staring at the bloody shock blanket covered pile, along with Elias, Karl, the two mostly mute mules, and four Ba’Neesh expected a poof, something. There was a slight disturbance of the light blanket but that could be a breeze. He scowled.

“That’s it?” He yelled upward toward the drone.

The shipload of Ba’Neesh and Soek had just witnessed the most sensual cast any of them had ever witnessed and were still gaping at the caster Xasper, collapsed to the floor and Moira a bit Vrill drunk being surrounded by Ba’Neesh.

“Massive hype for minimal payoff.” Mick echoed Karl’s thoughts exactly. He reached down and picked up a loose pinecone and before Elias could stop him, tossed it at the covered pile.

The cone appeared to burst into flame in mid air, throwing pointy-edged pine cone leaf shapes, like shrapnel, in all directions.

“Ouch.” Elias yanked at the four bits now embedded in his hand and the side of his neck. “Don’t fucking test a cast, you moron.” He yelled out.

Everyone else was equally covered and hurrying to clean the bits off.

“I didn’t know the cone would fucking explode.” Mick said, leaving a bloody trail on his cheek, neck and the same hand that had tossed the pine bomb.

“Defense.” Karl was impressed in spite of the seven pokey bits making him bleed. “All of that from a stupid shock blanket, some blood and chaining up. I like defense.”

There was no time for further discussion although those in the aircraft were once again leaning in, utterly shocked by the exploding pine cone.

“That worked.” Mael said, still confused. “How the hell did that amateur sigil on a bent blanket actually work?”

“It identified the target.” Xasper said, already hunting down food and enhanced water. He was reeling from the cast itself, such a tiny space and Moira. By the Dark Gods if he had known what dual casting felt like in the flesh, he would never cast apart again. He gazed over at Moira who had turned to give him an uncertain return glance. They silently agreed not to share the experience until they could talk it out, together.

Xasper noted that although he felt some casting drop, it was nowhere near as bad as it should be. He ate more from habit than true need. Sure, he could use some juice. He contemplated grabbing a horn like Mick so easily did. How did the kid fucking grab Ba’Neesh by the horns with such ease?

Moira stepped free of the Ba’Neesh to stride over to Xasper, staring down at his still naked state. She lunged her rack downward to the shrill trilling of the watching Ba’Neesh and gored him in the chest.

He screamed. Then she jacked him up until his spine arched backwards to the horrified gasps of the Soek. He released from the antler’s bloody points in three places, like a constellation on his chest. He flopped backwards to lay on the floor gazing up at her. She leaned down and slurped at the blood spurting from his chest. Other Ba’Neesh pushed forward, diving in for their licks and giving Xasper little juicy jolts with each tongue crossing his skin. He blissed out and it wasn’t until the Ba’Neesh turned away that Jeffrey could rush forward only to stare down at Xasper’s chest, now scabbed with three round, precise holes dead center. Xasper pushed himself to a seated position. “No more drop.” He announced. Then he laughed, an almost as incongruous an event as the goring had been for those watching him closely.

Mael was first to recover. He’d known Xasper most of his life. They were tight in a way different from all others. “She gored you.” Mael said, “Why are you fucking laughing?”

“No more drop, Mael.” Xasper answered, “I always wondered what the true remedy for drop was, now I know. Now I fucking know.”

Moira, her back turned to the Soek said loud enough for all to hear, “We remember.” Then she was again enfolded in the Ba’Neesh chorus of trills and heated questions in Neesh.

Mael closed his open mouth, watching Xasper rise with too much spring in his step and a weird smirk on his mouth. What wasn’t Xasper sharing with him? He had an image of Anya goring him and he flushed. What was wrong with all of them? Mick. This was entirely Mick’s fault. It was as if the thought summoned the action. They all hurried back when the sound of trumpeting Ba’Neesh filled the audio.

Aenor turned to Mick. “We have incoming. Run.” She yelled out.

Mick didn’t hesitate, he grabbed Elias and yanked him upright and was already mid-stride in a run. Elias spewed a stream of curses but kept up.

“Incoming what?” Karl paced them easily.

“What Aenor?” Mick repeated toward the Ba’Neesh already so far ahead as to be nearly invisible to them, he was following her Vrill, not the sight of her.

“Devices.” She yelled back in English. “Insektenschwarm.” In German.

Even Mick didn’t need the translation to grok her meaning. “Oh fuck.” He tried to run faster.

“Insektenschwarm?” Karl blinked. “Roboter?”

“Yeah, fucking robot bugs.” They could all hear them now, like real insects on steroids. Mick had to admire the sound effects, they were ghastly and really effective.

“My elektroschocker won’t kill them.” Karl wasn’t liking the rising gut-twisting fear flowing upward in his body. “They must have dropped bienenstock behind the mules.”

“How many in one schwarm or cluster?” Elias asked, he was fighting to keep up.

“Container usually one hundred count, standard mixture of twenty-five percent of four types.” Karl answered. Whatever doubts had remained in his mind about whether Tule Soc intended to kill him, faded. Bienenstock were killing machines, and not through one shot weapons, they were designed to terrify and lengthen the process. Biters, injectors, rippers, acid sprays, cutters and stunners. Pin the prey and then torture them to inspire absolute fear in other prey enemies nearby.

“So, we have at least a hundred of those fuckers on our heels?”

“Ja.” Karl nodded. “If just one container. More if more.” He had fought five Bienenstock in training as part of his levels. Five. And that had been incredibly hard. He’d suffered all kinds of injuries but in fact, that single exercise had elevated him in rank to a team leader. The idea of a hundred with no instructors standing by able to hit their off switch made him furious and panicked. He glanced at Mick and noticed the boy was thinking. They had lasers. Lasers would kill a bug. He didn’t have a laser. It infuriated him.

A scream and the flashing of hard red brought the group around toward the left. For a split second they hesitated to the sound of a second scream, clearly Ba’Neesh, then Karl followed Mick straight toward the sounds, cursing in German with every step. Why? Why? Why? Every bone in his body wanted to run hell bent as far and fast away from the bienenstock as he could, not toward them.

They entered a clearing to see one Ba’Neesh down hard and nearly covered in the machines, the second was losing her battle of stomping and kicking trying to reach her partner. Freya. Mick yelled out to her just as she went down under a concerted attack of the machines.

Mick waded in, intent purely on throwing the machines against the nearest trees. The Ba’Neesh running with him formed up to a circle around the contained battle with Mick, Elias and Karl inside where the bugs, mice and dinosaur-like flying birds were in full attack. The Ba’Neesh concentrated on lasering the still coming bugs. The two mules stood just behind the Ba’Neesh, able to do nothing more than kick at the bugs that got close.

Karl stomped, kicked and yelled, discovering his German cursing echoed Mick and Elias’ loud filth in English.

Mick yelled upward. “Where are those fucking concussion grenades, Thorne? I need them now.”

Both of his hands were bloody and the aircraft load of horrified Soek and Ba’Neesh were watching in riveted silence.

“We need a bubble shield we can toss grenades and laser through. Fucking fuckers.” Mick continued.

Karl had picked up a log laying on the ground and was clubbing and kicking. “We lose this war.” He yelled at Mick.

“Lousy defense weapons.” Mick yelled back even though they were nearly shoulder-to-shoulder. There were fewer bugs but the price for trying to grab and throw them by hand was growing.

They could hear the growing chittering of more bugs coming.

“Mick?” Aenor yelled out. “Too many for four lasers.”

Mick stiffened, throwing the last of the bugs inside the circle over the Ba’Neesh heads. They had a brief gap with the hurt Ba’Neesh no longer being ravaged. He looked over at the two Soek mules. He needed more Soek, more trained lasers.

“Call those attack Soek mules to run toward us, Aenor. Tell the nearby Ba’Neesh to keep up a heavy fire and to pace us, give us and those mules cover fire.” He looked at Karl. “You take Freya on your shoulders. Hans, you take Steffi.”

Karl scooped up the largest of the Ba’Neesh he had yet seen and threw her over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Hans, much smaller but larger than Mick or Elias, grunted but got the smaller Steffi up on his shoulders.

“We run.” Mick yelled out again, heading through the gap the Ba’Neesh provided in their tight circle to run through a gauntlet of harrying devices. Elias grabbed the back of Mick’s pack and lasered in front of them, cutting a way as Ba’Neesh fired from the trees exploding more.

“Grenades, Thorne.” Mick kept yelling upward. “Explosive tossable Vrill packages and a runnable shield, like that turtle only more like a cavitator. What the hell. Uncle Morty? Serla? Moira? What can we explode so Vrill blasts in a directional?”

Karl, watching the lasers was impressed by the kid’s ability to talk under fire. Kind of nasty talk to superiors but spot on. Karl, for himself, was wanting a better bludgeon. He could imagine one radiating this Vrill stuff to overwhelm the electronics of the bienenstock on contact. Like Thor. A hammer. He really liked that idea. Maybe he could talk Mick into having these enemy forces make him a Thor hammer for battle. He grinned.

He almost fell when the bloody, badly injured Ba’Neesh he was carrying came back to life with a horrendous roaring sound. For a moment Karl was certain he was dead and then her weight shifted and she climbed him to position herself with her legs around his neck. It was much better. “Besser.” He yelled out.

Then her legs squeezed and he choked, suddenly vividly aware of her excellent muscular development.

“Laser those bastards.” She leaned over his head to yell down at him.

“Oh,” Perisee and Lemista exclaimed together. “I want to ride a Battle Soek too.”

Battle Soek? The Soek aboard the DireSec aircraft glanced at each other in growing realization that they were surrounded by Ba’Neesh staring at each of them with a new type of avarice.

“You can ride me.” Brad the Pirate offered, a wry grin on his face. “I could maybe carry two of you into battle.”

The other Soek glared hate beams toward Brad then the battle sucked them all back into its thrall.

“I no have a laser.” Karl yelled back, swinging his wood bludgeon like a pendulum.

“I do.” Freya said. “Vrill loss. Get me close to Mick to juice up on Edda. Hey Mick, coming in, have Iiyiko boost Edda or get those lazy drone-watching Citadel Ba’Neesh to wake the fucking Beloved up to direct channel to Edda and our other Beloved.”

Karl grunted. That sounded a lot like disparaging words. He didn’t know what Citadel was but the word lazy was key. He grinned, smashing another bug. Karl paced Mick and Freya lay back to lower herself by bending backward, her knees firm around Karl’s neck and body, in line with Mick’s backpack, placing her horns directly on the bag. Karl felt her spasm and then swing herself back up with an admirable athletic ease.

“She fucking refueled upside down while dangling off a Soek.” Moira said with growing admiration. The Beloved were ramping up, the MagC’s on three aircraft and a distant submarine and linking all the way to Barrens and Citadel came online. Power. Edda was one Beloved channel. Moira wasn’t the only one wondering what this would do to Mick with Edda riding his spine. He kept running.

With Freya lasering they were able to get a mostly clean path ahead as the bugs tried to regroup to flank the runners.

Aenor yelled out, “Soek mules on your right side, Mick.”

Mick edged to the right. “Come on Karl. Aenor guard Elias, he needs some juice and I don’t have time this exact second.”

Karl followed Mick to the right as the six running mules came into view. They had their stunners out and their eyes were wild with fear and uncertainty.

“Speech them to form up, Freya. Holster those useless stunners.” Behind they could hear Ba’Neesh in the trees calling out, “More incoming.”

“Another box of those fuckers.” Mick waved his middle finger upward at the following drone. “I need that concussive Vrill, directional, like now would be good!”

Brad and Serla were scrambling, directly linking to Neo and Morty with Moira standing over them her still bloody rack waving dangerously close. “Lazy Citadel Ba’Neesh. That’s me. Fucking Mick.” She kept muttering, on repeat.

Jordy observed, “They are closing on the outskirts of town. Ten minutes max at their current pace.”

“Tule Soc will be ready.” Serla said. “Tell national we are vacating our agreement as Tule Soc is attacking our operative. He had been sending the drone feed to national, to a shocked military watching the weirdest battle they had ever witnessed, literally on their doorsteps using weapons they couldn’t figure out and featuring the same strange females Tule Soc insisted were DireSec avatars. Now bloody females, still running and shooting lasers. Whatever they were, they weren’t avatars was the growing consensus. And, being military, most of those watching were itching to get involved, if they could figure out which side was the one to align with. The creatures or the bugs?

“Karl, tell the mules we are going to form a circle. Have them place their non-dominant hand on the back of the neck of the guy next to them and put the one who is the best shot on one end, the end closest to the approaching swarm. Karl, drop that fucking stick and point your dominant finger upward.”

Karl pointed his index finger while yelling out in German for the mules to form a circle facing backward toward the flowing mass of new bienenstock. They did so reluctantly believing they were facing absolute death. Those six and the former two made eight.

“Karl. Think laser gun on your finger. On and off really fast.” Mick said, turned to face backward behind the row of mules.

Karl aimed his finger upward while saying, “I can’t do this stupid Vrill shit, Mick.”

“Yeah, I know.” Mick said. “But, she can.”

Karl glanced at Mick and then felt shocking moisture on the back of his neck where her groin hugged his head. His mind fluttered, what was that? “Laser.” He said, “On, off.” A tree limb overhead cracked.

“Fuck. I forgot to tell you not directly overhead.” Mick said while all of them dodged the falling limb.

“Laser.” Karl said again in absolute shock and delight, staring at his finger, it hurt. It glowed. He pivoted, the bludgeon forgotten. He was already yelling at the mules as the row of them shared impossible glances and then aimed their stupid fingers toward the oncoming barely visible mass of moving machinery. “Laser.” They said together. “On and off fast.” Mick yelled.

“Schnell.” Karl yelled, slipping into team leader mode as naturally as breathing.

Mick dropped down next to the weak end of the Soek row, grabbed the guy’s free hand and slapped it on his backpack. The Soek screamed, but Mick didn’t let go. Eventually the screaming stopped, the Soek, Vrill drunk as his buddies jacking through him, shot the bienenstock with their fingers. Several started to laugh. One to cry.

One said, “It burns.”

Karl said, “Suffer and fire your asses off. Die like you mean it.”

Then the swearing began, a mixture of English, German and Neesh as all of them focused on trying to kill as many as possible.

“This is Vrill costly and my finger hurts like a bloated sausage plugged into a socket.” Mick yelled out. “We need better. You are the fucking brains. Build me a better weapon.”

“Working on it.” The voice that pierced the battle sounds was young and sarcastic.

“Neo?” Mick asked.

“WareHawk?” Neo answered.

“Tell Serla to prep for a Scorched Earth end game, Neo. When I win this fucking battle of the bugs the guy I’m fighting will go for broke, the youngers. Tell him Iiyiko and Elias, and… who was that asshat that blew up the cruise ship?”

Elias, his finger so hot he thought it might be cooking looked over at Mick. “You mean Aristeen, crazy fucking Aristeen?”

“Yeah. Serla brought him I think.” Mick and Elias killed some more bugs with Elias also grabbing the bag. The Ba’Neesh kept running past to juice up in passing.

“I think so.” Elias shook his head. “He’s crazy Mick and you want him with Iiyiko?”

“Yeah and the Gardener.”

“Didn’t ask for me.” Mael said aloud, slightly miffed. “Why the fuck am I here, anyway?”

“Oh,” Neo said, “That’s easy Turtle, you are an asset.”

Serla interrupted, “Scorched Earth, Mick?”

“Yeah. Elias said so. He’s good at that analytical crap.”

“I never said any such thing.” Elias called out, horrified by the lie.

“Your brain said it Elias.” Mick continued firing, glancing over at his friend. “Shooting is like meditation with cursing and exploding shit. You thought it out and it registered in my skull.”

(And here we are again my wonderful fans. Having fun? I loved the Battle Soek’s arrival. Did you like that too? Enjoy!)