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

About half of the Directorate aircraft were cloaking capable. And, everyone was telling Thorne he had to fix that. He felt put upon. He was having trouble grasping the fact that the Directorate, not under his control, had just shot multiple old-school warheads at three towns in a foreign nation/state and by all available intel, burned the facilities in each town down to rubble that continued to smolder. He was being barraged with International demands for surrender. He slapped at his external device, swearing viciously and most of that vitriol was directed at Mick who was surrounded in the control center area of the ship while Thorne, Head of the Directorate, had to fight for a nearby seat.

What the fuck am I supposed to tell them?” Thorne demanded. Worse, no one was listening. He slammed his fists on the armrests of his seat. No one was listening to him.

Brad had taken the seat designed to control this aircraft, his exo now in chair form. “Where are we going, Mick?” He yelled out.

Mick had found a seat and Sofia had climbed atop of him. He, like nearly everyone else, was staring in horror at the devastation playing out on footage on three separate holo units, each split into multiple feeds. Horror from many views.

“Mick!” Brad yelled again as the ramp powered up into the overfull belly of the aircraft. They had Ba’Neesh and Soek crammed into every open space, many sitting on others.

Mick focused on Brad and then he pointed upward mumbling in Neesh. Sofia said, “Neo. Over deep seas.” In German, of course, translated by Brad’s device.

Brad shook his head and ordered his and the rest of the fleet to the imprecise location of toward Neo, that meant the sub, and over deep seas. At the least it would place them outside of this nation/state.

“We have nationals up and heading toward us, Serla said, having taken the seat next to Brad with Jordy on his other side.

All of the nearly a hundred ships lifted in more or less unison, a triumph in itself.

“They will fucking take pot shots at us.” Thorne yelled, determined to be heard. “We just fucking shot up their nation.”

“They know we will shoot back.” Serla’s voice held a calming tone. He had spent years working under Thorne when he was Kirsan and the two knew each other well. “They will exercise caution not wishing to lose ships like the other nation/state did a few weeks back.”

Rojer was itching to get at the defense system controls but those seats were already manned by experienced techs who had spent much of the last few weeks studying every aspect of Mick and Elias’ earlier firefight. None of them intended to vacate a fighting seat, especially not to Rojer.

“Leaving national air space.” Brad counted down from five.

Jeffrey had robbed his stores to find his stash of blood suckers, the lollipops so favored by Ba’Neesh. He started with the youngers first and then to any Ba’Neesh that grabbed for them. The sounds of slurping filled the gap.

“We will be over Neo’s position in ten, nine…” The rest of Brad’s count was interrupted by Mick lifting the licking Sofia off his lap to set her on his seat. He looked around the crowded space with what appeared to be some confusion on his face. It was difficult for him to move around the people sitting in the aisles or two up on the seats. The interior quieted with everyone watching Mick to the sound of slurpy licks.

Mick paused in front of each of the important Citadel Soek and Ba’Neesh, to stare into their faces one at a time. It was like a lottery. The aircraft came to a hover as Brad had no further instructions to pass out. He too was watching Mick, noting the intensity of the boy’s body language.

Mick inched away from Central, trailing Thorne’s litany of bitching, mostly heard only by Thorne. Thorne didn’t like to be examined by a kid and rejected for criterion he didn’t even know. It simply added to Thorne’s list of things objectionable about Mick Huxley.

Mick wove his way deeper into the thickly crowded aisles and then he paused, his head sweeping along as if scanning those even deeper. At the far back of the aircraft were the standing Akaitapi who didn’t like to squat or lay down aboard ships. Mick straightened and everyone turned to follow him with their eyes.

The space around the Akaitapi was slightly more open than around the other Soek and Ba’Neesh. Mick headed more directly toward the five aboard this ship. They shuffled as it became clear he was coming toward them specifically and the leader took the fore.

He came to a stop in front of her. On her fours her head reached his chest yet he still felt small next to her, insignificant. He lifted his chin. Then he reached out with a speed that shocked and elicited a wild trumpeting from all of the Ba’Neesh nearby. He’d wrapped his claws around the base of her horn mounts. This was no immature Fels Ba’Neesh with blunted horns. This was a massively strong elder Ba’Neesh fully armed.

She instantly flung her head from side-to-side trying to throw him off. Had he still had his human hands, that would have worked. But, he had claws that locked into place so what flew was his body out parallel to the floor to the gasp and hoots of everyone trying to scramble out of the way. It was clear to nearly everyone that Mick was going to die.

When she couldn’t loose the stupid Soek, Aapisowoohta pushed her mass upright to her full height and unlocked her hands, reaching around his slender form intending to rip him away from his touch of her. In the process her fingers touched Edda and she stilled. He hung from his claws, staring up into her furious eyes. She stiffened and then said, “Yes.”

“What?” Thorne yelled out. “What the fuck is going on? Is she going to gore him or not?” He sounded almost hopeful.

Mick let go of her horn mounts and faster than he could imagine her head lowered and her left horn pierced his shoulder with excruciating pain, followed by Vrill, followed by laughter.

Mick gasped, his scream swallowed. He wobbled on his feet and then he lifted one claw to dip it into the wound and offered his bloody finger for her to lick. She did so and then trumpeted. Mick stumbled backwards, now supported by Ba’Neesh hands reaching out toward him, most trying for a bloody dip or lick in passing.

He looked across the distance at Brad. Behind him, Aapisowoohta said, “Up. We go up, hard and fast, as high as this mechanical trash will go. Link up, jack in, all ships, Citadel and Barrens. Set a mark for the highest point, Pirate. You detach from the Ba to protect your life. Everyone else expendable. Now.”

Brad nodded, he had built-in protections in his system to protect his fragile life from massive Vrill shifts. Serla’s hands were already flying over the systems, shifting all ships to auto recovery if Aapisowoohta’s oblique warning were accurate, and it would be. The Star Watcher didn’t make mistakes.

“Serla, Second of My Name.” Serla ordered, “man a seat.”

Rojer couldn’t have been more shocked. He knew Serla disliked him nearly as much as his own father did. He hurried over before the tall Soek would change his mind.

Mick had sunk to the floor and Sofia had found her way through the crowd to once again crawl onto his lap. “Fun.” She said, around the remains of her delicious lolly after giving his gored spot a curious look.

Serla opened the broadcast channels on all of the Directorate ships as well as several interior feeds on their lead ship.

Nationals in hot pursuit slowed as the open broadcast came up on their holos. “What are they doing?” The Commander asked.

“Going up, Sir.” A subordinate tech stated the obvious.

“What’s up there?” The Commander demanded. “Use our long range visuals and satellite footage, where are they going? There’s no escape that way.”

There was nothing to see, just nearly a hundred ships closing in on the limits of their range at the very thinnest part of the planet’s atmosphere.

“What the fuck, now I get to die of frostbite, lack of oxygen and the brat kid still hasn’t shown us a damn thing.” Thorne’s rant continued.

Mick reached up to the bones dangling from his chest. “Iiyiko.” He articulated Her name as best he could. She didn’t appear.

The MagC’s on every ship responded, on the sub, in Citadel, in Barrens. On every ship the Soek grabbed each other by the back of the neck, closest to the spine and linked in to the nearest Ba’Neesh. In Citadel the younger teams of Ba’Neesh and Soek huddled under the thousand dangling Beloved Channels. Ornius and Old One Horn were topside, with his binoculars and some vintage wine with snacks. Both felt they were old enough to let the young blow their Vrill.

Brad began the count-down to apex and even Thorne shut up and everyone looked up although all they could see was aircraft ceiling.

“What the hell are they looking at?” The Commander yelled. Every nation/state was linked in to what was now a world shell open broadcast, watching the freakish non-humans in aircraft heading toward the outer limits of the atmosphere.

A thin blue line fired upward out of the lead aircraft disappearing into space as if fishing. Everyone watched.

Iiyiko swept her hand through the planet-sized sigil. She was tiny, miniscule to its vastness. But, she was pure Vrill with intent and her intent was to break the sigil.

At the moment of contact she recoiled, sliding down the Vrill linkage into the MagC’s to come to rest inside her haven of Norris, now unconscious and collapsed among the other unconscious Soek and Ba’Neesh littering every aircraft, the submarine and the two Directorate facilities.

Serla watched the footage as a ripple spread across the sky, as if peeling an onion. “A sigil.” He whispered to Brad and Rojer, the only others who remained conscious. “They’ve used a fucking sigil to hide in plain sight.” He turned to Brad, “Give me a quality frontal pickup. It’s time to clarify what we are doing.”

Brad nodded, he couldn’t look away from the disaster transmitting through the holos. A massive fleet of space ships was heading toward them, maybe weeks out, maybe closer. Mick’s admonition that time was short, hit home. They were so fucked.

“I am Serla, a non-human Homo Soekenisis hominid.” Serla said into the pickup, “My kind have just destroyed three Tule Soc facilities in a nation/state that was holding the dead of my kind hostage. Above is the true enemy to Earth. The Dark Gods are returning and they had set a distortion force field to prevent humanity from seeing their approach. The blue hand weapon has destroyed their force field so you can witness this truth. Tule Soc was fronting their preparations to take our planet. Prepare to fight. Everyone.”

This is the End of The Wild Ba'Neesh [Part One].

(I have other books in this series ready to be published. If you enjoyed this novel I invite you to rate it on this website, join my friends list at Fay Thompson Author on Facebook, join me on Twitter @FayThom04494140. My push is to have a major publisher pick up this series in my WitchBoard universe. You can help by becoming an official part of my fanbase. Thank you! I hope you have loved this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it for you.)