Breecher said, “We’ve got a total lockdown on any communication getting out from this area. So they won’t be able to send out intel about your skills to their comrades. We need to keep outside knowledge of Six as sparse as possible. Now we need to look for the devices they used to cloak themselves. It’s likely some old tech that we humans developed from out of Professor Campbell’s research two hundred years ago but was found to sicken the humans who stayed more than a few days within such cloaks. The Outlaws could have worked on it to make it safer, but around the same time as that Campbell’s work, we discovered a few humans began to develop the much safer ability to cloak themselves by blending into their backgrounds. This was way safer, if a little more prone to be ‘less invisible.’ We had had to splice genes from lots of other self camouflaging creatures into our genome to get to that point.”
Mader and I were rummaging through the three bubble locations and we found at two of them, an identical box with batteries and electronics which we felt sure was used to create their ‘bubbles’. We unscrewed the main hatch on those and proceeded to tap in mentally to the circuitry. Walking with the box away from the group, we triggered it on to get the full experience of being inside the bubble. The outside world became a little hazy for our efforts. Our group outside said that we had just disappeared. We shut it down and now we knew what needed to be done, having explored the technology, to nullify it. Feed electromagnetic radiation of a specific frequency in the vicinity of the bubble and it would absorb it and flameout. This was thought spoken to the group. Breecher got on his highly secure radio to the control center and told them to modify frequencies on a few zappers, mount those quickly onto a few drones and we would find and preferably capture the last two hideout Badjans.
Meanwhile, some of Breecher’s troops had rappelled down from a transport between the trees here on the hill and they had felled five trees to make a clear path to lower stretchers to pick up Dillion. He was now awake but weak despite the energy boost that Mader had given him.
Next they extricated the three dead Badjans putting them in cooled chambers for a trial at resuscitation. I told them that I’d sucked their brains for information from the first two and I had a wealth of info to pass on later. So it wasn’t critical to resuscitate those three.
Thirty minutes later five drones with specially adjusted zappers were blasting the hillside with their modified frequencies as we all waited to pounce as were scores of Securinet troops. They were caught 1 mile from the control center with some powerful explosives strapped to themselves.
Fortunately realizing that it was game’s up, they chose to live to possibly fight another day rather than blow up the whole mountain and a few drones. It appears that if they’d only gotten to the valley where the training center was located, their plan was to take everything down. They were modern day suicide bombers with weapons more powerful than humans first primitive atomic bombs yet so small as to be carried by one person. Two humans with two of those weapons would have truly left their mark. We humans are still more innovative with destructive tactics than we are with lifesaving ones. That has not changed in all of our years of living and evolving.
Their weapons were harvested, neutralized and we will end up knowing where every component was manufactured, including their cloaking devices. The special forces of Securinet will be busy in the coming days. From all the information gathered, we had mopped up all of this batch of attackers and we now had a treasure trove of info on two more disparate groups of Outlaws. Those other groups would now be much easier to track down and dismantle.
Back at the control center by 4-wheeler now mid afternoon, with our tutors getting back by teleportation, we went to the now mostly repaired infirmary to check on Dillion. We were shocked to find only some bloody bandages next to his bed and a perplexed Medic pointing to the shower which was going. She said, “The transport brought your friend and as soon as we got him off the table in diagnostics our bot said that his injuries were healed with only slight traces left. No damage to any part of him of any consequence. He is obviously a self healer. He can resume normal duties whatever those are. Lucky fellow, I wish I could heal that fast.”
12. Meeting Five
When he came out with only a towel around his groin, he looked like our normal Dillion. Nary a scratch on him where before had been a mangled mess of raw flesh. Dear Lord Meneer, this Dillion is exceptional. We just had to give him a boost and he completed the job! I was hoping that fast healing would be one of the attributes that also transferred amongst ourselves, just like we have been able to share each other’s attributes.
We heard some young excited voices coming towards us. When we turned around, it was to find five teenagers one of whom had a bandage around his head being carried in by his colleagues obviously to get medical attention. There were three young ladies and two males. The young man was awake but slightly dazed. Dillion went straight over to him after they laid him on the gurney and waved his hand over his whole body. He looked up at us all and said, “Blaster wound, gouged a fleck of bone off his skull and shook up his brain- contusion. Head up slightly, analgesia, rest.” He paused his hands over the young man’s head after removing the field bandage, the wound visibly began to close.
Their injured one’s name was Arthur the others said, and they went on to name themselves Wesley, Serena, Dorothy and Adriana. They all looked very capable in terms of physique with Serena tall about 5’9”sharp featured brown skin intelligent eyes, Dorothy stoutly built short dark hair boyish medium height 5’6” dark skin round face with chinky eyes and Adriana tanned short 5’3” very dark hair and thick eyebrows shapely. The injured young man was medium 5’9” slightly plump like Dillion but very blonde and blue eyed and Wesley 6’1” was dark swarthy black eyes, thick black hair outdoorsy type. Mader and Adriana ended up close to each other and shook hands first, then all around there were handshakes and greetings. We found out that they had had a rather harrowing ‘quest’ courtesy of our three tutors aided by Commander Lister and they’d made it, but with lots of knocks.
Jongi, Choka and Breecher appeared behind them coming from the newly repaired front entrance with broad smiles. I see you all have met, good! ‘Six’ you have just met ‘Five’. They did splendidly during their challenge and we are proud of them. They unfortunately missed our great adventure. But if there is a number 8 or 9 Badjan still out there, they too may get to participate in a real hunt. They are here to start their ten days of tutoring. Sorry ‘Six’ that we had to torment ‘Five’ without you being able to join in. You had bigger fish to fry and we had to take care of it ourselves. I assure you that they got to play with the vishes that we had rescued and we used the same sinkhole trap on them too as you planned for them. They did fine I’m happy to report!
We left Arthur to rest in the infirmary where the staff were finishing his clean up since his hair had matted blood and they were giving him some pills. We all paired up with the members of ‘Five’ to try to make them feel at home and milk them for their stories. We shared ours too. Mader and Adriana spent a lot of time together. It was either that they shared a lot in common or they were smitten with each other somehow. Although we rotated partners and sought to deliberately spend time with each other, by dinner time it was clear that Mader and Adriana were very compatible. Jessi and I were itching to spend alone time. We agreed through mind talk to be a couple formally, but would take time to really get to know each other thoroughly over the next year. We decided to avoid hanky lanky too early as we each wanted to build a true kinship first and sex was good yes, but how many of our school friends had shared that and only that! We wanted more from each other. Lord Meneer how we wanted to jump each other’s bones, Lordy. We decided to chart a disciplined old fashioned path and wait for now. Gosh I was on cloud nine so to speak. There will be time, my Love.
OUTLAW BADJANS PART 2
13.Five’s Quest
14.Outlaw’s play
15.Under Outlaw attack
; 16.Counterattack
17.Harvesting under pressure
18.Badjans on the run in Bahoe
19.Global Outlaw cleanup
20.Back page promo
13. Five’s Quest
So here we were heading back home. We had called my dad Jonah Sr and he was on his way to pick us up in his van. Since we were cautioned to not divulge too many details, we had to agree on what we should let parents and friends know. So as a group, we agreed to tell the truth, just not go into details. So we got to play act the kind of questions that might be thrown at us and how we would answer it so that we would all be on the same page. The gist of it was that we were going to explain that we had some challenges just getting from the first gate to the inner gate involving some wild animal attacks which we somehow drove off and a certain man-made sinkhole, but not the details. We felt that we could even say that we were accosted by some Badjans and subsequently they too were driven off and some captured. No mention was to be made of Gooch though. Obviously since we were on the edge of Bahoe, all that aerial bombardment, serial arrivals and departures of transports would have been noticed. We did not truly know how much news got out. Jongi, Choka and Breecher agreed with our approach.
We had stayed one extra day, eleven rather than ten, a testimony of how much fun we had been having, yep! We all were coming back with limbs still attached, mostly unscathed really. Dillion had been the only one injured twice and since he was like a lizard anyway who could almost regrow his own body parts, there was no real issue. Hurray!
We were on the inside though, like night and day. Those ten, no eleven days, had changed us. We hopped into the two runabout carts, off loaded our backpacks and rolls on the floor safely away from our feet, making sure that there was no clutter. No, no, not because we were such neat and proper teenagers, but because we knew now how to be always ready for fight or flight. I’d like to think the former more than the latter too! We had been given a tremendous opportunity through our exposure to combat with the Outlaw Badjans. We were like finely honed special forces, psychic forces no less, with great situational awareness, extreme group cohesiveness, weapon readiness and we fought like a unit. We had become like the moving parts of one breathing fighting organism.
We had bonded with group ‘Five’ too, taking them on a trek through the woods where all the action had taken place acting as their adversary. We had put them through hell to be honest, earlier in the day. Their job had been to go to that same hill where the Outlaws had hidden inside their bubbles 2 miles away and back. They were to use whatever defensive and offensive weapons they could muster. We promised not to kill them and vice versa. There were no other stops; injuries might happen.
We had wished them well as they set off. Of course we had played dirty. We had been picking at their brains expertly to discern their strengths and weaknesses and their powers too. We had divulged as little as possible about ours. Jongi, Choka and Breecher were tickled pink with pleasure at the thought that we were brewing up some games for them. We did suggest to them a V shaped pattern of positioning while moving that we had found helpful, so that it was harder to take the whole group down in one swoop.
As they went around the bend, we swooped into action. Teleporting unseen one mile ahead we setup our first trap. One of the Outlaws bubble making boxes was used to create a bubble with supercharged energy so as to create a heavy electrical discharge to the person who touched it first with sound effects and smoke to boot. Then we would be watching and drain their energy while they were disoriented. Planted loud speakers would blast them with vish attack sounds along the way. Meanwhile we would unveil an array of psychic bombs on them. We would see how they countered these issues.
During the planning stages and set-up of our props, we took into consideration that Arthur was still recovering somewhat. We warned Mader not to go too easy on his new crush Adriana too. How could we resist having a little fun at his expense. It was very likely those two would soon wake up from their little dream crush. I was hoping of course, that they would get even tighter. I wanted all of Jessi’s attention to myself! I even convinced myself that I was not at all possessive and shielded those naughty thoughts from the others.
There was a little concern about ‘Five’ defeating our strategies too easily and them smirking at our ineptitude. We surely also didn’t want to overwhelm them completely either though. Man, this was better than playing competitive vid games against others all over Toigan via Playernet. I was personally not that good in those competitions to be honest reaching only medium rank, but my friend Charlie was top notch. My farm work, on two farms plus school kept me too busy. One has to pick one’s hobbies and I couldn’t devote much time to video games.
“Go, go, go,” was the command as we launched, teleporting over them to land just a little ahead of the first bubble challenge. Keeping invisible with blasters set on stun in case they needed extra prodding, we lay in wait. Woo ha! Their faces, yes their faces, when the first two of them stumbled into the invisible bubble was precious to behold. I kid you not when I say that they jumped back 20 feet just like we had, when the Outlaws dropped the sinkhole trap in front of us. Overall though, I have to admit that they recovered quickly. We could feel the blaze of energy coming from them as they interrogated their vicinity while we kept ours incredibly low to avoid detection. They cautiously examined the little black box generator left on the ground and feeling with their psychic sensors edged around it. In the meantime we were siphoning off their energy in a steady stream so as not to make it too obvious.
When we estimated that they were down from 100 to more like 20%, we let off. Of course Mader did this more efficiently than the rest of us. I imagined that he must be severely amped up and he would need to blow off some steam soon. Two more twists in the trail and Cherese with a mental push triggered the three large tree trunks we had set up on the hill above the trail, to suddenly start to careen toward them passing down below. Despite their reserves being low, they mentally and together just added a little more energy to those trundling thousand pound objects lifting them effortlessly over their heads. There was an avalanche of saplings being taken down as those tree trunks went crashing down the hill below the trail. They didn’t even pause in their strides. Go Five go, was how we felt.
They did not get much of a break though as we teleported two blasters into the air toward them. Their sensors picked up the incoming and they all put hands up into the air. The blasters went off yes, but the energy blasted onto what looked like an umbrella or cocoon of protection with a flash. When we triggered the blasters again this time on full power, we heard a click and nothing else happened. Wow, they had either sucked up the energy from the weapons which is what we would have done, or somehow managed to disable it! A reading of their energy levels showed them all back to 100%. ‘Wow’ they can use multiple different energy sources to recharge themselves! They were a quick learning group, fantastic!
Next we enveloped them in neutralizing energy to make it difficult for them to use their telepathy, sort of like a white noise to mask it. Our two fog guns were ready as they had reached the objective- the hill. Again we had teleported up there ahead of them and remote triggered the devices. They would have had some difficulty in reading our signatures and our own thoughts too as we tried to confuse them. We could feel them full power trying to discern the terrain and obstructions around them, looking for a target despite the actual fog obscuring vision and the telepathy numbing effects. We heard rapid clicking coming from their direction. Lordy, those kids were resourceful! They had turned to their ‘bat genes’ and were echolocating, golly! We’d better get going before they can make us out. As we prepared to jump to our next spot, they must have tagged us. We felt our limbs going heavy and it took a burst of energy from Mader after Matt with his super sensing told him what frequency they were using and how to neutralize it, to get us out of there. Thank Lord Meneer that Mader had all that extra energy stored.
‘Five’ had burst out
of the fog we could tell and they were mad as hell. They had caught us in the act and were going to get us now. They must have wondered how we got out of their figurative spiderweb so fast. Next trap, as they were now headed back to the control center was up ahead. We reached out and once again Matt tuned in their natural body frequencies and drained them so that they couldn’t teleport as fast as we could.
At the exact chosen spot we had laid out a welcome mat of explosive psychic energy with a special piece of equipment designed to magnify the effect. If successful, it would be like a massive psychic grenade. It was meant to overwhelm the senses and turn them into weak babbling fools at least for a minute giving their adversaries the opportunity to pick them off individually or as a group. The front two crossed the set threshold and they were hit. However the whole group had been cautious and spread out from each other, so that only the front two and middle one of their V arrangement were slammed. The two bringing up the rear siphoned off all that energy thus decreasing the impact. They were up and functional in 20 seconds. As I said, resourceful they were.
By the time they limped back with their psychic bruises, we were sipping on cool beverages in the classroom with our three tutors who had closely followed how team Five fared with the challenges. We had retrieved the ‘bubble maker’ on our way back from where we left it on the trail. They were pretty good, we all had to admit. Then there was the debriefing. Team Five felt somewhat defeated in that they did not actually catch and incapacitate us. We had to go out of our way to assure them that they very nearly did and how impressive their performance really was. They had done quite well on their Quest the day before we were told and their day 2 was impressive to us.
Outlaw Badjans (Six of Toigan) Page 10