It was resolved that our team would play a role in challenging the new teams as they came through for training. Our tactics were already being codified for use throughout other training facilities beside this one here in Bahoe and we would definitely be invited back to help in this area. Our Quests were now done and we would be all getting terrestrial flight training followed by space training over the next year or so to become better equipped for Interplanetary stints. That was what we all hoped to qualify for anyway -interplanetary travel. We were young and have all been bitten by the exploration bug.
At the gate and exactly on time, Dad pulled into view with his van. We were going home to rest. I unabashedly gave my Dad a big hug and all of the team did as well. They had spent enough time with my family tramping around the farm and surrounding hillsides that they felt at home with us. Yes we were a bit stinky from the jaunt through the bush testing team Five and it was afternoon though not dusk yet. He was a farmer and did not mind, in fact he would likely have noticed more if we had smelt whisper clean.
Jessi sat up front with him. After all she had made a special effort to get to know both him and Mom Elma. She cared about their son after all. Once he had come up the stairs and found us taking a nap on my bed with her face down and one leg over my tummy. He later on asked me how I could get any sleep like that. I told him that I was so tired, an elephant rolling over me might not have awoken me. I think he was being ‘tongue in cheek’ as I detected him grinning inside. Falling asleep in that position should be unthinkable without hanky panky is what my bugger Dad was giggling about!
At home a feast awaited. Mum had outdone herself. Yes we had gotten food at the training camp, but certainly not like this! We wolfed it down with a vengeance. I believe that my colleagues were totally sold now on fresh farm food prepared by my Mum. Super good seasoning while keeping it as healthy as possible, all natural ingredients and mix in a hefty dose of love. Biting one’s tongue was definitely a risk. After such a heavy meal with desserts, the crew rested for an hour before hitting the road in Cherese’s Merkaur that had been left parked out back. Moog and I waved them goodbye as they rolled down the driveway. Jessi and I hadn’t wanted to break it up. We were tightly, unabashedly attached for the better part of three minutes. So sad to see her go.
Well, we were done with the Immersion and done with the Quest successfully. That is our equivalent of completing college as it was practiced years ago by prior generations. Our society has found a way to compress more appropriate and practical knowledge directly into youthful brains this way. We SIX were put through the Quest because it fit our goals of higher level service including interplanetary work, but most folks who do the Immersion would not need to undergo such rigorous testing or training referred to as the quest. Our special attributes and talents were matured during the Quest and we are still growing them. The plan we’d made among ourselves and with our tutors was to meet almost every weekend to further integrate ourselves as a team and grow our skills. We knew that we were going to continue to work in the future as a team.
14. Outlaws play
The next three days went by uneventfully and in my case with summer nearing its end, meant that there was intense ongoing farm work. Lots of harvesting needed to be done. The cooperative trucks were coming into the farm to pick up tons of produce to take to market. My Dad’s farm was part of a coop which pooled farmers’s resources together to buy harvesters, tractors, refrigerated barns and to coordinate marketing to wholesalers and retailers.
Thankfully the hordes of co-op workers all had their separate entrance to the farm and did not need to come to our farm house private entrance. Those were long days and evenings, not to forget the early morning starts. There were pickers going up and down the rows of fruit trees and the resulting boxes of fruits then cleaned, sorted and labeled before being loaded up to be taken off to markets. We all chipped in to get the job done before rains came or the fruits became overripe. As farmers everywhere did, we watched the weather reports like hawks watched chickens!
We were now getting ready to do some harvesting at Moog’s family farm in Minorcaville. It had been a long day. The plan was to go to Minorcaville in the morning to try to compress the harvesting there into two days. It being Wednesday, we hoped to get his farm done by the end of Friday. All of the trucks had left our field and as I was making sure that all equipment was put cleaned and put the away, I just happened to look up to see a strange white sedan style vehicle pull to a stop over in that entrance area of the farm. Two young looking men got out dressed in ordinary work garb and they looked over to the farmhouse slowly and carefully. It appeared that one of them might be filming with a handheld camera. My instincts surged to attention, first because no one should be there at that time, two because they weren’t looking toward the fields where the crops were and three the wind was blowing their scent my way and I smelled the now distinct scent of Outlaw Badjan. The moment I stepped out fully into the open and they saw me looking in their direction, they almost ran back into their vehicle and peeled out of that gravel driveway headed toward Vinceland.
I quickly called up Charlie, “Hi Charlie, I need your help urgently, two guys in a white sedan heading down the road toward you. They just left the loading area of our farm and they look like they were scoping out the farm buildings. They can’t be up to any good. Can you fly your drones and follow them? I’m on my way to the house now and I will send up one of Dad’s dashers but it’s range is limited. I will send you some feed so you will know exact location. During my recent training session with the other five out in the boonies near Bahoe, we had a run in with some Badjans and these guys smelled like them”
Charlie said, “Jonah you smelled them from your behind farmhouse and they were down by your loading road. That’s maybe four hundred yards and you SMELT them, while on a farm with all those other scents! You must have dog in you my brother, you’re not normal. Ok my drones are fully charged so they can stay up one and a half hours total. We will follow them up to forty five minutes to wherever, then I have to turn back.”
I said, “Thanks Charlie.”
I got the dasher up but the charge was only 60%. I think the batteries are getting a bit knackered. In no time I had them on the console as they now drove at normal speed, I’m sure to not draw attention to themselves as they went down the country road almost into Vinceland. Charlie would pick up on them there. I gave him a thorough description. Charlie’s drone was now up and he got on target quickly. I could smell his excitement, having an opportunity to help out. We had at least three more hours of daylight and he proposed to corral a few of his other friends who had drones into the hunt, depending on what direction they took.
In the meantime, I called up Jongi and the rest of Six telepathically, reported what was going on. Jongi sighed, “My fault for not alerting you earlier today. Our AI predicted that there was a 90 % chance the group would try to kidnap you guys and we did get some encrypted coms that seemed to be coming from them discussing some pickups. You know, this is what they do. That’s how they grab talent to replenish themselves and their numbers and collect ransoms too. So this confirms now that each of you in Six are targets as well as your family members and even close friends. That’s a lot of folks to inform and to help protect. I suggest that you all study up their tactics even more and run the scenarios based on your neighborhood setups and make educated guesses on what you’d do if in their position. Then you can prepare. Motion sensing cameras will need to go up where you don’t have any already with hotlines from them to alert you to unusual movements. Then let us know the codes to your devices so we can have a few extra surveillance drones up very high so as not to tip them off as to increased checks. In fact only two round the clock drones at medium levels will cover this whole sector. Our AI is already familiar with traffic patterns in all of your areas from ground, cell tower, traffic lights, homes and businesses but we will intensify our surveillance. Our goal is not to play catch-up but to prevent them from snat
ching in the first place. Remember these guys are very savvy too and they can watch patterns plus collect information clandestinely too. Jonah, please do not leave any members alone at home. Make sure all are armed but concealed to not alert the would be attackers.”
We were now all informed, thanked Jongi who went offline in our heads. None of the other members of Six had noticed anything discordant around them. We would be quick to report to each other we vowed. We made plans on how we would deploy to provide extra security to each other, being mindful of feints and decoy attacks. Since the others lived in or close to the city of Pommerose and there are so many avenues for attack there, but there is so much more surveillance possibilities. My family and I live out in the country and they can come from any direction; they are not limited to roadways.
He paced back and forth between his large heavy wooden desk and the two chairs in front of it with only one lamp on as all the shutters were down on his four windows. He was talking into his scrambled vid phone. Outside his office, there was the beginning ‘whap whap’ of flapping blades along with the whine of high powered engines spooling up. He was obviously animated but moved a bit jerkily, clearly nervous. When the sound of the departing transport faded, he sat down behind his desk, head in his hands. His bosses office was just down the hall but all was quiet in the rest of the building. He was working after hours. This was a private mission to rendezvous to pick up some underlings. They were not supposed to get spotted.
People thought that Outlaws lived in caves out in the Badlands, but no they were often times the folks next door with a grudge.
Charlie checked in, “The car has pulled off the road into a gravel path that leads out toward a local gathering spot where teens go to have private parties about ten miles down the road from Vinceland. They are parking now but sort of under the trees. There doesn’t seem to be anybody else there now. They are walking toward a clearing.”
I told him to keep his drone out of sight and observe. I then contacted Jongi and Six to update them. It appears that Breecher was now in on the action since we had some concrete leads now. He busted in on the chat with his gravelly voice.
“We’ve got eyes wide open now.” he said. “There is one transport flying low, zigzagging a lot, but if I had to guess it’s headed there to pick up those two guys. We will keep tabs on it and I’ve got some troopers loaded in an interceptor taking to the air from the training area here in Bahoe and eta is twelve minutes. I will keep you guys in the loop. I will send feed to your vidcoms.”
The transport did indeed head for that field and Breecher sent some pertinent feed to our individual vidcoms. It was evident that as promised, Breecher was bringing in lots of assets to observe from above. One person with a backpack disembarked from the transport and had run over to the car. Breecher was in his element; you could tell from his voice that he was excited. That car was about to be also followed to get as much intel as possible. The goal here he said, was to follow these vehicles to let them hopefully lead us back to the bigger players. So keeping a low profile and ensuring the ones followed stayed in the dark, was the key with this plan. Humans still had access to cyanide or it’s variants and ‘biting the bullet’ was still a thing among the Outlaws. Being captured was not in their training and many times it appears valuable information was never obtained if they got wind of their imminent capture. So Securinet was forced to back off and observe. Those Outlaws were indeed sharp cookies.
The person who had run over to the car was now speeding off into the countryside. Then it seemed to have disappeared under an overpass for a while. When it re-emerged, it continued along the same road but more slowly and there was now a small disc mounted atop it. It was truly remarkable how clear the video feeds were to our Vidcoms.
I advised Breecher to keep an eye on the area of the overpass as the vehicle may now be remotely piloted and the driver looking to get away after dark by horse, bike, getting picked up by another vehicle or by walking away. He also told us that he’d set up for photo intercept via cameras along the road way to verify whether the vehicle was driverless.
The unmarked transport had taken off and we assumed that there would be at least three people on board if not more. Several landings and takeoffs from different fields later with no one getting off happened and we assumed that those were decoy runs to throw off monitoring. Also the transport was not broadcasting a required code to help avoid collisions. Finally it landed in a field and taxied under some trees before apparently shutting down. Interestingly a call had come into Securinet from a gentleman named Waple saying that a transport had been stolen from an aerodrome from where an agricultural dasher service and charter Company was operated. This happened just about the time that the transport was making its getaway from picking up the two people who had been on my family’s farm. My brain went ‘ding ding ding’ at the name Waple. Could this be the same Mr. Waple who had been associated with Amalae and had shown interest in my talents as a kid?
I communicated my interest concerning Mr. Waple to Breecher and he suggested that I be part of the team who would interview him to be able to interrogate his mind. Now a whole team was being put together to investigate this rather threatening situation.
Charlie’s drone as well as my Dad’s dasher were both now back home and I thanked Charlie for his help. He said, “That was a pleasure Jonah. For the number of times you’ve been out to help me and Fetch, it is nothing. “
I gave him a little synopsis of what might be going on and he promised to make sure to keep alert to any strange goings on like unusual traffic heading toward my village. Most traffic to Dudemar came from his direction. It was even more rural beyond our locale.
15. Under Outlaw attack
All of Six was in the loop and everyone was alert for strange delivery men. Just then Jessi, who was home with her parents reported telepathically to us that a delivery man was coming to her door. He knocked and waited and her father went to answer it but was armed with a blaster anyway. I warned her that he could be stunned by an explosion or flash bang or gassed so to advise him to be ready. She tuned up all her senses and her Mum also armed herself since they’d been had been updated. Jessi said that she could pick up sudden activity behind their swimming pool area and two more figures were emerging from a vehicle that had pulled up behind the delivery van. So there were at least four not counting the delivery person. Every one of us Six now had our internal sensors blazing wide open. I got Moog, Mom and Dad watching the permanent cameras we already had mounted around the premises and since they were all crack shots, I had no fear that we could teach any invaders a lesson. They called our neighbors to also look out for intruders. Breecher had to turn to the local police units to head to each of the Six’s addresses to be ready and especially to Jessi’s place.
As Mr. Waple emerged from his office, some local police were screaming their sirens up the driveway of his aerodrome. He had as planned, notified his boss Mr. Morgan of the disappearance of the transport as well as securinet as soon as he claimed that he’d realized that it had taken off without his company’s pilot on board. At least that was his story. He had been in his office working late, had heard the engines start up and leave but he was engrossed in his work and had assumed it to be an appropriate flight until it struck him that he did not remember any such flight was carded to take place! He had quickly verified this on his computer, he said. He then called his pilots to see if any were scheduled to fly. It was then that he realized the the transport was stolen. He seemed very earnest and even distressed on the call. My interrogation of his mind would have to wait though. The cops confiscated the computers and would look up his call logs, all standard in an investigation of this sort they reassured him. Meanwhile he would be very closely monitored Breecher said, to make sure that he could not easily bolt if he was an Outlaw or sympathizer. He would be under a microscope and the whole company too.
Jessi’s delivery driver looked nervous and sweaty as he walked up to the front door. They read hi
m and his thoughts and knew through that mechanism that he was not a willing participant. His family was on the line, likely they were being held hostage. The two men had gotten out of their vehicle and were almost halfway up the driveway with hands down in their pockets moving fast but trying to appear nonchalant. They might have fooled a homeowner intent on opening the door to simply receive a package. Unfortunately this was not an ordinary home nor ordinary homeowners. As soon as the door opened her father Jace translocated himself down that driveway to land just behind the two approaching men. They never had a chance. Jessi said that he may appear to be just an amiable professor to the simple viewer, but he had interplanetary combat training and could use it. Their heads crashed into each other with a thud and then he used the stun function of his blaster on them to induce severe muscle spasms. They were useless to themselves then and would not be able to move for several minutes. He then disarmed them of their blasters and backups too. He told his delivery man to leave the package on the stoop and come inside the house quickly. The poor man was quick to comply.
Outlaw Badjans (Six of Toigan) Page 11
