Bait - Episode 6
I know, it's late, but I'm behind, and I'm floundering. EEEE!
Shidbit wordcount: 2189
Total wordcount: 11,286
Today's goal: 14,540
In a long room with a twenty-foot conference table surrounded by chairs, three figures sat in silence, the lights turned down low until shadows cast by the single overhead lamp hid the features on their faces. A trail of wispy smoke rose from an ash tray near where the figures gathered at one end of the table, and a general sense of foreboding filled the room.
“The message was from Earth?” one voice whispered with sinister inflections tweaking every syllable. “How did he make contact with us?”
“All of the Elites were implanted with an intergalacial homing device and transmitter somewhere on their bodies,” another voice explained in hushed tones. “Dart activated his and managed to send a short message before the battery died.”
“Hundreds of thousands of ayos spent on a transmitter and the battery dies?” hissed a third voice.
“Calm yourself, fiery one. Earth is many galaxies away. The distance alone would drain half of a healthy battery’s life, and let me remind you that the sixteen years of service it has provided is no small task either. Be not so judgmental, for once. Batteries are not meant to live forever.”
“He mentioned killing a twitop,” the second voice whispered, changing the subject. “A random portal in one place is one thing- but two Anyanans finding their way to the same destination via two separate portals is unthinkable. There’s more going on here than we realize.” The other two heads nodded their assent as smoke continued to trickle from the ash tray. Yes, it was a gloomy scene indeed. Suddenly a door on the far end of the room slid open to reveal a fourth being. The light from the room beyond carved a definite human female silhouette upon the eyes of the three creatures sitting at the conference table.
“What are you guys doing in here with the lights off? And why are you burning incense?” She demanded in a loud tone of voice that spoke of no nonsense. With one swat of her hand, the lights in the room came up to reveal the three figures to be mere humans, sitting in chairs with their shoulders hunkered, their heads ducked, and their hands steepled in front of their chins as if in thought. “I heard you whispering, too.” The newcomer said mockingly and stalked forward, the barest hint of a grin showing on her mouth. “Are we playing Dark Evil Overlords again? I don’t believe you three!” She took a seat in a nearby empty chair, crossing her arms and slouching in a classic “pout” position. “I can’t believe you started without me!”
“Sorry Kay,” a brown-haired young man said, smiling sheepishly. The woman gave him a warm smile before leaning forward and propping her elbows on the table.
“Okay, so what’ve we got so far?” She asked, looking expectantly between the other three seated. The brown-haired man leaned back in his seat and clasped his hands behind his head.
“Dart Zantaa-- you remember him-- unexpectedly wound up on Earth this morning via an apparently random, apparently feral portal.”
“He encountered and killed a twitop bull-“ a red-haired man to Kay’s left spoke next. “We were discussing the improbability of these portals being random when you came in.” She nodded and looked to the third person in the room; a lanky woman with her medium-length brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail.
“We don’t know much more than that at this point- the transmitter’s battery died mid-way through the transmission. His last words were garbled, we’re not sure what he was trying to say at the time the connection was terminated.”
“Stupid dropped calls,” the redhead grumbled.
“Well, I have good news, and I have bad news.” Kay, a short gal with long brown hair and wire-framed glasses, spread her palms to face the ceiling. “Good news- I’ve set the AUF in motion to assembling a find-and-retrieve mission to go get Dart… I should have a list of team member profiles on my desk by morning.”
“And the bad news?” The brown-haired man questioned.
“I’ll let you hear it for yourselves- I’ve acquired a copy of Dart’s transmission.” She pressed a button on a small portable device she held in her pocket, and the partly-garbled message began to play.
“This is Dart Zantaa from Anyana, with an urgent message for the Founders.” Dart’s voice was tinny and sounded far away, as if he were speaking through a long metal tube. “A random feral portal sent me to Earth, deep in some jungle at a small human settlement. I have encountered a bull twitop, which I had no choice but to eliminate.” Here the recording became cracked and garbled, making Dart’s voice increasingly difficult to understand. Certain words were left out entirely, and the volume began to fade. “I found… evidence… more beasts… just Anyana, I f… need help… send team…” Dart’s voice phased out completely and was replaced by loud static. End transmission.
“We can only assume he meant there are more creatures from Anyana still remaining on Earth.” Kay looked each person in the eye firmly, to make sure the point was clear.
“Wait…” the brown-haired man said slowly. “If there were, he would be able to deal with them himself. He’s an ex-Elite, for sun’s sake. Why then would he want us to send a team to help?”
“Exactly my thoughts, Ryan.” Kay nodded. “There must be more down there than he thinks he can handle alone.” At this the red-haired man began to get excited.
“A search-and destroy mission, then!” He leaned forward, urgency shining in his eyes. “We send a team to take care of the non-Earth beasts so they don’t cause trouble.”
“I think there is a less violent course of action to take here,” the other woman said quietly. “We do send a team, but we use the new wormhole technology to transport the creatures back where they belong-- without killing them.” The red-haired man sat back and frowned at her.
“You’re no fun, Jen.”
“My pleasure, Matt.”
“Okay, so, hang on.” Ryan ran a hand through his short brown hair. “We’re sending a team to Earth already to pick Dart up… why don’t we just tack on the additional task of rounding up and shipping home whatever critters are down there that shouldn’t be?” There was a general round of consensus among them, though Matt’s was somewhat reluctant.
“And if the team is met with more than they bargained for?”
“Then we send a larger squad equipped with whatever they need to get the job done,” Ryan explained, as Kay nodded and added a few words herself.
“Our primary goal is to get the creatures that don’t belong off of Earth before they cause a lot of damage and disrupt a lot of the culture. They’re wild about aliens down there, as we all know. The last thing they need is another Bigfoot. So we get our beasts back and leave as few carcasses as possible. Anyanacritt or otherwise,” she pointed out, indicating that there still remained a chance that the Anyanan creatures could very well cause a few deaths of the Earthen inhabitants.
“Meanwhile we need to get a team together to try to figure out what the heck happened.” Ryan added quietly, looking each of his colleagues in the eye. “If what Dart said was true and there are a large number of Anyanan critts on Earth, and if it’s true they all arrived through portals, then this was no coincidence. Someone or something has to have an explanation. Let’s just pray that we’re not dealing with some wannabe mastermind’s malevolent plot.” The group shook their heads in agreement.
“Right then,” Kay stood up. “Let’s get to work.”
---
Blinding white light, a gust of dry heat, and the sweet smell of spices announced the arrival of yet another portal on the Earthen plane. This time there were no witnesses to the arrival of another being save the caterpillar on that leaf over there and the ant on that branch down here. A group of five creatures of varied shapes, sizes, colors, and genders emerged from the rift in space and landed easily on the soggy jungle floor. There were three shapeshifters- currently in form of humans- and two ulen, white haired blue-skinned humanoids with four arms and long, slender ears. The group was quiet, wary, and ready to get on with their mission. They were the five chosen for the task set out by the Founders; find Dart, make sure he was okay, and deal with the problem of the Anyanan beasts running rampant in Earth’s jungles.
One of the ulen checked his GPS- a nifty little device borrowed from the Force’s “library” of Earthen technology- and nodded. Right on target. “Okay, folks, Dart’s about fifty miles north of our position- let’s move out. Shifters, you know what to do.”
And indeed they did. The three shapeshifters immediately and smoothly took the form of three magnificent Anyanan leapers- shaggy-furred riding beasts renowned for their spirit and agility under saddle. The two ulen hopped astride their eager mounts and the group began moving at a very swift pace through the jungle. They tracked Dart through the weak signal his transmitter still gave off despite its battery not having the strength to continue sending messages across the stars. On Earth the signal’s strength was of great enough power that the group’s tracking devices had no problem picking it up.
After about an hour and a half of travel and unfruitful search, they finally found Dart kneeling by a small stream, drinking his fill.
“About time you guys showed up,” he called to them before the group had even come into view. Their leader, one of the ulen, grinned.
“Ahh, Mr. Zantaa, it’s good to see you again.” He dismounted his shifter-leaper and strode forward to grip the were-aya’s strong black hand with his gloved one in warm greetings. Dart took the proferred hand and shook it heartily.
“Inae Ran-shea, it’s been too long. How’ve you been?”
“Fine, just fine. But we need to get down to business.”
“Agreed.”
“First, let me introduce you to my team. We’ve got three shifters-“ here the leapers snorted and waved their long tails, tossing their heads in greeting. “E’periss,” the female on the end rumbled quietly at the mention of her name. “We call her Priss. Rynoen’o, we call him Owen-“ the big male in the center tossed his head and warbled. “And last but not least, E’rakkal- otherwise known as Kelly.” The male on the end that currently bore a rider on his back pawed the ground and hooted. “And for the other ulen on the team, we’ve got Firale Kel-ris.” The slender blue female astride Kelly gave Dart a two-fingered salute with her upper-right arm.
“Looks like a solid team,” Dart commented.
“The Founders thought so to. But let’s get down to business. Your message was garbled there at the end, so HQ didn’t catch it all. We got about as far as the twitop then things got sketchy.”
“I was afraid that might happen. What I was trying to say was that I think we’ve got more here than just Anyanabeasts.”
“What do you mean, more?”
“I mean, I’ve seen signs of creatures that don’t belong to either Earth or Anyana.”
“Gimme a break Dart, you don’t know the half of Earthen species.”
“No Earthbeast can slice an orntheloperi’s head off.” A moment of silence followed Dart’s grim utterance.
“And you’re sure it wasn’t Anyanan?”
“Pretty darn.” Another small period of silence followed before Inae cleared his throat and turned back to his group.
“Well then. Let’s get to work. We’ve got a bigger job to do than we first thought.” He stalked over to Priss and swung up on her back with a helping nudge from the leaper. “Dart, you take Owen. The plan is to scout everything out, round everyone up, and then get everyone home. How many critters do you figure we have to deal with?”
“Little problem there, chief. They’ve scattered.” The were-aya climbed onto Owen’s back, grunting a little with the effort. The tall leaper had to bend down a little to help him get a foot in the stirrup.
“Excuse me?” Inae settled himself a little deeper into Priss’ saddle.
“The heat is driving them north. It’s hotter here than on Anyana, in case you haven’t noticed. So they’re going in search of cooler weather.”
“And the problem?”
“The farther north you go, the more human settlements there are. And from what I’ve gleaned from the natives- what few would actually talk to me without peeing themselves- there’s big countries up north with dense human populations and trigger-happy militaries that would love to set off nuclear bombs at the slightest provocation.”
“Not a good sign,” Inae muttered. “Let’s move out, folks. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Firale, send a message to HQ, would you? Tell them the problem’s bigger than we thought and we have to move fast before some trigger-happy government pushes a big red button. Boom.”
Shidbit wordcount: 2189
Total wordcount: 11,286
Today's goal: 14,540
In a long room with a twenty-foot conference table surrounded by chairs, three figures sat in silence, the lights turned down low until shadows cast by the single overhead lamp hid the features on their faces. A trail of wispy smoke rose from an ash tray near where the figures gathered at one end of the table, and a general sense of foreboding filled the room.
“The message was from Earth?” one voice whispered with sinister inflections tweaking every syllable. “How did he make contact with us?”
“All of the Elites were implanted with an intergalacial homing device and transmitter somewhere on their bodies,” another voice explained in hushed tones. “Dart activated his and managed to send a short message before the battery died.”
“Hundreds of thousands of ayos spent on a transmitter and the battery dies?” hissed a third voice.
“Calm yourself, fiery one. Earth is many galaxies away. The distance alone would drain half of a healthy battery’s life, and let me remind you that the sixteen years of service it has provided is no small task either. Be not so judgmental, for once. Batteries are not meant to live forever.”
“He mentioned killing a twitop,” the second voice whispered, changing the subject. “A random portal in one place is one thing- but two Anyanans finding their way to the same destination via two separate portals is unthinkable. There’s more going on here than we realize.” The other two heads nodded their assent as smoke continued to trickle from the ash tray. Yes, it was a gloomy scene indeed. Suddenly a door on the far end of the room slid open to reveal a fourth being. The light from the room beyond carved a definite human female silhouette upon the eyes of the three creatures sitting at the conference table.
“What are you guys doing in here with the lights off? And why are you burning incense?” She demanded in a loud tone of voice that spoke of no nonsense. With one swat of her hand, the lights in the room came up to reveal the three figures to be mere humans, sitting in chairs with their shoulders hunkered, their heads ducked, and their hands steepled in front of their chins as if in thought. “I heard you whispering, too.” The newcomer said mockingly and stalked forward, the barest hint of a grin showing on her mouth. “Are we playing Dark Evil Overlords again? I don’t believe you three!” She took a seat in a nearby empty chair, crossing her arms and slouching in a classic “pout” position. “I can’t believe you started without me!”
“Sorry Kay,” a brown-haired young man said, smiling sheepishly. The woman gave him a warm smile before leaning forward and propping her elbows on the table.
“Okay, so what’ve we got so far?” She asked, looking expectantly between the other three seated. The brown-haired man leaned back in his seat and clasped his hands behind his head.
“Dart Zantaa-- you remember him-- unexpectedly wound up on Earth this morning via an apparently random, apparently feral portal.”
“He encountered and killed a twitop bull-“ a red-haired man to Kay’s left spoke next. “We were discussing the improbability of these portals being random when you came in.” She nodded and looked to the third person in the room; a lanky woman with her medium-length brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail.
“We don’t know much more than that at this point- the transmitter’s battery died mid-way through the transmission. His last words were garbled, we’re not sure what he was trying to say at the time the connection was terminated.”
“Stupid dropped calls,” the redhead grumbled.
“Well, I have good news, and I have bad news.” Kay, a short gal with long brown hair and wire-framed glasses, spread her palms to face the ceiling. “Good news- I’ve set the AUF in motion to assembling a find-and-retrieve mission to go get Dart… I should have a list of team member profiles on my desk by morning.”
“And the bad news?” The brown-haired man questioned.
“I’ll let you hear it for yourselves- I’ve acquired a copy of Dart’s transmission.” She pressed a button on a small portable device she held in her pocket, and the partly-garbled message began to play.
“This is Dart Zantaa from Anyana, with an urgent message for the Founders.” Dart’s voice was tinny and sounded far away, as if he were speaking through a long metal tube. “A random feral portal sent me to Earth, deep in some jungle at a small human settlement. I have encountered a bull twitop, which I had no choice but to eliminate.” Here the recording became cracked and garbled, making Dart’s voice increasingly difficult to understand. Certain words were left out entirely, and the volume began to fade. “I found… evidence… more beasts… just Anyana, I f… need help… send team…” Dart’s voice phased out completely and was replaced by loud static. End transmission.
“We can only assume he meant there are more creatures from Anyana still remaining on Earth.” Kay looked each person in the eye firmly, to make sure the point was clear.
“Wait…” the brown-haired man said slowly. “If there were, he would be able to deal with them himself. He’s an ex-Elite, for sun’s sake. Why then would he want us to send a team to help?”
“Exactly my thoughts, Ryan.” Kay nodded. “There must be more down there than he thinks he can handle alone.” At this the red-haired man began to get excited.
“A search-and destroy mission, then!” He leaned forward, urgency shining in his eyes. “We send a team to take care of the non-Earth beasts so they don’t cause trouble.”
“I think there is a less violent course of action to take here,” the other woman said quietly. “We do send a team, but we use the new wormhole technology to transport the creatures back where they belong-- without killing them.” The red-haired man sat back and frowned at her.
“You’re no fun, Jen.”
“My pleasure, Matt.”
“Okay, so, hang on.” Ryan ran a hand through his short brown hair. “We’re sending a team to Earth already to pick Dart up… why don’t we just tack on the additional task of rounding up and shipping home whatever critters are down there that shouldn’t be?” There was a general round of consensus among them, though Matt’s was somewhat reluctant.
“And if the team is met with more than they bargained for?”
“Then we send a larger squad equipped with whatever they need to get the job done,” Ryan explained, as Kay nodded and added a few words herself.
“Our primary goal is to get the creatures that don’t belong off of Earth before they cause a lot of damage and disrupt a lot of the culture. They’re wild about aliens down there, as we all know. The last thing they need is another Bigfoot. So we get our beasts back and leave as few carcasses as possible. Anyanacritt or otherwise,” she pointed out, indicating that there still remained a chance that the Anyanan creatures could very well cause a few deaths of the Earthen inhabitants.
“Meanwhile we need to get a team together to try to figure out what the heck happened.” Ryan added quietly, looking each of his colleagues in the eye. “If what Dart said was true and there are a large number of Anyanan critts on Earth, and if it’s true they all arrived through portals, then this was no coincidence. Someone or something has to have an explanation. Let’s just pray that we’re not dealing with some wannabe mastermind’s malevolent plot.” The group shook their heads in agreement.
“Right then,” Kay stood up. “Let’s get to work.”
---
Blinding white light, a gust of dry heat, and the sweet smell of spices announced the arrival of yet another portal on the Earthen plane. This time there were no witnesses to the arrival of another being save the caterpillar on that leaf over there and the ant on that branch down here. A group of five creatures of varied shapes, sizes, colors, and genders emerged from the rift in space and landed easily on the soggy jungle floor. There were three shapeshifters- currently in form of humans- and two ulen, white haired blue-skinned humanoids with four arms and long, slender ears. The group was quiet, wary, and ready to get on with their mission. They were the five chosen for the task set out by the Founders; find Dart, make sure he was okay, and deal with the problem of the Anyanan beasts running rampant in Earth’s jungles.
One of the ulen checked his GPS- a nifty little device borrowed from the Force’s “library” of Earthen technology- and nodded. Right on target. “Okay, folks, Dart’s about fifty miles north of our position- let’s move out. Shifters, you know what to do.”
And indeed they did. The three shapeshifters immediately and smoothly took the form of three magnificent Anyanan leapers- shaggy-furred riding beasts renowned for their spirit and agility under saddle. The two ulen hopped astride their eager mounts and the group began moving at a very swift pace through the jungle. They tracked Dart through the weak signal his transmitter still gave off despite its battery not having the strength to continue sending messages across the stars. On Earth the signal’s strength was of great enough power that the group’s tracking devices had no problem picking it up.
After about an hour and a half of travel and unfruitful search, they finally found Dart kneeling by a small stream, drinking his fill.
“About time you guys showed up,” he called to them before the group had even come into view. Their leader, one of the ulen, grinned.
“Ahh, Mr. Zantaa, it’s good to see you again.” He dismounted his shifter-leaper and strode forward to grip the were-aya’s strong black hand with his gloved one in warm greetings. Dart took the proferred hand and shook it heartily.
“Inae Ran-shea, it’s been too long. How’ve you been?”
“Fine, just fine. But we need to get down to business.”
“Agreed.”
“First, let me introduce you to my team. We’ve got three shifters-“ here the leapers snorted and waved their long tails, tossing their heads in greeting. “E’periss,” the female on the end rumbled quietly at the mention of her name. “We call her Priss. Rynoen’o, we call him Owen-“ the big male in the center tossed his head and warbled. “And last but not least, E’rakkal- otherwise known as Kelly.” The male on the end that currently bore a rider on his back pawed the ground and hooted. “And for the other ulen on the team, we’ve got Firale Kel-ris.” The slender blue female astride Kelly gave Dart a two-fingered salute with her upper-right arm.
“Looks like a solid team,” Dart commented.
“The Founders thought so to. But let’s get down to business. Your message was garbled there at the end, so HQ didn’t catch it all. We got about as far as the twitop then things got sketchy.”
“I was afraid that might happen. What I was trying to say was that I think we’ve got more here than just Anyanabeasts.”
“What do you mean, more?”
“I mean, I’ve seen signs of creatures that don’t belong to either Earth or Anyana.”
“Gimme a break Dart, you don’t know the half of Earthen species.”
“No Earthbeast can slice an orntheloperi’s head off.” A moment of silence followed Dart’s grim utterance.
“And you’re sure it wasn’t Anyanan?”
“Pretty darn.” Another small period of silence followed before Inae cleared his throat and turned back to his group.
“Well then. Let’s get to work. We’ve got a bigger job to do than we first thought.” He stalked over to Priss and swung up on her back with a helping nudge from the leaper. “Dart, you take Owen. The plan is to scout everything out, round everyone up, and then get everyone home. How many critters do you figure we have to deal with?”
“Little problem there, chief. They’ve scattered.” The were-aya climbed onto Owen’s back, grunting a little with the effort. The tall leaper had to bend down a little to help him get a foot in the stirrup.
“Excuse me?” Inae settled himself a little deeper into Priss’ saddle.
“The heat is driving them north. It’s hotter here than on Anyana, in case you haven’t noticed. So they’re going in search of cooler weather.”
“And the problem?”
“The farther north you go, the more human settlements there are. And from what I’ve gleaned from the natives- what few would actually talk to me without peeing themselves- there’s big countries up north with dense human populations and trigger-happy militaries that would love to set off nuclear bombs at the slightest provocation.”
“Not a good sign,” Inae muttered. “Let’s move out, folks. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Firale, send a message to HQ, would you? Tell them the problem’s bigger than we thought and we have to move fast before some trigger-happy government pushes a big red button. Boom.”