[COPY] Mission Creep – Containment Protocol-Part 14
Getting out of hand. 2100 words, 11-minute read.
Last episode, Nohfa had cornered Booker at the hot springs. The rest of this saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/rays-serial-fiction
Mission Creep – Containment Protocol-Part 14
By Ray Tabler
“Uh.” Booker was not feeling particularly articulate with a naked Nohfa inches away. The way droplets of water jeweled the tanned skin of her bare torso was very distracting.
“Boom boom.” Nohfa breathed, into his ear, reaching below the waterline.
Booker suddenly recovered his wits and slid along the boulder, avoiding Nohfa’s questing palm. Frankly, he was afraid of what she’d encounter if her hand found what it was groping for. “We already did a boom boom. Wasn’t that enough?”
Nohfa’s grin widened, apparently liking this game of hard-to-get Booker was playing. “One boom boom good. Boom boom, boom boom gooder.” She crooned.
Booker stopped and tilted his head, momentarily forgetting he was trying to run away. “Your English is a lot better than I expected.”
“Nohfa listen. Nohfa learn.” Nohfa winked, growled softly, and pursued Booker into deeper water.
“Lieutenant Booker!” the distant voice of sergeant Mulroney drifted over the water. “Lieutenant Booker!” Mulroney was getting closer.
“Over here!” Booker shouted like a man lost at sea, and trying to attract the attention of a passing ship. He stood up, hot water draining down his body. Suddenly Booker became aware that a certain part of his anatomy was standing at attention. Nohfa giggled and waded nearer. Booker sat down in the water again, creating a wave which rippled across the pool.
The tall foliage at the edge of the pool parted, and Mulroney’s face poked through. “There you are, sir!” Belatedly, Mulroney noticed a naked Nohfa standing over his commanding officer, the water only reaching to her mid-thigh. “Oh! I do beg your pardon, ma’am.”
Mulroney did the gentlemanly thing, and averted his eyes. He slowly stepped forward through the thick, yards-wide, yards-tall fringe of bushes bordering the secluded hot springs pool, pushing brush aside, and carefully planting his boots one after the other. This operation was complicated by the fact that the sergeant kept his gaze up and to one side, to preserve some semblance of privacy for Booker and the lady.
“I’ve been looking all over for you. sir. Mr. Muñoz—Oh shit!” Mulroney tripped, and disappeared into the bushes. There was a frantic shaking of greenery. “What the Sam Hill are you doin’ here?”
Bunzo, the witch doctor popped up from the bushes glancing about, and down at the still-cursing Mulroney. Booker noticed that the skulking shaman had his binoculars hanging about his scrawny neck. No doubt the better to observe Booker and Nohfa in watery abandon. Nohfa splashed toward Bunzo, shaking her fists and screaming what was likely abusive language at the voyeur. Bunzo wasn’t dumb, and quickly decided it would be healthier for him to be somewhere else right then. He abruptly scrambled through the bushes, heading in the general direction of his hut. Mulroney regained his feet and chased after the witch doctor, bellowing as if he was berating a raw recruit.
Booker seized the initiative. He utilized the commotion to hurry over, retrieve his coveralls from the branch where they hung, and quickly slide into them. Just as he zipped them up, Mulroney reappeared back the through the bushes, grumbling.
“I tried to catch him, sir. But that corn-sorned peepin’ Tom runs faster ‘n a scalded dog!” Mulroney said, approaching Booker across the small, sandy beach.
“Don’t worry about it, sergeant.” Booker pulled on his boots, and buckled his gun belt. “You said you were looking for me.”
“Oh, yes sir. Mr. Muñoz needs you over at the chief’s hut.”
By this time Nohfa had climbed out of the water and padded next to the two soldiers. She stood there, not in the least troubled by her statuesque nudity. The same could not be said of Booker and Mulroney.
“Mul-rohn-ee.” Nohfa looked the sergeant up and down in a way that made him feel as if he were a head of livestock being priced for auction.
Booker caught some of the collateral damage from that look, and decided he needed to be elsewhere as well. “Maybe we better go see what Muñoz wants me for, sergeant.”
“Yes sir!”
The two men hastily pushed through the bushes, eager for an excuse to depart the awkward situation. The call of duty more than sufficed. Nohfa watched them go, hands on her naked hips. She reached out to snatch Booker’s again-forgotten boxer shorts from the branch where he’d left them to dry. A calculating smile curling her lovely lips, Nohfa idly twirled the shorts on an index finger.
***
Booker and Mulroney hurried across Bedrock in a tense silence. Halfway to the chief’s hut, Booker could stand it no longer.
“Sergeant, about what you saw back there at the pool...”
“I didn’t see anything, sir. The lieutenant’s private matters are none of my concern.”
The silence returned for another few paces. “Thank you for clarifying that, sergeant.”
“Of course, if I were asked for advice, I’d caution the lieutenant about getting too deeply entangled with indigenous females. Can get tricky.”
“If you were asked.”
“Only if I was asked, sir.”
At this point, Booker and Mulroney approached the chief’s hut, postponing any further discussion of the chief’s prowling daughter. Muñoz and Vinzi squatted on a log flanking the doorway of the chief’s hut, drinking horns stuck into the dirt at their feet. Muñoz and Vinzi rose and greeted Booker and Mulroney. The next few minutes were consumed with translated pleasantries concerning praise for the meat, drink, and dancing of the evening before. If Vinzi asked how Booker slept, Muñoz. mercifully, handled that question without translation. Considering that Booker spent the night with the chief’s daughter, that was probably for the best. Even if he had no memory of the event.
Another log lay on the other side of the hut’s doorway, forming what was effectively Vinzi’s stone age executive conference room. Vinzi waved Booker and Mulroney to the other log, and returned to his seat. A local teen carried a pair of drinking horns from the hut, and a bulging wineskin. She shoved the pointy ends of the horns into the dirt in front of the lieutenant and Mulroney, and filled them to overflowing with a watery beverage. Booker eyed the drink with resigned dread.
Vinzi picked up his drinking horn, raised it to the group, and uttered a few words. Much to Booker’s relief, the chief only sipped his drink before reinserting the horn in the soil at his feet. Apparently, this was not to be an occasion requiring multiple rounds of horn-emptying toasts. Booker and his men sipped at their horns as well. This vintage or brew was, unlike the demonic beverage of the night before, more dilute, and somewhat sour.
“So,” Muñoz cleared his throat. “Vinzi and I have been talking about the unpleasantness of this morning. He agrees that it would’ve been best if we had departed before Pinsky wandered into the shrine. But the klesuf migration intervened. Unfortunate, but beyond anyone’s control but the gods. I’ve been asking, in a respectful manner of course, about what Pinsky saw in the shrine.”
Booker leaned forward. “And what does he have to say about that?”
“Quite a bit, actually. It’s not taboo to talk of what’s in the shrine. Just to blunder in there without the proper purifying rituals.” Muñoz paused to wet his whistle with the sour drink. “you have to understand that tribe’s history is entirely oral. So, it’s only as accurate as human memory can make it, then further degraded by variation generation of retelling can introduce.”
“Okay.” Booker prompted.
“That said, Vinzi’s recollection of each artifact is amazing. The gingham dress was owned and worn by a woman from Illinois, named Sarah Johnson. The uniform jacket came from a Union soldier of the Civil War, Hiram Jenkins. A lot of items weren’t picked up by Pinsky’s camera. For instance, there’s what must be a conquistador’s helmet from Vinzi’s description. His name was Manuel di Hornza.”
“Holy shit!” Mulroney said.
“I agree.” Booker took another swig of wine, in spite of the taste. “Did he say how they all got here?”
“Every now and then, no regular schedule to it, the tribe hears thunder from a clear sky, and finds these displaced people wandering about. They take them in, and make them a part of the tribe.” Muñoz shrugged. “If they want to be part of the tribe.”
“What’s that mean?” Booker asked.
“Remember those old World War II tanks we saw on the march here? Vinzi says, after the crews ran out of fuel, the tribe took them in. The Germans tried to take the place over. Which lasted until about five minutes after the ammunition for their side arms ran out. Then the people of Bedrock mobbed and beat them to death. That were the last ones to show up before us. Well, before me.”
“The last ones, just like Nohfa said.” Booker nodded. “Good thing you did get here first. Otherwise, the locals might’ve thought we were another pack of Nazis. They wouldn’t know old German tanks from Abrams. Are their uniforms and gear in the shrine?”
“No, as a matter of fact. That’s all bad juju, or imbued with evil spirits, or whatever the proper terminology is. A group of tribesmen made a pilgrimage to some place they call the mountain of the gods. Where they left the whole kit and kaboodle, bodies, uniforms, and gear. So the gods can keep a close eye on the cursed stuff.”
“Hmm.” Booker scratched the stubble on his chin. He was mildly surprised that there was only one day’s growth of beard there. It seemed like a week since this mission had started. “At the very least, we’ve got confirmation that some kind of portal has been opening up all on its own between Earth and here multiple times, and going back at least a few hundred years. How far away is the mountain of the gods place?”
Muñoz raised an eyebrow at this question, but put it to Vinzi all the same.
“What are you thinking about, lieutenant?’ Mulroney asked, his trouble meter nearly pegging.
“Part of our task is to look into why the gate wouldn’t shut down properly. These spontaneously-opening portals might have something to do with that.”
“And you think we should divert to gods’ mountain to check it out?” Mulroney was clearly uncomfortable with the idea. Muñoz and Vinzi continued theor discussion in the local language.
“I think we have to, sergeant, if at all practical.”
“I was afraid you’d say that, sir. And what if we find these gods still in residence?”
“What if we do? That is a piece of information our superiors would probably like to have sooner rather than later.”
Mulroney looked like he was searching for a homey metaphor about poking bears or biting off more than one platoon of tanks could chew, when Muñoz turned from his brief conversation with the chief.
“The journey would take about two days by swahldet.”
“Could the tanks make the trip?” Booker asked Muñoz.
Muñoz, waking up to Booker’s intent answered cautiously. “Sounds like the route is too rough for vehicles, let alone tanks.”
Booker shrugged. “The tanks can’t leave Bedrock until the migration has passed anyway.”
“Normally, I’m all for a fun side quest. But, do you think it’s wise to—”
Booker interrupted Muñoz. “Playing it safe is not part of our job description.”
“It won’t do any good if we don’t get what we’ve already learned back to the brass.” Muñoz pointed out.
“I’ve taken that into consideration, and weighed the risks involved. Not all of us need to go on this expedition. I’m thinking of myself, you, to translate, and a few other men. The bulk of the platoon will stay here. If we don’t return in time—”
“Or at all.”
“Or at all, Mr. Muñoz, the rest can still exfil to Earth once the migration is over.”
Muñoz and Mulroney exchanged glances. Both men were about to argue with the lieutenant, when movement caught their eyes. A group of about twenty locals was approaching. The bulk of the tribesmen were unknown to the soldiers, but what Booker recognized as all of the tribal council traveled in the front of the pack. And leading them all was Bunzo, the witch doctor, arrayed in his feathered, velociraptor-skull ceremonial regalia.
“Uh oh,” Muñoz warned quietly. “This looks like trouble.”
END.
Tune in next time for Part 15 – Brass Fever.
Find the rest of the Containment Protocol tale here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/rays-serial-fiction
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