The Token by Kevin Bird (the little red hen ebook .TXT) 📖

have killed itself by running blindly into the fencing. Jacob could see that by the animal’s side was a smaller blue that had just followed her herd-mate to her death. Jacob was close to panic, but he had to hold on to himself and go to the trees where Drake had seen the rest. Soon he could let his emotions run free, but now wasn’t the time.
Bettine joined him and together they walked over to a stomping, prancing group of five or six blues. Thankfully, Jacob saw, though they were still spooked, they were all healthy. With some effort he was able to calm them down and lead them back to the raising building where the trouble had started. Bettine had locked it from the outside as best she could, but Jacob could see that the latch was broken. Once the animals were inside and Jacob had rigged a better lock, he asked Bettine what had happened.
Bettine began to sob now that the terror was over and the enormity of everything finally hit her. Jacob hugged his daughter and tried to make sense of the words forced out between tears.
“I followed you down so I could lock the doors after you and I did it too. But they all began to go crazy. I think they could maybe smell those things, but I think the main thing that set them off was the screaming. It scared me too.” She stopped for a moment to apparently gather herself and her emotional thoughts then pulled away from her father and sat on a bale of feed to continue. “ It’s so strange to hear sound coming out of these blues that when you do, you know something really bad’s going on. I couldn’t calm them down, and they seemed to just get each other more and more frightened. The next thing I knew one of them fell which made them even worse,” here she pointed to a corner and Jacob’s heart sank. Another body.
He hadn’t noticed this when they had returned the escaped blues inside. But now he could see it was another adult, the other blues standing around nuzzling her trying to get her up. To his shock he saw her move and try to stand. He and Bettine ran over immediately and they could see she was pregnant and was in the process of expelling her premature calf. Jacob sent Bettine to run home and fetch Bella to help him. All else went from his mind as he tried to save this animal.

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Drake was talking on his radio when Cale approached quietly. Drake had come down from the roof and was checking in with the other groups on his radio while staring down at the strange black shape on the ground. He was smiling, hearing news of the successful evening when suddenly he got some bad news. He turned to his security chief.
“Cale, Tenec was killed tonight.” He hung his head respectfully at the loss of one of his men; this was not supposed to have happened so early in their mission. He knew it was a possibility later on when they entered the caves, but he had really thought this night would be easy. He moved on realizing it was all part of the trials of living a life of action for profit. “Two of the other farms were attacked at the same time as this one, and they had no other problems. They seem to have killed about fifteen between them and tagged at least four.”
“I got seven confirmed killed and maybe three or four wounded that managed to escape.” He spoke without looking for a pat on the back. Drake liked that about him; straight to the point and all business. A man he could rely on.
“Well done. I only managed to get one tagged before I had a little trouble from this one.” He kicked the dead animal in anger; he was now realizing how close he’d come to being killed and he didn’t like that feeling. “But, thanks to that farmer,” he pointed toward the larger building, “I’m here to tell you about it. I’d say tonight was a success with acceptable losses based on the results.” He began walking over to the raising building and Cale followed him.

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When Bettine ran in with her mother only two steps behind, Jacob was leaning over the supine form of the blue and he was rhythmically pounding on her chest. Bella rushed to his side and taking one look told Bettine to go take care of the other blues so they would not become crazed again. The beast had bled profusely and the trauma must have caused her heart to stop. Bella checked for a pulse, and finding none, gently pulled her husband’s hands into her own. He tried to resist her, but she held him tightly and whispered that it was too late, the animal was dead. He could tell the look of dread that sprang to his face at that moment was confusing to her.
“This is sad Jacob, but what am I missing here. This just one animal and things like this happen.” She sounded unsure of where to go from here as he didn’t immediately respond, and he knew his face remained one of almost horror. She continued to stare at him as he felt the neck of the calf; and when his shoulders sagged, he didn’t need to waste words telling her the calf had followed its mother in death.
Eventually she got her response, but he knew it wasn’t one she would have wanted to hear. “I don’t think we’ll be able to meet our Token now, Bella. It isn’t just this one, we lost four more and two of them were also pregnant.” He was close to tears, and as she thought about his words he could see she was also realizing the ramifications of tonight’s events.
A voice cut in to their sadness, “Why are the deaths of these animals so tragic to you?” It was Drake and he seemed to have found the ability to show concern and mean it too. Even in their present state both Jacob and Bella were able to appreciate it; the words and tone were unexpected from this pirate.
Jacob swallowed and replied, “In less than a cycle the Collectors will be here to pick up the agreed upon Token set for each of the farmers on this planet. Even though we form ourselves into a type of communal endeavor so we can help each other, there comes a time when you must look after your own. Meeting the Token is one of those times. Our daughter….” He broke off his sentence as the grief took a grip on him again.
Bella continued for him, “Our daughter is likely to be taken by Collectors if don’t meet our Token. It’s within their right and couldn’t stop them anyway. All farms have lost so many animals to those creatures recently that even we did pool all our remaining animals still wouldn’t have enough.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t see how four or five deaths now could be so devastating. You must have hundreds of animals throughout all your farms here.” He still sounded sincere in his interest and confusion.
Bella’s answering voice showed she was being patient with him, which was more than Jacob felt capable of doing right then. “If we gave them all adults Token calls for we wouldn’t have breeding stock enough to continue. That’s why animals in here. We make sure had as many pregnancies go to term as possible before our stocks were made less by the Token. We’ve never had problem before, but over the last three or four cycles we’ve lost over two hundred animals all together. Tonight just pushed over us the edge.” She had begun to cry and her grasp of the language seemed to have just diminished. Bettine had been listening and she walked over to embrace both her parents. Tears stained her dirty face.
Jacob looked up at his daughter, “What happened after they started to go crazy?” He wasn’t accusatory, just drained and saddened.
“When this one fell two of the bigger ones tried to leave, and the rest of them followed. I’d locked the door, just like you told me, but they all just started jumping at it and kicking it. It burst open and a bunch of them got out before I could jump in front of them and try to scare them back inside. Then you came in. I’m so sorry!” At this last she burst into a fresh round of tears and her mother joined him.
Jacob spoke with a firm voice, “Bettine, it was not your fault. You did everything I could have asked of you. It was my fault for leaving you alone.” He looked up to see Drake and Cale heading for the door. “Drake, I might lose my girl’s life because I saved yours! Make sure you do what you’re being paid for. Do it right, and then please leave as soon as you’ve done it.” He didn’t wait for a reply, but turned back to his family. Who knew how long it would be before they would be ripped apart!


Sixteen


The sun was clearing the horizon in a blaze of color when Drake, Cale by his side, stood waiting at the door to the Harpy. The men were now returning from their night of action, and he wanted reports from each group leader on their activities.
The first to arrive were those that had not been visited by the creatures, while those that followed had obviously experienced a rough night. These last were carrying the inert figure of Tenec, mutilated and bloody. The men, dirty and exhausted, passed Drake and entered the ship to get some rest. At a nod from Drake, Cale followed them inside. Those in charge of the two groups that had experienced action had been told to stay outside to talk with Drake.
“Taren, well done. You too, Shad. We met our objective and we need to follow up quickly. I’m sorry about Tenec. Cale will take care of Tenec’s burial and then he’ll get everyone ready as quickly as possible. We need to head out with plenty of daylight to help us.” The two men’s faces told Drake they didn’t like the idea. “We must go out now while the trackers are still functioning. Who knows how long before those creatures work them out of their bodies. We can’t give them another night or we might end up losing more than one of our men.”
The others obviously realized it was pointless arguing with their superior and resigned themselves to no sleep followed quickly by even more conflict. Drake had known that was how they would react. They were just tired; otherwise, they wouldn’t have even thought about questioning his decisions. He asked them what had happened to Tenec.
Taren replied, “He was in my party.” He rubbed his bloodshot eyes and cleared his throat before going on. “When those things started jumping over the fencing we all got on with our jobs and it seemed to be going easily. We’d chosen good spots to fire from or so I thought. Tenec was firing into them when I saw two of them leap toward the tree he was in, and though they couldn’t jump high enough to get him directly, they still got him in the end. He must have been off balance when they hit the tree, as I saw him fall. He got up firing and hit one of them before the other one finished him. I couldn’t do anything as I only had tracker ammunition and was too far away for it to have done anything. None of the other men