Independents: Taoree Trilogy #2

by Michele Notaro

  ***

  We spent an entire day going over the plan to break into the building, kill or capture the Legion members, and rescue the humans and Taoree captives. It was a good plan. Orrean, Nolan, and the other team leaders and seconds-in-command had spent what felt like hours figuring out the details of it. There were four entrances into the building: the loading dock at the back, the front door, and two small doors on either side of the building that seemed more like emergency exits than actual doors.

  Team Three was going to split up and block the two side doors, Team Two was going in through the front, and Team One—my team—was going in through the loading docks.

  Everyone had their night vision goggles on, though we’d possibly need to take them off when we got inside, since the building definitely had electricity. I had my reelian at the ready and an extra in my utility belt, along with two shoians, a dozen spears on my back, and a shit-ton of knives stashed all over my body. If I lost one weapon, I’d have another to take its place. My team members had just as many weapons.

  I followed behind Wes with Cal right behind me. Orrean was leading the way, but he was a few people in front of me. We quietly snuck in through the open loading dock door and made our way through the large warehouse to a regular door that led to the hallway. That smaller door had been locked, but Orrean used his sziej—a super-fancy electronic alien lockpick—to open it.

  The hallway looked like it had a hundred doors—okay, maybe like twenty—so we split into groups of four, and as was usually the case, I ended up with Wesley, Cal, and Sanjha. I always felt slightly affronted that no matter what group I ended up in, I was always with Wes. And I could tell that Orrean had only grouped me with him because Wes was our best fighter… as if I can’t take care of myself.

  We walked into a room, but it was empty, so we went back into the hallway. The next room we checked was occupied by one Legion Taoree that fired a reelian at Sanjha when I yelled in Taoree to drop his weapon, so Cal shot him in the head. Luckily Sanjha hadn’t been hit. But apparently these guys were not going to come in quietly.

  After Wes pocketed the guy’s weapons, we moved on again down the hallway.

  I didn’t know why I was surprised that there were bug-bots guarding this place, but I was. Especially when I hadn’t even seen the one crawling along the wall—the freaking wall! Those things gave me the fucking creeps.

  The fucker jumped off the wall into my shoulder, knocking me sideways. Thank god we were in a hallway and I merely bumped into the other wall. Had the thing knocked me off my feet, I would’ve been screwed.

  I quickly switched my reelian out for one of my spears while the thing scurried to its feet. The hallway was small, so I didn’t have that great a range of motion, but I still tried to lift the spear over my shoulder. I heard Cal cursing behind me, but I didn’t look away from the enemy in front of me. I couldn’t or I’d be dead, or worse, turned into a Feral.

  The bug-bot started slicing its two front legs in my direction as I backed up, trying to get a good angle to stab its blue light out. If I could just get it to back up a little, I’d be able to kill it, but I’d learned from months of experience that lifting my leg to kick one was a bad idea… a very bad idea. More than one of us had fallen into their trap and tried to kick them, but those bastards had eight legs. If you lifted one of yours, you’d be swept off your feet in a heartbeat.

  Since I couldn’t lift my spear up high enough, I pulled it back and drove it into the bug-bot’s face, or what I thought was its face. The spear couldn’t get in deep enough to penetrate the blue light, but I had a plan. I pushed the bug-bot, using my spear, and shoved it into the wall, then I used the opposite wall to hold the bug-bot in place by pushing the other end of the spear against it. I knew it would figure out how to get out of that hold eventually, so I quickly pulled another spear off my back and was able to move to the side of the bug-bot and aim for the blue light. Almost as soon as I hit the blue light, the bug-bot went motionless, essentially dying, even if it wasn’t alive to begin with.

  I turned around when I heard Cal let out a little yelp.

  “Oh, fuck,” I muttered.

  Cal was on his back, having apparently had a bug-bot pull him off of his feet. And now that stupid creepy-ass thing was crawling up his body. I knew exactly what it was trying to do. It wanted to stab its disgusting silver metal legs into my best friend’s head and fill his brain with Qiren. We’d all witnessed the bug-bots at work more than once over the past few months.

  I wasn’t going to let it turn my friend, my brother, into a freaking Feral.

  No. Fucking. Way.

  I pulled out another spear just as the bug-bot shot a little spikey ball out of its mouth, hitting Cal in the chest. Shit! These bug-bots had enkpi inside of them. Cal’s body tensed, then started shaking as the little spikey ball—enkpi—electrocuted him. I ran the few steps toward Cal, lifting the spear over my shoulder. If I’d had more room, it would’ve been easier, but I still used as much force as I could to push the spear forward and down on an angle and into the bug-bot. Thank god my aim had been okay and I hit the thing’s blue light, killing it.

  “Fucking bug-bots,” Cal muttered as he jolted a little from leftover electrical shocks. He pulled the enkpi off his chest, and together we pushed the heavy-ass bug-bot off of him. I pulled him to his feet. “Thanks.”

  I nodded, but couldn’t respond because a flurry of bullets came flying down the hallway. Cal and I ran down the hall as I shielded us with my linhu—I’d been getting better at it, using less of my light to hold it—and we turned the corner. Sanjha and Wes were able to go back in the last room we’d cleared, so at least they had cover. There were so many Legion Taoree running and shooting in the hallway that all of the Independents were scrambling to take cover.

  I squatted down at the edge of the wall, and Cal automatically stood beside me and leaned over top of me. Then I nodded three times and we both popped our heads around the corner, aimed and started shooting Legion Taoree with our reelians.

  I hated having to kill things—Taoree, humans, Ferals, it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to kill anything, except maybe the bug-bots, but they weren’t living beings. Unfortunately, killing Legion members had become another part of my norm. It was us versus them, and I’d do anything to protect my family and to protect my people—the Independents and any innocent being still on this planet. Still, I hated it. Their faces still haunted my nightmares, no matter how evil they were. At least with the Legion Taoree all dressed in that same stupid grey jumpsuit, they were easy to pick out.

  So we shot them.

  Cal and I would shoot until our reelians needed a minute to recharge, then we’d shoot again. And the other Independents did the same. Soon, the sounds of bullets flying and people dying quieted, so we all resumed searching, and hopefully capturing some bad guys and rescuing some good ones.

  The hallway Cal and I were in led to only one rather large door, so we headed that way. When I pushed open the door, there was a quiet gasp to my right, so I turned and saw a Taoree in a lab coat pointing a human gun at me. His hands were shaking, as if he was scared of shooting me. I glanced around the room to check for any other enemies, then I looked at Cal, who was hidden by the door, but still had a clear shot of Lab Coat Guy. Cal had my back, as always. There were several doors around the room, but they were closed. The metallic smell of blood filled my nose and I saw four people strapped to tables, but decided that the only threat in the room was the guy in the lab coat.

  I called to him calmly in Taoree, “Put down your weapon.”

  The guy’s hand starting shaking even more.

  “Put. Down. Your. Weapon. Now.” My voice was firm, leaving no room for argument. I continued speaking in Taoree since we’d discovered that many Legion didn’t speak English.

  “Pl-please don’t sh-shoot me,” the Taoree whispered.

  “If you put down your weapon, I won’t hurt you, I promise,” I said.

  The guy nodded
and I saw his braid fall forward. It only came down to his shoulders, which I found odd since I had yet to find an adult Taoree with hair that short. When he set the gun on the table, I walked to him, grabbed his hands and cuffed them behind his back. The guy started crying, but I ignored it, keeping my hold on him so he couldn’t escape or somehow hurt me.

  Wes had finally caught up with us and he walked in with his reelian out, so I quietly said to him, “Take this one so I can do a sweep. There’s some people strapped down over there, but I don’t know if they’re alive.” I nodded with my head at the table, though I was too far away to see if the person on it was even breathing.

  Wes grabbed Lab Coat Guy, so I slowly moved over to the first table. It was a human, split open with his insides spread over a smaller table next to him. I was pretty sure I saw the guy’s heart and stomach—clearly no longer breathing. Holding back my vomit, I walked to the next table where I found a Taoree woman, also strapped down with body parts strewn about, covered in blood, and hooked up to a machine with wires and tubes. She was very unmistakably dead. On the next table was a dead human woman. Or at least, I thought it was a woman. She was so carved up, it was hard to tell.

  As I walked to the last table, I could tell there was a Taoree strapped down, and that his chest was rising and falling so shallowly that I knew he couldn’t be getting much oxygen. I had my weapon out, but as soon as I realized how much blood the man was covered in, I hooked it on my belt to see if I could help him.

  “Oh god,” I breathed out, holding back bile.

  The Taoree was naked with black straps across his neck, hips, and limbs. He had at least twenty different wires and tubes connected to different body parts, some of which were pushed into his muscles and organs. And he was completely sliced open, though I hadn’t a clue where his skin was. His chest was open, so I could see his ribs, stomach, and muscles underneath so much blood. One of his arms and both his legs were sliced open too, as if someone had been skinning him alive.

  “Enimus, favulis nob,” I muttered under my breath. Holy Deity, help us. I looked over at Wes. “He’s still breathing, but… they skinned him.”

  “What?” Wes asked with wide eyes.

  “They… they cut off his skin,” I repeated, then looked at the Lab Coat Guy and said, “How the hell could you do this to someone?”

  “I…” He started shaking his head. “I didn’t do that.”

  I couldn’t tell whether or not he was lying, but it didn’t matter. I needed to help the Taoree in front of me.

  I put my hand on the Taoree’s forehead. He was burning up. I pulled out my juhere, though I didn’t think it’d be able to heal him because of the extent of his injuries—even Taoree technology had its limitations—and put it over his chest. It would at least provide a little warmth, even if it couldn’t heal him. “Hey,” I started speaking to him in Taoree, like I usually did when I came across a new alien.

  God, how was he still alive? He’s just meat and bones. How long has he been ripped open like this? I can’t even imagine the pain he’s in.

  I swallowed and tried to focus on the guy’s face… the half that still had skin. “We’re here to help. You’re safe now. It’s going to be okay,” I kept whispering to him as I unstrapped him.

  “Here, J, I got it from here,” Cal said as he placed his juhere next to mine on the guy’s chest.

  With shaky hands, I stepped back, nodded at Cal, then continued searching the room. I needed to see where the huge metal doors led and make sure no other enemies were in the vicinity. The sounds of gunshots in the building were becoming few and far between and the earpiece of my ricah had been announcing room after room being cleared. So most of the building had been secured already, but we needed to clear the doors that ran off this room too. I opened the first door, seeing that it was a storage room. I still had to do a sweep, so I made my way down the aisles, looking around for anyone, and taking notice of what was stored in here. There were body parts—both human and Taoree—in jars on the shelves. There were piles of bones in boxes, labeled in Taoree ‘Human Male 456’ and ‘Taoree Female 107’ and so on. Boxes upon boxes, jars upon jars. There were containers labeled ‘Human Blood’ and ‘Taoree Blood’ and they were completely filled to the brim.

  It looked like the Legion had just torn people apart, putting them into jars and boxes, and using them for god only knew what.

  Then there were chemicals. So many chemicals. I didn’t recognize most of them, but I saw a few different types of acid among the shelves.

  I was happy when I reached the last aisle and didn’t come across anyone. I made my way out of the room and to the next door. I was blasted with a stench of blood, chemicals, and what could only be rotting. I swallowed down my disgust, then nodded at Orrean—he and the rest of our team had made it into the main room—and Wes as they joined me to search the room. Sanjha and Cal had walked Lab Coat Guy out to one of our trucks while Nolan and Tabby were trying to help the poor skinless creature on the table.

  I was sickened by everything we saw. Tables and chairs were occupied by human and Taoree bodies… and body parts. It looked like we’d come across a torture chamber, though the room itself was set up more like a lab with equipment, curtains, and pieces of robotics laid about with the human and Taoree body parts. Some of the bodies were missing limbs, jaws, eyes, and hair. Some were burned and disfigured. Most were hooked up to wires and machines that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about.

  We found nothing living in that horrid room. Everyone was dead. We were too late to save these poor souls. These unfortunate people were tortured to death in this lab, and it made me sick and filled with rage. How could anyone do these things to another living being?

  Orrean was standing beside me and when I glanced at him, he looked pale—well, paler than usual. I could tell he was upset, so I reached up and squeezed his shoulder. He closed his eyes and leaned into my touch a little. Comforting him helped soothe me too. Then he took a deep breath, opened his eyes and nodded at me. I nodded back, then looked to my other side and reached out to squeeze Wes’s neck. He swallowed hard and gave me a little nod too.

  I was sure that all of us would have nightmares tonight.

  When we walked out into the main room, I noticed a storage closet—it was just a plain wooden door, unlike the other giant metal doors in the room I’d already checked—but just in case, I walked over to see what supplies lay inside, keeping my fingers crossed that no one was hiding in there. I gasped loudly when I opened the door.

  It wasn’t a closet at all. “Shit. There’s stairs in here.”

  “What?” Orrean asked as he looked over my shoulder. “Okay, let me grab Lee and Sanjha before we go down. They’re just in the other room and I don’t want to interfere over the comms with Team Two still clearing rooms.” He bent down so he was looking directly into my eyes as he said, “Promise me you’ll wait until I get back with the others.” Over the months, he’d gotten pretty good at letting me out of his sight when we were on missions. At first it had been a constant struggle, but he’d eventually realized I wasn’t going to do anything stupid and that I seriously needed my space. But right now, something in his gaze was telling me that I needed to listen.

  He kept staring, waiting for me to agree. The intensity of his eyes was freaking me out, so I said, “I promise.”

  He searched my eyes before giving me a short nod and hurrying out of the room. Wes came and stood by me, but I stayed where I was, trying to listen as I waited. I heard someone shuffling around, but for all I knew, it could’ve been an animal or even a bug-bot. A shudder ran through me at the thought. Even six months of dealing with those things didn’t stop them from giving me the creeps.

  I kept my eyes focused on the bottom of the stairwell. I didn’t want anyone sneaking up on us, and I didn’t want to look at the Taoree with no skin. He’d started making some whimpering sounds behind me, but I didn’t dare look. I didn’t want to see how much pain he was in, and I knew Nolan was h
elping him.

  It was only about two minutes before Orr came back with Lee and Sanjha. Lee automatically took the lead, followed by Sanjha, Wes, myself, and then Orrean taking up the rear. When we made it to the bottom of the steps, I knew exactly what we’d walked into. It was a prison, or a holding facility for… people.

  There were cages piled one on top of the other, pushed side by side, and inside each one was a human or Taoree. I looked around and saw that the basement was just as big as the building itself, and it was completely filled with cages. Hundreds of cages. Hundreds of humans and Taoree stuffed inside.

  I got a closer look and saw that some of the people were missing whole limbs, some were missing eyes, some were sliced open, and some didn’t look like they were breathing anymore.

  When we turned down another row of cages, Orrean whispered, “Enimus, favulis nob.” The cages were filled with Ferals.

  I could only nod in agreement with him. What in the holy fuck had we walked into?

  Mixed in with the Feral cages were a handful of humans that were crouched, shaking and whimpering as the Ferals beside them tried to get through the bars to, I assume, eat them. I started to head over to let the humans out of their cages, but Wes stopped me with a hand on my arm as he whispered, “Not yet. We need to secure the room first. If there are any Legion in here, we don’t want anyone getting caught in the line of fire.”

  I hate it when my little brother is smarter than me. I gave him a nod. I understood, obviously, but I felt terrible leaving those poor people there, even if it would only be for a few minutes.

  A moment later, we turned down the next row, and the sound of running footsteps came from the row we’d vacated.

  “Shit,” Orrean exclaimed before turning back with me on his heels. He ran, raised his reelian and shouted, “Stop! Or I’ll shoot!” When the Taoree didn’t stop, Orrean repeated the phrase in Taoree, “Gazxe! U minatgre Eo luitno!”

  The Taoree slowed down and raised his hands in defeat, but didn’t turn around.