Independents: Taoree Trilogy #2

by Michele Notaro

  I wanted to scream and cry and flip the fuck out because seeing that base destroyed like that… fuck… How the fuck were we ever going to win this war? How the fuck were we ever going to take the Legion down when our Northern reinforcements were destroyed?

  I swallowed hard at the implications… at the fact that so much of my hope had been shattered with one small glimpse of the destruction in front of me.

  What the fuck are we going to do?

  “Play it back, Owen,” Ozias said quietly.

  Owen pushed a few buttons so all the screens were playing the same thing. We watched as Taoree Legion surrounded the crater and started shooting anyone that tried to escape the flames. Head shot after head shot after head shot. The Legion were killing anyone that moved, there was no prejudice between humans or Taoree escaping. There were bug-bots crawling around too. With their eight legs, they had an easier time climbing and squeezing into places the aliens couldn’t. But even when someone crawled their way out of the wreckage, the Taoree Legion were there to shoot them, no matter their species, or even their age. It made me sick to my stomach to watch, but I couldn’t seem to escape it, no matter which direction I looked.

  “How long ago did this happen?” Orrean asked.

  Until that moment, I hadn’t realized I was squeezing his hand in a death grip. I had to make a conscious effort to loosen my hold.

  “It’s been about three hours. We started keeping an eye out when we had trouble making radio contact with them. We… watched it happen, but there was nothing we could do. By the time we saw it, it was too late to save them from the explosion,” Ozias said.

  “Is the Legion still patrolling the area?” Orrean asked.

  “It looks like the bulk of their force has pulled back already. The area is nearly cleared now.”

  Orrean just stared, taking in all the videos around us. Eventually he asked, “Do we have eyes on the escape tunnel?”

  Ozias shook his head. “There are too many trees covering the area.”

  “Escape tunnel?” I asked.

  I expected Orrean to answer me, but Ozias did instead. “Our Northern base has, uh, had an escape tunnel, much like our own, that opened into a safe house about a mile away from the base.” I’d completely forgotten that there was an emergency tunnel off of the lower levels of this place.

  “Do we have a video feed from the safe house?” Orr asked.

  Ozias shook his head. “All their comms and monitors must’ve been destroyed in the blast.”

  Orrean blew out a breath, still searching the monitors. After another minute, he said, “Four teams in two hours. I’m taking lead.”

  “There might not be much left,” Ozias said softly.

  Orrean looked his brother in the eyes. “We still have to try. Even if we only rescue one person, we have to try.”

  Ozias nodded slowly. “Okay. You sure you need four teams?”

  “No, but four would be better if you can spare them.”

  “Okay, they’ll be ready in two hours.”

  Orrean nodded, then started to head for the door, pulling me with him.

  “Hey, Orrean?” Ozias said.

  Orr looked over his shoulder at him.

  “Be safe, brother,” Ozias said.

  Orr nodded. “Thrive and love.”

  Ozias smiled sadly as he responded quietly, “As bright as the stars.”

  As Orr pulled me out the door, I asked, “What is that little saying you and Ozias do?”

  “What is your meaning?” he asked.

  I snorted, glad to forget the devastation I’d just seen and focus on something else, something good, something Orrean. Sometimes he cracked me up with how he used some of my slang easily, but then he’d turn around and ask a question like that. “Is that just something that you and Ozias do, or is that some kind of Taoree thing or something? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone else say that.”

  “Oh, I see. Ozias and I started saying that when we were young. We used to climb up to the Oreslum—you know, the outer ring of my planet—with our mother and stargaze. Then when we were older, the stars were our escape when we didn’t have one.”

  I rubbed my thumb over the back of his hand as he pulled me. After a moment, I asked, “What happened to your parents?”

  His steps faltered, but he soon picked up his pace as he answered, “That is another long story that I’d rather not speak of before we go on a mission. Would it be okay with you if I told you another time?”

  “Of course,” I said softly.

  He stopped suddenly, jerking my arm to stop beside him. He cupped my cheek with his free hand and whispered, “It’s not that I do not wish to share, it’s just… hard. And I do not wish to lose focus.” He obviously thought I was upset with him.

  I placed my hand over his and pressed my cheek farther into his palm. “I understand, Orr. You can tell me whenever you’re ready.”

  He blew out a breath, then closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine. “Thank you.”

  “Of course.” I placed a soft kiss on his lips, then pulled away and whispered, “Come on, we need to tell the others.”

  He took a shaky breath, then nodded. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  As we rode in the back of a truck, I closed my eyes to try to ease my nerves, regain my energy and replenish my light. Of course the guys were all talking around me, but Cal’s voice broke through my relaxation. “So… Orrean?” Oh god, what does he want this time?

  “Yeah?”

  “I know you guys came here because your planet, uh, Orlia, is dying or whatever, right?” I opened one eye and saw Orrean nod. Cal nodded back and asked, “Okay, so I get that, but why is it… why are you guys kinda human-like? Or humanoid or whatever you want to call it?”

  Orrean eyed him, then sighed. “Our planet’s ecosystem is similar to Earth’s, so we evolved similarly, only Taoree are a few million years older than humans.”

  “So, like, you guys are just more evolved than humans?”

  “Yes,” Orr said with another sigh.

  “You moved in like a horde of sexy locusts,” Cal said.

  My eyes widened as I let out a laugh. “Did you just call Orr sexy? Something you wanna share, Cal?”

  “That wasn’t who I was thinking of,” he muttered, and I didn’t miss the way his eyes shot over to Sanjha.

  I exchanged a look with Nolan, who simply shrugged at me, obviously not missing Cal’s significant look, either. Nolan looked upset, so I asked, “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head, but Tabby answered, “He’s mad at me.”

  When Nolan didn’t deny it, I asked, “Why?”

  “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Tabby huffed and mirrored his position, both of them looking away from each other. I decided not to get in the middle of… whatever that was, because they were both visibly pissed. Instead, I looked at Cal with a grin. “You think Orrean’s sexy.”

  “Not what I meant,” he mumbled.

  Orr and I chuckled at that as I leaned back and closed my eyes again.

  “How long is it going to take to get there?” Cal asked, clearly wishing to change the subject. Somehow I managed to hold in my laugh—somehow, though it was freaking close.

  With yet another sigh, Orr answered, “We’ve only been driving for six hours, so I’d say at least another eighteen, though twenty is more likely since we’ll need to avoid certain areas. Hopefully we don’t run into anything that will delay us.” Orr sighed again.

  “Are you sighing like that to try and get me to stop talking to you?” Cal asked.

  “Yes,” Orr said with another sigh. I couldn’t help but grin at that.

  “I’m just trying to distract myself. This is making me antsy.”

  I opened my eyes and looked seriously at Cal. “We’re going to be okay.”

  He nodded at me, but bit his lip, not looking like he believed me at all.

  “I have
a bad feeling about this,” Wes said quietly from next to Cal.

  All of us stared at him, but I asked, “What do you mean?”

  My brother shrugged. “Just a feeling I get sometimes… I sorta… think something bad’s gonna happen.”

  I stared at him for a long moment before saying, “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be alright.” I tried to sound convincing, but even I could hear the slight tremble in my voice. If Wes had a bad feeling… well, that meant there was most likely something to fear.

  “Yeah,” Wes said with the worst pretend smile ever, “it’s probably nothing.”

  Cal exchanged a look with me and I could see the trepidation in his eyes. I saw Nolan reach for Tabby’s hand, though the two still weren’t looking at one another, and I, in turn, reached for Orrean’s hand. I turned Colt’s hat around so the rim covered my eyes. I wanted to block out everything else—not that it worked, really—and I didn’t want Wes to catch me watching him. I leaned my cheek on Orr’s shoulder, and I felt some of his tension fade away, but I didn’t miss the way he kept glancing at Wes every time he thought Wes was looking a different way. It was going to be a long-ass drive.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As soon as I exited the truck, I saw at least a hundred bug-bots all around us. And it looked like most of them were heading our way, so I turned my hat backwards so I could see better. Luckily, the other three trucks were right behind us. We’d gone pretty slow so we wouldn’t get separated, which added probably four hours onto our commute, but I was grateful we had reinforcements. There was no way we’d be able to take all those fucking bug-bots down ourselves.

  Fucking bug-bots.

  I pulled my spear from behind my back as Orrean yelled, “Prepare yourselves. They’re going to reach us before the next truck catches up.”

  I glanced at the truck that was maybe one minute away, then I looked at the incoming bug-bots that were maybe twenty seconds away. Fucking hell. I think I hate bug-bots more than I hate Ferals.

  I squatted down with my spear in front of me so I could take the first one down from under its belly. A second later the evil little thing crashed into my spear. I pushed and used its own momentum to bring it up into the air a little and slam it down into the bug-bot behind it, knocking it onto its back. I re-gripped the spear and jumped, pushing the spear with my body weight through the bug-bot and into the one underneath it, rendering them powerless. It was kind of sad that that had been a practiced maneuver used on many, many bug-bots over the months. It worked, but it also sacrificed my spear to do it. Luckily, we’d all learned to carry several on our backs since the bugs often tended to knock and grab the spears out of our hands.

  I reached back and grabbed my second spear, just as another bug came over the two I’d killed. I didn’t have time to get underneath the newcomer before it jumped, launching itself at my chest. I raised my arm in front of me, my forearm taking the brunt of the hit and making me grunt. The bug merely fell back, landing on its feet. Because of course it did.

  I twisted my upper body to bring the side of the spear in front of the bug, distracting it. While it was focused on that spear, I reached over my shoulder with my right hand and grabbed another spear, yanking it out, then down as quickly as I could. The spear tip cut through the clear top but didn’t penetrate the blue light, so I released my other spear and used both hands to push it farther into the bug’s body. Luckily, it was enough to stab the blue light, making the bug go dark and freeze.

  I had to reach back to grab my fourth spear. I only had eight left after this one. Since more were already coming, I didn’t have time to bend down and pick the one up from the ground, and I didn’t want to risk lifting my leg too high in order to push the last bug off that spear. A bug climbed on top of my double-bug-kabob, looking like it was ready to launch at me, so I held my spear out, ready and braced for impact.

  Suddenly there was a loud bang and the bug flew back off the bug-kabob. I kept my spear at the ready as the third truck, with its machine gun armed with bug-bot arrows instead of bullets, pulled up toward us. After a couple minutes, the loud-as-shit machine gun stopped firing and all the bug-bots fell still.

  “Holy shit,” Wes panted from beside me. “That was fucking loud. Every damn Feral within fifty miles is going to be headed this way.”

  “We should probably hurry, then.” Orrean sounded annoyed, though not at us. Using that machine gun was a bad fucking idea. What the fuck had they been thinking?

  “Lead the way,” I said, trying to catch my breath.

  “Why do you think there were so many of them?” Wes asked as we followed behind Orr with our reelians ready.

  I shrugged. “Maybe they heard the explosion yesterday? There’s probably a lot of bug-bots and Ferals in the vicinity.”

  He nodded. “True, though I don’t see any Ferals.”

  “That’s really weird,” Tabby said from behind us.

  I agreed wholeheartedly, so I nodded.

  “Alright, the entrance should be up on the left,” Nolan said to Orrean as he pointed. Nolan and Orr had been studying the maps of the area for hours, so I trusted that they knew where they were going, even if I couldn’t see where in the hell the entrance was. Apparently the safe house was well-hidden within the trees.

  Orrean nodded and the two started heading that way with the rest of us following. When they got to what I could finally see was a door camouflaged with moss, leaves, and dirt, all of us took our positions, preparing for them to open it. When our team was set with our backup right behind us, Nolan held up a sziej—Taoree lockpicker—to the lock and we heard the little machine work its magic. Then Orrean silently counted with head nods and threw the door open. I was holding my breath, hoping that some Independent survivors would make their presence known to us, but nothing happened.

  After waiting a moment, Orrean went in, followed by Cal, then Wes and me, with Nolan holding the door open for everyone. Tabby was guarding Nolan’s back, just in case, while the other teams followed our lead.

  I followed my brother down a long hallway that opened up into a room with a few cafeteria-style tables in it, but we didn’t run into anyone. There were two sets of doors at the other end of the room, so Orr waited for the team behind us to file in, then he pointed them toward one door while my team followed him to the other. Once again, Orr nodded three times, then threw the door open. Nothing happened, so he walked in and we followed in the same order.

  When I passed the door, I was surprised that the next room was at least twice as big as the room we’d come out of, and that the other team’s door led to the same place. The room was a large rectangle with a second floor that overlooked it, with tall rails and several doors all along the walls up there. I figured that there must be some bedrooms up there, and maybe some offices. They probably used this part of the big room as a place to set up extra cots once all the bedrooms filled up, though it had several round tables in it at the moment. I didn’t think it was a good sign that we hadn’t run into anyone yet.

  “It’s, like, eerily quiet,” Cal whispered to me when he let me catch up to him.

  I nodded, because it was. Creepy.

  “We need to search all the rooms and check the escape tunnel.” Orrean’s voice was quiet, but firm. “There could be a collapse. Maybe that’s why it seems that no one is here… the tunnel could be blocked.” He sounded in control, but I could tell that he was upset and extremely worried. We were hoping to rescue survivors, not just explore an empty safe house.

  People started forming smaller groups to search, but there was a sudden, loud banging sound that made me jump. I looked around, trying to place the noise and found that the doors leading into the large room had been shut… both sets of doors.

  I didn’t have time to react or warn anyone by the time I realized what was happening.

  We were trapped.

  The quiet room was suddenly thrown into complete chaos as the sounds of reelians being shot and people screaming filled the air. Ta
oree Legion men, in their stupid grey jumpsuits, burst through the doors up on the balcony and began shooting down at us. Everyone was running, trying to take cover from the onslaught of bullets. Bug-bots started making their way over the balcony and jumping down into the fray.

  I grabbed the back of Wes’s collar and pulled him with me under the balcony. As I pushed my brother behind me, I got a reelian bullet to the shoulder. I cried out in pain, but I had to ignore it and protect Wes, so I pushed him farther under the balcony. The Taoree above us couldn’t reach us from here, though the ones across the room surely could. When a flurry of reelian bullets headed our way and we had nowhere to hide, I used my linhu to shield both me and Wes. It made me grunt as I took the pressure of the bullets, but I held it for a full minute before we got a break.

  I dropped my linhu as Wes said, “We need to get to that door.” He pointed to a door I hadn’t noticed yet, so I nodded at him. We were too far away from the doors we’d come in through and most of the Independents were trying to go back that way, so I didn’t think we’d make it through the crowd, anyway.

  We ducked down and I followed him, covering my head with my arms as best I could. A bug-bot jumped right in front of us, going after Wes. I grabbed one of my spears, and with it concentrating on Wes, I was able to bring the spear down quickly from the side. Wes nodded at me, then we kept going toward that door.

  I looked around, trying to find my friends and family as we walked. I saw Cal, Lee, and Sanjha ducking behind a table turned on its side, trying to use it as a shield… not that it made a good one considering some of the bullets could easily pass through it. I didn’t see Orrean anywhere, but I could sense that he was, at the very least, still alive. I kept searching, but I couldn’t find Nolan anywhere, either. I was praying that he’d found a good hiding spot, that he wasn’t one of the many bodies lying on the floor covered in blood.

  “Wes,” I hissed, “we need to help Cal.”

  Wesley stopped and looked at me, then to where I’d nodded. “There’s no way we’re getting to him without being shot.”