The human squad had no way of knowing what was behind the doors. They rushed into the room with the presumably surrendered Floriacians. All subtlety damned at this point, they grabbed the standing creatures and threw them through the doorway, and trained their weapons toward them and the now open cell doors.

The Floriacians were trying to speak, waving their large arms, we didn’t know their language. However, they weren’t directing their speech at the humans, rather they were talking to whatever was in the cells. The same language answered back, if in weaker tones.

One of the Floriacians entered a cell, and seconds later returned to the hallway helping another Floriacian walk. It looked to be another of the combat class we had been seeing, although some of its armor was missing.

There were at least a dozen cells, and this continued to happen, more and more imprisoned individuals walking out into the hallway, facing the blinding flashlights from the humans, and the bright, flickering blue light from the flare.

Eventually, it was a pretty large group, and they were just standing there. The humans slowly began to lower their weapons, this group could have charged the squad if they wanted to. The soldiers were confused about what to do, they couldn’t just trust these individuals, even if they had demonstrated they weren’t hostile.

A soldier I hadn’t heard the name of addressed the captain, “We need to figure out a way to get them to swap places with us, we’re trapped in thi-”

He didn’t finish. The unconscious Floriacian in formal wear from earlier had found some more life left in it, as it charged behind the talking soldier and sank its claws deep into his neck and back, killing him instantly.

The success was short-lived though, as Carson, even while injured, was the first to act. He raised the bulky firearm and pulled the trigger. It let out a deafening blast. The Floriacian’s chest completely exploded, and its body was thrown into the wall. The entire console and desk that lined it were coated in blood and scales.

I stared at the screen in shocked silence. This new weapon had so much raw destructive power I hadn’t seen before. I hardly noticed the other human soldiers frantically trying to stop the bleeding, as two humans brought their guns back up to face the crowd.

Carson pulled the bottom slide back on the gun, and a small, red cylindrical object flew out. He then walked over to the Floriacians, grabbed the nearest one, and stuck his sidearm to its head. Then began slowly moving through the crowd of about 16 individuals while hiding behind his new hostage. I noticed that Carson, being the largest human I had seen so far, was the only one who was about the same height as the Floriacians. He motioned for the other humans to follow him, and they did.

Once they were at the entrance to the hallway, he pushed the hostage back into the brig area. The whole time, the group just watched the soldiers in silence, not making any move toward them. A couple that had been in the cells were slumped against the wall.

The humans stopped at the entrance, still with all their firearms trained on the bunch in front of them. I don’t know what they are planning to do, it looked like they were preparing to execute the group. That didn’t seem like something they would do though, knowing what I know now about humans and their propensity to show mercy.

The commander of the squad, that I knew was named Mike, addressed the operator: “We need reinforcements and a medical team, we got wounded. This group here is docile, tell secondary teams to look for individuals wearing formal military dress rather than combat gear.”

With that, another human motioned at the Floriacian group to get back. He was herding them into the small room at the end of the hallway. I assumed this was because it only had one entrance, and they could better keep track of them that way. As he moved back to the squad, he peeked into one of the cells and shook his head. There was blood and other bodily fluids all over the place and no furniture. Just a barren room with a single light.