Frontier of Fear

Chapter 15: Liberators

XR was allowed the honor of swiping the key card through the scanner of the door to the first slave storeroom. Inside were captives taken from all over the galaxy—miserable wretches, forced to sit on the hard floors of their chambers in chains, with little food or water and bathroom breaks only once daily. But once the door opened and they saw the space rangers, led by Buzz Lightyear, many of the slaves stood up and cheered for their liberation. Manacles were loosed, LGMs tended to injuries and illness, food rations were passed around. There were seven slave storerooms in all, some for detaining prisoners in different stages of processing, others for captives ready to be shipped out.

There was one room for the most recent arrivals. This was where the purple-skinned Parrani captives were found.

Within hours of the fall of Kodoush city, the Mimasians arrived with their fleet of double-winged motherships and long-bodied landing craft. Humanitarian workers landed on a ship that came to the hangar in the slavers' complex to begin the difficult process of returning all the other captives to their homeworlds. It fell to Star Command to return the Parrani to their planet.

The Mimasians were a swarthy race, one point three meters in stature, with three eyes on their faces, and a third arm growing out of their heads. Their skin came in various colors, green, blue, red, and orange the most dominant. The soldiers wore armored sleeves over their third arm, and an insignia of three arms decorated the head-sleeve of their chief general.

Commander Nebula came to the slavers' complex to personally supervise the start of the relief effort. He and the Mimasian general observed the Kodoushian leaders being escorted aboard Cruiser 10 in handcuffs—Buzz personally escorted Bagdon. Booster followed the rear of the group. The Kodoushians would be taken directly to PC-5 from the very hangar their slaves had been shipped to and from.

"It was a little hairy at first, especially with those darned pirates," Commander Nebula told the general as the prisoners were loaded. "A good thing Scrail was in a hurry to cut and run."

"Indeed. Leave it to a pirate to worry about saving his own skin," the Mimasian general commented.

XR hooked himself up to a nearby data port to gather intel on the Kodoushians. When finished, he uploaded everything to his laptop and went to check in with Commander Nebula.

"Got everything downloaded, Ranger?" the commander asked him.

"Yep. Lemme finish copying to this data drive." XR unfolded his laptop again and inserted a small, square disc. The laptop hummed for a few moments and then dinged. "Done!" He handed the disc to Commander Nebula. "That's everything from the slaving corporation. They'll have to get intel from the local government separately."

"That's fine, XR. Most of the rescue work will be based on the slavers' records." Commander Nebula gave the square disc to the general.

The Mimasian General accepted the disc with his third hand, and he hung it in front of his eyes. "We should be able to make a good start from this data."

Buzz and Booster came back from the hold of Cruiser 10. They both saluted the commander. "Prisoners are loaded up, sir," Buzz reported.

"Captain Lightyear, thank you for helping us start with this operation," the Mimasian general said. "Our people have demanded an end to the Kodoushian slave industry for years."

"Our pleasure, general," Buzz answered him. "Ensuring freedom throughout the galaxy is in the interest of everyone. Good luck with getting the rest of the planet under control, although I doubt that it will be difficult."

"We do not anticipate much difficulty," said the general.

"Did the slavers here have any major military allies?" Booster asked.