Chapter 79: To Boldly Go

I’LL TRY NOT TO BE too graphic about the raids that released ten thousand women and children (plus a few men) and ended the lives of some three hundred traffickers, including an Air Force General and a dozen airmen, a US District Judge, a high-profile evangelist, a dozen men in ski masks, a South American general, an Arab prince, a high-ranking airline executive, and two other billionaires. I was thankful my business partner in Space Pioneers was not among them, but it wouldn’t have made a difference if he was.

We dropped our logistics teams at each of the eleven locations and they confirmed readiness. We intentionally did not tell them what order we would attack the installations. In fact, Lacy and I decided the order as we carried out the purges. The actual attacks took the least amount of time. Communications and video were shut down at all locations at once. As soon as they went dark, we struck the military installation where a dozen freight containers were being loaded for transport on a C-5 cargo plane. Each container had fifty people in it. There were another two hundred containers still in the warehouse. We made it just in time, but it was a bloody battle and we had to evacuate the slaves at the same time we were taking down the guards. Any guard or airman who seemed not to know what was being transported, Sally cast a sleep spell on. In one instance, that put all fifty of the people in the container he was moving with a lift to sleep as well. The guards inside the warehouse who knew they were guarding human traffic were dispatched, along with the General who was directing the operation. The airplane pilot and crew were put to sleep.

Compartmentalization in the ranks meant that the vast majority of those involved had no idea they were moving human traffic. But the ones in the inner circle were not only aware, they were profiting. I was glad that the same compartmentalization let us reduce the number of casualties.

Those bodies, however, were nailed to the side of the aircraft. We moved on with the entire operation taking about half an hour.

We struck the opposite coast ten minutes later. This operation was larger, as the shipment was going by sea to South America. Some forty casualties were nailed to the walls and 1,100 women and children were transported temporarily to Areola for processing. As expected, we were finding it took longer to transport the victims than it did to clear the traffickers. The priestesses of Aphrodite, most of whom had not been in the natural world in nearly three thousand years, cast a blind eye to the environment and focused on moving the freed slaves to Areola to get them food and medicine, clothing in many instances, and safety.

The college in New England went very fast. It had the fewest slaves for transport at about 150. Only ten bodies were nailed to the walls of the old mansion. Then we were on to Texas. As the night wore on, we found the guards more watchful. Being out of communication with the outside world made them suspicious and wary. Resistance was stiffer and our great advantage was the look-away spell and the silence of the priestesses’ weapons.

And so it went, down to the last target hidden near where our raid on the Border Patrol had taken place years before. And we had to deal with Texans on this one. The guards were better armed than at any of the other installations and were on alert. Their communications had been down for ten hours. They didn’t wait to see a target, but when they heard a noise or sensed a presence, they shot. A priestess next to me was hit and I returned the shot with my own Apollo-blessed weapon. I knew I hit the scum and didn’t wait to see where. Any wound with one of Apollo’s arrows was fatal. I opened a gateway and carried my priestess through, where Josie, Pari, and Penelope took charge of her and pushed me back through the gateway.

I went a little wild. My gun blazed at every guard I saw, cutting down a swath of them. And when I broke into an office and found a man using a collar to shock a naked woman into obedience, I knew I’d found the fabled trainer. I kept him alive just long enough to transfer the slave collar to him and then detonate the charge that effectively removed his head. Lacy nailed his body onto a suitcase full of money lying on the floor where he fell.

As soon as we had the 700 slaves from this location transported to Areola, I shepherded my team through and closed the gateway. Then I rushed to my wounded priestess, shedding my clothes, and transforming to my full demon form.

She was lying next to the pool where Marie, our doctor crew member from the first season, had rushed to her. She worked feverishly, removing the bullet and attempting to stanch the bleeding, but it was to no avail. When my priestess saw me, she weakly raised a hand toward me and smiled. I grasped her hand and the light within her brightened. I thought all the healing magic I had ever read to her but nothing seemed to work. The light faded and died as she did.

I took her up in my arms and waded into the pool with her, bathing her body in the warm water that was stained with her blood. I cried and wailed, cursing myself for having let her come to harm. The other priestesses stripped off their black robes and joined me in the pool, surrounding us, their light nearly blinding those who stood around the edge of the pool.

I wailed my grief.

“This is a precious priestess of The Bob!” I called out.

My voice echoed throughout Areola. Even the Bobbobbob people from Australia in the farthest corner of Areola heard me and told the story. My voice may have been heard in the natural world as well.

“She has known kidnapping, rape, abuse of all kinds, and yet she came to me and was cleansed. She was baptized in the pool and her inner light glowed with love. And when she knew of others who suffered as she had, she donned the garb of a warrior priestess, took up her sword, and bravely went to rescue them, whether at sea, in the air, or in any other place the criminals were to be found. And one of those criminals shot her before I killed him. She gave her life for the salvation of 10,000 others. For that and for all her devotion to The Bob and the cause of freedom for the enslaved, for having loved me and had faith in me, I love her! I will love her to the end of time. Beloved priestess and lover of The Bob, I release you to the primordial mass from which all life arose until that time when I, too, may join you there.”