Chapter 11
Once inside the Lair, Pali and Mandora were led down to the cells where they found the majority of the Lair's support staff. They were shoved into a cell where they found First Class Shay; she'd been beaten and was just moaning on the cell's bed.
"What did you do to her, you bastards?" Pali rounded on their captors and tried to overpower the man who was directly behind him.
"Stop or I do something even worse to someone else in these cells!" The second man shouted and immediately Pali gave up and the man he'd been fighting with hit him across the face with his blaster.
"You're lucky the Captain wants you alive," he sneered before backing out of the cell and slamming the door shut. They were then left alone and Mandora started checking over Shay's injuries.
"I'm no doctor but I know I can't help her much. Why did they do this to you?" Mandora asked.
"I sassed back to them," Shay said, grimacing as she talked. She had to have at least a couple of ribs that were broken.
"Why would you do that?" Pali wanted to know.
"They were going to hurt the children so I just changed their focus," Shay explained. She was, of course, referring to the children who lived in the Lair with their parents.
"Where are the children now?" Mandora asked.
"Safe in the nursery. They were locked in with Snarf Osbert," Shay gritted her teeth. Pali turned to the Thunderians, who numbered fifteen, in the cell next to them.
"Where is the ThunderGuard? How were they overpowered?" He asked, noting he did not see soldiers amongst the group.
"We suffered catastrophic electrical failure. All the ships and weapons stopped working. The pirates landed in their ship and anyone who tried to fight back was killed. The others were shipped off to the Thundrillium mines," a lynx, that Pali recognized as Sai, answered.
"Why would they want Thundrillium? How many of these pirates are there?" Pali wanted to know.
"I have no idea on both questions. The hoards just kept coming out of the sky. They filled the hangar with their ships. We didn't even have enough time to warn the rest of the planet. All the Berbils collapsed but when the electricity suddenly came back on here at the Lair, they didn't wake up," Sai told them.
"The communications are back up. We need to get word out," Mandora said.
"How do you suggest we go about that?" Pali gave her a look.
"We just need to get their attention," the former Evil Chaser smirked. Then she started shouting at the top of her lungs.
"Help! I need help in here!" Sure enough, the guards that were outside the room came running in.
"She stopped breathing!" Mandora indicated to Shay. The Evil Chaser was struggling to breathe, it wasn't technically a lie. Still if their captors were as unfeeling as space pirates often were, they would not have come running. It was obvious to Pali that Mandora was already forming opinions about their captors given her ploy.
The men got the door open and then Pali tackled them both, knocking them to the ground. Mandora jumped on and in a few moments, the two of them had the guards knocked unconscious. Mandora grabbed up their blasters and keys and then they shoved the two of them into the cell they'd just exited. Pali carefully lifted Shay up while Mandora opened the cell next to theirs.
"Do we have anyone with medical training in here?" He asked. Quickly two of the Thunderians came forward and they went for the medical cabinet on the other side of the room. They got her stabilized on the backboard and examined her wounds.
"Leave me and get out of here," Shay told them.
"No chance of that," one of the captives, a tiger, said.
"Come on, everyone out behind us. We're getting everyone out of here. Once free of the Lair, get over to the hospital as soon as you can," Mandora ordered. Quickly the group moved toward the door. Pali used the keypad and punched up a view of the hallway. He opened the door, once he saw it was clear and the group started to move out into the hallway. Quickly, Pali took the lead and they single-filed down the hallway. They were surprised that they didn't bump into anyone as they made their way toward the exit. Their luck however, ran out when a pirate rounded the corner. Mandora blasted him with the blaster she'd confiscated and the group started in a dead-nuts run for the front door. Shay was getting jostled on the backboard but they had no choice if they were going to get out.
The front doors opened and two pirates walked inside to find their captors running straight at them. Pali and Mandora blasted away with the blasters and knocked the two of them down. They stopped at the entrance and made sure the group got outside and was heading for the drawbridge. Then Mandora blasted the drawbridge control panel, forcing the drawbridge to stay open, allowing the others to escape into the city. Then the two turned back inside to head to find the children and get a message to anyone who was listening.
To Be Continued…
