NorthStar Freeway

*“What do you mean, they’re GONE???!!! HOW DO YOU JUST LOSE FOURTEEN THOUSAND SLAVES???!!! I promised Lord Kryy’nythh the last of the Saffani Aether-Dancers for his Tower of Pain and Pleasure! It took me over half of the eighty million -clure- he paid in advance to in-gather them, and now you’re telling me they’ve up and DISAPPEARED!!!??? You inbred mud-sucking decerberate null!!! Do you realize how much your incompetence may cost me-us- if you don’t find those slaves NOW???!!!"*

## The NorthStar FreeWay

The Northstar FreeWay is the name most often associated with the Shemarrian Star Nation’s version of the ‘Underground Railroad’, a network of travel routes, relays of ships, and squadrons of vessels dedicated to moving refugees, primarily freed slaves, out from under the grasp of their oppressors. Just about all the Tribes of the Star Nation contribute to the effort, though the largest participants in the work are the Hawkmoons, the Darkwaters, and the Wayfinders, because to their starship expertise, and the Horrorwoods, because their worlds are often the endpoints of FreeWay routes.

Taking advantage of the stealth design features of their ships, the Shemarrians have infiltrated the territories of their enemies, creeping past sensor nets and patrol routes, to clandestine rendezvouses to pick up escapees and refugees. Sometimes the Shemarrian vessels have to run blockades of worlds under siege in order to evacuate sentients. The way out is just as hazardous as the getting in, even more so since the Shemarrian ships are carrying precious cargo (passengers); often the ships take a different route than the way they came in, and long circuitous routes to throw off any pursuers as to the ultimate destination of the people-smugglers are a common practice among ships flying the FreeWay.

To a lesser extent, the Shemarrian Star Nation has used the FreeWay to spirit refugees out of the TransGalactic Empire, Golgan Republik, and other tyrannies, including, it’s rumored, worlds of the Omegan Order. A number of active war zones have supposedly seen mysterious ships arrive to spirit away refugees and prisoners; some of these may indeed have been Shemarrian Northstar flights. Whenever possible, the FreeWay fliers will attempt to enter these territories as far from known Shemarrian-claimed space as possible, both to reduce the chances of any Shemarrian connection being uncovered, and to take advantage of weak points in the enemy defenses by coming in through unguarded peripheral regions. It has been rumored that in some cases, where large numbers of refugees are to be moved, or in other particular circumstances, the Shemarrians overtly stir up trouble with their neighbors in order to draw opposition attention and ships from apparently less-threatened areas, in order to facilitate FreeWay infiltration.

While the FreeWay fliers generally avoid any contact with other vessels, and will go to great lengths to evade detection, the Shemarrians have proven fully ready to fight if circumstances require. In some cases, the infilitrators have take the offensive; the disappearances of several Splugorth slave transport ships travelling inside Splugorth-claimed space may have been the work of such raiders. In general, though, the Shemarrians try to show restraint by NOT opening up on their enemies, all batteries blazing, during the delicate work of infiltrating enemy space.

### Transporting The Rescued

When and where possible, the Shemarrians attempt to transport refugees in biostasis. This is for a number of reasons; it reduces the chance of a transportee discovering where the ship is going (and either accidentally or intentionally revealing details about the FreeWay’s operation and waystations to the wrong parties), it allows Shemarrian ships to carry more refugees with less strain on resources, it provides extra inflight security (no hysterical ex-slaves running around or enemy moles wandering about), stasis allows the Shemarrian ships to travel at their usual high accelerations, and the low-life signs of hibersleeping refugees are easier to mask. However, not all species (or individuals) are able to take advantage of biostasis systems (or the appropriate systems are not available), so sometimes the Shemarrians have no other choice but to carry awake and active refugees. Some xenoanthroplologists have suggested another angle, however, given that the Shemarrians prefer to fight to the death, rather than permit themselves to be captured (especially by the Splugorth), the use of biostasis may also spare escaped slaves the pain of going back into slavery, or more pragmatically, keep them from interfering with a Shemarrian group self-destruct.

The ultimate destination of transportees on the Northstar FreeWay varies; most are routed to neutral or friendly worlds far from Splugorth territory, many are moved to Shemarrian-protected worlds, and others are resettled on Shemarrian refuge planets.

### The Jokes on Them

While the ‘Northstar’ is an obscure reference to ancient pre-Shemarrian history that only a few Terran Humans might get, it’s reportedly driven the Splugorth batty, convinced that the ‘North Star’ refers to a specific astrogaphic landmark used for navigation. This has resulted in Splugorth intelligence analysts scouring navigation charts of other star nations, looking for any and all references to ‘north stars’, looking to stake out possible ‘touch stars’ of the FreeWay. If true, then all the Splugorth have done is waste their time, and the Shemarrians have scored again at the slavers’ expense.

### Discovery

When enemies like the Splugorth or the Kreeghor HAVE twigged to FreeWay routes, the results haven’t been pretty; the Shemarrians have fought to the death; either their own, or ideally those of their ambushers. When a route has been compromised, the Shemarrians have abandoned it and fallen back on other routes. In the case of the Splugorth, though, the SSN has occasionally used knowledge of a compromised route to set counter-ambushes for would-be pursuers. On several occasions, Kittani and Kydian vessels have dropped into a system known to be a transit point for Freeway vessels and set to awaiting refugee-runners, only to discover that they’ve been anticipated by attack ships already in the system. Reportedly, the Shemarrians even claimed an entire cruiser squadron by mining an asteroid; the Splugorth warships either took up position near or actually landed on the asteroid, hoping to use its mass-shadow to hide their presence, only to be obliterated when the nuclear demolition charges buried inside the rock detonated.

Though there are similar, in many cases older and more established, efforts as the Shemarrian Northstar FreeWay that work to spirit the helpless out of the path of tyranny and enslavement, there are few so well organized and extensive as the Shemarrian effort. The Shemarrians have been known to cooperate with other such efforts from time to time when they overlap, and when the Shemarrians can verify the absolute trustworthiness of the other party, but by in large such joint efforts are rare.