Freedom's Challenge

by Anne McCaffrey

Published 4 May 1998
The inhabitants of Botany - a mixture of humans and extra terrestrials - had managed to build a thriving and productive world out of what had originally been intended as a slave planet. And now they had plans to try and overthrow the terrible Eosi, who for centuries had existed by subsuming members of the Catteni race, living in their bodies and ruling space through them. And the Botanists had received mysterious and unexpected help from the great beings they knew only as 'Farmers' - for the Farmers had thrown a huge impervious space bubble round Botany. Even as the Eosi ships tried to pulverise the rebellious planet, the bubble held firm. But, safe though they were behind the protective device, Kris Bjornsen, Zainal and all of the Council knew they had to go out and destroy the Eosi on their own ground. It fell to Zainal to risk his life in a desperate and daring mission to vanquish the monster life forms forever.

Freedom's Landing

by Anne McCaffrey

Published 1 January 1995
Kristin Bjornsen lived a normal life, right up until the day the spaceships floated into view above Denver. As human slaves were herded into the maw of a massive vessel, Kristin realized her normal life was over and her fight for freedom was just beginning…

The alien Catteni value strength and intelligence in their slaves—and Kristin has managed to survive her enslavement while hundreds of other humans have not. But her trial has just begun, for now she finds herself part of a massive experiment. The aliens have discovered a new world, and they have a simple way of finding out if it’s habitable: drop hundreds of slaves on the surface and see what happens.

If they survive, colonization can begin. If not, there are always more slaves.

FREEDOMS RANSOM

by Anne McCaffrey

Published 1 May 2002
The merchants of Barevi had completely looted Earth and were demanding a ransom before they would return their greedy gains. Botany also needed much of the loot which was now sitting in Barevi warehouses and so Zainal - who although a Catteni by race, had won his place as leader of the multi-racial Botany - conceived a plan to ransom the ransomers and snatch back the articles so desperately needed by his people.

Freedom's Choice

by Anne McCaffrey

Published 2 January 1997
They had called the planet Botany, after the old penal colony on earth. For that is what they were - prisoners and dissidents from other worlds whom the hated Catteni had banished to an empty planet - or what they thought was an empty planet.

Kris Bjornsen and her fellow slaves had survived very well - and one reason was that amongst their number was Zainal, a high ranking Catteni who was as trapped on Botany as they were. Zainal knew the Catteni ways and the Catteni technology, and he had plans for fighting back. For, as he explained, the Catteni too were victims - subject to the mighty and terrifying Eosi race who used the Catteni as a galactic police force - and also used them in more grisly and horrifying ways.

And over Zainal's daring and secret plans, over the surveying expeditions and the exploration of the strange hidden valleys, hung a further mystery - to whom did Botany really belong? Who had created the giant grain sheds - the mammoth machinery that tilled the great fields? The new inhabitants of Botany called them the 'Farmers' - and waited for the day they would come to harvest their crops.

And when that happened, the refugees were awed into silence - for the Farmers were greater than anything the universe had ever seen.