Planet of Pain

by B. A. Bradbury

  Bel must have realised this too, for after her own set of six she gasped, ‘You win. Tell Colonel Hendricks I want to talk to him.’

  ‘Not so tough after all, then,’ Tucker said smugly. ‘I knew you’d break of course, just not this quickly. I was hoping to give you eighty or ninety each before you cracked.’

  ‘Just get the colonel,’ Bel said.

  ‘No need trouble our esteemed commander. You can say whatever you’ve got to say to me.’

  ‘No I can’t. You don’t have clearance. I’ll talk to the colonel, and no one else.’

  Tucker stared at her, then finally he shrugged and dispatched one of the troopers to fetch the ship’s captain. The rest of them waited in silence, and some few minutes later Hendricks entered with the trooper in his wake.

  ‘I understand you wish to speak to me,’ the colonel said.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Bel replied. ‘I’m prepared to answer your questions.’

  ‘Wise decision, captain,’ Hendricks said. ‘A pity you didn’t come to your senses sooner, but better late than never. Please proceed.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Bel said. ‘Firstly, Firefly’s computer isn’t locked, it’s destroyed. I erased the core memory for security reasons, obviously. Secondly, the mission we were on was a routine patrol. Six sequential jumps, three out, three back, with a special instruction to log any navigation hazard at the transit points.’

  She fell silent. The colonel waited as though expecting more. When nothing came, he frowned. ‘That’s it? That’s what you wanted to tell me?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Hendricks turned to Major Tucker, clearly not pleased. ‘And you brought me down here for this?’

  Tucker stiffened. ‘She insisted on speaking to you personally, sir. She implied she had classified information to divulge.’

  ‘Implied?’ Hendricks snapped. ‘Just what sort of interrogation are you running here, major? You do know where this request originated, I take it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then you’ll understand the consequences of failure. I need the truth from these women, and sooner rather than later. I don’t relish using such methods, but we do what we must. I expect a report on my screen in the next two hours, is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Tucker said. ‘But what if… perhaps she is telling the truth, sir.’

  Hendricks stared at him with incredulity. ‘Where are your wits today, major? You think any sane captain would wantonly wreck her own ship when she could achieve the desired result merely by disabling it? And, given what we know, do you believe the Alliance just happened to send an alpha-class scout, their latest and best, into this particular sector at this precise moment in time just to check for space debris?’

  ‘It seems unlikely, sir,’ Tucker said faintly.

  ‘That has to be the understatement of the year,’ Hendricks said. ‘So… can I trust you to do what needs to be done?’

  ‘You can, sir.’

  ‘Good. Two hours, major.’ With that the colonel stalked out.

  Tucker’s shoulders slumped and he let out a long sigh. Jo almost felt sorry for the man, but then he turned to Bel with a look of such vindictiveness that all Jo’s sympathy evaporated instantly.

  ‘Sergeant Clemens,’ the major said tightly, ‘put that Reiver bitch in the chair.’

  Bel went quietly, with no fuss. She sat down and lifted her legs over the stirrups, and they proceeded to tie her down. They fastened straps around her wrists, upper arms, knees and ankles, and others around her waist and forehead. By the time they were finished she was held fast, unable to move.

  The major returned the wooden paddle to the cabinet, and took out instead a number of objects. There was a coil of wire, a slender plastic baton with a copper tip, and a smallish grey metal box with buttons and indicator lights along the top. Tucker plugged one end of the wire into the box, and handed it to the sergeant. He plugged the other end into the base of the baton, and took it over to where Bel lay.

  ‘You know what this is?’ he asked her, holding up the baton.

  ‘A high voltage probe?’

  ‘Precisely. Know where it’s going?’

  ‘I can guess.’

  ‘I imagine you can. Do me a favour, captain; hold out as long as possible. I would hate for this to end prematurely, too.’

  He turned to Sergeant Clemens. ‘Go to five.’

  ‘Five, sir?’ the sergeant said, sounding surprised.

  ‘You heard me,’ Tucker snapped, and Clemens dropped his gaze quickly and pressed a button on the box. Tucker stepped close to his victim, paused for a second or two as if savouring the moment, then hefted the baton. He touched the copper tip to her vagina, and pushed the thing inside her. Bel groaned and stiffened.

  ‘Unpleasant, isn’t it?’ he said conversationally.

  ‘Very,’ she answered tightly.

  He kept the thing in place for a full half minute, and then withdrew it. Bel’s relief was plain to see. He watched her face, waiting for some reaction perhaps, though Jo couldn’t imagine what. For perhaps ten seconds no one moved or spoke. Then he lifted the baton and fed it into her again.

  This, then, was the pattern, endlessly repeated. As he worked on her he asked her questions – the same questions over and over. And always the answers were the same. I erased the ship’s memory. We were on a routine patrol.

  As the minutes dragged by Bel’s groans became more heartfelt. Clearly it was hurting her more, though Tucker wasn’t doing anything differently that Jo could see, and certainly the sergeant hadn’t touched the controls on the box. Perhaps it was like the beating, she thought. Flesh became sore and tender with repeated abuse, and tender flesh felt the torment more keenly.

  The only respite, short-lived as it was, came when Tucker switched his attentions from Bel’s vagina to a different part of her anatomy. For fully two minutes he toyed with the breasts he had so derided, squeezing and slapping them, and finally pinching her nipples and stretching them.

  ‘Gross,’ he muttered at the end, shaking his head. ‘Utterly gross.’

  He took up the baton once more and pressed the end against her nipple. He held it there for a long while as Bel writhed in the chair to the limits of her restraints. Finally he took it away.

  This became the new pattern, with Tucker alternating between her left breast and her right. He asked the usual questions and received the usual answers. He didn’t believe her, of course – couldn’t believe her, probably, after the dressing-down he’d received from his commanding officer. And perhaps he didn’t want to believe her. He’d been made to look a fool in front of his subordinates, and now he was taking his revenge in the cruellest way imaginable. The sight and sound of Bel in such distress was almost more than Jo could bear, but eventually there came a pause that was longer than usual. Something new was happening, she realised. The questioning had stopped and the men were looking at Bel differently.

  ‘The bitch isn’t going to spill it, is she?’ Tucker said bitterly. ‘Not at five, she isn’t.’

  ‘You want to increase power, major?’ Clemens asked.

  Tucker sighed and shook his head; and then he froze, as if something had occurred to him. In ghastly slow motion he swivelled round and stared straight at Jo. Sick fear swept through her and her chest tightened till she could scarcely breathe.

  ‘Maybe Miss Mickleberry will be more amenable,’ he said.

  ‘You think so, sir?’

  ‘Hell,’ Tucker muttered, ‘what have we got to lose?’

  Bel had to be helped out of the chair, and she leaned heavily on the two troopers as they brought her back to the cables. The instant they let go she sank to the floor where she lay on her side, eyes misted with pain, her breathing rapid and ragged. It was clear the men considered her no threat; for they secured her with just a single cuff around one ankle. Then they
turned their attention to Jo.

  Unlike her captain Jo didn’t go quietly. When they released her she fought and struggled, yelling, trying in vain to pull free; a contest she hadn’t the faintest hope of winning. Strong arms folded around her and hands grabbed her arms and legs, dragging her over to the chair. Soon she was secured; and never in all her life had she felt so helpless, so vulnerable, and so horribly afraid.

  ‘You know how this works,’ Tucker said. ‘Tell us what we need to know and it ends right now. Try to tough it out and you get to ride this.’

  He brought the baton close to her groin – and the words poured from her lips in one long stream, falling over each other in their desperation to get out. She told them everything that had happened; from the pre-flight briefing to the instant she blacked out right after the second missile struck. It wasn’t what they wanted to hear, she knew, but it was the truth. She had nothing else to give them.

  When finally she ran out of steam there was silence. The men regarded her seriously, thoughtfully. Long seconds ticked by; then finally Tucker spoke.

  ‘So,’ he said quietly, ‘you’re confirming the captain’s story.’

  Jo tried to nod, but the strap around her forehead prevented it. ‘Yes,’ she gasped. ‘It was a routine patrol, nothing more. And Bel… Captain Franklin, wiped the deck when we realised we couldn’t get away. The core memory’s erased, I swear.’

  Tucker stared at her as though trying to see into her brain. And then he nodded slowly – and relief surged through her. He believed her. They weren’t going to hurt her. Reaction set in and a shudder ran through her from top to toe.

  ‘Okay,’ he said quietly, ‘we’ll do it the hard way.’ Before Jo had time to realise what was happening he put the baton between her legs and pushed it into her. It was the worst pain she had ever known. She groaned, straining against the straps as she instinctively tried to close her legs. It felt as if there was a living creature inside her, biting and clawing at her flesh, and so the whole awful business started again; except that now she was no longer a mere observer, but the victim.

  Jo and her fellow trainees had received instruction in counter-interrogation, back at the Academy. They hadn’t taken it all that seriously: no one thought it could happen to them. The one exception was Gemma Brogan, round-eyed and anxious, afraid of what might be done to her, as a woman. ‘Just be grateful you don’t have testicles,’ Instructor Red had said; and all the men in the class sniggered.

  Now, as pain gnawed at her, Jo wished with all her heart she had paid more attention. She remembered their tutor talking about a technique he called retrogression, in which the victim turns his or her awareness inwards. It was possible, he maintained, to cut off all sensory information, including pain. They had been made to practice it, right there in the classroom; and Jo tried to apply it now but it soon became clear that it was utterly impossible. Pain was everywhere, swamping her. Pain was all there was – how could she possibly hope to shut it out?

  Relief, when it came, was pitifully brief. A few heartbeats, a few laboured breaths only and Tucker was raising the baton once more.

  ‘The code, lieutenant,’ he said, and before she could respond he pressed it inside her again.

  ‘Oh…’ she whined, ‘please stop… aahhh… I can’t think!’

  ‘Don’t think. Just answer.’

  The interrogation proceeded. Next to be targeted were her breasts. He concentrated on her nipples and she remembered his comment about how sensitive they were. She pleaded with him, sobbing, but he was unmoved. The pain went on and the questions went on, till she thought she’d go mad.

  And throughout that long, terrible hour, despite everything they did to her, part of her mind somehow remained sane. It was ashamed of her weakness, this other self. It despised the tears that coursed down her cheeks, her pathetic cries, her spasmodic jerking and twitching.

  The baton moved back to her groin once more and the copper tip sought out her clitoris. The pain was worse than ever and she shrieked. It felt as is someone had pushed a fishhook through that sensitive nub, and was tugging on it with all his might.

  ‘Doesn’t like it there, does she?’ she heard the sergeant say.

  ‘They never do,’ Tucker replied.

  But even as he said it sight and sound grew dim, and the pain fell miraculously away. For the second time in a matter if hours Jo lost consciousness.

  Chapter 4

  Admiral Talmann was in com, seated at a spare station, reviewing the messages received in the past hour. Four Alliance scout ships had been captured to date, the destroyer Lancer having scooped up the latest just minutes ago. The crew – one male, one female – had committed suicide rather than be taken, which was a great pity. Under normal circumstances Lancer’s captain would have been hauled over the coals for such negligence, but this was hardly a normal situation. Talmann had more on his mind at present than the loss of a Reiver crewwoman.

  Four ships, three females taken alive in all, and still no sign of Nielsen. But he was coming, Talmann was certain of that; the admiral was too long in the tooth not to recognise a smoke screen when he saw one.

  ‘Incoming message from Dauntless, admiral,’ one of the signallers said, ‘priority one.’

  ‘Decode it and route it to my screen,’ Talmann said. It appeared in seconds – men worked twice as fast when their commander’s eye was on them – and he scanned the message quickly, then read it again more slowly, frowning as he did so.

  ‘Something wrong, sir?’ Sam, his ever-vigilant shadow, enquired.

  Talmann nodded. ‘Hendricks informs me that the women haven’t broken. It seems my insistence they suffer no permanent damage is compromising the interrogation.’

  The young lieutenant, wise beyond his years, said nothing. Talmann sighed.

  ‘Send a reply, Sam,’ he said dourly. ‘Tell the colonel to take all necessary steps to obtain the information. The welfare of the prisoners is now of secondary importance.’

  This latest development was frustrating in the extreme. Having seen images of Franklin and O’Donnell taken by Dauntless’ security cameras – transmitted at his special request – he had been looking forward with considerable eagerness to making their acquaintance. But the admiral could be as hard on himself as on others when circumstances demanded. Right at this moment information was more important than female flesh, no matter how delectable. Besides, the pair might yet survive the worst Hendricks could throw at them, but whether they could survive the worst Talmann himself could contrive was quite another matter.

  ‘Jo? Can you hear me?’

  She didn’t want to wake up. Oblivion was painless and she instinctively knew that coming round would bring all sorts of misery. And she was right. As awareness returned, so did the pain.

  She felt as though she’d been stretched on the rack. Her arms, legs, neck and torso all ached, though she had no idea why. The throbbing pain in her vagina and breasts might be worse, but at least she knew what had caused it. She was almost afraid to open her eyes in fact, in case she was still in the chair and Tucker was about to start on her again with the baton.

  ‘You have to wake up, Jo,’ she heard Bel say. ‘I know you don’t want to, but you must. Come on, lieutenant; no malingering allowed on my watch, you hear?’

  She trusted Bel. If she said it was okay, then it was okay. Jo opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw, beyond Bel’s anxious face, was the roof of the cage – and what a wonderful sight it was. If she was in the cage she couldn’t be in the chair.

  ‘I feel like I’ve been run over by a munitions hauler,’ she croaked. ‘What happened?’

  ‘You fainted,’ Bel said.

  ‘I fainted? God, what a ninny.’

  ‘No you’re not,’ Bel said. ‘It’s just the brain saying enough is enough. Hell, I only wish I could have managed it.’

  ‘How long was I out?
’

  ‘Not long… a few minutes, that’s all. Sergeant Clemens and the troopers carried you here. Tucker’s gone to talk to Colonel Hendricks.’

  Jo tried to sit up, and instantly regretted it as every muscle in her body protested violently.

  ‘Why do I ache so much?’ she asked plaintively.

  ‘I’m in the same state,’ Bel said. ‘I think it’s due to muscle spasm, or something, from straining against the chair straps. That and being strung up while he was beating us, maybe.’ Jo shivered and Bel put her hand on her forehead, then her arm. ‘You’re freezing,’ she said. ‘Time to snuggle up, soldier. Shared body heat’s the best way to keep warm, right?’ Without further ado she eased Jo over onto her side and lay down next to her, wriggling up close to Jo’s back. Her arm slipped around Jo’s waist and she pulled the pair of them together.

  ‘What… what are you doing?’ Jo gasped, startled.

  ‘Warming you up,’ Bel said. ‘They put us in the same cell so I could look after you, and that’s what I’m doing.’

  It felt really, really weird to be pressed against another woman in this fashion. Soft female curves and hollows felt totally different to male muscle, and the captain had curves and hollows in abundance.

  ‘Relax,’ Bel urged, with a soft laugh. ‘My intentions are strictly honourable, I promise.’

  Jo tried, but it wasn’t easy. She was only too aware of twin mounds pressing against her shoulder blades, and a warm thigh intruding between her own. It was alarming and peculiar, and somehow… scandalous. But she could hardly shove Bel away so there seemed little choice but to lie there and endure it.

  Bel’s fingers began tapping out a rhythm against Jo’s ribs, as though she was drumming in time to a tune in her head. Then Jo realised it wasn’t that at all. It was Firefly’s call sign in Morse code, repeated over and over. She quickly gathered her wits, put her hand on Bel’s forearm, and responded in kind with the acknowledgement signal.