[Imperium Subsector Prison Facility, Praxin VI, Dolat Subsector]
"Okay, okay, so I think we can all agree this looks a little suspicious and yet, and yet," Jessica flashed an encouraging smile and held up the index finger on each hand to emphasise the argument she was making, "are not we all tired of jumping to conclusions and thinking the worst of people?"
Jessica looked around at the five men who had surrounded her, each wearing the dark grey uniform of an Imperium prison guard. "And I feel that if we all just, you know, take a moment, reflect on the capacity for goodness that we all possess and maybe, who knows, lower our suppression rifles," Jessica's hopeful nod at the five rifle barrels that were currently all trained on a single point in space was unfortunately not rewarded by them shifting off that point. Neither, she feared, could she move off that same point in space without someone doing something entirely unreasonable like pulling a trigger, "then maybe we can have a civil and constructive conversation about all of this."
Finished, Jessica now tried a hopeful smile and waited for the guards to come around to the merits of her argument. After a few seconds, the smile flickered, and Jessica began to cast around for another strategy. Unfortunately, the strategic landscape could only be described as promising if Jessica's end goal were to play the lead role in a one-woman stage show rendition of "Prisoner of the Imperium".
Having been captured and interrogated on an Imperium patrol cruiser barely less than a week earlier, Jessica felt a girl needed to be careful about becoming stereotyped.
She also had a suppression rifle that went with the guard's outfit she'd stolen. However, the whole "one woman is worth any five men" boast she'd occasionally made after a few too many drinks at any one of a dozen disreputable bars around the galaxy didn't translate well into the current context of being smack bang at the centre of a ring of targeting sights.
"Fine, fine." Jessica sighed. "Let me guess, drop the weapon?"
A rifle barrel, held by the man Jessica guessed was the guard captain, nodded, and Jessica clenched her jaw as she let her own weapon clatter to the floor.
The barrel nodded again, more vigorously this time, in what Jessica was finding to be a common gunbarrel-diplomacy dialect used whenever a group of the Imperium's men had an attractive female captive at their mercy.
"Okay, okay!" Jessica held her hands up as the barrel's nodding increased in intensity "I'm taking the top off too! Give a lady a moment to collect herself, will ya!"
Jessica slowly undid the top three buttons of her dark grey guard's jacket, which was designed to be stab-proof but would do little against the weapons arrayed in front of her. The jacket was already ill-fitting given it was a men's cut and the man she'd relieved it off hadn't exactly had the same curvaceous shape as the buxom buccaneer. The shiny material of her royal blue bikini top appeared as the jacket parted, and Jessica continued to work away at the buttons until she could open it fully, revealing two large bikini-clad breasts and a flat, muscular tummy. She let the jacket slide off her shoulders and down her arms, and it made a solid thud as the heavy material hit the floor behind her feet.
"Happy now?" she inquired.
The gun-barrel nodded downwards this time, clearly signalling that a state of zen-like happiness had not yet been attained. Jessica ground her teeth in frustration but knew that the options were to do it or to be shot. The latter didn't have much to recommend it.
Her emerald green eyes gave the gun barrel and its current holder a steely, piercing stare, but her hands nevertheless moved to the equally ill-fitting pants, quickly unclipped the belt, and made short work of the zip. The pants slid down to her ankles, and the matching royal blue bikini bottoms flashed into public display.
Now, with the jacket behind her and the pants pooled at her feet, Jessica placed two hands on her hips and glared at the men. "I think we can all agree, gentlemen, that while yes, circumstantially, it may appear that I acquired that uniform by, let's say, less than honest means, the bikini itself is mine."
Five pairs of hungry eyes looked up and down at the scantily-clad ebony angel in front of them and then exchanged glances. After a few seconds of silent communication between the men, who seemed to be of the same mind, and the same one-track mind at that, the gun barrel did a quick prod that said "Sure, that micro-bikini is pretty small and it seems hard to believe you're hiding any weapons in it, but we're the cautious type, so... remove it."
"For fuck's sake, you've got to be kidding me," Jessica muttered to herself. After a few seconds of indignant protest, though, she roughly snatched at the bikini top ties and pulled one thread. The meagre support the top had been giving to her ample breasts quickly gave way, and within seconds, two heavenly brown nipples became exhibit A in why this was rapidly turning into one of the best days of these guards' lives.
Jessica didn't even bother to ask if she could keep the bikini bottoms, and simply grabbed the tie on her left side while five pairs of eyes feasted on her melons, and with a practised flick, loosened it, pulled it through her legs and held up the top in one hand, and the bottoms in the other. Then, with expert judgement, she lightly tossed and landed each on the gun barrel that had been doing all of the talking.
"Happy NOW?!" Jessica demanded, standing aggrieved with legs slightly apart and her hands placed on her hips. She wasn't going to give these men the satisfaction of trying to cover up and look all embarrassed.
"You've had your fun. Take me to my cell, okay?"
The captain with the gun finally spoke, not bothering to remove the bikini that hung off the end of his suppression rifle. "We will take you to your cell." His voice was clipped and he spoke to her as one might speak to an errant pet. "But first we must make sure you're not smuggling anything in."
"Smuggling something in?" Jessica said incredulously. "I'm sort of naked right here. How would..." then she groaned and threw her head back, staring at the ceiling bitterly. She just had to hope Emma was somehow hearing all of this and wouldn't be too long fashioning a rescue.
Slapping her hands behind her head with a resigned look, Jessica turned around, bent at the hips and pointed her backside and pussy at the lead guard. "Get it over with, asshole."
Looking through her legs, she could see, upside down, the man approaching. He was wearing the same thin, cruel, humourless smile that Jessica was beginning to realise seemed to be a stock facial expression for Imperium personnel.
Emma better get her ass into gear and get here soon, Jessica thought, before her own ass was subjected to some of the Imperium's gear...
****
[One day ago, on the third moon of Kantahor IV.]
"So you see," the man across the table from Jessica and Emma said, speaking in a firm but not entirely unfriendly manner, "while you have undoubtedly greatly impressed Corporal Fernstein, the leadership group remains unconvinced."
The man was Captain James Allen. Third in command of this sector's rebel cell and the man who had been tasked with ascertaining whether Jessica and Emma truly represented meaningful assets to the wider rebellion.
Jessica shrugged. "And yet here we are." Here they were indeed, and only because of a laborious five-day process involving multiple interviews at multiple intermediary locations before they'd been cleared for transport to a nearby subsector headquarters. Rebels who didn't value discretion and privacy tended to evolve into martyrs quite quickly, and both women got the impression this set of rebels was quite taken with the idea of living long enough to see the fruits of their works.
The man raised both arms in acknowledgement of Jessica's point. "Oh, I didn't say we were entirely disinterested. Merely unconvinced." He leaned back.
He was quite attractive in his way. Probably only in his mid-30s, Emma thought, even if a life of subsistence living across one rebel base to the next and the stress that came from the constant risk of death meant that he looked more like a man in his early 40s. He was well-tanned with a rugged body that suggested that desk jobs were not his usual calling within the rebellion. Unruly brown hair suited his chiselled face quite well, and Emma had to grudgingly admit that, despite the extra years he had on the attractive 25-year-old buccaneer, the thought of a stress-relieving threesome with Jessica wasn't entirely unpleasant.
Emma shook her head slightly, red hair gently cascading one way and then the other, and brought her attention back to the conversation at hand.
"Look," Emma interjected, "we're not exactly convinced ourselves, okay? We're grateful for the rescue, don't get us wrong, and the whole 'let's not point laser pistols in their face and refrain from restraining them naked in interrogation rooms' means that you guys are going to get a way better review than the Imperium, but right now, we're just interested in re-starting our lives."
Those lives had - five days and one hour ago - involved being the owners of a kick-ass galaxy-hopping privateer with the freedom to take whatever jobs they liked and go wherever the urge took them.
Okay, fine, Emma had to admit, the "Silk Shadow" had already needed a fair bit of maintenance even before the Imperium started treating it as target practice, and a certain impulsive act that Emma had performed on a particularly annoying Duchess had meant their meteoric rise up the Imperium's most wanted list had reduced the circle of clients who were willing to do business with them. Still, it was a freedom of sorts.
Now, they had no ship, no weapons, and their only genuine possessions were their silver jumpsuits. Even the underwear they had on was technically on loan from the rebellion.
"Well," Captain Allen smiled with gentle amusement, "then we appreciate your consideration too."
Jessica coughed and gave Emma a "let me do the talking" look.
Smiling back at Captain Allen, Jessica said, "I get that having the heroines who humiliated the Duchess of Artion joining your cell would be a useful propaganda win for you..."
"... I've spoken with the cell who employed you for that job, and they recollect the story a little differently..."
