Here I am, Anna Jane. Intrepid investigator. My first time.
I knew the wires were secure, the microphone taped between my breasts heard everything and a dozen TerraPol officers would be instantly on hand if things went bad. There was nothing to be afraid of. TerraPol doesn't abandon it's own.
This was my first time though. I had worked so hard to be accepted but, till tonight, I had been stuck behind a desk. That is one of the reasons I leapt at the chance of this assignment without really considering the sense of it.
Maybe it was all some sort of initiation prank. The whole thing had seemed pretty unprofessional at the time. But I had to follow orders. And I wanted to be accepted at any cost.
So here I was dressed in jackboots and latex hot pants, leather leggings and a leather jacket that didn't reach my navel. A young crewgirl of the ship I was meant to infiltrate currently had her hand around my waist and her fingers tucked into my belt. She was called Red. She was some sort of pirate. I already had plenty of evidence. She was practically bragging about how many crimes she had committed against the human race. It seemed to me her verbal admissions alone were plenty to justify a search warrant of her ship right down to and including a cavity search of it's captain and crew! Why play this out any longer?
I had intercepted her in a spacedogs bar. She was a loose-lipped drunk and easily manipulated into promising a tour of a real spaceship in turn for unspecified fun. TerraPol would step in before I had to make good on my side of the bargain, I hoped!
Giggling like this was a schoolgirl prank, Red had sneaked me onboard and maneuvered me through the labyrinthine engine room, attempting to avoid the other crew. We almost made it. We were almost at her cabin when around the corner came the captain, flanked by four crewgirls. How confidently they swaggered! Pirates, and they looked the part. No, that is not entirely true. The captain had a careworn, rather than carefree, look to her. The crewgirl to her right, however, would have made a fine young pirate captain in any trashy romantic eyetickler. Not that I peruse such pulp. It would certainly be frowned upon for a TerraPol agent. Illusions aside the facts were these: we upheld the law and protected humanity. They spat on both. My life would not be worth much if I were discovered-- and if there were not a dozen highly trained TerraPol ready to whisk me to safety at the first sign my cover was blown.
Still, I took the time to commit her rather tasty image to memory. At home, in bed, in my mind, she could be as nice or nasty as I wished.
Red stopped and saluted. The captain nodded, then her eyes swung to me.
"Quite a catch there, Red. Set you back a bit, I suppose." Her tone was casual, her face was casual but she was suspicious. Her eyes had lingered on me a bit too long.
Red laughed. "Nah. She's free. Practically threw herself at me. Never seen the inside of a spaceship."
"Don't you go showing her anything outside the inside of your cabin, Red." Cautioned the heroic looking girl on the captain's right. First mate, I guessed. I'll call her Spikey. She had short spikes and a hard expression; aimed at Red right now, not me. I wasn't far wrong about her name as it turned out.
"Never intended to," Red replied with childish slyness. I believed her. Help! Where was my backup? Spikey ignored the innuendo and smiled chivalrously at me. Something glinted in her eye. "You must really have wanted to see the inside of a spaceship, girl."
This was getting too sticky for my liking. I tried to look as cheap as possible. "Bet you could show me more than a cabin, sweetheart."
Spikey snorted. My gambit had worked. That glint was gone from her eye, replaced by disdain. They were going to ignore me after all.
They would have ignored me, I would have got away with it. They would not have discovered me and all that was subsequent would not have happened to me IF..
..IF at that instant a grainy voice had not rang out from a hidden speaker, dripping with gloating sadistic glee. "She makes a convincing slut, doesn't she."
It came from under my shirt. From the microphone my fellow officers had helped me tape there. "Almost as good as her impression of a TerraPol officer, wouldn't you say..."
It felt like being punched in the gut. I wanted to be sick. My pulse was deafening in my ears as my brain tried to absorb the fact that I had just been murdered. And I knew that voice. It was the smiling voice of the same sergeant whom had told me not to work so late, not to waste my life chasing discrepancies in paperwork filled out by illiterates.. The same, whom had came into my office only hours ago and congratulated me on finally getting what I had been asking for. A chance at a real mission! I remember being so elated, and so annoyed. I had suspected them of giving me that desk job to bore me out of the force. Though it bored me to tears I had approached it like a detective. And found discrepancies. I knew who and suddenly I knew why.
The pirates had recoiled as if I were plague itself. They were looking at me with horror and disgust. This wasn't the way it was meant to end! Even if the villains killed the heroine here, weren't they meant to praise the heroine for her tenacity first?, or say something like "You and I, we are the same.." That is how it always worked in the EyeTicklers. Instead they looked as if they might stamp me to death rather than touch me with their hands. As one might kill a cockroach. It was not enough. I had not lived enough life yet.
No one spoke. After a gap the voice began again. "Hmmm.. This thing IS working isn't it?"
I don't know why I gave him the pleasure of answering. I looked around at the ring of hate filled faces. "It is working, sir" I answered quietly.
As if my words had broken a spell, they lunged for me. I got in only glancing blows before my arms were pinned behind me, the last of the rest of my life that mattered spent. Spikey strode forwards with ice in her eyes. She ripped open my shirt to expose the concealed mike taped there, and the wires winding around to the transmitter between my shoulderblades.
"You should have known your place girlie," the voice tutted smugly, " You should have known your place."
The captain strode forwards as if to hit me. The blow never struck but it may as well have. "What is the meaning of this?!!" she demanded, almost shouted at me in her fury. I couldn't get any sound past my lips. But it wasn't me she was speaking to after all.
"We had a deal. I have just delivered on my part of the bargain."
"The bargain was for information."
"She has it. When she isn't out looking for a good hard fucking she works in records. A bit too nosy for her own good."
"So you decided to kill two birds with one stone."
"I decided to feed one to the other." The voice disappeared with a click.
"Kill that," the captain said casually, gesturing to my breast. The mike was ripped off me and crushed under a booted foot.
"Damn him!" she exploded the instant it was done. "This is less than we paid for; and I hate being played......Still..." A slow smile took her as an idea occurred. "A captured Reich agent..... "
For a second she inspected me, then she spoke to me. I did not really understand her at the time. " All their lives this crew has lived in fear of people like you. Fear paralyses, girl. You are learning that right now aren't you.. Well they won't be afraid of you soon."
She turned to Spikey. "First mate, get the information out of her. That is your first priority. But the crew will find out we are entertaining a Reich agent and that could cause problems. Tell them she will be turned over to them AFTER we have the required information. I want a Full Channel feed of the interrogation sent to my room."
"Secured?" Spikey asked, puzzled.
"Unsecured!"
"Vassy and Sal will be circulating Ticklers of it before it is even over," protested Spikey. "Jonesy will probably have it playing live in the mess-hall before we have even started!"
"Exactly."
The captain turned and strode away, leaving me in the hands of her crew. At the corner she stopped and turned back to us. "Oh, and Red, escort yourself to the brig. Stay there till further notice." Then she was gone.
***
They pulled my jacket back, trapping my arms behind me. Forced me to kneel as stuncuffs bound my wrists, then my ankles, then wrists to ankles with a third pair so I was hog-tied. Tension on the links drove cotton-wadded spasms up my arms and legs. I grunted involuntarily. "Morons!" I cried, finally regaining my voice, "I'm TerraPol. They'll get you within the day".
Gravity twisted. The ship was lifting!
Spiky spun me round by my flapping shirt, bunched the collar in her fists and pulled my face to hers. "TerraPol sold you to us. For services rendered. Who is going to miss you?"
"You're lying! It wasn't TerraPol. TerraPol doesn't sell its officers."
"Like it sells it's citizens?" She twisted her head to one side, revealing the faint silver bar-code on her cheekbone. A slave scar. "We have all been sold. You're just a tiny piece of payback, sweetmeat."
"I'm not your meat! TerraPol doesn't sell it's officers." But it sounded weak even in my ears. I had only been in the force a few months and never felt accepted.
At Spikey's command they tugged me to medbay and strapped me into the examination couch. Arms clamped behind me. While two held my legs she removed my belt and peeled the leathers down to my ankle-boots. "I won't tell you anything!" I spat. She raised one eyebrow but said nothing. Her confident smirk said it all. The ship had put to space. That probably meant they didn't need my information until they reached their destination. One month, if they hadn't changed their flight plan.
They strapped my legs tightly into the stirrups, below the knees and above the ankles. The pants still bound my naked legs together, and the stirrups were currently together but, this couch could support a woman giving birth, among other things. The sanctity of that moment had nothing to do with where I was now.
I felt the press of cold metal against my temple but before I identified the instrument the act was done. For a moment the drill's buzz shook my teeth in my skull but I didn't feel the actual penetration. They had just shot something into my brain.
