Part 16 (2/2)
Aldriena drew a ragged breath as rough hands dragged her across the smooth tile floor and propped her up against a wall. Her eyes refocused. She saw two more rangers swagger in, tall men with short haircuts and hard eyes. Her chest felt numb. Her arm twitched, still partially possessed by the electrical weapon that had taken her down.
Another soldier, a lieutenant, pulled her roughly by the arms to a standing position, although she had to lean against the wall.
”Your superior isn't going to be too happy with your behavior, soldier,” she said hoa.r.s.ely.
”Well, you see, someone blocked our link frequencies here on the freighter. Must have been Black Core operatives,” said the man closest to her. He smirked.
Aldriena took his meaning. His superiors weren't watching them after all, so he could do whatever he wanted. Aldriena took that news hard, but she set her mouth and met his gaze.
”My man Faber here wants a word with you,” he said.
Faber stepped forward. The man stood about six feet tall. He was clearly muscular, even through the thick fibers of his military skinsuit.
”You almost offed me,” Faber said coldly.
”You shot at me first,” Aldriena said.
”We weren't out to kill you or you'd be dead. You almost blew my head off. You see that? Ricocheted off the edge of my helmet, right here,” the ranger said.
”You should've-”
The back of the ranger's hand cut off Aldriena's smarta.s.s reply as it struck her face. He clasped his hands behind her head and pulled her torso into a knee strike. Her skinsuit distributed the blow well, but it still smarted. She slid back onto the floor without making a sound.
”Huh. She's wearin' Momma Veer. Getter outta that skinsuit,” the man grunted.
A couple of the rangers laughed. She felt pressure through her suit as two men grabbed each of her arms. Someone fiddled with her zipper tunnel and caught the clasp. Zzzzzzzzzzip. She felt cool air on her chest.
”Nice,” one of them said.
”Yeah, she's hot.”
Aldriena bucked and tried to clasp her legs around the head of the man in front of her, but they held her too tightly. Clearly, after the chase, they were expecting her to fight. She wondered if it was only bad luck that the squad didn't have any women.
”Lemme have another look,” Faber said. They pulled her off the wall and pinned her on the floor.
Faber kneeled on her with his knee between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Aldriena felt her sternum would have broken under normal acceleration. She guessed he must have been over three hundred pounds in Earth gravity with all his equipment. He leaned forward until she could see every one of the scraggly whiskers on his chin. His breath smelled like bad medicine. She figured it was the s.p.a.ce force mouthwash, 'strong enough to kill even s.p.a.ce germs', as the enlisted men liked to joke.
A strangled grunt escaped her. She couldn't breathe.
”Lucky for you you're such a famous lady,” the man told her. ”Else we'd deliver you ... damaged.”
Then he got up. Aldriena tried to breathe again, but she ended up rolling over and coughing. She almost pa.s.sed out, but finally her lungs obeyed her command to fill with precious air.
”Pull that suit off. Grab a feel if you like, but we gotta get her straight back so let's. .h.i.t it.”
Aldriena closed her eyes while they yanked her out of the skinsuit. She felt hands roaming her body but she ignored them. A calloused hand clutched an ample handful of her right breast.
”d.a.m.n, bro. We need to get back Earthside,” a man grumbled.
”You got that right,” another one said.
”I don't have tail like that waiting for me back home.”
Her face felt hot.
I must be blus.h.i.+ng. As if I had anything to blush about. What a stupid physical reaction.
She should have been enraged, but she didn't feel anything. This was the down side of being beautiful. She used her body often enough to her advantage, it was worth paying the price.
After a few more seconds, the groping was over. They must have realized that the frustration they had created in themselves wasn't worth anything. The squad glued her up and carried her to their troop carrier like a sack of potatoes. Warning stickers decorated the peeling paint of the entrance hatch of the squat craft. Inside, the carrier looked to be larger than Silvado. It smelled of sweat and electronics.
As they walked pa.s.s the secondary bulkhead, her head struck the side of the hatch.
”Careful Henderson, you'll be cleanin' up brains,” one of the men said.
”Rotting brains would clear up the smell in here a little,” said another.
They brought her into a small room with bare metal walls and a folding table. Cases of equipment were stacked in one corner. A machine the size of a motorcycle with a red plastic case sat next to the table. She couldn't tell what it was, but a lot of cables ran in and out of the back and the top of it. The cables from the top were strewn across the table. The rangers thrust her down into a metal chair with restraining straps hanging from its sides. Her view righted itself to the normal perspective, and she saw a man in a red lab coat sitting directly across from her.
His beady eyes regarded her coolly under the high, layered brow of a balding head. His frown lay deep-set into his face. He looked evil. She thought about attacking him, smas.h.i.+ng his pointy head deeper into the soft fatty folds of his throat, but she rejected the idea because her legs still felt wobbly and the s.p.a.ce force men were nearby.
The man stood. He took a spray can of solvent and soaked her with it, removing most of the glue from her torso with precise swipes of his gloved hands. He didn't seem to bat an eye at the sight of her s.h.i.+vering body clothed only in undersheers.
He pulled a thick strap over her arm and attached it to the chair somewhere behind her.
Last chance to beat this guy up.
Aldriena didn't have much choice. She remained still as he strapped her other arm down, then moved to her lower arms, torso, and legs. Her arm still quivered as if fighting her restraints on its own even though she didn't have the will. Aldriena fought down a wave of panic at being unable to move.
They don't pay me enough for this.
He picked up the cables one by one, and started to connect them to her with suction cups and conductive gel. A set went on her face and more on her back. He remained straight-faced. He even attached electrodes to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s without copping an extra feel. In a strange way, that scared her a little, because naked l.u.s.t she could understand, and maybe use to her advantage.
”That's pretty old school,” Aldriena observed. ”Do you really need to monitor physiological reactions when you can see into my brain?”
The man didn't say anything. Instead, he reached between her legs. She heard her undersheers tear and felt an invasion of her genitalia. She bucked in the chair.
”You b.a.s.t.a.r.d! What the h.e.l.l?”
The man didn't answer. Something cold slid into her bladder. She realized that he had introduced an auto-seeking catheter. Aldriena wondered if she'd really be here that long, or if the catheter was just to scare, humiliate, and demoralize her. That probably explained all the cables as well, she decided. The device probably worked by scanning her brain directly.
The man stepped behind her, out of sight. A voice came through her link.
”This is a lie detection device. I am the operator software. The use of this device has been authorized by the UNSF because it has been determined there is imminent danger to the citizens of Earth.”
”Whatever,” Aldriena replied aloud in a drawl. She tried to disconnect her link but her link didn't obey. She knew that was bad, because world citizens were supposed to have a right to privacy that extended to cover the links in their heads. She thought that if the UNSF was willing to ignore that right then they might hurt her to find out as much as they could about Insidious.
<script>