Chapter 48

Authors notes: Please be forwarned, this chapter deals with a dark subject. The necessary evil of gathering intelligence by any and all means available.

Admiral Douglas's Quarters: Admiral Douglas entered his quarters, and immediately smelled something unusual. He looked at the table and saw that it was set with two place settings, and a large covered dish. Just then Terry walked into the main room, and saw him. "Oh damn, you spoiled the surprise."

He looked at her, and tried to not smirk, and she just looked at him. "What, can't a girl make a special meal for her guy?"

He walked up to her and put his arms around her waist. He slowly kissed her, and then leaned back a little. "You can surprise me like this anytime."

They sat down at the table, and she lifted the lid from the dish. He smelled something familiar, and he looked at Terry. "Is this what I think it is?"

She had that little impish grin going, and she just nodded. "I thought you might like a little special surprise today. So I made some of my Dad's special recipe Chili." She then began to dish out the chili.

...
After eating a little more than he should have, he sat back on the couch and Terry sat next to him. She could tell he had something on his mind, so she slid up next to him. "What's wrong Luke?"

He put an arm around her shoulders and looked in her eyes. "We had a little trouble on the station today. Someone tried to grab Tech Sgt Meego and get information from him."

Terry looked at him, "Is he OK?"

"Yeah he's fine. We managed to track them down, and rescue Sgt Meego."

She saw the look on his face seem to darken a little. "And?"

"And we captured three of the people holding him."

"There's more isn't there?"

"Yeah, we think that they're Psi-Corp."

He noticed Terry shiver a little, and then he thought he saw a tear in her eye. "What's wrong Terry?"

She put her head against his shoulder, "I was just thinking about my Aunt Mary."

"What about her?"

...
Terry just looked straight ahead, "Luke. How much do you know about the Psi-Corp?"

"Not much really."

Terry sniffled a little, "Do you know what happens to someone when they are found to be telepathic?"

Before he could say anything she continued. "The Psi-Corp people show up and give you three options. One: Join the Corp. Two: Go to a Prison for the rest of your life. Or Three: Take sleepers for the rest of your life."

"What are sleepers?"

"Psi-Corp says it's a drug that blocks your telepathic ability. What they don't tell you, are the slow toxic affects it has on the person."

Now he could see the tears on her cheeks, and he reached over and wiped them off. "Was your aunt a telepath?"

Terry just nodded, "Yeah, she was already married, and didn't want to leave her husband. So she started taking the sleepers. Every time I saw her after that, she was more and more distant."

"What happened to her?"

"One day she went to her room, and she took a bottle of pills."

He could see Terry was having a hard time telling him, so he pulled her closer and just held her.

...
Admiral Douglas's Office: The next morning, the admiral had called Dr. Lloyd, Captain Tate and Col Ellison to his office. Once they were there, the Admiral first looked at Captain Tate. "Until further notice, all personnel going to the station are to have an escort. And all personnel will were locators."

Captain Tate and Col Ellison just nodded. Now he looked at all three of them. "How are the prisoners Dr.?"

"They're still out sir. As you ordered."

"Good, I want you to revive the woman, and prep her for interrogation."

"Yes sir."

Now he looked at Col Ellison, "Colonel, I am authorizing the use of any interrogation methods you deem necessary, up to and including using ZS-5."

Dr Lloyd just looked at him, "Sir. Do you know what that could do to her?"

"Yes I do Heidi. And believe me it wasn't an easy decision to make."

"Admiral, you know what the potential risks of ZS-5 is for a human. We have no way of knowing what ZS-5 could do to a telepath."

"I understand Dr, but I'm authorizing its use anyway. We have to find out what these people are planning."

"Sir how could you?"

He looked deep into Dr Lloyds eyes, "The next time you see Terry, ask her about her Aunt Mary and Psi-Corp. Then your feelings may be a little different."

...
He looked at the Col again, "Stanley I recommend you only use Mopani personnel during the interrogation."

"Yes sir."

Dr Lloyd and Captain Tate looked at him, and Captain Tate asked him. "Why just them sir?"

"Well I listened to their interrogation of Sgt Meego last night. The man who was with them asked why they just didn't read his mind. One of them said that they couldn't. I don't know why this is, but I figure we should use any advantage we can."

The Captain just nodded his head. Now the Admiral turned back to Heidi. "Dr, I want you to continue to study the other two. Try to determine why they are different from a regular human being."

"Yes sir."

"That's all people, you're dismissed."

The three of them got up and left the Admiral's office.

...
As they were walking to the sick bay where the prisoners were at, Dr Lloyd asked the Col. "Have you decided how you're going to interrogate them yet?"

Now he looked at her, and she saw only his cold professional stare. "I'm going to do whatever I have to Dr."

Now Dr Lloyd started to feel sorry for the young woman, and the Col saw the look in her eyes. He placed his hand on her arm, "Dr, I don't want to do this. But the Admiral is right. We have to find out what they are planning on doing, so we can protect our people."

Dr Lloyd knew that he was right, and she also knew that if this were a Kilrathi or a Mandarin, she wouldn't hesitate in the least. "You're right Col. We do need to know, but I still feel sorry for her. God only knows what ZS-5 will do to her."

The Col nodded, and then they proceeded to sick bay.

...
Interrogation room 2 TCS Mastiff: Melissa Fox could feel her mind slowly swimming toward consciousness. She was starting to feel the restraints on her arms and legs, and she knew she was on some sort of metal table. She also realized that she was nude, but was covered by some sort of sheet. As she opened her eyes, the bright light caused her to snap her eyes shut quickly. She tried to slowly open her eyes, and adjust to the light. After a few minutes, she was able to see again. She looked around the room as best she could. She could make out a large mirror on the far wall, "Probably an observation room."

She looked the other way and could just make out a door on the opposite wall. Now she realized what was happening to her, she had been caught, and they were going to question her.

...
She had no idea how long she lay there on the table, when the door opened and someone walked in. She tried to scan him, and she got nothing. The older man looked at her and smiled, "That won't work on me lady."

He now slowly walked beside the table and stopped by her head. He smiled at her, "Why don't we start with something simple? What's your name?"

She just looked at the ceiling, her face showing nothing to him.

"Ah good, a tough one."

She saw his smile, and something about it made her nervous. Now he leaned over her head, and gently moved a lock of her hair. He smiled again, "I think I'm going to enjoy this." and pulled the sheet off of her.

He now walked over to the wall and pressed a spot. A hidden drawer slid out, and he reached into it. He brought out a hand held device, 8 patches and an ampoule. He walked back over to her, and placed the patches on the sides of her neck, her breasts, her hips and the soles of her feet. He then snapped open the ampoule and carefully poured it on her abdomen, and watched as it was quickly absorbed into her skin.

...
Now he walked back near her head, and looked at her. "OK now, once again. What is your name?"

Melissa was staring at the ceiling again, and was trying to prep herself for the pain she was expecting him to inflict on her. She began to think a mantra to herself over and over again. "Pain is all in the mind, there is no pain."

After the man had poured the fluid on her she had felt a tingle spread out from her abdomen and spread across her whole body.The man fiddled with the device and then looked at her, "Why don't we start at setting one?"

He pressed a button on the device and she expected to feel a jolt of pain. Instead she felt the tingling again, but it was starting in her groin. After a few seconds, the man increased the signal, and the tingling became more intense, and spread up and down her body. She felt her breathing quicken, and the room began to feel much warmer. Her breast's now began to tingle, and she realized that she was becoming aroused. The man increased the signal strength. And she felt her body responding. She began to panic, "No this isn't happening. I'm in control. I'm in control."

Now her hips began to move on their own, as she endured the intense pleasure she was feeling. She realized that she was whimpering, and moaning softly. As the man increased the signal again, she felt her body control slipping away from her, she was moaning more and more. Her hips were frantically gyrating on their own "No--I'm--in--control--I'm---in---control.I'm----in----I-----I----I-------AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH"

Col Ellison kept this procedure up for almost 2 hours; he would increase the signal strength, and then decrease it. He kept varying the length of time between raising and lowering the signal. He was continually asking her questions, and for the first hour, except for groans and whimpers and screams she was silent. But finally she started to answer his questions. When he was finished, he let her rest. He left the room and went into the room next door. One of the Mopani med techs was sitting there watching the monitors, and he looked at the Col.

"Well sir, her vital signs are returning to normal, but you should let her rest a bit. Her neural patterns are almost off the scale sir."

The Col looked at him, "For a little while Sgt., but not for to long. We still have a long way to go."

...
Melissa's head was still swimming, every nerve in her body was smoldering. Her entire body was covered in sweat, and this made the room seem colder than it was. She could feel her own fluids pooled underneath her, and she felt ashamed. She couldn't believe that she had talked. But this was a type of torture that she hadn't been prepared for. She knew that she had been trained to control almost any pain impulses her body felt, but for some reason she couldn't stop herself from responding to the pleasure that she had endured. She started to softly cry, she was a P-12. She was one of Psi-Corp's best. How could she betray the Corp so easily? Now she felt that she just wanted to curl up and die.

...
She didn't know how long he had been gone, but the man came back in the room. He looked at her again, "Now shall we try to be civilized? Or would you like to go another round?"

Melissa just stared at him, and she was wishing him dead. He saw the look in her eyes, and he pressed a button on the device again. Melissa's body was quickly brought to the peak of arousal again. She felt as if she were on a ledge, and that she was about to fall into an endless pit. She felt her entire body being racked with the most intense pleasure she had ever felt. She could barely hear the man now, over her own moans and screams. But he was asking her questions, and she started answering his questions before she could stop herself. After what seemed like an eternity of this torture, he finally allowed her to rest.

...
Admiral Douglas's Office: Col Ellison sat in the chair in front of the Admiral's desk. He handed him a data card with the interrogation on it. The Admiral looked at him, "Just tell me what you found out Col."

The Col nodded, "Her name is Melissa Fox. She's a P-12 rated telepath, as are her comrades. They are Phillip Windsor, and Anthony Mason. They are part of a special intelligence group in the Corp that is tasked with doing the more, shall we say, darker ops. They arrived on the station with Mr. Bester, and they were ordered to isolate one or more of our people and interrogate them for any technical data or knowledge that they could. Then they were to mind wipe them and return them to us so that we wouldn't know anything had happened to them."

...
"So how is the prisoner doing?"

"That's hard to say sir, the ZS-5 can have a detrimental effect on the human neural chemistry, and apparently it also has the same effect on telepaths as well. That coupled with the method of interrogation may have had a permanent affect on her sir."

The Admiral nodded, "Did she say anything else?"

"Yes sir, it seems that the Psi-Corp wants to find out how we were able to incapacitate the earlier telepath as well."

The Admiral looked at him, "Continue with the interrogations Col on all three subjects."

"Yes sir."