“Galley Slave”

by Strelnikov
Copyright 2003 by the author


NOTE – This story is novella length, 50 pages of 10-point type, or a little better than twice as long as “Dani Deaver”. For convenience, you may want to save it to your hard drive and read it off line.


Chapter 1

“They’re here – gotta go!” Ashley Curtis called out as she scooped up her overnight bag and headed out the door. “Bye, Mom! I’ll see you Sunday night.”

“Bye, Ashley,” her mother replied. “Have a good time – be careful.”

Outside, the sun was still high, but the shadows were lengthening toward the east. Ashley had been home from school less than an hour this Friday afternoon. She had packed the previous night, but she had learned the hard way that something always got forgotten. She had used the time to make last minute preparations for her trip.

The minivan sat in the driveway, engine idling. Two women and three girls were already in the car. Ashley went around to the rear hatch, tossed her bag inside, walked back around to the rear door and got in.

Ashley and the other girls were the Youth Advisory Board at the department store that anchored one end of Squander Mall – they were paid a small stipend to advise the buyers responsible for the young women’s clothing lines. This weekend, they were attending the annual buyers’ conference at the store’s corporate headquarters, a few hours away by car. It was unpaid, but it gave them exposure and job contacts.

Ashley was blonde and blue-eyed, Angie Fontana had black hair and brown eyes, Stephanie Miklajcyk was fair-skinned with green eyes and light brown hair. Kelly McGuire had coppery red hair and skin that freckled up like a turkey egg if she went out in the sun – her eyes were deep blue, almost indigo. But all four were the same physical type – tall, drop-dead gorgeous, with long silky hair, flawless skin, beautiful faces, hourglass figures and long, shapely legs. They looked enough alike to be sisters.

Ashley was the oldest, nearly 19, soon to graduate from Tieson City High School. Two months after that, she planned to go away to school at State University. Stephanie and Angie were 18-year-old juniors. Kelly was the youngest, another Junior, just turned 18 – she was Ashley’s replacement. This was her first trip with the group.

“Hi, Ashley,” Ms. Bartol said from the shotgun seat. “Buckle up – we’re ready to go.” She was a no-nonsense businesswoman in her mid-40’s, the senior buyer for the young women’s clothing lines. She was tall, still trim, with shrewd brown eyes and gray streaks in her dark hair.

Mrs. Driscoll reversed out of the driveway and headed back toward Johnson’s Ferry Road. She was Ms. Bartol’s assistant, a grandmotherly woman, crowding 60 She had short gray hair and blue eyes behind bifocal glasses.

“We’ll stop to eat in a few hours, girls,” Mrs. Driscoll said. “We have a long way to go – I want to get a good start.”

They stopped for dinner at a truck stop off the interstate. The place was busy – they had to wait for a table. Ashley picked up the National Snooper off a rack, just killing time. It had the usual: a cover story about recent UFO sightings, stories about two-headed babies and spirit channeling inside.

There was even an article about tickling bandits, of all things! Wealthy young women tied up and tickled in their homes, and finding their jewelry, art work, etc. gone when they managed to get themselves loose. Kelly, reading over Ashley’s shoulder, laughed at that one. “Probably Elvis doing it,” she said, “and using the flying saucer to make his getaway.”

The girls put the paper back when a table opened up, earning themselves a scowl from the cashier. “This ain’t the library!” the woman said.

They ate quickly – redneck soul food, not bad, if a little greasy – and were on the road again in under an hour. They stopped for the night at an economy motel near the city – the sort where all rooms are on one floor, surrounding the parking lot on three sides. Ms. Bartol and Mrs. Driscoll shared a room. The four girls were in the connecting room next door.

“Good night, girls!” Mrs. Driscoll said. “Don’t stay up too late – we need to make an early start tomorrow. The conference starts at 8 o’clock.”

They did as they were told. Ashley insisted – this trip was serious business for her. If college didn’t work out, she planned to go into modeling full time.

Angie and Stephanie shared the bed closest to the door, Ashley and Kelly the other. Ashley was the last one awake. The last thing she heard before she drifted off was Kelly breathing softly in the bed beside her.

***

Ashley awoke to brilliant, blinding white light outside the window. She was on her side, facing the door – the light was so bright that the shadows it cast were impenetrable black by contrast. There was a loud rumbling, growling sound, mostly subsonic, felt in the bones rather than heard. She tried to move, to speak, but found herself unable to do more than blink her eyes.

The door flew open, admitting more dazzling light. It silhouetted two forms, one holding a wand-like something in its right hand, the other holding a device the size of a salt shaker with a faceted jewel the color of obsidian on the top.

The forms entered the room. Ashley saw now that one was a hard-looking brunette in her 30’s, the other a redhead in her mid-20’s. Both wore some sort of close-fitting coverall.

The brunette held the jeweled device up. The redhead grabbed the covers over Angie and Stephanie and threw them back, then walked to the foot of the bed. She reached down to Stephanie’s feet and scrabbled her long, black-polished nails on a bare sole. Stephanie burst into ticklish laughter. The jewel flashed ruby-red.

Sartisfied, the redhead repeated the tickle on Angie – the jewel lit up again as she laughed her head off. Red crossed in front of Ashley, and suddenly the covers were gone. Ashley lost sight of her then, but she felt the tickling fingernails on her sole and laughed like mad. The tickling stopped, and then Kelly was laughing helplessly beside her.

The brunette walked back out the door. The redhead moved back into Ashley’s field of vision, pointed the wand at Stephanie, then at the other three girls in turn.

Angie levitated off the bed, face up, legs straight, arms at her sides, her long black hair hanging straight down. She drifted out the door feet first. Stephanie was next, then Ashley felt herself lift and roll, facing the ceiling. The ceiling moved past, then the door frame and the underside of the roof overhang over the door. Ashley caught a glimpse of two other women, facing out on either side of the door, a brunette and another whose hair was black. Then the light blinded her and her eyes closed reflexively.

The light disappeared. Ashley opened her eyes and saw a smooth metal ceiling overhead, glowing with internal light. She sensed rather than saw her friends and the four other women around her. She was still mute, helpless, floating a few feet above the floor.

“Get ‘em prepped, Griffin,” a voice said. “I’ll send Fortin to help you. Report to me afterward.”

“10-4,” another voice said.

Ashley felt herself propelled along a corridor. There was a snick sound as a door opened, and Ashley found herself inside a room.

Ashley settled gently to the floor. Her muscles were back under her control again. She sat up, saw her friends lined up next to her, and the redhead clipping the wand to her belt.

The room had featureless gray walls, a glowing self-illuminated ceiling and some sort of resilient padding on the floor. It appeared to be a nail salon set up for six customers. Oddly enough, though, on the back of each chair was a stalk topped with an onyx-black faceted jewel.

The redhead was in her mid-20’s, Ashley saw, and just missed being beautiful. She had fair skin, a crooked grin and jade-green eyes that twinkled with merriment. Her fiery red hair was shoulder-length. Her clothing was a close-fitting coverall or shipsuit, lavender with indigo accents – it showed her fit and shapely body to good advantage – and soft, ankle-high boots. Her fingernails were long and polished black. At her feet was a bundle of gray fabric.

Another woman stood behind one of the chairs. She was medium height, trim and attractive, with wavy dark brown hair that fell to her shoulder blades, blue-gray eyes and long, black-lacquered fingernails like the redhead’s. Her shipsuit was a deep maroon. She looked to be in her late 20’s. She grinned evilly at the newcomers and buffed the nails of her right hand on her coverall.

“Where is this place?” Kelly asked, an edge of panic in her voice. She rose to her feet. “What are you doing to us?”

“Arrr! ‘Tis the good ship Chatouille ye’re in, me beauty, and ‘tis the Jolly Roger we sails under!” the redhead said in a growling English Pirate brogue. “Long Rachel Griffin, that’s me, at yer service. Yer goin’ ter take a leetle voyage with us – ye’ve been shanghai’ed!”

Ashley stood, and discovered that everything was working as it should. She moved toward Rachel, scowling.

Rachel snatched the wand back off her belt. “Easy now,” she said. “Y’all are here for the duration. Don’t try to jump me, or I’ll freeze all of y’all again.” The accent was American, from someplace in the South.

Ashley was furious. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded. “Is this some sort of bad joke? It’s not funny!”

“Oh, I think you’ll do some laughing before long,” Rachel said drily. “And I’m exactly who I said I was. I was shanghai’ed aboard nine years ago, when I was 16. But I stayed on, and I’m part of the crew now. Think of me as your teacher – and believe me, y’all have got a lot to learn.”

Sarah handed the gray bundle to Ashley. “Strip to the buff,” she said. “Those baby-doll nighties won’t get it. Then put these on.”

“What if we don’t?” Ashley asked. Only her anger kept her in control of herself.

“You really don’t want to find out,” Rachel said grimly. “Now get with the program.”

Ashley stripped off her nightie, pulled the gray shirt over her head – it was something like a jersey, but close-fitting, with three-quarter length sleeves. Then a pair of gray shorts, like gym shorts, with an elastic waistband. She looked down at herself, made a few experimental movements. The outfit moved with her without binding at all – she was barely aware she had it on.

“Now these bracelets. Height of fashion around here – we all wear ‘em,” Rachel said, sliding back her cuff to reveal a close-fitting silvery band. She handed two silver hoops to Ashley.

Ashley slipped a bracelet over her left wrist. Suddenly the bracelet shifted and shrunk – Ashley felt an odd crawling sensation as it adjusted.

“One size fits all,” Rachel said. “Put the other one on too.”

Ashley complied. “How about shoes?” she asked.

“You won’t need ‘em,” Rachel replied. She turned to the other girls, still huddled together. Kelly was quivering, close to tears. “C’mon, you three, get dressed.”

“Do it,” Ashley said, taking command. She touched Kelly’s shoulder, stroked her hair, the way one might gentle a skittish horse. “Go with the flow, Kelly. We’re all in this together.”

Rachel grinned at Ashley. “That’s the spirit! You’re already doing better than I was after they caught me.” She gathered up the discarded clothing, keyed a touch pad, dropped the clothes into the opening that appeared. “Introductions are in order. That’s Suzanne Fortier over there,” she said, indicating the brunette. “And now, y’all have the advantage of us.”

Ashley introduced herself, then the others.

“All right, then,” Rachel said. “Line up facing the chairs. Angie first, then Ashley, then Stephanie, then Kelly.”

Ashley and the others did as they were told. Rachel walked behind Kelly, crossed her wrists behind her back, touched the bracelets together and tapped them with a stylus or wand of some sort. The material fused, binding Kelly’s hands behind her back.

Rachel repeated the process with the others. “OK, turn around. In the chairs, ladies,” she said cheerfully. “Then relax and enjoy it!”

Ashley sat. The chair contoured itself to her body – even her bound wrists. It was the most comfortable chair she had ever been in.

Rachel touched a control on the back of Angie’s chair and moved on to Ashley’s, while Suzanne dealt with Stephanie and Kelly. Tentacles extruded from Ashley’s chair, binding her to it at shoulders and waist. Ashley looked to either side, saw that her three friends were similarly trapped.

Suzanne touched a control on the table at Ashley’s chair, Rachel at Angie’s. The floor irised open and basins full of steaming warm water rose from the holes. They placed the girls’ feet in the basins, and two more tentacles wrapped themselves around the girls’ ankles, immobilizing their feet.

Suzanne sat on the stool at Kelly’s feet. The woman grinned at Kelly, grabbed her ankles and set Kelly’s feet in her lap. “Let’s let your friends’ calluses soak for a few minutes,” she said. She trapped Kelly’s ankles in a simple leg lock. “But in the meantime, let’s put the time to good use.”

Ashley saw a fleeting look of – anger? something very like it, anyway – flash across Rachel’s face, quickly suppressed. But Rachel said, “Hell, why not?” She sat at Stephanie’s feet and trapped them with the same leg lock. “Let’s go for it!”

Suzanne set to work on Kelly, tickling her heels two-handed. Kelly threw her head back and laughed at the top of her lungs. Then up the arches to the soles, watching the toes twitch and curl. Between the toes, and holding them back, tickling back and forth under all ten toes while Kelly laughed and squirmed like a worm. The jewel on the chair back now shone a brilliant red.

Rachel spider-walked her nails from Stephanie’s toes to heels and back again. Stephanie laughed her head off as the redhead’s tickling fingernails explored her sensitive soles. Rachel scratched a fingernail between two toes, tickling like crazy, then tickled between each pair as Stephanie laughed helplessly, trying desperately to pull her feet away. The jewel on her chair was bright shining red too.

Suzanne tickled side to side across both stretched out soles, and she found the sweet spot – the balls of Kelly’s feet, right behind her big toes. She used a single nail to draw fast, looping figure-eight’s around the balls of both feet, the loops getting smaller and smaller to cover every square inch of ticklish flesh. Finally, she made a Peace sign and scratched the balls of both feet. Kelly lost it and laughed herself breathless.

Rachel held Stephanie’s toes back and tickled the soft skin underneath. She released the toes and tickled Stephanie’s soles two-handed, fingernails flying. Stephanie lapsed into ticklish delirium, laughing like a madwoman. Down the arches Rachel tickled, drawing circles, triangles and other tickling shapes. She tickled down her victim’s arches and onto her veryticklish heels – Stephanie went wild, laughing her head off at the top of her lungs. The tickling fingers picked up.speed, tickling Stephanie’s heels mercilessly, reducing Stephanie to red-faced, gasping silent laughter.

“How’s that, ladies?” Suzanne said.

“Oh ghod…” Stephanie said, gasping for air. Poor Kelly just sat there, head down, breathing hard, tears running down her cheeks.

“Nothing to say?” Suzanne asked Kelly, and flicked her nails on the ball of her right foot. Kelly burst into helpless laughter again.

“Knock it off, Suzanne,” Rachel said. “You’re enjoying this too much. Get on with it.”

“Go to hell, Rachel,” Suzanne replied. But she stopped tickling Kelly and dialed up another basin of water. She put Kelly’s feet in it, and a tentacle bound her ankles.

Suzanne sat at Ashley’s feet, Rachel at Angie’s. They released their ankle tentacles. “Time for your pedicure, sweetie,” Suzanne said.

Ashley knew well enough that pedicures tickle like mischief. But this was torture – it couldn’t possibly be accidental. Both women went out of their way to tickle. It took twice as long as it should have, while Ashley and Angie laughed and laughed. Not everything they did tickled – but almost everything. It was horrible!

And then it was Stephanie and Kelly’s turn again. The ticklish pedicures had them howling with forced mirth. Suzanne and Rachel took their time with them too, tickling fiendishly – Suzanne even managed to tickle Kelly breathless again.

But finally it was over. Ashley’s throat was dry, her ribs and abs hurt from laughing. Oddly enough, though, she wasn’t sweaty at all. The jersey had wicked the sweat away.

The girls were released from the chairs.

“Line up in single file,” Rachel said. “Angie first, then Stephanie, then Kelly. Ashley, looks like you’re the steadiest – you go last.”

Ashley and the others did as they was told. “Now come along,” Rachel said.

Outside the door, Rachel unclipped a device – a pocket computer? – from her belt and keyed it. A glowing yellow line sprang into being on the deck.

“OK, ladies,” Rachel said, “follow the yellow brick road.”

They followed the line along the corridor, turned right at a branch, then right again. The corridor was floored with the same material as the room. It didn’t seem to have a temperature, either warm or cool. It was soft under Ashley’s bare feet.

Ashley noticed that the… ship? …had seen better days. It smelled of old cooking and too many female bodies, too close together. The overhead illumination was uneven – some places, it didn’t work at all, leaving dark stretches. The walls could only be described as grubby. Even the resilient floor… deck? …was worn clean through at high traffic corridor intersections.

The room… cell? …they came to had a glowing ceiling, gray walls and padding on the floor like the corridor. On either side was a tier of bunks, three high, with what looked like drawers underneath. Beyond, on the wall opposite the door, was a closed door with a hand-shaped outline at shoulder height on one side, another onyx jewel on the other.

“Don’t bother to try this door,” Rachel said, pointing back at the door they had entered. “It’s programmed not to respond to you.”

Rachel freed their hands and showed them some of the room’s other features. “Plumbing is through the other door – that one will work for you. Put your clothes in the slot next to the shower, they’ll be clean when you get out. This touch pad gives you a control menu. Touch this icon, and you get a table for six – touch these, and you get the stools that go with it.” She demonstrated – they extruded out of the floor – she retracted them again. “This controls the lights. This one, temperature controls.” Another demo. “You don’t need to know about the rest – leave them alone. Questions?”

“How did you freeze us like that?” Stephanie asked. “I couldn’t even blink.”

“That was the “snare field”, kind of a neat trick, isn’t it?” Rachel answered. “Doesen’t affect reflexes or the body’s automatic internal functions, but you can’t move a single voluntary muscle. It has an anti-gravity feature too, real handy for moving you around when you’re frozen. Anybody else?”

“Yeah – what are you going to do with us?” Angie asked.

“Later,” Rachel said. “Get some rest. You’ll need it.”

“We really should get some rest,” Ashley said after Rachel had left. “Who’s first for the shower?” There was no point to worrying about what came next. No doubt they would find out soon enough.

The girls were napping– they hadn’t gotten much sleep before their abduction – when the outer door opened again and Suzanne came in. Ashley awoke and immediately discovered that she was frozen again. Suzanne pointed a wand at Angie, who levitated and floated out the door with Suzanne behind. The door closed, and Ashley’s paralysis was gone.

“She’s got Angie!” Kelly said in a panicky voice.

“We’ve gotta help her!” Stephanie said.

“No, we don’t,” Ashley said. “There’s nothing we can do for her.”

She looked at Kelly, then Stephanie, who wasn’t much better off. Hell, neither was she. But she took their hands.

“What we have to do now is hang on, endure, and look for our chance,” Ashley said. “In the meantime, we conserve our strength. Try to sleep.”

Suzanne floated Angie back into the room some time later and left her crying softly on her bunk. Ashley went to her when the paralysis wore off.

“She tickled and tickled and tickled!” Angie said. She wiped tears on her sleeve. “I thought she was gonna tickle me to death! I… I can’t take any more!”

“Yes, you can,” Ashley said, and hugged her friend. “You can take it – I’ve been tickle tortured by experts, and I know. We’re all gonna get out of here. We need you.”

In a quavery voice, Angie said “I’ll… try.”


Chapter 2

The girls had just finished breakfast when the door opened and Suzanne came in with two other crew. These two were the same size and build – medium height, shapely, with narrow waists that accentuated their breasts and hips. One had curly blonde hair, the other was a brunette, but both had bright green eyes and the ubiquitous long black fingernails. Their shipsuits were black, with patterns of stars. The brunette was about Kelly’s age, Ashley thought, the blonde a little older – 20 or 21 maybe. There was a strong family resemblance – judging by the look of them, they were sisters.

“Meet Liz and Kate Maridor, ladies,” Suzanne said. “You’ll get to know them really well.” She pointed at Ashley. “Get over here!”

Ashley submitted to having her hands bound. The sisters did the same to her friends, taunting them and grinning like thieves. Liz was the blonde, Ashley discovered, and probably the meaner of the two – though it was a close call.

“Come along!” Suzanne said harshly. Ashley followed the woman out of the room, and the door closed behind them.

The corridor dead-ended at another door, a more substantial one, a little way from the room. A burst of ticklish laughter came out as the door opened.

The first thing Ashley noticed was a tiny blue-eyed blonde girl, wearing a red shipsuit, laughing like mad as Rachel tickled her feet.

The girl looked to be about 18 years old. She sat in a sort of armless recliner, held down by tentacles around shoulders and waist, hands bound behind her back. Like the ones in the nail salon (?), on the back of the chair was a stalk topped with a brightly shining red jewel. The foot rest – an ankle rest, actually – was narrow, just wide enough for the girl’s ankles. A tentacle secured her ankles to it – another sub-tentacle rose from the ankle bonds and bound her big toes together, immobilizing her feet. The girl was laughing her head off – either she was exceptionally ticklish, or Rachel was very, very good.

Rachel looked over from her tickling. “About time you got here,” she said. “We’re supposed to be running cals. Leave Ashley here, and take Ann back to her cell.” Ann kept on laughing, red faced, tears running down her cheeks.

“Stop tickling her so I can do it, you’re holding me up,” Suzanne said nastily.

Rachel stopped tickling – the jewel went black – and released the girl. “That suit you?” she asked.

Ann was pretty shaky. Suzanne helped her to stand, then left with Ann in tow.

“OK, Ashley, up in the chair,” Rachel said.

Ashley obeyed. This chair was as comfortable as the one in the nail salon had been. The tentacles strapped her in, the ankle rest extended leaving her as Ann had been.

“It’ll be a few minutes,” Rachel said, grinning. “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em!”

Ashley looked around the room. She was in one of six identical chairs, the one nearest the door. To her right, on one side of the door, was a sort of U-shaped pulpit – Rachel sat in a swivel chair in the middle. Across the room was a tool rack. Some of the tools were the sort one might see in an electronics repair shop, others – coils of knotted cord, brushes of various types, styluses, things that looked for all the world like electric tooth brushes. Below the rack was a shelf that held eight bowling balls, dull green in color. At least, that’s what they looked like.

The oddest part was the end wall. It had a basketball sized, faceted black jewel inset in the middle. On one side of the jewel was what looked like less detailed reflexology charts, with annotations and demarcations made on a schematic of the soles of two feet. On the other side was a graph with the vertical axis labeled with a lightning bolt, the horizontal with a stylized laughing female face. The vertical axis was graduated zero to 1.00, in increments of 0.05 – the horizontal, from one to six. The curve started at (0.05 vertical, 1 horizontal), rose to (0.15, 2), then inflected and rose steeply to (0.50, 3). It was symmetrical, taking another inflection to its original slope at (0.85, 4) – there was a horizontal red line there. It rose gradually to (0.95, 5) and stopped at (1.00, 6).

Rachel finished what she was doing and came over to Ashley. She was wearing a tool pouch at her waist, something an electrician might use. But the tools…

Rachel grinned at Ashley and said, “This is the best part.” She scrabbled long black nails on Ashley’s soft, freshly-pedicured soles. Ashley threw her head back and laughed uncontrollably, ticklish laughter streaming out of her, straining desperately against her bonds. Her tickle laugh was a musical contralto, as lovely as the rest of her. The big jewel on the end wall glowed dull red, like old fireplace coals.

Ashley’s feet were incredibly ticklish all over – there wasn’t any one special spot, though Rachel did her best to find one. Rachel tickled Ashley’s soles, watching the toes twitch and curl. She drew circles, squares, figure-eight’s and other tickling shapes in the arches. She scratched and scrabbled on the heels. She held Ashley in the zone for a long, long time.

Ashley laughed and laughed, wildly, helplessly. She was no longer capable of resistance, or even coherent thought – it had been tickled clean out of her.

Rachel kept it up, tickling inventively and skillfully. She held Ashley’s toes back and tickled the stretched-out soles, side to side across both feet, up and down the creases in the middle, around the balls. Then the soft skin under the toes while Ashley laughed her head off. She scratched between two toes, producing more helpless laughter, repeated it on the other toes, tickling between each pair. Then finally flicked her fingernails in Ashley’s arches, fast as she could, and Ashley laughed herself breathless.

A break, and then Rachel started again, using the tools from her belt this time. Rachel pulled the knotted cord between Ashley’s toes, brushed her soles with a hair brush and several varieties of paint brushes, used the stylus – like an inkless ball point pen – to draw various tickling shapes. She tickled Ashley’s soles and between her toes with the electric tooth brush. Ashley laughed at the top of her lungs, helpless to resist the fiendish and well-techniqued tickling.

Rachel finished with her nails, tickling Ashley breathless, then went back to sit at the pulpit and got busy. Ashley blinked away tears of laughter, trying to get her breathing and heart rate normal again.

Rachel did something at the pulpit, and one of the bowling balls turned day-glo green and levitated off the rack. It floated over to Ashley’s feet, and then…

For an instant she had a wild impression of an animated 7-Up dot, or the little green thing on the cover of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books – a multi-armed, grinning thing with six cartoonish disembodied hands, sporting gloves reminiscent of a Disney character. The gloves were all connected to the round “head” in the middle by black tentacles. The head was adorned only by a giant toothy grin, its eerie disembodied grin mocking her.

The gloves set to work tickling Ashley, and once again she howled with forced mirth. The fingers could extrude “fingernails”, various brushes and other tickling tools – even something like an electric tooth brush. It tickled relentlessly, and Ashley lapsed into ticklish delirium, laughing madly. Time expanded as the tickling filled her universe – it didn’t last forever, but to Ashley it seemed that way. Finally, it tickled Ashley breathless and stopped, floating at her feet, its hands and tentacles retracted.

“OK, we’re through for now,” Rachel said. She did something, and the bowling ball floated back to its rack and went dull again. “I’ll take you back when Suzanne gets here with Angie.”

“What… was… that thing?” Ashley gasped.

“It’s a Giggler,” Rachel said. “An automatic tickler. Less fun than doing it by hand, but a lot more uniform.”

“But… why?” Ashley asked plaintively. “Why is everybody tickling us?”

“Because y’all are the ship’s power source,” Rachel said. “Y’all are galley slaves, like in the old days. The jewels collect and amplify the energy you release by laughing and channel it to the power banks. I’m in charge of the power room, and Suzanne is my second. Think of me as the guy with the big drum, keeping everybody in stroke.”

She came around the pulpit and stood by Ashley’s feet – Ashley flinched. “Relax – I’m not gonna tickle you any more right now. I know what it’s like – I was a galley slave too.”

“You were? What’s gonna happen to us?” Ashley asked.

“Why, you’ll be sold as slaves to someone who wants a secret power source when we get back to Our Side,” Rachel said. “That’s what happened to the girls who were shanghai’ed with me. I would have been sold too, but I managed to convince my captors otherwise.” She grinned her crooked grin. “They sold the biggest screw-up in the crew instead.”

“Why did you stay?”

Rachel’s expression was bleak. “What else could I do? I had no other skills, and I had nothing on the Other Side – here – to go back to.” Her expression softened. “It’s not such a bad life. Maybe you should consider doing the same.”

Ashley bit back a sharp response.

“Where the hell is Suzanne?” Rachel asked. “She should have been here by now.” She released the bonds holding Ashley to the chair. “Come on – I can’t leave you here.”

Ashley’s ribs and abs ached from laughing. Her throat was dry, her knees shaky. Rachel steadied her, and they headed back.

Rachel opened the door opposite Ashley’s prison – the pirate ship’s brig – and went in with Ashley. Ashley saw Ann, lying barefoot on a bunk with her hands behind her head, staring at the underside of the bunk above.

The girl looked over at them. “The hell you want?” she asked belligerently.

“You’ve already pissed the Mate off, Ann,” Rachel responded. “That’s why you’re here. Don’t piss me off too, or you’ll pay for it. Now where’s Suzanne?”

“Across the hall, I guess. Dunno for sure – I don’t get out much.”

They left, closing the door behind them, and crossed the hall.

A chorus of ticklish laughter came out of the door as it opened. Rachel’s face clouded up with anger – she grabbed Ashley by the arm and dragged her inside.

Ashley’s friends were hogtied side-by-side on the deck. Liz held Stephanie’s toes back, tickling from side to side under all ten toes. Kate’s nails flew across Angie’s soles – the girl’s toes twitched and curled. Suzanne was giving special attention to Kelly, scrabbling her long black nails from toes to heels, over and over. All three girls were laughing at the top of their lungs, eyes closed, tears of laughter streaming. The jewel inset in the wall shone the color of hot iron.

“Goddammit! KNOCK IT OFF!” Rachel yelled. “Suzanne, you got jammed up over this on our last trip. You looking for a repeat performance?”

“Chill,” Suzanne replied. “Who’s gonna tell – you? I’ve got two witnesses here who’ll say otherwise.” The three kept tickling, forcing streams of laughter from their victims.

“I won’t have to – we’re supposed to be running cals. The Mate’s gonna figure it out for herself if we don’t finish on time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Suzanne said. But she stopped tickling, and the others did too.

“Take Angie and get busy,” Rachel said. She turned to the sisters. “Y’all have way too much free time. Report to the Mate – she’ll find something for y’all to do.”

The three left, scowling, Suzanne with Angie in tow. Rachel released the others after they promised not to jump her.

“I’m sorry about that,” Rachel said. “Galley slaves or not, they had no right.”

“Galley slaves?” Kelly asked, alarmed.

Rachel repeated her explanation, then amplified. “This is a pirate ship – not a spaceship the way you’re probably thinking, but an inter-dimensional transport, though we can move around freely above the Earth’s surface. We steal from wealthy, attractive young women – and tie them up and tickle them senseless while we’re doing it. Precious metals, jewels, works of art, historic artifacts, and so forth. We cross over to the Other Side – here – to do it, and take them back to sell on Our Side where no one can possibly know they’re stolen.

“Our Side and the Other Side are alternate, parallel universes. On Our Side, laughter was developed as a source of energy by this great, otherworldly sorceress ages ago. But however powerful this woman may have been, she was an idealist – the sort who notices that roses smell better than cabbages, and concludes that they would also make better soup. And so, her magic can only be used in certain ways – nothing overtly destructive, and always with a kind of cartoonish quality that appealed to her sensibilities. That’s why she keyed the whole system to feed off this “laughter energy.” She naively envisioned a world of happy little people powering civilization through their own glee.

“The tickling came about for two reasons. First, it’s the only real way that the... ambitious …on Our Side can steal and stockpile energy. Second, it’s one of the few ways that this cutesie-pie magic can be shaped into an aggressive weapon.

“This is a small ship, we only need six galley slaves – six girlpower. I’ve seen bigger ships with as many as two dozen. We can keep station with one girlpower, maneuver with two. We use three or four for propulsion. Very rarely five, that’s tough on the drive. But to cross over, we need a single, mammoth burst of energy to be sustained until the process is completed. In order to achieve this, we use a massive simultaneous assault on six galley slaves at once –a mystical (hee hee) tickle orgy!

“That’s why they grabbed y’all – and me too, years ago. I made my first trip to Our Side as a galley slave. My first trip back too – the most junior crew members, like Ann and Kate, provide power for that leg of the trip. We pick up new slaves after we get here. For now, we’ll be using crew members who piss off the officers to fill out our watch bill. But we’ll grab at least two more slaves for the trip back. The energy we get from tickling the women we rob is just a little bonus.

“Questions?”

But before they could respond, Suzanne was back with Angie. The girl was a wreck, hair messed up, cheeks tear-streaked.

“You’re on,” Suzanne said.

Rachel bound Kelly’s wrists and left with the girl. Suzanne scowled – apparently she had been looking forward to giving Kelly some more individual attention – and immediately bound the other three. She made Ashley lay on her tummy on a bunk, trapped her ankles in a leg lock and started tickling. Ashley bucked and squirmed, laughing like a madwoman.

“This is our little secret, ladies,” Suzanne told the others. “Won’t do you any good to complain. And even if you do, I’ll get you!”

Suzanne tickled Ashley breathless twice, did the same to Stephanie, then Angie. It’s too bad that this bunch didn’t scoop up Vicky and Veronica Righetti, Ashley thought, and Candice Wade too. All of them deserved it for what they had done to her.

Well… No. Not even Vicky and Veronica. But Candice might enjoy this – she loved to be tickled.

Suzanne stopped before Rachel came back with Kelly. Rachel was half supporting the ticklish redhead, who looked much the worse for wear. Suzanne took Stephanie and left without saying a word.

“She got y’all again, didn’t she?” Rachel asked. “No, don’t tell me. At least the other two weren’t here – y’all got a few breaks at least.”

She unbound them. “Angie, I’ll let the the others fill you in. Kelly and Ashley, have you thought of any questions?”

Ashley answered for both. “Is this what our lives are gonna be like? Is there a way out?”

“Yah,” Rachel replied. “The way I took – if they’ll have y’all. Rachel shrugged. “Or maybe not – all of y’all are really beautiful, and that brings a better price. Anyway, we have time to kill. Tell me about yourselves.”

She’s lonely, Ashley realized. We can use that. And suddenly she felt the first glimmer of hope.

Suzanne brought Stephanie back after a while, and left with Rachel. Hours later, after lights-out, Suzanne came back and carried Ashley off. She tickled Ashley for hours, tickled her until she was hoarse from laughing and her ribs and abs ached, tickled her until her sweat overpowered the jersey’s ability to cope.

Back in her bunk again, Ashley savored again the hope she had felt. Suzanne had things all her own way now. But some day… Suzanne’s time is coming, thought Ashley. I don’t know when, or how, but I’m gonna get that bitch, and we’re gonna get out of here!


Chapter 3

The next day was worse. All four girls were taken to the power room, with all four of their captors in attendance. They were tickled individually, in various combinations of two and three, then all four together. The process was repeated for hours, many times, until all four girls thought they would go crazy.

The jewels on the chairs lit up when the occupant got tickled. Ashley discovered that the big jewel on the back wall was more variable – it barely glowed with one ticklee, brightening as more were added. When Rachel and Suzanne put Ann and a thoroughly pissed-off Kate in the last two tickle chairs, and all six got it at once, it flared a brilliant crimson, almost too bright to look at.

Sometimes the tickling was manual, other times the Gigglers did it. Ashley wasn’t sure which was worse – the Gigglers were relentless, but the women enjoyed it, and it showed.

That night, Suzanne paid them another visit – Stephanie got it this time.

It settled down into a routine after that. Their universe consisted of the power room and their cell, where they lived, ate and slept. The galley slaves were tickled in rotation, usually one or two at a time, rarely all three at once. At shift change, the assistant watchstander – one of the sisters – brought the three replacements and put them in the tickle chairs, then returned the exhausted girls who were going off shift to their quarters.

The crew was small, more work for everyone but fewer to share the rewards. Rachel and Suzanne stood back-to-back watches, assisted by Kate and Liz – the fact that Kate, on her first trip, stood a watch was another sign of how short handed they were. Two galley slaves provided power, together with the latest crew member to get on the shit list. Ann was a repeat offender – if one of the galley slaves got to stay, Ann would probably be sold in her place. Or possibly a slender blue-eyed redhead named Haley, another junior crew member on her first trip, who couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble either.

The watchstanders all tickled the galley slaves by hand on occasion – the Gigglers were old, and tended to drift out of calibration. But Suzanne and Liz did so routinely, sometimes turning the Gigglers off for hours at a time. Suzanne made a special project of tickling Kelly, with Ashley her second choice.

Every seventh day, the ship’s petty criminals took their place in the power room. Sometimes, if no defaulters were available, junior crew were drafted for the purpose. But that usually wasn’t necessary, because of the nature of pirate crews.

That meant that the galley slaves got a day of rest – sort of. One item that was always on the day’s program was a trip to the nail salon for a pedicure – it kept their feet soft and made them more ticklish. And of course, the effectivness of the pedicure had to be “tested” afterward.

The next day, they would start another six-day cycle with a new lineup of galley slave teams. At first glance, they were selected randomly, but Ashley noticed after a few cycles that Kelly and Haley were never on the same team. Odd, she thought – but she had other things to worry about. Suzanne, for one.

Suzanne’s off-watch tickle depredations continued – usually Kelly, but Ashley if the ticklish redhead wasn’t available. And so it went, until the days blurred together and Ashley lost track of time.

***

One shift, Rachel brought Ashley and Kelly to relieve the watch. Suzanne had the outgoing shift with Angie, Stephanie and Haley.

The ship was calling for two girlpower. Stephanie was laughing helplessly as a Giggler tickled under her toes, but Suzanne was tickling Haley herself. Haley laughed her head off as Suzanne’s tickling fingers flew, the black-painted nails scratching and scrabbling her tender pink soles.

Rachel scowled but said nothing. She put Ashley and Kelly in two vacant chairs and pointedly engaged their Gigglers from the pulpit. Both girls threw back their heads and laughed like mad. Stephanie’s Giggler dropped out immediately, then Ashley’s, leaving just Kelly and Haley singing a ticklish duet.

“Knock it off, Suzanne,” Rachel said. “I have the watch. Leave Haley with me, Liz can take her back to the cell. Take Stephanie and Angie, and tell Liz to rustle her stumps.”

Suzanne growled something Ashley didn’t catch, but she obeyed. Ashley’s Giggler picked up as soon as Haley stopped laughing.

The Gigglers went through one complete cycle – Kelly-Ashley,Ashley-Haley, Haley-Kelly. Ashley’s Giggler had just started in on her again when the door opened. A scowling Liz brought in her bound, barefoot sister, put her in a chair, released Haley, and left without saying a word. Apparently Kate had screwed up in a big way.

Rachel hand-calibrated a Giggler for Kate, or maybe she just decided to teach Kate a lesson. She went to work, tickling Kate’s soles with both hands, watching the toes twitch and curl. Kate laughed like a madwoman as the tickling fingernails flicked and scratched. Rachel flicked her nails down Kate’s arches, a light touch that tickled like crazy. Then scrabbling and scratching on her heels, and back up Kate’s arches to her soles again.

Rachel spread Kate’s toes and scratched lightly between them, causing more loud bursts of helpless laughter. She held the toes back and tickled under them, side to side. Still holding the toes back, she followed that by tickling the stretched out soles side to side, covering both feet, paying special attention to the crease in the middle. That was the sweet spot, where Kate’s feet were unbearably ticklish, and the fiendish and well-techniqued tickling had Kate howling with forced mirth.

Ashley was between Kate and Kelly. She watched what she could of the tickle torture to her right. Unfortunately, the ship was calling for two girlpower, so half the time Ashley’s Giggler had her laughing like mad, trading off with Kelly’s. But even laughing at the top of her lungs, Ashley enjoyed the sound of Kate’s laughter. Enjoyed it a lot!

Rachel varied her technique. Sometimes she had Kate laughing wildly. She eased off, light flicks with the tips of her fingernails that produced a constant stream of giggles. Then heavier tickling again, and Kate laughed at the top of her lungs. Rachel held Kate the zone for a long, long time, laughing her head off. She finished with her nails in the sweet spot, and tickled Kate into gasping, red faced silent laughter.

“I’ve got work to do,” Rachel told the breathless brunette. “It’s been fun. Maybe we can do this again sometime. Real soon… ”

Kate had her breath back by then, but wisely held her tongue. Ashley didn’t notice – she and Kelly were laughing too hard.

Rachel programmed another Giggler, and it pickled up on Kate as Kelly’s quit. After that, the sequence was automatic – Ashley-Kate, Kate-Kelly, Kelly-Ashley, and repeat.

An hour into the shift, Ashley took a chance. Her Giggler had just finished with her and hung there in midair, quiescent. To her left, Kelly was still laughing at the hands of another – a third had just started in on Kate to Ashley’s right. Both girls laughed like madwomen as the cartoonish hands tickled their feet.

“Rachel!” Ashley called out. “D’you have time to talk?”

Rachel looked up, hesitated, then did something at her control board and walked over to Ashley. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

Ashley asked more questions about the workings of the ship. Mostly, Rachel answered them. Why not? Ashley wasn’t going anywhere, after all. But then Ashley cut to the chase.

“Rachel, you don’t seem like a very happy person,” she said. “Are you sure this is all you can do with your life? Just tickle-torture people like me? Surely there are risks involved – what if Starfleet or whatever captures this ship? And your share of the loot probably isn’t a very big one.”

“I’m doing OK, thank you very much,” Rachel replied, scowling. “This is my life. It’s better than what I had before.”

“But it bothers you. I can see it. Don’t you want something better?”

“Right now, this is what I want,” Rachel said, and took a tool off her belt. She pointed it at Ashley’s idle Giggler and took position at Ashley’s feet.

Kelly’s Giggler stopped, but Ashley’s didn’t start. Instead, Rachel scrabbled and flicked her long black nails on Ashley’s soles. Ashley laughed her head off at the top of her lungs.

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me!” Rachel said angrily. “You’re the one who’s in trouble. I couldn’t be better!”

Rachel short-cycled Kelly and Kate’s Gigglers and devoted her full attention to Ashley for 20 minutes. Ashley’s last thought before she zoned out was that Rachel protested just a bit too much.

That apparently got the “mad” out of Rachel’s system – she put all three Gigglers back on Auto. Ashley tried again later, when her Giggler had just stopped and Kate’s had just started in on her. She started by telling her life history.

Ashley had led a mostly trouble-free life until now – as often happens with truly beautiful young women, life had treated her gently. Until recently, she hadn’t acquired the healthy suspicion most people have by the end of puberty. Nor had she needed it – her mother’s protectiveness had seen to that.

The Giggler interrupted Ashley once before she finished – she picked up again when Kate was once again too busy laughing to listen.

Rachel let the Gigglers go through one more cycle – they were still tickling two girls at a time – before she responded.

“I’ve been here nine years,” Rachel said. “I grew up in East Cow Flop, Georgia. No, the real name of the place doesen’t matter. I never knew my daddy. Mom was a drunk – she used to slap me around when she was drinking, told me it was my fault her life was like a country song.

“That was bad enough, but it got worse. I could stand having my drunk mother hit me on the head. When the worthless bastards she brought home started groping me, I knew I had to leave.

“I was 15 when I left. I hitched a ride south, and wound up in Miami. I worked waitress, as an exotic dancer… other things too… for about a year.

“I was sharing a room in a fleabag motel with three other girls. The four of us got a party gig at a gangster’s beach house with two other girls – use your imagination – but we never made it. The light from the sky – you’ve been through it. As I said, I was a galley slave like you until we got back, but I went over to the Dark Side and someone else got sold in my place. I have no idea where the others ended up. Don’t really care.”

“Oh, Rachel, I’m so sorry!” Ashley said.

Rachel clouded up, but didn’t tickle Ashley again. Instead, she let the Giggler tickle Ashley until she was red faced and gasping.

Rachel had thought it over while Ashley’s Giggler was busy. “You look exhausted, Ashley,” she said. “Kelly too. There’s not much I can do for y’all except give y’all the benefit of my experience as a galley slave. One thing I learned is that it’s really important to get enough rest – y’all are gonna burn out otherwise.”

Easy for you to say, Ashley thought. Suzanne is tickling the shit out of us off shift. And when they were on Suzanne’s watch, the woman gave Kelly a lot of personal attention – sometimes, Kelly’s Giggler stayed off the whole time. It’s no wonder that Kelly is at the end of her rope.

Haley too, Ashley suddenly realized. I wonder what that’s all about?

But her Giggler started back, and she was too busy laughing to give it another thought.


Chapter 4

Ashley awoke from exhausted sleep to the sound of the door opening. The light came on, and Liz came in with two strangers, barefoot young women in gray galley slave jerseys and shorts, their hands bound behind them.

Liz unbound their hands. “Find yourselves some empty bunks and get some rest,” she said as she went out the door. “You’re both going on shift in a few hours.”

The taller of the two girls was crying quietly. Ashley got out of her bunk and put an arm around the girl.

“Easy now,” she said. “It’s not so bad.”

“They tickled me and tickled me!” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “They wouldn’t let up! I HATE tickling! It’s TORTURE!”

Stephanie was out of her bunk too by now. “Yes it is – but you can take it. There’s four of us here – we’ve been here two months now. It hasn’t killed us yet.”

“Crybaby,” the shorter newcomer said. “Nothing to it. Suck it up, Eve.”

Eve wiped her tears on her sleeve – she was back in control of herself again, more or less. Give her high marks for adaptability, Ashley thought.

They exchanged introductions. Ashley checked them out.

Amanda Mason was the little one – she had just turned 18 just three days before. The girl was a little cutie, an inch or so over five feet tall in her bare feet. She had curly dark brown hair, brown eyes, dark brows and long, dark lashes. Her figure was trim and shapely in the gray jersey and shorts. She had been tickled hard – her face was streaked with tears of laughter – but she didn’t seem to be in any distress. If anything, she seemed cheerful. Go figure, thought Ashley.

Eve Stanton was 19, a petite, pretty brunette with shoulder-length hair, green-flecked hazel eyes, and a perky smile that dimpled her cheeks. Even though it was late spring on the outside, she had no discernible tan. She was superficially friendly and outgoing, but Ashley just couldn’t warm up to her. There was something false and brittle about her personality. The way she interacted with the others – it was like a performance.

The girls exchanged life histories. Ashley told the story of her road trip with her friends, their abduction, their time together since then. Amanda listened without comment, but it terrified Eve. Life as a tickle slave! Her worst nightmare!

Amanda was a runaway. She wouldn’t talk about her home life, except to say that it sucked. She had been popped on a few juvie charges – shoplifting and underage drinking mostly – and had spent time in three different foster homes. She had been flunking out of high school – she wasn’t dumb, but it just didn’t matter. Finally she had quit school and walked away from her latest foster home with just the clothes she was wearing and whatever cash she could find in the house. She had been on her own ever since – two years now.

Eve had dropped out of college half way through her freshman year – she wouldn’t say why. Working for a living was too much trouble. She sponged off her parents for a while, then partnered up with her worthless boyfriend to run a badger game. Unfortunately for them, they weren’t very good at it. Even more unfortunately, they tried to scam the wrong guy. Eve had skipped town a step ahead of the law.

The two girls had met in a Greyhound station in Cincinnati. They got off the bus together in Buffalo, found waitress jobs at a beach bar called Mickey Rat’s Club on the Lake Erie shore south of town. They had taken a walk on the beach after closing time, two hours before sunrise on a Saturday morning, and…

They had been captured just that day, Amanda said. They had just finished their ticklish pedicures before they got to the slave cell. She had been treated worse, and had stayed in worse places.

The sessions in the power room started again, all six girls this time. All were tickled individually, and in various combinations of two, three, four and five together. Once, all six got tickled at the same time. The process was repeated over and over for hours until the girls were hoarse and sweaty and their abs and ribs ached.

And then back to routine again, but with six galley slaves in the rotation this time. Rachel had rearranged the watch schedule. The teams of galley slaves now started their shift with Suzanne and Liz, and finished with Rachel and Kate – or vice versa.

Apparently someone had tickled Eve mercilessly in her previous life. She struggled and fought so hard when Liz and Kate came for her that they routinely froze her with the snare field and floated her to the power room. Being frozen didn’t affect tickle-power output – a tickle laugh is a reflex, unaffected by paralysis of voluntary muscles. At times, Rachel left Eve frozen in the tickle chair so she wouldn’t have to listen to Eve begging between rounds with her Giggler – though Suzanne seemed to enjoy the girl’s distress. Ashley and the others tried to comfort Eve, help her to adjust, but the fear was irrational.

There has to be a way out, thought Ashley. Rachel excepted, this is basically a sloppy operation. Those other women enjoyed tickle-torturing the galley slaves too much. They were starting to get careless, to take their victims for granted. Maybe that could be exploited. She didn’t know Amanda or Eve well enough to trust them, and poor Kelly was a mess. Angie and Stephanie then… I wonder…

She wondered too, briefly, what had happened to Ann and Haley. But Ashley had problems of her own.

For one thing, Liz and Kate took to tickling the galley slaves off-watch, just like Suzanne was doing. That was bad enough, but Suzanne continued to concentrate on Ashley and Kelly. She tickled Ashley every third day, Kelly the other two.

Poor Kelly was getting tickled by someone off-shift every day, and it was slowly driving her crazy. Eve begged and pleaded to be left alone when the sisters came for her – they just froze her to carry her off, brought her back shaking and tickled out. Amanda was in surprisingly good spirits, as if it didn’t bother her at all. The other three girls just endured.

And the second problem was Amanda.

Suzanne and Liz organized an after-hours tickle session a few days after Amanda and Eve arrived. They tickled Ashley and Stephanie for over an hour, tickled them breathless over and over, then tickled some more. When they brought the girls back to the cell, both were exhausted – they just crawled into their bunks and collapsed.

Amanda was awake. “We’ve never really had much chance to talk,” she said from her own bunk. “We’ve usually been too busy laughing.”

Ashley’s abs and ribs hurt. “Not now,” she said crossly.

“Go to sleep and leave me alone,” Stephanie added. Her voice was a little rough from laughing.

“But I’d like to get to know more about you,” Amanda said. “We’re stuck here together, we ought to be friends, do things together…”

She climbed down out of her bunk and padded over to Stephanie, in the middle bunk opposite Ashley.

“Like TICKLING!” she shouted, and scooped Stephanie’s ankles up in an arm lock. Her nails flew over the sensitive soles.

“OH NOOO! HAHAHA! Sta- haha –ap! HAHAHAHA-HAHAHA!” Stephanie laughed. Stephanie was exhausted, weak from the tickling earlier – Amanda had no trouble holding on. She tickled Stephanie’s soles, watching the toes twitch and curl, down her arches and onto her very ticklish heels. The tickling fingers picked up speed, tickling Stephanie’s heels mercilessly. Her victim laughed her head off at the top of her lungs.

Ashley managed to sit up on the second try and winced – her ribs and abs were pretty sore. She rolled out of her bunk – Stephanie was laughing harder now, an edge of desperation in her laughter, near the end of her endurance. Ashley grabbed Amanda and wrestled her away. “Stop it!” she said. “She’s had enough for one day! What’s the matter with you?”

Amanda grinned from ear to ear. “I guess I’ve got no sense when it comes to having fun. That’s how I ended up here.”

They got to know her better over the next week or so. Amanda was cheerful, playful, easy to like, much like Candice Wade back home. She had just that one annoying quirk.

“TICKLE FIGHT!” Amanda yelled, and jumped Ashley. Ashley landed on her back on the resilient deck. Still holding on, Amanda rolled Ashley onto her tummy and straddled her hips facing aft. She grabbed both ankles, pulled, wrapped her leg around Ashley’s shins in the figure-four leg lock. She was incredibly fast – Ashley was laughing before she quite knew what had happened.

Stephanie was in the bathroom, so it was just the two of them. Ashley laughed at the top of her lungs as Amanda’s tickling nails scratched and skittered across her feet. Ashley’s feet were off-the-scale ticklish everywhere – there wasn’t a sweet spot – and Amanda was good! Between Ashley’s toes, underneath, onto the soles, arches, heels – it tickled unbearably!

Stephanie came out and rescued Ashley after a while, but Liz came for them before they could take revenge. Ashley was fuming. Even the sight of Amanda laughing beside her at the Giggler’s hands did nothing to improve her mood.

The seventh day rolled around. Kate took Ashley and Kelly for their pedicure. When she brought them back afterward, Eve and Stephanie were nowhere to be found – probably, one of the other pirates had taken them off somewhere to tickle them. But they found a laughing Angie trapped in the figure-four leg lock with Amanda tickling her.

Amanda tickled skillfully and enthusiastically, holding Angie’s toes back and tickling back and forth on the sensitive skin underneath. That was Angie’s sweet spot – she howled with forced mirth. She wasn’t struggling, all resistance had been tickled out of her – Amanda had evidently started on her as soon as the others had been taken away. They had to watch the tickle torture while Kate stood by, making helpful suggestions, even lending a hand at times. Kate and Amanda finished with four-handed tickling and tickled the breath out of Angie.

Kate took Amanda with her when she left, brought her back hours later, tickled out but in an oddly cheerful mood. It was too late to get even – Ashley just rolled over and went back to sleep.

They started back the next day with Ashley, Kelly and Amanda on the same team. Kate brought them back after their shift, released Amanda and hogtied the others. She left, and Amanda set to work on Kelly immediately, tickling her soft, pink, newly-pedicured feet fiendishly and inventively. She started on Kelly’s heels two-handed – Kelly arched her back and laughed her head off. Then up the arches to the soles, between the toes, and holding them back, tickling back and forth under all ten toes while Kelly laughed and squirmed like a worm.

Amanda tickled side to side across both stretched out soles, and found the sweet spot – the balls of Kelly’s feet, right behind her big toes. She used a single nail to draw fast, looping figure-eight’s around the balls of both feet, the loops getting smaller and smaller to cover every square inch of ticklish flesh. Kelly lost it and laughed herself breathless.

Amanda moved on to Ashley, but hadn’t tickled her for more than a few minutes when Kate came back to release their bonds. Kate tickled Amanda again that night – still no chance for the others to get even.

Amanda’s tickle attacks continued. She was sneaky and persistent, always managed to catch the others at a disadvantage. It was like she was trying to provoke them. Kate or Liz participated sometimes, but usually just took Amanda away afterward and tickled her, bringing her back when the others were too sleepy to take revenge.

The following week, she tickled Eve until the girl was howling with forced mirth and begging for mercy. Eve got none, of course. Ashley didn’t see much of that one – she was too busy laughing herself, because Kate stayed to play.

But other than the tickle attacks, they all liked Amanda fine. It was impossible to stay angry at her. She just needed to be taught a lesson.

Their chance came a week later. Rachel had been in a thoughtful mood. It took her a while to catch on to what Kate was doing, but when she did, she caught Kate tickling Angie. Kate had tickled Angie for a long time – the girl was a wreck. Rachel gave Angie a shift off to rest and stood her next watch alone, while Kate laughed her head off in a tickle chair with Ashley and Amanda for company.

Rachel put Kate in the brig at the end of the shift, and the others in the slave cell. Ashley and Angie immediately jumped Amanda, wrapped her tightly in a blanket, and went to work.

Ashley had learned a wide repertoire of techniques – she coached Angie along. Amanda laughed wildly as their tickling fingers explored her soles. They eased off, light flicks with the tips of their fingernails that produced a constant stream of giggles. Then heavier tickling again, and Amanda laughed while she struggled and squirmed and tried desperately to pull her feet away from their grip.

They held her toes back and tickled under them, then down onto the stretched out soles. They flicked their nails on the balls of her feet, tickled across to the outside, then back to the middle. They paid special attention to the exact middle of the soles, along the crease, where it really, really tickled. They never let Amanda zone out, always let her get just enough breath to laugh. Amanda laughed helplessly, streams of laughter pouring out of her.

They tickled back onto her soles again and picked up the pace. Amanda laughed herself breathless.

“Have we got your attention yet?” Ashley asked.

Amanda struggled to get enough air. She was sweat soaked, overpowering the shipsuit’s ability to cope. Her hair was a mess, her ribs and abs ached from laughing, her throat was desert dry. “Not… hardly… ” she gasped.

“Slow learner,” Angie said. She gave Amanda’s sole another minute of tickle torture. Amanda laughed like a madwoman, tears streaming down her face.

“How about now?” Angie asked when she finished.

“Try… again… ”

The two girls held Amanda’s toes back again and tickled the stretched-out soles mercilessly, side to side, up and down the crease in the middle, around the balls. They flicked their fingernails in Amanda’s arches, fast as they could, while streams of ticklish laughter poured from her. They gave her a break – tickled down her arches to her heels and tickled there for a while, drawing circles and other tickling shapes. They spider walked their nails in her arches, continued with little flicks that didn’t make much contact but tickled like crazy. They tickled Amanda for a long, long time, while she laughed her head off, red faced, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks. Then back to the soles again, tickling along the creases in the middle. Amanda’s laughter went out of control, and she had the breath tickled out of her again.

“Is that… the best… you… can do?”

“Wait,” Ashley said when Angie made to start back again. “I think she likes this! I know somebody like that back home.”

“No kidding?” Angie asked skeptically.

“Took you long enough to figure it out,” Amanda said. She had her breath back by now. “You gonna tickle me some more?”

Angie just gaped – this was way outside her experience. Ashley spoke for both.

“Later maybe. All those tickle attacks – they were just to aggravate us so we’d tickle you, weren’t they?”

“Yup,” Amanda said cheerfully. “I found out years ago that I love to be tickled. Made some money that way, too, before they grabbed me. Do you know, there were people who paid good money just to tickle my feet? That was easy money, all inside work, no heavy lifting, and as much fun for me as it was for them. And here, I have three squares and a flop – plus a bunch of ticklers, good ones, and they give me as much as I want.”

Ashley held her tongue. Privately, she figured that Amanda was kidding herself, that she didn’t realize what a world of hurt she was in for as a slave.

“Amanda,” Angie said, “why didn’t you just ask us to tickle you?”

Amanda looked surprised, and a little sheepish. “The thought never occurred to me,” she said.


Chapter 5

The day of “rest” rolled around again. Suzanne and Liz were due to go on watch later, but had some time on their hands. They amused themselves by giving Kelly and Eve their pedicures.

Suzanne and Liz stayed on to tickle them some more. The other girls knew better than to try to interfere – it would just get them frozen in the snare field, and then tickled senseless themselves. Even protest would just encourage the two ticklers. Not that they needed any encouragement…

Liz had taken a special liking to Eve, tickling her off-watch at least every other day. Lately, Eve didn’t respond with terror any more when Liz took her. She was in much better condition when Liz brought her back too. She must be getting used to it, Ashley thought. But the old fear was back today.

Liz froze the hazel-eyed brunette and hogtied her, using an arrangement of straps much like the one Candice Wade had invented back home. She released the snare field so that she could enjoy Eve’s initial reaction. Eve was terrified, begging, squirming, straining desperately against the bonds.

Kelly was laying on her tummy on a bunk, hands bound behind her, laughing her head off. Suzanne sat on the bunk with Kelly’s ankles trapped in a leg lock, tickling her soft pink soles with both hands. She held the redhead’s toes back, made a Peace sign and scratched the balls of Kelly’s feet, just behind the big toes. Kelly laughed and laughed, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks.

“Tickle tickle!” taunted Liz, and traced a single black-painted nail along the tips of Eve’s toes, around the balls of her feet, down the arches to the heels.

“OH NOOOO! Sta-haha-ap! Hehehe! Don’t- hahaha! tickle!” Eve begged and giggled. “Ple-hehe! Please! HAHAHA-HAHA! Stopitstopitstopit! HAHAHAHAHAHA-HAHAHA-HAHAHAHA!” she laughed as Liz dug in, tickling the sweet spots on the arches just in front of the heels. Eve squirmed, laughing like a madwoman, trying desperately to escape the tickling. Her struggles got weaker as the strength was tickled out of her.

Suzanne played Kelly like a musical instrument, a look of contentment on her face. She knew by now how to get the best response – the redhead laughed her head off under Suzanne’s fiendish tickling. Finally, Suzanne’s tickling fingers speeded up and reduced Kelly to gasping, red-faced silent laughter.

Suzanne checked her watch. “We’re due to relieve Rachel and your sister in five minutes, Liz,” she said.

Liz picked up the pace, and Eve’s ticklish laughter went off the scale. It was too much for Eve – she laughed herself breathless.

“I can spare you another two minutes, Kelly,” Suzanne said sweetly, and did just that. Kelly laughed at the top of her lungs.

Suzanne and Liz released the girls and left. The others gave the two as much comfort as they could – not much. Ashley had been right not to depend on Eve and Kelly for her escape plan – though that wasn’t any further along now than when she had started thinking about it. Even brainstorming the problem with Angie, Stephanie and Amanda (the younger girl was OK, Ashley had decided) didn’t help.

Rachel and Kate came in, took Stephanie and Amanda to the nail salon, brought them back sweaty, tear stained and short of breath. And then it was Ashley and Angie’s turn.

As always, Rachel and Kate took their time and went out of their way to tickle. Ashley and Angie laughed and laughed, helplessly, tears of laughter rolling down their cheeks. Afterward, there was a contest to see who could tickle her victim senseless fastest. They kept it up until the girls were sweaty and breathless. Rachel won, but it was a very near thing.

“Eve’s been sassy lately,” Kate said, as she got Angie out of the chair. “She could do with a dose of misery. I’ll take her over to the brig and tickle the attitude out of her.”

“Suits me,” said Rachel. She grinned nastily. “I think I’ll take the Golden Girl here back to my cabin for a little at-home energy collection.”

Rachel led Ashley through the ship, hands bound behind her, past grinning crew members. They stopped at a closed door. Rachel palmed it open.

They entered a small room with two doors on each side wall, one on the wall opposite. As in Ashley’s cell, there was a black jewel inset in the wall beside the door. That door opened, a bathroom evidently, because a young woman in a robe and a towel wrapped around her hair came out.

“Hi, Rachel,” the woman said,and grinned knowingly. “Doing some homework? Need some help?”

“Hi, Natalie. I think I can handle this, but thanks anyway.”

“Yell if you change your mind,” Natalie said, and entered one of the doors to the right.

Rachel palmed open the second door on the left. “Home sweet home,” she said. “Have a seat on the bunk.”

There was no place else to sit – the cabin was tiny, no longer than the bunk and maybe twice as wide. There were cabinets over the bunk, drawers underneath. Inset in the wall opposite the bunk was another black jewel.

Rachel closed the door and sat next to Ashley. She reached down, grabbed Ashley’s ankles and swung her feet up onto the bunk. She ordered Ashley to lay back, rolled the girl onto her tummy, and straddled Ashley’s lower legs. Ashley burst into ticklish laughter as Rachel’s polished black nails flew over her sensitive soles. The jewel on the wall shone bright red.

But Rachel quit after just a few minutes. She helped Ashley to sit up,and even rubbed Ashley’s feet to get the tickle off.

“OK, let’s talk,” Rachel said, and drew her legs up to sit cross-legged on the bunk. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, and you’ve got it all wrong. You’re in a hole, girl, and the best thing to do in that situation is stop digging. You need to try to climb out instead.”

Ashley crossed her legs and sat facing Rachel. “And how would I do that?” she asked. Her feet still tingled from the tickling.

“Do like I did – hoist the Jolly Roger and come over to the Dark Side. I can help you if you’ll let me.”

Ashley scowled. “You mean abandon my friends? Walk away and let you sell them as slaves?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Rachel replied. “How well do you know them anyway? And really, what do you owe Eve and Amanda?”

“The same as I owe myself – respect.”

Rachel sighed. “You’re cooking up some scheme to escape, aren’t you? Or failing that, some grand gesture that will force us to turn you loose.” She shook her head. “That’s what I thought after they caught me. I learned otherwise, the hard way.”

“Fortunately, they didn’t hold it against me,” Rachel continued. “You won’t be so lucky. There’s a different bunch running this ship now, women who lack a sense of humor.”

Ashley looked mulish.

“Look, Ashley,” Rachel said seriously. “Here’s the situation. Cheryl Amarger is the captain of this ship, just like she was nine years ago. But she crawled into a bottle, hasn’t drawn a sober breath in over a year. We can’t put her off, because she owns a third of it, and the other two owners back on Our Side would raise hell.

“But the Mate –– Carol Salva – really runs things now. Suzanne is her good buddy. Both of ‘em are mean as snakes. If you piss them off, they can make your life a living hell.”

“Worse than now?” Ashley asked, still defiant.

“Much. Believe me. There’s something else too – Carol isn’t near as smart as she thinks she is. She’s making bad decisions – you and your friends shouldn’t even be here. And this trip is snakebit – it’s taking way too long. We should have been back on Our Side by now.”

“Wait – we shouldn’t be here?” Ashley asked incredulously. “I thought the idea was to grab up galley slaves.”

“It’s Suzanne’s doing, and it’s because of your redheaded friend Kelly. See, we’ve always grabbed up people like me – throwaways, on the fringe, no family or close friends, no one who will miss us when we’re gone. Amanda and Eve fit in that category too.

“But you and your friends are connected. Y’all have homes and families. I’m sure that when all four of y’all disappeared together, it was like poking a hornet’s nest with a stick. We should have left y’all alone.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Ashley asked quietly.

“Suzanne has a… quirk, I guess you’d call it,” Rachel answered. “She has a thing for tickling the shit out of redheads. I dunno, maybe one of my sisters did something awful to her years ago, or maybe she just likes the way we turn pink when she tickles us. But her buddy Carol let her grab you four to get Kelly.”

“Oh! That explains a lot!” Ashley said. “Like Haley…”

“Yah, like Haley. Haley Warnier is no worse than the general run of junior crew, and a lot better than some like Kate Maridor or Ann Castin. Haley’s there because Carol put her there for Suzanne. Suzanne tickles Haley because she loves it, and because she can. Like she did to me.”

“You?”

“I told you, they grabbed me up to be a galley slave,” Rachel replied. “Suzanne was a junior power tech then, 19 years old, on her second trip, and Carol was the Number 2. Carol let Suzanne tickle me the whole time – sometimes they didn’t turn my Giggler on at all for the whole watch. I got more on the trip back as junior crew, like Haley’s getting it now. And other times since.”

“Then how did you end up in charge of the power room, and Suzanne the Number 2?”

“Captain Cheryl put me in the job – I’m better at it than Suzanne,” Rachel said. “Suzanne enjoys it too much. It colors her judgement. And the Mate isn’t ready to turf me out just yet.

“Anyway, Ashley, I think I can save you, if you’re willing. The others are lost in any case, and the Mate will be happy to sell Ann in your place – the girl’s a psycho, even for a pirate. You’re special. What do you say?”

“I’ll… have to think it over.”

“Fair enough. And now, we have appearances to keep up. Lay back and roll onto your tummy.”

Rachel tickled Ashley for fifteen minutes, skillfully and inventively. Ashley howled with forced mirth, red faced, tears of laughter rolling down her cheeks. Afterward, the other galley slaves figured that Ashley had gotten tickled the whole time, and interpreted her thoughtful mood as tickle shock. She didn’t tell them otherwise.

Ashley kept working on the escape plan, without success. It looked like an actual escape was out of the question. Could they take hostages? That probably wouldn’t work either. Something else then…

Her off-day conversations with Rachel continued. After a while, Rachel even unbound Ashley’s hands while they talked. Theirs was an odd sort of… friendship? …something like it, anyway. Ashley still resisted turning her coat, despite Rachel’s increasing insistence.

“Forget trying to escape,” Rachel said, toward the end of one of their sessions. “You won’t make it. It’s pointless to even try.”

“What escape?” Ashley replied with an innocent look on her face.

Rachel just shook her head sadly. “Be careful, Ashley. Watch your back,” she said. She checked her watch. “It’s nearly time to take you back. On your tummy, and assume the position.”

A week later, Rachel finished by asking, “What can I do to convince you? How can I show you that I keep my promises? That’s the sticking point, isn’t it?”

It wasn’t – not entirely anyway – but Ashley thought it over. Rachel wouldn’t help her escape, she knew that. Something else? Poor Kelly was a wreck, withdrawing into herself, nothing like the cheerful girl she had been. Maybe…

“Suzanne,” Ashley said. “She’s tickling the shit out of Kelly. She never lets up.” And she told about Suzanne’s off shift tickle fests, how Kelly was slowly going crazy from the constant tickling.

Rachel was furious. “Tell me more,” she said.

Ashley gave Rachel chapter and verse. Afterward, Rachel said, “This is my fault. I know what she’s like, but I wasn’t paying attention. Too focused on you, I guess.

“I’ll put a stop to it, Ashley,” Rachel said. “I don’t hold with needless cruelty. It will stop – that I promise.”

The next six-day cycle started. Kate came for Ashley and Angie. She told Kelly to get some more sleep if she could – Rachel had given Kelly the shift off.

Haley and Ann were laughing in the tickle chairs when they got to the power room, their Gigglers flicking and stroking their feet with brushes. Both were in gray jerseys and shorts, galley slaves in all but name.

The third girl still wore a crew jumpsuit, blue and white, though of course she was barefoot. She was Ashley’s age or a little older, 19 or 20. She was a trim girl, medium height, with a dancer’s figure, fit-looking without being muscular. She was gray-eyed, with a mane of wavy dark blonde hair.

“Hi. I’m Whitney,” the girl said. Her cheeks were streaked with tears of laughter. She grinned. “Man, am I glad to see you!”

“Shut up, Whitney,” Kate said. But the command was superfluous – Ann’s Giggler timed out and Whitney’s picked up. The girl’s tickle laugh was a musical contralto. She laughed with wild abandon as the Giggler brushed and dusted her soles. It concentrated on the balls of her feet, and her laughter went off the scale.

But there was someone else in a tickle chair, Ashley saw, and her eyes widened with surprise. Suzanne was tied up, barefoot, glowering, next to Whitney.

Rachel put Angie in the end chair, Ashley between her and Suzanne. Angie and Ashley’s Gigglers started as Ann and Haley’s quit – the ship was running on two girlpower. Rachel released Whitney and Haley. Through her own helpless laughter, Ashley heard Rachel order the girls to report to the Mate. Apparently, Whitney had just been drafted to fill the slot. Haley’s punishment was finished, Rachel said, and if Carol had a beef with that, she should talk to Rachel. Kate was told to take Ann back to the brig, then get some rest. She would share the next watch with her sister.

“Goddamn you, Rachel!” Suzanne said, squirming angrily against her bonds. “That redheaded bitch ratted me out, didn’t she?” Her Giggler floated at her feet, inactive but ready.

“Told you that you were gonna get jammed up if you kept at it.”

Rachel made an adjustment on the control board, and Suzanne’s Giggler stowed itself back on its shelf. She stood at Suzanne’s feet.

“I’m gonna make sure you learn your lesson,” she told Suzanne.

The board chimed, and Rachel held Suzanne’s toes back and tickled the soft skin underneath, back and forth under all ten toes. That was where Suzanne’s feet were off-the scale, unbearably ticklish. Suzanne bucked violently, arched her back and laughed her head off at the top of her lungs.

Ashley watched with satisfaction as Rachel’s tickling fingers forced peal after peal of laughter out of Suzanne. She now knew where the sweet spots were – she took it all in, making mental notes, as Rachel tickled the heels, the arches, the soles, between the toes, back to the sweet spots under the toes again. Suzanne’s tickle laugh was a mezzosoprano – it rang off the walls, sometimes by itself, sometimes in a ticklish duet with Ashley or Angie. Even her own Giggler’s best efforts couldn’t dampen Ashley’s pleasure. She was getting the shit tickled out of her, true enough – but Suzanne was getting it worse!

Rachel kept tickling Suzanne off and on for the entire watch, tickled her to the limit of her endurance and maybe a little beyond. Suzanne got twice her fair share – not that fairness had a thing to do with it. By the end of the shift, Suzanne was unresisting, all of the fight tickled out of her. All she could do was sit there and laugh, and laugh, and laugh some more.

Rachel stood watch alone until the next rest day, back to back with the sisters on the opposite watch – she supervised Suzanne’s punishment all week. The schedules of the watchstanders and galley slaves were synchronized, not overlapping as before.

Rachel arranged the galley slave shifts so that each slave got an extra shift off on her watch, while Suzanne laughed in her place. Kelly shared all of her shifts that week with Suzanne, the other five at least one. Everyone got a chance to enjoy Suzanne’s tickle torture.

The original staggered schedule resumed after the rest day. Suzanne and Kate tickled Ashley for most of their first shift together, pretty much non-stop, with just enough breaks to catch her breath and get her heart rate normal again. They kept her laughing until she thought she would go crazy, just like she had known they would. They did the same for the next two days running before they got tired of it – Ashley was a wreck by the end of the third day’s shift.

But Suzanne eased off on Kelly, and left the galley slaves alone off watch from then on. The sisters drew the proper conclusion and quit too. It was worth it.



Chapter 6

Now that the off-watch tickle attacks had stopped, Ashley’s escape planning went into high gear. She had reluctantly concluded that Rachel was right – a clean escape wasn’t possible. But another idea had taken shape – all they lacked now was an opportunity.

Kelly recovered slowly. Her old personality was coming back, but she wasn’t dependable, was still pretty shaky. And Ashley had been right not to trust Eve.

Eve was self centered and manipulative, bitchy, often sullen. She wasn’t very likeable, and she lacked sense – in her own way, she was a lot like Ann. She seemed to deliberately piss Suzanne or Kate off, and it earned her a lot of extra tickle punishment. That was odd, considering that they still found it more convenient to freeze her to get her into the power room. Suzanne was lying low – mostly she delegated the tickle torture to her assistant, who took Eve to the brig to carry it out.

Ashley’s seventh-day conversations with Rachel continued. Ashley learned that the ship had once been a legitimate merchantman – still was, so far as anyone in its home universe knew. The brig and the slave cell were no different from the cabins inhabited by junior crew members, except that the inmates couldn’t open the door from inside.

Ashley also learned that the ship needed direct girlpower to run. The losses encountered in converting tickle-laughter energy to storage, and back again, made stored power impractical for anything more than running the ship’s internal life support.

Both of them looked forward to their times together by now. Ashley didn’t even mind the extra tickling she got. It was worth it for the companionship, and Rachel was surprisingly gentle, tickling no more than necessary to keep up appearances.

***

The scheme was pretty simple, really. On their off day, when all six were together, they would rush the power room and take it over. They would shut the power down and immobilize the ship.

Amanda’s love of being tickled served them well. She taunted and aggravated Liz, who responded predictably. Liz took to making a second visit to the slave cell on off-days after her watch, carried Amanda off to the brig and tickle tortured her, sometimes for hours.

Time to go, Ashley decided one rest day. Rachel had just brought her back after their session, Kate had left after tickling Stephanie and Eve, Liz wasn’t due for a few hours. She let the others sleep for a while, woke them up, and made ready.

“This is crazy!” Eve protested. “We’re not gonna make it, and they’ll just tickle torture us that much worse afterward.”

“You’re with us or against us, Eve,” Kelly said. “Make up your mind.” She liked the idea – she would gladly tickle Eve to death if necessary to make the plan work.

Eve submitted with ill grace, maybe a little too easily. But Ashley had given up trying to figure the girl out.

They ambushed Liz as she passed in through the door, wrestled her down on the deck. Eve and Angie sat on her. Kelly grabbed her right ankle, Stephanie the left, and each pulled off a shoe.

Liz had brought one of the electric-toothbrush tools. Stephanie flicked it on and ran it between Liz’s toes, tickling between each pair. Liz bucked violently, arched her back and laughed at the top of her lungs.

Kelly joined in, spider-walking her fingernails all over the bottom of Liz’s foot. She started at the heel, scratching in circles and figure-eight’s, then danced her nails lightly up the arch to the ball of the foot, and scrabbled up and down the wrinkle in the middle. She held back Liz’s toes and scratched the tender skin under them, spread them apart to tickle between them. Back to the soles, flickering her fingernails along the sweet spot, the crease in the exact middle. Then around and across the ball, and back to the middle again. Liz laughed helplessly, face red, tears streaming.

Ashley figured out the wand that bound their bracelets together by experimenting on Amanda. She picked up the snare field wand too – she had no clue how to operate it, but maybe they could use it to bluff.

Stephanie had passed the electric brush along to Kelly, who used it to tickle up and down the crease in the middle of Liz’s sole. Stephanie was using her nails now, enthusiastically and with growing skill. Liz laughed her head off, helpless to resist the well-techniqued tickling.

“Come on!” Ashley said sharply. “We haven’t got time to play. Let’s get moving!”

Kelly and Stephanie kept on tickling, forcing waves of laughter out of the ticklish blonde. “We’re gonna make her open the door – or we’ll tickle her to death,” Stephanie said.

“I have a better idea,” Ashley said. “Quit – I want her to hear and understand.”

The girls quit. Liz cursed and blinked away tears of laughter. “You’re all gonna get it for this!” she said. “I’m gonna tickle you to death, Ashley!”

“Stand her up,” Ashley ordered. She grabbed Liz’s arm and twisted it up between her shoulder blades.

“Liz, you’ll do as I tell you, or I’ll break your arm.” She applied pressure – Liz yelped. “Maybe I’ll break it anyway – I’ll save breaking the other for if you disobey me.” Ashley gave the arm some more twist. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, YES, goddammit!” Liz got out through clenched teeth.

“Good. Is the power room door locked?”

Liz hesitated – Ashley twisted. Liz gasped.

“I’ll only ask you once more – is the door locked?”

“No. Please – don’t hurt me!” Liz whined.

“OK, open this door. Let’s go.”

Liz palmed the door open. Ashley immediately bound Liz’s wrists behind her, and they all headed down the corridor to the power room. Stephanie and Kelly flanked Liz, keeping a grip on her elbows. They paused outside the door.

“Toss Liz inside when I open the door,” Ashley said. “Then we’ll rush ‘em and take ‘em down. Ready?”

The door snicked open, Stephanie and Kelly shoved Liz hard, the galley slaves charged into the room. Ashley pointed the snare field wand at Suzanne, who ducked down behind the control pulpit. That was a mistake – the six galley slaves grabbed her and Kate and dropped them on the deck.

The tickle chairs were occupied, the Gigglers running on auto. Ann’s had just finished, she sat there gasping. The other two Gigglers tickled two brown-eyed brunettes, drafted junior crew in pastel shipsuits – Jessica and Lori, their names were. Both of them laughed like mad.

Ashley bound Suzanne and Kate, loosed Liz’s hands. She grabbed and twisted Liz’s arm behind her back again and applied pressure. “Shut the Gigglers down, Liz,” Ashley ordered.

Liz did so, and the two girls stopped laughing, gasping for air and trying to get their heart rates normal again. Ashley re-bound Liz while Amanda, Angie and Stephanie released the three from the chairs.

“Leave their hands bound,” Ashley said. “Shove ‘em out the door. Then let’s see if we can lock it.”

The door did have a lock, they found. They engaged it and waited.

They didn’t have to wait long. The Mate came on the PA, demanding that they open the door and give themselves up. It would go hard on them if they didn’t, she said.

Ashley keyed the mike and blew a juicy and spirited raspberry, with tremolo. No other answer was necessary.

A little later, Rachel came on the PA. “Ashley, don’t do this,” she said. “Give it up before it’s too late.”

Kelly answered that one, with a surprisingly realistic barnyard rooster call. The girl has hidden talents, thought Ashley.

It settled down to a siege after that. Ashley set watches. Plumbing would be a problem eventually, she thought. We’ll just have to take it as it comes.

A day passed. Rachel made one more attempt to talk them out. They ignored her.

Ashley was dozing when the door burst open and a dozen crew members swarmed through, Suzanne and their hard-faced abductor – the Mate – in the lead. She was frozen before she could get up.

Suzanne bound their unresisting wrists and released the field. Ashley looked around. Her friends and Amanda were bound like her. But Eve was unbound, standing near the door control between Liz and Kate.

“I should have known,” Ashley said. “Bitch!”

“I’m looking out for myself,” the girl replied. “Tough luck, girlfriend!”

“We knew you were up to something,” Suzanne said. “We “convinced” Eve to report to us – that’s what all the extra tickling of her was all about. She couldn’t stand it, begged us to stop, said she’d do anything!” She gloated, grinning ear to ear. “After that, the tickling sessions were mostly fake, just enough tickling so she didn’t arouse your suspicion when we took her out to report on you. She couldn’t stop you from trying this, but she came through for us in the end.”

Rachel just looked sadly at Ashley, as if to say, I told you so. Ashley looked away.

“Enough,” the Mate said. “Suzanne, take charge here. Get three of them up in those chairs – we need to get drive power back. You can have your redhead back, and two of the brunettes. Keep Liz and Kate – Eve too, I suppose. Ashley is coming with me.”

“Stephanie, Angie, up in the chairs,” Suzanne ordered. “Kate, you’ve got the watch with me. Liz, take Eve and find her some proper clothes – shoes too. Then bring her back. I want to start breaking her in as a new assistant – we’re shorthanded.”

She turned to Ashley. “Nice try. But we’re in a safe place, didn’t need to move anyway. You accomplished exactly nothing.”

Kate started a Giggler for Angie, locked it in manual-on. Angie threw back her head and laughed like mad. Then Kate tickled Stephanie, and Suzanne started in on Kelly. Their ticklish laughter rang off the walls, wild and unrestrained. Ashley still heard it in her mind after the closing door cut off the sound.

The next week passed in a haze of tickle torture, almost more than Ashley could bear. The Mate tickled her for hours, tickled her until she was weak and limp, then tickled her some more. In the power room, Suzanne tickled Ashley exclusively by hand until she thought she would go crazy. Off watch, Liz and Kate tickled her senseless, Liz with great enthusiasm, over and over.

Eve too – Suzanne spent hours off watch coaching the girl until her tickling fingernails had Ashley howling with forced mirth. Eve was letting her fingernails grow out – she had already polished them black. Even Ann got a chance – they put Ashley in the brig with the girl and let Ann tickle her until she was hoarse form laughing and her ribs and abs ached.

But Rachel was in some ways the worst. Rachel tickled skillfully, relentlessly, unemotionally, like a human Giggler. Ashley had betrayed her trust, and now she was making Ashley pay.

Eventually it ended. Eve brought Ashley back to the slave cell, unbound her hands and gave her a shove. Ashley stumbled over to her bunk, crawled in and curled up to ease her aching abs. She was asleep almost instantly. It was over.


Chapter 7

After that, things settled back to the old routine again – for a while. Five galley slaves, Ann, two ticklers, two assistants, one trainee, two shifts. It all blurred together.

Rachel started her off-day tickle sessions again with Ashley, but she left Ashley’s hands bound and never spoke any more except to give orders. Ashley had used her, and that hurt her feelings. The sessions were for Rachel’s own protection now, so that no one else would figure out her unwitting complicity in the escape attempt. She tickled Ashley fiendishly and skillfully, brought her back to the slave cell tickled out and exhausted.

It was at the end of Ashley’s tickle shift, shared with Stephanie and Ann. Angie, Amanda and Kelly were already strapped in the tickle chairs, and the Gigglers were giving the galley slaves a ticklish workout. Liz had brought the relief – she had the oncoming watch with Rachel – and had whispered something in her sister’s ear that brought evil grins to both of their faces.

Outside the power room, Kate said, “Suzanne, come back to the slave cell with me. There’s someone you’ve gotta meet. No, don’t ask – you’ll see for yourself!”

Suzanne went with Kate. They put Ann in the brig and crossed the corridor to the slave cell. When they opened the door, a wave of ticklish laughter poured out.

Inside, a trim girl with a mane of long, wavy dark-blonde hair lay hogtied on the deck. Eve, in a brown shipsuit, kneeled at her feet. The brunette tickled enthusiastically, demonstrating real talent. The blonde laughed her head off, unresisting, all of the fight tickled out of her.

“Beat it, Eve,” Suzanne said. “We’ll take it from here.”

Eve stopped tickling and stood, cracked her knuckles. “Spoilsport!” she said on her way out the door. “Maybe I’ll go and tickle Ann.”

The blonde ticklee rolled onto her side, breathing hard. “Wooo! That really tickled!” she said. “I was framed – this is all a big mistake.”

The girl tossed her head to get her dark blonde hair out of her face and blinked away tears of laughter. Ashley recognized Whitney, the crew member she had seen in the power room some time before, when Rachel put a stop to Haley’s punishment. Her hair was messed up, and she wore a gray galley slave jersey and shorts. Her nails were long and polished black.

“Like hell you were framed, Whitney,” Suzanne said. “The landing party caught you trying to slip away. The Mate told me so. Who are you working for?”

“Hell, I was trying to jump ship! I’m not a spy – I just don’t find these surroundings to be congenial. Come on, turn me loose!”

“Nah… I’ve got a better idea. Foot notes,” Suzanne said. She kneeled at Whitney’s bound feet and rolled the girl back onto her tummy.

“Sit on a bunk and don’t move,” Kate told Ashley and Stephanie. The girls, their hands still bound behind them, obeyed. This might be fun to watch, Ashley thought callously – maybe I can pick up a few pointers.

Suzanne produced a stylus – no, it was a Bic ballpoint pen or something similar. She grabbed Whitney’s left foot, held the toes back, and wrote very small on the sensitive skin under the toes:

I am a liar and a spy who got caught.

As Suzanne wrote, Kate tickled the exact same spot on the other foot. Whitney squirmed like a worm, laughing at the top of her lungs.

Suzanne passed the pen to Kate, who wrote the line on the right foot while Suzanne tickled the same spot on the left. Whitney burst into helpless laughter again.

And so it went – one writing, the other tickling – while Whitney laughed and laughed. Ashley had had the same done to her – it was nothing new. But she knew that it tickled maddeningly, and the break while the pen changed hands ensured that Whitney couldn’t zone out.

Suzanne and Kate covered Whitney’s feet with the tiny letters, using circles to dot the i’s and other little tickling flourishes. They had found the sweet spots early on – on the balls of Whitney’s feet, right behind the big toes. They went back, darkened and underlined the letters there, and Whitney’s laughter went off the scale.

They finished with their nails and reduced Whitney to gasping, red-faced silent laughter, then released all three slaves. “She’s all yours now,” Kate told Ashley and Stephanie on her way out the door.

Whitney laid on her back, drew her legs up and winced – her abs were sore from laughing. She shuffled her feet on the deck to get the tickle off, sat up, winced again, then inspected one ink-covered bare sole.

“They got me good,” she said ruefully. “I never had a chance to meet you two. I’m Whitney Thorn – pleased to meet you.”

“Ashley Curtis. This is Stephanie Miklajcyk. Are you really a spy?”

“Nah – like I said, I was just trying to jump ship.”

“Maybe they put her here to spy on us,” Ashley said. “After what that bitch Eve did, we better find out.”

“Isn’t that just a little paranoid?” Whitney asked. “Hey! What are you… LET ME GO!” She struggled, but Ashley had whipped a blanket around Whitney’s upper body and twisted it, pinning Whitney’s arms to her sides. Stephanie helped her, pulling the blanket tight and knotting the ends.

“Now let’s have the truth,” Ashley said, and grabbed an ankle. Stephanie grabbed the other, and both stood up. Now Whitney was on her back, both feet in the air.

“NOOO! HAHAHAHA-HAHAHA-HAHAHAHAHA!” Whitney laughed as both girls dug in, tickling the sensitive soles. They kept it up, flicking and scratching, for five minutes or so while Whitney laughed her head off.

A pause. “Now – the truth!” Ashley said. “Are you here to spy on us?”

“Would you believe me if I said no?” Whitney asked.

“You didn’t answer the question,” Ashley said. “Guess we’ll have to tickle ‘em clean, Stephanie.”

They tickled again, faster this time. Whitney howled with forced mirth.

Another pause. Ashley said, “Let’s try this again. Are you spying on us?”

“Go to hell!”

“Wrong answer,” Ashley said, and the tickling started again. They stayed at their ticklish interrogation, tickling hard, forcing streams of ticklish laughter out of Whitney. They kept it up for hours, and finally broke her.

“Oh ghod…” Whitney gasped, tears running down her cheeks. Her hair was a mess, her voice was hoarse from laughing, her sweat had overpowered the jersey’s ability to cope. “Please… no more… I can’t take any more…”

“Then answer the question.”

“I’m not spying on you! I’m not! You can tickle me to death, and I’m still not!”

Ashley and Stephanie gave Whitney another five minutes of hard tickle torture, tickled the breath out of her, left her gasping.

“Now answer the question,” Ashley said.

“I’m not! I’m not! What do you want me to say? Please, please, no more!”

“OK,” Ashley said. “Let’s get her out of that blanket, Stephanie. I’m sorry, Whitney, but we had to know.”

Whitney sat up, winced, and inspected a sole again. “You didn’t get ’em clean,” she said. She made a fending motion with both hands. “No, that’s not an invitation.” She winced again, then grinned. “No offense taken – sometimes I don’t trust me either.”

Ashley grinned back and offered a hand up. “Top bunk on the right is yours. Let’s get some rest.”

The ship now had a full complement of galley slaves. Whitney fit right in with the rest. She was reticent about her background – not unusual on a pirate ship, Ashley gathered. But otherwise, she was friendly and outgoing, an asset to their little group. She even tickled Amanda sometimes – they both enjoyed it.

For the next week, Ashley and Whitney endured tickle shifts with Angie under Suzanne and Kate. Suzanne usually didn’t turn Whitney’s Giggler on at all – Whitney got more than her share of tickle torture.

During that week, Ashley and Whitney recognized similar qualities in each other and became fast friends. Whitney told Ashley that her presence, even helpless and laughing her head off, helped her to bear up.

Ashley admired Whitney. The girl was smart, decisive, determined. She had patience, fortitude, a clear idea of what she wanted, and had had a plan to get there – it wasn’t her fault that her attempt to jump ship had failed. In other words, a leader.

“But you’re a leader too, Ashley,” Whitney said, back in their cell. “You have all of those qualities. You’ve held this group together. Without you, they’d be just a bunch of frightened individuals.”

“Um… I suppose I am,” she said, surprise in her voice. “I’ve never thought of myself that way. Back home, I was the dumb blonde.”

Whitney snorted. “Then you needed new friends. Looks like you got ‘em, though maybe not the way you expected.”

There was a bright spot – they got revenge on Eve. When Eve came to get Ashley, Whitney and Angie to relieve the watch, they threw a blanket from one of the bunks over her head and wrestled her down to the deck. They wrapped her in it like a burrito, with just her head and feet sticking out, and pulled her shoes off. They weren’t the least bit gentle.

Eve knew what was coming. She struggled, but the blanket was too tight – she was helpless. Her vocabulary, they found, was exceptional – it should have blistered the paint on the walls.

Ashley had played tickling games back home, and had learned from experts. The others hadn’t, but they had gotten an intensive course over the past months and knew all about tickling from the inside. Angie and Whitney each grabbed a foot and scrabbled her nails on the heel.

Eve arched her back and laughed her head off as the tickling fingernails flew over her heels, drawing figure-eight’s and other tickling shapes. The girls tickled up Eve’s arches, then onto the soles as Eve’s toes twitched and curled and her ticklish laughter filled the room. They tickled the tips of her toes, between them, held them back and tickled the soft skin underneath. Still holding the toes back, they tickled the stretched-out soles, as Eve laughed like a madwoman.

Ashley’s turn. She rolled Eve face down and straddled the girl’s legs facing aft. She tickled the sweet spots, on Eve’s arches just in front of the heels, with both hands. Eve went wild, laughing helplessly, red faced, tears leaking out of her closed eyes. She laughed herself breathless.

Ashley started in again, slower, prolonging the tickle torture, holding Eve on the edge without letting her zone out. She started on the sweet spots, and Eve laughed with wild abandon. Ashley’s tickling fingernails danced on Eve’s heels, up the arches, onto the soles, back down to the heels while Eve laughed and laughed. Then back to the sweet spots, tickling fast as she could, and tickled Eve breathless again.

Whitney and Angie were tickling Eve again when Liz showed up – Suzanne had sent her to find out why the relief hadn’t come. Liz froze the slaves with the snare field and released Eve. That earned them a double shift in the power room – by the end, all three were so weak from laughing that Kate had to freeze them and float them back to their cell.

Ashley broke through with Rachel the following off-day. The redhead quit tickling Ashley after fifteen minutes, though she left the girl’s hands bound. “You and the others did good work with Eve the other day,” she said. “She had it coming. The girl is a weasel.”

Ashley’s breathing was mostly normal now. “Yah… I really screwed the pooch when I took her with us. Did you know about her before we tried?”

“Of course I did,” Rachel said. “But it wouldn’t have worked anyway. I told you so.” She shifted position,then continued. “Still, I don’t hold it against you – you had to try. And you’re pretty sharp – you got farther with your escape than I did with mine when I was a galley slave. Too bad you wouldn’t listen to me.”

“How could I? They’re my friends.”

Rachel looked sad. “I know. Sometimes I wish… Oh, the hell with it!” And Ashley laughed at the top of her lungs as Rachel’s long black nails flew across her sensitive soles.

Ashley was still determined to get them all out, despite her earlier failure – all six of them. She confided in her new friend. She still didn’t see a way to move the rock, but maybe together…

“That’s why I tried to jump ship,” Whitney told her. She was giving Ashley a foot rub – Angie was dozing in her bunk. “This life isn’t for me – or Rachel either, from what I’ve seen, in spite of what she’s doing to you.”

“But what would you have done?” Ashley asked. “Marooned on the Other Side alone, with no resources.”

“We’re not alone here – not all of your UFO sightings are bogus,” was the surprising answer. “There are other pirates, and legitimate traders too, plenty of them.”

“Legitimate traders?” Ashley asked. “Wait – if they’re solid citizens, they can’t use galley slaves, can they? Where do they get ticklish energy for their ships?”

“Two ways,” Whitney said. “One is to hire girls like Amanda. They’re not all that common, so they get good wages. The other is to use junior crew, like we did coming over, and live with the turnover that causes.”

“Is that what you were trying to find when you jumped ship? Hitch a ride home on a trader?”

“I would have if I could,” Whitney said. “But pirates have natural enemies – the Navy has a standing anti-piracy patrol here too. If I couldn’t get home any other way, I was gonna try to find them and give myself up.”

“Then there really is a Starfleet!” Ashley said.

“You’ve been watching too much Star Trek. It’s the Navy. Its main job is trade protection and anti-piracy patrols, same as the “wet” navies here in your 19th Century.”

“OK. But what would they do to you? You’re a pirate.”

“Oh, I’d do some Community Service – a year or two at least. But… “

“Community Service?” Ashley was confused.

Whitney grinned and tickled her feet.

“Hehehehe!” I… see.”

“The ones who haven’t been corrupted by the life get a year or two of Community Service, and are sent forth to sin no more,” Whitney said. “Young ones, mostly. Like Haley. There’s no malice in her, and there are a few others like her. I’d like to think I qualify too.

“Others would have Personality Adjustment and Community Service. I think Rachel would get a minor Adjustment and a fairly short term – she’s not like most of the others. The rest, of course, would be in for a major Personality Adjustment and a much longer term of Community Service. They’d be essentially new people at the end. Eve and our friends Liz and Kate Maridor would benefit greatly.

“Finally, there are the incorrigibles. Like the Mate and Suzanne, and a few others. Let’s just say that naval vessels and bases need power too.”

Ashley struggled to absorb these new concepts. “But how do you know all those things?” she asked.

“Some are common knowledge on Our Side. The rest… Let’s just say that I’ve been living by my wits, and let it go at that.”

Whitney’s Giggler still stayed off most of the time. She got plenty of personal attention from Suzanne, Liz, even Eve. Eve hated being tickled, but she quickly came to enjoy tickle torturing others, and Whitney was the beneficiary.

Ashley took to taunting them to distract them from her friend. They responded as she expected. Liz and Eve tickled her and Whitney side-by-side, a contest to see who would break her ticklee first. Then they traded ticklees and did it again. Suzanne tickled both at once, with an electric toothbrush in each hand. Afterward, in the slave cell, Ashley joked that if this was a real spaceship, they would be driving it at Warp Factor 10.

Ashley’s ticklish conversations with Rachel continued, it looked like some of the warmth was coming back into the relationship, though Rachel still left Ashley’s hands bound. Rachel told Ashley that she was deeply disturbed by the way things were going aboard the ship. Pirates are notoriously undisciplined, but there had to be limits. The Mate and her cronies were too busy indulging themselves to set any – this operation was becoming more and more slipshod and chaotic the longer it lasted.

The voyage was better than half over, the holds filling up with loot, the jewels with trapped laughter. Their opportunity to escape would soon be gone.

Ashley decided to go for broke.


Chapter 8

Liz had crashed and burned again, two days as a galley slave this time, so Rachel had the watch alone that shift. Liz’s Giggler had just started, she was laughing like mad. Next to Liz, Whitney’s Giggler had her laughing her head off – it was halfway through its cycle. Ashley was on Whitney’s other side, in the chair closest to the door. The ship was running on two girlpower – Ashley’s Giggler had just quit.

Ashley took up her sometime conversation with Rachel, interrupted by Gigglers, waiting for the times when Liz was too busy laughing to pay attention. She drew Whitney into the conversation.

Whitney’s Giggler had just cycled off and Ashley’s had started. Liz kept on laughing at the hands of hers.

“Look, Rachel,” Whitney said. “I used to be crew. I kept my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open. You don’t have any friends aboard, and a few bad enemies. At least once that I know of, you almost ended up in one of these chairs yourself. Yeah, I tried to jump ship. Maybe you should consider doing the same.”

Rachel was suspicious. She wasn’t sure either that Whitney wasn’t a spy. Didn’t matter for who – Suzanne, the Mate, someone outside, it didn’t matter. Rachel knew she was paranoid – all pirates were – but was she paranoid enough?

“You tried, and they caught you. They caught Ashley too – she never had a chance. Even if you had gotten away, what would you have done? Ashley lives here – you’d be alone, no money, no salable skills. You screwed up. Better the devil I know. I’ve been there.”

Liz’s Giggler timed out and Ashley’s started. Ashley sang a ticklish duet with Whitney for a while. Then Ashley’s timed out and it was Liz and Whitney again, laughing side by side.

“It’s gonna bite you on the ass,” Ashley said, continuing the conversation. “You may think you’re doing OK, that you’ve got your niche here in the power room, that what this ship is doesen’t matter. But you’re not as hard as you pretend. You’ve started thinking of us as people, for example, and not just galley slaves.

“You’re different from the others. This life isn’t for you. It was obvious to me from the start – me, the sheltered dumb blonde. The others would have to be blind not to see it too.”

“Thank you, Sigmund Freud,” Rachel said sharply. “You’re so smart, why are you there and I’m here?”

Ashley looked at her sadly. “You know the answer to that – and it’s eating you up.”

“I know y’all talk too much – and I can fix that!”

Rachel took two tools, like paint brushes, off the tool rack on the opposite wall and held one in each hand. She brushed Ashley and Whitney’s soles – side to side, then up and down. Whitney’s sweet spots were the balls of her feet. Ashley didn’t have a sweet spot – her feet were insanely ticklish all over. Both girls threw their heads back and laughed their heads off at the top of their lungs.

Rachel switched to brushing in circles while Ashley and Whitney laughed and laughed. She was an artist with the brushes. She flicked them back and forth across the girls’ toes and soles, up and down from toes to heels and back again, figure eight's on both feet, and then brushed in circles covering both arches and the soles. For Whitney, the last was the worst, because once on every circle it got the sweet spots, where it really, really tickled. But it worked just as well on Ashley – it tickled horribly!

Through her tears of laughter, Ashley saw her friend laughing beside her. Whitney’s face was red, streams of laughter coming from her. Impressive – Rachel was really a virtuoso of tickle torture. Then Rachel concentrated her efforts on the balls of their feet. The tickling bristles flicked side to side, up and down. Ashley and Whitney howled with forced mirth. Both were past being able to struggle, they couldn’t even form a coherent thought. All they could do was laugh – for a very long time.

Finally Rachel stopped. Liz ’s Giggler immediately picked up, supplying one girlpower of steady ticklish energy. It wasn’t enough – she had to engage the shunt that brought stored power on line, inefficient or not.

“All I want to hear out of y’all for the rest of the shift is laughing,” Rachel said.

“Tickle us to death, and it doesen’t change the truth of what we said,” Ashley said, when she had recovered her breath. “Think it over, and let’s talk again.”

The conversation continued on their next shift. Rachel was obviously struggling with her conscience – and it made her angry. Ashley and Whitney really got it good that shift – almost as bad as what they had gotten from Suzanne. They were exhausted from tickle torture when they got back to their cell.

But they had broken through. Next off-day, Rachel took Ashley to her cabin again. After the obligatory fifteen minutes tickle torture for camouflage, she unbound Ashley’s hands for the first time since the escape attempt.

“OK. It’s worth going through Personality Adjustment and Community Service to get out,” Rachel said. “This trip is snakebit – the Navy will probably catch us anyway. Now how do we do it?”

“Keep us on your watch,” Ashley said. “Next time the ship grounds for a raid, freeze Liz and put her in one of the tickle chairs. You and Whitney jump ship and go for help. Leave me in the power room, untied. I’ll tickle the shit out of Liz. It’ll buy you some time.”

Rachel thought that one over. “No,” she said at last. “This is your world, Ashley. Whitney has a better chance if she has a Native Guide. Both of y’all should go together. I’ll stay and hold the fort. As you said, it’ll buy time.”

Rachel uncurled her legs from under her and pulled off her shoes. She put her feet in a surprised Ashley’s lap, grabbed her pillow and clutched it tightly.

“Let’s seal the bargain. Leg lock – you know the drill. My sweet spot’s the same as Eve’s. Tickle me.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“Get on with it!”

Ashley dispensed with finesse and went straight for the sweet spots, tickling Rachel’s arches just in front of the heels. It was too much for Rachel. She collapsed onto her back, still clutching the pillow, as wild uncontrollable ticklish laughter burst out of her. Ashley kept it up, tickling faster now, eased off a little, then to warp speed. It was more than Rachel could bear – she laughed herself breathless.

“OK,” Rachel said when she had her breath back again. “Now let’s get down to details.”


Chapter 9

They had one anxious moment in the next week. Suzanne switched Whitney and Kelly to her shift without asking Rachel – she wanted to give them “extra attention” – substituting Stephanie and Angie in their places. She took Liz as her assistant too. Rachel immediately took Whitney back, but kept Stephanie. Kate too – both sisters were mean as snakes, it didn’t matter to Rachel which one shared her watch. Suzanne got to keep Liz and Kelly – Rachel would allow her that little victory.

Rachel had the power room watch, assisted by Kate, with Eve on watch for training when the ship came in for the raid. They came in hot under four girlpower – Ashley, Whitney, Stephanie and Amanda laughed at the top of their lungs. Power demand dropped back to two – they weren’t maneuvering, but needed two girls to power the cloaking device. They would be there for no more than two hours.

Rachel waited through two Giggler cycles to give the raiding party time to get clear. Whitney’s Giggler had just cycled off, Amanda’s started. Stephanie was laughing like mad as her Giggler’s hands tickled her feet.

Rachel froze Kate and Eve with the snare field and released Ashley and Whitney. “Quick!” she said. “Get their shoes off and help me put them in your chairs!”

They bound Eve and Kate’s hands behind them and put them in the chairs. Rachel left them frozen. It didn’t affect their power output – a tickle laugh is a reflex, unaffected by the paralysis of voluntary muscles.

Rachel handed the girls two shipsuits, forest green and violet.

“These are mine – they’ll fit well enough,” Rachel said. She pulled off her shoes stood there barefoot. “Here, take these too, Ashley – Eve’s won’t fit you. And my snare field wand. Whitney, get Kate’s shoes. Quickly! We don’t have much time!”

When they were ready, Rachel said, “Go – and Godspeed!”

Stephanie’s Giggler timed out, and Kate’s started, forcing streams of ticklish laughter from her. Eve was already laughing – her laughter went off the scale as her Giggler attacked her sweet spots with its brushes.

“Where are you going?” Stephanie asked in a frightened voice. “Please, please, don’t leave me here!”

Ashley stopped in the doorway, came back and squeezed her friend’s shoulder. “We’re going for help, Stephanie. We’ll be back – I promise you! Hang in there – and tell the others!”

“We’ll be OK,” Amanda said. “Get going!”

Speed or stealth would have branded them immediately as suspicious. Ashley and Whitney headed down the corridor, walking normally, as though they were about their lawful occasions. Whitney led – she had been crew aboard, knew her way around. They had almost made it to the portal when…

“Hey! Hold it, you two!” Ashley’s hard-faced abductor said, snatching a wand off her waist. She keyed a belt computer with her other hand.

Whitney fired and froze the woman, but it was too late. A horn blasted from the ship’s PA system – loud, brassy, insistent. Ashley’s aunt had had a Fiat 124 roadster years ago with a horn like that.

“That’s torn it!” Whitney said. “That’s the Mate! Grab her wand and come on!”

They froze two more crew members in the space of 50 yards, fetching up at the inner door of the portal. Ashley palmed the door open, and Whitney fanned her wand across the space. Two more crew members hung frozen in midair when they entered.

“REPEL BOARDERS MAIN PORTAL!” a voice blasted out of the PA, overriding the horn. Not exactly appropriate, Ashley thought, but it conveyed the right location and urgency. Three more women pounded down the corridor toward them, wands ready. Whitney froze the leader and the others went to ground.

“Go!” Ashley shouted. “I’ll hold them off. Get moving!”

Whitney never hesitated, but sprinted toward the outer door of the portal and the brilliant white light outside. She froze one more crew member, a portal guard who was coming back in, on her way out. “Tallyho!” she shouted. “See you later, girlfriend!”

The two remaining crew members in the corridor had been reinforced. They rushed the door, wands ready. Ashley had no idea how to operate the wand – she just pointed it, a bluff that gained her another 30 seconds. Then two of them fired at once, and the snare field took her.

***

The next week passed in a blur of tickle torture. The Mate took charge of the interrogation herself. Ashley laughed and laughed, laughed until her ribs and abs ached, until she thought her toes would fall off, until she thought she could bear no more – then laughed some more.

If anything, Rachel was getting it worse. Her tickle laugh was a clear, musical mezzosoprano, not scratchy at all. Ashley heard it for much of her waking hours. Once, Rachel sat beside her in gray galley slave jersey and shorts, laughing her head off, red faced, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks – the Mate had decided to tickle torture both of them together that day. Rachel’s laughter had an edge of desperation to it – she was very near the end of her endurance.

Ashley heard other ticklish laughter at times. Once, when she was being taken back to the brig, she saw Suzanne laughing her head off while grinning pirates tickled her. Another time, Liz, Kate and Eve were laughing helplessly in adjoining rooms. Apparently suspicion had fallen on them too. She suspected that her friends were getting extra attention down in the power room too. That was too bad, but there was nothing she could do for them.

It ended eventually – the Mate evidently decided that Ashley’s vein of information was mined out. It hadn’t been a total loss, the woman had told Ashley – she and the others had made a significant addition to the ship’s stored energy.

Kate brought Ashley back to the slave cell, freed her hands and left her. Ashley was so exhausted, and so conditioned to the sound of tickle laughter, that what was happening in the room didn’t register right away.

Ashley shuddered and blinked. She saw Rachel, wrapped tightly in a blanket, laughing wildly as Angie and Kelly tickled her feet, scratching and scrabbling the soft soles.

Their tickling fingers picked up speed. They had been practicing on Amanda, and it paid off. Rachel arched her back and laughed her head off.

Rachel laughed like a madwoman as Kelly’s fingernails roamed over one ticklish foot and Angie kept pace on the other. The girls held Rachel’s toes back, drew circles around the balls of her feet, then scratched and scrabbled the soles in the exact center, along the crease. They flicked their nails in Rachel’s arches, producing streams of giggles. They drew circles, squares and other tickling shapes on her heels – Rachel laughed harder, tears of laughter rolling down her cheeks. And then they tickled Rachel’s arches, just in front of the heels, and Rachel’s laughter went off the chart.

“Hey! Stop it!” Ashley yelled. “Leave her alone!”

“Why?” Kelly asked. Neither girl missed a stroke. “She has this coming for what she did to us.” Rachel kept on laughing, her musical laughter filling the room.

“Because I said so!” Ashley said angrily. “Without her help, Whitney would never have gotten away. Didn’t Stephanie and Amanda tell you?”

“Fat lot of good that did us,” Angie said. Rachel laughed wildly as the tickling fingernails flew across her sensitive soles. “She’s gone. We’re still here. We almost got tickled to death last week over this.”

“NOW!” Ashley bellowed.

They stopped and stood up, leaving Rachel breathless and panting on the floor.

“Let… it… be,” Rachel gasped out. “It’s… OK.”

Ashley unrolled her and helped her to a lower bunk – Ashley’s own. “Rest,” she said. “These two won’t bother you again, or the others either.” She scowled at Kelly and Angie. “I’ll see to that.”

The normal watch schedule resumed, Suzanne and Eve standing watch back-to-back with Liz and Kate. Suzanne kept Rachel’s Giggler off for hours at a time, tickling her fiendishly and inventively, the ticklish redhead laughing with wild abandon. Ashley got her share too, laughing helplessly while the woman’s long black nails roamed her soles.

Suzanne and Eve came to the slave cell after their shift most days, and stayed to tickle the girls for hours. Liz and Kate did the same on the opposite shift. They let other crew members join in from time to time. Discipline aboard, never at a very high standard, had completely broken down.

The ship often ran on three girlpower these days, occasionally four. Several times Ashley and her friends were routed out in the middle of their offshift to provide extra girlpower or to relieve tickled-out galley slaves. Twice, all six slaves were on all at once – they briefly got to five girlpower that shift. All of the slaves were exhausted by the time they were returned to the cell – Liz and Kate had relieved them that day with three prisoners from the brig and three crewmembers whose only crime was youth and inexperience.

Their time on the Other Side was coming to a close. Where the hell was Whitney?


Chapter 10

The galley slave schedule now was three and three, supplemented on each shift by three from the brig. Ashley was awakened from a sound sleep by the PA system, the sound of a bell or gong, clanging loudly and insistently.

“What’s that?” Kelly said blearily, still half asleep.

“That’s Action Stations!” Rachel said. “Something’s happening!”

The door burst open. Liz and Kate snatched the girls out of their bunks, bound their hands behind them and hustled them to the power room.

Five girlpower – Angie, Amanda and Stephanie were laughing their heads off, as were Ann and a slender gray-eyed brunette named Megan. Suzanne had Haley out of the last chair, shoved her toward the door, still gasping.

“Don’t worry about your shoes, you silly bitch! Go to your action station!” Suzanne turned to the newcomers. “Get Ashley in that chair! MOVE IT!”

Ashley’s Giggler started immediately – she threw back her head and howled with forced mirth. Through tears of laughter, she saw Rachel substituted for Megan, then Kelly for Ann. The Gigglers were short-cycling – each galley slave got a 30 second break every two and a half minutes. It was an emergency measure – Rachel had told Ashley that it maximized their output, but it couldn’t be sustained for long.

Ashley’s Giggler quit, and she drew long, deep breaths, just like she had been told. She blinked away tears of laughter and saw that Ann was still in the room. The Giggler started back, and once again Ashley laughed her head off. The cycle repeated, 150 seconds on, 30 off, over and over until it all blurred together. The frequent breaks meant that Ashley never managed to zone out – she laughed and laughed in ticklish agony. The big jewel on the end wall shone a brilliant, fiery red.

Then all six were laughing at once, laughing hard, the Gigglers concentrating on their sweet spots. The pirates were trying for the jump – the next minute would decide whether they made it. The jewel flared, too bright to look at.

Stephanie lost it and laughed herself breathless, followed almost immediately by Angie. The long tickle shifts, the extra tickling after hours – they had been tickled beyond their endurance.

“Goddammit!” Suzanne yelled. “We just missed the jump! Get ‘em going again!” Liz overrode the automatic shutdown, and the two girls’ Gigglers started in again.

There was a thump,, felt rather than heard, and the lights went out. The tickling stopped immediately, the powerless Gigglers fell to the floor with a volley of thud’s. The lights came back on, flickered, then went off and stayed off, leaving just the eerie glow of the emergency lights.

Suzanne ran to the tool rack, snatched up six of the electric tooth brushes, tossed one each to Ann, Eve, Liz and Kate.

“We still have a chance!” Suzanne shouted. “Get moving! Ann, you too unless you want to spend the rest of your life doing Community Service! Sweet spots only!” She applied a brush to Rachel’s arch, just in front of the heel, did the same to Ashley next to her. Both girls laughed at the top of their lungs.

Liz attacked the balls of Kelly’s feet with a brush, tickling back and forth, Eve the soft skin under Angie’s toes. Kate went after Stephanie’s heels, Ann the center of Amanda’s soles. Their laughter joined the ticklish chorus, ringing and echoing off the walls.

The PA started again, an odd rising whoop sound, repeated in groups of three – Collision Alarm. They were closing the airtight doors throughout the ship. The horn followed – Repel Boarders. All six girls were past caring, laughing their heads off, the tickling had filled their universe.

A blinding white point appeared in the center of the door, grew to the diameter of a basketball hoop, then disappeared with a flash. A dark figure vaulted through the hole, hit the deck and rolled, came up and fanned a wand across the room. The tickling stopped instantly as the tooth brushes fell from paralyzed hands.

Ashley blinked away tears and gasped for air as more dark-clad people swarmed through the hole, wands ready. Suzanne and the others hung motionless, frozen by the snare field. The first figure retrieved a beret off the deck and settled it on her dark blonde hair at a jaunty angle.

“The Navy’s here!” she said, grinning. “You’re free!”

Whitney!

“Sub-Leftenant Whitney Thorn, at your service,” the girl said. Her grin got broader. “From Her Majesty’s Ship Indefatigable, Captain Pellew commanding.”

Whitney’s navy-blue shipsuit had epaulets and a single gold ring around each cuff, with a loop above the ring on the outside of the sleeve. The badge on the front of her beret was a pair of crossed feathers enclosed in a wreath, topped with a crown.

She turned to another of her party, a dark-eyed woman in her 40’s with streaks of gray in her dark hair. The woman’s whole demeanor exuded competence and leadership. Her shipsuit cuffs had three small gold rosettes with crossed feathers on them – the cap badge was similar, but the wreath was smaller in proportion to the other elements.

“Release those galley slaves, Bosun,” Whitney said. “Let’s get those prisoners in the chairs and get the power restored.”

“Aye aye, Ms. Thorn. YOU LOT! You heard the officer!” The rest of Whitney’s party had already started doing just that. But the Bosun didn’t say that – she was an old hand, one who would never embarass an officer, even one as junior as Whitney.

One of the naval ratings released Ashley from her chair and touched a wand to her bound wrists. The bracelets came apart, then expanded again to silvery hoops and dropped off her wrists to the deck.

“Leave ‘em,” the woman said. “You won’t need ‘em again.”

“That one was crew,” Whitney said, indicating Rachel to the naval ratings. “Leave her hands bound behind her back. The others are OK – they were kidnapped. I’m sorry, Rachel, but that’s the way it has to be.”

“It’s not the first time, probably won’t be the last,” Rachel said. “I’ll live.”

Whitney keyed a belt comp and spoke to the air. “Bridge, Team 5.” Must be wearing a throat mike and ear bug, Ashley thought.

Whitney listened, then continued. “Bridge, Team 5 is in control of the power room. I say again, Team 5 is in control of the power room. Orders?”

She listened again, for a longer time. “Aye aye. Team 5 out.”

Whitney turned to the Bosun. “You heard that, I’m sure.” The Bosun nodded. “I’ve been ordered to take the galley slaves aboard Indefatigable, and then to report to the Captain. You’re in command here. I’ll take Jeram and Varey.”

Bosun Jane Gillam had been in the Navy longer than her officer had been alive. Her poker face wasn’t as good as she sometimes thought, though. Ashley saw the thoughts displayed fleetingly across the woman’s face. This is a fine young officer, Bosun Gillam was thinking, with the emphasis on young. She can be forgiven her enthusiasm, her belaboring of the obvious.

“Aye aye,” she said. “We can handle this just fine, Ms. Thorn.”

Rachel grinned her crooked grin and walked over to Suzanne, now strapped into a tickle chair. “Start on this one,” she told the Bosun. “Sweet spot’s under her toes.”

The rating at Suzanne’s feet did just that, scrabbling her nails in the sweet spot. Suzanne laughed at the top of her lungs.

“BELAY THAT!” the Bosun bellowed.

“No, let her keep going,” Whitney said. “It’ll help you recalibrate the Gigglers, once you get them going again. For that matter, start on the other four as well. Send the excess energy to the power banks.”

Jane Gillam nodded curtly and turned to her team. “Right. You heard the officer,” she said. “And nobody told you to stop working!”

“This one here,” Rachel said, walking over to Eve, “tickle her arches just in front of the heels. The little blonde, the balls of her feet. These other two, tickle the middle of their soles, along the crease.”

Eve, Ann, Liz and Kate were laughing along with Suzanne as Whitney left with her charges. Laughing hard! It was music to Ashley’s ears.

Ashley checked out the naval ratings detailed off to escort (guard?) her and her friends. Jennifer Jeram was about 30, a quiet, competent-looking woman with auburn hair and brown eyes. Alison Varey was an impish-looking blue-eyed brunette, younger than Ashley. Their uniforms were similar to Whitney’s, except that they lacked the cuff braid and their beret badges were uncrowned, unwreathed crossed feathers. Jeram had three inverted red chevrons on her left sleeve. On her right sleeve was a shoulder-flash, HMS Indefatigable, in gold, and red crossed-feathers opposite where the chevrons were on the left. Varey’s uniform was without insignia except for the shoulder-flash and crossed-feathers on her left sleeve.

The galley slaves passed through the ship with Whitney and the two naval ratings. They passed little knots of disconsolate prisoners sitting on the deck, hands bound behind them, guarded by other grinning ratings. They saw Cheryl Amarger and Carol Salva, the pirate Captain and Mate, frozen in a snare field – they were being floated out the main portal, presumably to be interrogated aboard the cruiser.

They crossed over. As they left Indefatigable’s portal, Whitney and her ratings paused, as if listening to their ear bugs. A cheer broke out throughout the ship, joined by Alison Varey.

Varey blushed. “Sorry, Ms. Thorn,” she said.

“You’ve earned the right, Varey,” Whitney replied. She turned to the galley slaves. “Signal from Captain Cochrane aboard Imperieuse – the landing party took the pirates’ base. They got ‘em all!”

Base? Landing party? Imperieuse? This was getting more and more confusing, Ashley thought.

Whitney said, “I’ll see you later – mustn’t keep the Captain waiting. Jeram, take the redhead and turn her over to the Master-at-Arms. Varey, take the others to the Purser. Get them kitted out and assigned quarters.”

“Orl right, come along you lot, ‘op to it,” Varey said.

In marked contrast to the down-at-the-heels pirate ship, the cruiser was shipshape. The ceiling illumination was uniformly bright, the walls were scrubbed, the deck covering was clean and in good repair. The scent in the air – ever so slight – was reminiscent of an alpine meadow.

Varey took them to the Purser, waited while they were issued naval shipsuits without insignia and shipshoes like her own. Unlike the borrowed clothing and shoes Ashley had used in her escape attempt, these fit like they had been made for her – which indeed they had. But after so long in jersey, shorts and bare feet, the coverall and shoes felt odd and confining.

The young rating escorted them to a compartment and palmed the door open. It looked a lot like their former cell.

“This ‘ere’s your new ‘ome, ladies,” the girl said. “Standard layout – computer terminal ‘ere, reader there, crapper through that door. Now ‘ave a nice day!”

She left, and the door closed behind her. Ashley tested it – locked. They didn’t seem to be prisoners – not really – but neither were they guests.

Ashley sighed. They were already infinitely better off. “Let’s get some rest,” she said.


Chapter 11

The galley slaves had learned to take advantage of any opportunity to rest – they were dozing in the bunks when the cabin door opened again.

“Shake a leg!” Whitney called as she came in the door. “Bring Griffin in, Varey.” To the former galley slaves, she said, “It’s time for an explanation. Afterward, I’m taking you to see the Captain.”

Young Alison Varey, armed with a snare field wand, brought Rachel into the cabin. Rachel’s coverall was orange. There was a large blue arrow head, oriented vertically, on front and back – it was somewhat broader than it was long. She was barefoot, her hands bound behind her back.

Rachel grinned at the others. “Color doesen’t suit me,” she said, looking down at herself. “I’d prefer something in green. Couldn’t beat the price though.”

Ashley noticed that Whitney was armed too. Whitney dismissed the young naval rating and freed Rachel’s hands.

“OK, gather round,” Whitney said. “Hear me out – I’ll take questions when I’ve finished.

“First of all, as I’m sure you’ve all figured out by now, I am a Queen’s Officer,” Whitney continued. “The primary mission of Her Majesty’s Navy here on the Other Side is the suppression of piracy. Unfortunately, we can’t catch them all, but we do try. We try especially hard when slavery is involved.

“The Navy has known for some time, without proof, that Chatouille was a pirate and a slaver. But Cheryl Amarger is – was, I should say – bold and competent. She got in and out quickly, and unloaded her galley slaves as soon as she returned to Our Side. We were never able to catch her in the act. The rest of her cargo, as far as anyone could prove, was entirely legitimate. By all appearances, Chatouille was just another merchant vessel going about her lawful occasions.

“Recently, we received information – never mind how – that she had established a base of operation here on the Other Side. Someplace inhabited by bloody wogs with rags wrapped round their heads, who treat women like cattle anyway. Other pirates began to use it. It was a profitable little sideline for her, and a major headache for us.

“Information is the key to success in any military operation, and especially so when dealing with pirates. I volunteered to sign aboard Chatouille as a crew member. Once the ship was here on the Other Side, I would gather information, escape, and make contact with our local agents. We could then raid that base, capture any pirates there, and leave a reception committee to greet new arrivals. If my information was fresh enough, we might catch Chatouille too.

“So you really were a spy!” Stephanie said. “We tickle tortured you, thought we forced you to tell us the truth. You denied it even after we thought we broke you. You must be pretty tough.”

“You did break me,” Whitney replied. “I would have told you anything to stop the tickling – Ashley is one of the best ticklers I’ve ever met. You just didn’t ask the right question.”

“Anyway, they caught me trying to leave the ship. You all know the next part. Ashley – and Rachel, give her credit – helped me to escape. I got lucky, was able to contact an agent two days after I got clear. The two ships on station here – mine and Imperieuse – were able to catch Chatouille and clean out the pirate base too.

“So here we are,” Whitney concluded. “You’re free, the pirates aren’t, and we’ll probably get more of them as other pirate ships come in to the base. End of story. Questions?”

“What’s next?” Ashley asked. Somehow she had become spokeswoman for the whole group. “Will you return us to our homes? What if we tell our story to the media?”

“We will, and you won’t,” Whitney said. “We can return you to the instant you were kidnapped. It takes a big expenditure of ticklish energy, but–” she continued in a dry tone “–that’s something we now have in abundance. To observers on the ground, your kidnapping and return will seem to be a single event. Who would believe your tale of six months as ticklish galley slaves?”

Ashley thought it over. Whitney was right – not even the National Snooper would buy that one. They would be laughed at if they even tried.

“What about me?” Amanda asked. “Will you drop me on the beach near Buffalo again, or can I go back with Ashley and the others?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to go back to Buffalo – but we can put you there now instead of four months back,” Whitney replied. “From what you’ve said, it’s not likely that anyone missed you for those four months.”

Amanda’s eyes teared up – that comment came too close to the mark for comfort. “But they’re my friends! The only real friends I’ve ever had!”

“It’s not just a matter of want, Amanda,” Whitney said. “Between the time the others were abducted, and you and Eve were, you had a physical presence in your world. If you go back farther than your abduction, there will be two of you at once. If you meet your other self, there’s danger of creating a causation loop. Those give the physicists headaches!”

“Oh, that’s what it’s called!” Amanda said. “The sci-fi stories always call it a time travel paradox. Well, don’t worry about it – there already is a causation loop. I met myself three times in the two months before the pirates grabbed me. Had a lot of fun too – fortunately, I’ve always enjoyed my own company.”

“WHAT? Oh shit!” Whitney said, a horrified look on her face.

“You met yourself, Amanda?” Kelly asked. Angie looked as horrified as Whitney – like Amanda, she was a sci-fi reader. Rachel just grinned – she was enjoying this immensely.

This is getting more confusing all the time, Ashley thought. Let’s cut to the chase.

“Quiet, everybody!” Ashley said. “Let’s figure this out. Our cellmate here – before the pirates grabbed her, she was “Mandy”. Now, she’s “Amanda”. When did Mandy meet Amanda, and what did they do when they were together?”

“The first time was in Cincinnati, about two months before I was abducted. Amanda showed up at Mandy’s place on a Saturday night and stayed over until the next weekend.”

She was getting into the story now, enjoying herself. “The second time was in Cincinnati too, or it started there anyway. Amanda and Mandy took a road trip together – never mind what we did.”

“And the third? Ashley prompted.

“I was abducted on a Friday night, Saturday morning, after I got off work at Mickey Rat’s. Amanda met up with Mandy at her – my – job on Wednesday night, right at closing time. She – I – came home with me and stayed until Friday afternoon. Told me to take a walk on the beach with Eve after we got off work.”

“You set Eve up!” Angie said accusingly.

“Yup. Eve wasn’t very likeable, even then.”

“Eve had it coming,” Ashley said. True enough – Eve had shown her true colors aboard the pirate ship.

“You knew you were going to be abducted?” Stephanie demanded. “You – Mandy – whoever! – didn’t warn you?”

“Amanda said that Mandy was in for an adventure, type unspecified, and wouldn’t say any more. Mandy – I – didn’t worry. After all, Amanda – I – was there, wasn’t she?” Amanda puzzled. “Or is it, wasn’t I? Damn, now I’m getting confused.”

“We were scared out of our minds! They were tickling me to death!” Kelly said indignantly. “And you didn’t say anything about this? Not even to ease our minds?”

“Would you have believed me?” Amanda asked.

Kelly opened her mouth again, then closed it again. “N… No, I guess not,” she said.

“Well, there you have it,” Amanda said.

Whitney had been listening with ever greater alarm. This was too much – it required expertise far beyond any she possessed. “Stay where you are, all of you!” she said, and ran out the door, locking it behind her.

“What did the two of you – the two of you – do, those times you spent together?” Rachel asked after Whitney left.

Amanda grinned. “They say you can’t tickle yourself. We could, though – and we did. A lot. Kinda fun if you’re into that sort of thing. There’s never any question where the sweet spots are, or which tickling techniques work the best.”

“And speaking of which–” Amanda stood, walked over to where Kelly was sitting on a lower bunk. She sat next to Kelly and said, “We have some time to kill, I think.”

Amanda pulled off her shoes and swung her bare feet up into Kelly’s lap.

“Will you do the honors?”

***

Whitney came back for them, re-bound Rachel’s wrists and conducted them to the Captain’s day cabin, just off the bridge. Ashley caught a glimpse onto the bridge, saw a dozen or so women in blue doing incomprehensible things at various keypads and monitor screens. A blonde woman in her 30’s with three gold rings on her sleeves sat in a swivel chair in the middle. It was nothing at all like the USS Enterprise.

A harried-looking woman in her mid-30’s came out of the Captain’s cabin as they approached. She had light brown hair, dark eyes and three gold rings on her sleeves. On each sleeve, instead of the loop above the uppermost ring, was a stylized laughing female face. Whitney saluted – the woman returned the salute in a distracted manner without breaking stride.

Whitney knocked.

“Enter!” a voice said in response.

Whitney herded them inside, then entered and walked smartly up to the woman behind the desk. She came to attention on a three-count and saluted palm outward.

“Sub-Leftenant Thorn reporting as ordered, Captain!”

The Captain gravely returned the salute. She was in her early 40’s, with dark blonde hair going gray and wintry gray eyes. Her cuff was circled by four gold rings, the upper one topped with a loop on the outside of the sleeve. There could be no doubt that she was in command. Whitney might look like this in 25 years or so, thought Ashley.

“At ease,” the Captain said. “Be seated, if you please – all of you.” She touched a keypad – chairs extruded from the deck. Whitney whipped off her beret and stuffed it under her left epaulet.

“I am Captain Evelyn Pellew,” the Captain said. “I command this ship. And I am also the senior officer on this station.”

The Captain continued, “Commander McAndrew informs me that Ms. Mason’s causation loop will close and damp itself out when she meets with her younger self in accordance with her own memory of those meetings. It seems that I must release her with the rest of you, two months before she left.” The Captain frowned. “That would seem to negate both causation and free will – but then I am neither physicist nor theologian. My Chief Engineer is not overly concerned. Let it be.”

Ashley recalled a story by Robert A. Heinlein in a book that her friend Morgan Ernst had given her. The situation was similar to their own. What was the title? “All You Zombies”, that was it! Time paradoxes gave the physicists and theologians headaches – but as in the story, this was a problem in engineering. “Close enough” was sufficient.

“We of the Navy take an extremely dim view of piracy,” Captain Pellew said. “More so, I dare say, than our lords and masters at Eastminster, because we see the consequences at first hand. That we achieve the results we do, with the limited resources we have available, speaks well for the quality and dedication of our people.

“Ms. Thorn volunteered to gather information aboard Chatouille and report. Unfortunately, she was caught trying to leave the ship. She is a competent young officer – I would like to think that she would have escaped on her own, given time, but perhaps not.

“If Ms. Thorn had been unable to escape from Chatouille, all of you young ladies–” she indicated the former galley slaves with a wave of her hand “–would have spent many years supplying ticklish energy to various illegal enterprises. You have been exceptionally fortunate.

“But effort brings its own good fortune. Your efforts provided significant assistance to Ms. Thorn – especially yours, Ms. Curtis. Her timely report ensured the success of this operation. In a sense, you assisted in your own rescue.”

The Captain looked at Whitney, then at each of the other five abductees. She seemed satisfied with what she saw – she nodded, and continued.

“Ms. Thorn has already informed you that you that the first four abductees will be returned to the moment of your abduction. Ms. Mason, too, it seems. That will be in about 12 hours.

“But first, I would like to make you an offer, Ms. Curtis,” the Captain said. “Ms. Thorn’s report said that you demonstated outstanding leadership qualities. You are adaptable, intelligent, decisive, determined. You have patience and fortitude, rare qualities both in one your age.

“Here’s my offer: As senior officer on distant station, I have the authority to enlist you as an Acting Officer Cadet. If confirmed by the Admiralty – and I have no doubt that you will be – your status will become permanent.”

Ashley burst out laughing. Captain Pellew scowled. Whitney was scandalized – she opened her mouth to shout. But the Captain cut her off with a wave of her hand.

Ashley wound down to giggles and quit. “I’m sorry, Captain,” she said. “No offense intended. It’s just that your offer surprised me. Back home, all I’ve ever been was eye candy – the Golden Girl, dumb as a bag of hammers.”

“Back home, you never had occasion to use your better qualities, so they never manifested themselves,” the Captain said. “They were there inside you, just the same. You would be an asset to Her Majesty’s Navy, and to this ship. I would be pleased to have you aboard.”

Ashley hesitated. The work was important. It would be an adventure, and she would serve with her friend Whitney. But…

“I’m sorry, Captain Pellew,” she said. “There’s my mother to think about, and how would my friends explain my disappearance? Thank you for the offer, but I just couldn’t.”

“Very well. I’m a bit disappointed at losing a fine young recruit, but I understand. You and your friends will be returned together.”

The Captain looked over at Rachel. “And you, Griffin – what am I to do with you?”

Rachel grinned her crooked grin. “I’m a little fish, Cap’n – throw me back.”

“Silence!” Whitney hissed, scandalized again.

“No, Ms. Thorn, the question was rhetorical, but her suggestion has merit,” Captain Pellew said. She glanced down at a monitor display on her desktop. “Griffin, the letter of the law says that you should stand trial for piracy. You would be convicted, of course. I think it likely that you would be sentenced to Minor Personality Adjustment and two to three years of Community Service.

“But… In my judgement, that would be a miscarriage of justice. The assistance you provided Ms. Thorn in her escape indicates to me that you have rehabilitated yourself. I’m inclined to release you instead.”

“Put me off with Ashley and the others, Captain, and Amanda with me,” Rachel said. “Best place for us – we’ll fit right in.”

Captain Pellew thought about it for a while, entered a note into her keypad, and then said, “So ordered. Ms. Thorn, keep Griffin with the others. And now, is there anything else I can do for you before you leave, a way to show our appreciation?”

The girls huddled together, whispering. They drew Whitney in, then Rachel. It grew heated. Once, Whitney said something sharp, glancing over at the Captain, and drew a sharp response from Angie and Kelly. Rachel laughed, delighted at some suggestion, and even some of the others started giggling like naughty little girls. Finally, they resumed their seats.

“Captain, with your permission, I’ll speak for them,” Whitney said. “Enlist Ashley – Ms. Curtis – and her friends as Short Service Naval Volunteers. Term of service at your discretion – say, the next ten hours. Assign them to me, and detail us to take custody of Griffin. Then send us to stand a power room watch with the prize crew aboard Chatouille.”

Captain Pellew looked sharply at Whitney, who looked back blandly, as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Finally the Captain smiled. “Very well – they’ve earned it.” She keyed a control, and a stack of five – coins? – rose out of the desk top.

“You five,” she said. “Stand and take the Queen’s Shilling. Then raise your right hands and repeat after me: I – state your name – do solemnly swear and attest…”

***

The Gigglers were working again when they got to the power room. Eve and Suzanne were laughing their heads off, the big jewel was glowing like campfire coals. The officer in charge – two gold rings on her cuffs, with a stylized laughing female face above – read their orders and scratched her head.

“This is highly irregular, Ms. Thorn,” she said. “A junior officer, and not even a power tech. Five Volunteers, a prisoner…”

“Captain’s orders, Ms. Fraser,” Whitney replied.

“I see that. But…”

“I’ve served with these people before, in this power room.” Whitney came to attention and saluted. “I relieve you.”

Jeanie Fraser returned the salute. “You have the power room.”

Suzanne’s Giggler timed out and Liz’s started. Eve and Liz howled with forced mirth while Suzanne gasped for air. Kate and Ann waited, resigned.

Rachel’s hands were still bound behind her. She padded over to Whitney, sitting at the control pulpit.

“You’ll want to generate excess tickle energy to recharge the power banks,” Rachel said. “Engage the shunt – that one. Giggler controls are there,” she indicated with her chin and grinned. “No doubt you’ll want to check their calibration…”

The Gigglers quit, retracted their arms and stowed themselves. Kelly started in on Suzanne, tickling under and between her toes. Amanda joined in, tickling Eve on her arches, just in front of her heels. Ashley picked Ann, flicking and scratching the balls of the girl’s feet. Stephanie and Angie took Liz and Kate – they held the sisters’ toes back, made Peace signs and scratched their soles in the exact center along the crease, both feet at once. All five laughed at the top of their lungs, red faced, tears of laughter running down their cheeks. The big jewel flared brilliant red.

Rachel walked over to the vacant chair and sat. It immediately bound her to itself with its tentacles.

“Come on, Whitney,” Rachel said, grinning again. “Tickle the shit out of me. You know you wa– HAHAHA-HAHA-HAHAHAHA!” she laughed as Whitney’s tickling fingernails flicked and danced across her ticklish soles.

Ashley heard Rachel’s laughter, glanced over, saw her friend tickling the redhead’s soles. She really had nothing against Ann – and anyway, they had plenty of time. She stopped tickling the little blonde and walked over next to Whitney.

Whitney drew figure-eight’s on Rachel’s sensitive heels, bringing forth a stream of ticklish laughter. She traced circles, squares and other tickling shapes on Rachel’s arches – the laughter was louder, wilder now. And then she went to work, scrabbling her fingernails all over the bottoms of Rachel’s feet, toes to heels and back. Rachel bucked and laughed her head off.

Whitney’s mastery of technique was pretty good, Ashley saw, but it still could do with improvement. She made a few helpful suggestions. Rachel’s eyes got big – You fink! they seemed to say. But forming the words was beyond Rachel’s ability, she was laughing much too hard for that.

Whitney held back Rachel’s toes and tickled under them, then held the toes apart and tickled the soft skin in between as the redhead laughed and laughed. Her fingernails flicked across the soles, the arches, the heels, and back again. Then onto the sweet spots, and Rachel howled with ticklish laughter, laughing at the top of her lungs.

Suzanne and Eve, Liz and Kate were all still laughing their heads off. Ashley winked at Rachel and turned away. Time to tickle Ann some more, she thought. My work here is done.


Chapter 12

Finally, they were going home. They waited in Indefatigable’s main portal for the signal, all six of them, with Whitney, the Bosun and two ratings for company. They weren’t allowed to take anything with them from the ship – no evidence for any story they might be inclined to tell – so all were nude under their naval issue robes, and barefoot.

Ashley had finessed the rule a little. Pirates and Navy both often picked up magazines and so forth from the Other Side, fashion magazines mostly, the better to put together disguises for those who made stealth landings. Whitney had turned up a dog-eared copy of American Bride. Ashley had torn out two pages and used the images of white wedding gowns as stationery. She had given one page each to Rachel and Amanda, closely written on both sides.

“PREPARE TO DISEMBARK!” the PA said. “TWO MINUTE WARNING!”

Whitney handed a rolled scroll to Ashley. “Open it,” she said.

It was the sort of thing one could download from any number of internet sites. It read:

THE UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS
Starfleet Command

Know all by these presents that

Ensign Ashley Jean Curtis

Having honourably completed her term of Service in Starfleet, is granted this

Honourable Discharge

from Starfleet, with all Rights, Privileges and Benefits appertaining thereto, and
with the thanks of a grateful Federation for her Dedicated and Faithful Service.

Given under my hand this 15th day of October, Stardate 1951.12.

Evelyn Pellew
Captain
USS Indefatigable


H. M. Navy had no such rank as “Ensign”, of course, though Whitney’s rank was the equivalent. Ashley’s middle name was her grandmother’s – she never used it. Whitney must have gotten it from one of the others.

Ashley looked up from the certificate at Whitney, tears in her eyes. “Thank you,” she said. “You don’t know what this means to me.”

“I think I do,” her friend answered. “It was Captain Pellew’s idea. She said it was the least we could do for you, since we couldn’t give you the official recognition you deserve.”

“Will I ever see you again?” Ashley asked, wiping her tears on her sleeve.

“DISEMBARK ON MY MARK! ONE MINUTE!”

Whitney hugged her. “Never say never.”

Ashley and the others slipped off their robes and stood nude in the portal. Whitney squeezed Ashley’s shoulder.

The portal opened. Blinding white light flooded in.

“FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, MARK!”

Ashley stepped over the threshold into the light. Home, she thought. We’re going home!

She felt wind-whipped grit sting her legs, concrete under her feet, then carpet. She was back inside the room, six months – or a few seconds – after she had left.

The light was blinding. Ashley sidestepped and counted the others off by touch as they entered, then kicked the door shut. There was a scramble as Angie, Kelly and Stephanie threw on their nightgowns. Rachel and Angie grabbed sweat pants, t-shirts, flip-flops – clothing where size wasn’t critical.

Ashley dumped her purse and emptied her wallet. “Here, take it!” she told Rachel, pressing the bills into the redhead’s hands. “It’s a little over $100.00 – all I have with me.”

“I can’t–“ Rachel started.

“Pay me when you see me. Now go!”

Rachel hugged her, stuffed the money into a pocket, then ran into the bathroom and forced the window open. Outside, car alarms were going off, and every dog within earshot was howling. Ashley heard a siren, and a car engine, a big one, working hard. It was still impossibly bright.

Rachel tossed both sets of flip-flops out the window, cupped her hands and boosted Amanda over the sill. Rachel stepped into Ashley’s cupped hands, said “See you around, girlfriend!” and she was out the window and gone.

The brilliant light disappeared. Kelly opened the door and went outside, followed by the others. Ashley realized suddenly that she was still nude, grabbed up a robe and followed.

Indefatigable was a tiny point of light, still too bright to look at, dwindling rapidly into the sky. The motel was lit up like Christmas, the occupants milling around on the sidewalk that surrounded the parking lot, chattering like magpies. A police car made the turn into the parking lot in a four-wheel power drift, lights and siren going, and screeched to a halt with all four tires smoking.

Ms. Bartol and Mrs. Driscoll had come out, like everyone else. Ms. Bartol spotted the girls. “Are you OK?” she asked.

“Sure!” Ashley said, a little manic. “Couldn’t be better!”

The sky was brightening to the east by the time the excitement died down. The girls got through Saturday on Diet Mountain Dew and determination. Ashley found it difficult to concentrate on the day’s activities, and the others were in about the same state. Ms. Bartol and Mrs. Driscoll put it down to the excitement and lack of sleep the night before. But the reality was that what they were doing just didn’t seem all that important any more.

Sunday was a little better – the girls had gotten their act together. But Ashley was having second thoughts about her future plans. Somehow, State University wasn’t right any more, and a modeling career – her backup plan – held no attraction at all.

Maybe the Coast Guard, she thought on the drive back to Tieson City. The USCG mission was life safety and law enforcement. Furthermore, unlike the U. S. Navy, all Coast Guard positions were open to women. She would have to visit their website, talk to a recruiter.

She blew her mother off when she got home, pretending exhaustion, and went to her room. She lay awake, thinking, for a long time before sleep finally came.

School was worse. Ashley had been away six months, the material might as well have been Greek. And after her adventure, it was tough becoming a kid again, with all the restrictions and petty indignities that status entailed. She came perilously close to rebellion – but she had learned patience, and it passed. She would too – probably.

All four girls had been changed by their ordeal, but Ashley most of all. She was a grown woman, a veteran, no longer the carefree and somewhat ditzy girl-child she had been before the road trip. Her mother noticed it, and her best friend Morgan Ernst too. Maybe she’d tell them about it some day – but not now. Not now.

She was in the food court at Squander Mall the following Saturday, drinking a Fourbucks Coffee. Her mind was a thousand miles away, her eyes unfocused. Her framed discharge certificate, wrapped in brown paper, was on the table. When she got it home, she planned to hang it in a place of honor.

Another presence at the table. She looked up…

Rachel wore a white peasant blouse with jeans and sandals, her hair in a pony tail. She grinned her crooked grin and passed an envelope across to Ashley. “Paid in full,” she said.

Ashley looked inside – a $100 bill, a ten, three singles.

“How did you know where to find me?” Ashley asked.

“Your mom told me you were here. You gave me your address, remember? I went by your house, gave your mom a shuck and jive, showed her the letter you gave me on the ship. I pay my debts.”

“And Amanda?”

“We hitched a ride to Cincinnati,” Rachel said. “Went to her place there. I couldn’t take it for more than a day – two of her, talking in echo’s, finishing each other’s sentences. That’s when they bothered to talk to each other at all – most times, it seemed like they could communicate without talking. When I left, they were tickling the shit out of each other. Themselves. Whatever. It freaked me out.”

Two Amanda’s – Vicky and Veronica Righetti were sometimes very much like that, thought Ashley. They were identical twins, and very close – sometimes they almost seemed telepathic. It was pretty disorienting when they played those games. What would it be like if both minds were the same, separated only by six months time? She shuddered – probably like a trip through the looking-glass.

“So what do you plan to do, now that you’re here?”

Vicky and Veronica Righetti got up from a table halfway across the food court. They moved with pantherish grace, two dark-haired girls with dancer’s figures, brown eyes, dark brows and lashes. They were in their go-to-work clothes – silky blouses with name tags, dark slacks, sensible shoes. Probably on their break from their sales jobs at the department store here.

Rachel noticed the direction of Ashley’s gaze. “Those the twins you told me about?” she asked.

“Yes,” Ashley replied. “The very same. Pretty, aren’t they?”

“Ticklish?”

“Very – or so I’m told.”

Rachel whistled a few lines from “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”.

“Then we’ll have to pay them a visit, won’t we?”


***THE END***

GOOOOOOOD!!!

You wrote such a long fic... man this will take a while jeez... I'm impressed must be one of the longest stories on the forum ever!

Fabulous!

Excellent in all respects. Fabulous!

Great imagination! Very well thought out and interesting. I wonder if that ship's available for summer cruises?

stunned

Still grinning from ear to ear. Thank you for the time and energy you put into this, and for being this good at it!
Ahhhh, the abstract lust, my eternal companion. This masterpiece has kept me up way past my bedtime, if you can't tell.

Great as always, best series on the forums in my opinion. I thought the Horatio Hornblower refrences were hilarious.