Sablesword
TMF Master
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2001
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Here is part 5 of the "Hyperticklish" saga
Hyperticklish, part 5
by Sablesword
Kurt and May Bonner were weary and sweat-stained as they came into the captain's day-cabin. Captain Manning waved them to seats, in which they promptly collapsed.
"We were sabotaged, skipper," Kurt said without preamble. "I found logic bombs in the software and explosives in the hardware, and they were all behind inspection seals. We'll need a forensic expert to provide proof for court, but if I had to guess, I'd guess that it was that weasel of a port inspector we had hassles with before we left on this voyage. Anyway, the mirth-cans aren't just dead; they're smashed flat. The hyperdrive, on the other hand, is just mostly dead. Maybe we could give you 0.1%"
"The normal-space engines are shot, too," May Bonner added. "We have maneuvering thrusters, for what that's worth. And you already know this, but there's a HYNA in this system. That will really mess up our repairs and recalibrations, before we can limp to the next star."
Kurt frowned at his wife's mention of the hyperspace-normalspace anomaly. "A HYNA? That blows my next question. There's won't be an inhabited planet in this system, not with hyperspace fountaining up into normal here. Not even a backslid one where they barely remember how to make copper wire."
Although Captain Manning wasn't sweat-stained, he looked, if anything, even more weary than the Merryweather's engineering officer and first mate. His grin temporarily banished the haggard look from his face. "Would you believe? There is an inhabited planet here, sharing the system with the HYNA. Only case of one I've ever heard of." His grin vanished. "It is a backslid place, though - or at least I haven't been able to contact them. And then there's the problem of getting there with the n-space engines out of commission. Can we make it there with just the thrusters?" he asked the first mate. "It will take months, I know, but can we do it at all?"
"Maybe," May said. "I'm not optimistic, though. And as you said, even if we can do it, it will take months. Now what are you grinning about, Kurt?"
"An inhabited planet in the same system as a HYNA," the engineer chortled. "For once a HYNA is going to work for us. It will let us use the hyper-engines in normal space, and even at 0.1% we can still make orbit around the skipper's planet, easy."
"With the cans gone?" May asked.
"Well, we'll need three feeds of live mirth, but we can do it."
"Three feeds?" May looked from her grinning husband to her grinning captain. "All right then, but you don't have to look so happy about it. You know how much I hate being tickled. Better than rotting in deep space, though."
All six members of the Merryweather's company gathered in the Catalyst room. The three females: May, Ming, and Princess Cecilia, lay on the couches, stripped to bras and panties and held fast by the energy stocks. The three males stood by the women's feet: Kurt by May's, Frank by Ming's, and Captain Manning by Cecilia's. Three tickle-bots floated nearby, waiting to take over once the initial manual tickling had concluded.
In setting up this operation up, Kurt had emphasized the importance of synchronizatio and both Frank and Ming had supported him. So Captain Manning, feather in hand, prepared to give a good old-fashioned countdown. "Are you ready, Kurt?"
"Excuse me, Captain Manning," Princess Cecilia interrupted. "I would ask that we continue address our esteemed engineer as 'Sir Kurt.' I know that we're in a desperate circumstance, but I'm sure we would prefer to remember that we kept to the proprieties, afterwards."
Captain Manning bowed slightly. "As you wish, Your Highness. Sir Kurt, are you ready?"
"Yes captain. I am."
"Sir Frank, are you ready?"
"Aye aye Sir!"
"Dame Ming, Dame May, Princess Cecilia?"
Two of the women nodded. Dame May muttered "Not hardly," but the others ignored her.
"Very good," the captain said. "I'll give the countdown: Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one... Now!"
The tips of three feathers touched three right soles, stroking across three insteps. Three feminine voices giggled involuntarily. Then the initial synchronized stroke gave way to human intuition as each man applied his expertise to tickling the female feet held exposed and vulnerable before him. According to individual whim, experience, and instinct, they applied feathers, fingers, plastic knobbies, and the other tools of shipboard tickling.
Lying in the center couch, Princess Cecilia laughed and squirmed as Captain Manning cultivated the sensitivity of her soles. The energy stocks had been adjusted so that she could not clench her toes, and so she could only giggle as he lightly explored the sensitive spaces between them. And now the tickle-bot moved forward to replace Captain Manning. A dozen appendages extended to spider across her now-sensitized soles, sending wonderful tickle-sensations shooting up through her. Soft buffer-wheels buffed her insteps, and rubbery probes tweaked the tips of her toes.
Squirming and giggling, engulfed in a haze of tickle-sensations, Cecilia was only vaguely aware of the three male crewmembers as they clustered around the workstation. She was somewhat more aware of the laughter pouring out of Dame Ming to her left and Dame May to her right, as the tickle-bots probed and teased the vulnerable soles of the other two women. Dame Ming seemed to be enjoying her torment even more than Princess Cecilia, but Dame May sounded like she was suffering: She moaned and cursed between the bouts of hysterics that her 'bot inflicted on her.
A shouted obscenity, repeated three times, cut through Princess Cecilia's tickle-drunkenness. It had been Sir Frank who had spoken. Captain Manning ordered "All Stop!" and the tickle-bots withdrew, allowing the three women to calm down. But the energy stocks still held them in place.
"What is it?" Dame Ming asked. "What went wrong, skipper?"
"The live mirth wasn't getting piped through," the captain answered.
Sir Kurt expanded on this, explaining at length that there was a colorfully blasphemous kink in the imaginatively scatological system, and that they had an elaborately blasphemous, scatological, and obscene chance of fixing it.
"Don't use such goddamn bad language Kurt," Dame May told him. "It doesn't help."
"Sorry." Sir Kurt left the workstation to walk over to his wife's side.
"I don't think it's that bad." Sir Frank frowned and punched some commands into the system. "No, here it is: The meta-files are corrupted. Look, skipper, the hardware is all OK, at least up to the point where it enters the cans. It's just the corrupt meta-files."
Captain Manning leaned over for a closer look at the display. "What about the backups?"
Sir Frank punched in some more commands, and muttered his obscenity for a fourth time. "I was afraid of this. The backups are corrupted too."
"Shit!" Dame May said with feeling.
"It's OK, honey," Sir Kurt stroked his wife's hair. "If it's just the meta-files, we can rebuild them easy."
"It'll take days. And it's only 'easy' if you're not the one in the couch."
"It will take six sessions of four to six hours each," Sir frank said from the workstation. "Three days, unless the captain wants to rush it." He looked at Captain Manning.
"No. No need to rush it. Get it set up, though; we might as well start right away." He went over to the storage racks and broke out bottles of electrolytes for the three captive women.
"Excuse me," Princess Cecilia said, "but what's a meta-file?"
"Each victim in a Catalyst Room needs to have a personal profile loaded into the system," the captain explained. "They were originally called 'meta-files' for some obscure reason, and the term stuck. We received yours, Your Highness, along with the other information about your trip when we set up our plans to intercept you. Normally it takes only a few minutes to record them, using specialized equipment."
"Oh yes," Cecilia said. "I remember that." It had been one of her five-minute tickle-sessions, back during her tutoring.
"Unfortunately," Captain Manning went on, "we don't have that specialized equipment, so we have to do things the old-fashioned way. That takes a little longer."
"A hell of a lot longer," Dame May groused. "All right, I'll stop bitching and suck it in." Princess Cecilia, still trapped in the energy-stocks, craned her neck to look a question at her, and she turned her head to look back. "It's like this, Your Highness. You've been trained to mostly enjoy being tickled, right? Ninety-percent worth."
"The properly regal ratio is ten parts ecstasy to one part agony, yes," Cecilia answered.
"Right. And Ming over there - 'Dame Ming' I should say - is right on the edge of being a tickle-addict. But me, I have a ratio somewhere south of one-to-one. I can serve in the Catalyst Room in emergencies like this one, but I'm just not cut out to be a Power Tech."
"I could get you some vellacine," Sir Kurt told her. "Or even just some brandy."
"No drugs," Dame May said. Her head snapped around at the faint hum from the foot of her couch. The tickle-bot rose into position. "It doesn't help, anyway," she added, her eyes on the manipulators being deployed. "Get away Kurt. Leave me to my fate. Heehee hahahaha!" She began to laugh as the tickle-bot began to touch and stroke her soles. Sir Kurt moved away to let the 'bot do its work.
Now the other two tickle-bots rose up on their counter-grav. Princess Cecilia heard Dame Ming begin to giggle, and then she started laughing herself as she felt her own 'bot begin work on her soles.
Three days later, the three women were still laughing. It was the sixth session, and Princess Cecilia had one tickle-bot floating over her stomach, fingering in and around her belly button with its rubbery tentacles. She twisted and screwed her eyes shut as she laughed in response to the giggly tease of that belly-tickle. As a counterpoint, the other tickle-bot ran crazy random patterns over her soles; back and forth across her insteps, up and down from the balls of her feet to her heels. Her feet were not held rigid by the energy-stocks this time (although they still held her ankles in their perfect unbreakable grip). Instead, the tickle-bot at the foot of her couch had grabbed her toes with a set of fine manipulators, and was using them to hold her soles in place to receive their stroking stimulation. And for added hilarity, the manipulators holding her toes would vibrate every few seconds, making Cecilia shriek. It still felt wonderful - mostly - but she was close to complete exhaustion.
The other two women weren't in any better shape. Dame May whined between bursts of laughter as the two tickle-bots attending her sent spiral patterns over her soles and along her sides. Dame Ming giggled limply as soft spinning brushes touched her here and there. Then the 'bots managed to produce a somewhat more vigorous response, as they applied the wiggling surface of a stimulation pad to each of her soles in turn.
Princess Cecilia was only vaguely aware of the other women's thrashing, for just then the tickle-bot at her own feet brought out a stimulation pad as well. Her other 'bot paused in its tickling of her belly, leaving her to watch wide-eyed as the wiggling surface of the pad approached the vulnerable sole of her left foot. It never touched, however, since at that moment Sir Frankcalled "And... done! Shutting down." from over by the workstation. The six tickle-bots all fell back and powered down, and the energy stocks released their victims.
Dame May curled into a ball and whimpered. Dame Ming asked, "It's over?" in a faint, and faintly disappointed tone. Princess Cecilia summoned the energy to turn her head.
"You really are a tickle addict, aren't you?"
Dame Ming didn't answer. Frank said, "You're all tickled-out. We should stand down for a day before trying to make orbit. No, don't get up."
Dame May had levered herself off her couch. She stood, white faced, flinching a little at the touch of the deck against her bare feet. "I," she announced, "am going to sleep for a week." She staggered out of the Catalyst Room.
Princess Cecilia had no desire to emulate her - the part about standing up, that is. She let Sir Frank and the Captain put her in a stretcher, float her to her quarters, and pour her into her bunk.
The hop to orbit the system's inhabited planet went smoothly. Captain Manning approved Sir Frank's recommendation to stand down a day, so the three women were rested when they submitted to the couches and tickling implements of the Catalyst room once again.
"It seems strange, doing this in normal space," Dame Ming said as the 'bots rose into place. "Hee hee hahahahaheeheehee!"
"It is odd, using the hyper engines in normal," Sir Frank agreed, but none of the women could spare him any attention. They were too busy laughing.
This tickling didn't last very long, however. Within an hour, the Merryweather was in orbit and in contact with the local customs authorities. "Welcome to Sandalwood, Merryweather," the voice of the customs official said.
"Thank you, Sandalwood Control," Captain Manning answered. He was on the Merryweather's bridge along with Kurt and May Bonner. "I'm afraid this was an unscheduled stop for us. We've had a little engine trouble, and we need to make repairs. Can I ask for an upload on your facilities?"
"Ah, Merryweather, I'm afraid we'll have to play this by ear. You're the first ship to make orbit here in a while. If you'll download the usual files, we can get the formalities out of the way, and then we'll see what we can do."
Captain Manning made sure the transmit toggle was off, and said to his two senior crew: "I was afraid of this when we couldn't make contact from out-system. This is a backslid planet, and their 'customs authority' is running on relics from their past." He keyed the switch. "Very good, Sandalwood Control. Downloading now." He double-checked to make sure they were sending the innocuous version of the datapak - he didn't want to have to explain about the Merryweather's status as a pirate.
"Thank you, Merryweather," the word came back. "Files received. Wait one." A long wait. The three on bridge looked at each other.
"Trouble," May Bonner commented.
"Ah, Merryweather, we have a problem," the voice said at last. "We show five crew and one supernumerary on board, but only three meta-files. We need the other three meta-files. Can you download them?"
"Wait one, Sandalwood Control." Captain Manning keyed the switch back off.
"We have the meta-files from backup for you, me, and Frank," Kurt told the captain. "But they were corrupted like the others when we had our 'accident.'"
"We'll send them anyway," Captain Manning decided. "They didn't say they wanted good meta-files, and they probably won't notice."
But the answer came back very quickly after the three meta-files were sent: "Merryweather, be advised that those last three meta-files are corrupted. You'll need to restore from backup and resend."
"Sandalwood, I'm afraid that those were the only files we have," Captain Manning answered. "As I mentioned, we've had some damage and those files were among the casualties."
"Then you'll just have to generate new ones, Merryweather. We can't risk an outbreak of sole virus here. We're isolating you until you download the files."
"That's ridiculous! Captain Manning answered. "The sole viruses have been completely wiped out for decades. There hasn't been an outbreak in a century and a half!"
"Then you'll just have to generate new ones, Merryweather. We can't risk an outbreak of sole virus here. We're isolating you until you download the files."
"That's a recording," Kurt stated the obvious. "They've isolated our comm. So now what do we do? Land anyway?"
"Not a good idea," May said. "Folk like that will get paranoid about contamination, if we don't jump through their hoops." She frowned, and then a slow smile spread across her face. "Skipper, I think we need to give them just what they're asking for."
Kurt looked at his wife with an expression of dismay. "You're not serious? You're serious. You're doing this for revenge, May, aren't you." May just turned her smile on him, and he threw his hands up. "All right, I hate to admit it, but you're right. That customs officer caught us out right away, on the corrupt meta-files. He's probably got his position because he's more obsessed on the subject than anyone else on Sandalwood. So trying to trick him again isn't going to work. We have to play this straight. But you don't have to look so smug about it!"
"It won't work," Captain Manning said, his face expressionless. "Do you remember Alfred?"
May snorted. "That asshole!"
"He was," the captain agreed. "And more than that. I took the precaution of installing an anti-mutiny package into Diana, shortly after he came on board. We got rid of him quickly enough, but the anti-mutiny program is still there. They're designed to be unremovable, after. So if I take my place on a Catalyst Room couch..."
"Crud," May said. "I knew that, but I'd forgotten. I still think we should get meta-files for Kurt and Frank, though. That way we'll only have to fake up one file, somehow, instead of three."
"There is a simple way around this," Kurt said thoughtfully. "You won't like it though, skipper."
"Probably not," Captain Manning said drily. "Tell me."
"We're pirates, right? And Princess Cecilia is, well, a princess. She has authority. So we surrender to her in exchange for an amnesty. But she'll be prizemistress of the Merryweather until the amnesty comes through, and can order you - can order any of us into the couches without triggering any of the mutiny conditions."
"You were right," the captain said. "I don't like it." He pondered for a moment. "I can't think of anything better, though. Can either of you?"
"'Fraid not, skipper," May said. Kurt just shrugged.
"Very well, then. We'll do it that way." He stood. "Let's go break to news to Her Highness."
As they left the bridge, May Bonner commented "Look at the bright side, skipper. To be completely safe from the anti-mutiny program, Her Highness will have to calibrate for you herself. So you'll be getting personal attention from a Princess of Lorane."
They started the next day: The Merryweather's three male crewmembers lay in the three couches of the Catalyst Room, stripped to briefs, the energy stocks holding them as thoroughly helpless as they had once held the females. They looked with silent apprehension at the three women at their feet, and at the three tickle-bots waiting further back.
Feather in hand, Princess Cecilia stood before Captain Manning. She turned to her right and spoke to May Bonner. "Dame May, if you will give us a countdown please?"
"That's not necessary, Your Highness," she answered. She waved her own feather at her husband, lying bound before her. "It's all set up; we can start at any time."
"I know. I still prefer a countdown."
"As you wish, Your Highness. Counting down: Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one... Now!"
The tips of three feathers, held in feminine hands, touched three right soles, stroking across three masculine insteps. Three masculine bodies twitched, snorted, and began to laugh.
(To be continued...)
Hyperticklish, part 5
by Sablesword
Kurt and May Bonner were weary and sweat-stained as they came into the captain's day-cabin. Captain Manning waved them to seats, in which they promptly collapsed.
"We were sabotaged, skipper," Kurt said without preamble. "I found logic bombs in the software and explosives in the hardware, and they were all behind inspection seals. We'll need a forensic expert to provide proof for court, but if I had to guess, I'd guess that it was that weasel of a port inspector we had hassles with before we left on this voyage. Anyway, the mirth-cans aren't just dead; they're smashed flat. The hyperdrive, on the other hand, is just mostly dead. Maybe we could give you 0.1%"
"The normal-space engines are shot, too," May Bonner added. "We have maneuvering thrusters, for what that's worth. And you already know this, but there's a HYNA in this system. That will really mess up our repairs and recalibrations, before we can limp to the next star."
Kurt frowned at his wife's mention of the hyperspace-normalspace anomaly. "A HYNA? That blows my next question. There's won't be an inhabited planet in this system, not with hyperspace fountaining up into normal here. Not even a backslid one where they barely remember how to make copper wire."
Although Captain Manning wasn't sweat-stained, he looked, if anything, even more weary than the Merryweather's engineering officer and first mate. His grin temporarily banished the haggard look from his face. "Would you believe? There is an inhabited planet here, sharing the system with the HYNA. Only case of one I've ever heard of." His grin vanished. "It is a backslid place, though - or at least I haven't been able to contact them. And then there's the problem of getting there with the n-space engines out of commission. Can we make it there with just the thrusters?" he asked the first mate. "It will take months, I know, but can we do it at all?"
"Maybe," May said. "I'm not optimistic, though. And as you said, even if we can do it, it will take months. Now what are you grinning about, Kurt?"
"An inhabited planet in the same system as a HYNA," the engineer chortled. "For once a HYNA is going to work for us. It will let us use the hyper-engines in normal space, and even at 0.1% we can still make orbit around the skipper's planet, easy."
"With the cans gone?" May asked.
"Well, we'll need three feeds of live mirth, but we can do it."
"Three feeds?" May looked from her grinning husband to her grinning captain. "All right then, but you don't have to look so happy about it. You know how much I hate being tickled. Better than rotting in deep space, though."
#
All six members of the Merryweather's company gathered in the Catalyst room. The three females: May, Ming, and Princess Cecilia, lay on the couches, stripped to bras and panties and held fast by the energy stocks. The three males stood by the women's feet: Kurt by May's, Frank by Ming's, and Captain Manning by Cecilia's. Three tickle-bots floated nearby, waiting to take over once the initial manual tickling had concluded.
In setting up this operation up, Kurt had emphasized the importance of synchronizatio and both Frank and Ming had supported him. So Captain Manning, feather in hand, prepared to give a good old-fashioned countdown. "Are you ready, Kurt?"
"Excuse me, Captain Manning," Princess Cecilia interrupted. "I would ask that we continue address our esteemed engineer as 'Sir Kurt.' I know that we're in a desperate circumstance, but I'm sure we would prefer to remember that we kept to the proprieties, afterwards."
Captain Manning bowed slightly. "As you wish, Your Highness. Sir Kurt, are you ready?"
"Yes captain. I am."
"Sir Frank, are you ready?"
"Aye aye Sir!"
"Dame Ming, Dame May, Princess Cecilia?"
Two of the women nodded. Dame May muttered "Not hardly," but the others ignored her.
"Very good," the captain said. "I'll give the countdown: Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one... Now!"
The tips of three feathers touched three right soles, stroking across three insteps. Three feminine voices giggled involuntarily. Then the initial synchronized stroke gave way to human intuition as each man applied his expertise to tickling the female feet held exposed and vulnerable before him. According to individual whim, experience, and instinct, they applied feathers, fingers, plastic knobbies, and the other tools of shipboard tickling.
Lying in the center couch, Princess Cecilia laughed and squirmed as Captain Manning cultivated the sensitivity of her soles. The energy stocks had been adjusted so that she could not clench her toes, and so she could only giggle as he lightly explored the sensitive spaces between them. And now the tickle-bot moved forward to replace Captain Manning. A dozen appendages extended to spider across her now-sensitized soles, sending wonderful tickle-sensations shooting up through her. Soft buffer-wheels buffed her insteps, and rubbery probes tweaked the tips of her toes.
Squirming and giggling, engulfed in a haze of tickle-sensations, Cecilia was only vaguely aware of the three male crewmembers as they clustered around the workstation. She was somewhat more aware of the laughter pouring out of Dame Ming to her left and Dame May to her right, as the tickle-bots probed and teased the vulnerable soles of the other two women. Dame Ming seemed to be enjoying her torment even more than Princess Cecilia, but Dame May sounded like she was suffering: She moaned and cursed between the bouts of hysterics that her 'bot inflicted on her.
A shouted obscenity, repeated three times, cut through Princess Cecilia's tickle-drunkenness. It had been Sir Frank who had spoken. Captain Manning ordered "All Stop!" and the tickle-bots withdrew, allowing the three women to calm down. But the energy stocks still held them in place.
"What is it?" Dame Ming asked. "What went wrong, skipper?"
"The live mirth wasn't getting piped through," the captain answered.
Sir Kurt expanded on this, explaining at length that there was a colorfully blasphemous kink in the imaginatively scatological system, and that they had an elaborately blasphemous, scatological, and obscene chance of fixing it.
"Don't use such goddamn bad language Kurt," Dame May told him. "It doesn't help."
"Sorry." Sir Kurt left the workstation to walk over to his wife's side.
"I don't think it's that bad." Sir Frank frowned and punched some commands into the system. "No, here it is: The meta-files are corrupted. Look, skipper, the hardware is all OK, at least up to the point where it enters the cans. It's just the corrupt meta-files."
Captain Manning leaned over for a closer look at the display. "What about the backups?"
Sir Frank punched in some more commands, and muttered his obscenity for a fourth time. "I was afraid of this. The backups are corrupted too."
"Shit!" Dame May said with feeling.
"It's OK, honey," Sir Kurt stroked his wife's hair. "If it's just the meta-files, we can rebuild them easy."
"It'll take days. And it's only 'easy' if you're not the one in the couch."
"It will take six sessions of four to six hours each," Sir frank said from the workstation. "Three days, unless the captain wants to rush it." He looked at Captain Manning.
"No. No need to rush it. Get it set up, though; we might as well start right away." He went over to the storage racks and broke out bottles of electrolytes for the three captive women.
"Excuse me," Princess Cecilia said, "but what's a meta-file?"
"Each victim in a Catalyst Room needs to have a personal profile loaded into the system," the captain explained. "They were originally called 'meta-files' for some obscure reason, and the term stuck. We received yours, Your Highness, along with the other information about your trip when we set up our plans to intercept you. Normally it takes only a few minutes to record them, using specialized equipment."
"Oh yes," Cecilia said. "I remember that." It had been one of her five-minute tickle-sessions, back during her tutoring.
"Unfortunately," Captain Manning went on, "we don't have that specialized equipment, so we have to do things the old-fashioned way. That takes a little longer."
"A hell of a lot longer," Dame May groused. "All right, I'll stop bitching and suck it in." Princess Cecilia, still trapped in the energy-stocks, craned her neck to look a question at her, and she turned her head to look back. "It's like this, Your Highness. You've been trained to mostly enjoy being tickled, right? Ninety-percent worth."
"The properly regal ratio is ten parts ecstasy to one part agony, yes," Cecilia answered.
"Right. And Ming over there - 'Dame Ming' I should say - is right on the edge of being a tickle-addict. But me, I have a ratio somewhere south of one-to-one. I can serve in the Catalyst Room in emergencies like this one, but I'm just not cut out to be a Power Tech."
"I could get you some vellacine," Sir Kurt told her. "Or even just some brandy."
"No drugs," Dame May said. Her head snapped around at the faint hum from the foot of her couch. The tickle-bot rose into position. "It doesn't help, anyway," she added, her eyes on the manipulators being deployed. "Get away Kurt. Leave me to my fate. Heehee hahahaha!" She began to laugh as the tickle-bot began to touch and stroke her soles. Sir Kurt moved away to let the 'bot do its work.
Now the other two tickle-bots rose up on their counter-grav. Princess Cecilia heard Dame Ming begin to giggle, and then she started laughing herself as she felt her own 'bot begin work on her soles.
#
Three days later, the three women were still laughing. It was the sixth session, and Princess Cecilia had one tickle-bot floating over her stomach, fingering in and around her belly button with its rubbery tentacles. She twisted and screwed her eyes shut as she laughed in response to the giggly tease of that belly-tickle. As a counterpoint, the other tickle-bot ran crazy random patterns over her soles; back and forth across her insteps, up and down from the balls of her feet to her heels. Her feet were not held rigid by the energy-stocks this time (although they still held her ankles in their perfect unbreakable grip). Instead, the tickle-bot at the foot of her couch had grabbed her toes with a set of fine manipulators, and was using them to hold her soles in place to receive their stroking stimulation. And for added hilarity, the manipulators holding her toes would vibrate every few seconds, making Cecilia shriek. It still felt wonderful - mostly - but she was close to complete exhaustion.
The other two women weren't in any better shape. Dame May whined between bursts of laughter as the two tickle-bots attending her sent spiral patterns over her soles and along her sides. Dame Ming giggled limply as soft spinning brushes touched her here and there. Then the 'bots managed to produce a somewhat more vigorous response, as they applied the wiggling surface of a stimulation pad to each of her soles in turn.
Princess Cecilia was only vaguely aware of the other women's thrashing, for just then the tickle-bot at her own feet brought out a stimulation pad as well. Her other 'bot paused in its tickling of her belly, leaving her to watch wide-eyed as the wiggling surface of the pad approached the vulnerable sole of her left foot. It never touched, however, since at that moment Sir Frankcalled "And... done! Shutting down." from over by the workstation. The six tickle-bots all fell back and powered down, and the energy stocks released their victims.
Dame May curled into a ball and whimpered. Dame Ming asked, "It's over?" in a faint, and faintly disappointed tone. Princess Cecilia summoned the energy to turn her head.
"You really are a tickle addict, aren't you?"
Dame Ming didn't answer. Frank said, "You're all tickled-out. We should stand down for a day before trying to make orbit. No, don't get up."
Dame May had levered herself off her couch. She stood, white faced, flinching a little at the touch of the deck against her bare feet. "I," she announced, "am going to sleep for a week." She staggered out of the Catalyst Room.
Princess Cecilia had no desire to emulate her - the part about standing up, that is. She let Sir Frank and the Captain put her in a stretcher, float her to her quarters, and pour her into her bunk.
#
The hop to orbit the system's inhabited planet went smoothly. Captain Manning approved Sir Frank's recommendation to stand down a day, so the three women were rested when they submitted to the couches and tickling implements of the Catalyst room once again.
"It seems strange, doing this in normal space," Dame Ming said as the 'bots rose into place. "Hee hee hahahahaheeheehee!"
"It is odd, using the hyper engines in normal," Sir Frank agreed, but none of the women could spare him any attention. They were too busy laughing.
This tickling didn't last very long, however. Within an hour, the Merryweather was in orbit and in contact with the local customs authorities. "Welcome to Sandalwood, Merryweather," the voice of the customs official said.
"Thank you, Sandalwood Control," Captain Manning answered. He was on the Merryweather's bridge along with Kurt and May Bonner. "I'm afraid this was an unscheduled stop for us. We've had a little engine trouble, and we need to make repairs. Can I ask for an upload on your facilities?"
"Ah, Merryweather, I'm afraid we'll have to play this by ear. You're the first ship to make orbit here in a while. If you'll download the usual files, we can get the formalities out of the way, and then we'll see what we can do."
Captain Manning made sure the transmit toggle was off, and said to his two senior crew: "I was afraid of this when we couldn't make contact from out-system. This is a backslid planet, and their 'customs authority' is running on relics from their past." He keyed the switch. "Very good, Sandalwood Control. Downloading now." He double-checked to make sure they were sending the innocuous version of the datapak - he didn't want to have to explain about the Merryweather's status as a pirate.
"Thank you, Merryweather," the word came back. "Files received. Wait one." A long wait. The three on bridge looked at each other.
"Trouble," May Bonner commented.
"Ah, Merryweather, we have a problem," the voice said at last. "We show five crew and one supernumerary on board, but only three meta-files. We need the other three meta-files. Can you download them?"
"Wait one, Sandalwood Control." Captain Manning keyed the switch back off.
"We have the meta-files from backup for you, me, and Frank," Kurt told the captain. "But they were corrupted like the others when we had our 'accident.'"
"We'll send them anyway," Captain Manning decided. "They didn't say they wanted good meta-files, and they probably won't notice."
But the answer came back very quickly after the three meta-files were sent: "Merryweather, be advised that those last three meta-files are corrupted. You'll need to restore from backup and resend."
"Sandalwood, I'm afraid that those were the only files we have," Captain Manning answered. "As I mentioned, we've had some damage and those files were among the casualties."
"Then you'll just have to generate new ones, Merryweather. We can't risk an outbreak of sole virus here. We're isolating you until you download the files."
"That's ridiculous! Captain Manning answered. "The sole viruses have been completely wiped out for decades. There hasn't been an outbreak in a century and a half!"
"Then you'll just have to generate new ones, Merryweather. We can't risk an outbreak of sole virus here. We're isolating you until you download the files."
"That's a recording," Kurt stated the obvious. "They've isolated our comm. So now what do we do? Land anyway?"
"Not a good idea," May said. "Folk like that will get paranoid about contamination, if we don't jump through their hoops." She frowned, and then a slow smile spread across her face. "Skipper, I think we need to give them just what they're asking for."
Kurt looked at his wife with an expression of dismay. "You're not serious? You're serious. You're doing this for revenge, May, aren't you." May just turned her smile on him, and he threw his hands up. "All right, I hate to admit it, but you're right. That customs officer caught us out right away, on the corrupt meta-files. He's probably got his position because he's more obsessed on the subject than anyone else on Sandalwood. So trying to trick him again isn't going to work. We have to play this straight. But you don't have to look so smug about it!"
"It won't work," Captain Manning said, his face expressionless. "Do you remember Alfred?"
May snorted. "That asshole!"
"He was," the captain agreed. "And more than that. I took the precaution of installing an anti-mutiny package into Diana, shortly after he came on board. We got rid of him quickly enough, but the anti-mutiny program is still there. They're designed to be unremovable, after. So if I take my place on a Catalyst Room couch..."
"Crud," May said. "I knew that, but I'd forgotten. I still think we should get meta-files for Kurt and Frank, though. That way we'll only have to fake up one file, somehow, instead of three."
"There is a simple way around this," Kurt said thoughtfully. "You won't like it though, skipper."
"Probably not," Captain Manning said drily. "Tell me."
"We're pirates, right? And Princess Cecilia is, well, a princess. She has authority. So we surrender to her in exchange for an amnesty. But she'll be prizemistress of the Merryweather until the amnesty comes through, and can order you - can order any of us into the couches without triggering any of the mutiny conditions."
"You were right," the captain said. "I don't like it." He pondered for a moment. "I can't think of anything better, though. Can either of you?"
"'Fraid not, skipper," May said. Kurt just shrugged.
"Very well, then. We'll do it that way." He stood. "Let's go break to news to Her Highness."
As they left the bridge, May Bonner commented "Look at the bright side, skipper. To be completely safe from the anti-mutiny program, Her Highness will have to calibrate for you herself. So you'll be getting personal attention from a Princess of Lorane."
#
They started the next day: The Merryweather's three male crewmembers lay in the three couches of the Catalyst Room, stripped to briefs, the energy stocks holding them as thoroughly helpless as they had once held the females. They looked with silent apprehension at the three women at their feet, and at the three tickle-bots waiting further back.
Feather in hand, Princess Cecilia stood before Captain Manning. She turned to her right and spoke to May Bonner. "Dame May, if you will give us a countdown please?"
"That's not necessary, Your Highness," she answered. She waved her own feather at her husband, lying bound before her. "It's all set up; we can start at any time."
"I know. I still prefer a countdown."
"As you wish, Your Highness. Counting down: Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one... Now!"
The tips of three feathers, held in feminine hands, touched three right soles, stroking across three masculine insteps. Three masculine bodies twitched, snorted, and began to laugh.
(To be continued...)
