"So what do you think the problem with this one is?"
"Don't ask me. You're the engineer here. I'm just tagging along to protect you." Isabel had to put a bit of effort into not letting her annoyance at the question seep into her response. Plenty of in class training from the mercenary company she'd joined on to had stressed that outward shows of displeasure over the client communicating their problems would discourage them from telling you something important later, but having the third person come into the ship's armory to ask the exact same thing in the last 10 minutes grated all the same. For the engineers she was supposed to be escorting to be nervous on a mission like this was something the 29-year-old bodyguard could sympathize with, she just wished they wouldn't try to make themselves feel better by chatting up the lady with the big gun. She was in the middle of double checking that all of her equipment was in order and would've much appreciated if they'd all focused on their own preparations over bothering her the moment paying attention started to matter.
"Well yeah, but isn't this weird? We tried hailing the station on approach, but nobody answered. That shouldn't happen on one this big. It's like something out of one of those horror movies my son likes... It gives me the heebie-jeebies." Isabel glanced over from where she was making certain that her favorite plasma rifle hadn't somehow managed to get banged up during the jump through hyperspace at the plump middle-aged woman serving as this trip's head engineer.
Isabel was a mercenary currently under the employ of Sublight Surveilances, a megacorp responsible for building and maintaining space stations used as bases for survey teams mapping out uninhabited worlds. On paper, her job was to make certain the scientists managed to get back off dangerous worlds alive. In practice, she almost never touched down planetside. Her current mission was pretty much indicative of how she primarily spent her billable hours: A station orbiting a newly discovered world had gone silent and she was tagging along with a team of engineers as a token show of security. The most dangerous thing she'd been through on the last dozen or so missions so far had been getting a slight stomachache from eating a stale candy bar.
'What in the emperor's name are they expecting me to say? They got the same briefing I did. What, are they expecting me to use my vast combat expertise to pull some conclusion out of the warp past what we've been told?' the mercenary thought to herself. She settled on giving the same answer she'd given the previous two nervous mechanics. "Look, it's probably just a comms failure. Happens all the time. It's not like the ship is going to be infested with zombies or anything crazy like that. And if there are threats like that.... Well, that's what I'm here for." Isabel patted her rifle for emphasis with what she thought was a reassuring smile. It obvious didn't work since the engineer pursed her lips and gave her a once over in response.
"Dressed like that? You aren't taking this seriously, are you?" This time Isabel couldn't keep her eyes from narrowing in annoyance. She was wearing the uniform her company had provided for this. It wasn't her fault that whoever had designed it made it look more like street clothes than military gear. Admittedly the loose spaghetti strap top she had on under her jacket and the decorative choker around her neck were civilian wear, but the black leather jacket, cargo pants, and combat boots were all made of the latest protective materials. She could personally vouch that they'd protect her from anything short of being shot point blank with a cannon.
"I'd rather not put that armor on unless the issue is confirmed to be something with the exterior of the station. If we're going to spend all our time trekking around inside then I'll stick with something that lets me walk for more than 15 minutes without tiring myself out." The young mercenary had also been provided a heavy suit of power armor for in case she had to fight out in the void of space, but given the low risk assessment of this mission it was one of those older early-war models. The stupid thing had been gathering dust in the back of a storage bunker for who knows how long and as such hadn't been retrofitted to interface with the newer, more efficient power supplies. As it was, it barely had a couple hours of battery life before she'd be forced to move it around off of brute physical strength. Isabel's grey hair that fell to around the base of her skull, red eyes, and flawless skin despite a lack of personal grooming were testament to being one of the superhumanly strong genetically enhanced super soldiers that'd been created before the galactic war had ended, but even she couldn't lug one of those heavy suits around for long.
"Suit yourself. I'll trust your greater expertise on this," said the engineer with a face that clearly communicated that she wasn't satisfied with the mercenary's answer at all. Isabel allowed a sigh to escape her lips after the door whirred shut behind her client.
'Nothing I can do if they won't trust me on that. Just focus on doing the job, Isabel,' Isabel thought to herself.
-----
'I'll admit, this is actually kinda creepy,' Isabel thought to herself. Their ship had touched down in the landing bay without a hitch. Not only had a final attempt to radio in from inside not gotten a response, they had yet to see a soul. Nobody had appeared to greet them in the reception area nor had popped up at any point as they pressed deeper into the station. The silence was deafening. There were no voices, sounds of movement, or music playing over computer speakers that were usually ever present on a station like this. Only the sound of recirculating air and their own footsteps had filled the cramped halls.
"Where's Gilbert?" the head engineer suddenly spoke up. The group had managed to make it all the way to the control room at the top of the station without incident. Isabel was standing guard at the door while all 5 of the engineers had spread out around the room to check the terminals.
"Didn't he go off to double check the generators?" responded a female engineer a bit younger than Isabel. The girl was in the middle of sending test messages to check if the stations could properly transmit signals out. She leaned back and tapped the armrest of her chair with a pensive look. "Call me stumped. There's nothing wrong with the equipment as far as I can tell. It's all working fine."
"I'm pretty sure the problem is more the lack of people than with the tech at this point. Nobody's badged in or out of a single door in the station for at least a month before we got here. It's like they all up and vanished," one of her coworkers chimed in. The rotund older man had evidently given up on looking for problems with the radios to start flipping through security logs.
"Yeah, an hour ago. He should've checked in by now," the head engineer ignored her subordinates' musing over what the problem could be to continue on about Gilbert's absence. The plump older woman's brow was furrowed with worry.
"I'll go check. Call me immediately if you so much as hear a screw drop without a good reason. Otherwise, stay here. We're getting out the moment we get back," Isabel ordered. This situation was putting her on edge. She couldn't figure out what could take out an entire space station before everyone on board could send out a distress signal, but she doubted it was a threat she could handle by herself.
The mercenary unslung her rifle as she crept through the station. She slowly peaked around every corner to survey the corridor ahead for threats before advancing. When the mercenary came within a couple doors of the engine room was when she finally heard something. A deep, throaty, hysterical laughter. A shiver of dread ran down Isabel's spine at the sound, but she pressed on anyways. The door of the engine room was cracked open, so she sidled up and cautiously peered in. What the young woman saw made her blood run cold.
Gilbert was pinned to the floor of the engine room by a trio of what Isabel could only describe as monsters. They vaguely resembled humans with smokey black skin, but as far as Isabel could tell they had no faces. The rough, cracked skin on their heads was featureless down until the thin tentacles hanging around where there mouths should've been. Unnaturally large spinal cords protruded out of the back of their thin torsos, and their muscled limbs had long talons that extended out several inches past their fingers.
What hysterical laughter Isabel could hear was being extracted out of the helpless Gilbert. The poor man had been stripped naked by his assailants to endure those long nails being put to use all over his bare skin. His feet, underarms, and rock hard penis all had the very tips of the nails expertly scraping against them to provoke the fit young man into a fit of howling laughter and frantic struggling. As Isabel watched, it was obvious that his rock hard member couldn't take the stimulation anymore. Gilbert arched his back as best he could under his tormentors with a scream as the tickling forced him to blow his load. In response, the monsters picked up the pace to send their nails tracing everywhere in a frenzy that pushed their victim to his absolute limits and beyond. Gilbert's peals of hysterical laughter transformed into screams under the punishment of the more intense ticklish assault.
Judging by the sheen on Gilbert's stomach, the pool of bodily fluids around him, and the man's maddened look, the monsters had clearly been toying with him like this for a while. Isabel sucked in a breath out of shock at the sight. The idea that the monsters were tickle torturing their victim had caught her off guard so much that she needed a moment to process what was going on. But just when she was readying her gun and mentally preparing to burst into the room she heard a noise behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to be greeted by one of those eyeless faces hanging upside down barely a few inches away from her own.
"Woah!" Isabel shouted with surprise. She whirled around fully intent on jamming her rifle into the monster's face and opening fire, but she couldn't even make it all the way through the turn. Something slammed into her side to smash her against the wall. A panicked glance to the side informed her that a second monster had snuck up to tackle her. An instant later the one from above leapt off of the ceiling to come barreling down and slam her back against the floor. Her precious plasma rifle went flinging out of her grasp from the impact, discharging a few shots that luckily didn't hit her as it bounced across the floor.
"Oh fuhuhUCK! WhaHAHAT THEHEHEhehe hehehEHELLL!" Isabel screamed. The monsters pounced on the young mercenary the moment she was down. Evidently they knew what clothes were, because one of them quickly grabbed the zipper on her jacket to rip it open. The loose spaghetti strap shirt did little to protect Isabel's toned, ticklish tummy from two sets of long nails dancing all over. Isabel was quickly reduced to shrieking with laughter under the expert assault.
Luckily, her attackers were more focused on tickling than restraining her. Neither of the monsters had bothered to pin her arms down. A sickening crunch filled the corridor as Isabel powered through the tickling to grab the face of one of the monsters and twist it with all her might. Its partner seemed to almost freeze in shock at the sight of its partner slowly falling on its side. Isabel didn't waste the opportunity. Her hand curled into a fist and smashed into the face of the other one with enough force to send it tumbling off of her. The genetically engineered super soldier scrambled to her feet and dashed over to grab her rifle.
"Oh fuck off!" Isabel yelled feeling a hand wrap around her ankle. Whatever the hell these things were, they were apparently durable enough to keep moving after having their necks snapped. One of the leathery-skinned beasts had crawled forward to grab her leg and look up with its head twisted at an unnatural angle. Isabel pointed her gun down and unleashed a volley of plasma to blast the offending arm off, figuring that even if she couldn't tell out how much punishment she needed to dole out to kill them she could at least aim to cripple by tearing off their limbs.
"ISABEL!" screamed a voice in her ear. The head engineer's panic filled voice was coming from her comm bead. Screams of laughter could be heard in the background behind her. "Isabel, we're under attack! Get back here-" The voice suddenly cut out.
'Shit. This is getting out of control. I need to start fighting back, starting with saving Gilbert.' Isabel grimaced. Plans for the most efficient way of routing back to the control room followed by fighting their way back to the shuttle were already forming in her head. Plans that immediately changed to trying to figure out the fastest possible way to escape when she noticed half a dozen of the things rounding the corner at her. Even with an arm blown off and head lolling at an angle that made bile rise to her throat, the monster that'd just attempted to grab her was getting up for another go. Its partner was also rising through the concussion she'd undoubtedly given it.
She couldn't win against numbers like this, not against an opponent that could shrug off otherwise fatal wounds. 'Screw somehow making it all the way back to the control room, I need to get out. Now,' Isabel decided. Instead of fighting, the mercenary turned on her heel and made a mad dash back to the ship. Her only hope now was to escape on her own and come back with reinforcements.
The situation on the station was far worse than anyone could've imagined. Catching sight of the monsters torturing Gilbert had been like someone had given the "Go" signal. New monsters were bursting out of every other door. The horde was endless. Isabel used her superhumanly powerful legs to rush past those she could. Those she couldn't were met with a volley of plasma fire to the legs to send them tumbling to the ground before sprinting past.
"Just how smart are these things!?" Isabel screamed. Hope had been starting to swell in her. It looked like she was about to make it. But just as she made it to the final stretch, she noticed the red "Depressurized" light was lit above the docking bay door. The young woman's heart sank. Somehow, the monsters were intelligent enough to know not only that humans couldn't survive in the void of space, but also how to operate the machinery to let all of the atmosphere out of the docking bay. Isabel wished she'd bothered to bring along her uselessly bulky power armor. She was trapped without it. Preparing the room to make it safe for her to get to the ship would take minutes that she simply didn't have.
Fears that she wouldn't have lasted that long were quickly proven correct. She didn't even make it to the end of her rifle's power cell. Long-taloned monsters were crawling out of what felt like every corner. Isabel did her best to fight back, but she couldn't cover every angle at once. The young mercenary found herself quickly being grabbed and wrestled to the ground. Her arms were held above her head and legs pinned down before her jacket was pulled off.
"Fuhuhuhck! Lehet me gohohEHEHEHAHAHA! Bastards... Stop. Stop stop stohop stohohAHAHAHAHAP!" Isabel shrieked. The monsters hadn't even bothered to wait for their compatriots to fully remove her jacket before starting to dance the tips of their nails all over their latest captive. Isabel tried with all her might to hold back the building giggles from the moment it started, but her tormentors seemed to be working together for the express purpose of breaking her into laughing immediately. Three sets of hands were put to work scratching, poking, stroking, and tracing all over her exposed armpits, ribs, and stomach the instant her outerwear had been unzipped enough for them to start. Being tickled so badly before she could fully prepare herself reduced Isabel to bucking, shrieking, and guffawing with laughter within seconds.
Once Isabel was forced to start laughing she found it impossible to make herself stop. Mercifully, two of her ticklers pulled back soon after she started laughing to leave her only having to endure 10 nails poking her stomach all over. But Isabel couldn't bring herself to be relieved by it. As far as she could tell, they had reduced the number of ticklers for the express purpose of getting to explore her ticklish spots. Over the next several minutes chortles and begging filled the cold metallic halls of the station as the monster tickling her meticulously explored everywhere on her upper body. Her hips, stomach, bellybutton, sides, ribs, and underarms all had to endure a minute or two of being focused on with each spot that provoked her into letting out a louder shriek of laughter being tested again and again until the young mercenary wanted to scream in frustration.
There was a sense of overwhelming hopelessness to the young woman over being stuck in a situation where she knew exactly where she was going to be tickled, but was incapable of doing anything to prevent it. An especially bad spot on her stomach right beneath her breasts forced her to throw her head back and cackle with agonized mirth. Her tormentor would spend minutes at a time doing nothing but abusing that one spot, with each stroke of its talons feeling worse than the last from her every last attempt to twist out of the way to dodge a tickle proving to be futile. It was utterly maddening. The sense of vulnerability being unable to escape the relentless torture drove home to her seemed to multiply the tickling to make it feel more horrible than before. Things only got worse when its compatriots decided that they were tired of waiting for their turn.
The level of cooperation they showed without any visible signs of communication was uncanny. It was almost like they instinctually knew how to work together to make her life as horrible as possible. Most of the monsters had filed out of the room after she'd been subdued, but the remaining five worked together to strip her while keeping her laughing. One of them assisted the eyeless horror pinning down her arms so they would both get to set their nails wiggling inside her vulnerable pits. At the same time, two of them coordinated to take turns pinning her legs down so her boots could be tugged off, belt undone, and pants yanked off without giving her an opportunity to kick free.
Isabel's face burned with humiliation over her lower half being exposed by this. She didn't get long to dwell on that though. The monsters pulled her legs apart and each sat down on her shins with one facing towards her upper body and the other her feet. Isabel's shrieks of laughter soon transformed to screams feeling nails begin to assault her thighs and feet. The sensitive flesh of her inner thighs were scratched and squeezed. The one tickling her feet lowered its head down so the tendrils where its mouth should be could snake their way in between her toes at the same time nails wrapped around to lightly scratch at her soles. It was completely overwhelming. The proud mercenary could do little more than scream and laugh as the monsters put their nails to work with far more dexterity than she had known was possible. Everywhere the monsters touched was thoroughly explored for what caused her the most suffering before they began focusing on her worst spots.
Isabel wasn't certain how long she was tortured. It felt like an eternity. Her every attempt to put her superhuman strength to use to throw her attackers off wasn't enough. Overwhelmed by numbers as she was and weakened by sustained tickling, the mercenary was helpless to do anything but scream until she passed out from exhaustion.
-----
When Isabel next awoke it was to the sound of screaming. Deafening laughter on all sides of her. The ticklish young woman slowly opened her eyes and felt her heart sink. She'd succeeded in finding out what happened to the rest of the crew. Unfortunately, she was now trapped in the same hell as they were.
Space stations like this one all contained a massive chamber in the middle to house the station's warp drive. Thanks to the terrible racket the warp drive made whenever it was turned on, those chambers were the most heavily soundproofed rooms on the entire station. Evidently, they were soundproofed well enough that the screams of hundreds of people being tickle tortured inside couldn't be heard anywhere else on the ship.
The monsters had converted the chamber into their nest and torture chamber. The walls had been lined with a fleshy growth, which in turn had been lined with the crew bound naked side by side. Fleshy tentacles were wrapped around each captive's limbs to hold them in place while more exploited every ticklish spot available to keep them in constant ticklish agony. Near the center of the floor was what Isabel could only describe as the monsters' play area. Particularly ticklish targets were picked off the wall and carried to the center where they had to endure being gang tickled by the eyeless horrors' long nails.
"No. Please. Let me go!" Isabel begged. To Isabel's horror, the monsters began to approach her the moment they noticed she was awake. She was dragged kicking and screaming to the center where she was pinned down near the center of it all. The fleshy growth sprouted tendrils to bind her naked body spread eagle to the floor the moment she was pressed down into it. Soon, her screams of laughter intermingled with all the others as every monster in the area pounced on their newest toy.
The super soldier soon realized that her genetically engineered strength was a curse in this situation. She was so durable, had so much stamina, that she lasted far longer than the monsters' other victims. Her entire body was tortured non-stop for hours on end. While other captives were being given breaks to keep them from passing out, her own tickling continued unabated. Where others would be tickled lighter to keep them giggling when they were tired, Isabel was made to suffer as horribly as possible around the clock.
Isabel soon became the monsters' favorite toy. They never grew tired of her. Brains that had grown to think about nothing but causing ticklish suffering all came to the same conclusion: That they would have the most fun with torturing her in particular. She was a toy they could treat as cruelly as their sadistic minds could imagine for as long as they wished, and they were fully intent on doing so.
"Don't ask me. You're the engineer here. I'm just tagging along to protect you." Isabel had to put a bit of effort into not letting her annoyance at the question seep into her response. Plenty of in class training from the mercenary company she'd joined on to had stressed that outward shows of displeasure over the client communicating their problems would discourage them from telling you something important later, but having the third person come into the ship's armory to ask the exact same thing in the last 10 minutes grated all the same. For the engineers she was supposed to be escorting to be nervous on a mission like this was something the 29-year-old bodyguard could sympathize with, she just wished they wouldn't try to make themselves feel better by chatting up the lady with the big gun. She was in the middle of double checking that all of her equipment was in order and would've much appreciated if they'd all focused on their own preparations over bothering her the moment paying attention started to matter.
"Well yeah, but isn't this weird? We tried hailing the station on approach, but nobody answered. That shouldn't happen on one this big. It's like something out of one of those horror movies my son likes... It gives me the heebie-jeebies." Isabel glanced over from where she was making certain that her favorite plasma rifle hadn't somehow managed to get banged up during the jump through hyperspace at the plump middle-aged woman serving as this trip's head engineer.
Isabel was a mercenary currently under the employ of Sublight Surveilances, a megacorp responsible for building and maintaining space stations used as bases for survey teams mapping out uninhabited worlds. On paper, her job was to make certain the scientists managed to get back off dangerous worlds alive. In practice, she almost never touched down planetside. Her current mission was pretty much indicative of how she primarily spent her billable hours: A station orbiting a newly discovered world had gone silent and she was tagging along with a team of engineers as a token show of security. The most dangerous thing she'd been through on the last dozen or so missions so far had been getting a slight stomachache from eating a stale candy bar.
'What in the emperor's name are they expecting me to say? They got the same briefing I did. What, are they expecting me to use my vast combat expertise to pull some conclusion out of the warp past what we've been told?' the mercenary thought to herself. She settled on giving the same answer she'd given the previous two nervous mechanics. "Look, it's probably just a comms failure. Happens all the time. It's not like the ship is going to be infested with zombies or anything crazy like that. And if there are threats like that.... Well, that's what I'm here for." Isabel patted her rifle for emphasis with what she thought was a reassuring smile. It obvious didn't work since the engineer pursed her lips and gave her a once over in response.
"Dressed like that? You aren't taking this seriously, are you?" This time Isabel couldn't keep her eyes from narrowing in annoyance. She was wearing the uniform her company had provided for this. It wasn't her fault that whoever had designed it made it look more like street clothes than military gear. Admittedly the loose spaghetti strap top she had on under her jacket and the decorative choker around her neck were civilian wear, but the black leather jacket, cargo pants, and combat boots were all made of the latest protective materials. She could personally vouch that they'd protect her from anything short of being shot point blank with a cannon.
"I'd rather not put that armor on unless the issue is confirmed to be something with the exterior of the station. If we're going to spend all our time trekking around inside then I'll stick with something that lets me walk for more than 15 minutes without tiring myself out." The young mercenary had also been provided a heavy suit of power armor for in case she had to fight out in the void of space, but given the low risk assessment of this mission it was one of those older early-war models. The stupid thing had been gathering dust in the back of a storage bunker for who knows how long and as such hadn't been retrofitted to interface with the newer, more efficient power supplies. As it was, it barely had a couple hours of battery life before she'd be forced to move it around off of brute physical strength. Isabel's grey hair that fell to around the base of her skull, red eyes, and flawless skin despite a lack of personal grooming were testament to being one of the superhumanly strong genetically enhanced super soldiers that'd been created before the galactic war had ended, but even she couldn't lug one of those heavy suits around for long.
"Suit yourself. I'll trust your greater expertise on this," said the engineer with a face that clearly communicated that she wasn't satisfied with the mercenary's answer at all. Isabel allowed a sigh to escape her lips after the door whirred shut behind her client.
'Nothing I can do if they won't trust me on that. Just focus on doing the job, Isabel,' Isabel thought to herself.
-----
'I'll admit, this is actually kinda creepy,' Isabel thought to herself. Their ship had touched down in the landing bay without a hitch. Not only had a final attempt to radio in from inside not gotten a response, they had yet to see a soul. Nobody had appeared to greet them in the reception area nor had popped up at any point as they pressed deeper into the station. The silence was deafening. There were no voices, sounds of movement, or music playing over computer speakers that were usually ever present on a station like this. Only the sound of recirculating air and their own footsteps had filled the cramped halls.
"Where's Gilbert?" the head engineer suddenly spoke up. The group had managed to make it all the way to the control room at the top of the station without incident. Isabel was standing guard at the door while all 5 of the engineers had spread out around the room to check the terminals.
"Didn't he go off to double check the generators?" responded a female engineer a bit younger than Isabel. The girl was in the middle of sending test messages to check if the stations could properly transmit signals out. She leaned back and tapped the armrest of her chair with a pensive look. "Call me stumped. There's nothing wrong with the equipment as far as I can tell. It's all working fine."
"I'm pretty sure the problem is more the lack of people than with the tech at this point. Nobody's badged in or out of a single door in the station for at least a month before we got here. It's like they all up and vanished," one of her coworkers chimed in. The rotund older man had evidently given up on looking for problems with the radios to start flipping through security logs.
"Yeah, an hour ago. He should've checked in by now," the head engineer ignored her subordinates' musing over what the problem could be to continue on about Gilbert's absence. The plump older woman's brow was furrowed with worry.
"I'll go check. Call me immediately if you so much as hear a screw drop without a good reason. Otherwise, stay here. We're getting out the moment we get back," Isabel ordered. This situation was putting her on edge. She couldn't figure out what could take out an entire space station before everyone on board could send out a distress signal, but she doubted it was a threat she could handle by herself.
The mercenary unslung her rifle as she crept through the station. She slowly peaked around every corner to survey the corridor ahead for threats before advancing. When the mercenary came within a couple doors of the engine room was when she finally heard something. A deep, throaty, hysterical laughter. A shiver of dread ran down Isabel's spine at the sound, but she pressed on anyways. The door of the engine room was cracked open, so she sidled up and cautiously peered in. What the young woman saw made her blood run cold.
Gilbert was pinned to the floor of the engine room by a trio of what Isabel could only describe as monsters. They vaguely resembled humans with smokey black skin, but as far as Isabel could tell they had no faces. The rough, cracked skin on their heads was featureless down until the thin tentacles hanging around where there mouths should've been. Unnaturally large spinal cords protruded out of the back of their thin torsos, and their muscled limbs had long talons that extended out several inches past their fingers.
What hysterical laughter Isabel could hear was being extracted out of the helpless Gilbert. The poor man had been stripped naked by his assailants to endure those long nails being put to use all over his bare skin. His feet, underarms, and rock hard penis all had the very tips of the nails expertly scraping against them to provoke the fit young man into a fit of howling laughter and frantic struggling. As Isabel watched, it was obvious that his rock hard member couldn't take the stimulation anymore. Gilbert arched his back as best he could under his tormentors with a scream as the tickling forced him to blow his load. In response, the monsters picked up the pace to send their nails tracing everywhere in a frenzy that pushed their victim to his absolute limits and beyond. Gilbert's peals of hysterical laughter transformed into screams under the punishment of the more intense ticklish assault.
Judging by the sheen on Gilbert's stomach, the pool of bodily fluids around him, and the man's maddened look, the monsters had clearly been toying with him like this for a while. Isabel sucked in a breath out of shock at the sight. The idea that the monsters were tickle torturing their victim had caught her off guard so much that she needed a moment to process what was going on. But just when she was readying her gun and mentally preparing to burst into the room she heard a noise behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to be greeted by one of those eyeless faces hanging upside down barely a few inches away from her own.
"Woah!" Isabel shouted with surprise. She whirled around fully intent on jamming her rifle into the monster's face and opening fire, but she couldn't even make it all the way through the turn. Something slammed into her side to smash her against the wall. A panicked glance to the side informed her that a second monster had snuck up to tackle her. An instant later the one from above leapt off of the ceiling to come barreling down and slam her back against the floor. Her precious plasma rifle went flinging out of her grasp from the impact, discharging a few shots that luckily didn't hit her as it bounced across the floor.
"Oh fuhuhUCK! WhaHAHAT THEHEHEhehe hehehEHELLL!" Isabel screamed. The monsters pounced on the young mercenary the moment she was down. Evidently they knew what clothes were, because one of them quickly grabbed the zipper on her jacket to rip it open. The loose spaghetti strap shirt did little to protect Isabel's toned, ticklish tummy from two sets of long nails dancing all over. Isabel was quickly reduced to shrieking with laughter under the expert assault.
Luckily, her attackers were more focused on tickling than restraining her. Neither of the monsters had bothered to pin her arms down. A sickening crunch filled the corridor as Isabel powered through the tickling to grab the face of one of the monsters and twist it with all her might. Its partner seemed to almost freeze in shock at the sight of its partner slowly falling on its side. Isabel didn't waste the opportunity. Her hand curled into a fist and smashed into the face of the other one with enough force to send it tumbling off of her. The genetically engineered super soldier scrambled to her feet and dashed over to grab her rifle.
"Oh fuck off!" Isabel yelled feeling a hand wrap around her ankle. Whatever the hell these things were, they were apparently durable enough to keep moving after having their necks snapped. One of the leathery-skinned beasts had crawled forward to grab her leg and look up with its head twisted at an unnatural angle. Isabel pointed her gun down and unleashed a volley of plasma to blast the offending arm off, figuring that even if she couldn't tell out how much punishment she needed to dole out to kill them she could at least aim to cripple by tearing off their limbs.
"ISABEL!" screamed a voice in her ear. The head engineer's panic filled voice was coming from her comm bead. Screams of laughter could be heard in the background behind her. "Isabel, we're under attack! Get back here-" The voice suddenly cut out.
'Shit. This is getting out of control. I need to start fighting back, starting with saving Gilbert.' Isabel grimaced. Plans for the most efficient way of routing back to the control room followed by fighting their way back to the shuttle were already forming in her head. Plans that immediately changed to trying to figure out the fastest possible way to escape when she noticed half a dozen of the things rounding the corner at her. Even with an arm blown off and head lolling at an angle that made bile rise to her throat, the monster that'd just attempted to grab her was getting up for another go. Its partner was also rising through the concussion she'd undoubtedly given it.
She couldn't win against numbers like this, not against an opponent that could shrug off otherwise fatal wounds. 'Screw somehow making it all the way back to the control room, I need to get out. Now,' Isabel decided. Instead of fighting, the mercenary turned on her heel and made a mad dash back to the ship. Her only hope now was to escape on her own and come back with reinforcements.
The situation on the station was far worse than anyone could've imagined. Catching sight of the monsters torturing Gilbert had been like someone had given the "Go" signal. New monsters were bursting out of every other door. The horde was endless. Isabel used her superhumanly powerful legs to rush past those she could. Those she couldn't were met with a volley of plasma fire to the legs to send them tumbling to the ground before sprinting past.
"Just how smart are these things!?" Isabel screamed. Hope had been starting to swell in her. It looked like she was about to make it. But just as she made it to the final stretch, she noticed the red "Depressurized" light was lit above the docking bay door. The young woman's heart sank. Somehow, the monsters were intelligent enough to know not only that humans couldn't survive in the void of space, but also how to operate the machinery to let all of the atmosphere out of the docking bay. Isabel wished she'd bothered to bring along her uselessly bulky power armor. She was trapped without it. Preparing the room to make it safe for her to get to the ship would take minutes that she simply didn't have.
Fears that she wouldn't have lasted that long were quickly proven correct. She didn't even make it to the end of her rifle's power cell. Long-taloned monsters were crawling out of what felt like every corner. Isabel did her best to fight back, but she couldn't cover every angle at once. The young mercenary found herself quickly being grabbed and wrestled to the ground. Her arms were held above her head and legs pinned down before her jacket was pulled off.
"Fuhuhuhck! Lehet me gohohEHEHEHAHAHA! Bastards... Stop. Stop stop stohop stohohAHAHAHAHAP!" Isabel shrieked. The monsters hadn't even bothered to wait for their compatriots to fully remove her jacket before starting to dance the tips of their nails all over their latest captive. Isabel tried with all her might to hold back the building giggles from the moment it started, but her tormentors seemed to be working together for the express purpose of breaking her into laughing immediately. Three sets of hands were put to work scratching, poking, stroking, and tracing all over her exposed armpits, ribs, and stomach the instant her outerwear had been unzipped enough for them to start. Being tickled so badly before she could fully prepare herself reduced Isabel to bucking, shrieking, and guffawing with laughter within seconds.
Once Isabel was forced to start laughing she found it impossible to make herself stop. Mercifully, two of her ticklers pulled back soon after she started laughing to leave her only having to endure 10 nails poking her stomach all over. But Isabel couldn't bring herself to be relieved by it. As far as she could tell, they had reduced the number of ticklers for the express purpose of getting to explore her ticklish spots. Over the next several minutes chortles and begging filled the cold metallic halls of the station as the monster tickling her meticulously explored everywhere on her upper body. Her hips, stomach, bellybutton, sides, ribs, and underarms all had to endure a minute or two of being focused on with each spot that provoked her into letting out a louder shriek of laughter being tested again and again until the young mercenary wanted to scream in frustration.
There was a sense of overwhelming hopelessness to the young woman over being stuck in a situation where she knew exactly where she was going to be tickled, but was incapable of doing anything to prevent it. An especially bad spot on her stomach right beneath her breasts forced her to throw her head back and cackle with agonized mirth. Her tormentor would spend minutes at a time doing nothing but abusing that one spot, with each stroke of its talons feeling worse than the last from her every last attempt to twist out of the way to dodge a tickle proving to be futile. It was utterly maddening. The sense of vulnerability being unable to escape the relentless torture drove home to her seemed to multiply the tickling to make it feel more horrible than before. Things only got worse when its compatriots decided that they were tired of waiting for their turn.
The level of cooperation they showed without any visible signs of communication was uncanny. It was almost like they instinctually knew how to work together to make her life as horrible as possible. Most of the monsters had filed out of the room after she'd been subdued, but the remaining five worked together to strip her while keeping her laughing. One of them assisted the eyeless horror pinning down her arms so they would both get to set their nails wiggling inside her vulnerable pits. At the same time, two of them coordinated to take turns pinning her legs down so her boots could be tugged off, belt undone, and pants yanked off without giving her an opportunity to kick free.
Isabel's face burned with humiliation over her lower half being exposed by this. She didn't get long to dwell on that though. The monsters pulled her legs apart and each sat down on her shins with one facing towards her upper body and the other her feet. Isabel's shrieks of laughter soon transformed to screams feeling nails begin to assault her thighs and feet. The sensitive flesh of her inner thighs were scratched and squeezed. The one tickling her feet lowered its head down so the tendrils where its mouth should be could snake their way in between her toes at the same time nails wrapped around to lightly scratch at her soles. It was completely overwhelming. The proud mercenary could do little more than scream and laugh as the monsters put their nails to work with far more dexterity than she had known was possible. Everywhere the monsters touched was thoroughly explored for what caused her the most suffering before they began focusing on her worst spots.
Isabel wasn't certain how long she was tortured. It felt like an eternity. Her every attempt to put her superhuman strength to use to throw her attackers off wasn't enough. Overwhelmed by numbers as she was and weakened by sustained tickling, the mercenary was helpless to do anything but scream until she passed out from exhaustion.
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When Isabel next awoke it was to the sound of screaming. Deafening laughter on all sides of her. The ticklish young woman slowly opened her eyes and felt her heart sink. She'd succeeded in finding out what happened to the rest of the crew. Unfortunately, she was now trapped in the same hell as they were.
Space stations like this one all contained a massive chamber in the middle to house the station's warp drive. Thanks to the terrible racket the warp drive made whenever it was turned on, those chambers were the most heavily soundproofed rooms on the entire station. Evidently, they were soundproofed well enough that the screams of hundreds of people being tickle tortured inside couldn't be heard anywhere else on the ship.
The monsters had converted the chamber into their nest and torture chamber. The walls had been lined with a fleshy growth, which in turn had been lined with the crew bound naked side by side. Fleshy tentacles were wrapped around each captive's limbs to hold them in place while more exploited every ticklish spot available to keep them in constant ticklish agony. Near the center of the floor was what Isabel could only describe as the monsters' play area. Particularly ticklish targets were picked off the wall and carried to the center where they had to endure being gang tickled by the eyeless horrors' long nails.
"No. Please. Let me go!" Isabel begged. To Isabel's horror, the monsters began to approach her the moment they noticed she was awake. She was dragged kicking and screaming to the center where she was pinned down near the center of it all. The fleshy growth sprouted tendrils to bind her naked body spread eagle to the floor the moment she was pressed down into it. Soon, her screams of laughter intermingled with all the others as every monster in the area pounced on their newest toy.
The super soldier soon realized that her genetically engineered strength was a curse in this situation. She was so durable, had so much stamina, that she lasted far longer than the monsters' other victims. Her entire body was tortured non-stop for hours on end. While other captives were being given breaks to keep them from passing out, her own tickling continued unabated. Where others would be tickled lighter to keep them giggling when they were tired, Isabel was made to suffer as horribly as possible around the clock.
Isabel soon became the monsters' favorite toy. They never grew tired of her. Brains that had grown to think about nothing but causing ticklish suffering all came to the same conclusion: That they would have the most fun with torturing her in particular. She was a toy they could treat as cruelly as their sadistic minds could imagine for as long as they wished, and they were fully intent on doing so.
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