Chapter 36: Some mysteries are solved

Jenny hung from the wall. The pain had finally stopped and she looked around the room. Her eyes slowly focused on the only things in the room, a spider bot hanging on the far wall above the replicator and the camera in the center of the room pointed at her. Suddenly the pain started up again, and she started screaming until her voice was hoarse, and she lost control of her bladder and soiled herself. The pain stopped for a second and she started gasping for a breath. She screamed into the room as the pain started up again.

"Wwwwhhhyyyy?"

Taking a quick breath, she continued, hoping the ghost could hear her.

"What have I done to you?"

Suddenly the pain increased, and she screamed louder than she had ever in her young life.

"Ayiiiiiiii, please stop it! It hurts! Oh God it hurts!"

Jenny started twisting in pain, pulling on her bonds, smacking her head against the wall as the pain continued to increase until the sweet feeling of unconsciousness came to her.

Jenny hung there on the wall, dreaming of a picnic she'd had with Ted two weeks ago. He had laughed at her corny jokes and then he turned serious when he told her he would be there to save her from the Brander, and that he loved her. Then they leaned into a kiss and when she opened her eyes afterwards, she saw the horror of the girl who had been torturing her.

The girl grinned at her, and said, "Pain."

Her body started twisting in pain as electricity shot through it. Even unconscious she felt the pain, and then it went away and she dreamed no more.

Jenny's eyes slowly flickered open. She felt a mild pain like when her leg went to sleep because Cherie was sleeping on it, but this was all over her body. It was painful, but mild compared to what she had been going through. She started looking around, when a voice off to her right said something.

Jessica floated there to the girl's right and said, "Did you have a nice nap Commander. It was such a lovely dream, but I cannot allow you to have those thoughts. I want you to suffer so much, that all you feel is pain."

She looked at the young girl as her eyes focused on her. With an evil grin, she said once more.

"Pain."

Jessica turned her head and looked at the horror floating there, and asked, "Why?"

Then the ghost again said, 'Pain.'

And again, the electricity shot through her shackles and she started screaming as the ghost faded from sight.

"Why? Because I can! Now, suffer the agonies that I have suffered for a thousand years."

The pain lasted for several minutes until she passed out. During that time, it shocked her. It felt as if her tendons and her nerves were being pulled out with pliers and a million needles were stabbing her skin all at once. After four minutes of this, sweet darkness overtook her once again. In her dreams, she felt herself lying on the floor instead of hanging on the wall. Suddenly she heard a sweet voice calling her to consciousness.

Jenny lay there, and slowly her eyes flickered open. She realized she was lying on her side, on a blanket, and a pillow was under her head. She was naked, but covered with another blanket. Lying on the floor beside her was a new set of clothes, a basin of water with a hand towel, and a big fluffy white towel.

"What?" Clearing her throat, she said again, "What's going on?"

Jessica watched the young woman slowly wake up and ask her questions in confusion, she then said to her, "Jenny, I am sorry. I hope you can one day forgive me. I will not bother you ever again. Please forgive me. I will give you some time to get cleaned up, before I unseal the door. Your mum and brother are on the other side, waiting for you."

Jenny rolled over and saw the ghost fading out, and said, "Please don't go, stay and talk with me."

The ghost shook her head and said as she disappeared from sight, "Maybe one day we can talk. But for now, deep down, you will be angry at me."

Jenny sat up and pain coursed through her body, momentarily. She looked in surprise at where the bands had been, expecting to see her body badly burned, but there was not a mark on her. Sitting up Indian style, she got a whiff of herself. Reaching over for the hand towel, she dipped it in the water, and gave herself a 'sponge bath' with it. Once done, she dried herself off, and pulled her clothes on. Getting up, she carried her 'bath' items to the replicator, where they dissolved into a silvery mist. Turning around, she looked at her torture room, shivered, and quickly went to the door and started opening it.

Martha and Ken turned and faced the door as it opened. They saw Jenny standing there.

Suddenly, Jenny was running towards them and into her mother's arms, as she cried out, "Momma! Oh Momma!"

Martha held her baby as she cried her heart out and said, "It's okay, baby. I am here for you. I love you and I will always be here for you. You're my baby girl. Shhh. Please don't cry anymore."

Jenny looked over at her brother. She let go of her mother and went to her brother.

Hugging him tightly, she said to him, "Thank you for coming for me bro. Where is Ted?"

Ken embraced his sister when she let go of her mother, and asked, "Are you okay sis? Ted went to get something to set you free, he didn't say what it was."

Jenny sniffed, and replied, "I am okay, now. Now that I am free from that crazy bitch."

Martha looked into her daughters face, and replied, "Sweetie, she's not a bitch and don't talk like that or I will tan your butt. She is a young woman that has been tortured for a thousand years. We will find out more when we find her and set her free. Now, let's get you up to medical so Molly can check you out."

As they turned around and head for the transport tubes, Ted came out of the cargo transport tube with a team of Marines lugging an M-4 heavy laser cannon. Martha looked at the cannon and her future son in law, and gasped.

"You were not fucking seriously considering using that on the door, were you?" Martha blushed at her own language and continued, "Sorry about the cussing."

Ted stopped, looked up at the voice and saw Martha and Ken standing there with Jenny.

Dropping his end of the cannon, he rushed to Jenny and lifted her up in the air, and cried, "Jenny, are you okay? I'm sorry I couldn't get to you."

Hugging her to him, he gave her a huge kiss that left her blushing in front of the Marines, as they set up a chorus of wolf whistles.

Looking at Ted, she said, "Ted, you big oaf, put me down."

Ted set Jenny down and said, "Sorry, Jenny, I was just excited to see you. What happened with Jessica? Where is she? I am going to blow every holo-emitter away, and leave her in limbo..."

Martha went white at Ted's comment and said in a firm voice, "Theodore White, shut the hell up! Do not let me ever hear you talk about Jessica like that, not until you have walked in her shoes. Now, we are taking Jenny to medical, you can stay, follow or lead ... but shut up, until I tell you otherwise. Do I make myself clear young man?"

Ted gulped as he heard the anger in Martha's voice, and quickly responded, "Yes, Ma'am." Ted turned and said to the Marines beside him, "Men, can you return this to the armory for me? I'm sorry I dragged you all down here."

"No problem, Sir. We're just glad the commander is okay."

The Marines gathered up the weapon, took it back into the cargo tube and departed.

Ted lifted Jenny up in his arms, carried her to the tube, stepped in and said to her, "Let's get you to medical my love."

"I can walk, Ted."

"I know. Computer, Medical One."

Ken and Martha watched Jenny blush as they disappeared.

Ken looked at his mom, and said, "Wow, Ted really loves her. They will be a beautiful couple when we get them married.

Taking her son's arm, she takes him into the transport tube. "Yes they will, and then it's your time young man." Laughing at her sons shocked expression she said, "Medical One, near Dr. Molly O'Neil, please."

The transport tube carried them off deeper into the ship.

Joshua walked down to his office in stunned silence. His mind was racing about his missing wife. Thinking back twelve years, he was in Hamburg delivering a speech to the Hamburg University on economics when he got the call that his wife of nineteen years was missing. Mary was on her way up to northern Maine to visit her sister Annette and had never showed. Annette tried her cell phone all day and never got an answer.

Six days later her car was eventually located in Portland, abandoned in the parking lot of the local Home Depot. The police assumed she had been kidnapped, and her body dumped in the forests.

Finally, after ten years, he'd had her declared legally dead. Now her sister was his new wife. They had come together after the death of her husband during a car accident eighteen months ago.

Walking into his office, he removed the cuff and set the briefcase down beside his desk as he sat down in his chair. Reaching over to the pictures on his desk, he picked up the gold-framed picture of his first wife, and looked at it. 'Mary I pray to God you're not a slave out there. Please, let you be with the lord, even though I would rather have you here with me. I miss you so much, and your sister does, too. I hope when we do meet, you can forgive me for falling in love with your sister, Annette.'

Setting the picture down, he walked over and got himself his only vice, a Coke Classic, and popped the top. Walking back to his desk, he sipped the 12-ounce drink over the next few minutes. Sitting there in his chair, his mind wandered back to happier days with Mary, the honeymoon in Hawaii, the camping trips in the Grand Teton in Idaho, her laughing as he fell into the river trying to rescue her hat. He thought of the birth of their twin daughters Helen and Johanna, in 1961, at the United States Navy Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The boys Jacob and Henry were born in 1965 and 1967 in Maine. He also remembered the marriages and births of their grandkids, and the births of the great-grandkids.

"God, how do I tell the kids? Especially Helen who is dying of cancer down in Arizona, she was so close to her mother."

Lori stood there looking at Joshua sitting in the chair. Noticing the picture of his first wife sitting in the center of his desk, she feared they have found her remains. She hesitantly asked, "Sir? Is something wrong?"

Looking up, he saw his secretary Lori standing there, her arms full of folders. "No Lori, I was just thinking out loud." Looking at the folders she had in her arms, he asked her, "What have you got for me?"

With a sigh of frustration, 'Damn it Joshua, I wish you would trust me, ' she thought, as she replied to his question, "Just more reports on Iraq and Afghanistan. Sir, is something wrong with Annette?"

"No, she is fine, I was just daydreaming. I guess it's old age catching up with me. I was thinking of Mary and if she was to walked through the door right now, how I would have to explain Helen's cancer to her, that our daughter is dying." Joshua hoped the lie covered the slip up of his talking to himself.

Looking at her boss with concern on her face, she replied, "Oh, is she getting worse? I am sure Mary is watching over her from heaven."

Joshua looked at the concern on the young girl's face and told her what he knew of his daughter's condition that he had kept hidden for the last six weeks.

"Yes, she is. The doctors don't think she has more then six months left, the chemo is not doing the job like it did three years ago." Looking at her, he said, "Go ahead and put the folders on the desk, I will get to them as soon as I can. Will you remind me of my appointment with Secretary Garcia, at one pm?"

"Yes, Sir, I will. Now don't you work too hard. It's a Friday and you need to have a relaxing weekend with no stress. I know you have a golf game with Lord Devon so you have a good time with him. Now, the first file deals with the bombing of the Texaco tanker. She is in Bahrain and going into dry dock so they can look at the damage. If it is not too bad, they expect her out in seventy-two hours. This one is the shooting down of the Chinook helicopter by a stinger missile in Iraq," Lori said as she moved folders in front of him as she explains what each is.

"This deals with the situation in Venezuela and the seizing of the big oil rig off their coast. They estimate thirty terrorists have taken the platform and the crew was being held in the galley. There are infrared pictures of the platform in the folder; eight Americans are confirmed as hostages and three of the nine dead." Lori said as she went on for the next ten minutes explaining what each file was.

"Thank you, Lori. I will get right on this. Please see that I am not disturbed while I do so, unless it's important."

Picking up the first folder, he started doing his reports on each one. He carefully read each report and marked it on the front cover so it would go where it was needed. Before he knew it, Lori was interrupting him, telling him that it was time for his meeting.

"Sir, its 12:45 you have fifteen minutes to get up to Secretary Garcia's office for your meeting."