Minerva's superiors were not exactly thrilled. The Empress of the Stars had been the brainchild of a dozen different bases and twice as many strategic minds - a perfect trap, irresistible to the worst, most prolific reavers in the galaxy. For months, the agents involved had acted in secret, isolated from communication with the outside, compartmentalized and kept in the dark about anything that they didn't personally need to know. It was a grueling work of planning and preparation, but when the trap sprung, it would be a hallmark victory for women against those who would do them harm.

And then it had all gone wrong. Every single crew, civilian, and ADD agent on board had fallen prey to the attack. Half the cosmos had watched them all being stripped and raped before the feed could be cut. The Directorate had lost good agents to this debacle - agents who were now being eternally fucked against their will. And the worst and most baffling of it all was that the entire attack seemed to be enacted through raktar. It was well known that those beasts would rape a woman senseless, but they were timid and easily dissuaded through violence. That such a primitive, cautious horde of creatures had even gotten aboard the ship, let alone overwhelmed some of their top trained agents, sent the top brass into a flurry of confusion and investigation.

Unfortunately, the only lead they had to go on was Minerva. She was the only person that anyone knew had escaped the Empress, though evidently not for free. It had been days after they lost contact before Minerva showed back up on their radar, and by her own account, she'd been captured and raped just as thoroughly as everyone else on the ship. Her assertion that she'd managed an escape raised eyebrows, but not nearly as much as her claims that the raktars that had attacked the ship was actually one being, linked with its many bodies and even its victims though a psionic link. Such capabilities were completely unheard of for a raktar, and there was great disagreement among the ADD scientists and commanders whether such a thing was possible. Treason seemed a much more likely explanation, though no one could pin anything on Minerva right away.

For the time being, the young agent was relieved of active duty. She was confined to the station to which she had reported, and put under passive surveillance, though she was free to move about the ship. She was scheduled for routine therapy sessions, and occasionally subjected to further interviews and interrogations. They asked her about her involvement in the planning, her role aboard the ship, where she was when the attack began. They even asked her about her partner, Kaitlin, still a prisoner aboard the Empress. But none of their questions seemed to lead where the brass wanted them to.

Finally, one of the commanders assigned to the investigation grew impatient with the slow progress. He approached Celine Dahl, one of the ADD's top infiltrators, with orders to get close to Minerva and uncover anything she could.

Minerva sighed. She had been in her quarters most of the day. Just like the day before and the day before. It had been a few weeks since escape from the Empress of the Stars and it should have been a few weeks of relief. However, ever since she had gotten back to Tartartus Station and gave her report on what had happened, she had been met with skepticism. At first it was just therapy sessions and occasional further interviews. However she had soon been relieved of duty. Soon she was limited to Tartarus Station, unable to leave until she got orders for somewhere else.

The agents aboard the station treated the young woman like a leper. It was clear that to even Minerva that she was in some sort of major trouble, everytime she sat in the cafeteria the other women would get up and move to another table or just stop eating and leave. The interviews were soon becoming interrogation. They asked her about her role on the ship, where she was during the attack, what happened to her partner Kaitlan.

It was during these interrogations, that Minerva learned the awful truth of the situation. That it was elaborate trap by the Directorate, one that was suppose to have the Directorate moving with overwhelming force against any attackers on the Empress. While Minerva knew that there ships on standby, she did not how many undercover agents were on the ship. Instead of just herself and Kaitlin as Minerva originally thought, there were dozens of agents undercover ready to help out in case of an attack and they were all taken in an instant by the raktar. By surviving and escaping, Minerva had made herself a pariah.

The redheaded Lieutenant had little people who would actually talk to her, the crew did only what was necessary. The interrogator would only talk to Minerva when she during interrogations. Her therapist would talk to her in a professional sense during her therapy sessions, but otherwise not at all. Only, Nurse Celine Dahl would talk to her openly and they had a budding friendship. She was a reason addition to the station and one that Minerva welcomed.

ADD Infiltrator Celine Dahl had checked out her nurse's outfit. It was a pink affair that included a matching pink nurse’s hat and white stockings. She was getting ready for to stop by Minerva’s quarters to drop off a book to read.

Despite her friendliness, the blonde agent was here on a mission. Many of her fellow undercover agents were lost on that mission on the Empress. In fact if there had not been a bureaucratic error, Celine would have been one of the contestants on the ship. Thanks to someone’s screw up, she had been saved from being raped on galactic broadcast like many of her fellow undercover agents. The only additional reward is that appeared the pirate and former agent, Rei Yamamoto was also caught in the tentacles.

According that Minerva, aggressive raktar was used to overrun the ship. While the raktar were known to rape any woman they came across, they tend to be known as generally defensive creatures. They would never invade a new location and they would quickly withdraw if they came across an armed opponent such as Minerva. The redhead agent had the riktar had communicated through some sort of psychic power. None of that was within the riktar capabilities. The riktar was never known to fight through pain, or invade a ship, or even be smart enough to use psionics much less communicate. No clearly this Minerva Rocha was hiding something, and Celine need to find out if she was going to avenge her undercover sisters lost on the Empress.

Unfortunately for Minerva, Celine wasn't the only one who was willing to talk to her. 263 was also there, in her thoughts. Or was it? The voice seemed like a memory, but so loud and so pervasive it could have been in the room for all she could tell. "Bring me women, and I'll help you free your sister," was all it ever said, repeating it at least once an hour like a bad alarm clock. It may have been just one more memory from her ordeal, manifesting itself as a form of trauma. Or, the monster could have been aboard the station, inside the perimeter, waiting in her very room. Such a bold advance would hopefully be futile, but there was no way for her to be sure.

Really, it didn't matter. The voice remained, and so did her situation. She was practically under arrest, her partner captured and eternally raped, her little sister sharing a similar fate on Shokushu for all she could imagine. The raktar had offered to help free Ishtar. If Minerva played things right, maybe she could bargain for Kaitlin's freedom, too. But the cost would be more of her fellow agents, given willingly. Her only other option was to try and do something about it herself.

Minerva heard a voice again, that voice again! The creature that had taken over the Empress. The voice repeated the same thing it said an hour ago, and the hour before. Minerva just had to bring more women and her sister would be free. The redhead was not sure if the creature was not nearby. But she was not really sure, she hoped that it was just some trauma attempting to work its way through her mind and it would eventually be go.

Not that changed the reality of the situation, the young woman was just short of being thrown in prison. Her partner was still captured by the raktar and probably is being raped right now. Who knows what was happening to Ishtar, the creature mentioned that it could free her. However, that would mean that Minerva would have to give the creature more women, more agents. Something she was not sure she could do.

Celine began gathering information on Minerva via talking to few agents that had dealt with the suspect redhead. It was a slow process as many of the women did not much to stay besides the odd conversation here or there. Many in fact encouraged, the busty blonde not to talk to the Lieutenant, just to talk to her as little as possible.

However, Celine needed to find some evidence to push forward with the prosecution of Minerva Rocha. She decided to talk to Minerva’s therapist to see what the faux nurse could learn. Hopefully the therapist could give some pointers on what the blonde needed to do to get Minerva to open more. Celine did have to keep up her act as a nurse, as the therapist might not give her the information if the therapist knew she was a spy.

Minerva's therapist, Doctor Tavers, had been with the ADD for several decades. She'd seen all manner of cases from personnel across the agency, and treated all manner of traumas. Nightmares, hallucinations, flashbacks, body dysfunctions - the good doctor had seen it all in her patients, and she'd had to try her best to help all of them. She'd also been a rescue from Shokushu, and had endured her fair share of base attacks since. She'd been raped just as much and just as badly as many of her patients, and those experiences had helped keep her empathy fresh in her mind.

"Thank you for your assistance," Tavers said to Celine when she offered her services as a nurse. "None of these cases are good, but Lieutenant Rocha's is particularly bad. She lost her partner, civilians, crew members - everyone she was trying to protect. She's lost a lot on this mission - more than I've seen in a while. She needs time to process what's happened. I'm sure your companionship will help her with that."

Celine knew that Doctor Tavers, was working towards doing what she could to rehabilitate Minerva. Do what she could so that the redhead could return to active service. After all, Doctor Tavers was doing what she could to make sure the agent returned to active duty, she would not be interested in seeing the agent going to jail. Celine had to be careful how she asked her questions to push through what she was looking for.

Your welcome, Doctor Travis, Celine nodded. However, I was wondering. You have heard the stories of capture. About voice in her head, that raktar over run the ship…it seems to be a bit much… The faux nurse cleared her throat. Do you think she is repressing something?

The doctor considered that for a moment. "Repressing... No, I don't think so," she answered. "She isn't showing any signs of subconscious trauma or repression patterns. When she speaks about her ordeals, the clarity of her accounts and descriptions sounds like anything but delusions."

Doctor Tavers had never personally dealt with raktar. They were mostly defensive creatures, used to guard bases that Tavers had no business being around. But she had plenty of second hand experience with them. "I've dealt with patients who were raped by raktar before. Often, agents feel shame at being overcome by such a timid and predictable creature, not appreciating just how much more dangerous they become in a group. But this... for an entire ship filled with trained agents to be taken over. And hijacked, of all things. Before the emergency beacon could even be activated. Something is certainly weird about this situation. But I haven't been able to find any inconsistencies or fallacies in Minerva's story."

The doctor had explained that repression was not something that seemed to be going on. Minerva story seemed to remain consistent nor did it have strange leaps of logic that someone who was clearly trying to cover up something.

Ah well, I think there is something missing here, the faux nurse replied. It still seems that there is more for Minerva to speak about, if she is to recover how we can help work it out? Even if everything played out exactly as the redhead daid, how did she escape. Minerva was known for escapes, but for her to be the only agent to get away, seemed very unlikely.

Minerva had decided to go for a walk. The redhead was disturbed a bit more than usual by the latest voice of the raktar. It was not much different than the other times she heard the voice, but this time it felt like it was on board the station. She just couldn’t get the thought out of her head, she hoped a walk would work it out.

The agent still could feel the stares from other women as she walked down the hall. They tend to walk on the otherside of the hallway or simply stare at her in slience as she walked by. Nobody but Doctor Travis and Nurse Dahl seemed to understand her and what she went through. How in the world was she going to be able to save Ishtar and Kaitlin if she was going to return to the ADD.

Where disregard didn't greet Minerva, silent glares did. The agents she passed were the worst of it. Many of them had had friends aboard the Empress, some even partners. They resented Minerva for escaping what those women hadn't, and suspected her part in all of it. The fact that she'd lost her own partner to the trap made matters worse. If Minerva really was a traitor, it meant she'd betrayed her own partner to her face, and run back to tell lies about it.

The rest of the crew didn't bear her the same hatred, but there was distrust and judgement among those women just as well. Many of them had seen the footage of the Empress' crewmen - the very crew Minerva had tried so hard to protect - being stripped and raped senseless. It had driven home to them just how vulnerable many of them were. They often thought of themselves as distanced from the normal risks that ADD agents faced. But if their station were attacked, they could be captured and raped for eternity just as those women had been. And many felt that Minerva posed a risk of just that happening to them, were she to stay.

o one greeted Minerva as the agent walked the halls, many simply glared silently at her. It was clear that the redhead, that she was not welcome here not. The ones that looked at her as pure hatred, were the ones that had been in the field or had friends or lovers in the field. They pretty much seemed to treat her as she was a traitor. The rest seemed to avoid talking to her, it was like she was a bad omen, something that fore told an ominous future.

Minerva decided to head down to the gym where she could at least exercise out her frustrations for the moment. If nothing else, she could keep that voice that in her head at bay for the moment. Maybe just once it would not speak to her. She had told no one about the voice or the true reason she had escaped. The redhead was afraid that had she had done that she would be thrown in prision or exile for sure. And then she would never be able to save Ishtar or Kaitlin.

Tartarus Station was a major hub of ADD activity, and was constantly well-staffed with agents looking for physical activity, either in preparation for future missions or as therapy for past ones. To accommodate this, the station offered quite a few rec rooms. The nearest one was filled with exercise machines, free weights, and even gravity chambers for the more daring (and perhaps foolish). It also wasn't too populated, but there were several women already present when Minerva entered. And those women reacted to her presence the way most people on the station did. Whatever light-hearted conversation might have been going on died when they saw her, and their expressions turned to scowls. Some of the women turned back to their exercises, determined to ignore the newcome pariah, but an air of tension hung over the room.

The redhead stepped into the one of the rec rooms offered on Tartarus Station. The suspended agent stepped into the room, all the light chatter that was going on immediately died off. Througout the room, there were several women using the various exercise machines, free weights, and gravity chambers. The all stopped their conversation, and simply stared for a moment at the redhead. Some of the women went back to their exercises, pretending that the pariah did not exist. Minerva wanted to go somewhere else, but she knew she would face the same problem anywhere else on the station. She walked over to a jogging machine, and hoped she could at least use it in the peace and at least forget her trouble for a minute.