With the helmet on Zahra's sense of fear intensified massively. Her world was suddenly dark and silent. With taste and smell also redundant all she had left of her primary senses was touch.

As time went on she started to feel the strain of being stuck standing up. Moving her weight from one leg to the other relieved it for a while but the strain soon turned to pain that she couldn't relieve hopping from foot to foot.

She was also starting to feel bored. Standing still for what felt like hours, with only her thoughts, and the pain, for company she desperately wanted something to happen.

When something did happen, however, it did not make the situation better. Mentally stripping and reassembling a standard assault rifle her concentration was rudely interrupted by a searing pain across her back.

Screaming in agony she jerked forward as far as she could, straight into a searing pain in her thighs as though she had jumped into barbed wire. As she recoiled from that there was another blow to her back. Twisting round to protect her back only provided her chest and abdomen as a target for whatever was abusing her.

Excruciating pain flared through her left breast as it felt like her nipple had been stabbed by a thousand needles, causing to twist and turn in mindless desperation in an attempt to avoid the blows.

Eventually the attack stopped and she slumped down as far as the chains would allow her, sobbing and crying in her misery. Eventually the agony subsided into pain and then a mere ache, and she was able to stand back up and relieve the strain on her arms.

Just as she was able to find a balance for her pains she started to feel the helmet get smaller. Bands inside compressed and began to crush her skull, along with blinding lights, powerful enough to go bypass any protection her eyelids provided. The lights started flashing in a slow random pattern designed to maximise her disorientation.

The crushing of the skull receded to be replaced by noises blaring through speakers by her ears. Also designed to make life as miserable as possible the sounds were also randomised. Not just in volume and pitch, but also in which ear the sounds came through.

Eventually the noises and lights subsided, though there was a final flourish after a gap just long enough to make Zahra hope that they were done.

Recovering from these maltreatments she was surprised to find that she had vomited inside the helmet and was now assaulted by the smell of it, along with the feeling of it running it down her torso.

After an unknown time the pain returned to her back as the physical beatings returned, alternating with aural, visual and crushing torment, with random gaps between them.

During one such gap she realised that she needed to relieve herself. Holding on as long as she could she was forced to soil herself, and while she could feel the filth run down her legs she could not smell it.

Then came the thirst. With all the tears, she dehydrated and her body started screaming out for water. Eventually becoming a misery nearly as much as the other torments.

Eventually the torments ended for an extended period and her hope that it was over was fulfilled.

The helmet was removed and put back in a locker, though she was left hanging by her arms. She realised that this was done by a human in threadbare civilian clothes. She tried to speak to him, only to be silenced by a shake of the man's head.

Once finished the human left the room, leaving her hanging by her arms. blasts of a cool liquid then washed all over her removing the grime from her body, while relieving the pain from the beatings.

Turning herself round to look out of the transparent wall she found that it was opaque from this side and she could see nothing of her surroundings.

Ravaged by her headache, thirst and now hunger, with her shoulders burning from the strain of still having to hold her brutalised body up, she hung there for a while longer before finally marshalling enough strength to get her legs to take over the job of keeping her up.

Just as she managed that, the elf that had chained her up came back into the room.

"Did you enjoy your stay?" He mocked. "I hope you found it as enjoyable as we did watching you."

He then unlocked her arms from their bonds, allowing her to collapse to the floor.

"Get up, you lazy cow!" He admonished her. "You've just had a lovely rest in one of our special booths. Get dressed and get out there."

Extending a collapsible baton he then smacked in the arm.

Staggering to her feet she made her way over to the shelf where her clothes were, and got dressed. Each item of clothing seeming to find every sore piece of flesh it could. The worst was her bra, pressing on bother her damaged breasts and her battered back. Finally she finished and followed the elf from the room.

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Outside where three others of the nine that had come with her. Each looking like they had suffered as much as she had. Over the next few minutes five others appeared, before the sixth, one of the younger civilian aides, was unceremoniously dragged out and dumped at their feet.

"Pick it up!" They were ordered.

Lifting the poor girl between herself and one of the male soldiers, she didn't have long to wait before they were led out of this horrific room. Zahra was fairly sure that they were heading back to their cell, but had become disorientated somewhat during her ordeal.

Stopping just past the door Zahra expected to be let into they were made to pause while the next ten victims were brought out and led to the torture room. Zahra and the others were then let back into their communal cell.

Inside their cell they were quickly mobbed by their comrades who, having seen the state of the original ten, wanted to check on them. Just looking at the state they were in the other prisoners quickly got their answer.

Colonel Quansah had the medics do what they could for them, but the healing solution they had been sprayed with had done a far greater job of healing them than the army medics could do, especially as they had no supplies. All they could do was provide psychological support, especially to the young civilian, who Zahra later learned was called Clarice Overton.

Zahra spent the rest of the day recovering from her ordeal, Leaving Sergeant Mantle in charge of the platoon. This involved having plenty to drink, though there was no extra food.

The next day Zahra once again took the spot for her platoon, suffering the same torments as her first visit to the cells. This routine carried on for another three cycles after that before she was physically unable to stand up and take her place. Against her wishes, Sergeant Mantle took her slot, returning the next day in the same condition she always did.

"How do you keep putting yourself through that Ma'am?" He asked her. "Four times you've returned to that hell hole knowing what they're going to do to you.

"How can you?"

"The same reason you did yesterday." She croaked, her voice still not recovered from the punishment her screaming had put her throat through three days before.

Pointing to their platoon. "So they don't have to.

"And I'm too much of a coward to force someone to do it." She added with a bit of a grimace. "I couldn't look anyone in the eye having made them go through that."

Sergeant Mantle looked over at the Colonel and Governor, each trying to out do the other with their airs of regal concern for each batch of prisoners returned, and sneered.

On his way over to comfort Mantle the Governor caught the look and changed direction, with only a slight reddening of his cheeks at the contempt he could feel directed towards him.

Colonel Quansah, holding his own court with some of the officers, pretty much ignored her platoon, just glancing at Zahra now and again, then saying something to his followers.

The next day was her company's turn again. Stripping off and then only putting her trousers and blouse back on she made her way to the area by the doors where that day's victims were to congregate. Mantle stopped her, with a question in his eyes.

"Despite the pain relief they give, it still hurts like buggery to put my clothes on again. This way I only have two items of clothing. Another couple of weeks I might even do it go naked. Just haven't squashed my modesty down that far yet."

"Come on guys." She told them. "I'm only an officer so if I can do it, so can you."

That steeled most of them, though Lance Corporal Mittori of One Platoon replied.

"The colonel says you get it easy, because your old man works for them." He sneered.

"How would that wind bag know anything about it, hiding in here. While the Lieutenant has suffered through it five times already.

"You've seen the state she's come back in. There's no way they've gone easy on her." Answered Eight Platoon's Private Han.

"He's the one so cowardly that he set it up that he would never have to go through it." Added Corporal Schultz.

"Enough. We've got enough enemies out there without fighting amongst ourselves." Lieutenant Andrews chided them.

With a sulky look Mittori moved away from the others.

After a few minutes the doors opened and they were led out, nodding to the ones who had just finished their rotation, and marched back to the central torture room.

This routine went on for what seemed like forever. Zahra taking on most of the abuse, her back such a mass of scars that she had lost a large amount of feeling there. This increased the intervals between when Sergeant Mantle needed to relieve her.

As time wore on a routine evolved, while discipline broke down. Cliques formed between like minded individuals. Friendships blossomed into relationships and couples formed.

Every day people went off to the torture chambers. Somehow everyone still respected their original platoons when it came to that duty. Other than that the platoons structure almost completely broke down. Only Zahra's and Joe Andrews' platoons managing to stay together. In fact both platoons increased in size as disenchanted men and women abandoned their own commanders and gravitated to the two much more respected officers.

Sadly day one hundred and seventeen, according to those that had kept a calendar, the humans suffered their first fatality.

As Zahra, and that day's victims, were being led past F Company's latest sacrifices she noticed that there were only nine of them, rather than the usual ten. As she walked down the corridor she wondered, to herself, why the elves had only taken that number the day before. It wasn't until she was hooked up to the torture facilities that she realised that ten were selected, but one wasn't returned.

Her concern for that missing comrade was soon banished from her mind, and it wasn't until she was getting ready two days later that she thought to ask if anyone knew. One of the young political aides attached to F Company had died in the torture cell during the night and his companions had had to watch his lifeless body being dragged, unceremoniously, out of the cell by his feet.

Over the next thirty five days four more didn't return. Three from F Company and one from her own. Zahra had had to watch the young woman's ignominious departure from the cell. More than the pain from the beatings, this hurt the young officer. Although not a member of her platoon, she still felt an immense sense of failure at being unable to have protected her. That night, for the first time in months, Zahra cried herself to sleep.