Here I am, Anna Jane. Intrepid investigator. My first time.
I knew the wires were secure, the microphone taped between my breasts heard everything and a dozen TerraPol officers would be instantly on hand if things went bad. There was nothing to be afraid of. TerraPol doesn't abandon it's own.
This was my first time though. I had worked so hard to be accepted but, till tonight, I had been stuck behind a desk. That is one of the reasons I leapt at the chance of this assignment without really considering the sense of it.
Maybe it was all some sort of initiation prank. The whole thing had seemed pretty unprofessional at the time. But I had to follow orders. And I wanted to be accepted at any cost.
So here I was dressed in jackboots and latex hot pants, leather leggings and a leather jacket that didn't reach my navel. A young crewgirl of the ship I was meant to infiltrate currently had her hand around my waist and her fingers tucked into my belt. She was called Red. She was some sort of pirate. I already had plenty of evidence. She was practically bragging about how many crimes she had committed against the human race. It seemed to me her verbal admissions alone were plenty to justify a search warrant of her ship right down to and including a cavity search of it's captain and crew! Why play this out any longer?
I had intercepted her in a spacedogs bar. She was a loose-lipped drunk and easily manipulated into promising a tour of a real spaceship in turn for unspecified fun. TerraPol would step in before I had to make good on my side of the bargain, I hoped!
Giggling like this was a schoolgirl prank, Red had sneaked me onboard and maneuvered me through the labyrinthine engine room, attempting to avoid the other crew. We almost made it. We were almost at her cabin when around the corner came the captain, flanked by four crewgirls. How confidently they swaggered! Pirates, and they looked the part. No, that is not entirely true. The captain had a careworn, rather than carefree, look to her. The crewgirl to her right, however, would have made a fine young pirate captain in any trashy romantic eyetickler. Not that I peruse such pulp. It would certainly be frowned upon for a TerraPol agent. Illusions aside the facts were these: we upheld the law and protected humanity. They spat on both. My life would not be worth much if I were discovered-- and if there were not a dozen highly trained TerraPol ready to whisk me to safety at the first sign my cover was blown.
Still, I took the time to commit her rather tasty image to memory. At home, in bed, in my mind, she could be as nice or nasty as I wished.
Red stopped and saluted. The captain nodded, then her eyes swung to me.
"Quite a catch there, Red. Set you back a bit, I suppose." Her tone was casual, her face was casual but she was suspicious. Her eyes had lingered on me a bit too long.
Red laughed. "Nah. She's free. Practically threw herself at me. Never seen the inside of a spaceship."
"Don't you go showing her anything outside the inside of your cabin, Red." Cautioned the heroic looking girl on the captain's right. First mate, I guessed. I'll call her Spikey. She had short spikes and a hard expression; aimed at Red right now, not me. I wasn't far wrong about her name as it turned out.
"Never intended to," Red replied with childish slyness. I believed her. Help! Where was my backup? Spikey ignored the innuendo and smiled chivalrously at me. Something glinted in her eye. "You must really have wanted to see the inside of a spaceship, girl."
This was getting too sticky for my liking. I tried to look as cheap as possible. "Bet you could show me more than a cabin, sweetheart."
Spikey snorted. My gambit had worked. That glint was gone from her eye, replaced by disdain. They were going to ignore me after all.
They would have ignored me, I would have got away with it. They would not have discovered me and all that was subsequent would not have happened to me IF..
..IF at that instant a grainy voice had not rang out from a hidden speaker, dripping with gloating sadistic glee. "She makes a convincing slut, doesn't she."
It came from under my shirt. From the microphone my fellow officers had helped me tape there. "Almost as good as her impression of a TerraPol officer, wouldn't you say..."
It felt like being punched in the gut. I wanted to be sick. My pulse was deafening in my ears as my brain tried to absorb the fact that I had just been murdered. And I knew that voice. It was the smiling voice of the same sergeant whom had told me not to work so late, not to waste my life chasing discrepancies in paperwork filled out by illiterates.. The same, whom had came into my office only hours ago and congratulated me on finally getting what I had been asking for. A chance at a real mission! I remember being so elated, and so annoyed. I had suspected them of giving me that desk job to bore me out of the force. Though it bored me to tears I had approached it like a detective. And found discrepancies. I knew who and suddenly I knew why.
The pirates had recoiled as if I were plague itself. They were looking at me with horror and disgust. This wasn't the way it was meant to end! Even if the villains killed the heroine here, weren't they meant to praise the heroine for her tenacity first?, or say something like "You and I, we are the same.." That is how it always worked in the EyeTicklers. Instead they looked as if they might stamp me to death rather than touch me with their hands. As one might kill a cockroach. It was not enough. I had not lived enough life yet.
No one spoke. After a gap the voice began again. "Hmmm.. This thing IS working isn't it?"
I don't know why I gave him the pleasure of answering. I looked around at the ring of hate filled faces. "It is working, sir" I answered quietly.
As if my words had broken a spell, they lunged for me. I got in only glancing blows before my arms were pinned behind me, the last of the rest of my life that mattered spent. Spikey strode forwards with ice in her eyes. She ripped open my shirt to expose the concealed mike taped there, and the wires winding around to the transmitter between my shoulderblades.
"You should have known your place girlie," the voice tutted smugly, " You should have known your place."
The captain strode forwards as if to hit me. The blow never struck but it may as well have. "What is the meaning of this?!!" she demanded, almost shouted at me in her fury. I couldn't get any sound past my lips. But it wasn't me she was speaking to after all.
"We had a deal. I have just delivered on my part of the bargain."
"The bargain was for information."
"She has it. When she isn't out looking for a good hard fucking she works in records. A bit too nosy for her own good."
"So you decided to kill two birds with one stone."
"I decided to feed one to the other." The voice disappeared with a click.
"Kill that," the captain said casually, gesturing to my breast. The mike was ripped off me and crushed under a booted foot.
"Damn him!" she exploded the instant it was done. "This is less than we paid for; and I hate being played......Still..." A slow smile took her as an idea occurred. "A captured Reich agent..... "
For a second she inspected me, then she spoke to me. I did not really understand her at the time. " All their lives this crew has lived in fear of people like you. Fear paralyses, girl. You are learning that right now aren't you.. Well they won't be afraid of you soon."
