Psy Spy (IP)

Herbert Brozny was slim built, 6ft 3 inches in height, weighed around 167lbs, had blonde shoulder length surfer hair, a lean cleanly shaven face, thin lips, inquisitive steel grey eyes and a three inch long vertical scar running down his right cheek but, most importantly, Herbert Brozny could steal secrets out of your head, even if you had two heads. It was what Earth Intelligence employed him to do. They provided him with false travel documents and a cover story; a business man trying to make new clients on one of the Earths many colonies, usually, and he did the rest, charming his way into the private offices and houses of alien military officers or government ministers so that he could probe their mind for secret battle plans or encryption codes. It wasn’t so easy these days though with all the new gadgets they had for detecting psychic activity and Herbert guessed that he must have set alarm bells ringing at the Phazaron embassy because it was the only reason he could think of for why there were now two large, unfriendly alien types standing outside his hotel room door with fully charged mazer pistols in their clawed, green warty hands. He had the upper hand though, although the minds of aliens were always a very different kettle of piranha’s to the human mind, but he knew everything about these two from the day they hatched out of their slimy blue birth eggs to the moment they stepped out of the hotel elevator onto his floor. “Mixter Xtevenson?”, asked one, Stevenson being the alias that Brozny was travelling under, pounding a scaly fist against his door while the other took an ultrasound picture of the inside of the hotel room, “We juxt wix to ax you a few quextions. We are from the department of Phaxaron xecurity”. Fortunately, Herbert was also a pretty good master of disguise although the Phazaron physiognomy was a complicated affair with two sets of ruby red eyes; scaly, silverish green skin, large fish like lips and ears like flapping batwings but Herbert had taken a course in creature make-up from a Hollywood veteran and, keeping his head low as he’d passed the two security officers in the hallway it looked as if he had done a good enough job to fool them. It wasn’t long before he had made it down the hotel fire escape and out into the street but he was still in danger and would be until he’d gotten off-planet; thankfully, as arranged, a droid driven limousine was waiting for him in a nearby side street which had programmed instructions to take him to the Phazaron ambassadors own private space cruiser , “Remember ambassador”, he told the nervous looking alien creature on his handheld vidiphone which was simultaneously scanning the limousine for hidden explosive devices, “Not only do I know the location of your militaries secret missile installations, I also know about your extra-marital liaisons with the daughter of the Majamorian high commissioner, an offence punishable by death in your culture so your space cruiser better be waiting for me at the agreed coordinates”. “You will have your memory wiped of it ax xoon ax you are back on your own planet?”, asked the ambassador. “Wipe away the memories of your fat slimy, interspecies sexual encounters”, laughed Herbert wincing at the grotesque images and grunting sounds in his head, “Gladly”. Of course, he knew that the Phazaron ambassador didn’t trust him and vice- versa, which is why, like any good spy he had no intention of walking into the trap that the Ambassador probably had waiting for him at the landing strip and, instead, using a special reprogramming tool which he attached magnetically onto the back of the drivers steel cranium gave the droid new instructions to take him to a secret rendezvous point nearby. “Ahhh, monsieur ‘erbert”, said Claude, a moustachioed, frog like creature and old friend from the French occupied planet of Jules-Verne cinq, hopping out of the pilot seat of his space-copter to shake Herbert’s hand when he saw him exit the limousine that had just pulled up, “I ‘ave not seen you since our daring days in ze foreign space legion, sacre bleu, what times we ‘ad together, eh?”. “Yes, yes, fine times”, said Herbert hurriedly, slipping on a co-pilots helmet and breathing apparatus, “But I’m rather pressed for time now Claude. The Phazarons will no doubt trace their limousine here and Phazarons, as a rule, don’t take prisoners”. “Ahhh! Much like zose barbarians we fought against in ze searing deserts of Scarabia”, said the Julivernian, its bulbous eyes lighting up with a golden glow of nostalgia, “Zey used to eat zeir prisoners, remember? After baking zem alive in the searing desert sand, but we certainly showed zem, n’est–ce-pas?”. But, just then, as Herbert and his friend were sliding into the cockpit of the space copter, its broad lazer blades slowly starting to rotate above them, they both heard a loud, clanging thud and, looking down from the cockpit towards the limousine saw its trunk burst open as the glistening, armour plated thing inside unfolded like a contortionist from a box and, somersaulting, flipped out of the trunk and onto its feet. “Mon dieu!”, exclaimed the francophone alien pilot, “What eez zat?!”. Standing infront of them was a young, beautiful humanoid woman clothed from crown to sole in glistening gold and silver armour with a horned tiara upon her head and, looking worriedly at her strange apparel, Herbert immediately recognized what she was, “That’s a Thorian Beserker”, he said, “The most dangerous killers in all the universe. From a race that is entirely female, they surrender their body to the cyborg armour that enfolds them, becoming part machine. They're notoriously hard to kill”. “Thank goodness zen, zat she is down zere and we are up ‘ere”, said Claude as the rotation of the space copters blades increased and they felt the machine start to lift off of the ground. But then, from the trunk of the limousine, they saw the cyborg woman draw out two glistening broadswords, holding one in either hand and pointing the blades outwards so that she resembled a kind of crucifix before, standing en pointe like a ballerina, the Thorian started to twirl and twirl at such enormous speed that her body became a circular blur of silver and the broadswords, like helicopter blades, started to lift her skywards. “Sacre bleu!”, gasped Claude as he saw the Thorian cyborg warrior take to the air , “She is like ze human ‘elicopter”. Herbert had to agree with his alien chum, she was certainly an amazing sight, but then admiration turned to terror as the ariel ballerina, crossing swords plummeted downwards with the speed of lightning and the grace of a swooping falcon towards the bubble window of the space copter, striking and making a large, long scar like crack across it. “One more like that and it won’t be safe to take this whirlybird into space”, said Herbert, suddenly seizing the controls and pushing them forwards so that the nose and spinning lazer blades of the space copter were tilted downwards, shielding the windscreen from another dive bombing attempt but then Herbert saw, in the rear view mirror, the Thorian attempting a rear assault, diving towards the tail of the copter as if ready to hack through it with one of those lethal broadswords and quickly turned the steering column right so that the helicopter suddenly veered in that direction, rotating 180 degrees , the swooping sky warrior unexpectedly colliding with its sweeping lazer blades that then sliced her up, metal armour and all, like flying pastrami. “Ahhh! C’est la guerre, mademoiselle”, sighed Claude wiping a tear from one of his large, bulbous frog like eyes. “I’m not too cut up about it”, said Herbert as Claude took control of the space copter once more and they soared upwards towards the clouds.