The Adventures of Star
Eagle
Episode 1 Birth of a
Superheroine
by L'Espion
Chapter
3 True
Confessions
Karla got to her feet, her face almost as red as her shoulder length hair. She pointed an accusing finger at Melissa. “So you vait till I sleep and then play around. You not nice quiet girl I thought you vere. I stay up two days vaiting for you.”
“Oh no,” thought Melissa, “I don’t need this. I just want to get some food and rest a bit.”
“I miss two days classes waiting for you and lie to your boss, to save your job,” Karla continued. “I say you sick.”
“I’m sorry, Karla, “Melissa replied. “But I need some food and rest. I’m very tired.”
Karla was not about to let up, but suddenly noticed Melissa’s disheveled state. Although unhurt, the signs of her ordeal were apparent. The heroine was covered in grime, her hair was a tangled mess, and her body was streaked with sweat and blood. It was this last feature that really caught Karla’s attention. She went from outrage to motherly concern in the space of a heartbeat.
“Oh,” she said, “vhat happen to you? Someone beat you up?”
“I’m alright,” Melissa said, tiredly. “I just need to take a shower and get something to eat.”
“Eat first,” said Karla, guiding her toward the kitchen table. She set her down in a chair, and went to the fridge. “You eat this. Good Russian food. Help you feel better.”
“What is it?” asked Melissa. One of the reasons she had so enthusiastically taken up cooking was due to the fact that Karla’s culinary talents were extremely limited.
“Borscht,” Karla answered. “It fill you up.”
Melissa’s eyes widened a little. She had not expected such vulgar language from Karla. One of her coworkers had used that word. It had puzzled her at first until it was explained. But she had never heard Karla use that term before.
“I told you,” Karla said a little impatiently, “Borscht.”
“Oh,” said Melissa lamely, “I thought… What is it anyway?”
“Beets, onions, cabbage beans, salt, pepper, some vinegar, and a few other things,” answered Karla placing a covered bowl into the microwave. I make it last night when you not here to cook.”
“Now you tell me what happen. Someone beat you up? You tell Karla who and I take care of it.”
“I’m alright,” answered Melissa. I’m not injured. I just look worse than I am. I’ll be fine after a shower.”
“No shower,” Karla said.
“
The microwave pinged and Karla set down a bowl of steaming reddish fluid in front of Melissa.
Tentatively, she took her spoon, and blowing on it to cool it off, placed it in her mouth. “Mmmm,” she said approvingly. “That’s quite good. What are the brown lumps?”
“Oh, I forgot,” Karla said. “I cut up steak and put it in.”
“Oh,” said Melissa, “It really is quite good.” She was a little put off. Her own cooking was primarily vegetarian. Occasionally Karla bought a steak and ate it on her own when she got tired of it, but Melissa had not developed a taste for meat, chiefly due to the fact that she did not like the idea of killing sentient beings. She did have to admit, however, that what Karla had put together was very tasty. In short order she emptied her bowl.
“More?” asked the tall
“Perhaps later, thank you, but I need that shower now.”
“I said, no shower.
“Really,” Melissa said, “I can do this myself.”
“I do it because I your friend,” Karla answered. Unable to shake the persistent Russian girl, Melissa allowed her to prepare the bath.
She sat listlessly while Karla attended to the tub. The full impact of her adventures over the last two days was beginning to hit home. She realized that she had been very lucky to escape. The zentoc had almost killed her. And then she had been captured, tortured, and threatened with rape and slavery. If it had not been for the stupidity of the thug sent to guard her who knew what might have happened to her? She was not so much of a superheroine as she had hoped to be. Winning the confidence and loyalty of the people of Earth was going to be a long and difficult business, if it did not kill her first.
“Now,” said Karla, unzipping the back of Melissa’s dress, “you want to tell me vhat happen to you?” As she undressed the lethargic heroine she could see that her body was unmarked, although it definitely stank of blood and sweat.
“Nothing happened to me, Melissa insisted. “As you can see I’m perfectly all right.”
“I see girl covered with blood,” replied Karla. “Vhat person’s blood I do not know. And you missing for a whole day.” She stripped off the last of Melissa’s clothing and eased her into the bath.
“Aahh!” Melissa moaned. Karla was right. The bath was better than the shower. Karla had poured some sweet smelling bath salts into the water as well as some foaming bath soaps. She sank into the water, up to her chin in bubbles.
“Alright,” Karla said. “You not tell. I wait. You tell me one day.” She picked up a sponge and dipping it in the water began to scrub Melissa’s shoulders.
“Goodness,” thought Melissa, “that feels so good. I may never take another shower.”
“Ohh, gracious,” she murmured, as Karla’s hand moved lower, moving the sponge between her breasts and continuing to her belly and delightfully rounded abdomen. The feeling was absolutely delicious.
The next half hour was an experience Melissa would never forget, as Karla made damned sure she was properly cleaned. By the time the bath was finished Melissa’s entire body tingled. It was all she could do not to haul the pretty Russian into the tub with her, but she decided that such an action might not be considered proper. After all, Earthlings did not seek out seek out members of the same sex as it was not possible for them to have offspring.
Still, she was sorry when the bath was over and Karla pulled the plug. The Russian girl wrapped her in a large bath towel and sat her down in front of the mirror, where she spent the next fifteen minutes combing the tangles out of her hair. “Zere,” she said, “Pretty as before. Now to bed.”
Obediently, Melissa allowed Karla to escort her to her room and tuck her in. She did not need any sleep, just a few hours to completely recuperate from her ordeal, but she pretended to nod off to keep the Russian girl happy.
Melissa did not actually sleep. But she found the few hours she spent in bed to be very relaxing. She got up quite refreshed and after dressing and combing her hair, headed out to the living area. Karla was there, poring over her texts. Melissa felt a bit guilty. She knew how much trouble the Russian girl had with English and she had not spent much time with her helping in her studies. She decided to remedy that now. “How are you doing?” she asked.
“Not so good,” Karla replied, frowning. “I’m havink problems vith zis section. My English just not good enough.”
Melissa peered over Karla’s shoulder. Quickly she scanned the text. It seemed simple enough to her. She had studied elementary particle physics in her second year as a hatchling. Pulling up a chair, she began to interpret for the Russian girl.
Three hours later, Karla was all smiles. There was nothing wrong with the Russian girl’s intelligence, just her understanding of English. Since Melissa actually understood more science than the author of the book, Karla learned more in those three hours than she had learned in the previous week.
Melissa did not go out that night. She needed time to research her new target. She knew little or nothing, about the sex trade. However, a few hours surfing on Karla’s computer filled her in on the background she needed. She waited until Karla went to bed before carrying out her research. The girl was already suspicious enough, and it was important to keep her identity secret
The next day she returned to work, while Karla went off to classes. Returning home she resumed her duties as cook and prepared the evening meal. Then she helped Karla again, this time focusing on improving the Russian girl’s English. It proved harder to get her to stop pronouncing the letter W like a V than it was to help her with her physics, but eventually she made some headway.
Karla, as usual retired to bed early. Melissa waited until she could hear the sound of her relaxed breathing before stealing silently from the apartment and making her way to the street. Once there she waylaid a cab and had it take her to one of the seedier areas of town. Only when reaching that section did she change out of her clothing and into her superheroine costume. A convenient alley provided a suitable place to stow her street clothes. Then she headed toward her target.
The objective she had chosen was the most dangerous yet. Traders in the sex trade tended to be very unsympathetic to those inclined to interfere with their operations, but Star Eagle was determined to wipe this vice from the streets of Grand Centre. The villain at the heart of this brutal and vile traffic was, surprisingly, female.
Vicky Soares had risen from the ranks of humble prostitute to become one
of the most powerful and ruthless of the city’s crime
bosses. Each day her agents scoured
the city, looking for female runaways and other vulnerable young women to
recruit into her network of brothels.
Not all of the young women she ensnared ended up on their backs in
her bordellos, however. The more
attractive she put on the auction block and sold to overseas
buyers. There was always a good
market for young and beautiful women in
Star Eagle had her work cut out for her. She would not be encountering burglars, but highly organized professional criminals who guarded their territory jealously. Even the police feared to move against these mobsters except in large numbers. Since the limited resources of the police department did not allow for many large scale operations, the sex trade was pretty much uninterrupted, the only controls on it being the competition from rival gangs. Star Eagle hoped to change that and she had deliberately targeted the largest and most dangerous of the sex trade operators.
Vicky Soares’ enterprise was too big to knock out all at once. Star Eagle was going after her overseas business. Located in a seemingly ramshackle building in one of the poorest sections of town, most passersby would not have given the building a second look. But Star Eagle’s research had revealed that every week dozens of young women were processed through the facility. She planned to knock it out and then proceed from there in her dismantling of the sex queen’s empire.
Gaining access to the building undetected would have been almost impossible for a normal person. But Star Eagle found a way. Breaking the lock on a run-down hotel next to her target building, she gained access to the stairway and made her way to the roof. The hotel was several stories taller than the building she wanted to break into and only a street width distant. Taking a running jump she vaulted the gap and dropped five stories to the roof of the building. Her powerful muscles and bones absorbed the shock of the landing without difficulty. Her only fear was that someone might have heard her hit the roof. But after listening for a few seconds she determined that no one seemed to have detected her arrival.
A large skylight dominated the centre of the roof. Making her way to it Star Eagle came across an amazing and most disturbing scene. Below her thirteen or fourteen young women were lined up for inspection. Star Eagle guessed that not one of them was more than seventeen years old and all had been stripped of their clothing. Seated on chairs as if they were at an auditorium were twenty or so men. As Star Eagle watched the hapless and frightened girls were paraded before them and then auctioned off one by one. Presiding over the entire affair was a beautiful dark-complexioned woman in her forties.
“Vicky Soares,” thought Star Eagle. “The sex queen of Grand Centre.” She had seen enough. It was time put a crimp in her operations.
The shattered glass rained down on the bidders sitting in the chairs. A few of them made the mistake of looking up rather than ducking as Star Eagle crashed through the skylight. Their faces were badly cut and a few received shards of glass in their eyes. Then the heroine crashed among them. But the bidders were not her prime target. The heavily armed men around Vicky Soares were.
The surprise of her entry gave Star Eagle an advantage she exploited to the full. While the sex queen’s guards stood stunned by the suddenness of her entry she crossed the space that separated them and tore into them with a vengeance. A few of the thugs actually managed to draw their guns, but the majority were taken out of the fight before they even knew it had begun.
Star Eagle was merciless in her attack. Outnumbered ten to one, she could not afford to take any chances. Each blow was delivered with lethal force, the unbreakable bones of her fists, elbows, and feet smashing her opponents with the force of a sledge hammer. Bodies and bits of bodies such as teeth, went flying in all directions. One goon was hit so hard that one of his shoes sailed over twenty feet across the room. Another was lifted off his feet and thrown onto a wall mounted coat hanger where he hung impaled. In a few seconds the battle was over, leaving Vicky Soares white and shaken amidst the bloodstained wreckage of her bodyguard.
As for the bidders, they offered no resistance. Not allowed to bring weapons into the auction room, their only object was to flee the room as quickly as possible. But Star Eagle was not going to let them of that easily. Darting across the room, she positioned herself between them and the door. Placing her hands on her hips she glared at the terrified sex traders.
“I am Star Eagle,” she said. “Know that from this moment on, the sex trade is dead in Grand Centre.” Her eyes swept over the face of every man present. “I know you now and the next time we meet will be your last.” She pointed to the bodyguards strewn around the room. “You have seen what I can do. Make no mistake that will be your fate if you defy me.”
Observing the fear in the eyes of the sex traders, Star Eagle felt a sense of triumph. Her first sortie against the sex trade had proved more than successful. Seeking only to hamper Soares’ operation, she believed she had dealt it a blow from which it would not easily recover.
Unfortunately, Vicky Soares did not agree with this naïve assessment. “The hell you say, bitch,” she shouted. Picking up a machine pistol that had landed at her feet she swept it toward the overconfident heroine.
Star Eagle was taken a little aback at this reaction. She had not expected to be challenged by a middle aged woman, but as the muzzle of the firearm swept toward her she reacted. And none too soon; even before the weapon was trained on her the sex queen was pulling the trigger, spraying the room with bullets. Utterly ruthless, and concerned only with killing Star Eagle, the dark-haired villainess fired wildly, ignoring the fact that most of her shots killed and wounded the sex traders she had invited to the auction.
As the terrified criminals dropped to the floor in panic, Star Eagle acted. Her greatest fear was not for herself, but for the frightened girls huddled in one corner of the room. So far none of them had been hit, but ricochets from Soares wild shots bounced off the walls near them.
Star Eagle triggered her energy burst. A blue, white and red blur surged across the space separating her from Soares. A white rage filled the heroine. She had never felt such an emotion before. Her analytical mind was overwhelmed by the human emotions that had been programmed into her as she reacted in fury to the wanton killer who endangered friend and foe; the innocent and the guilty.
She was sorry a few seconds later. Vicky Soares lay dead in front of her, her neck broken by single blow to the back of her neck. In assuming her role of superheroine, Star Eagle had always known that she would have to kill men, but she had never expected that she would kill a woman. For a few seconds she just stood there looking down at the fallen sex queen, noting the trickle of blood coming from her mouth.
She turned, shaking slightly. The reaction of the energy burst was setting in. She felt weak and would remain that way for several minutes until her body recovered. Fortunately, none of the terrified sex traders in the room chose to follow Soares’ example and challenge her. If they had she would not have been able to respond. Mindful of the fact that she was helpless, Star Eagle decided that a bold front was the best course of action.
“Take out your cell phone,” she ordered, pointing to one of the cringing sex traders. “Dial 911 and give the police this address.”
She turned to the weeping and frightened girls. “Come with me,” she said quietly. “There is no need for you to stay in this room.”
She stood with arms folded confidently as the girls filed out of the room, watching to make sure the orders she had given the criminal were followed. Then she waited until she heard the sound of police sirens.
“No one leaves this room,” she said as she departed. “Anyone who tries deals with Star Eagle.” She could feel her body recharging. In a few more minutes she would be back to full strength. But the police would also be there and she did not want to be around to welcome them.
Using the stairs she headed back to the roof. From there she went to the back of the building and descended the fire escape. It was time to change out of her costume, but after locating the alley where she had stowed them, she got a shock.
She searched frantically for five minutes before she accepted the fact that her clothing and her purse were gone. The purse was a small loss, it contained only money, but her clothing was another matter. She didn’t want to have to walk home in her heroine costume. It would make matters too awkward.
Crouching in the alley she considered her options. She could, of course, try to sneak back through the city, but her apartment building was located several miles away, it would take a great deal of time, and she would have considerable difficulty not being seen. That did not seem like a viable option. Then there was the problem of getting into her apartment unobserved. The building was well lit and people were entering and leaving it constantly, even in the wee hours of the morning.
She would have to find some other way of getting home and a change of clothing. Retracing her steps, she returned to Soares’ bordello. By now it was crawling with police, but the entrance to the hotel next door was unguarded as before. This time, however, she did not want access to the brothel. What she sought was in the hotel.
She found it near the ground floor. It was not the sort of apparel she would have chosen deliberately, but it would have to do. The janitorial uniform she found hanging in the cleaning closet covered her from neck to ankles, concealing her costume. Now she merely had to find a way to get back to her apartment. An expensive vehicle parked in back of the brothel solved that problem. Although Star Eagle had no key to the car, breaking into it and hot wiring it proved simple to one of her skills. To her mind, the automobile was ancient technology and easily manipulated. She was soon on her way.
Getting into her apartment was another matter. She had no key and did not want to force her way in. There was nothing to do but brazen her way past Karla. Leaving the car a few blocks from the apartment, she walked the rest of the way and pushed the buzzer to her apartment. She had to push the button several times before Karla answered and let her into the building.
“Where you been?” asked Karla as Melissa entered the apartment. “And where you get those horrible clothes?”
Melissa was glad to note that Karla was pronouncing her Ws correctly. Now she would have to work on getting her to use adverbs. “Oh,” she lied. “Just something I picked up the other day. It’s comfy.” She tried to ignore the first question, but Karla was not to be put off.
“What you do on streets this time of night?” the redhead asked.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I just stepped out. I forgot my keys. Sorry I had to wake you up.”
“Oh,” the Russian girl replied, “I not sleeping. I waiting to give something to you.”
There was something in Karla’s tone of voice that warned Melissa of what was to come, but she was truly shocked when Karla reached into a plastic shopping bag and took out her purse and clothing. “I find these in alley near brothel. I think you forgot them there.”
“You went there?” asked Melissa, incredulous. “That is a very dangerous part of town.”
“Karla can take care of self,” the Russian girl said, walking toward Melissa. “Question is what you doing there? And what you wearing under those dumpy clothes?”
Melissa backed away. She did not like the determined look in Karla’s eyes, but the Russian girl cornered her near the door. Before Melissa could react Karla reached out and popped open the first two buttons on the top of her janitorial outfit. Quickly Melissa pushed her away, but the damage was done. She knew that Karla had seen her Star Eagle costume.
“Why did you do that?” she asked, outraged. “You had no right.”
“No matter, said Karla, “I already know you Star Eagle. I tape you tonight.” Walking over to the TV she turned in on and punched the button of the VCR. The tape showed Melissa walking into the alley by the brothel and Star Eagle emerging moments later.
Melissa turned to Karla, in resignation. She had been caught. “When did you know?” she asked.
“First time you go out. You leave your footprints in ground under balcony. You think I not know your shoe size? I help you shop. Then there your knowledge of particle physics. How can girl just out of high school know more than PhD student?”
Melissa sat down on the couch, devastated. Only a month on Earth and already her secret identity had been discovered.
“Don’t worry,” said Karla sting down beside her. She placed her hand on Melissa’s. “I keep your secret. Karla your friend. Not betray you.”
Melissa looked at the beautiful redhead.
Could she be trusted? The
last thing she wanted to have to do was start
over. Karla had helped her a
great deal in her adjustment to Terran
society. It would be difficult
to find anyone like her. On the
other hand, it would have been easy for Karla to have made a few dollars
from the media by exposing her.
Melissa could imagine the headlines:
My
Roommate Was an Alien!
It would all have been so embarrassing.
“You realize,” Melissa said finally, “that you must tell no one anything about me. Even the slightest hint given by accident could be very dangerous both to me and to you. I have already made many enemies.”
“I can keep secret,” said Karla. “I very good at it. Now, tell me. How you change your hair colour?”
PREVIOUS
CHAPTER WIZARD'S
LAIR MAIN PAGE
L'ESPION'S
STORY PAGE
NEXT
CHAPTER