I was born on the 19th of February, 3278, in the great an' ancient city of London on Earth. My name's Veronica Vayle, though I have been known by other monikers. Ron the Rozzer, for example. Rozzer, in case you don't know, is slang for police officer.

Policin's in my family's blood, innit. My dad's a senior detective in the London force, as was my grandad and my great-grandad before him. My great-great-grandad led the investigation into the Krimper serial murders, an' my great-great-great-grandma was the officer who made the breakthrough on the Melney abduction. Okay, so the kid had already been dead a week when they found him, but at least they knew where to look, eh?

I come from a long line of coppers, so I suppose it was inevitable that I should become a copper an' all. My dad certainly thought so, an' he was pleased as Punch when I left Cambridge University with a degree in Criminal Psychology. He pulled some strings to get my application fast-tracked, an' within a couple of months there I was, in uniform, poundin' the mean streets of London.

Two years later I was put on a six month secondment to Sol System Security, whizzin' around in a Viper three. My patrol area was mostly around Neptune, so it weren't exactly what you'd call excitin'. Still, I did shoot one or two bad guys an' managed to avoid gettin' myself shot at, which was nice.

I went back to ground work in London once my secondment was over, but it wasn't long before my dad started pullin' strings for me again. In April 3302, two months after my 24th birthday, I found myself in detective trainin'. Fast forward another three months an' there was me, no longer a uniformed plod but a fully fledged police detective. My guv'nor was a grumpy old bugger by the name of Caplaice.

"You can call me Crapface if you like, Vayle. All the others do. They think I don't know, but I'm not a ruddy detective for nothing."

Crapface may have been grumpy, but he was a good copper who played things by the book. He was a bit naive in some ways, but I liked him. I was sorry when he got himself killed just a month shy of his retirement.

We were investigatin' a murder in the London docklands. The victim turned out to be linked to a major scam gang, so we found ourselves workin' alongside a fraud squad team led by a swarthy bloke named Lurroughswick (pronounced Losk). I say alongside, but it was Lurroughswick that called the tune. This didn't please Crapface in the slightest, but he was old enough an' wise enough to hold his tongue. Anyway, once we'd gathered enough evidence, Lurroughswick decided the time was ripe to nick the gang on their premises. Only trouble was, the gang had somehow been tipped off about our carefully planned top secret raid. As soon as we started moving in, shots were fired, an' my guv'nor bought it.

That case proved to be a turnin' point for me, in more ways than one. The scam aspect of it had fascinated me, so I put in for a transfer to Lurroughswick's team. In the meantime I was reassigned to a new guv'nor, a career woman called Estelle Blinkeney. She didn't like me an' I didn't like her, so we were both very happy when my transfer finally came through in the November of 3302.

Toby Lurroughswick, my new guv'nor, took a bit of a shine to me. Said he'd spotted potential in me when we worked on the docklands case, an' was pleased when my transfer application landed in his in-tray.

"It's a bit different here, Vayle. You'll be called on to do some unusual things. Interesting things. I'll be relying on you to step up to the mark. Don't disappoint me."

A lot of the squad's work was done undercover, so I spent quite a bit of my time pretendin' to be someone else. Now, back in my student days I'd been a member of CUDS, the Cambridge University Dramatic Society. It turned out that I 'ad a natural talent for mimicry an' accents, which meant I got to play a lot of character parts. Of course, the parts Lurroughswick asked me to play were a bit more intense. It wasn't just a case of poncin' about in old fashioned frocks an' drinking cups of cold tea. This was far more serious. Fluffin' a line would've been the least of my worries, if you catch my drift. But the challenge gave me a thrill, an' I loved it.

I learned a lot from working on Lurroughswick's team. Specialised stuff, like hackin' mainframes, forgin' online audit trails, plantin' bugs, runnin' drugs an' weapons, negotiatin' on the black market, cheatin' at poker, that sort of thing. The more I learned, the more Lurroughswick trusted me. The more he trusted me, the more he took me into his confidence. An' the more he took me into his confidence, the more I learned about him.

The most important thing I learned about Toby Lurroughswick (pronounced Losk, remember?) was that he took a, shall we say, creative approach to policin'.

"You don't have to nick them all, Vayle. Some of them are far too useful for that. And some of them can provide you with fringe benefits. Perks of the job, know what I mean?"

That's right, Lurroughswick was corrupt. Takin' bribes in exchange for turnin' a blind eye was a regular part of the job, as far as he was concerned. Not that he was the first dirty copper there ever was, an' he wouldn't be the last, either. And the funny thing was, he made it sound so reasonable. After all, no real harm was bein' done, was there? Like he said, fringe benefits.

Pretty soon I was getting fringe benefits as well. Nothin' big, nothin' fancy. Nothin' that might attract unwanted attention. Toby was proud of me. Said I was his finest protégé. An' yeah, in case you were wonderin', our relationship went beyond the professional level on a number of occasions.

Things began to go pear-shaped in the December of 3305, when the squad became the subject of an internal investigation by the London Police Operating Standards Commission. 'Certain irregularities' had been identified in our case files, they said. Toby thought differently.

"Someone's squealed on us, Ronni. It has to have been someone on our team. But don't worry. Just keep your head down and stay shtum, and hopefully it'll blow over."

But it didn't blow over. When the whole squad was suspended from active duty just before the turn of the year, Toby knew we were probably in deep shit. Probably became definitely on the 19th of January, 3306, when the arrests were made. The case came to court on the 9th of February, and two weeks later the judge read out the list of convictions.

Poor Toby took the brunt of it, of course. He was sent down for ten years, on multiple charges of fraud and incitement. The rest of the team got lesser sentences, rangin' from six months to four years. I was handed an eighteen month stretch, but I was let out after a year for good behaviour.

Of course, my dad wasn't best pleased with me. When I went to see him after I was released, he made his opinion known to me in no uncertain terms.

"You're a disgrace, Veronica. A smelly egg. You're a disgrace to this family, to the London Police and to yourself in particular. There's been a Vayle in the force for generations. I had high hopes that you would step up to the mark and carry on that proud tradition, and you made a good start. But you've let me down, my girl. You've let me down badly. I suggest you go and get yourself sorted out."

I decided I may as well take his advice, an' went.

It was Toby who'd advised me to open a ghost bank account in which to stash my ill-gotten gains. There was just enough to cover the cost of a second-hand Sidewinder, plus a few bits an' bobs. My stint with System Security had already given me the basics of flyin' a ship. All I needed to do was have a brush-up in the simulator an' register with the Pilots Federation. Once I'd done that, I was golden.

What I didn't have, of course, was a guild permit to stay in the Sol system. No amount of hackin' would let me forge one, so I had to leave straight away. That made me a bit sad, so I made up my mind to work at gettin' a legitimate Sol permit for the odd visit. No rush, though.

After doin' some courier work (and a bit of black marketin') in the neighbourin' systems, I flogged the Sidewinder an' bought a Cobra three. Sellin' exploration data from a zodiac tour netted me enough creds for an Asp Explorer. With a few modifications it would soon be perfect for my needs.

I became a full-time smuggler. I'll carry anythin', no questions asked, though I won't deal slaves of any kind. I draw the line at that, unless it's to release the poor buggers, of course. I also do a bit of griftin' on the side, just for fun, runnin' small-time scams to keep my hand in. I never look for much money from my marks, but I enjoy the roleplay an' usin' aliases.

I did what my dad wanted, see. I went and got myself sorted out, only I don't think it was quite what he meant. It was him who suggested the name for my ship, too: Smelly Egg.

Yeah, policin's in my family's blood. It just ain't in mine.