Irina Spalko

"Blazing with fire, steel gleaming, guns a-rattle! Into the furious fight our tanks do speed! When our great leader and Führer Olaf calls us forth to battle, our first marshal our brave men does lead! To guard our country, we must always be ready for any foe that dares to come our way! We'll stay on guard and keep our weapons steady. Firm and prepared for the impending fray! That's why to the furious fight our tanks do speed! When our great leader and Führer Olaf calls us forth to battle, our first marshal our brave men does lead!"

- Irina Spalko showing her loyalty to Olaf

Colonel Irina Josepenkova Spalko was an agent of the KGB, as well as a scientist and military officer, working for the Soviet Union under Olaf Tutchenko. She was also an archaeologist as well as a very skilled fencer and combatant. Spalko desired the use of the Crystal Skull of Akator to brainwash and manipulate the minds of American forces, giving the Soviets a tactical advantage in World War II. Her weapon of choice was a rapier. Spalko was an infamous leader, with a cruel disregard for innocent casualties and harbouring a secret, selfish motivation. However, she did all this in the name of her country, and not out of pure maliciousness. As a colonel, she did only what was needed to complete the mission at hand.

Biography
Irina Spalko was born in Vladikavkaz but raised in a small mountain village in the eastern regions of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. When her apparent psychic powers began to manifest themselves, the superstitious villagers shunned her, called her a witch, and worse. Her family was ostracised. Left to herself, she gradually became consumed by a personal quest that would fuel her from then to the last day of her life. Then, as she grew older and more curious, her dissecting of small animals - her innocent attempt to understand life and biology - caused even her own mother to fear her. As soon as she was old enough, she fled the village and mountains altogether, certain that the answers she sought could only be found in the wider world.

Her singular quest took her far and wide; she studied with master yogis, and trained with the best parapsychologists. She learned techniques developed by Nepalese monks to control her heart rate, her breathing and her body temperature. She studied classical fencing and became an expert with a rapier, sabre and foil.

Eventually Spalko obtained a doctorate and joined the Soviet secret police. This security, intelligence and counterintelligence organisation underwent multiple name changes since its inception in 1917 and - depending on the time she joined - would have been known by Spalko as the NKVD, the NKGB, the MGB and the MVD - and would become, in 1954, the Komityet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti or KGB (Committee for State Security).

As part of the KGB's Science and Technology Directorate, she participated in numerous experiments in ESP, telepathy and telekinesis, potentialities that the Soviet Union generally took more seriously than the West. In one such experiment, mother’s newborn children were placed aboard a submarine, which was then submerged. The mother remained onshore, her EEG readings carefully monitored, while beneath the surface of the water, inside the submarine, the young babies were killed off one by one. As each one was slain, the mother’s readings registered a reaction at the exact instant of each death. The experiment verified what Spalko already instinctively knew: that there was a tangible psychic link between living beings.

Olaf Tutchenko himself was so impressed by her that he personally recruited her for his dream project: psychic warfare research. She was awarded the Order of Chacovich, the highest decoration in the Soviet Union, three times for outstanding services rendered to the Union and the honorary title of Hero of Socialist Labour for exceptional achievements in the national economy and culture.

The Hunt for Crystal Skull
"You're a pretty easy man to read, Mr. Marston."

- Irina to Henry Marston

In 1957, Irina Spalko became interested in the legends surrounding the lost kingdom of Akator and, especially, the mysterious Crystal Skull she heard so much about. She interpreted the stories as meaning that if she were to return the Skull to the Temple of the Gods, she would be rewarded with all the power and knowledge of the universe. Spalko also saw this as the opportunity she had been waiting for; a chance to discover the meaning behind her strange gifts.

As it were a few years prior, two aliens in a spacecraft had crashed in Russia, the beings inside killed from the impact. These creatures were assumed to be Outworlders, but all shared a very uncommon trait: they had abnormally long skulls and massive eye sockets. Both were examined and given autopsies by Soviet scientists, and Spalko was a member of the team that studied on their dead rotting bodies.

Somehow, she learned that a third craft had also crashed onto Earth, but in Roswell, New Mexico, US. She knew that this third traveller was the key to understanding these beings. First, she sent Commander Majmuno Dovochenko to capture archaeologist Henry Marston and his Australian partner (actually a Soviet spy) George McHale.

Marston had been one of the men that had been invited to examine the Roswell spacecraft, and Spalko was determined to get his help in finding the creature's mummified remains, known to have been locked within a crate inside Hangar 51, better known as Area 51. Marston and McHale was drugged and locked inside the trunk of a car, and were brought all the way from their excavation in Mexico to Nevada. On Dovochenko's orders, her men slaughtered the American soldiers standing guard at the hangar's gate. Once the Russian convoy arrived at the warehouse, Henry and George were hauled out. Spalko delayed showing herself, allowing Dovochenko to question Henry first. When Henry responded with an incest insult, the annoyed commander backhanded the man. He was about to toss another blow, when Irina stepped out of her vehicle, dramatically ordering her second-in-command to halt.

Walking up to Henry, she casually bantered with him, and attempted to get answers from the man by calmly outlining her demands. Amused at Henry's sarcastic attitude, she then tried to break into the professor's mind, to forcefully take the information she sought. She failed after much concentration, but was very impressed at his iron will. She also remarked about the expression "the old-fashioned way".

Inside, Irina gave Marston a choice: he either has to help them locate the crate they were after, or they would kill him and his friend McHale. Falling for the Soviet's bluff, Henry agreed, but demanded gunpowder. Spalko was confused at this, and grew impatient with Marston's ambiguous actions. Point a metal pipe up in the air to find the crate, the group was able to remove the wooden box and open the metal container within. Spalko approached the coffin, and her sword instantly sprang up, locking with the magnetic pull of the remains within the box.

Handing her scabbard to one of her men before personally examining the alien corpse, Irina was about to unwrap the mummy within when Marston attempted a desperate hostage situation, pointing a gun at Spalko and threatening to kill her if her forces did not stand down. With amusement, she watched as McHale revealed his true allegiance, but was surprised when Henry created a diversion with his discarded weapon to escape into the sea of endless crates.

Ordering her men after Marston, Spalko commandeered a vehicle, carrying the valuable crate to escape the hangar, most likely because she predicted Marston would try to recapture the metal box. Henry was able to take over an escorting car, and began ramming Spalko's bumper. The American leaped onto her car into the seat beside her, and they briefly tangled as the car sped toward a wall of crates. Spalko was able to abandon ship before the vehicle impacted, safely landing in a pile of hay from smashed crates.

As Henry fled with Dovochenko in pursuit, she had McHale and a few of her men follow the two, who then fell through a skylight and into the laboratory beneath. During Henry and Dovochenko's struggle, they accidentally activated a prototype rocket that alarmed her backup group, with only McHale ducking for cover. She soon pulled up in a car, letting Mac inside, and applauded the man for his actions.

Spalko and her team then fled from the installation, as the American military arrived to investigate the break-ins. She was aware that a nuclear detonation test was to take place that morning, and did not tell this to the men she had chasing Henry, who had wandered across the fake demolition town full of puppets. The bomb detonated minutes later, and Spalko believed this to be the end of her short-but-memorable relationship with Marston.

The KGB eventually heard of Marston's survival and sent agents to chase him through the Marshall College campus, though he escaped with Bill Williams, who desired Henry's help to find his missing mother.

Akator
In fact, in the South American jungle, Spalko had arranged for Henry's former lover, Marion Ravenwood, and his former colleague, Harold Oxley, to be captured and held prisoner. The intent of this was to lure Henry to Nazca in search of his two friends, so that Spalko could recapture the troublesome American. As part of this, she did nothing when Ravenwood secretly sent a letter to her son, Bill Williams, urging the boy to seek out Henry's help. This would allow her spies in America to capture not just Henry but also the boy and a valuable piece of information included in the note: information vital to Spalko's goal.

Marston and Williams arrived in Peru and uncovered Orellana's Tomb, retrieving the Crystal Skull of Akator. Eventually, Spalko's associates captured them, reuniting Henry with Marion who, as they tried to flee, revealed that Bill was actually her and Marston's biological son.

Spalko and her soldiers pursued the escaping Henry, Williams, Ravenwood, and Oxley. Standing on two vehicles moving side-by-side throughout the jungle, Spalko drew her notorious rapier and duelled with Williams, who had had some earlier fencing lessons at a prep school. Eventually both vehicles crashed and at least two of of Spalko's thugs (Majmuno Dovochenko and Boris Yelko) were consumed by hordes of siafus. To avoid certain death, Ravenwood then drove her vehicle into the Sono River where she, Williams, Henry, Oxley, and George McHale (tricking the gang into believing him he was a double agent) survived a great waterfall, arriving by water to the Temple of Akator.

When Henry and his band reached the Temple of Akator, they were ambushed by natives who Oxley killed with the Crystal Skull, entering the Temple. When Spalko and her army arrived, however, she had even the more natives massacred with machine guns, demonstrating her and Henry's gang insanity for power.

Inside the Temple were found the skeletons of thirteen crystal Outworld beings, one of them being headless. Upon Spalko's arrival, she joined the skull to a headless skeleton, which, through Oxley, started to speak in the Mayan language, saying it would give them them a great gift. Spalko demanded to know everything, EVERYTHING and the the thirteen alien skeletons started firing knowledge out of their skulls into her eyes and brians. The Temple started to collapse, opening a portal to Outworld. Henry's gang managed to escape from the Temple while the thirteen skeletons joined together to form a single, whole alien being right before Spalko. The knowledge from the outworlders overwhelmed her and she disintegrated, beginning with fire erupting from her eye sockets. Her remains were sucked into the portal on the ceiling, which it was later discovered that it is indeed a portal to Outworld.

Irina, McHale and her army were all teleported to Outworld where their current statuses are unknown, but it can be highly assumed that Irina died when getting filled up with fire.

Personality and traits
Spalko was a megalomaniac, completely devoted to her goals. She possessed a thick Russian accent, and always carried a rapier. She was highly skilled in fencing (a skill that won the admiration of Majmuno Dovochenko) as well as in martial arts. Spalko was not above using her gender to take advantage of male opponents, an example being when, during a duel, her chest became partially exposed, catching the eye of young perverted Bill Williams. She used the distraction to attack the boy. Irina was stunningly beautiful, but with cold impassioned eyes. Spalko would also wear a large set of sunglasses, enhancing her intimidating appearance. She displayed a very determined devotion to her job and country, and was seemingly a genuine patriot.

Irina held a surprising degree of respect for Henry Marston, admiring his deductive abilities and was intrigued by the fact that she was unable to read the professor's mind. She gave an unconventional amount of leeway with Henry during his investigations (however reluctantly) on her behalf. She treated the adventurer as an equal, and it is quite possible that had they not been on opposite sides of the moral and political board, they would have made a fine team and lovers. She even allowed Marston to know of her ultimate plan, a rather foolish thing to share with an enemy. Spalko was, however, jealous of the fact that the Crystal Skull was willing to communicate with Henry and not her.

Spalko also suffered a degree of self-doubt and the desire to find her purpose in the world. She was a firm believer in fate and destiny, and was deeply fascinated by the legend of Akator. She believed the quest to be the culmination of her life-long search for the answer she sought.

Among her men, she was a figure to be feared and respected. Her lackeys were mistrustful of her mental powers, and often referred to her as witch, as she had been called in her childhood. Her authority was so great it was enough to make Dovochenko, who was preparing to give Henry a severe beating, halt in his tracks.

Spalko wore black leather boots and occasionally gloves. She was usually dressed in a gray military uniform, perhaps too proud to display her allegiance to the Union.