Lunar Exposure (On the Hunt) (2 page)

Haliday changed her outfit—the white mini dress and boots were not appropriate for going to the shows or bars. The deep-red dress with no back and a skirt made up of wispy bits of nothing would be perfect, and as long as she didn’t run into a stray breeze she wouldn’t be flashing too much. She added a pair of red sandals that had ribbons crisscrossing up her calves. They looked cute, but she could run in them if she had to.

Then she touched up her makeup. She liked that this season it was a mask, exotic and erotic. It suited her, unlike last season’s stripes that had angled from forehead to nose. The stripes had made her look as though she was a
ghabra
escaped from a zoo.

With a final check of her appearance, she left her room and sauntered down to the theaters. She needed to be seen and she needed to start looking for Noga. There was always a free show running, singing, dancing—all with an edge designed to make the watchers hungry for flesh. Men and women danced on stage dressed up in feathers and sequins, their bodies on display.

She’d had to dance and more for Yem. Her stomach tightened. But these people were here by choice. They were saving up for education or a house or whatever people did if they had normal lives. She’d never had normal. Even now, what people saw and what she was were two different things.

She turned her gaze from the stage of lithe shimmering bodies and scanned the audience, looking for a
Dooraump
man. Most of Noga’s species didn’t have the chits to leave their poverty-stricken home planet and those that did rarely went back. Noga blamed the mining company who’d bought the planet for all his people’s woes and he was trying to liberate his people. A self-styled savior. While she respected his ideals, his methods were inexcusable. His wasn’t the only planet to be sold to a mining company taking advantage of a low-tech society. She could think of a handful and she’d only had three years of formal schooling.

If she was Noga, she wouldn’t be here watching people enjoy living. He was too angry for that, too bitter, even though his people had made progress in the five hundred years since the sale. In another five hundred years, the
Dooraump
would probably be doing fine—history told her that. How could a primitive, illiterate society be expected to suddenly jump up to light-speed?

On the other hand, she understood slavery, and the mining giant was paying the
Dooraump
people a pittance to work in the mine. She never usually struggled with a job, but this time she was. Carefully, she pushed aside the reasons why he did it and looked at what he’d done. Looked at the body count, the chit tally and wreckage left behind. They were things she could despise, they were things she had experienced first-hand.
Lekithia
had been ravaged by war, millions of children left without parents. The APM had stopped the bloodshed, but her homeworld still struggled. Despite her job, she hated violence, even if it was a means to an end.

She looked at her hands, her painted nails and the slight webbing between her fingers. The only reason her planet tolerated celebrities was because they brought in foreign investment and their incomes were highly taxed. She never dodged a tax bill or tried to shrink her income. She paid and donated. Even if her chits were a drop in the ocean, she was making a difference—and the scum she rounded up were helping. She liked to think of it as the criminals giving back to society.

If she was Noga, where would she go?

Or rather, who would Noga be pretending to be? Her gut said he wasn’t here for pleasure. He was all about business. He needed chits as much as she did. It wasn’t cheap to blow things up and attack a mining giant on a regular basis. Yet she doubted he’d be in any of the monitored meeting rooms. No, he’d be in a bar.

A particularly brilliant specimen of male
Helvelet
took the stage, his horns thick and curling down to his cheekbones. His muscles caught the lights and the tiny slip of silk he wore didn’t hide the size of how male he was. Her tongue darted over her lip. She’d had a
Helvelet
once, damn near ripped her in two, but it had felt good—handing the donation to the hospital had felt better and she thought of him every time she went there. She lingered a moment to watch the man move. His body was in perfect rhythm, pulsing and gyrating. If she’d have been wearing panties, they’d have been wet. As it was, she could feel moisture slicking between her thighs and her nipples peaking against the delicate fabric of her dress.

She didn’t need the distraction, no matter how pretty or how well he danced. She was here to hunt. Nothing more. She took a last glance at the
Helvelet
, now joined on stage by a female. There’d be a lot of trading in flesh after this show—but then that was the idea. With a sigh, she left. There was no need for her to linger.

The Moon was well laid out, not to segregate species but to make it easy to mingle with ones who had compatible body parts—not that anyone minded if one crossed over into something else. Personally, she preferred the mammalian levels. While she knew that
Icavaris
were brilliant fighter pilots, she couldn’t get past the eight legs and exoskeleton. They were too alien and reminded her of bog spiders—mind you, they probably looked at her and thought she reminded them of lunch.

Different species also had slightly different gravity and air requirements, and while the changes wouldn’t kill her, they could leave her short of breath or feeling very sluggish. Noga wouldn’t be on those floors either. He preferred to mix only with his own species.

She drifted in and out of a few bars, another show, drink in hand as if looking for just the right place to relax and unwind. A place with the right music, the right people, the right atmosphere. If someone stopped her, she smiled and was polite. There’d be some story about how Haliday was taking time off after helping rebuild a school that had been bombed years ago. Sometimes the media made her a darling for helping, other times they slammed her lifestyle. But no one ever turned down her chits and the media never missed a story, as she was worth too much to the rebuilding effort.

In the Aqua Bar, she hit the jackpot. A
Dooraump
was talking to a man of a species she didn’t recognize, his orange skin almost glowed in the blue lighting. She let her gaze slide to the
Dooraump
, the heavy brows and deep-set eyes that made his species perfectly adapted to the hot, dry conditions of his planet made him look shifty. His eyes were hidden in shadows and she couldn’t be sure it was Noga. She knew he’d had work done since his pictures and bounty were posted. She’d need a sample to check against his DNA—that could only be faked at great expense and pain.

If it was Noga and she let him slip past, it would only be a matter of time before he blew something else up. Plus, she didn’t have the luxury of chasing him all over the galaxy. She had to take scalps in locations that fitted with her Haliday cover. She sipped her mocktail without tasting it. She wasn’t afraid of death, but the idea of being discovered and captured chilled her to the core. She knew Yem would pay to get her back.

She’d have to approach the businessmen and act as though she was hitting them up for donations to her charities. Hopefully she’d be able to confirm it was Noga and then move in. Until then, she’d be all smiles and giggles. While she hated playing dumb, it worked and it suited her cause. No one would think someone so flakey could be the Kingfisher, a faceless, unregistered bounty hunter, growing in reputation. She smiled as she took a seat and ordered another drink. One day, she’d go after Yem.

The Aqua Bar was everything Callen had read about in the brochures. The center of the bar was a spherical tank filled with exotic species of sea creatures that had been donated by the
Polpos
people. The
Polpos
were water dwellers who rarely left their homeworld, but they had some of the most advanced communications gear. They had contracts with the APM for all kinds of tech. He still bought
Polpos
-made tech because he trusted it not to break at a crucial moment.

The tank and the creatures in it were a reminder to everyone here that the
Polpos
were part of the Alliance, even if they weren’t space travelers. It was a very pretty statement.

Decadent Moon was certainly named appropriately. There was no skimping on anything. He’d stuck his head in on one of the shows and seen more glittery flesh than he’d thought possible. If he wasn’t working…he adjusted himself and was glad for the loose clothing. He was feeling a bit like an APM newbie at his first space port. He’d been there, been plied with alcohol and sent off with an alien to lose his interspecies virginity.

He took another sip of the drink he was nursing and let himself remember the good times instead of the discharge and stripping of rank that had resulted from the failed
Solar Bird
op. The
Avarkian
beer turned sweet and cloying on his tongue.

So far, he’d failed to find Noga or any evidence of the prohibited firemoss—but it would take time to grow and be able to be picked up by heat scans. He’d checked his intel and it was still good. The word was Noga was undertaking business meetings here, looking for backers to help his fight—just not in any of the formal meeting rooms. Of course, if Noga had arrived and used his own name, he’d have been stopped instantly. Which meant fake name and fake face. But he knew the bastard was here somewhere. He wasn’t quite ready to hack the Moon’s systems or alert security yet.

He checked his
plex
and watched his firemoss simulation run. He’d made several, but had discounted the rest. This one fitted the time line. Fitted the opened and closing of the dock. Stopping the destruction of the moon was the easy part. Catching Noga was much, much harder. Despite Noga claiming responsibility, no one had ever been able to finger him. He was slippery. Callen shoved his
plex
back in his pocket and stood. If he had to crawl through every bar, he would.

Someone in red caught his eye and he let his gaze linger.

Haliday Fisher looked barely dressed and barely able to stand. It had been a while since he’d been home to
Lekithia
and the sight of another
Phrial
gave him an equal shot of homesickness and lust. Who was he kidding? She wouldn’t talk to him. He didn’t have the required chit balance. She took a seat alone and acted as though she was fiddling with her palm-sized
plex
. No doubt she was updating her status and letting all her followers know what she was up to.

Getting drunk at the Aqua Bar LOL. Wish u were here XX.

His gaze traveled down her exposed spine and took in the pattern of her tri-clustered spots. The dimples at the back of her hips were just visible. His tongue darted over his lip as he imagined kissing there. It had been too long between homeports.

The curve of her cheek was highlighted by the blue lights, her dark eye makeup taking on an exotic look. What would she look like without it? Without the dresses and the makeup and chits, would she be just another face in the crowd? One he wouldn’t look at twice? Who cared, she was hot, she was the same species and right now that made things simple. He liked simple.

Because she wasn’t watching him, he kept watching her and he realized she was watching someone else. He walked around the curving bench seat to realign his view. Just on the other side of the tank, almost out of view in a dark corner, were an orange-skinned
Ortin
and a
Dooraump
. His heart gave a solid thump that felt like a punch to the chest. Noga? How had he missed that table? Easy. Decadent Moon had many dark corners to encourage liaisons. However, the men weren’t even touching.

Why would Haliday Fisher be watching those men? Chits was the obvious answer.

He let his gaze drift admiringly over the tank, yet kept the men in his peripheral. Two men talking was nothing, but…a tingle ran down his back, lifting the spines that only the male
Phrials
had. The
Ortin
s’ homeworld had once been bought, their planet taken for profits, and yet now they were influential and wealthy. They’d turned the situation in their favor and without violence, if history was to be believed. The
Ortin
man was also a very long way from home. He needed to get a closer look at the
Dooraump
. What were the odds that there were two
Dooraumps
on the Moon with separate reasons for being here?

Haliday got up and glided over to the men, her steps a little wobbly.

She spoke to both men, giggling and exposing her inner wrists in an obvious sign of sexual interest. Well, obvious to Callen, anyway. Different species had different signals—it did tend to complicate inter-species hookups.

Callen stood, and on the pretense of admiring the tank from a different angle, moved around so he could listen.

While most of it was empty flattery and Haliday spruiking her charity, some was important. The
Ortin
was a merchant banker looking for investments for his firm. Why were the
Ortin
s interested in the plight of the
Dooraump
? He watched the conversation in the reflection in the glass, careful to make the appropriate noises as fish swam past and crane his neck as if he could see deeper into the coral sanctuary.

The
Dooraump
spoke. A few curt words in his own language.