* * *
Orion Nights Club, Alsace-14 Station
Izza hesitated at the edge of the dance floor, giving her sensitive ears time to numb to the pounding music.
The Orion Nights club catered to Zhoogenes, though, and the noise levels weren’t as insane as those at human-only venues.
She moved into the throng of dancers.
The bass from the banging anti-didj beats rumbled through Izza’s legs and goosed her organs with fat, yet dexterous, fingers.
She liked it.
Enough to let a sway come to her narrow hips.
To humans, rhythmically grinding hips were a sexy turn on, but on the Zhoogene frame, the movement looked as jerky as a cheap animation. Hot Zhoogene dance moves came from the shoulders, not the hips, but Izza was part human so she could almost pull it off. Besides, she didn’t care.
Which was…strange. Normally, she would. Bylzak! What were they putting in the air?
Puffs of colored clouds swept the dance floor at random intervals. They carried the oiliness of herbal essences, blended with tangy stims that tickled her tongue.
She pushed through the dance melee, bumping off revelers as she went. A few of them gave her startled looks, but their expressions transformed into beams of joy or…breathless lust. Hot damn! She looked again and realized the clientele was overwhelmingly human. Given the looks she was getting, the owners must be pumping Zhoogene sex pheromones into the air.
Suddenly, a few feet in front of her, a hexagonal section of dance floor rose in the smoky air. One unlucky dancer fell off, though she was caught by the fun goers below. The remainder showed off their best dance moves six feet in the air. A matching hexagonal column of red light lanced down from the ceiling, encasing the dancers. Their silhouettes could be seen within, slowly shrinking and rising from the hexagonal base, until they were no more than a pulsing ball.
They seemed happy, though.
Neat optical illusion.
Still infected with the beat, Izza dodged around the hexagon and made for the tables on the far side, reasoning that even with her mother-in-law’s rejuve, a 92-year-old would spend most of her time off her feet.
She located Zi’Alfu at a table by the back wall, which glowed with ultraviolet hexagonal patterns human eyes couldn’t see.
Watching over Zi’Alfu were two human men in white tank tops stretched tightly over impressive muscles. They were being very obvious about the sling-holstered handguns above their hips.
Izza crossed to a nearby table at which a mixed-species crowd of friends were in heated conversation. She hovered on the edge of the group, implying to any onlookers that she was a part of it.
From here she observed the area. Zi’Alfu seemed bemused at being at a club where the average age was less than a quarter of hers. Clothed in an old ship suit bearing the half-hidden black disk logo of Elder Sun Transport, she was chatting with a human man dressed in a tailored, high collar suit, with an excess of gold and jewels on show. Izza knew nothing of local fashions, but even to her eyes, his appearance spoke of wealth.
What she couldn’t explain was the man’s tight-lipped look of resentment. He looked like he’d been dealt a monstrously bad hand but had no option but to play it. Not the boss of this setup, then.
Zi’Alfu and the rich guy were surrounded by three individuals equally spaced around the table at a surprisingly large distance from it: about three meters. Two of them were the armed men with ripped torsos she’d already noted, but now Izza realized there was a third. She was a Zhoogene female who was flaunting a red fishnet halter top and a long chiffon skirt that changed colors in time to the beat. Izza’s eyebrows shot up when one of those ‘colors’ turned out to be transparent and revealed that the Zhoogene hadn’t troubled herself with undergarments.
Like Izza, the girl allowed her body to express its nature, rather than bind herself with the hormone suppressants many Zhoogenes took. That much was obvious from the proto-blossoms peppering the girl’s head. They meant she was nearly in season, just a few weeks ahead of Izza’s own cycle. Perhaps that explained her raunchy look.
Or maybe she was just a beautiful young woman out having fun at a club. It had been a long time since Izza had been to a place like this. Much too long.
“What do you think?” asked one of the human males from the table she was using as cover.
She swallowed. And wrenched her attention away from the hot girl. Doing so wasn’t easy. “Whaaa?” she slurred.
“About Uffdel. I think he’d have to be nuts to go through with it.”
Izza glanced back at the girl. The Zhoogene was staring right back at her, lips open seductively.
“I think Uffdel’s right,” she told the guy. She turned her back on the captivating Zhoogene and leaned into the young man, kissing him full on the lips.
Much as she loved him, it wasn’t Fitz’s lips she imagined she was devouring.
The human went rigid with surprise, but soon melted into her kiss, like they always did.
Fitz would understand. He wouldn’t like it, though.
She released the boy.
In a state of shock, he gingerly touched a fingertip to his lips. Poor kid looked like he was going to burst with pleasure.
She slid her arm around his shoulders, smoothly edging herself around him until she had a better view of Zi’Alfu’s table.
The wealthy man her mother-in-law had been talking to had gone. That was good. Not so good, the two guards and the Zhoogene girl were all looking Izza’s way.
The girl was giving her a sexy pout. It looked so contrived that Izza came to her senses enough to notice the recording equipment nestled inside the girl’s cropped head growth.
Now it made sense. Maybe. Zi’Alfu and the absent man were engaged in a performance, staged and filmed for the amusement of the gang boss who ran this joint. Izza didn’t give a skragg for the reason why.
The armed humans were scowling, warning her off.
Zi’Alfu was looking her way too, wearing a neutral expression.
But the girl was inviting her in, and her skin was so smooth and green…
Izza closed her eyes and tried to think clearly.
Danger made her randy. And feeling hot made her court danger.
She knew her nature. And she knew that, if Fitz were here, he would tell her to wait for backup.
But she was fed up with waiting.
There were only two guards, but she’d had to surrender her needle gun to club security on the way in.
The odds weren’t good.
All the sex shit pumping through the air and her body priming itself for an explosion of uncontrollable craziness drove her on.
The boy she’d kissed was gesturing for her attention. “Say, what was your name again?”
She smiled down at him. “Get out of the chair, and I’ll tell you.”
He frowned, but only for an instant before scrambling to his feet. He trembled in his eagerness to learn what delights awaited him.
She grabbed the back of his chair. “Izza Zan Fey,” she explained, deciding she owed him a name on which to hang his experience.
Then she picked up his chair and carried it over to Zi’Alfu’s table, brushing gratuitously against the sexy greenness of the Zhoogene who seemed to be in charge of this operation.
The girl’s scent was driving her crazy.
“Hey, hey!” One of the men took an aggressive step toward her. “You can’t sit here. Go away!”
“Sorry, sweetie,” Zhoogene girl told her, filming everything.
Zi’Alfu smiled at the camera. “It’s okay, dear. This plays even better with her here. Sal Deema, meet my daughter-in-law, Izza Zan Fey. You’d better order us another drink.” She peered at Izza and stroked her chin thoughtfully. “It’s Florinette ale, isn’t it?”
“That’ll do nicely,” Izza replied. She leaned across the table and tried to shut out the anti-didj beat assaulting her ears. “What the hell is going on?”
“These n
ice people have been holding me for a while. Just smile and pretend you’re having a good time. When the woman who runs this place tires of this game—not Sal Deema, someone you would find far less pleasing to your senses—I’ll be sold to a meat broker. They’ll command a generous fee to have me placed wherever Gliar-G Mining Corporation wants me to be.”
Sensing that the armed gangsters were letting this play out for now, Izza sat back and considered the woman she’d come to Kryzabik to meet. “I don’t have time for this,” she told her.
Creyoh returned an appraising look of her own. She held her grin just under the surface, exactly like Fitz did when he was teasing her.
The older woman usually wore a sunshade band around her eyes. When she did, the only way she resembled Fitz was with that grin and her glossy black hair that fell in gentle waves down to her shoulders.
In other regards, Fitz must take after his father, because Creyoh’s lips were much fuller than her son’s, as was her nose; the cheekbones were far sharper.
But now, without the band, when she threatened a grin, her eyes sparkled in exactly the same way as Fitz’s.
And those eyes!
Izza’s orbs were marbled. Fitz told her she had an inner purple glow that diffracted into ribbons of cyan and magenta. Fitz’s were lilac, but Creyoh’s were flecks of potassium fire in seas of glowing sulfur.
Despite the many complications those vivid eyes brought her, Creyoh displayed them proudly whenever it was safe to do so.
“It isn’t true that we don’t have time for a talk,” Creyoh replied. “You should learn to make time for yourself and your family.”
“Oh, yeah? Like the way you treated Fitz when he was just starting out?”
“I was a caring mother, teaching her darling child a valuable lesson.”
Izza made a cutting gesture. “I really don’t have time for that conversation. Just tell me what mess you’ve gotten into this time. Without the usual embellishments.”
“Kryzabik’s two major exports are in the expressive arts and the mining of rare elements. In fact, the place started off around FL-800 as a mining colony, and the industry has served the world well. Still does. Mostly. But the easy geological seams are mined out, and the future looks bleak. Along comes Gliar-G Mining Corporation.”
“If your cost of extraction rises,” said Izza, “you can either raise your prices—”
“Or cut corners. Kryzabik’s mining corporations not only respect their communities, in many places, they are the community. From time to time, politicians out to milk their turn in office will urge the miners to cut corners on safety and environmental concerns to bring in the credits. The corporations refuse because, unlike our elected representatives, they’re here for the long haul.”
“Let me guess,” said Izza. “Gliar-G is from out of town.”
“They operate out of a shiny floating edifice in the financial district of Zeta-Arcelia.” She spoke the name of the Federation’s capital world with utter contempt. “They’re not miners as such. More financiers who raise leveraged debt to buy mining assets that they exploit ruthlessly. And that’s what they’ve done here. Paid off the provincial governor and the system Militia commander. Then proceeded to poison great swathes of Kadeja Province as a side effect of cheaper extraction methods. Half the land from the Jescall-Red River to the Taidyung Mountains is no longer a safe place to live. There’s five million people who call that area home. Most importantly, me.”
“Who the fuck is the green doll?”
Izza blamed the thumping beats. She hadn’t heard the approach of the man who’d been sitting there earlier.
“Who’s the foul-mouthed scump?” Izza asked Creyoh.
“The gangs of Alsace-14 have just gone through a turf war,” the older woman explained. “This is Mr. Uhlanchek, the loser. He’s here to be seen spending time with me. Mr. Uhlanchek, this is my daughter-in-law.”
While mister loser licked his lips, Izza mused over how she was going to hurt the disrespectful jerk. Creyoh beat her to it, casually getting up from her seat and slapping him hard.
Uhlanchek shot her a look that could almost kill. “You’re lucky my humiliations have been heaped so high this day that what you just did doesn’t even rate among them. But one day, I’ll regain my power. You’d better beg for forgiveness preemptively, Creyoh Zi’Alfu, or I’ll drag your apologies out of you the hard way.”
A waiter appeared with three fresh glasses.
“You too, green cheeks,” the gangster told Izza.
“I’ll take it under advisement.”
After shooting her a sly grin, Uhlanchek was suddenly all bonhomie. “To my fine female companions,” he toasted, prompting them to lean over the table to clink glasses.
“Are you armed?” Izza asked the others.
“No,” Uhlanchek replied, smiling for the camera. “Neither is Zi’Alfu. Are you?”
“Security here is very effective,” Izza observed.
“Tell us about it,” said Creyoh.
“Not to worry,” said Izza. She sniffed her drink and smelled candy hops and a snatch of sulfur from the mineralized brewing water. Resisting the beer was the hardest thing she’d done since throwing Fitz out of the Phantom. Couldn’t risk it being spiked, though.
Instead, she raised the glass to her lips and then flung it into the face of the nearest tank-topped mobster.
She erupted out of her seat, numbing the man’s gun hand with a knife-hand strike. Hopping from side to side with the music beat, she sent a flurry of jabs at the man’s throat.
He was hurting. Confused. Not sure where the next blow was coming from.
But there wasn’t to be one.
She grabbed his pistol from him, then she poked her head over his left shoulder and fired a bolt at the other guard a fraction of a second before he fired at her.
Milliseconds. That was all that divided the shots, but it was all she needed. A blaster bolt enveloped her target’s face, melting it. His shot went wide but only just. He was firing slugs, and one sliced open the left side of her shield’s gut, missing her by inches.
The man with the melted face collapsed to the floor, falling over Uhlanchek’s body. The defeated gang boss must have leaped at the other guard. Probably bought Izza a second or so. She wasn’t sure if he was dead or unconscious. She didn’t care.
“You’re forgiven,” she told Uhlanchek as she turned with a steady grip on her new blaster to acquire the final target.
But the Zhoogene girl had vanished into the crowd. Probably for the best.
“I’ve got a ship waiting,” Izza told Creyoh. “Time to say our goodbyes.”
Keeping her newly acquired blaster at the ready, she pushed through the dancers and the anti-didj beat.
If the revelers understood what was happening in their midst, they showed no signs of caring.
The music cut.
They noticed that.
Gasps peppered the dance floor. Several people suddenly spotted Izza’s blaster. They gave it sidelong glances as if not sure whether it was real or cosplay.
Then the lighting switched. Suddenly, everything was blue and waving greens. It looked as if they were under the ocean.
What the hell?
A symphony of musical gurgling filled the club. Booming. It was achingly beautiful. Has to be a Littorane underwater chorus.
It worked for Izza. The dancers swayed on the spot, waiting for the new-Litt beat to start pumping beneath the chorus line. Izza and Zi’Alfu hurried through the gaps that had opened between the dancers.
She ran into the entrance lobby, sending an arriving party of human revelers screaming back into the station.
The two Zhoogene men working security were not so easily scared.
“Give me back my needler,” she demanded of the one at which she was aiming her blaster. Scars burst from one of his eye sockets, but the artificial eye inside tracked her perfectly, as did his pistol.
“You can’t be serious,” said the other Z
hoogene, whose handgun was also pointed at Izza. “The only way you’re getting out of Orion Nights alive is when it suits Miss Kilrine.”
“Give the girl what she wants,” demanded Creyoh, each hand holding a pistol pushed against the back of a Zhoogene head.
Two pistols? Where had she gotten the other weapon from?
“I’m in a hurry,” Izza told the security guards. “Tell you what. You keep my needler, and I’ll take your pistols.”
Carefully. Ever so slowly, the two armed men safed their weapons and handed them over to Izza, raising their empty hands.
“What now, dear?” asked her mother-in-law. “Shall I shoot them?”
Izza licked her lips while she enjoyed watching two pairs of golden eyes cloud with fear. Well, one-and-a-half pairs, because the artificial orb stared back implacably.
But she didn’t have time to enjoy herself. “No, of course not. Not when these two have been so helpful. In fact…I think they need a reward.” She brandished her blaster at the one-eyed guard. “Take your friend out on the dance floor and shake your shoulders with him. Go on, you’ll love it.”
Reluctantly, the pair moved off through the beaded curtain and into the noise and lights of the club.
Izza retrieved her needler, stuffing it along with the newly acquired weapons into her pink jacket.
“Can you run?” she asked her 92-year-old mother-in-law.
“Faster than you. Let’s go!”
As they pounded down the station corridors, Izza commed Phantom. “Sinofar, you copy?”
“I read you. Phantom is ready to make a hot exit as soon as you board.”
“What makes you think this is anything other than a boring check in?”
Behind her, Creyoh laughed. “Sounds like your crew knows you better than you know yourself.”
“Captain,” said Sinofar, “do we need to come into the station to extract you from the mess you’ve gotten yourself into?”
“No. And improve your tone. Is that how you would speak to Fitzwilliam?”
Smuggler Queen Page 7