"I got one!" Maybell said triumphantly, speaking out loud with joy.

It had been ages since she'd last hunted bull-rex, and the simple ways of her old life on Mu-Beta-Prime beckoned when she touched down dirtside for a few days. But it wasn't a four-eyed jackrabbit the size of a water buffalo that Maybell found in her trap. It was an overturned moon buggy with its front wheels shorn in half by her laser-wire trap. She had set the trap so that the wire would ignite if something weighing more than a metric tonne passed through the trigger beam.

"Who'd be stupid enough to do this?" she pondered while examining the wreckage.

No Dirter on Mu-Beta-Prime with a lick of sense would squeeze a moon buggy through such a tight passage between sheer canyon walls. Maybell had set her trap in the entranceway to the exact kind of place bull-rex liked to nest. They were the largest creatures on the mudball moon that she called her home, and any person foolish enough to venture down a narrow pass like this would start a stampede if a herd was found to be on the other side. The beasts would trample them to death with tyrannosaurus rex-sized feet, or gore them with four spiked horns set wide like a longhorn steer.

Maybell dismounted from her monocycle and placed her hand on the wrecked moon buggy. Its engine was still warm, telling her that the trap had been recently sprung. She searched for the culprits without entering the gorge, twisting her head to and fro. All she saw were little dust devils whipping in the wind.

And massive amounts of bull-rex feces. "The weather magnets are set for rain," she recalled from the morning news. "It's time to get out of here, before this turns to mud."

Surveying the area further, she figured out why the buggy had been abandoned. A second set of tire tracks from a transport vehicle told her she was dealing with bio-rustlers. The bounty hunter in Maybell knew better than to try following them. Between the shifting dust and the rock-hard ground, few other tire tracks would be found, making it impossible to figure out where they might have gone.

She searched for other clues. The moon buggy sported two decals, one stuck on its windshield and a one on the right rear fender. Each was the outline of a bull-rex's head, colored as red as the beast's hide.

"Oh God," she gasped. "The Red Bull Gang. Heinemann knows these guys."

Maybell had a real job these days, as a gopher for Sara Jane's newly formed transportation service. So it was easy for her to get a bathtub full of freshly scrubbed water from Bobcat whenever she wanted, paying for the service with creds rather than with her body. She had rented the biggest room he had, upstairs from his saloon, and had the Queen Anne tub set square in the middle. In fact, Bobcat had taken to storing the tub in what was now called Maybell's Room, because when it wasn't being used by other guests visiting Mu-Beta-Prime—of which there were typically none—she could almost always be found soaking her butt in it.

After packing up her bull-rex traps and storing them at Gavin's, she contemplated what to do while in the tub. She hadn't seen another soul since the incident with the moon buggy, so she didn't feel the need to worry about being found guilty of abetting bio-rustlers by not immediately reporting the incident. Transporting genetically engineered bio-mass between worlds was oftentimes thought to be the most heinous crime imaginable. It was considered worse than committing murder, and it was a Dirter's duty to shoot on sight any person caught bio-rustling. A plant or animal created to live on one world, and set loose on another, could bring death and destruction to everyone.

Maybell spoke to the scented bubbles floating in her bath. "Someone needs to find out what Red Bull and his gang are up to. If he's transporting live bull-rex off-world, the authorities need to know."

Maybell hated the authorities. Maybell hated so much as having to say the word 'authority.' Some part of her red-haired, freckled-face brain told her that if she was expected to do something one way, she instead ought to find a way to do it some way else.

"Should I confront Heinemann?" she asked her bubbles. "Should I bug the tracking collar I have on him, and listen to see if he's in cahoots?"

Despite his checkered past, Maybell couldn't bear the thought of treating her lover so cruelly. There was a bounty on him for having killed the Mule who murdered his former business partner while stealing their transport of cigarettes. Heinemann had hunted down the man with a single-minded purpose, scarcely letting him be surprised before filling him with sonic slugs. Now Maybell had information on criminal activity involving a merchant that he had dealt with regularly at the time. He would go to prison for life if he so much as even knew what Red Bull was doing.

"With me going in right behind him, if I don't do something right now," Maybell said to herself out loud, to hear how the words sounded.

She soon no longer had to ponder what she ought to do. While fretting naked in her tub, five men broke down the door.

"I've been looking for you," the biggest one said.

The massively squared-off shape of the man told Maybell that he was a Genetic, junked high on animal genes. His snout told her the DNA he had inserted into his genome came from a brama bull. But despite her weird aversion to the fact that being in the presence of a Genetic made her uneasy, he had a more obvious problem than her feelings on his hands.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Or rather, on his hand, because his right arm was missing, shorn off near the elbow. The cleanness of his homemade bandage made it likely that he'd lost it by tripping her laser wire trap.

"I should have a gun in my right hand," he grunted, still in pain. "But I find you in a suitable position, and I know how to shoot with my left."

He circled to the front of the tub, where Maybell sat stock-still and undeterred. "There are two kinds of people in the world, little woman," he said with glee. "Those with guns and those without." He produced a pistol. "Guess which kind I am."

"I know who you are," Maybell said, lounging back and nestling her chin in her bubbles. "You're Red Bull. Bio-rustler. You've been transporting bull-rex off Mu-Beta-Prime. I should kill you where you stand."

The group of men in the doorway took turns laughing and jostling each other.

"Oh my!" Red Bull said. "That's rich!" He sized her up a bit. "You seem smart enough to know that wisecracking won't save your life. You're not leaving this room alive."

Just then, the room began shaking. It grew so violent that dust found its way in through cracks and crevices around the walls and windowsills.

"What the heck is that?" Red Bull asked over the din, while looking out a window.

Moving slow and dreamy, Maybell rose to her knees in the tub. As Red Bull stared at an X-wing Scrambler descending from near space, the men in the doorway had their eyes glued to Maybell's sudsy butt, dripping wet and warm. She turned to face them as her crotch came into view, and her ample bosom blossoming.

She counted them slowly, looking each one of them in the eye while speaking in a sexy voice. "One, two, three, four. Why, you're the perfect number!"

"How so, lady?" one of them asked, leering with anticipation.

Maybell leaned towards the men a bit and, without raising her rifle above the surface of the water, she pegged three of them with sonic slugs, straight through the back of her tub. The last one ran away, with Maybell tearing after him.

"What the heck?" Red Bull asked again, turning his attention away from the Scrambler. He took a pot shot at Maybell's ass as she raced naked out of the room. He then tore after her, slipping on blood and soapy water. He found her downstairs in the saloon with her back turned to him, holding his last henchman at gunpoint.

"I don't take to talking when I have to shoot," Maybell said to the henchman, ignoring Red Bull's approach. "You'd do well to know that, and give yourself up."

Red took aim with his pistol at the back of Maybell's head. "Whosoever crosses me knows what to expect!" he yelled, preparing to fire.

Emitting a monstrous roar, a grey and brown blur tackled Red Bull from the side, disarming the one-armed villain. The beast pressed Red Bull's own pistol to his neck while kneeling on both his shoulders. He screamed in agony due to his missing arm, while the beast spoke in a calm voice.

"You'll find me to be a reasonable man," Heinemann said into Red Bull's face. "I'm gonna get off you now, but if you move I'll kill you."

Red Bull managed to speak, through pain and gritted teeth. "Okay."

Maybell talked to Red Bull further. "The world is also divided into two other kinds of people—those who have friends and those who don't."

She brought the rustler she had at gunpoint over to stand next to Red Bull, who still lay on the floor. Naked and dripping wet, and covered with sweet sudsy bubbles, she kissed her genetically altered lover on his furry hyena cheek.

"Thanks for dropping in," she said.

Heineman hooted with joy, a huge grin splitting is face. "No problem, Honeycakes! Thanks for calling me on the link! I love being collared by you! And I've missed you so much!" He ogled his nude girlfriend. "You wanna get back in the tub after this?"

"Nah. I can't," she replied in monotone. "I kinda need a new one. I got holes in mine."

She then sounded cheery. "Oh! But now that you're here with Sara Jane, maybe she'll let us use hers. We could bathe in it while transporting these finks to the magistrate!"

Heinemann pecked Maybell on the cheek while opening his telecomm link. "I think we'd best have the authorities come to us instead. Why don't you get dressed?"

Sara Jane called down from her airship on his link. "Get your goddamn dumb dog butt back up here! You know better than to go dirtside!"

His eyes grew wide with fear, as Maybell merely smirked. "Busted," she said to her man.

Sara Jane was ill-amused. "Heinemann, you jack-ass! If I lose you to the authorities…" She trailed off, not wanting to say anything more over an open link.

"Momma-horse is right," Maybell said, looking as hurt as Heinemann.

Sara Jane interjected. "I've told you guys not to call me that."

Heinemann gave a yip, and a little hoot. "I guess I gotta go." His eyes roamed Maybell's sudsy body. "It's been swell seeing you. Every bit of you."

Maybell leaned in close, to whisper into one of Heinemann's turned back ears. With her eye on the rustlers, she spoke in a voice soft enough to keep Sara Jane from overhearing on the link.

"I'm gonna get Kelles and Gavin, or somebody, to clean up this mess for me, or I'll be in front of the magistrate too, answering questions for days. Leave the lock open on Sara Jane's dock, and set your Scrambler to auto."

"You're coming with me?" Heinemann asked too loud, confused by Maybell's scheme.

"Leave them with Maybell," Sara Jane said to Heinemann, thinking he was talking to the rustlers. "Let her take care of things down there. You get back up here."

Maybell winked and shook her head, silently instructing her man to shut his big yap. She whispered again at an inaudible level, for Heinemann's hyena DNA gave him ears that worked like a bat.

"I'm not dealing with this. I had an unmanned laser trap set in Hidaro's Pass. If the magistrate finds out I know you, I'll sit in the slammer until I turn you in."

"Oh," Heinemann whispered back, now becoming aware.

"Leave the dock open and the Scrambler on auto. Keep Sara Jane away from the monitors. Buzz me on the link—just buzz—and I'll call your Scrambler back, to get me outa here."

"What about Sara Jane?" Sara Jane asked, as the equine DNA in her gave her good hearing, too. "What about me, Bitch?" she asked.

Maybell barely whispered. "What's she gonna do to me once I've snuck on board? Nothing. Get me off this mudball, Heinie, and I'll do you all night long."

"You got it!" Heinemann said, again much too loud.

Sara Jane thought he was talking to her. "Good. Maybell, link to Bobcat. Or maybe get Kelles. Make sure another person has your side of the story before the fuzz gets there."

Letting down her guard for a moment, Maybell attacked her lover with her entire, wet naked body. Heinemann bent his long neck low, to rest his head between her shoulder blades as she scratched his shirtless back with the hand not holding her rifle.

With some discomfort, Red Bull got to his feet, looking anywhere but at the two crazy lovebirds.

"Get a room," he said, disgusted.