Hunting John Doe

By Heather Hiestand

Once a royal prince, the man known as John Doe now lives the low life as an intergalactic bounty hunter. Avoiding the revolutionaries who need him as their figurehead, he's chasing his latest contract, beautiful Gaia Marlowe, wanted for the death of her husband.

Long ago, Gaia had supported herself in exotic BDSM clubs. Her path out of that lifestyle only led her to the darker pleasures of the upper class. With two husbands dead, it's time to take charge of her life as an underground mistress.

John needs to capture Gaia, but she can't afford to let that happen. If only their connection wasn't so magnetic. Two people are running for their lives…and a chemistry that cannot be denied.

Disclaimer:  Expect sexy adult situations and practices.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Heather Hiestand
• Release date: Oct 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386587200

Book preview

HUNTING JOHN DOE

A dark science fiction romance

Written by

Heather Hiestand

www.heatherhiestand.com

Newsletter

Hunting John Doe

Copyright 2018 by Heather Hiestand

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Coffee on Sundays Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [e-mail]

Cover Art by Delle Jacobs

Coffee on Sundays Press

Visit us at http://www.heatherhiestand.com

Publishing History

First D2D Edition, 2018

V 1.0 R 1.0

Has been lengthened and revised

First published as Recreating John Doe by Anh Leod in 2008

Published in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Acknowledgments

More From Heather Hiestand

About the Author

Chapter One

Another hard night on Nettus One

I’M DREAMING ABOUT Loowren Nine again. I can tell where I am because the dome above the main city has that long crack. It’s a disaster about to happen. The man known as John Doe rubbed his fingers against his temples, feeling the tips scratch the edge of his sandy brown crew cut.

That is a slum world, is it not? Holo Doc shifted in his chair.

The holographic psychiatrist fascinated John. Holo Doc was a computer with a visual presence, programmed to move like a human, but John could see the outline of the chair under the see-through male hologram. Banner, John’s boss, had ordered him to undergo psychoanalysis any time he stayed in the Center’s dormitory rooms.

John preferred to keep his thoughts to himself, but he needed his job, at least until his ship was paid off. It’s a slum now, both the planet and the main city. He stretched his neck in both directions before letting his cheek rest against the cool synthetic leather of the couch. It used to be beautiful.

Do you spend much time there?

John shrugged. I try to avoid it. I’ve picked up a bounty or two in the area, of course. Miners from the rest of the Loowren system often go there to party.

Go on.

I don’t look much like my parents but if you follow the family tree back far enough you can see the Hofmann family resemblance. There’s always a chance the military junta that overthrew my father’s rule on Nine will come after me.

The hologram steepled his virtual fingers. They think you are dead.

John chewed on the inside of his cheek. These sessions always came back to his shattered identity, his damaged memory. Why? Was Banner afraid his employee would become a liability? Alexander Hofmann is dead. He’s been dead for seventeen years, since 2391.

How do you feel about that?

John fought to keep his irritation from showing. You know how it goes. Someone could decide I’m a cause to rally behind, the only one left in my family. Banner is a cautious man, though. He didn’t find me, rescue me from the Nettus Two killing fields, and patch me up to lose his investment after only two years. Banner knows I’m not likely to run back to Nine and lead the Resistance. He had never known if his ship had been attacked by the military junta or not. Had they discovered his identity in the mercenary unit he’d been a part of before joining Banner?

Banner had separated him from his unit and given him a fresh start. I’ve been working for him since then. John frowned. What’s the difference? It’s a job.

Banner had even given his latest badass bounty hunter a new name, John Doe, some colloquialism from old-time America, he guessed. He hadn’t thought about it much. Traumatic brain injury meant his life had needed to simplify drastically. Recall had become so much harder that he simply focused on the present, the immediate future.

Perhaps, said Holo Doc. Do you never want to go back? Do you not wish to free your world and take your rightful place as the son of kings? Seventeen years ago, is that not what your rescuers intended you to do?

I’m also the son of the Earth-born conquerors. I have mercenary blood from way back. Banner doesn’t need to worry that I’ve got any plans beyond paying off my ship. The Resistance was safer without him for now. Look, I don’t know why Banner makes me meet with you. Does he need reassurance? I’d be happier using my off hours to relax with a pleasure droid or one of the exotic dancers in Danger Pit. Or both at the same time.

He coughed. He never knew who listened to the recordings of these sessions. Banner always seemed to know too much. The Center had employees too, not all of them holograms. Some of them, like the beautiful night cook, were even telepathic.

Holo Doc ignored his sexual interests in the interest of focusing, as always, on the hard questions. What would it take to make you go back to Nine?

An alarm went off on the desk next to John. As the patient, John was expected to rise from the couch and turn it off himself, then leave the small room. His time was up and as always, he was irritated. At least the form-molding couch had been comfortable.

That night, as he tossed and turned on the overly firm mattress in his bunk, his nightmares were going to be courtesy of that repair loan he had coming due on the Killer, his ship. He never should have used a Danger Pit mechanic for the work, but he still hadn’t entirely paid off his ship purchase loan to Banner so he couldn’t afford a mechanic who wasn’t a slummer. Banner didn’t let them use his own mechanics for free unless the repair was needed due to a takedown. The Killer had desperately needed routine maintenance and now John couldn’t escape the system without paying the guy off. Ado, his mechanic, had a sadistic thick-necked brother who would come after him if he didn’t pay on time. He wouldn’t put it past the enforcer to tear up the Killer with his oversized laser cannon just for the hell of it.

He wasn’t out of options, though. Thankfully he headed to the conference room for a meeting with Banner next. His communicator had announced a newly scheduled convo with the man just as he was entering Holo Doc’s office. Maybe Banner had a high-dollar bounty available. John left the Medical Wing of the complex and headed toward the Center’s Heart to the conference room.

The Center’s corridors were empty, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Maybe he could sell his Siren’s dagger to pay for the repairs. It ought to be worth something. There were other weapons and pieces of equipment he could do without too, if he must. In a place like the Danger Pit he could make plenty of money selling services of various kinds, if he wanted to sink that low. He could even sell some of his droid’s parts. The droid’s damaged voice box was one distinct possibility. AL-BD27, his birth-droid, had been damaged in the assassination attack seventeen years ago and it had been a yoke around John’s neck ever since.

He was considering this when he entered the conference room. Banner didn’t hold much with large meetings, so the room was basically another office with extra chairs.

Holo Doc give you something to think about? Banner asked, steepling his fingers under his chin.

John looked up, surprised to see Banner behind the desk. His boss’s coal-black eyes seemed to suck all truth right out of him as always.

No, I was trying to decide what to pawn so I could pay off my ship repairs.

What did you do with the money from Rags Bueller’s bounty?

His last dead-or-alive had been brought in very dead indeed, but there had been enough DNA remaining to claim the bounty.

"Paid you the three months’ mortgage I owed on the Killer. Had a tattoo removed."

I thought your face was looking unadorned.

John had sported a black tear tattoo under his left eye. He’d gotten it when he was twelve in memory of his family but it gave him a distinguishing feature he didn’t need or want as a bounty hunter. Now, the more anonymous he looked the better off he was.

Yeah. You can’t tell it was ever there. The lowlifes who thought they could recognize him by it would be in trouble now.

But you’re broke again.

As broke as a philosopher on Amma Delta. The party planet was a popular relaxation spot for bounty hunters, at least those flush with credits, which he never was.

Banner shrugged. I’ll give you an advance.

John raised an eyebrow. That’s not standard operating procedure. Banner was usually tight with his credits.

You’ll earn it back in a few days. I’m giving you Gaia Marlowe.

John allowed himself a smile. The talk around the poker table last night had been full of comments about the woman, a good bounty in more ways than one. Lots of credits for her capture and she was a hot female rather than the back-of-beyond, hardheaded, stinky sons of bitches that they’d all be better off not sharing the universe with, his usual bounties.

She’s a dead-or-alive, right?

Banner shifted, his black hair brushing broad shoulders. Your specialty.

That’s a rare kind of contract on a woman. John sat down on one of the folding chairs by Banner’s conference room desk. Could Marlowe be the break he needed to pay off his debts?

From your smile, I’m guessing you know her story.

Not at all, just rumors of her physical charms.

Banner’s expression remained bland. The late Toric Marlowe was her second husband, a member of the governing family of Xy-Three.

John frowned. Was he someone very important?

Yeah, Toric was the heir apparent and now Gaia’s former in-laws want her dead.

The family thinks she killed him?

You bet.

She sounds like a bit of a mystery, despite her high-profile marriage. The scuttlebutt at the poker table was that she was sexy as well, with a mysterious past. Guess she chose the wrong man.

Banner tossed him a data card. "Information on her, as well as enough credits to pay off your Killer mechanic and prepare for your hunt."

So Banner had known about his debt all along. Figured. Thanks. He started to stand up, then sat again. Did Gaia Marlowe kill her husband?

What do you care? You’ll be paid for her either way.

John nodded. Yeah, you’re right. Having a sense of right and wrong never did any bounty hunter any good. Did the Marlowes go through the Directorate to order the contract?

Banner smirked. Yes. You’re working for the Directorate. He never commented overtly but he knew why John had asked. John didn’t like to work for governing families directly, in case they recognized him as one of their own. The Directorate might have paid for his family’s assassination, but the intergalactic government was so enormous that one tentacle rarely knew what the other was doing.

Okay then. He gave Banner a mocking salute and left the conference room.

Banner Bounty was having a good day, he noted, passing a couple other bounty hunters heading toward the Center’s Heart on his way to the dormitory wing.

Meeting with Banner? he asked a diminutive female who wore tight canvas camouflage pants similar to his own and a laser pistol on her hip.

I hear the Directorate is on another witch hunt, she replied, flashing him a hint of bright teeth in her dark brown face.

Happy hunting, he called.

You too, soldier man, said the other hunter, a muscular red-haired, light green-skinned woman who couldn’t be more than half-human, with her long slender ears and protruding lips.

He wondered what else Banner had to offer his crew. Asteroid storms had a way of ratcheting up crime in this galaxy and there had been a bad one three days ago. Still, he didn’t pass any other hunters on his way to his home in the Center.

His dormitory room wasn’t much, but at least Banner didn’t charge him for that. Inside, he smelled the odors peculiar to wherever he lived, machine oil, liniment, and a semi-housebroken puppy. He dropped onto his bunk next to his snoozing dachshund, Alpheus.

Alpheus had gotten bored again, John saw, since the coverlet of his bunk was chewed and rumpled. The missing AL-BD27 had failed at an assigned task yet again. He should stop giving the droid assignments at all. Thankfully the female puppy appeared to have a laid-back disposition for the most part, rare in her breed. He gave her smooth red coat a pat. How are you, pretty girl?

Alpheus vocalized an excited greeting. She had brightened his life since she’d arrived.

John grabbed her grooming kit from the counter and gave her a thorough brushing, wondering what had happened to his droid. Was it out wandering the corridors of the Center again? One never knew what AL-BD27 was capable of. Six weeks ago, it had shown up with the puppy, unable to explain where it had found her. Another time it had inexplicably dismantled the communicator in the Killer, only for John to discover someone had bugged it. How had the droid known? He’d been unable to trace the bug to its owner. Probably it had belonged to Rags Bueller’s gang, and they were disbanded now anyway.

After Alpheus had her fill of attention and padded to her food dish, John put his data card into the portable reader he’d left on his desk and called up the file on his latest bounty. Gaia Marlowe was twenty-nine. Almost two years older than he. A native of Loowren Nine, she’d been an exotic dancer before a small-time crystolium dealer named Lon Inlo married her. For exotic dancer John read prostitute and for small-time crystolium dealer, he read thug.

He could be wrong but after all, the man had turned up dead and the woman was now John’s dead-or-alive contract. Besides, he knew what had happened to his home. He wondered if Banner realized he was sending John after one of his own people.

At least he was unlikely to have known her in his childhood days as the heir apparent to Loowren Nine.

The Inlos had moved to the Xy system together, which made sense since crystolium and other precious metals were mined there. Then Inlo had been murdered. Apparently, no one had suspected Gaia of being the killer, since she managed to infiltrate high society and go after the Marlowe heir. Again, this made sense, since a dealer like Inlo was bound to wind up in trouble. The real question was how Gaia had been able to move so high up the ladder with her background. Was she a gifted seductress?

John displayed her picture, letting out a low whistle when