“That intel might be too outdated to be of any use now. The coordinates are outlying areas, and the deployments have a lead on you at this point. Do what you can with it. And give me your direct-link location address. I can speed-feed you anything else I find. Instead of making lag with the go-between.” Fucking Herschel. And CovOps command central. It was possible there was a good excuse for the delay but somehow he doubted it.
Pat glanced up, the sudden energy of his body, the intensity as he perused the data, going still. “You aren’t worried about detection?”
Mike shrugged. The risk was always there. “Honestly? Not really. Their communications arrays aren’t as high quality as ours, so they won’t be very reliable on this rock. First dust storm of the season that kicks up out of the desert will obliterate everything and cut the deployed troops off from the command center.” He held the CovOp’s gaze, studied the grooves in the man’s face, highlighted with grit and dust. Reminded him of the shoddy makeup he’d seen on some of the cheaper back-alley whores Pat had employed over the years of their acquaintance. “Hope you’re gearing up to make the best of that opportunity.”
Pat’s grin was almost blinding. He tapped the palmpad in his hand reverently. “You bet your left nut I am. This is perfect. We might not be able to harry them en route, but we’ll be ready for summer in a couple weeks. The Doctrine is going to the graveyard with the rest of the zombies.”
“It’s not perfect. That’s just the first wave. I’ll keep the intel coming as I get it. Now grab this shit and get the hell out of here.” Mike waved at the small pile of supplies he’d heaped on the floor. Spare socks and underwear, another long bolt of unbleached cloth for a headwrap. Hydration injectors. Pat needed the stuff more than he did. Not to mention he had ready access for acquiring more. “And watch your ass. Always have an open avenue of retreat.”
Pat collected the items and crammed them into his emaciated kit, arching a brow at Mike. “Stop preaching, Daddy. And thanks. Tell that sorry lump Herschel I could use more. And a bottle of alcohol wouldn’t go unappreciated, either.”
Mike grinned, made a noncommittal noise and wondered what the hell was going on with CovOps command.
Chapter Nine
Mike stuffed a second pillow under his head and stared at the stucco ceiling. The windows in the bedroom were large but there wasn’t any breeze worth mentioning, so the sheen of sweat on his body stayed right where it was.
“I’m thinking,” he said, once his breathing didn’t remind him of the marathons in his younger days, “that shower stall in the bathroom is the sexiest thing in this house right now.” He ran a hand over his chest, carelessly wiping the moisture onto the sheets. They were already half-soaked anyway, a little more didn’t matter.
Sergei lay on his stomach, where he’d collapsed after their fucking. Apart from one calf covered by the white blanket, he was bare, pale skin flushed and gleaming with sweat. His eyes were closed but relaxed, but he wasn’t asleep—yet. “If you want to shower, I’m no competition,” he mumbled into the pillow.
“Should I save you some cold water?” Mike rolled onto his side and sat up, reaching back to slap Sergei’s thigh.
“Bring me a soaked towel. Helps cool me down.” Sergei’s lips twisted into a smile. “After you heated me up.”
Mike couldn’t help but laugh as he pushed away from the bed. There was a shower not ten feet from the man, and all he wanted was a soaked towel?
“Or come to the bed wet and cool me down,” Sergei said, reconsidering.
“Or you could come climb into the shower with me, and I can wash the sweat off your back.”
And at that rate, Mike would get nothing accomplished at all. Sergei hadn’t yet made mention of the translator position or anything else not directly related to bed play. I really suck at being a honey trap. Can’t even get the man to share any dirty gossip, let alone something of actual importance. Which was the main reason why the translator slot was perfect. Being around Sergei when both their brains weren’t short-circuited might actually be productive.
Made him wonder what Herschel had in mind with this plan from the start. He didn’t think it had been thought out too well. Mike cranked the cold water on full blast and stepped under the spray, letting his mind wander, relax.
Push too hard, and most of the time it got you absolutely nowhere.
He had no idea how long he stayed in there, but eventually the water began to run tepid, which was gross, so he turned it off and headed back out to the bedroom, not even bothering with a towel.
Sergei had at least turned onto his back and used the blanket to cover the wet spot. Gray eyes watched him and the soldier smiled. “You look good wet. Not something I could put in my wallet, but…I’ll keep it in my memory.”
Mike managed a loose smile, but something in him twitched at that. Memories were like photos. Over time they got dog-eared and torn, the details blurred, faded. He couldn’t remember what his parents looked like anymore. Their faces were long gone, nothing left but disjointed flashes—laughter, the warm feeling of family, home and unconditional love. He pushed it away and crawled up the bed, bracketing the man’s body with his arms and legs, stretching his cooled, damp skin out along Sergei’s length.
Sergei laughed and ran a hand through Mike’s wet hair, gathering up water, and wiped that same hand over his face. He was so much more relaxed these days, not just after sex, before too. Sometimes even in uniform. “Sometimes that shower comes to you.”
“Planning to use me, then? Selfish man.” Mike rolled his eyes with mock drama and poked at the man’s ribs.
“I think this started with you using me.” Sergei’s grin was bordering on a leer. He half turned to kiss Mike’s chest. “Anything I can do to show you I’m not selfish?”
Mike folded his arms and propped his chin up on his hands, shaking his head. “I don’t think you are. Did you find out anything about the translator slot?” He couldn’t afford to sit around playing honey trap. Pat needed intel, and he would get it.
“I’ll put it in front of my superior. He’ll approve it. We’re short on Cirokkan-speakers everywhere. Frontline units, support units. But it can mean translating during interrogations.” Sergei glanced up. “Can you deal with that?”
Mike had to force himself to hesitate. “Yeah, I can do that. How long will that take? The gears of bureaucracy and all.”
“There’s this joke about Liberty being the soldiers’ world…it’s really the bureaucrats’ world.” Sergei shook his head. “He’ll be able to make that decision once he comes back. You’ll be asked about your background. Where you’re from. Support that with paperwork…then the question is whether the Cirokkan army employs you or we do it…The Cirokkans are useless. And there are much bigger things to worry about, so I think it might go fast. It won’t pay much, but it’s employment. And…we might end up closer together. We’ll have to be careful, though.”
Mike smiled, sure it looked more cynical than intended. “It’ll be difficult to keep my hands off your ass when you’re in that uniform, but I think I can manage it.”
“Good. It’s…we can’t get caught. I’d go to prison, maybe get mindwiped. It will be even worse for you. It’s…it’s a crime against the Doctrine, I’d rather kill myself than get my mind wiped.” Sergei pushed him off and stood, agitated now, unsure where to put his hands, what to do. “It might be a terrible idea.”
Oh, no. No, no, no. Mike was off the bed in a split second and had Sergei pinned to the wall a few feet away, holding him there with the weight of his body pressed flush against the Doctrine soldier’s chest. “Don’t do that,” he growled. “I’m perfectly capable of being professional. Don’t you dare doubt yourself. Take a deep breath and calm down.”
“I wouldn’t…worry so much if I didn’t…” Sergei shook his head and looked him straight in the eye. “Yes. I’ll calm down. Nothing has happened. They won’t see anything. Won’t guess. He won’t see it. I’ve worn that mask for so long, w
ho knows what my face looks like anymore…”
Mike pulled back slightly, studying that face both literally and figuratively. He stared right into those gray eyes, feeling his brows drawn down over the bridge of his nose. “I do.”
Sergei flinched. “I think you might. What do you see? Mike?”
Every fiber of his body froze, every brain cell stilled. Oh gods, he couldn’t do this. His hands tightened on Sergei’s shoulders. Mike let his gaze roam over the pale features to avoid holding those eyes, so full of intensity and a need that was so far from sexual they weren’t even in the same galaxy anymore.
“I see a man in chains. Like a beautiful wild creature caged, who can see freedom, smell the wild places on the breeze, but can’t reach them.” He didn’t know if it was what Sergei needed to hear, but it was what he saw. Mike slid his hands up. Fingers lacing together at the nape of the soldier’s neck, he pulled the head forward to rest against his shoulder. “Be patient. The chance for freedom will eventually present itself. You just have to wait and be prepared to take advantage of it.”
Sergei placed an arm around Mike’s waist. “Sometimes I just want to run and hide.” He inhaled deeply. “I’m not a coward, but I’ll never belong. I still keep trying. I’m not a criminal. I know what’s right and what’s wrong.”
Mike hooked an arm around Sergei’s shoulders, not caring that the tension in his own embrace was probably a little excessive. He brushed his lips over the man’s temple, enjoying the bristling texture of his hair. “No, you’re certainly not a coward,” he agreed. “Not a criminal. Not any more than I.”
“The Brother General will be back tomorrow. The day after that, we’ll have to go to that provincial bigwig’s house to catch up with the latest developments in the province. Then I’ll talk to him about the situation regarding translators.” Sergei kept his face against Mike’s shoulder, breathing deeply. “I like your smell.”
A chuckle vibrated up out of Mike at the randomness of that. “Yeah? What do I smell like?”
“Wild places.” Sergei gave a soft laugh. “What else?”
Mike squeezed his eyes closed harder, focused on the simplicity of taking a deep, controlled breath. The grass on his side of the fence really wasn’t much greener. Although the prospect of cutting loose had been looking increasingly preferable over the passing years. He thought of the nano chip embedded in his scalp and grimaced at the irony. Truthfully, his own situation wasn’t that much different from Sergei’s. He’d never tell him that, though.
“Wild places? I promise I haven’t been rolling around in dung. It’s not my thing.” He knew quite well that wasn’t what Sergei meant, but the situation needed some diffusing, the conversation redirected.
Sergei chuckled. “If you had I wouldn’t care.” He took a few breaths, clearly gathering his resolve. “I need to see you tomorrow. Might be the last one for a while. Even if it’s for a week, it’ll be too much.”
“I’ll be here. I’ve been given use of this house for the foreseeable future. The owner was eager to have someone watch over it while he took his family elsewhere. On vacation, I think,” Mike added, not caring what the Doctrine side of the man would think about it. No sane person would keep their loved ones in the path of a machine like the Doctrine forces.
“Wrong side of politics.” Sergei leaned back, head touching the wall. “I’ll return as soon as I can. This is much better than the barracks. I’ll have to get him from the spaceport tomorrow, but he’s arriving late. I might just get the car and pause here for an hour and then drive.”
Mike trailed his fingers along the line of Sergei’s neck. He didn’t really think about it; the man was beautiful, every inch of him, and though he could keep his hands to himself…right now, in this place, he didn’t have to. “There isn’t any right side to politics.” Then he turned his attention back to memorizing the lines of every muscle and tendon and ridge of bone with his fingertips.
“Maybe all politics are wrong.” Sergei shrugged and gave an oddly self-conscious smile for a man his size and build. “Ah, maybe I’m awake enough now for a shower.”
The prospect of mapping the man’s body while it was slick with water was a little too attractive. “Go on, then. I’m going to raid the kitchen and see if I can find anything edible.” Like, chocolate syrup, maybe.
“I’m starving.”
Chapter Ten
Rhada spaceport was a mass confusion of activity. Between the supply transports dropping in to unload troops and cargo, and the crowd of natives who all seemed desperate for a hop off-planet, it was a sea of humanity, fumes, noise and dust.
Sergei pulled the officer’s sleek landcar onto the tarmac and headed for the secluded area at the back. Quieter, as the level of ambient activity dropped to virtually nothing. The car was sleek only because the motor-pool personnel had slaved away, washing, waxing and replacing body panels in some spots, to remove every trace of the Cirokkan wasteland from the machine. The effect wouldn’t last long, but Sergei hoped his superior would appreciate the effort.
The brother general’s personal shuttlecraft was already on the ground, though Sergei was certain he wouldn’t be reprimanded for not being present at touchdown. The craft’s engines were still humming, their pitch winding down into gradually lower registers as the turbines slowed.
Leaving the landcar to idle, he climbed out, planted his hat on his head at the correct angle and position by feel alone. His pulse was racing a little more than he cared to think about. He was not nervous. There was nothing to be nervous about.
During the brother general’s absence, the arriving troops and their equipment had continued to stream into the central base at Rhada and, once organized and accounted for, had continued to wash into Dedis in preparation for a massed assault into the surrounding mountains and deserts. Sergei’s activities during his downtime were none of the officer’s concern, so long as they didn’t interfere with military operations. And he couldn’t even begin to see how his sex life entwined with the art of war, even if the Doctrine didn’t draw a line between a citizen soldier’s private life and their duty. Not that this line was never crossed, but even a citizen soldier was not on duty all the time.
When the officer emerged from the life lock that ensured no contamination, Sergei straightened. Not too much. Not like a nervous underling. He had to be perfectly natural in his responses, giving as little away as possible. He saluted and smartly stepped to the side of the car to open it. “Hope you had a good trip, Brother General.”
The officer gave him a nod and sat in the back of the car, pushing against the seat with his full weight. Anger? Resentment at having been boxed in for the trip?
Sergei got in the front and started the car.
His hands were not sweating inside his driving gloves. He didn’t have a problem with the silence, either. If the brother general didn’t want to talk, Sergei wasn’t going to try to draw him into it. He adjusted his polarized sunglasses and guided the vehicle off the tarmac, onto the rugged roadway leading to the base of the nearby mountain range and Dedis.
They were strange, the mountains. Rising up out of nowhere, snow-capped peaks breaking the vivid blue skyline. Not what he was used to seeing in the least. And how there could be snow up there, when it was so hot everywhere, baffled him.
The glare from the sun reflected off that snow and, when the heat rose from the valleys, the mountains seemed to drift or swim, which was the most disconcerting thing he’d ever seen. Apart from, of course, the coverage of what the planet had done to the initial Doctrine expedition force at Dedis just a few months ago. Rabid mobs rarely left a clean site behind when they moved on. The images had been broadcast over Liberty for weeks, drawing thousands of volunteers to sign up for this particular mission. To “pacify,” as the official lingo went, and to welcome Cirokko into the fold of the Doctrine. Which amounted to the same thing.
Brother shall not raise hand against brother.
“Terminal,” the general demanded.
Sergei retrieved the pad from the passenger seat and handed it back, loaded with paperwork and logged into the Dedis garrison’s mainframe. Which had only been established last week.
Every report, every file, was updated and current. He’d worked into the early hours of the morning to make sure it was all in order. Not just so he could afford those spare hours yesterday afternoon with Mike before the brother general’s return, either. If there was one thing his superior had in spades, it was attention to detail.
His hands tightened on the guidance controls. Knowing that about the brother general made the contrast to the man’s behavior in bed—this so-called relationship he insisted on having—that much sharper. The prospect of cutting off further overtures made the sweat cloying under Sergei’s collar feel abruptly cold, though.
He didn’t allow himself even the slightest sigh of relief, kept his stony mask on, worried, above all, about tomorrow night. Same thing as usual. Not as usual. He’d started to consider what he did with Mike normal. The general’s return brought home that it wasn’t. He hated the thought. He stopped the car, got out and opened the door, waiting for the officer to pass him.
The brother general emerged from the backseat, stepped close and stopped.
Sergei could feel the man staring at him, the gaze as hard and cold as the hull of an intergalactic cruiser, one that never felt the heat of atmospheric friction.
“We’ll meet the provincial leaders in the afternoon. There’s urgent business.”
Sergei’s stomach dropped. So much for his plans to see Mike. “Yes, Brother General.” He didn’t bother turning his gaze to meet his superior’s. Just waited, feeling it skim over him. Waited for the man to move.
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