by Aiden Bates
"Yeah. He's a trained sketch artist, among other things. We can see if we can get an ID on them." Chief looked at his companions. "What I don't understand is why a bunch of white Europeans would be hanging around with a bunch of radical Islamic terrorists?"
Mal shrugged. "The enemy of my enemy and all that?"
DeWitt narrowed his eyes at Mal. "Go on."
Most of Mal's pretense faded, and he sat up a little straighter. "Remember that I don't know which group we're dealing with here. I'm just guessing, but we've seen this kind of thing before here and there. You'll see, oh, I don't know. You'll see a bunch of ethnic radicals join up with a bunch of religious radicals to pull off one particular job, because their interests happen to coincide. For that matter, we'll work with other groups if it makes sense for us to do it."
Chief frowned. "Like who?"
Mal spread his hands to encompass the room, and the SEALs' uniforms. "I can't say as we're exactly on the same page most of the time, but right now? You don't like this group. We don't like this group. It's in both our best interests to figure out what's going on."
DeWitt pursed his lips. "I can't say as I like that attitude."
Mal shrugged. "Like it or don't, our interests coincide. We have skills that would probably be useful to you in this case. You have resources that would probably be useful to us. And I have a vested interest in not seeing my hard work patching up your men go to waste."
DeWitt and Chief both grimaced.
Trent tried not to get his hopes up. He knew Mal didn't mean anything about him, specifically.
"All right." DeWitt sighed and stood up. "Let's get Adami in here to get the sketching done. In the meantime, are you two comfortable hanging around on the ship until we get to the bottom of this?"
Mal and Morna exchanged glances. "We're comfortable working with you to find the enemy," Mal told him. He smiled, sunny and complacent.
Trent hadn't known him long, but he knew that smile was bullshit.
DeWitt and Chief didn't, though. They took off, probably in search of Adami and to get away from these "civilians”. Trent knew better. The O'Donnells were no more civilians than he was.
He turned to them once the door was closed. "Do you have to needle the Lieutenant?"
"I think we do," Morna told him. It just confirmed what Trent already believed about their bickering. It was just an act, intended to make other people dismiss them.
"If he doesn't like it, he shouldn't be so easily needled," Mal added. Then he rolled his shoulders. "I've never spent much time on a Navy ship before. It's very gray."
"Well, yeah. It's a workplace, not a cruise ship." Trent stood up and stretched his back.
Adami came in and got descriptions of the men Mal and Morna had met. Once they fed the names and images into a search program on Mal's computer, they sat back to wait.
Trent decided he wasn't going to ask how Mal had a signal on the ship. He didn't want to know.
They sat in silence for an hour. Trent tried not to be uncomfortable. He could think of plenty of ways to fill that silence, but none of them were appropriate on board the ship. They were less appropriate in front of Mal's sister. When the computer went ping, though, Trent jumped.
Mal and Morna both looked at him like he had three heads. Did neither of them feel the tension in the air?
"We've got a hit," Mal told him after a second. "Phil and Piers seem to be their real names. Phil Rivers and Piers Moran have warrants out for their arrest in England, Ireland, Germany, and France. They're known members of a white supremacist organization called White Dawn, how very original, based out of Montenegro."
"You got all of that in an hour?" Trent gaped. "Let me go find the Master Chief and Lt. DeWitt."
Mal just gave him a smug grin and kept typing.
Trent found his superiors in their quarters. He announced Mal's discovery as dispassionately as he could. His pride was all internal. Mal found all that without breaking a sweat.
Of course, Chief was suspicious. "How do you know it's real? How do you know he's not just pursuing some kind of vendetta?"
"Why would he? He has no reason to play us. If he could have done it without the pictures, he wouldn't have agreed to come onboard the ship at all. It can't hurt to do some digging into this White Dawn group, right?"
DeWitt shrugged. "We might as well go see what they're about."
They followed him back to the conference room, where Mal's face had turned from smug pride to disgust. "Are you okay?" Trent asked, crossing over to Mal's side.
Mal looked up at him, startled. "Hm? Oh, yes. I'm just looking at this White Dawn group's record. I'm a little bit disturbed that we haven't done something about them yet." He gestured at the screen. "Look at these people. They've been accused of massacring refugees in six countries."
DeWitt sucked in his cheeks. "Well, there's your ISIS connection." He curled his lip. "ISIS loves Islamophobia. They couldn't be happier than when the West shuts their doors or hurts Muslims."
Morna turned away from the screen. "Right?" She rubbed her hands on her arms. "And that explains why they'd be so willing to help take down a Greek plane."
"The Greeks blame the Turks, because a few centuries of enmity don't go away like that." Chief snapped his fingers. "Everyone has to take sides, and then you've got a good old-fashioned World War."
"White Dawn gets their genocide and Daesh gets their bizarre holy war." Mal rubbed at his face. "I think I'm going to be sick."
Trent dropped his hand to Mal's shoulder. Mal leaned into the touch. "Hey," he said. "We stopped it."
"This time." Mal turned his head aside. "What happens next time?" He frowned. "And why weren't these people on our radar? Why weren't they on yours? They killed, or they're blamed for killing, three hundred people, but neither of us has given them any thought. Am I the only one who's bothered by that?"
Trent gripped Mal's shoulder and looked up at DeWitt and Chief. He knew the answer when he saw their faces. "We'll get to the bottom of this," he promised. "Probably not quickly, but we'll get there."
Chapter Five
Mal sat on the top bunk and let his feet dangle over the sides. "I don't like this."
Morna stuck her head out from her bottom bunk and looked up at him. "Oh come on, we're not in the brig. They gave us officer's quarters. You don't think that's kind of important? A good sign?"
Mal waved a hand. "It's generous of them, assuming the bastards haven't bugged the room. Which I wouldn't put past them. Snooping Americans. But I don't like being on the ship. It's too confining, like being in a giant metal coffin. And it's too close. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, is right on top of you here, and I don't mean in the fun, sexy way."
"Ugh." Morna swung up to sit on his bunk with him. "Okay, so it's not the Ritz. You're used to sleeping a lot rougher than this. What's your real problem? You don't want to be around the guy you slept with? That's not like you."
Mal looked up at the white ceiling. "No, that wouldn't be like me, if it were true, which it is not. I'm okay being around him or not being around him." That wasn't quite true. Mal would rather not be around him if they were going to behave like they were nothing to one another. And he'd rather not be around him if they were going to ignore one another except for very rare instances when Trent decided to touch him out of instinct, which was worse.
"I already told you what I don't like," he said. "I don't like this place. Everything Is gray, and I feel like I'm trapped. If things go sideways —"
"And things always go sideways," Morna reminded him, as though he needed that.
"And things always go sideways," he agreed, "we're stuck here. We're trapped with these people. But we're nothing to them. They're all family to each other, yeah? But us? We're disposable."
Morna slumped. "Yeah. I see your point." She straightened up. "Which is why I've found a life raft. If we need to, we can make an exit."
Mal nibbled on his fingernails. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."
"Do you
really want to?" Morna nudged him with her elbow. "I know I saw you leaning into that Kelly guy before."
Mal scoffed. Okay, sure, he'd been leaning into Trent's touch. Morna didn't have to get weird about it. "We were talking about some pretty scary stuff, Morna. A little bit of comfort isn't a bad thing."
"Weren't you the one that told me comfort isn't something we can afford?" She raised an eyebrow at him.
"No, as a matter of fact, that was not me." He met her eyes. "I told you comfort isn't something we often get, and when someone's eager to offer it we need to wonder about their motives. But a little bit of physical comfort here and there is not necessarily a bad thing, in and of itself." He rubbed at his right hand. He could still feel the recoil from that shot, if he let himself.
Morna could too, if the haunted look in her eye was anything to go by. She looked away. "I don't want to see you get hurt, big brother." She rested her head on her knees. "And I don't trust these guys. Who's to say these guys aren't white supremacists themselves? Haven't you seen the news? America is crawling with them!"
Mal ruffled his sister's hair. "And if you watch the news, Ireland is crawling with whiskey-soused bomb tossing illiterates. You can't believe everything you see on the news." He leaned back against the bulkhead. "I don't think Trent was faking his disgust when he saw the whole White Dawn…thing. Him or the other ones. I'm comfortable with that part, at least."
"Are you really?" She looked him in the eye.
"That part, sure. I can't say I'm comfortable saying their bosses aren't on board, or won't pull them off the case once they realize that kind of trash is involved. And I'm not comfortable saying our bosses aren't somehow turning a blind eye to these bastards either." He closed his eyes. "I'm shaken, Morna. I can't see how this went under the radar."
"Me either." She sighed, and then she slid back down to her bunk. "But I have to have faith, you know? We have to trust that Da knows what he's doing, and the people he answers to as well. We can't do it all on our own, yeah?"
"Yeah." Mal sighed and jumped down from his bunk. "I'm going for a walk. I'm having trouble with all this. I won't be able to sleep yet."
She waved a hand. "Go for it."
Mal went out onto the deck. There weren't many places he was permitted to go. He didn't have clearance for much, and he didn't have the knowledge or the sea legs to help out in many capacities. He just walked instead, just to get some exercise and set his mind at ease.
He might not love being at sea, but he could admit the sky was beautiful out here. The moon was a mere sliver in the sky, and the night was clear. The stars shone bright in the heavens. Mal could understand why ancient people here had believed they were the gods watching them. He could almost believe it himself. Such beauty couldn't be without meaning.
He sat down, out of the way, to lose himself in the stars for a little while. He didn't know how long he sat there listening to the hum of the ship's engine, but when Trent's muscular shadow fell across him, he knew he'd probably been there too long. "What's a nice Yank like you doing in a place like this?"
Trent sat down beside him and huffed out a little laugh. "Hoping you don't get washed overboard."
Mal snorted. "Would solve a lot of problems for you and your bosses, wouldn't it?"
Trent bumped shoulders with him. "What's with that kind of talk, huh?"
Mal grinned over at Trent. "Good Lord, man, I'm not thinking of jumping." He waved a hand at the ship. "You're all, you know. You're all part of the same group. Club."
"Service?" Trent lifted his eyebrows with deceptive mildness.
"Sure, whatever. That's everyone on this ship, except for me and Morna. And you SEALs, well, you're a family. You'll have to forgive me if I'm a little antsy about being at sea with a bunch of you, with no means of escape while we're the odd ones out."
"Ah." Trent nodded. "You don't trust us."
"To some extent I do." Mal looked back out at the stars. "It's not necessarily a bad thing."
"Look, Mal, we're going to keep you safe. And Morna." Trent squeezed Mal's hand. "You don't have to lose sleep over it, or roam the deck like a lonely ghost."
Mal laughed. "And just like that, you've cured my insomnia."
Trent's white teeth flashed in the low light. "Okay, yeah, maybe that was dumb." He slung an arm around Mal's shoulders. "It has to be hard to be here. We're all used to being aboard ship. Even us SEALs, we may live on base, but we're all trained like the rest of the Navy. We go out to sea like everyone else. If that's not something you're used to, it probably seems kind of confining."
Mal ducked his head. "Yeah. Well, you know, the way we live, the way we operate, we're always looking for an escape route. It's just something we have to do. I get twitchy when there isn't one."
Trent hummed. "I can see that."
Mal rested his head on Trent's shoulder. Maybe Trent was a bad person to seek comfort from, but he was here, and he was willing. As long as Mal didn't lose his head, he'd be fine.
When Trent leaned down and touched his lips to Mal's, Mal didn't pull back or resist. Their coupling had been a frenetic, desperate act between two men glad to be alive. This kiss was tender, gentle. Mal could almost believe it was affectionate. He closed his eyes and let himself enjoy it.
He let Trent reach up underneath his gray tee shirt to put his hands on Mal's skin. His touches were gentle, careful, downright sensuous. The sea air had been a little on the cool side, but Trent's hands on Mal's skin warmed him better than a day in the sun. He ran his fingertips up and down Mal's sides and over his chest. He played with Mal's nipples until they stood in stiff points.
Mal let him. He didn't dare take off his clothes, because he didn't want to find himself naked in front of the crew, but when Trent pulled Mal's sweats down to his knees Mal just gasped with relief. Trent had even smuggled lube and a condom out here, bringing a smile to Mal's face.
Mal should be insulted. Trent had made an awfully big assumption. When the first lube-slick finger slipped into him, though, he couldn't find it in his heart to be upset. He sighed and buried his face in Trent's shoulder. The second finger had Mal biting down on his lip.
Trent laughed quietly in Mal's ear. "Careful there. You wouldn't want to trigger an alarm."
Somehow the thought of setting off an alarm just turned Mal on more. He guessed he learned something new about himself every day, not that he expected to ever have to put that knowledge to use again.
The third finger left Mal begging, and then Trent freed his own cock. Mal heard, rather than saw, the condom going on. The lube squelched as Trent slicked himself up, and he turned Mal around. He sank himself into Mal with one slow, perfect thrust.
Mal panted through it. This felt too good, too perfect. The danger of being caught just added to his desire, and he found himself rocking back onto Trent even before he told him to move. He needed more of him.
Trent laughed, dark and a little wicked. He pulled out and sank himself deep inside again and again, still moving slow and steady. He seemed to want Mal to feel every inch of it, every inch of him, this time. He wanted to draw it out, and Mal loved every second of it.
Trent wrapped a big, strong hand around Mal's cock and stroked. Oh, this was too much. Mal wondered if it was possible to die from pleasure. He turned his face into his arm to muffle his groans. He couldn't understand how it was possible to be so full, so ecstatic. He could spend the rest of his life just like this.
Of course, he couldn't last. His orgasm exploded from him, and Trent's other hand clamped over his mouth to keep his scream from echoing across the Mediterranean.
Trent finished seconds later, and for a few minutes he just held Mal while they watched the stars go by. Then he gently pulled out of Mal, tied the condom off and tossed it into the sea. "I can honestly say that's the first time I've ever done that on board a ship." He tucked himself back into his pants and returned to Mal's side.
The slight chill returned to the air. Mal thought it felt cooler than it
had before, but that was absurd. It felt cooler because he'd been so hot while he and Trent had been making love. "Thank you for that," he said, and pulled his pants up.
Trent stood up and offered Mal a hand up. "Here. I'll walk you back to your quarters."
Mal considered staying where he was. His legs still felt like jelly after their lovemaking, and he didn't know if he was ready for sleep. He decided to take the hand up. The ship was Trent's territory, not his. He didn't want to be a petulant child.
Morna was asleep by the time they got back to quarters. Trent didn't offer him a kiss at the door, and Mal didn't expect one. It would have been nice, but they were on a ship, and they didn't have that kind of relationship.
As Mal lay in his bunk and stared at the ceiling, though, he couldn't help but wonder what it might be like if they did.