Tap-Dancing the Minefields

by Lyn Gala

  Putting his feet on the floor, the colonel leaned forward. “Is there a problem?”

  “Tank says no, but I say if I had bruising that severe, you’d drag me to the infirmary and make pudding deliveries and bad jokes until I got released.”

  “It’s not that bad. Geez. How many times do I have to say that?” Tank glared at Lev.

  “Until the bruising goes down so the leg isn’t swollen,” Lev shot back.

  Before Tank could come up with an answer, Colonel Aldrich was up and closing in on him. “Private, let me see the extent of the damage.”

  Tank made another unmanly noise and looked to Lev for help, but the traitor stood there with his arms crossed and a triumphant look on his face. Tank glared.

  “Now, Private,” the colonel insisted. With an unhappy sigh, Tank lifted the bottom of the robe to show the bad leg.

  Stepping backward, Colonel Aldrich whistled. “John got you good. You must have a dozen serious hits on that side.”

  “I never cover my left as well as I should,” Tank said with a self-deprecating shrug. It was the truth.

  “Deborah contributed to that hip. I told him he should go to medical,” Lev piped up.

  “You mean instead of you two playing doctor?” Aldrich’s tone of voice was sharp enough that Tank’s guts twisted. Dropping the edge of the robe, Tank clutched his clothes tighter. If he was about to get dragged to jail for sleeping with the base commander’s best friend, he didn’t want to do it half-naked.

  “With permission, I’d prefer to go put my clothes on, sir.”

  Aldrich looked from Tank to Lev and then back. “Oh, for cryin’ out loud. Don’t look at me like I just kicked your puppy, Tankersley. Who you fuck is your business. I care about the men in my command ignoring serious injuries.”

  “It’s a bruise, sir,” Tank pointed out. God almighty, these people got worked up about a bruise.

  “Clyde, do not start that conversation with him—you will not like where it goes,” Lev suggested. “Just order him to have Dr. Anderson check him.”

  Aldrich glanced over. “Calling in the head of medical for some bruising might be a little over the top, Lev.”

  “Ha!” Tank pointed a finger at Lev.

  “But you clearly need to get that iced, take some anti-inflammatories, and have the on-call doctor check to make sure you haven’t done any permanent damage,” Aldrich said as he pinned Tank with a hard look. Tank barely managed to avoid rolling his eyes. Commanding officers really didn’t appreciate the gesture. “Go get dressed. We’re heading back to medical.”

  “For a bruise, sir?”

  Aldrich stared at him for several seconds. “When the bruise is severe enough to raise the skin, make the skin hot, or turn black, yes, Tankersley. We have someone who knows enough about the human body to recognize serious damage check it out. Consider it a rule.”

  Tank sighed. “Great, more rules.” When Aldrich narrowed his eyes, Tank offered a quick “sir” and then darted back to Lev’s room to get dressed. Even though he dressed as fast as he could, the other men had gotten pretty loud by the time he came back. Lev had his arms crossed, and Aldrich had his back to him, so Tank was guessing no one had won this round.

  “Good,” Aldrich said. “You’re ready. Lev, stay here.”

  “What?” Lev yelped.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of him.” Aldrich offered a crocodile smile, but before Tank could manufacture a reason not to go with him, Aldrich had caught him by the arm and was ushering him out of the room.

  “Wait, my shoes,” Tank said, but Aldrich didn’t stop.

  “Government issue. The government can issue some more.” Tank had to trot to keep up with Aldrich, who was adding new bruises to Tank’s arm. Tank was starting to get the uncomfortable feeling that he was in custody.

  Aldrich rushed him through the alien halls. When they reached the first alien elevator, an open platform with a floor that resembled an inflating balloon, Aldrich said, “Alien floors are clean and safe to walk across barefoot.” That sounded a bit like one of Marie’s apologies where she didn’t actually apologize, but she did do something really nice to make up for having a father that tried to eviscerate you.

  “Sir, am I in trouble?” Aldrich walked a little slower, and Tank started to hope that Lev would get dressed and catch up with them.

  “Sleeping with someone above you in the chain of command is a violation of the regs.”

  “Okay.” Tank frowned. “Sir, I really didn’t mean….” How the hell did Tank end that sentence? He’d definitely meant to have sex. Hell, he’d really had to work to get Lev to do the deed. He knew that Lev and Aldrich had the sort of knotty relationship Tank usually avoided. Hell, Tank should have seen this mess coming from about a million miles away.

  Aldrich finally let go of Tank’s arm, although that might be because Tank had nowhere to run. Aldrich rubbed a hand over his face. “Private Tankersley, Dr. Underwood is not in the military, but I expect you to respect that he carries the rank of an officer and that he is horrible at following rules. If you sleep with him, make sure that people who might care never find out. Otherwise, both of you are going to suffer because there are fraternization rules. In addition, I have a certain expectation for how you conduct yourself.”

  Tank cringed. “You heard about training.”

  “Yes, I did. And if you have time, try teaching Lev to run that well. I’d have less gray hair.”

  “But….” Tank studied Aldrich, struggling to see if that had been a really bad joke. The colonel actually looked serious.

  “I haven’t seen the tapes, but I tend to trust John’s judgment on fighting. It also helps that you punched Sadler. Not many men do that and live to sing baritone.”

  “Um, okay.” Tank was definitely confused. That usually meant he’d fallen asleep during the important part of the lecture. The problem was, Tank didn’t know what he didn’t know.

  “Any symptoms other than pain?”

  “No, sir.” Tank was completely off-balance now.

  When they reached the next alien elevator, Aldrich moved to the middle and Tank followed. Because of how these things were built, anyone standing too near an edge would get pushed off the side when the balloon underneath inflated. Either aliens were tough bastards who could survive a fall, or they were cold-hearted sons of bitches who believed in Darwinian justice.

  Even though Tank understood the mechanics, he still hated standing that close to Aldrich. The colonel had made it clear that Tank had crossed a line he would not forgive. Tank missed the camaraderie of his friends back home—the “us against the world” vibe provided a security he mourned the way he would miss an amputated limb. But the other side of that coin was a vicious distrust of anyone outside the group. The colonel had that going in spades.

  “Tankersley, I don’t bite.”

  “No, sir, I didn’t think you did.”

  “Then stop squirming.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The elevator stopped a little above the highest floor it could reach, and the sides deflated to allow them to walk off. This was a more populated area of the ship, but the artificial lights were low and no one was around.

  “I know New York is dangerous, but I thought they’d cleaned that place up,” Aldrich commented in a falsely casual voice. A huge boulder formed in the pit of Tank’s stomach. This was pretty much every one of his worst nightmares coming true at once.

  “Uhhh.” Tank’s brain failed him.

  “So.” Aldrich’s tone made Tank’s arm hairs stand up. “How many fights have you been in?” For the first time, Tank realized that Colonel Aldrich was like Marie, always distracting people with this air-brain image before kicking their ass. And Tank was about to be the kickee.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” Tank answered. “High school bullying is a real problem in America, you know.”

  “Are you going to play it that way?” Aldrich glanced over with the look of a man who already knew something
.

  “Uh, will it work?” Tank asked, although he already knew the answer. He was so fucked.

  Aldrich straightened up. “How many fights have you been in with people who honestly wanted to kill you?”

  Tank considered that. Marie’s dad was on the top of the list, followed by Zhu’s dad and Zhu’s half brother, and the minions who worked for Marie’s dad, and that twerp who’d tried to trade Tank’s soul for immortality in sophomore year. Thank God magic didn’t work that way. And then Marie and Ellie had come close to killing him a couple of times, although Tank suspected that wasn’t the sort of fight Aldrich was asking about. Tank’s brain refused to put the most important name on that list. For one second, Tank considered lying, but he sucked at lying, and this was a colonel who had dedicated himself to saving people in a fight that no one would ever know about. He would never brag to the guys in the old-folks’ home about his months on a slave ship. He was a good guy. A really scary good guy. Tank sighed in defeat. “I couldn’t say, sir.”

  “More than twenty?”

  Tank snorted. “Oh, yeah.”

  Aldrich took a deep breath, but he didn’t look particularly surprised.

  Tank had expected surprise. Actually, Tank had expected shock. “How did you know?”

  Aldrich shrugged. “You’re too used to danger and too young to be this battle hard, Tankersley.”

  “Okay, that’s funny, because battle-hardened is not the first word I’d use to describe myself. First two words?” Tank frowned. “First hyphenated word?”

  “It’s one of the first words John used to describe you.” Aldrich shot the words back at Tank, and for a second, Tank couldn’t catch his breath.

  “Really?”

  Aldrich rolled his eyes. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

  “Um, I’m guessing no, but sometimes your jokes are only moderately joke-like, sir.”

  Aldrich gave him a dirty look, but Tank just shrugged. It was the truth. Aldrich said, “When I surprised you, you grabbed the first weapon on hand.”

  “Well, if you break into someone’s house, you really can’t act surprised when you surprise them.”

  Aldrich gave him an odd look. “Most people don’t instinctively keep track of possible weapons, Tankersley, but you knew exactly how to grab the nearest heavy object, and you didn’t even think twice. John is impressed with your fighting, and when Sadler looked up your high school, she couldn’t believe her eyes. It takes a lot to shock Sadler, but one little high school in a fairly middle-class part of New York City did it. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  The boulder in Tank’s guts grew. This guy hadn’t been around Tank for more than a few minutes, and Tank had totally let a lot of cats out of the bag. Tons of them. Other than the whole demons-real secret, Tank wasn’t sure there was much more for Aldrich to figure out. But that was a conversation Tank wasn’t having with anyone.

  “Bad teachers,” Tank lied. Oh, he exaggerated the lie to make it clear he was lying so it wouldn’t count as an actual lie, but anything was better than the truth right now. “I mean, seriously bad.” Panic rose in his throat. “We used to carry weapons to protect us from the math teacher.” He gave an overly bright smile like that was a joke, but it wasn’t. After they’d spotted Mr. Baker during a raid on a demon house, they’d all carried silver knives and Tank had gotten a gun. Expulsion would have been a minor punishment compared to death, although Baker never had made his move.

  Aldrich’s voice turned sharp. “You carried weapons on a school campus?”

  Tank cursed himself. Okay, that hadn’t been the best example to pull out. “It seemed logical at the time,” he offered, channeling his inner Vulcan. Aldrich didn’t look impressed.

  “Were you involved in anything illegal or immoral, Tankersley?”

  “Immoral, no. And I was never caught doing anything illegal, so technically I don’t think it counts.”

  “Oh, it counts,” Aldrich said ominously. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

  “Because it’s not my secret to tell, sir.”

  “Private?” That was a seriously unhappy voice.

  Tank held his hands up. “Sir, I would never give your alien secrets to anyone. They are not my secrets to tell. However, I can’t give you someone else’s secrets either.”

  Aldrich stopped at a human door that led into the concrete and wood section of the base. “The IF program is classified. Are you trying to claim your high school record is classified?”

  Tank had friends to consider. If demons were really aliens playing some sort of game, that meant Marie and Zhu were on the front lines of something they didn’t understand. The Army kept John on base, and maybe that was his choice, but Tank had to protect his friends, even if they weren’t his friends anymore. “I honestly don’t know, sir.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know, Tankersley.”

  “Shitloads,” Tank agreed. “Sir.”

  Aldrich sighed, but at least he had an expression that looked more weary than angry. Hopefully Tank wasn’t about to land in a cell. “If I went to your high school, would I figure this out myself?”

  “I sincerely hope not, sir.”

  “You’re making this difficult on me, and if this is difficult for me, I’m likely to take that out on you, Private Tankersley.”

  “Yeah, I figured, sir. I’m still not going to tell you someone else’s secrets.”

  Aldrich was silent for an uncomfortably long time—long enough that Tank started calculating the odds that the colonel would arrest him. But just when Tank was starting to panic, Aldrich opened the door and ushered Tank through it. “Is there someone you could contact, someone who might be willing to tell me their own secrets?”

  Tank almost said “Oh hell, no.” The whole point of this was to keep the Army away from Marie and Zhu. Instead he tried to sound respectful as he said, “No one whose name I will give you.”

  “You’re making this very hard for me.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  Aldrich grunted. “No, you aren’t. And you’re risking spending the next several months in the smallest cell I can find.”

  Tank thought that went without saying. “I don’t know why you’d bother.”

  “Private?” Aldrich opened the next door, and they started down a cold concrete corridor that led to medical.

  “Sir, we’re in Alaska in winter, and unless you have an alien version of a snowplow, I don’t think there’s any way to get out of here without a plane. Do you have an alien snowplow?”

  “Nope,” Aldrich said, and the wistful tone made Tank believe him. “I’m still going to find out what you’re hiding.”

  “Good luck,” Tank said, but he had his fingers crossed.

  “This story had better be worth my time, Tankersley. If it’s not, you’re going to be scrubbing the concrete floors with a toothbrush. A really small one.” Aldrich held up his fingers to show how small, and this time he definitely was not joking.

  “Hey! Wait.”

  Tank turned around to see Lev running toward them. He stopped in front of Aldrich and punched him in the arm. “You ass. You had Deborah take that elevator off-line after you used it, didn’t you?”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aldrich said, but his smug smile didn’t match his words.

  “Asshole,” Lev complained.

  If Tank had hoped for a little privacy for his infirmary visit, he was destined for disappointment. Aldrich and Lev both escorted him in.

  Chapter Nine

  CLYDE WATCHED as the nurse examined Tank. “Does this hurt?” the nurse asked before he poked a bit of leg that didn’t look as bruised but had a definite raised lump.

  “A bit. It’s like you’re pushing on the whole leg.” From the nurse’s expression, that was not good. As far as Clyde was concerned, this whole situation was FUBAR even without the very serious nature of Private Tankersley’s injuries. The nurse moved to a nasty purple bruise dangerously low on Tank’s ba
ck. That would be one of John’s strikes, because no soldier trained in the service would risk that sort of hit with an untrained recruit straight out of basic. That had been a dangerous hit.

  “How about here?” The nurse pushed his thumb into the center of the bruise. “On a scale of one to ten, where’s the pain?”

  “Um, more of an ‘I’m going to have some pink in the pee tomorrow’ but not really enough to think I hurt anything seriously,” Tank said after he’d hissed in pain. Clyde had suffered a few of John’s nastier blows, so he knew how serious the injuries could be. Usually John was more careful with the newbies, though. It definitely suggested that John considered Tankersley a real player. Clyde needed to get his hands on the surveillance tapes ASAP.

  The nurse said firmly, “If you’re bleeding into your urine, you have hurt something seriously. That needs to be noted on your medical file, and we need to do testing to see the extent of the damage. We need to get you in for a CT scan and sonograph.”

  “It’s not that bad. Hey, I’ve had worse and lived to take the trig test the next day,” Tankersley protested softly. However, when he caught Clyde’s eye, he closed his mouth. The kid had some sense of self-preservation, then. Clyde just couldn’t figure out why it hadn’t kicked in when John had been beating the stuffing out of him. Private Tankersley might resemble a curly-headed moppet who needed to finish growing up, but he had steel in him.

  “You also need to avoid any activity that might aggravate the injury. If you’re on a team, we need to contact your commanding officer and arrange for desk duty until you heal.” The nurse looked over to Clyde.

  “He’s on dishwashing duty,” Clyde commented, and the nurse gave Tankersley a quick sympathetic look as if that were some punishment duty. Considering that the commander of the country’s most secure facility was overseeing the kid’s treatment, the nurse had reason to assume that Tankersley was normally more than just a dishwasher.

  “I’ll get you some texts on how alien engineering differs from Earth-based technology,” Lev offered brightly.

  “You do know you should probably start by teaching me regular engineering, right?”