Tap-Dancing the Minefields

by Lyn Gala

  Tank wondered why John and the major didn’t get onto that list, but he nodded without commenting. “Yes, sir.”

  “Give your decision to Colonel Aldrich once the unit gets back home.”

  “Yes, sir.” When Tank had first considered joining the Army, he’d spent weeks barely sleeping as he worried about what he was doing with his future. He’d been afraid of screwing up and more afraid of being alone, even in the middle of a barracks full of men. He’d worried that he’d fail the physical portions or that his less than stellar grades would get him relegated to ditch digging for four years.

  Right now he felt the same. What if he screwed up the classes or failed or ruined his relationship with Lev because he was too busy doing Army things? What if he was a clone and things got all weird when other clones showed up? Tank had thought his head held a lot of worst-case scenarios back when he believed in demons. Apparently his imagination was even better at coming up with alien-inspired disasters.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  AFTER TEXTING Lev for directions, Tank found his way to the lab Lev had commandeered while they were on base. A guard checked his ID against a tablet computer before letting him into the cluttered workspace. Inside, Lev had his head inside a huge slit in the back of a large alien console. Tank considered pointing out that it looked like Lev was trying to climb inside a giant, hairless vagina, but he decided that if he ever wanted sex again, maybe he shouldn’t.

  Lev turned toward his laptop and spotted Tank. He smiled. “Hey.”

  “Hey back.” Tank looked around at the alien stuff cluttering the room. “I thought Zhu might be here.” Instead the room was notably lacking any people, even Lev’s staff.

  “No. He and Marie went home. Major Sadler is working on hiring Zhu as a civilian consultant, but that’s going to take longer than it took Clyde to hire Marie. Technical positions require all sorts of degrees or proficiency testing. The military loves its red tape.” Lev got up off the floor and retrieved his laptop before setting it on a table.

  “So they won’t be coming to Alaska?”

  “Why would they?” Lev sounded confused, but Tank had pretty well figured Alaska was a given.

  “Because they know about the conspiracy.”

  Lev sat on the edge of one of the lab stools. “Tank, this isn’t a mob family. You don’t get jumped into the gang and then you’re in for life. Hell, the last I heard, Marie insisted on part-time employment so she can keep working as a fitness trainer. Clyde had all sorts of uncomplimentary things to say about that.”

  “She wouldn’t be great at sitting around on base, but she’ll be awesome if you want someone to punch alien avatars. And Zhu is going to kick ass with the programming. You’re still better with the equipment, though,” Tank told Lev. “I know firsthand that he sucks at figuring out the hardware. Randomly poking things to see what happens gives him hives.”

  “I actually try to avoid that, but sometimes the risk is necessary. Other times I try to keep in mind that stupid curiosity can cause the ship to vent the equivalent of digestive gasses through the living quarters.” A full body shiver shook Lev as his face twisted with disgust. “Ship farts smell much worse than the human kind. We had soldiers throwing up all over the base—which would have added to the smell, but it was already so noxious that the scent of vomit actually improved the air.”

  “Okay. Ew.” Tank’s stomach was roiling in sympathy.

  “Oh, yeah. Randomly poking systems is a strategy of last resort.”

  Tank took a deep breath. He was potentially heading into a fight, and he didn’t want to argue. However, he also didn’t want to keep secrets and ignore the big elephant in the room. He kept his voice as neutral as possible as he said, “So I hear you suggested I start working on science degrees.”

  Lev smiled. “I think I have some pretty good evidence that you’re good. Very good.”

  “But Colonel Aldrich wants me to specialize in combat.”

  The smile vanished, and Lev narrowed his eyes. A second later he was up on his feet. “Oh my God. He promised me that he would not pressure you into taking combat training, and he gave me his word that he wouldn’t bring it up unless I was there to point out all the ways it makes no sense for you to waste your potential. You can train in the sciences and still work in the field, but no. He is such an ass.” Lev’s voice rose to a near shout, and he brought his hand down on the lab table so hard that his laptop did a little hop. Luckily it wasn’t near an edge.

  “Colonel Aldrich didn’t talk to me.”

  That stopped Lev. “What?”

  “I met with the general this morning.”

  “The general?” Lev had gone from angry to confused in a half second.

  “The general told me that someone wants me discharged for being a little crazy, the colonel would like me to train for combat, and you would like me to use military training to get a science degree,” Tank explained. “The colonel didn’t actually break his promise.”

  “Oh, he knew he was violating the spirit of that promise,” Lev said darkly, “but I can’t exactly complain about the general, can I?”

  “I don’t know, can you?” Tank didn’t actually understand where the civilians fit into the chain-of-command stuff.

  “Not without feeling guilty about all the times he’s put his neck on the line to protect the unit and to support me and my department. However, what I said still goes. Don’t let Clyde or the general or even John talk you into thinking you have to study weapons. Studying science doesn’t even mean you’ll get left behind on missions. I go on most missions. Being a scientist doesn’t make you less manly or whatever crazy idea macho men have about science.”

  “Did you just call me macho?” That was definitely a new experience.

  Lev raised an eyebrow. “You went AWOL, escaped an inescapable secret base in the middle of nowhere, confronted an alien avatar, and pretty much told him to fuck himself. I think you have so much macho that you’re suffering from testosterone poisoning. However, you can be a studly, manly, macho scientist.” Laid out like that, Lev almost had a convincing argument. Those were hero antics more than sidekick ones, which was doing something funny to Tank’s brain.

  He mentally tabled that thought for later. “Or I can be a scientist and train for combat so that when we have a major incursion, I don’t get left in the van or told to stay behind.”

  “You didn’t stay behind this time. You had enough training to be on the front lines.” Lev sounded convinced, but Tank knew it wasn’t true.

  “Neither of us would have been in there if the general hadn’t ordered the security forces to return to base. And even then, John and the colonel went out to check the perimeter. What if Chow had taken one of them out? What if I ignored some piece of training that I needed to stay alive?” Tank didn’t add that he was equally if not more worried about keeping other people alive.

  “What if you didn’t develop your potential for science and humanity never established an alternative power source or figured out the space-flight engines?”

  “You might be overestimating my abilities there,” Tank said dryly.

  “And I might not. You have incredible talent, and that’s without any training at all. If you focus on science, you could make a real difference.”

  “Which is why I want to study science.”

  “I was afraid Clyde and John had corrupted you to the dark side.”

  “And I want to go through combat training.” Tank waited for the explosion or anger, or a description of Tank’s stupidity. Instead Lev just stared at him. After a brief silence, Tank plowed ahead into the really dangerous waters. “If I do this, will our relationship survive?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tank took a steadying breath. “You don’t want me to do it, and I’ll be gone for months. I get that you may have second thoughts about us under those circumstances, and I haven’t committed to anything yet because I didn’t know how you’d feel about it.” Tank wanted the traini
ng. Badly. He hated the idea of being helpless against these manipulative assholes, and anything that could give him even a slight advantage was important. But he didn’t want to lose Lev either.

  Lev moved forward slowly, closing the distance between them before stopping a foot away. “Do you think I’ll turn on you just because you decide to play with guns?”

  Given the tone, Tank knew the answer Lev wanted. “Um, no?”

  Lev rolled his eyes. “Definitely not. I wouldn’t want you to plan your life around me. I tell you what I think, but that’s my point of view. You may choose to do something totally different.”

  “And you wouldn’t be mad about that?” This sounded too good to be true. The summer before that senior year gone horrible, Tank had had a chance to do a two-week camp. It was one of those places that gets desperately poor kids out of the city and into nature. Tank had been excited, but that had changed when he told Roger. Roger started out congratulatory enough, but then he talked about how he wasn’t poor enough to qualify or rich enough for his parents to send him to one of those places.

  By the time Roger got around to explaining that he wouldn’t ask his parents for camp anyway because he would never leave Tank alone for the summer since Zhu was away at college and not really into hanging out with high school guys, Tank had changed his mind. He’d torn up the acceptance letter. They’d spent their summer hopping turnstiles and tracking Marie’s father. Roger had probably also been playing tongue hockey with Ellie and making deals with demons for power, but Tank hadn’t known that part.

  Lev was giving Tank a strange look. “Of course not.”

  Tank wasn’t so sure—and maybe that doubt was written on his face, because Lev added, “Seriously. I would not blame you for making your own decisions. That would make me a manipulative ass.”

  “But this affects both of us. If I take combat training, I’ll be away for months.”

  Tank was standing close without touching, but now Lev reached for him. “If an alien shuttle were to land in the Sahara and they sent me there for three months, would you dump my ass?”

  Tank squeezed Lev’s hand. “I would hope to go with you, or at least video chat or something, but no. I wouldn’t.”

  “Because you’re not an asshole, and I’m not one either. You need to make the best decision for yourself, and we’ll make our relationship work.”

  “Will it?”

  “Will it what?” Lev asked.

  “Will it work? Will our relationship survive? I mean, I’ve never even seen a relationship that lasted. The Petersons are the closest, and they moderately like each other and would rather have their own apartments but can’t afford to move out.” Tank didn’t know the rules here.

  “I know Clyde’s relationship couldn’t survive the secrets and the way Clyde kept running off to do something heroic and classified. But look at Deborah. Her marriage is strong because she and her husband talk to each other. It helps that they’re both stationed at the same supersecret base, but I think the talking part is most important, even if we’re not stationed together all the time. Your first instinct after talking to the general was to tell me about it, so the rest can work itself out.”

  “Even if we want totally different things?”

  Lev’s expression turned amused. “Do you want to give up on the Incursion Force?”

  “What? No.”

  “Do you want to try out having sex with women? Or even sex with other men?”

  Tank mock punched Lev’s arm. “Of course not!”

  “Okay, then what sort of ‘different things’ would make a relationship impossible?” Lev backed up and pulled Tank to the lab table before planting himself on the stool. Then he wrapped his arms around Tank’s waist.

  This was definitely not how Tank had expected the conversation to go. He rested his forearms on Lev’s shoulders. “I could be off to train somewhere and be too tired to even call you for weeks at a time, and you could get tired of waiting.”

  “I sometimes forget to bathe for weeks. I’m not going to go out and look for someone else if you’re busy for a few months or even years,” Lev said with a laugh. “You are usually so much more mature than any twenty-year-old. You know what’s important, and video games and drinking don’t make that list. Sometimes I forget how young you are, and then you remind me.”

  “What does that mean?” Tank tried to step back, but Lev held him tightly. While Lev wasn’t one to lift weights, wrestling with machinery had made him strong.

  “Adults often have to deal with separation. Military service, university, job transfers—they can all lead to a family having to live apart for a time. All those people aren’t on some path to heartbreak.”

  “Colonel Aldrich was,” Tank said. The colonel had made several pointed comments about his ex-wife, and even his difficulties with his daughters.

  “If you left for months and never told me why, I would resent the hell out of you.”

  Tank didn’t see the difference. “I’m talking about leaving for months and doing something you don’t approve of. How is that better?”

  “Because I love you.” Lev tightened his arms and pulled Tank closer. “If you want to do combat training, I will make fun of you when you call and complain about sore muscles, but I will still come to your graduation, or whatever you call it when Army people finish some weird Army ninja crap, and I will cheer louder than anyone. Not because I want this for you but because I will always be proud of you for going out and getting what you want.”

  “Seriously?” Tank had not expected that.

  “Absolutely. Please tell me you are still going to study the science too. You sometimes scare me with how little you value your mind, but part of it is that you compare yourself to Zhu, who is modified. Trust me, compared to regular humans, you are a science god.”

  “My teachers in school didn’t think so.”

  Lev snorted. “Did you do science, or did they make you read about science in books?”

  “There wasn’t much money for labs, so mostly we read stuff.” Tank had to admit that he did better when he could put his hands on something and test a theory or see how it worked in real life. Maybe Lev had a point. Besides, Tank completely understood the need to study science. “Hopefully college will be better. After all, John and the colonel would still be stuck in gladiator fights if you hadn’t figured out the locking systems and the transport system, so being good at surviving shit involves more engineering than shooting.”

  Lev kissed the end of Tank’s nose. “I always knew you were the smart one.”

  Tank snorted. “I don’t know about that, but I’m smart enough to know I have a good thing with you. So are you okay with me signing up to do double duty with combat and science?”

  “Are you ready for me to call you a jarhead?”

  Tank wrapped his arms around Lev. “Jarheads are Marines.”

  “Details,” Lev said, but he sounded distracted as he leaned closer. Their lips met, and Tank lost himself in a passionate kiss. As he threaded his fingers through Lev’s hair, Tank let all his worries drift away. The future would take care of itself, and right now Lev and his talented mouth deserved all Tank’s attention. The rest of the world could wait.

  More from Lyn Gala

  Desert World: Book One

  Livre once offered Planetary Alliance miners and workers a small fortune if they helped terraform the mineral rich planet. People flocked to the world, but then a civil war cut the desert planet off from all resources. Half-terraformed and clinging to the edge of existence, Livre devolved into a world where death was accepted as part of life, water resources were scarce and constantly dwindling, and neighbors tried to help each other hold off the inevitable as the desert fought to take back the few terraformed spaces.

  Temar Gazer claims to be the victim of water theft. His claims could be a simple misdirection intended to help him escape a term of labor after his criminal prank caused irreparable damage to a watering system. However as the only member of
the council arguing against a short-term slavery sentence for Temar, Shan Polli can’t escape the fear that something darker is happening. The more he investigates Temar’s story, the more he finds that his world is not as free of politics or danger as he had assumed. Together, Shan and Temar must get to the bottom of the conspiracy before time runs out for the entire planet.

  Desert World: Book Two

  New ambassadors Temar Gazer and Shan Polli stopped one disaster on Livre, but the battle isn’t over. Temar is still struggling to work through the abuse he suffered. Livre, too, stands at a crossroads: it could ally with the breakaway planets—risking strange and dangerous beliefs—or the older alliance, which offers human rights protections but seeks to control the planet’s resources. With everyone keeping secrets, it’s impossible to know who to trust. Shan and Temar do their best to navigate cultures they don’t understand and avoid the dangers lurking around every corner. It’s a delicate balance, but they manage… until a disaster takes Shan away from Temar.

  It’s up to Temar to rescue Shan and guide their planet through the crisis safely, and he isn’t sure he’s ready. Just because he and Shan have chosen each other doesn’t mean their love is strong enough to survive when the stirring sands around them change.

  Desert World: Book Three

  Lieutenant Commander Verly Black is ready to leave the atrocities of war behind and immigrate to the planet of Livre, where he can build a future away from the ghosts of his past. He doesn’t expect to find a kindred spirit in councilman Naite Poli—a man with secrets as dark as Verly’s own and bearing the scars to prove it. Both men have done what was necessary to survive—Verly in battle and Naite in defense of his family—and they’re haunted by memories that leave them wary of trusting others. As they circle each other, the political maneuvering around them grows more dangerous, with the outer worlds trying to force Livre into one alliance or another. Some still view Verly as a killer and a spy, and they’re determined not to let him forget what he’s done. Others fear the implications of a military officer sharing the bed of a councilmember. When the rebel alliance moves beyond threats, Verly and Naite must push through the pain of their pasts and stand together to fight for the future of their world.