18% Gray

by Anne Tenino

  Fuck. Matt was alive. His leg was a twisted, semi-molten hunk of metal, he had bad burns on his other leg, and he was unconscious. James shuddered, sobbing in a breath, and then shuddered again. He could feel wind kicking up, dust swirling around him and Matt, but he couldn’t be bothered to see what was up. He heard something striking flesh. Hard. Like a neutral particle bolt to the body. Then another. But it wasn’t him and it wasn’t Matt, and he didn’t look.

  James just shook, and held on, and rested his head in the crook of Matt’s warm neck.

  WHAT a clusterfuck. The whole fucking thing. From the time the grampas had called him twenty-four hours ago until now, he’d known this was going to be a mess.

  Laslo stood at the open bay door of the hovering skimmer. Dyson was kicking some guy in the kidneys, but the guy had twenty centimeters and ten kilos on him, and was wearing a blast helmet to boot. Dyson had taken his off. Matt was down, and Laslo could only assume the guy hunching over him was his new boy toy. Or rather, Matt was the guy’s boy toy.

  And there was a screaming woman dancing around and shaking her hands. Could this be the nun? Most hysterical nun he’d ever seen. Shouldn’t she be praying or something?

  He wanted to give more thought to that, but he had to get Dyson’s ass out of it right now. “Neutralize the guy on Dyson,” he said to Sabine, and she took the shot to the guy’s neck so fast he figured she’d already been there, just waiting on his order. Or not. He’d probably just managed to get the order in before she took the shot.

  Then she took another shot. This time Laslo was definitely a step behind her. The other RIA guy on the ground had barely stirred. He raised an eyebrow at her. She grinned happily, and then returned to covering the other seemingly unconscious RIA soldier in the southeast corner.

  The partly vaporized guy probably didn’t need watching. He seemed to be missing a head. And most of his right torso. Or maybe that was a woman, actually. Had been a woman.

  Laslo looked back toward Dyson just in time to catch his thumbs-up. The nun (?) had stopped the shrieking and was rushing over to Matt, too, now.

  Dyson’s com was clearly out, since Laslo had already tried it three times. Dyson was moving toward Matt and his entourage, leaning down to speak to the guy holding Matt. The skimmer was so quiet, Laslo could almost hear Dyson’s words from his position twenty meters above.

  Dyson had one hand on the guy’s shoulder, talking quietly but urgently into his ear. “What’s that guy’s name again?” Laslo asked Sabine.

  “You’re lame,” Sabine returned.

  “’Cause I can’t remember a name?”

  “He’s one of our extraction targets. And he’s Matt’s new boyfriend.”

  Laslo cringed. That’s probably why he’d forgotten the guy’s name. Because he had Matt to think about. He hated to see his cousin get tied down to one guy when there were so many hot ones available and panting after him.

  “What’s his name?” He growled his most intimidating command voice.

  Sabine stuck out her tongue at him. All of the women in their family had a serious genetic flaw: they were immune to the command voice. “First Lieutenant James Ayala,” she said in a snotty tone.

  “If you weren’t my sister….” Laslo knew the threat was pointless. She grinned into her targeting comp.

  “We’re going to need a hydro-lift basket and medic on the ground,” he ordered into his com. That meant Bollinger. They didn’t have a med-bot. Laslo hated the fucking things and had “overlooked” the necessity.

  “’M’I going down, Major?” asked Jude.

  “No, I’m going,” Laslo answered, surprising himself. Mostly he’d said it because he could tell by Jude’s voice that he was eager to go. One of Laslo’s joys in life was giving Jude shit. “And Leondri. You’re on close recon. Jude, you’re on the bay with Sabine. The recon-drone is feeding directly into the Brain-links. Keep your heads out, people. Unfriendlies’re close.” The skimmer or drone should be able to detect anyone approaching, but sometimes equipment malfunctioned. Or was outsmarted.

  They already knew they couldn’t get live satellite feeds on their Brain-links, just the recon-drone they’d sent out. Jude had set up e-bombs earlier to take out all the boosters in order to keep the RIA from long-range com. When Van had clicked in with unfriendlies, Laslo ordered all the e-bombs and old-fashioned explosives at Brownlee detonated. The station was effectively incommunicado and grounded. Lance Corporal Jude Barlow-Kell did demolition very well.

  Once on the ground, Laslo could see Dyson didn’t seem to be making any progress with Lt. Ayala. The guy still had his head in Matt’s neck. Bollinger wasn’t getting far with checking out Matt. Laslo smirked. A med-bot never would have been able to deal with that.

  “Lieutenant Ayala!” Laslo barked.

  Ayala looked up. Then he sighed, gently laid Matt on the ground, and stood up. He closely watched Bollinger tend to Matt. Ayala had a minor cut on his forehead, and a deeper one on his arm. Laslo reached over and pulled out a small piece of shrapnel from it. Ayala looked down at his arm dispassionately, then back at Matt.

  “He’s okay, I know. I just….”

  “Aren’t you going to salute?” Laslo asked, more curious than pissed. SOUF was a pretty informal branch of the military. And he was an especially informal officer.

  “Aren’t you Matt’s cousin, also?” James returned, looking puzzled. His eyes flew right back to Matt.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then no.” James seemed so preoccupied with what was happening with Matt, he was barely paying attention to Laslo.

  “Oh. Another cousin,” the nun said in a disgusted tone. Laslo looked over at her. She was holding Matt’s hand and looking down at him.

  Th’fuck? He turned to Dyson, who was standing at attention.

  “Sir! The RIA—”

  “You aren’t even in the military, yet.”

  “Practice, sir!”

  “Shut up, Dyson. Give it a rest and just tell me what the fuck happened.”

  Dyson looked disappointed. But he cut the military shit. Except he couldn’t seem to keep himself from standing at parade rest. “Well, they snuck up on us—Van’s probably knocked out down by the waterline somewhere.”

  “Leondri’s on recon. She’ll get him. He out for good?”

  “James didn’t think so.”

  “He’s not,” James interrupted absently. Laslo stared at him a second, but James had gone back to watching Bollinger package up Matt.

  Laslo raised an eyebrow at Dyson. He raised both back.

  So, Dyson thought the guy was legit. “Go on,” Laslo sighed.

  Dyson gave him the blow-by-blow—heavy on details Laslo didn’t particularly care about—and Laslo let him go on until he came to the part about the tall redheaded RIA soldier.

  “He deployed the grenade?”

  “Yeah.” Dyson sounded as puzzled as Laslo was.

  “He asked for extraction,” James interjected. He was bending over to help Bollinger secure Matt to the lift basket. “He’s queer. We ran into him outside Cambridge. I trust him,” James added, finally looking up at Laslo.

  “Guess I would too, under the circumstances. Where is he?”

  James looked blank. Then he turned back to Bollinger, who was bringing the remote down from the skimmer.

  “He’s Logan, right?” The nun was looking at James. He nodded absently as he harnessed Matt’s lift basket to the remote, Bollinger looking on in annoyed patience. “That’s all I know. It’s his first name. He’s gay too, I think.” She sounded… resigned?

  “He’s over at the southeast corner of the camp.” Dyson interrupted Laslo’s thoughts. “The blast knocked him out. He’s unconscious, but I didn’t figure out any more than that before the other guy was on me.”

  And that was another thing. “You said it was a disruptor. Disruptor-frag?” Dyson nodded. That explained some of the superficial wounds on James. The shrapnel was more nuisance than danger. The real damage came from
the complete meltdown of weapons. “What’s with a blast like that?”

  “She—Kandy Melore—was taking a shot at Matt when it went off.” Dyson swallowed and looked a little green, but met Laslo’s eye.

  “Blew up her laser, huh?” Laslo tried not to smile at his little brother’s pallor. It had to be an ugly thing to see. Not that he should have been looking. “You watched it? Why didn’t you shield your eyes?” Laslo began gearing up for a lecture.

  “No. No, just saw her after.” Dyson swallowed again, then again. Laslo felt an uncomfortable stab of sympathy. He puked his guts out the first time he saw someone missing a head. He laid a hand on Dyson’s shoulder. Dyson looked at him in something like shock. Laslo dropped his hand.

  “Okay, I’ll take a look at this Logan. You check on Leondri—”

  Leondri broke in on Laslo’s com just then to report that Van was conscious but groggy. Laslo ordered them aboard the skimmer. “C’mon, Dyson. Get the nun on the skimmer. Then you’re with me.”

  Dyson had no visible wounds. He must have been farther from the blast. Bollinger hadn’t seemed concerned with James’s wounds. Or interested. Van would need Bollinger’s attention on the skimmer, when he could spare it from Matt. Dyson was his only choice, unless he wanted to switch him out with Leondri. But Laslo’s neck was getting itchy. He wanted out of here.

  When his neck itched, it usually meant nothing good was coming.

  If this RIA guy hadn’t helped—or asked for extraction—he wouldn’t bother. But they owed the guy. Laslo wasn’t a particularly nice guy in general, but where his family was concerned he was willing to go the extra mile.

  IT TOOK Logan a while to figure out he wasn’t dead. For starters, he’d been under the impression that one garnered more attention when one arrived in the afterlife. He could hear voices, but they weren’t coming any closer or talking to him at all. Couldn’t they find him? Had he come to the wrong place?

  He could hear the droning of night insects. Did they have those in heaven? Or hell? Probably hell, annoying little fuckers. Prolly had mosquitoes too. Big fuckers, that made you itch all over with one bite. If he was in charge of hell, that’s what he’d do. One of the things.

  He’d definitely make it this black. He blinked again, trying to bring something into focus, but nothing changed. He’d always figured hell would be pitch-black. Except when you got close to the brimstone. He could see some brimstone glowing right over there, actually, past his feet. And some figures. Demons?

  This ignoring people thing? He didn’t know what that meant. Another clue he’d gone to hell, because it was annoying. Really annoying. When you showed up in the afterlife, it didn’t occur to you that no one would notice. That was just… torture.

  So, hell, then. Shit. It was the gay thing, wasn’t it? He was gay, and he’d gone to hell. If he’d died last week, before he met the guys from Oregon, would he have gone to hell, then? Before he’d finally admitted to someone, out loud, that he was gay?

  Well, that was just fucked. Guess he wasn’t gonna see Momma again.

  Logan closed his eyes and drifted….

  Suddenly, something touched him. He jerked in shock and opened his eyes. At first, all he saw was a kind of bluish glow, like a wand gave off. Some supernatural thing, he supposed. Slowly, his eyes brought the dark blob in front of his face into focus.

  It was an angel. Who knew angels were so hot? Shit. Well, they were definitely going to send him to hell, now, if he wasn’t already there. He was lusting after an angel.

  In battle armor. An Asian angel dressed like a soldier. With a shaved head. A Buddhist monk Asian angel wearing battle armor? He could feel his brow wrinkling. “What’re you wearing that for? You one a those ’venging angels?”

  The angel spoke slowly. “No. I’m Major Laslo Gao-Longue, Delta 6, Blue States of America Special Operations Unified Force.”

  Huh? Logan stared at him a minute, and slowly realized there was another… angel… behind the stud-angel. But he looked familiar….

  “I’m not dead, am I?”

  The totally hot angel smiled. Now he looked like a demon. He had really nice eyes. Pale chocolate, maybe. Was that a color? It was the best he could come up with. Pale chocolate, with long lashes. Logan lifted a hand and ran a finger across the stud-angel’s lips, pulling the lower one down, then releasing it with a wet plop when his finger got too far south. “Nice,” he breathed.

  “You’re not dead,” the angel said.

  Logan felt his brow furrow again. Wait a minute. That meant…. “So, you’re not an angel?”

  The other angel, the one barely in his field of vision, started laughing and snorting. Stud-angel smiled. “No, I’m not an angel.” He turned to the assistant, um, not-angel, and said, “Need your field med kit.”

  JAMES couldn’t seem to reconnect with reality. Ever since he saw Kandy Melore shoot Matt—even if it was just in the leg—it was like he’d lost touch with everything outside his own head. And Matt’s. He could still feel him there. Unconscious, but alive, just drifting along.

  James was willing to let go of reality and let all the SOUF troops surrounding them deal with Matt’s safety—he could feel how concerned they were, and capable—and just try to deal with what had happened. Matt had almost died. Because of him.

  Like a bad romance cliché (not that he read them, of course), James couldn’t help wondering again if Matt wouldn’t be better off without him. Right now it seemed like Matt’s life expectancy would be longer if James took himself out of the picture. Matt’s life expectancy seemed more important than his own.

  It was quiet in the skimmer, the medic (Bollinger?) had done what he could for Matt, and left him to James to go look over the other guy, Van. Van and the medic talked quietly, but the troops covering the bay doors and the one checking out her gear were silent and vigilant. James couldn’t see the pilot or junior from where he was. He had his butt on the floor, leaning against the rear equipment storage, Matt’s head in his lap. Not a lot of comforts in a skimmer, just utilitarian space. Matt at least had a stretcher to lie on.

  Once again, Matt was on a drug cocktail that would likely leave him loopy as hell when he came to. This time, someone managed to tell the medic how sensitive Matt was before the guy drugged him up. James watched Matt’s face, running his fingers through his pale bangs.

  Ah, shit. They were going to have to talk about this. James couldn’t go around feeling like he was a danger and a burden on Matt without being sure Matt wanted him. He was barely sure he could do it if Matt did want him. But he was sure he couldn’t do much of anything without Matt.

  He just needed Matt to be conscious, and alive, and talking. That was all he needed in the world.

  THE big, goofy militia guy was beginning to regain his grasp on reality. Maybe. What was his name again? Logan.

  “Logan?”

  “Sir?”

  Laslo rolled his eyes. Hello. Enemy, here. Well, technically an enemy, but he guessed not in reality. “You feeling any clearer?”

  “Uhhhh. Yeah?”

  Not quite reassuring. Laslo’s neck was getting itchier by the second. “How you feel about moving to Oregon?”

  “Bring’er on.” That sounded just a bit too glib, but he wasn’t willing to quibble when they were in hostile territory, violating the no-fly truce, and they were going to get visitors wearing the Red Idaho Authority arm badge any minute.

  And fuck the Conservation of Medical Resources Directive. He was treating an enemy soldier because he’d been a friendly under fire. And because Laslo liked saying fuck the rules sometimes. It tended to get him promoted.

  Wait, that last promotion had sucked. He’d been bound to a desk ever since. Laslo readjusted his personal goal to demotion.

  Logan was big and rangy, with freckles everywhere, at least on his face, arms, and chest, since Laslo hadn’t found a reason to cut his pants off him, yet. He’d had to hook him up to the field automated external defibrillator according to procedure,
so that had taken care of his shirt. Or what was left of it after Laslo had immobilized Logan’s neck with the cervical-field that held his head still.

  Logan had sort of soft, brown-red hair, cropped tight, but not a jarhead cut. It almost matched the freckles. And his eyes were this strange dark hazel that Laslo didn’t think he’d ever seen. At least it looked that way in the wand light with his NV lenses on.

  Not the kind of guy Laslo was usually interested in. But Laslo wanted to see the guy move all those military-honed muscles, wanted to see how much Logan loomed over him when he stood up, and how hot he looked lying under him, giving it up for him.

  Ah, the smell of lust on the battlefield. Warmed the cockles of a gay trooper’s heart, didn’t it? What was hotter than finding a big, sexy enemy combatant and taking him home to play with?

  Maybe grinding your ass into the enemy’s hard cock while he writhed on the dance floor behind you, plastered to you from head to toe? That could be hotter.

  Mostly Laslo was thinking these things as a distraction, because he knew the shit was about to hit the fan. Recon from the drone-bot kept telling him there was a team on the way from Brownlee Station. On foot, of course. He bet that just bunched their panties.

  “Lance Corporal,” Laslo commed Jude on the Brain-link. “I’m shutting down my drone feed. Keep me updated.” It would just annoy and distract him, and half the skimmer was getting the same info. Jude could relay. He already had to relay to the half of the team that didn’t have Brain-links. You had to be at least an NCO to get one. And QESA didn’t have the resources to put them in their agents.

  Laslo looked up from administering a stim-narco cocktail and saw Logan’s eyes clearing a little more, then latching on to Dyson with interest. He tried to push aside the stab of annoyance that caused.