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“Huh? Oh, yeah, the trackers. Give me a minute to recalibrate the recoder…. Ha! Recalibrate the recoder,” Matt muttered to himself, fingers flying on the touch screen.

“You find yourself very amusing, don’t you?” Matt was funny, in a cute way. A cute, smartass way.

Matt’s fingers stilled a second, then resumed, moving more slowly and carefully. “Yep, I do. Gotta get your fun somewhere, don’t you?” He sounded more curious than anything, with maybe a bit of defensiveness.

“Yeah, I guess you aren’t getting it from me. I’m not exactly Mr. Playful.”

Now Matt looked up. Screening those blue eyes with his eyelashes again. Unintentionally, James thought. “You haven’t had a lot of reason to be playing, James.”

“Neither have you.”

Matt shrugged and looked back down at the recoder. “Until three days ago, I was hanging out at the beach in lovely Blue Oregon. Not walking around with a pink triangle on my chest. Besides, you’re still interesting.” He glanced quickly up and down again.

“You think I’m interesting?” Good lord, what was he? An adolescent girl? “Thanks.” James rolled his eyes at himself as soon as Matt looked down again.

Matt flashed a full-on grin. “You’re welcome,” was all he said, though. James watched his long fingers in silence. He wanted those fingers on his chest and tracing his abdominal muscles. He could almost feel one playing with the trail of hair below his navel. Unsealing his fly, running one finger lightly down his—

“So. You’re pretty much clean. Maybe fifteen minutes and we’re safe to move.”

James grunted. It was the most intelligent thing he could think of to say. Matt looked at him sharply.

“What?”

“That grunt. You snort all the time, but I’ve never heard you grunt.”

He grunted because Matt had pulled him out of fantasy sex. With Matt. “I didn’t grunt. Is this a conversation we need to have right now?”

Matt looked irked. “Fine. Guess we’ll make a plan for hauling ass outta here. North sounds like our only option.” Matt bent his head over the recoder. His fingers flew again, but this time James didn’t get caught up in the erotic possibilities.

He was far too busy thinking about how to get them the hell outta there as fast as possible. Just far enough to get them safe. Then he could hand over the reins of the rescue to Matt again. James didn’t want to step on his toes. He looked at Matt’s face, set in concentration, bent toward the recoder. The guy was good at this; he didn’t want to make Matt feel like James thought he wasn’t.

He’d screwed Matt over in high school because of his own personal issues. He didn’t want his encore to be getting Matt killed or imprisoned. And he might like to get back the friendship they’d been building seven years ago, while he was at it. That would have to be Matt’s call, though.

T
HEY
’
D
“parked” the truck in a brushy gully. It wouldn’t be easily seen, even by air, but it could be tracked on the ground. Pavement was nonexistent out here. Then they’d found a running stream they could slosh west in. James’s tracking nanos were all dead by then. He’d been trying to suppress the signals with his brain waves, but he couldn’t do that and other things at the same time. Like walking. Or breathing. Lunch had been tasteless nutritional nuggets eaten as they went.

James was on point, now, where before he had been in the rear coming out of Emmett and up the river. Matt interpreted it as James’s instinctive need to place himself between a threat and his companion. Whoever the companion may be.

He’d seen it with his various family members hundreds of times. Hunting season was like a Special Forces clown show. When he saw his dad’s hydrogen utility coming up toward the hunting camp in Lost Valley, he always expected sixteen soldiers to fall out yelling deployment orders to one another. Then, of course, getting pissed off at one another and starting to beat one another into the ground. Anais was notoriously brutal. Once his cousin Conner had claimed, “She has no sense of honor,” while holding a cold pack against his neck. He learned all about honor after that comment.

It was the best argument out there for rigidly enforced chain of command and conduct codes.

“You hunt deer when you were growing up?” Matt asked James.

“Not much. Dad wouldn’t stock them. Never had spare pasture. And never had a bio-efficient breed of cattle anyway.”

“We did, every year. Still do. Dad and his sister have a parcel they stock with deer and wild turkey. ’S fun.”

“Lost Valley, yeah? Steve mentioned it.”

Well, that pretty much killed the conversation. Except Matt realized he felt like poking the sleeping lion. “You never knew Steve was gay, huh? Not surprising, since he was totally in the closet.”

James stopped so abruptly he almost fell over. Matt kept an eye on the rigid set of his shoulders.

“Yeah, lots of people were. Still are.” Then James started moving again.

What the hell did that mean? “I sure as hell wasn’t.”

James snorted.
Duh.
“Wasn’t talking about you.”

Matt wished James would look at him, so he could get a read on his expression. Although the snorting was nearly as illuminating as his face was. Or more. “Who were you talking about?” Like he didn’t know.

This time James did stop and turn around, giving him a look that was both wry and self-deprecating at once. “C’mon, Matt. I told you I’m gay.”

Well, yeah. “Why were you in the closet?”

“Pop.” James said shortly.

Matt decided maybe it was best to leave him alone for now. He went for the classic gambit—change the subject. “We looking for a place to stop, yet?” Just then, he felt a strange, bone-deep (if he’d still had one) vibration in his leg. “We’d better, I’m getting pinged.” The pinging stopped.

James stopped again and turned to look at him. “What’s the SOP for pinging at QESA?”

“Only in extreme circumstances.” It was highly unusual to be pinged.

“Shit,” James grumbled. He blew out an annoyed breath. “I saw some caves a kilometer back.”

How the hell…? Matt hadn’t seen shit, and he’d been looking.

They headed back the way they’d come. James took point. Matt smirked to himself. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the protective bastard had a crush on him. He just might let him do something about that.

James wasn’t precisely good-looking. He had a broad, sort of flat nose, which made his already broad face kinda, well, broad. He was on the short side of average, not any taller than Matt himself—couldn’t be more than 175 centimeters. But he was broad (there was that word again) in the shoulders and chest, where it did the most for Matt’s libido. And his quads and glutes made Matt salivate. Matt flashed back to the night before, watching James crouched at the campsite, going through the MRE pack, his camos pulling tight across his ass and thighs.

Suddenly, Matt’s leg thrummed again, constantly, but with varying intensity.
What the hell is that
? It seemed vaguely familiar, and Matt had a very bad feeling that when he remembered what it was it was going to be a very bad thing….

“Fuck! James, we might be about to have company.” Matt got out his pistol, though it was next to useless against robotic aircraft.

“I didn’t sense anything.”

“SAIA,” Matt said shortly over his shoulder. Stealth AI Aircraft.

“You have a sensor for that?” James sounded incredulous.

“Not unless you count my leg.” SAIA was stealth except for one little thing. When it was in rotor-wing mode, it produced a percussive
whump-whump-whump
. It had been designed away, mostly, but delicate sensors could pick it up. Or hollow, titanium shell leg prostheses, apparently. Which was good, because the delicate sensors were too, well, delicate for Matt to carry one.

“We need a cave or something. It’s going to have infrared.”

“I
know
.” Did James think he was stupid? “Do you
see
a cave or something? That thing is nearby, James, if I’m picking it up.”

“We’ll head upstream to that overhang and get under the digi-camo.” James indicated a spot where the streambed ran under a small cliff and had undercut the bank. The clearance was less than 1.5 meters.

They couldn’t see or hear anything, but the possibility of meeting up with a heavily armed, highly maneuverable flying robot focused Matt’s instincts. High-stress situations always brought clarity. Everything was evaluated based on its potential to increase or decrease the likelihood of survival. It was like having wide-angle tunnel vision.

As they got within five meters of the overhang, Matt began to feel the strange percussive vibrations in his chest. Too close to easily escape. James had to be feeling it, too, by now.

James was almost there, already wrestling with his pack for the digi-camo when the SAIA bird came around the upstream bend in the gully. Matt’s leg started thrumming almost audibly, a sensor signaling he was being targeted. He barely had time to react to the alarm—only enough of a reaction to keep him from getting killed.

Neutral particle rounds hit his left shoulder and upper arm and knocked him off his feet. He landed on his ass in the water, half sitting up and staring straight at the bird. His leg sensor started scream-thrumming again. He looked into his attacker’s emotionless eyes. Except they weren’t eyes, just lifeless optical intake portals for the AI that was targeting him.

That’s when it occurred to Matt that getting killed by another human—or just anything sentient, please—was preferable to being executed by a machine. Maybe in his next life he’d hope for that. It looked like his next life might be coming up real soon.

Just before the bird took the killing shot, James knocked him into the stream and he tried to breathe water. Then the pain from his shoulder hitting rock made him scream out all that water, and some air he probably could have used. His vision went black and white, narrowing into a tunnel, then just a pinprick, then just went
pop
and disappeared, taking his consciousness with it.

Chapter 10

H
IS
shoulder was on fire, and
thank God
someone was putting it out. He could feel cool liquid spreading over his shoulder and arm. Was it gel? It moved so slowly. Water didn’t move that slowly; it must be gel. Why was his shoulder on fire in the first place? It must be fire. He could smell the smoke. Ugh. Who knew humans smelled like burning polymers? He’d heard they smelled like pork. Or maybe that was tasted like pork.

“You comin’ round, buddy?” asked a rough voice. Matt scrunched his eyes. Either trying to open them or keep them closed, he wasn’t sure which.

“Matt?” There was a hand on his face. It felt good. Rough and calloused and so warm. Damn, he was kinda cold. And wet. Because the guy attached to the hand put out the fire with water?

“Why was I on fire?”

The snort he got in response brought some details back. James. Matt’s eyes popped open.

“You weren’t on fire.”

“What’s all the smoke from?” He could see it now, dark gray and wispy, but no large column. It had a very chemical smell Matt couldn’t quite place. “What was burning?”

“The SAIA that got you.”

Oh. That thing. Matt shuddered a little. James moved his hand, gripping the back of Matt’s neck, his thumb resting on his jaw. “Fuck. Thought it was gonna kill me.”

“Nearly did, I think.” James’s voice sounded weird. “You were bleeding out pretty bad.”

Gah. “I wasn’t burning?”

“No. Took two particle bolts.”

“Pressure patches?”

“They’re on. ’S fine, Matt. Don’t sweat it.”

“Don’ feel anything.” Matt closed his eyes for a little rest. “Kinda woozy.”

“Matt, listen to me. I dosed your shoulder with a local numbing agent, and gave you some painkillers. Not enough to knock you out, not yet. You gotta stay with me a little longer.”

“Why?” he whined. James could deal with this. He was Psi-force. Could even pack him out. He was up to the job. Matt wasn’t right now. Soon, but he needed a half hour. Or four.

“We need to get to those caves and call in to QESA. They pinged you, remember?”

“They never ping me.”

“They did this time. Before the SAIA attacked, remember?”

“No. Sorta.”

For a second, James gripped him tighter. He said something under his breath that Matt didn’t catch. He thought he heard James call someone “babe,” though. Was he thinking about his lover? The one from POW camp? That pissed Matt off. Now he
really
wasn’t walking. Let the horny, lovesick bastard carry him.

“I’ll carry you,” James echoed his thoughts. Well, one of them. Suddenly there was a shoulder in his abdomen and then he was flying through the air.

“Gaaaahh.” He was gonna puke. Except his head settled a little, and his stomach caught up with his body. For a second he’d been sure James left it behind.

Matt cracked his eyes a little as James started to move. He was staring right down at James’s very fine ass. Such a hot ass.

James gave a choking snort. Or maybe he just choked. Matt puzzled it out. “Did I say that out loud?” James snorted again, but this time it sounded more snorty than chokey.