Kylie Lee | Slash fan fiction

"Problem?" Major Jeremiah Hayes asked neutrally, his shoulder brushing against Lieutenant Malcolm Reed's as he came to a stop by the tree line.

Reed eyed Hayes without favor. As always, Hayes sounded professional, but the way he had said "problem" made it seem as if the MACO leader was going to be personally responsible for executing a fix, and that was, most emphatically, not necessary. That slight, unapologized-for touch, coupled with Hayes's looming height—once again, Reed knew that Hayes was just asking to take him on. The man's bland exterior was just a ploy. And what really galled Reed was that, if he reacted, Hayes would feign ignorance.

"Huh," Commander Trip Tucker said before Reed could respond to Hayes's question. The engineer lowered the binoculars and handed them to Reed. The light caught and brightened Tucker's dark blond hair, and Reed had to tear his eyes away from that corona of light.

"No, no problem, Major," Tucker said to Hayes, talking over Reed's head. "Ensign Mayweather is doing a fly-by, and he just reported seeing some small, irregular craters, here and over by the drop site, like someone used this area for target practice." He gestured at the small field as Reed brought the binoculars up to his eyes.

"I see two impact sites," Reed confirmed. "They're too small to be seen from orbit."

When he lowered the binoculars, Hayes held out a hand, and unwillingly, Reed handed them to the MACO. He crossed his arms and obdurately refused to move out of the way, even when Hayes bumped against him as he raised the binoculars.

"Excuse me," Reed said nastily.

Tucker gave Reed a sidewise look but said nothing.

"What?" Hayes took his eyes away from the lenses without moving his hands and, not a trace of humor in his voice or on his face, surveyed Reed. "Oh, sorry, sir, there's a bush here."

Hayes took a few deliberate steps forward, skirting the bush and incidentally not brushing against Reed again, and began sweeping the area, head turning almost mechanically. Was it just on this away mission that Hayes had been in Reed's personal space? Reed thought so. They'd been avoiding each other for a few days—well, more like a week. Reed was a man who liked his personal space, as everyone on board ship knew. Hayes apparently hadn't gotten the memo. It was ironic. Here he was, standing next to the one man whom he wouldn't mind bumping up against but who was blissfully unaware of Reed's interest, while a man he utterly despised somehow felt free to touch him. Of course, Hayes probably wanted to do more than just touch. Strangle him with his bare hands was more like it. Reed thought it entirely possible that Hayes might be deliberately invading his space to provoke a reaction.

Reed viciously prodded a toe into the offending foliage. He wished he could prod Hayes's backside right into the bush. But that would be petty. Very, very petty.

"Don't start," Reed growled at Tucker, who seemed amused by his reaction.

"Not a word," Tucker promised, holding his hands up placatingly. "But didn't the cap'n tell you two to stop fighting?"

"There is no problem," Reed ground out. When Tucker just shook his head and laughed, Reed added, "I don't even know why Major Hayes is down here. He hardly has an interest in platinum."

"Security perimeter," Tucker suggested.

Reed knew that full well, but he obdurately stated the obvious. "I'm head of security." He'd tried to talk Hayes out of coming, but somehow, Hayes had gotten Tucker on his side, and Reed had had to give in.

"And a good thing too, because technically, Hayes outranks you." Tucker pointed at Hayes. "He reports to the job, not the man."

Reed transferred his gaze from Tucker's blue eyes to Hayes's back. Tucker was right, of course, and that grated too. It had gotten so that the very sight of a MACO uniform annoyed him. The camouflage, if that was what it was, had always struck him as particularly ridiculous: black and white speckled jacket and pants, a black shirt underneath. Many of the planets they had come across had colors that made the camouflage starkly stand out.

From day one, Hayes had been subtly attempting to undermine him and his authority—come to think of it, rank probably played a large part of that, Reed mused. It had actually come to fisticuffs a week or so ago. He hadn't enjoyed the captain's dressing down afterward. He wasn't usually so childish, but Hayes brought out the worst in him—and vice versa, apparently.

Tucker's communicator chirped, and as he turned away to answer, Reed gave the bush one last poke with his toe and followed Hayes into the clearing. He heard the drone of a shuttlepod overhead, and he looked up, hand flung up to shield his eyes, just in time to see it waggle from side to side: Travis Mayweather saying hello. The 'pod circled, flying low. It looked like Mayweather was preparing to land.

"Sorry I don't have time to spar just now, Lieutenant," Hayes said as Reed crunched toward him through the dry, knee-high grass. Hayes hadn't even bothered to turn around. He was still using Tucker's binoculars, although he now seemed to be looking into a copse of trees.

Reed made a face and pulled out his scanner. "Perhaps some other time, Major." He resisted the urge to add, "Whenever you like." Hayes would show him up just by being coolly professional. Well, two could play at that game. Besides, he did not particularly want to get caught fighting with Hayes during an offworld mission. He knew that Tucker would turn him in, even if they were friends. Tucker disapproved of Reed's dislike for Hayes, and for reasons of his own, Reed did not want to annoy Tucker.

Reed had just unfolded his scanner when Tucker called to him. "Malcolm!" When Reed turned in acknowledgment, he said, "I have to head back to the drop site. Everything under control here?" He gave a half-nod at Hayes, who seemed rapt in whatever it was he had spotted.

"It's fine!" Reed called.

"I'll get my binoculars back later," Tucker said as he turned to go.

Reed, attention in the problem at hand, found had to adjust the device almost immediately. The nameless planet they were on had a plethora of animal life despite the strange silence of the warm air, and their life signs tended to crowd the scanner. He'd seen signs of scurrying animals in the trees during the walk over. Now, he had to filter the life signs out, which also filtered out Hayes's life signs, before he could focus on what was before him.

Whatever it was had disintegrated when it had hit. He estimated the direction of the strike from the shape of the thrown-up dirt, but that had been weeks ago; most of the scar had healed with new grass that already covered the site. He followed the trajectory and found several shards of what appeared to be dark gray metal. He picked up a piece, only to find that it felt like ceramic, heavy and brittle. The scanner didn't like the material and refused to render anything other than its dimensions.

As he gathered up all the pieces he could find of the strange substance, Mayweather brought the 'pod down near the center of the field. Reed shielded his eyes against the debris whipped up by the wind as he stood up and took a step back, only to collide with the heavy, solid bulk of Hayes. He hadn't heard Hayes's approach, thanks to the whine of the engine. Reed didn't apologize.

"Find something?" Hayes yelled, refusing to acknowledge the bump, and a second later, the shuttlepod's engine cut.

"These." Reed displayed the shards as the shuttlepod's hatch opened. "Good eyes, Ensign," Reed called as Mayweather jogged toward them, his blue Starfleet uniform vivid in the slanting light. He handed the pieces to Mayweather, and Hayes, whose hands had been outstretched to take the shards, dropped. Reed ignored Hayes, who didn't speak but looked as though he wanted to, as he told Mayweather, "I think something was put inside capsules made of this material and fired onto the planet. They broke open. I think they're ceramic."

Mayweather looked dubious but accepted the shards. "We did a bioscan for pathogens, right?" he asked.

"Of course we did," Reed reassured him. That was standard before an away mission, and Doctor Phlox wouldn't have it any other way. "I think we ought to find some other samples."

Hayes gestured toward a nearby copse of trees. "I saw another impact site that way, sir. It hit a tree, left a gash."

"I could only see ones out in the open. I counted eight." Mayweather lifted the shards in his hands. "I'll put these in the shuttlepod and get a bag or something for the other ones." He started off for the 'pod, only to turn back when Reed spoke.

"No, Travis. I want you to take those up to Enterprise right away and have Commander T'Pol analyze them," Reed ordered. "My field scanner won't give me their composition. Perhaps Enterprise's scanners will have better luck—and perhaps it will tell us what was inside. We'll bring more samples up in the other 'pod, on the chance they don't all contain the same material."

Mayweather nodded and said, "Sure, Malcolm, but I have to run some more supplies by the drop site first."

"Of course." Reed ignored Hayes's faint disapproval at Mayweather's familiarity. Reed couldn't imagine Hayes ever calling him "Malcolm."

As Mayweather trudged back the way he'd come, Reed hurried to keep up with the taller Hayes, who'd started off toward the copse of trees. He adjusted his scanner to emit a small supersonic burst once a minute. He'd discovered earlier in the day that this kept the animal life at bay. The tailless squirrel-like animals he'd spotted in the trees didn't seem dangerous, but some of the life signs he'd noted seemed alarmingly large, if quiet—likely nocturnal, he'd inferred. Best to scare them off. At the very least, it would stop him from being unbecomingly startled if one of the larger animals surprised them.

One thing he particularly hated about Hayes, he thought as he folded the scanner closed and tucked it away, was they way he refused to modify his step to take anybody into account. He'd noticed it with Hayes's fellow MACO, Amanda Cole, who wasn't particularly petite, because he'd seen her actually jog to keep up with her commanding officer. Hayes did it with everybody. He strode along, and everyone was left to hurry to keep up, like a puppy tagging at its master's heels—like Porthos after Captain Archer.

He was just about to request that Hayes slow down when his communicator chirped. Hayes turned back at the sound, and Reed gestured him on. At least he was now able to follow Hayes with some semblance of dignity, although well behind. "Reed," he snapped into the communicator, some of his irritation at Hayes leaking into his voice as he trudged along.

"Malcolm, the geologists have a problem." Tucker's voice didn't sound worried. "They say the platinum readings are diffuse."

Reed waited for more information, but that seemed to be it. "And that's a problem because—?" he coaxed.

Tucker must have been conferring with someone, for Reed heard a woman with a fast, harsh voice. He thought it was Lieutenant Folkes, the lead geologist. "We can't get a fix on where to start digging," the engineer's voice finally said. "We have alluvial plains, which is good, but one of the other elements associated with platinum isn't present."

"What do you suggest?" Reed inquired, throwing up an arm to shield his face from a low-lying branch still swaying from Hayes's passage. So much for stealth. The man had left a trail a meter across. And thanks to the "camouflage" of the MACO uniform, he could easily keep his eyes on Hayes, even at this distance.

"Bring down more people to do a better survey," Tucker said promptly.

That would mean bringing down more security personnel. Even on this scientific mission to an uninhabited planet, Reed had insisted on a security perimeter. After all, they were in the Expanse, which was definitely hostile territory. He'd also been troubled by the sheer number of life signs once they'd arrived on the surface. Hostiles could sneak up on their position, so he'd doubled the security complement.

"Could Travis do anything with a low fly-by first? The 'pod's sensors may be of some use," he suggested, even as his mind started clicking over scenarios. He could bring down an invisible fence to secure the survey area, but that would probably be more work than just assigning extra personnel, especially if the geologists broadened the perimeter, which he wouldn't put past them. And security was clearly a priority. Someone had been shooting ceramic containers onto the planet, after all. He was concerned about what was inside them, and even more so by the fact that anyone who happened to be in the line of fire of one of those projectiles probably wouldn't survive the impact.

Tucker's voice brought him back to the issue at hand. "Good idea. Let me get back to you after I've reported to Cap'n Archer. Tucker out."

Reed slipped his communicator back into a pocket as he quickened his pace. He could see Hayes ahead, crouched over something on the ground, his camouflage uniform still completely failing to hide him. Hayes looked up briefly as Reed joined him, no expression of welcome on his face—no expression at all, actually.

"The geologists have reported a problem finding mining sites," Reed reported briefly. "We may need to bring down extra personnel and better equipment to do a more detailed survey." He glanced down and saw more shards, so tiny as to be impossible to pick up without tweezers, embedded in the dirt. He'd noticed a large bare gash on a tree a meter or so away where the missile had nicked it—probably the gash Hayes had noticed through the binoculars.

"Just like what you found, but it's been almost completely pulverized." Hayes stood up and brushed his knees. He extended a plastic sample bag to Reed. "I took images of it in situ before I collected the larger pieces."

"Good." Reed took the bag and scanned it. "Just like the other one—nothing," he said in disgust.

"Would you like a sample of the tiny fragments and some dirt, sir?" Hayes rummaged through his pockets. "I have a sample jar."

"Good idea, yes," Reed responded, holding the bag up to the light and shaking it. Of course Hayes had a sample jar. It was just like Hayes to have a sample jar. He was surprised, in fact, that Hayes didn't wear sample jars in a bandolier over his shoulder. In times of crisis, he could whip out a sample jar and save the day. Reed kept his sarcastic thoughts to himself and made sure his comments were on a professional level. "Analysis of the soil may tell us what was inside. It's like a broken pottery cannonball," he mused as Hayes hunkered down again. "The ceramic might keep it intact if it were fired through the atmosphere—although I suspect they were fired from a low-flying ship or the impact craters would have been far bigger and deeper."

"I wonder what was inside." Hayes used the side of the small sample jar to dig into the ground and scrape up a sample. "I couldn't get a reading. I think the fragments are affecting the scan." He shook the jar, settling its contents, screwed on a lid, and gave it to Reed.

"Commander T'Pol can sort out the ceramic shards from the soil on Enterprise," Reed noted as he scanned it, just to check. Hayes had been right, of course: nothing. He glanced at Hayes, realizing that the two of them had just had an entire conversation without a snide remark or a sudden punch in the nose.

"We'll need more security personnel if we increase the crew complement on the planet, Lieutenant," Hayes said, flat eyes on Reed. Reed closed his fingers around the sample jar, attempting calm. Before he could respond, either verbally or with that sudden punch in the nose, Hayes added, "If I might suggest an electronic fence. We can calibrate it to—"

Reed interrupted, his voice dripping with cold rage. "I'm quite aware of the capabilities of the electronic fence, Major. I will consider the possibility once Commander Tucker actually decides to bring more personnel down."

"I just think, sir, that exploring the eventuality—"

Reed's voice brooked no argument. "That eventuality is under consideration. When I want your opinion, I will ask for it."

"Sir, I—"

"Major, unless you'd like another round," Reed cut in, "I suggest you drop the topic." He tapped his fingers in the center of Hayes's chest, rather harder than he should have, but it was like striking a heavy piece of wood. Hayes didn't even take a step back.

Still, it got a reaction. Hayes's eyes flashed in irritation, and he knocked Reed's arm away. "It's within the parameters of my job—" he began just as Reed's communicator chirped.

Reed deliberately stepped back, hand reaching for his communicator. "Reed," he said, his gaze pinning Hayes, letting him know this wasn't over. He could tell Hayes felt exactly the same from his stance. At least they were in sympathy on this—just as they both set aside their personal concerns when a job was at hand. Apparently the captain's dressing down had done some good after all.

"Malcolm, we've got a problem." Captain Jonathan Archer's voice over the communicator sounded strained and tight, a sure sign that something was up. "A ship has just dropped out of warp and it's headed our way. They aren't responding to hails. They'll be within firing range in about five minutes. I'm evacuating all personnel. Get everyone back to the shuttlepods and get back up here. Archer out."

Reed snapped the communicator shut, the noise sharp in the copse's quiet. "You heard the man," he said. He'd put Hayes's fast walking to use. He jerked his head in the direction of the drop site. "Lead the way."

Hayes immediately started off, Reed close behind, his problems with the man all but forgotten as he reopened the communicator to issue orders to the security officer he'd left in charge at the drop site. Even at a jog, it took ten minutes to get to the clearing they'd been using as a base of operations, and when they finally saw large patches of white through the foliage, indicating the two parked shuttlepods, Reed joined Hayes in a crouch several meters away. It wouldn't do to rush in. He also wanted to know whether Enterprise had engaged the alien ship, but he knew Archer wouldn't appreciate being interrupted. He also knew that the captain would not leave anyone behind, so the sooner they got off the planet, the better.

Reed glanced at Hayes and found, to his surprise, that he awaited his orders. Reed used hand motions to indicate direction, and at his "go!" gesture, he went one way and Hayes another. As he peered out, one of the shuttlepods lifted off, and as it cleared the area, he saw a security officer and a MACO helping personnel carrying large, heavy toolboxes into the remaining 'pod. It all looked clear, and to his relief, he couldn't see Tucker. He must have made it aboard already. Reed was about to signal to Hayes when there was a faint shimmer in the air, and two humanoid figures appeared, one on either side of the shuttlepod. They were wearing shiny black armor, faces concealed behind helmets. They had to be using some kind of transporter technology, Reed realized. Tactically, it was an excellent choice, for they immediately started firing at the Enterprise crew pinned between them.

Reed didn't have time to react as one of the black figures took a shot at a crew member heading up the 'pod's ramp, hitting her in the leg and toppling her. A moment later, lances of energy were flying thick and fast as the MACOs and his security people responded. The intruders had the element of surprise, and although there were only two of them, they were only slowed down for a long moment when they took a direct hit. Reed thought their uniforms must have some kind of shielding property. He also noticed that they did not carry weapons, but rather somehow used their gauntlets to aim and fire. Still, he had to save his professional interest for a better time. He faded back behind the tree line and made his way toward the figures.

At the shuttlepod, the downed crew member had been dragged inside. Reed heard the engine start up even as someone stationed just inside the open hatch started laying down fire, permitting the last few stragglers to scramble aboard.

Over the yelling and sounds of shots, Reed activated his communicator. "Reed to Enterprise," he said. He didn't wait for confirmation; if they were busy up there and Hoshi Sato couldn't respond, then the computer would route it to them. He rather thought that the presence of the black-clad figures meant that the ship Enterprise had been tracking had achieved orbit. "The first shuttlepod is on its way. Two hostile humanoids have transported down, however, and are engaging the other shuttlepod. We should be able to take care of it at this end. Reed out."

Communicator stowed and phase pistol in hand, Reed didn't hesitate. He exited cover and fired at one of the figures now advancing on the shuttlepod. Gear was strewn willy-nilly over the ground, and he had to leap over materiel as he ran. A flash of movement behind him distracted him briefly, but he saw familiar color out of the corner of his eye and knew it was Hayes.

"Get on board!" he yelled to the two remaining members of the security detail as he dodged a shot with a quick roll, even as he squeezed the trigger to hit the black-clad figure full in the chest. The figure didn't go down. Instead, it paused, freezing up for a long count of three before resuming firing, but it gave the two crew members time to leap into the 'pod.

"Behind you!" Hayes called, and Reed whipped around just in time to see one more black figure materialize.

Reed roared, "Take off, Gates, and that's an order!" He hoped the security man heard him. He must have, because someone kicked a toolbox off the hatch ramp, which began to close. One of Hayes's shots briefly stopped the advance of the figure closest to the hatch. Reed hit the dirt just as the new figure opened fire, aware that Hayes was doing the same. Only three hostiles had transported down, but with that armor, no more were needed.

The shuttlepod took off more slowly than usual, clearly overburdened, before the hatch had quite closed. It circled the clearing but increased altitude when it was nicked by a shot. Reed scrambled to his feet, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender, his weapon pointed up. No felled crew members lay injured or dying on the ground, and Reed had noticed that the intruders had been aiming for the legs. Whoever they were, they weren't interested in killing anyone. That was a good sign, borne out by the black-clad figures' failure to shoot him or Hayes now that they had clearly lost. He set the pistol on the ground when he thought he had their attention, keeping an eye on Hayes while he did so to make sure Hayes would follow his head.

"Major," he called as he made a gesture. Hayes got it: he immediately collapsed, arms over his head.

The blast wave of the shock grenade Reed had lobbed into the center of the clearing rippled over him, and he lost both his hearing and his footing. He managed to drag himself onto his knees and peered up, eyes streaming, barely able to make out the three black figures. They'd frozen—and for longer than a count of three.

Hayes loomed over him, mouth moving, saying words Reed couldn't hear. He grabbed Reed's arm, and Reed let himself be dragged to his feet. His head was still spinning. He had to make two grabs at his phase pistol to pick it up. Hayes pointed, and once again, Reed found himself following Hayes's broad back as they plunged back into the wooded area.

He didn't stop to check his scanner to see if they were being followed. He focused on traveling as quickly as possible, given that his ears made him feel like he was tipping sideways. He had no idea how Hayes could handle it, although he'd been farther away than Reed and thus had taken less of the blast, not to mention he'd been able to protect his ears, if only with his arms. There'd been no help for it, of course, but Reed felt just the tiniest bit of pleasure that he'd basically just tossed a grenade at Hayes and gotten away with it. Hayes ought thank him for it—not that he would, but he should.

His hearing had just started to come back when Hayes slowed down. He couldn't hear the crunch his feet made in the dead leaves on the forest floor, but he could hear his own breath resonating through his head. When he swallowed, it sounded like tremendously loud gulping. He had no idea how much time had passed, but reckoned he'd just done more flat-out running in an hour than he'd done all last month, and in gravity slightly higher than Earth normal. Good thing he was religious about the treadmill.

A shot fired behind him, hitting a tree up ahead and downing a limb with a great crash that even Reed could hear. A moment later, another shot followed, this one passing harmlessly between trees. "They're gaining on us," Reed gasped as he and Hayes turned to look behind them.

He was drawing his phase pistol when Hayes stopped him. "They're shooting randomly," he said, a conclusion Reed had also just drawn since their pursuers were aiming far too high. They were hoping to flush them out. Still, if a lucky shot didn't take them out, the falling tree limbs might.

"Up?" Reed suggested, gesturing to the treetops.

"Down," Hayes said firmly, pointing.

"Down it is," Reed agreed, and the two of them leaped over a fallen tree trunk into a small hollow. "The proximity to organic matter may mask our biosigns, but that won't fool a visual inspection. Leaf litter?"

"Get up close to the tree," Hayes ordered, failing, Reed noticed, to soften it with a "sir." He grabbed handfuls of leaves. "Lie down."

Reed obediently lowered himself onto his back. He was gazing up, noticing that it looked like the sun was about to set, when another wild shot blazed across the sky. "They're getting closer," he observed, deliberately keeping his voice quiet. He didn't want to yell, but he couldn't tell how loud his voice was. "I can help, you know."

"Too late. I'm done." Hayes knelt by Reed and began scraping leaves together. "Oh, I should have said—" he began, but another shot sizzled through the air.

"Get down!" Reed said urgently, then inquired, "Should have said what?"

Hayes hunched over. "I should have said 'on your stomach,' but too late." As he spoke, his fingers played with the back of his collar, releasing a black hood. He pulled it over his hair. Reed looked on, puzzled as always by the camouflage that didn't camouflage.

"Here we go," Hayes whispered.

Reed wasn't prepared for what happened next. Hayes simply lay atop Reed, covering the smaller man with his bulk. Reed froze, suddenly incapable of speech. Hayes squirmed for a second, and Reed realized he was brushing the leaves on top of himself. They were right against the punky, soft downed tree trunk.

He found his voice. "What—?" Reed hissed, surprised and dismayed.

"My uniform. Its passive bioshield ought to protect us if they don't get too close. I suggest you be quiet, sir."

Reed shut up. He turned his face to one side, and Hayes took this as an invitation to settle his head into the crook of Reed's neck. A few more brushes, which caused Hayes's body to rock over Reed's, and then dead leaves lightly covered them. A second later, Hayes relaxed—something Reed couldn't do. He still hadn't gotten his mind around the fact that Hayes's uniform had a passive bioshield. Or that Hayes was lying on top of him, hideously intimate. It had been a very, very long time since he'd lain with someone so closely, body against body. Even with Hayes, whom he despised, it was almost pleasurable—Hayes, the only person, Reed realized now, who initiated touching him. Of course, usually they were sparring. It contrasted with his other sparring partners, who deferred to his superior rank and waited for Reed to make the first move. Hayes didn't wait.

The next fifteen minutes felt excruciatingly long to Reed. Hayes was ridiculously heavy, and although he'd left Reed's head free, his body was tucked in so tightly that Reed couldn't catch his breath. He had to breathe through his mouth, head twisted to the side, away from Hayes. Random shots fired overhead, then lower. When a shot nicked the top of the punky tree, Reed had to shut his eyes against the explosion of soft, dead wood and splinters. Neither he nor Hayes made a sound when it happened. He didn't even feel Hayes's body tense.

His ears had completely cleared by the time the black-clad soldiers walked by, their footfalls heavy in the stillness of the forest. The wild shots lessened in frequency, as though the men chasing them were giving up, as they moved farther away. The shots had scared any wildlife, which was probably all to the good on a strange planet, so it was eerily quiet. The sun slanted low. Reed had to keep his eyes half-shut to avoid getting debris into them, and dry, crispy leaves tickled his cheek. He discovered the trick of breathing with Hayes, which made it somehow easier to lie quietly. He could smell the scent of Hayes's sweat and hair, familiar and unfamiliar at once. He gazed at the tree trunk directly in his line of sight, glad he didn't have to look at Hayes's face. Hayes was just doing his duty—saving their lives—but the intimacy of it felt simultaneously horrible and welcome. He didn't want to think too hard about what that meant. Maybe he'd been alone too long. Maybe Tucker—but he pushed that thought away before it could do more than half form. He knew exactly what Tucker would say if he approached him.

"What do you reckon?" Reed whispered after the first stirrings of wildlife returned, a scurrying of something small in a tree. It felt oddly difficult to speak, perhaps because he couldn't draw a full breath, or perhaps because they'd been quiet for so long.

"I think it's all right," Hayes whispered back. "I suggest we make camp and post watch. It's almost twilight."

Hayes pushed himself onto an elbow, and Reed immediately gulped in a deep breath. He felt cold where Hayes's warmth had been moments before.

"Sorry, sir." As usual, Hayes didn't sound sorry.

"Much as I love being squashed by you," Reed said, ironic voice still low, "perhaps we can set a scanner to emit some kind of bioshielding wave, like your suit."

Hayes considered that idea, but only for a nanosecond. "I hardly think it's necessary," he said. "We'll get lost in the life signs here, now that we've eluded detection."

"True." It was an excellent point, but he wasn't about to tell Hayes that. All those pesky life signs gumming up his scanner were actually good for something. Reed pushed at Hayes's solid chest. The gesture felt small, ineffectual, even petty. If Hayes wanted to squash him, he could do it. "Get off me, Major. The extra gravity is making you heavier. It's hard to breathe."

"Sorry, sir." Hayes immediately rolled off, and Reed felt blessed relief, even as he suddenly noticed the coolness of the air. A moment later, Hayes said, "That was a good move with the grenade, Lieutenant."

Reed sat up, set his forearms on his bent legs, and practiced taking deep breaths. "I noticed the way their suits froze up when they took fire." He took another breath. He found himself completely capable of looking Hayes in the eye, even after they'd lain one atop the other for the better part of an hour. All in a day's work to both of them, professionals that they were. "I thought it was likely that their suits were processing the energy, dissipating it."

"Or using it as an energy source to power their suits," Hayes noted thoughtfully.

"Or, as you say, using it as an energy source to power their suits." Reed pulled his communicator out. "I thought the flash grenade would overwhelm them, render them immobile for a crucial few seconds—well, more than a few seconds—giving us time to get away." Without waiting for Hayes to say something like "Well done, sir!," "Brilliant plan, Lieutenant!," or anything equally unlikely, even if it had been brilliant, he flipped open his communicator and immediately modulated the frequency. "Reed to Enterprise," he said. Nothing.

"Try the emergency frequency, sir," Hayes suggested.

"I am, Major," Reed said, trying to sound matter-of-fact and not nasty. He'd liked Hayes better when he'd been absolutely silent—and on top of him. But mostly silent, he thought to himself. He tried a few more frequencies, then gave up and turned the device off so it wouldn't chirp at an inopportune moment. He didn't want to contemplate trying to reach his communicator while hiding under Hayes's body from black-suited supersoldiers. "Enterprise will be back to get us," he said confidently. He rose to his feet. "Now, Major, I suggest we get out of here, in case they were monitoring all frequencies."

At Reed's suddenly stricken expression, Hayes asked, "Something wrong, sir?"

Reed pulled out his scanner. "This is giving off a supersonic one-second pulse once a minute." He waved it. "I cannot believe I forgot about it. I discovered that it keeps the wildlife away."

Hayes looked distinctly displeased. "If the soldiers have noticed it—"

"Bread crumbs," Reed said grimly. "There, it's off now. And it was quite localized. It had a four-meter radius. But between this and my communications attempt, we ought to move." He remembered how close the black-clad figures had been as Hayes had lain atop him and shuddered. It was not like him to forget details like the scanner.

"Very good, sir," Hayes glanced up at the sky, which was noticeably darker. "Any ideas about where we should go?"

"Probably not far in this light." Reed considered. "The hostiles know where our drop site is. We should make our way towards the clearing where we found the ceramic cannonballs. I'm sure Enterprise will be able to track us, but in case they can't, Ensign Mayweather will know to look for us there." He turned in a circle, getting his bearings, and pointed. "That way, I think." He took a step back, politely deferring.

Hayes didn't respond. Instead, he accepted the tacit invitation and struck out, Reed at his heels. To Reed's surprise, Hayes set a comfortable pace. It became explicable a half-hour later when Hayes tripped over a branch and performed a little hopping dance to regain his footing.

"Problems with night vision, Hayes?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

"Not at all, sir," Hayes responded, but with a slight edge to his voice.

Reed glanced at the scanner tucked into his hand. "Well, if our mysterious soldiers are right behind us, we wouldn't know." He eyed the hot blue dots that indicated life signs. There were quite a few of them, and it looked like some of the larger animals were beginning to stir. "Our life signs show up beautifully—yours, too." He paused expectantly, awaiting an answer.

"The passive shielding only works if we're not moving. Here, like this."

Reed stopped and watched in amusement as Hayes leaned against a tree. He held his scanner up and ran it up and down Hayes's body from a meter away. "I see your heart rate and blood pressure are above normal," he commented, briefly turning the scanner to face Hayes. "Tense, are we?"

"Just give it a second." Hayes didn't sound like his heart rate and blood pressure were high, except perhaps with sheer annoyance. "There's a reason it's called a passive bioshield."

Reed turned his attention back to his scanner. "Oh," he said with appreciation as the biosigns stopped flaring. Even in such close proximity, the biosigns dampened. "That's very good," he conceded a minute later. "I can barely sense you—with the scanner, that is." He stepped closer, eyes on the scanner, until they were almost toe to toe. The scanner didn't flare, but he noticed that Hayes's heart rate increased slightly, no doubt in sheer irritation at Reed. "Of course, I can see you. Your camo is a rubbish design."

"We get that a lot," Hayes conceded. He glanced up at the tree canopy above them. "It's full dark," he pointed out. "Do you want to make camp here or press on, sir?"

Reed considered. "Camp here. If Enterprise sends Travis down for us, he'll use the 'pod's sensors to search for my communicator." He activated his scanner, then immediately deactivated it. "I was going to set a proximity alarm, but we'd be up all night with false alarms with the amount of animal life around here. We'll just walk circuit. You'll take first watch."

"Yes, sir." Hayes stepped away from the tree. On Reed's scanner, the motion caused a blue blur, and suddenly, Hayes's life sign was visible again.

"I'd suggest we both huddle under that jacket and get some sleep," Reed said, voice heavy with irony, "but I'm fairly sure neither of us would get back to Enterprise unscathed if we attempted it."

"No, sir," Hayes agreed faintly. On Reed's scanner, his biosigns flared. "Get some sleep, sir. Do you want the jacket, or should I keep it?"

Reed considered. "The sleeper ought to have it," he decided. "If it doesn't work when you're moving, then it isn't much help when you're on watch. At least this way, if our friends drop by, the sleeper may remain undetected. They're looking for two life signs together. This will dampen one of the life signs and increase our chances of remaining undetected."

"I concur." Hayes undid the jacket and handed it over. His long-sleeved black shirt concealed him very well in the dark. Reed slid it on, warm from Hayes's body. "I'll wake you up in three hours, Lieutenant."

The next six hours passed slowly. Reed, through long practice, managed a not particularly restful doze, but it was better than nothing. He kept jerking awake when he heard the rustling of leaves or the snuffling of some heavy-bodied creature. He noticed that Hayes, as instructed, had established a perimeter and walked it quietly, moving from tree to tree. His faint movements kept the wildlife at bay. Reed could make out a field of stars winking above the tree canopy—a rare sight for someone from Earth, which had so much light pollution that most people didn't know what the Milky Way looked like from the planet's surface. Far above, he could see one large glowing star moving. It had to be the enemy ship. If it had been Enterprise, he and Hayes wouldn't still be down here. Reed knew Captain Archer would be back for them as soon as possible, but he itched to be on board ship, directing any engagement Enterprise might have had with the hostiles. Surely the unknown ship had something to do with the strange exploded cannonball canisters; it would be too much of a coincidence otherwise.

His own watch was uneventful. He used Hayes's perimeter. He fancied he could feel Hayes's gaze following him. He felt it like an itching between his shoulder blades, as if someone was peering through a gun sight at his back, but he steadfastly ignored Hayes until the other man's breath deepened, and Reed knew he was asleep. Then he could look. Hayes's face was a pale oval in the moonlight, almost handsome in sleep. He'd pulled the hood up, so his face was edged with black, throwing his features into sharp relief. For some reason, Reed thought of the scent of his hair.

The sun had just cleared the horizon when they set out again. Hayes used a sample jar to collect water from a nearby trickle too small to be called a stream, and Reed irradiated it with the scanner to kill any lingering microorganisms. They each ate a nutrient bar, the crackling of the wrappers loud in the morning silence. They had enough bars to last them several days.

"No birdsong," Hayes commented. Reed noticed that he kept his voice low.

"I've seen squirrel-sized creatures in the trees," Reed noted. "Maybe they don't sing. They certainly don't fly."

That was it for their morning conversation. They didn't speak as they continued to the clearing. Their pell-mell rush had taken them a goodly way from the clearing where Reed had handed Mayweather the samples to take to T'Pol. Reed wondered what T'Pol had found—or if she'd been able to find the time to perform an analysis if all hell had broken loose on board ship after the approach of the alien vessel.

Hayes was in front when they made it to the clearing after an hour's slow walk. Reed kept a weather eye on the scanner, and even Hayes had tempered his superfast walking in favor of something slower and quieter. So when Hayes froze, Reed, a few steps behind, froze too, his eyes lifting from the scanner to the clearing to see a flash of black. It looked like their enemies had had the same destination in mind. And, he realized, it also looked like the black suits that absorbed energy also ensured that their wearers were invisible to the scanner. Even now, when the intruders thought themselves alone, they wore their helmets. They seemed the size and shape of humans, but Reed knew firsthand how deceptive that could be.

Reed and Hayes had automatically crouched down, and now they sought shelter behind a bush—probably the same bush, Reed realized, that he'd kicked yesterday, wishing it had been Hayes's backside, when he'd stood next to Tucker and his hair that had blazed in this planet's light. Reed gave his head a quick shake, trying to clear it of the image of Tucker, at the same time feeling relief that the engineer had made it safely back to the ship.

Brief, silent surveillance revealed that all three of the black-clad figures were in the clearing. They stood together in the flattened expanse of grass where the shuttlepod had set down. They seemed to be talking, although Reed couldn't hear anything. They probably had microphones in their helmets. One gesticulated, turned, pointed at something, and turned back to his companions, clearly expressing something that troubled him, if the hand gestures were anything to go by. Another didn't seem to be paying much attention; the blank helmet turned from side to side as if watching for something beyond the tree line. They all looked weaponless, but Reed, remembering how they took aim by pointing with their arms, knew that their weapons were somehow part of their gauntlets.

"No," Hayes mouthed when Reed pulled out another shock grenade and held it up meaningfully. "We cannot take them." He patted his chest. "Suit," he added in case Reed hadn't followed.

The suit was just what Reed had in mind. If they could get one of the suits—that would be intelligence worth having. If they were fast, it would give them access to the enemy's communications network before they were shut out. Then again, getting one of them out of the suit might be a trick in itself. He couldn't see from this distance how they fastened, and he hadn't noticed when he'd engaged them yesterday.

Reed nodded exaggeratedly. "Yes. Suit," he told Hayes. "We take suit."

Hayes shook his head. "Too risky." He hesitated, checked out the three figures who were still conferring, and added, "Maybe one. Alone."

Reed grudgingly nodded just as the black-clad figure that had been gesticulating took a few steps back and reached one arm across his body, slapping his opposite arm. A moment later, he shimmered out of existence, transported back to his ship.

Great. They were leaving. Reed swore internally as the two remaining figures left the area of flattened grass and wandered, slowly and seemingly aimlessly, toward the other side of the clearing. They were rapidly getting beyond the range of his throwing arm. He turned over the hand that held the shock grenade and braced himself to throw it.

"It's now or never," Reed said quietly by way of warning as he stood, right arm pulling back to hurl the shock grenade.

Apparently it was going to be never. Hayes took him by surprise and unbalanced him immediately, grabbing his arm and jerking him down. The tussle was as silent as two struggling men could be, but still vicious for all that. The grenade was the first casualty. Untriggered, it went rolling away without detonating as Reed found himself pinned face down underneath a knee, the full force of Hayes's weight behind it, with one of his arms twisted behind his back.

"Don't, sir," Hayes said in a soldier's quiet nonwhisper, mouth practically touching his ear. "You'll dislocate your shoulder."

"Let me up, Major," Reed said in the same nonwhisper. "Now."

Rather to his surprise, Hayes did, although he kept a heavy hand on Reed's shoulder. The grenade lay more than an arm's length away, and the two figures had made it to the other side of the clearing, oblivious to the struggle behind the tree line. The moment had passed, and both Reed and Hayes knew it. Reed tried not to flinch as Hayes squeezed his shoulder tightly as the remaining two figures seemingly came to some kind of decision. In almost perfect unison, their hands slapped their opposite upper arms, and they too were gone.

Reed closed his eyes and pushed down his rage at the opportunity lost to Hayes's insubordination. They had had a chance, admittedly small and risky, but they'd had the element of surprise. When he opened his eyes a long second later, Hayes's bland face confronted him. Reed had never wanted more to deliver a hard right to someone.

His voice low and menacing, Reed said, "Major, if you think for one moment—"

"I'm sorry, sir, but in my opinion—" Hayes broke off at Reed's white-lipped fury.

"It was our single chance to date of getting our hands on one of those suits," Reed hissed.

Hayes's demeanor grew cold and calm, ever his defense, Reed thought bitterly. It was the same every time they clashed. The angrier he got, the colder and calmer Hayes became. It made Reed's rage seem hotly irrational.

"We would unquestionably have been captured, sir," Hayes said, the "sir" pointed and barely on the right edge of respectful.

"They'd never shot to kill. They would have captured us, perhaps wounded us. But then they would have taken us to their ship, where we could learn far more than what we could learn down here on this primeval planet, Major." Reed leaned in, nose to nose with Hayes, close but not touching. "When I construct a plan, I expect you to follow my lead."

Hayes gazed into the distance over Reed's right shoulder. "Respectfully, sir, I cannot follow your lead when your plan is so bad."

"Bad." Reed's voice was flat.

"Bad, sir. One of those soldiers alone in the forest—then maybe we'd have a chance," Hayes said, his superior, know-it-all tone serving only to stoke Reed's mounting anger. "But they were clearly in communication with their ship. In my opinion, we had no chance. We would unquestionably have been captured. Sir."

"In your opinion."

"Yes, sir."

"Major, you do not have opinions. You follow orders." Reed found he faintly trembled with rage, but the dig had gotten to Hayes. He could see it in Hayes's eyes.

"Not when your safety is, in my opinion, at risk. Sir."

"Your opinion is not required. And I'll be the judge of my own safety, shall I?" Reed reiterated, "They did not shoot to kill, even when under fire."

"Are you saying, sir, that you hoped to be captured?"

"Certainly not. I'm saying—"

What Reed was going to say—or not say—was lost as Hayes interrupted. "Respectfully, sir—"

Reed had had enough. He grabbed the front of Hayes's uniform with both hands and jerked. "I think we've had enough of respect, don't you think?"

"Oh, yes, I think we have," Hayes said fervently, the determined light in his eyes showing that he'd accepted the challenge Reed had thrown at him.

It wasn't like sparring, Reed thought with relish. Sparring had rules, and Reed's mood was such that he was going to use any dirty tricks he felt like using. He brought one leg behind Hayes's and shoved him over backward. The bigger man fell like a ton of bricks, his bulk and the heavier gravity making a satisfying combination. A moment later, Reed had Hayes on his stomach, arm wrenched behind his back, his full body weight on Hayes—the very same position Hayes had gotten him into behind that bush. "Don't struggle, Lieutenant. You'll dislocate your shoulder." He threw Hayes's words back at him.

"Is that really the best you can do?" Hayes demanded, craning his head around to look at Reed over his shoulder. His eyes looked bright, almost manic.

"Not remotely," Reed assured him.

"Good."

How Hayes managed to heave him off, Reed had no idea, but one moment Hayes was under his knees, and the next, Reed was flying through the air. He made it to his feet in time to assume a defensive position, and then the fight was on in earnest.

"You have no idea how sick I am of your endless remarks," Reed gasped as he dodged a kick to the stomach. He grabbed at Hayes's uniform and managed to unbalance the MACO long enough to swing him around and smash him into a tree. "I did not get to be the security chief on board Enterprise by ineptness, whatever you might think."

"Not inept," Hayes grunted as he landed a back kick on Reed's knee, buying him enough time to spin around and strike at Reed's jaw, a move easily deflected with a block. "Just soft."

"Ah, the faint praise that damns, although naturally I'm flattered that you think me competent. Unlike your MACOs, Starfleet is not a military organization." Reed grinned as he danced back, hands at the ready.

"My point exactly," Hayes said, as if Reed had finally said something sensible. He dipped suddenly, and a moment later, he'd blinded Reed by flinging a handful of dirt and leaf litter into Reed's face.

Reed shook the debris away and managed to duck sideways when Hayes attempted an uppercut. He grabbed Hayes's uniform again. "Discipline, is it?" he managed to get out. "I have never been accused of being lax."

"Until now," Hayes reminded him, huffing out breath as Reed shoved him back hard into a nearby tree, then followed it up with a knee to the groin that doubled Hayes over. "You will regret that," he informed Reed, voice high and wheezing.

"I doubt it," Reed responded. He showed no mercy, clasping his hands together and striking Hayes hard between the shoulder blades. The force of his blow made him stagger backward to keep his feet as Hayes fell heavily on his stomach. Reed launched himself toward his opponent's back, but Hayes was able to flip over and face him by the time he landed.

They rolled on the ground, struggling for dominance with jabs and attempted kneeings. For a moment, Reed was on top, grinning with success, and mere seconds later, Hayes had somehow managed to switch their positions.

"It's not just your lack of respect for me and my position," Reed gasped out as he evaded a blow to the jaw. Hayes was no less heavy than he'd remembered. "It's your total lack of awareness of what is going on around you. You walk too fast. You enjoy making people run to keep up with you."

"What?" Hayes asked sharply, his arm pulled back, hand in a fist, ready to try again.

He'd hit a nerve. Reed pressed his advantage. "Power plays. You enjoy making Amanda Cole run to keep up with you, like a puppy. It's all about dominance with you. Don't tell me you aren't aware of it." From Hayes's expression, it was clear he wasn't, so Reed continued spitefully, "That's what this is about, isn't it? You can't stand it when someone's not under your control. Cole gets away from you and spends time with Commander Tucker. Could it be that you're jealous?"

Hayes's eyes flashed. "No. Are you?"

"What?" Reed exclaimed involuntarily.

"You heard me." Hayes didn't strike, but Reed flinched when his hand came down, not to strike, but to clench his collar. "Don't think I haven't noticed the way you watch Commander Tucker. Your eyes follow him. You smile when you're with him. You almost become human." Hayes pressed his face close to Reed's. "What, no response? Nothing to say? No rage from the little man? Because if there's one thing I've noticed about Commander Tucker, it's that he likes the ladies. How unfortunate for you."

"That's torn it," Reed hissed. He attempted to heave Hayes off him with the simple force of his anger, but it didn't work. "You do not speak to me like that. Ever."

Even as Reed voiced that threat, Hayes ignored it, taking Reed's head between his hands. Reed wondered if he was about to have his neck broken. Not even Hayes would go that far.

"And as for humanity..." Reed growled. "I keep waiting for you to show some sign of it."

"Is it humanity you want me to show?" Hayes demanded. "Or mercy?"

"Oh, don't show mercy," Reed said caustically as Hayes's fingers caressed his throat. He laid his head back, as if inviting a final, crushing grasp. "Why start now?"

"I don't plan to." Hayes's thumbs found Reed's Adam's apple. "Do you really think I'd kill you?"

"If you could get away with it, why not?" When Hayes's hands neither relaxed nor pressed harder, Reed voiced the major sore spot between them. "If I was out of the picture, then I'm sure you'd have no trouble convincing Captain Archer to appoint you to my position."

"I do not want your position." Hayes uttered the words slowly and clearly in a strange monotone. "And I have no plans to kill you."

"Good to know," Reed gasped as the hands began to tighten again, belying Hayes's words. Was Hayes trying to render him unconscious? He gathered himself, then brought both arms up quickly. He managed to box Hayes in the ears, and although the blow wasn't particularly stinging, it had the desired effect. Hayes's hands slackened.

"Give it up!" Hayes yelled as Reed attempted to escape. He bounced once, his body weight successfully pinning Reed down, making Reed grunt as the breath was nearly driven out of him. "For God's sake! Don't you know when you're beaten? Give it up!" He put his hands on Reed's outstretched arms and held him down.

"You do know I would rather die," Reed gasped, trying for nonchalance. He managed to bring up a leg, hook it around one of Hayes's, and wrench, temporarily unbalancing his opponent.

Hayes's eyes flashed in anger. He shifted a knee between Reed's legs and pinned him. "Stop it," he ordered as Reed wriggled, managing to free a wrist, which Hayes immediately slapped to the ground.

"No." Reed tried to release the other hand, but Hayes was ready. His hand clasped Reed's wrist and shoved it down hard. Reed's anger, now burning white hot, centered in his belly. He would be damned if he'd let Hayes beat him merely by sitting on him.

"Stop it!" Hayes repeated, this time with more force. Reed glared at him, and their eyes locked. "I said—" Hayes lowered his head so that they were nose to nose. "I said—" Hayes repeated, and then stopped. A long, electric moment held them both suspended. Hayes, face unreadable, gave another heavy push on Reed's outflung arms, as if to force Reed to keep still, and then Hayes's mouth pressed atop his.

Reed's mouth opened under the onslaught. His body was responding automatically, without conscious deliberation, just like it did when someone threw a punch at him while sparring. But instead of acting to protect itself, his body was transmuting Hayes's heavy weight from prison to pleasure, wanting something he'd been without for so long. He felt Hayes's tongue against his, and he pushed up into the sensation, striving for more, because he'd known he was starving when Hayes had lain on top of him behind that rotting tree, and he understood that. He didn't want Hayes; he wanted the intimacy. But try as he might, he couldn't keep his body from responding. It felt like bloodlust, and at this moment, it didn't matter who was with him, as long as they wanted him now at this moment. His leg wrapped around Hayes's again, but this time, instead of trying to throw Hayes off, he tried to press Hayes closer, even as Hayes kept him pinned down.

Hayes released one of Reed's hands so he could cup Reed's buttock and pull him into his body, his mouth still demanding. Reed felt Hayes's hardness as he exhaled sharply and rolled, sharp and forceful, so that Hayes was under him. He delivered a stinging slap against the side of Hayes's face, but open-handed, more warning than threat, and was rewarded with a grin. Hayes grabbed Reed's other buttock and squeezed, then began to pull and push, rocking Reed against him as Reed cupped Hayes's neck and leaned down to take his mouth. He let his thumb caress the tender center of Hayes's throat until his touch had to match the urgency he felt, when he had to press hard because his body wanted more, and the friction of Hayes dragging him wasn't enough.

Hayes threw him off easily when the touch crossed the threshold into pain. His eyes looked dark as he unfastened his jacket. Reed, panting slightly from excitement and from the force of his fall, reached for his own zipper. He'd managed to shrug his uniform off his shoulders when Hayes grabbed him again, hand sliding intimately under his blue undershirt, mouths touching in a kiss. Hard shoves alternated with equally hard pulls, body briefly held against body, as they managed to divest themselves of clothes. Reed had seen Hayes's body before, had even touched it while sparring, but it had never been this kind of sparring, with every block followed by an invitation to touch that lasted only a few moments before it was blocked again. But now, under his hands, accepting strokes and blows alike, he understood its strength and beauty.

When Hayes refused to take an opening Reed gave him, Reed knew they were done playing. He pulled Hayes on top of him and used his lips—on Hayes's mouth, chin, shoulder, chest, tasting and then moving on—to let Hayes know he was ready too. Hayes rocked atop Reed, grinding, gasping a little. Reed felt the fire build inside his own body even as Hayes, frantic, trembled on the edge. He bit Hayes's shoulder, tasting salt with his swirling tongue, and suddenly Hayes gasped atop him, his breath a roar of breath and sound as he succumbed. Reed found he couldn't bear it when Hayes lost the violent rhythm, and he arrowed himself up into Hayes's body, seeking the release that still shook Hayes. Hayes's mouth found his just as Hayes's hand closed around his cock, not at all gently, and tongue and hand worked in fierce tandem until Reed cried out. They came together for a long few seconds, bodies thrashing as they bit and fought in ecstasy, until only Reed's voice was left, sensation stretched out by Hayes's confident hands.

Reed stayed onto his back when he was done, struggling for air. Hayes sat back on his heels and briefly grabbed one of Reed's knees for support, before rising to his feet, staggering slightly. A slight sheen of sweat glistened on his body, and Reed stared in frank admiration as Hayes rubbed his chest and belly clean. Hayes's large penis and balls held his eyes, a fact Hayes seemed all too aware of as he handled himself, squeezing himself dry.

Reed knew better than to say anything. Let Hayes be the one who set the tone, who explained what he wanted, or why they'd done what they'd just done. He'd known strong emotion—in this case, dislike—to change into something else, if only temporarily. It had probably been the same for Hayes. Still, the speed and power of it left him shaken.

Hayes stepped backward, and his foot tapped against the shock grenade that Reed had dropped earlier when they'd started struggling. He picked it up with a smooth movement that showed off the muscles in his arms and side, this time unaware as Reed's gaze sharpened.

"It was a bad plan," Hayes said, tossing the grenade up and then easily catching it.

"It was the best I could do on short notice," Reed replied. He shrugged and crossed his arms behind his head, a studied picture of disinterest. "What can I say? I was desperate."

The silence hung for a long beat. "I understand that," Hayes said at last, carefully neutral. They weren't talking about the plan.

"I know you do," Reed responded, remembering Hayes's face when he came. The man had been desperate to do what they done. He'd been desperate that it be Reed he did it with. Suddenly the biosign flares Reed had noticed on the scanner made sense: Reed's presence had caused Hayes's heart rate and blood pressure to increase, not from dislike, but from desire.

"It's not like me to be so...careless," Hayes added a long moment later, face unreadable, as he pulled on his pants.

"Even when you're out of control, you're in control?" They'd fought when they'd come together, Hayes's hand on Reed's cock, handling him roughly, just like Reed liked it. He'd known that about Reed, just as Reed had known to bite to push Hayes into orgasm.

Hayes nodded. "Yes. I actually thought you were the same."

Reed had thought so too, but apparently not. Hayes, after all, had driven him to distraction while aboard Enterprise. Now, it seemed, part of that intense annoyance had been simple attraction, subsumed under dislike. And the thing he hated to admit about Hayes was that he was somehow always in the right. If he accused Reed of laxness, it was because Reed had been, in some way, lax.

"No," Reed said at last. "Apparently not." It was apparently not true for both of them. "Toss me my uniform, would you?"

Hayes did. They cleaned up and dressed without exchanging more than a few words. Reed tried his communicator again, to no avail. Reed forced himself to meet Hayes's eyes during a brief discussion that found them in agreement about their mission: to figure out who the black-clad figures were, and to attempt to capture one to gain access to intelligence that would help them return to Enterprise. Hayes was keen to interrogate the wearer of the suit; Reed found he was far more interested in the suit itself, with its promise of access to a communications net and a safe transporter. They could capture a suit. Reed could put it on—it would fit his smaller size, but not Hayes's larger bulk—and transport up, then do some reconnaissance until he could somehow beam up Hayes, who would help him hijack the ship. Then they'd contact Enterprise—

Reed realized he was spinning scenarios because he didn't want to think too hard about what had happened. Doing what they'd done had been incredibly stupid on several levels. First, it violated Reed's own policy on fraternizing with fellow crew members. Second, he didn't even like Hayes. Third, they'd made a lot of noise and commotion right next to a site where three hostiles had been just moments before, a tactical no-no. He wasn't even sure how it had happened. One moment they were trying to kill each other, and the next, they couldn't take their hands off each other.

"There are some residual traces of their transport," Hayes said, breaking into his thoughts.

Hayes's matter-of-fact tone and direct, almost confrontational manner told Reed that Hayes was going to follow Reed's lead and pretend that nothing had happened. That worked just fine for Reed. "Does it tell us anything?" Reed asked, trying for reasonable instead of snappish.

"I'm not sure." Hayes hunkered down and scanned the dirt. "I get that diffuse platinum reading that's everywhere, but...it's odd. Different than it had been." He stood up and took a step back, almost deferring. "Why don't you take a look, sir? I'd like your opinion."

Reed activated his scanner as he stopped near Hayes, then frowned at the findings. "That is odd," he agreed. "I wonder. Perhaps the transport somehow interacted with the platinum and left this signature behind." He eyed the telltale spike that his scanner had helpfully graphed for him. "Still, perhaps it would be of use if we could identify their sites of transport. We might find something interesting if we trace where they enter and leave." He looked around briskly. "Major, why don't you confirm these energy spikes over there, where we saw those two figures transport up." He pointed at the other side of the field. "I'll calibrate my scanner for this signature and see if we can track it to more remote sites."

"Yes, sir."

Reed lifted an eyebrow at Hayes's blandness but didn't react. He stole a glance at Hayes as he loped across the field, apparently not at all slowed down by the tall grass. He set the scanner to search for the spike, and it immediately pinged four other sites: the nearby one across the field, where Hayes was headed; the site about ten minutes' walk away, the drop site where the shuttlepods had been; and two other sites.

"Major!" Reed waved an arm. "Never mind—my scanner's found the spike."

Hayes waved back, but Reed noticed he did a sweep before he turned to jog back. Reed also noted that he took a detour, and a sudden eruption in the grass explained why: Hayes had disturbed one of the many animals. It headed right for Reed, a dark shape flashing through the grass. Reed had the presence of mind to hit the button on his scanner he'd prepared for this very eventuality. The animal squeaked in response to the supersonic sound and changed course. It had run into the trees, little legs pumping under a bulky body, by the time Hayes rejoined him.

"It's like the Galapagos Islands," Hayes commented. "Fearless animals."

"I wonder whether they're edible." Reed gazed after the animal with interest. "Ration bars will get rather uninteresting after a few days." Each bar provided a full day's worth of nutrition, but a single bar never filled his stomach. "Of course, it would be like eating a Corgi. An adorable little Corgi."

Hayes shrugged. "If we get hungry enough, we'll eat a Corgi, no matter how adorable." He indicated Reed's scanner. "Do you have a destination for us?"

"I have two." Reed handed his scanner over. "Neither is that far away. I reckon we can circle round this way—" He indicated a direction. "That will take us to the far one first, then this one, and then back round to the home base. But of course I'll keep scanning as we go and see whether there are more sites."

"I see the difference in strength," Hayes noted, tapping the farthest site. "This one is the weakest, so they were there first."

"Another reason to prioritize that site."

"Agreed, sir."

Reed took his scanner back. "I don't require your agreement," he said mildly. "Major."

"No, you don't. Lieutenant." Hayes didn't seem annoyed or flustered. He indicated a direction. "That way, sir?"

"After you." As Hayes started off at his usual breakneck speed, Reed snapped, "More slowly, if you please. I'm not a Corgi at your heels."

He saw Hayes's back stiffen, but Hayes didn't turn around, and he didn't say anything. However, he did slow down to a more manageable pace. Maybe they had managed to communicate after all, Reed reflected. But he also suspected that Hayes's ease with his orders had more to do with Hayes's agreement with Reed on their priorities than a sudden desire on Hayes's part to follow orders without endless questioning.

It took them an hour and a half to find the site Reed had chosen. The trees made a straight approach impossible, and twice Reed had to hit his supersonic-pulse button to scare away the Corgi-style animals, the only large animals that seemed to be out and about during the day. Every time he flipped his scanner to the life sign readings, he found himself and Hayes indistinguishable among the dozens of other nearby life signs, although there were far fewer when he excluded life signs more than three meters above ground level—a simple move he assumed the black-clad figures would take, assuming that they found Hayes and him interesting enough to go looking for.

When they reached the site, they found themselves in another clearing, although this one had no evidence of the strange ceramic cannonballs they'd found in what Reed now referred to mentally as "Travis's clearing," where Mayweather had set the shuttlepod down. A thorough scan revealed nothing.

"They likely cleared away whatever was here," Reed posited as he moved from one area of crushed grass to another. His scans showed nothing except the gradually decaying transporter spike. "Recently, I'd wager."

Hayes was doing his own kind of tracking. "They dragged something heavy from here to here." He paced it out, then gestured to indicate directionality. "Maybe they were assembling something." He stood in a large patch of dead grass, packed down hard. "This is big enough and square enough to be some kind of temporary structure. It was probably here for a few weeks to cause this kind of damage to the grass."

Reed had come to the same conclusion. "Do you think we scared them off?" he wondered.

Hayes shrugged. "Maybe. Probably. The grass is still dead and packed down."

Reed stared around the clearing, puzzled. "I don't understand it. They're not colonizing the planet. That much is clear." He paced the perimeter and found a small, deep hole, then another, and another, in a circle around another area of flattened grass. "Some kind of perimeter fence," he theorized, pointing them out to Hayes. "Or a transporter grid."

Hayes nodded. "Maybe they transport down the pieces, assemble it, and then...do something with it."

"Well, whatever it is, it's gone now." Reed shut his scanner. "And no other transport sites have shown up on my scans. Shall we visit site number two?" When Hayes nodded but didn't begin moving, Reed sighed. "Lead the way, Major."

They walked in silence, with only the sound of their feet scuffing dead leaves and the occasional scurry of a creature as it scuttled or lumbered out of their way. The air smelled rich and heavy, and despite the slightly higher gravity, Reed found himself energized. It felt good to be outside, on a beautiful planet with breathable air, getting exercise. Enterprise would be along within a day or two. He steadfastly refused to believe that anything serious had happened to the ship. Captain Archer and the crew had just been delayed, dealing with whatever the situation was with the alien vessel. Meanwhile, he and Hayes were free. Their duty was to figure out what was going on, although Archer and T'Pol likely had better means, he thought. Boots on the ground in this context did not prove helpful.

He happened to have his scanner out, checking to ensure they hadn't strayed too far off the path to the next target site, when another spike registered, unbelievably strong. "Hayes!" he called, and Hayes immediately turned around to face him. "We've got company," he told the MACO in a barely audible voice. His first exclamation had likely carried. "Someone just transported down. Just one." He pointed. "Close—too close." The snap of a twig emphasized his words.

"Down. There." Hayes pointed to a nearby thicket of bushes. "Quickly. It'll take a second." His hands were already undoing his jacket. Reed tried not to make too much noise as he scrambled into the thicket and lay down. A moment later, Hayes had joined him and enfolded Reed in his arms.

It wasn't like before, when Hayes had lain on top of him, heavy and inert. Now Hayes tucked them both under his jacket, an arm and a leg thrown over Reed's body, half covering him. They lay face to face on their sides, Reed tucking his face away, just as Hayes ducked his head to cover his face with the jacket. The jacket somehow felt suffocatingly weighty, or maybe it was Hayes's body heat. Reed found himself particularly aware of the heat in Hayes's groin, although the embrace had no erotic overtones. He slid his top arm over Hayes's body, careful not to move the jacket that covered them both, and pulled Hayes close. They weren't fighting, after all. It ought to be safe. They lay in an intimate embrace, absolutely quiet. Reed could feel Hayes's measured breath against his cheek. The rustle of leaves sounded suddenly loud, and he heard booted feet tramp nearby, accompanied by the crisp sound of leaves scattering in the wake of footsteps. He glanced at Hayes's face and found him peering out from under the jacket. Hayes's body tensed as the tramp of boots suddenly sounded loud, and a shadow fell over them, although no body broke into the thicket. Reed moved his head slightly, so he could see beyond Hayes's bulk, and he spotted one of the Corgi creatures gazing at him and Hayes with vapid interest. If he could just—

Reed managed to grab a rock with his free hand. He ignored the warning clasp of Hayes's hand against his shoulder at his movement. Reed took aim and managed to hit the brown-furred creature in the side. It wasn't a forceful throw—Reed hadn't been able to generate much velocity—but it was enough. The Corgi creature lifted its head and shuffled away, exiting the thicket, straight into the path of their followers. Reed heard it break into a shambling run, presumably spooked by the black-clad soldier.

The shadow didn't move for a long few seconds. Reed imagined the soldier's disgust: just another false life sign; better keep looking for his human quarry. He might even be checking in with his orbiting ship. He wished he could hear the soldier talking. Then the booted feet moved away, kicking up rustling leaves, very loud in the silence. Hayes's hand on his shoulder blade relaxed, and Reed let himself relax as well. They just needed to stay here for ten minutes or so, their life signs dampened by Hayes's jacket, and then they could continue on their way. He didn't want to look at Hayes, not when they were lying face to face. It reminded him of what Hayes looked like when he was open, not just ready for touch but begging for it, and he preferred not to think about that right now, because then he'd have to think about his own reaction, and it wouldn't do to analyze that too closely.

He adjusted himself more comfortably, and Hayes pulled him closer, their legs intertwined. Reed settled the hand on Hayes's side more comfortably, lowering it so it rested in a buttock. He closed his eyes, signaling to Hayes that he didn't want to talk or otherwise engage. They lay quietly for a few minutes. Reed was still aware of the heat in Hayes's groin, but he didn't sense a spark of interest. Hayes's breath stirred his hair and tickled his ear. A few more minutes of quiet passed, and gradually he began to hear the scurrying sounds of animals, the woods coming back to life now that the black-clad threat had passed. When there was a particularly loud crash, Reed opened his eyes in surprise to find Hayes looking back at him.

"Just a Corgi, I think," Hayes said quietly, his voice more breath than sound.

Reed nodded. Hayes's eyes didn't look flat, like they often did. They held his. Reed's hand descended on Hayes's buttock, and now he felt the heat in Hayes's groin flare. He could smell the rich, heavy scent of Hayes's skin and hair, just like before, when Hayes had lain atop him, only stronger now, because they hadn't bathed recently. He tilted his head, just a little, caught by those eyes, and met Hayes halfway. A brief exploratory kiss turned into a longer one, then a luxurious one that didn't end. Reed felt himself relax, the exact opposite of what he'd expected, because, he thought fuzzily, Hayes had slid a hand into Reed's hair, then gently stroked his jawline with a thumb as his hand lowered to cup Reed's chin. He could not resist the petting.

What they'd done hours before had been hard and fast. Now it was all touch and tongue, a slow ebb and flow that made it hard for Reed to think. Hayes had gotten hard, but he didn't ask anything of Reed. Reed pressed his own hardness against Hayes, hand stroking Hayes's buttock and lower back, but there was no urgency. Instead, they kissed, tongues pressing and then flicking away, only to return. Hayes's scent mixed with his taste, a dark musk that Reed couldn't get enough of, just as he couldn't get enough of Hayes's mouth. He teased and explored, learning Hayes's tongue and teeth, feeling Hayes's excitement rise when he moaned to signal to Hayes what he liked: the touch on his face, the tongue swirling against his, the gentle nip on the lower lip.

Reed was the one who stopped it. They either had to stop or go on, and they couldn't go on, because hostiles had been tracking them. He pressed both hands against Hayes's chest, pushing him away, and moved so that his back tucked into Hayes's body. Hayes understood. He pulled Reed close. His erection poked between Reed's buttocks, hot and long and hard, as his hand pressed against Reed's belly, descended for a moment to cup his erection, and then traveled back up. Hayes rocked for a moment, reveling in touch, and then relaxed. His wet mouth briefly touched Reed's ear, a kind of good-bye kiss, then pulled back. The heat between them cooled as the minutes ticked by, but Reed knew how easy it would be to generate it again.

"I think it's safe," Reed whispered after what seemed like a very long time. He felt drained, as though he'd just come. He could still feel the trace of Hayes's hand on his face. He was glad Hayes couldn't see him.

"Yes." Hayes pulled back, released Reed, and sat up. "Yes, sir," he amended.

Reed put his arms on his knees and gathered himself. "All right," he said at last, still not looking at Hayes. He tried to school his own features to professionalism. "How many were there?"

"One that I could see, Lieutenant." He imagined Hayes's flat eyes, his noncommittal expression, only they morphed into eyes locking with his own, disinterest replaced with desire. If it had been a long time since he'd touched anyone, it had been even longer since simply kissing had been its own event.

Reed forced his mind into action. "He came down close by. I doubt it was coincidence."

"Tracking us?"

That's what Reed suspected. "Maybe. Until we damped it with your passive bioshield."

Hayes ticked off the possibilities. "Communicator, scanner, phase pistol power cell, our own personal biosigns, or general life signs."

"I thought the latter," Reed noted. "Because when I coaxed the Corgi out, he lost interest." He finally turned to Hayes, who looked his professional self, not the man who, just minutes before, had been kissing him with such sweetness and passion that it made him light-headed just to think about it. "What do you think, Major?" he asked, meeting Hayes's eyes directly.

Hayes didn't look away, eyes flat and hard, once again the soldier. Reed couldn't reconcile these two Hayeses.

"Impossible to say, sir," Hayes opined. "The jacket dampened whatever it was they were looking for, so they had to revert to life signs."

Hayes was right. Reed sighed. "Best get on to our second target," he decided.

"Yes, sir." Hayes stood up.

Reed ignored his proffered hand and pushed himself to his feet, then took a long few moments to brush himself off.

"Wait!" Hayes said sharply just as Reed was ready to order him to take point.

Reed had heard it too: a faint mechanical buzz, too near for comfort. He had his scanner out in record time. "Another transport down," he whispered urgently. "Closer to our location this time." Was it coincidence that they'd just left the security of Hayes's passive bioshield? Unlikely. His eyes darted to the copse where they'd sheltered, but he dismissed it after only a second's consideration. "No time," he snapped, shoving the scanner into his pocket. "Take cover. Let's execute our plan." They hadn't discussed the specifics, but they didn't need to. "If it's a single soldier, we take it out. Two or more and we split up. We'll rendezvous by Travis's meadow at sundown."

"Aye, sir."

Hayes faded into the trees as Reed chose a direction. He thought he sounded ridiculously loud as he crunched through the leaves, so he tried to keep his steps small and light. He mentally sited the transport his scanner had logged, then circled around.

There. A black-clad figure stood stock-still under a tree, head tilted up. Reed followed its gaze and suppressed a smile. One of the many tree-dwelling creatures froze on its perch on a limb above the figure, then scurried, froze, and scurried again. Another life sign to dismiss. The black-clad figure touched its helmet, as if adjusting it, and turned around. Reed saw Hayes then. The MACO had waited for the solider to turn away and was now moving closer to his target, using trees as cover.

Reed slid behind a large tree, its trunk as big around as a sequoia on Earth, as he reached for his last shock grenade, only to realize that he no longer had it. His mind sputtered for a moment as he fruitlessly patted his pockets, because the shock grenade had been his plan. Then he remembered that Hayes had it. Hours ago, Hayes had picked it up while he'd gotten dressed. He hadn't seen what Hayes had done with it, but Hayes would never let a good piece of ordnance go to waste. He had probably stashed it next to his sample jars.

He hunkered down low, slid onto his belly, and cautiously peeked around the tree trunk. It was all up to Hayes now. Therefore, Reed had to be the distraction. He had to give Hayes an opening.

The black-clad figure's head turned to one side, then to the other. To Reed's dismay, it then focused right on his location, although it didn't seem to see him. He crept back and retreated to another tree, then circled around to another. The third time the figure changed course to follow Reed, Reed knew that he'd been sussed. The figure was tracking him.

Time for Plan B: higher ground. It was hard to climb a tree without shaking it, but the boles of the larger trees had such large circumferences that nothing could move them. The problem was reaching the bottommost branches, which were all above his head. He managed to grab the lowest one after a few leaps. He held on with one hand for a long second, cursing the higher-than-normal gravity, before he was able to pull himself up.

Just in time. He'd only just situated himself when the figure came to rest at the foot of the tree. It did the same scanning movement that Reed had seen before, a slight side-to-side turn with its head, the blank helmet revealing nothing. The inside of the visor probably contained telltales, ultraviolet, heat sensors—all the tech a supersoldier could want.

Reed had his phase pistol ready as he spared a glance behind the figure, trying to spot Hayes. Where was he?

When the visored face tilted up instead of from side to side, Reed didn't waste time. He shot the soldier full in the face, holding the blast there for long seconds, until the pistol's mechanism automatically shut down the beam. The figure froze, just as the others had before, its arm raised halfway. In a perfect universe, Hayes would now leap out and subdue the alien.

Hayes didn't leap out.

Reed scrambled forward and pushed off the branch. His aim had been good, although he'd gone for speed rather than accuracy. He dropped atop the alien, crashing into it with enough force to knock it down, and he found himself atop an unmoving black figure. He had only a few seconds to figure out how to subdue it.

"Hayes!" he yelled into the forest. His voice sounded small and lost. "Hayes!"

He saw a stud on the solder's upper arm—the transport mechanism he'd seen them slap. Some kind of tech sheathed the hands and forearms. Sensors? Weapons? He couldn't tell. The helmet mechanism was probably behind the alien's head, because it wasn't in front. He spotted a faint split in the shiny, chitinous surface, some kind of seam, under the left arm. But he didn't see any way to release it. Boots—he discarded the idea of removing the boots, although it looked as though they came off. Lethal tech was rarely controlled by someone's feet.

He was just reaching behind the figure's head for the helmet mechanism when it stirred, the blank visor disconcertingly swinging to follow his face.

He was out of time. Where the hell was Hayes?

Reed pushed off the figure, ripped his weapon out of its holster, took aim, and fired point blank, holding the beam steady until the phase pistol again shut off automatically. Its power cell had grown uncomfortably warm. He'd run it down completely in just another shot or two if he kept this up. As before, the figure froze in place. Reed rolled it over, realizing that the soldier's suit had to be some type of ultradense armor, it was so heavy, even taking the gravity into account. There—the helmet mechanism.

He had just reached down to release it when a lance of light narrowly missed him. He rolled, then scurried behind the tree's bole. A second searcher explained Hayes's absence. He didn't wait to see exactly where his new opponent was but used the time to put some distance between himself and the new threat. There would be two of them now, and capturing a suit would be out of the question. He should have gone for the helmet first.

He paused when he reckoned he'd put some distance between them. If they couldn't track him visually, they'd lose his life signs among the Corgis and all the other animals. In fact, if he curled up instead of moving, even without Hayes's jacket, he had a better chance of being mistaken for one of the larger nocturnal animals. The Corgis didn't go leaping about and running at breakneck speed. They ambled as they snuffed in the leaf litter for food. Reed didn't find the current situation amenable to ambling.

For a few long moments, Reed paused and listened intently. He'd circled around and forded a small stream. It seemed extremely unlikely that the aliens would happen upon him, and yet they did, because he saw the glint of movement off shiny black armor through the trees, purposefully heading right for him.

He remembered the tracking methods that he and Hayes had counted off. Clearly the aliens had more than biodata on him, because they were following him as if they could see him. He couldn't do anything about it if they were tracking his specific biosignature, but that would require information that they couldn't possibly have. That left scanner, communicator, and power cell in phase pistol. If he discarded the phase pistol, he was helpless, but it had only one or two more charges in it, and in any case, he didn't see how it would help him when he had two opponents; he couldn't count on getting two in one shot, and quick bursts resulted in short freezes, not long ones. The scanner contained information that he would rather not let fall into enemy hands. From a tactical standpoint, for example, it was best not to let them know that he had figured out how to track them when they transported. He hastily tossed his scanner and communicator onto the ground, then slagged them both with a quick burst from his phase pistol on the highest setting. Then he tossed the pistol atop the smoldering pile and ran for it.

Hayes. Where was Hayes? If he hadn't been captured, there was only one place he could be: following the soldiers following Reed. He put some distance between himself and his trackers before he circled around. He didn't want them to get a visual, but now that he was unarmed and scannerless, finding Hayes had become a priority. He knew he was incapable of executing the only other plan he knew to be an option: climbing a tree and waiting patiently.

He almost ran into the third soldier. He managed to evade notice more by luck than by skill, but it was clear that finding him and Hayes had become the aliens' priority. But it gave him hope for finding Hayes, because if Hayes hadn't been following Reed's pursuers, he'd been trying to shake his own tail. He paused by a stand of some kind of flowering bush, half concealing himself in its trailing foliage, squinting into the depths of the forest to see how far behind his pursuers were, when a hand slid over his mouth and he was jerked backward.

"Shhh," someone whispered into his ear. "They're tracking biosigns." The hand lifted so Reed could speak.

"I deduced as much," Reed, voice low, told Hayes tartly.

"Here, sir." Hayes enfolded Reed into his arms, adjusting the jacket around both of them as he pulled Reed deeper into the stand of bushes.

Reed put his arms around Hayes and put his lips right next to Hayes's ear. "I destroyed my communicator and scanner, and I'm unarmed—I left the phase pistol behind. It was almost out of charge." He felt Hayes nod. "If they have biosigns, we either have to stay like this, shielded, until Enterprise gets here—" His tone, he hoped, let Hayes know that Reed had no intention of doing so. "—or we have to take them out." He quickly told Hayes about the seam under the suit's left arm, as well as the helmet mechanism. "Their weapons are in their gauntlets, so we likely can't disarm them or use their own weapons against them," he concluded.

"Three is risky." Hayes's breath ruffled Reed's hair. Hayes had to bend his neck sharply to come to Reed's height.

"Are there only three?" Reed wondered. "Did you scan for more of those platinum spikes?" As he asked the question, something niggled at the back of his brain—something about the platinum. The spike seemed to be the result of someone touching platinum, perhaps walking through it, then transporting. The geologists had said that the platinum readings were oddly diffuse; maybe it was just a quality of the planet, and if Reed or Hayes transported, they'd leave the same signature, because the dirt here seemed to be imbued with platinum. Reed didn't know enough about the substance to know whether this seemed scientifically plausible, but he doubted it.

"Yes, only three," Hayes confirmed. "I can check again in a minute."

"We can get all three with the shock grenade," Reed asserted confidently. "You do still have the shock grenade?"

"Yes."

"At the very least, we can remove and take the helmets. That ought to slow them down—from their behavior, I think their tracking tech is in their helmets."

Hayes nodded agreement. "Toss the grenade, sir, or set up a booby trap?"

Reed considered. He could see pros and cons for both. "What do you think, Major?"

"Booby trap." Hayes's lips brushed the side of his face, sending a shiver through Reed, who then had to make a concerted effort to focus on Hayes's next words. "I still have my phase pistol. We can suspend it above some bait and I can shoot it from safety. That'll detonate it. We won't be that far away—we'll have enough time to grab the helmets if we're fast. If we toss the grenade, we'll be too close and get caught in the shockwave, the way we did before."

The timing was going to be tight. They might have as much as a minute once they got to the soldiers' frozen bodies, but not much more. "What do you have for bait?" he inquired.

"Scanner. I can set it to emit something. If I make it strong, it will block all the nearby life signs."

Now that they had a plan, Reed felt hopeful. "I saw a likely site a few klicks back. Should we let them pass?" What he didn't say was that if they did let the searchers pass, he and Hayes would have to remain pressed together, virtually invisible, under the dampening property of the jacket.

Hayes dipped his head, and the brush of lips against cheek now seemed deliberate, not accidental. In response, Reed's hand, of its own accord, stroked Hayes's broad back, shoulder blade to waist.

"No, Lieutenant," Hayes whispered, the faintest hint of regret tingeing his voice. "I think not."

They set out immediately, Hayes following Reed this time. They could likely evade the black-clad figures for a few more hours, but if their trackers were following their unique biosigns, their capture was inevitable, unless they simply settled down and used Hayes's jacket to dampen their life signs. And that solution was just as appealing to Reed as sitting quietly in a tree.

Reed took them back around, using a simple compass to help him navigate, but he left a wide berth so they wouldn't run into their followers. Once at the site, Hayes put the shock grenade in one of the sample jars. Its lid screwed on and had a plastic flap with a hole in it. It only took a second to pop the shock grenade into the jar and feed string through the lid. Suspending it from a handy tree took more work. Hayes hoisted Reed up, and Reed shimmied out on a limb to tie the string from an overhanging branch—not so low that the aliens would spot it dangling overhead, yet not so high that Hayes, an expert marksman, would fail to hit it from a distance. Of the two of them, Hayes was the better shot, and besides, Hayes still had his weapon. Still, Reed wished he was the one taking the shot, because standing around, unarmed, made him feel useless and uneasy.

Reed disguised the string by wrapping it around a small leafy branch, but he'd taken care to leave the sample jar uncovered so Hayes would have a clear shot. As he hung the shock grenade, Hayes programmed the scanner.

"I don't have a delay set," Hayes noted after Reed jumped down to rejoin him. "It'll be a wideband blare. It ought to white out their sensors. At the very least, they'll want to shut it off."

"Good." Reed took a final look. Everything seemed to be in order. "Do you have your station chosen?"

Hayes pointed. "There. There's cover, but I'll have a clear line of sight."

"I'll be over there, then." Reed turned a dark eye on Hayes. "I trust you to take the shot when it's clear, Major."

Hayes had morphed into his businesslike self. His "Aye, sir" sounded like it always did: faintly mocking.

Reed found a good view from a vantage point he judged to be just outside the localized explosion of the shock grenade. He couldn't see Hayes. He settled in and prepared to wait, but he couldn't help wishing he had a weapon. It had taken all his self-control to leave the phase pistol with Hayes instead of taking the job of shooter for himself. The mission came first.

The wait wasn't long; perhaps ten minutes had passed when the first of the black figures made its way into Reed's line of sight. Reed frowned when he saw that it was alone. To his surprise, it didn't head right for the scanner, which Hayes had hidden under a loose pile of leaves. Reed supposed he'd be wary too. The situation had all the earmarks of a trap. The soldier stayed well away, but it kept its body faced toward the scanner as it moved. Reed kept low as he matched the soldier's trajectory, darting for cover from tree to bush, glad it was not looking around but seemed focused on the scanner. He knew the location of the helmet's catch. If Hayes could take out the other two, he could take out a single soldier—as long as the scanner remained on and his biosigns were thereby dampened.

As if on cue, the other two figures approached. Again, Reed wished he could hear the aliens speaking. The blank visors gave no clue, and neither did their body posture. One kicked a broad swath of leaves, sending up a cracking wave of leaf litter, took a step, and did it again. They seemed to be having trouble pinpointing the scanner, probably because of the wideband blare it was emitting. That was good, Reed thought; otherwise, they would have just shot it.

The first figure, the one Reed shadowed, hadn't joined its fellows. It was outside the effective blast radius of the shock grenade. Of course Hayes didn't know that Reed had the first figure covered. He probably hadn't spotted Reed creeping behind. "Take the shot," Reed whispered to himself, mouth actually forming the words. "Hayes, take the shot." Two down was better than none.

No shot came.

A moment later, the booted foot kicked up the scanner. One of the figures pointed a closed fist at the scanner: he was going to destroy it. Reed only had a few seconds before the dampening field would go down, and his location would be revealed. He was out of time. He had to force Hayes to shoot.

He broke cover and ran full tilt into the lone figure, sending it sprawling. He leaped onto the figure's chest and reached behind the helmet. He pulled the catch free and wrenched the helmet up a few centimeters. He had to turn away as he breathed in a lungful of noxious, burning air, just as the aiming figure fired at the scanner. He felt rather than heard another concussion: the shock grenade going off, powerful even at this safe distance. Hayes had finally taken the shot.

He'd only turned away for an instant. He hadn't been ready for the foul air—the aliens clearly breathed something different than humans. It explained why they had never removed their helmets. The figure under him reached up, grabbed, and rolled. Reed coughed as he inhaled another lungful of burning air. A confused sensation of breathlessness was immediately followed by the unmistakable sensation of transport. Of course—the button on the upper arm he'd seen them slap. When the soldier had rolled, the button had come into contact with the ground and had engaged transport.

He'd just been captured.

When he rematerialized after an agonizing few moments of transport, he immediately doubled over in wracking coughs. The air on board the alien ship matched the air that had leaked from the black-clad soldier's helmet. The soldier disengaged itself from him and reseated its helmet before it stood up. Rather gently, a booted toe shoved him away, clearing the area. He managed to scramble away ignominiously on his hands and knees. Reed didn't hear a command, but the figure shimmered and disappeared, no doubt transporting down to help its fellows.

He lifted streaming eyes that didn't focus well. Two humanoid figures watched him with interest. One came close and pressed something over his nose, and Reed gulped in clean air. He put his hand over the mask and nodded, and the figure stepped back. The alien seemed smaller than the average human, and Reed's first impression was of bland brown: brown, smooth, hairless skin; dark, liquid brown eyes with no trace of white; brown, toothless gums when it opened its mouth, although no sound he could hear came out. Their one-piece uniforms were black, although the two in the transporter area with him did not wear the armor that their fellows did. Reed noticed that he hadn't been shot on sight and felt hopeful.

He took a deep inhalation of air, then removed the mask, holding the small bulb of its small oxygen container steady. "Can you understand me?" he asked, then immediately covered his mouth again.

The figure that had handed him the oxygen mask made a patting gesture with its hands, as if to say, "Not yet," or perhaps, confusingly, "Keep down." Reed frowned, but before he could try again, the transporter activated. Two unmoving figures transported up a few seconds apart. Reed guessed that the alien who had captured him had hit the transport buttons on these two before it went after Hayes. If Reed knew Hayes, he figured that the immobile soldiers had taken extra pistol fire after the shock grenade had taken them down.

Reed sat against a wall, blinking away tears, and watched as the two unitard-wearing aliens cleared the transport area. They popped the helmets off their fellows, revealing others of their species. Although he couldn't hear them speaking, they seemed to be communicating, and the aliens inside the frozen suits were definitely not frozen themselves; they seemed entirely uninjured. He let his eyes wander over the room as the two aliens were helped out of their suits, although professional interest led him to watch how the suits were unfastened: apparently something just inside the neck was depressed and held down, which released the side seam, and the suit unfolded.

He thought he had been transported into a cargo area rather than a bridge. He saw neat piles of storage containers and what looked like antigrav cargo sleds. The tech looked more mechanical than electronic, but Reed found it hard to tell in a cargo area. The walls seemed to be made of some sort of pitted metal; the air was so corrosive that Reed doubted they bothered to smooth and polish it. He shut his eyes for a long few seconds in an attempt to clear his vision, but it didn't help. The minute he opened them again, the air stung, and tears once again rolled down his cheeks. He was in no fit state to execute a daring escape plan.

He'd just decided to try speaking with them again when the transporter pad hummed again, and what he'd feared came to pass: Hayes had been captured. The suited figure carried an apparently unconscious Hayes easily over one shoulder. The black-clad soldier handed Hayes's phase pistol to one of its fellows and stood patiently with his burden while an antigrav sled was brought over. He unloaded Hayes onto it, and another alien pressed a mask over Hayes's face, even as Hayes began to stir and cough.

The soldier pointed at Reed and waggled its fingers in a very human "come here" gesture. Reed got to his feet and, eyes still streaming, followed it as it maneuvered the antigrav sled out of the room and down a corridor. The alien slapped the wall to the side of a door, which slid open in response. To Reed's relief, blessedly breathable air wafted out. The alien made no move to push the antigrav sled through the door, so Reed hoisted up a semiconscious Hayes and manhandled him into the room, which a quick glance revealed to be living quarters. The soldier followed them in and shut the door behind it—no doubt to keep the air from tainting that of their ship, Reed thought ironically.

The soldier set a small sphere onto a low ledge that acted as a table. "Lieutenant Malcolm Reed. Major Jeremiah Hayes." The voice that came from the sphere sounded sexlessly electronic.

"I'm Lieutenant Reed. This is Major Hayes." Reed turned and let Hayes awkwardly onto the bed.

"This room has been prepared for you according to your species' physiological requirements," the voice said. "Can you understand me? Do my words make sense?"

Hayes dragged in a breath and started to cough. His eyes were red, and his nose was running. Reed knew he looked no better. Reed spoke loudly over the sound of Hayes's hacking. "Yes, we can understand you."

"Your ship has given us your biodata. You will stay with us for one day and one night. Then you will be returned to your ship."

Reed frowned, puzzled. "My ship has brokered a deal with you?" he asked at last. "I find that hard to believe. Didn't your ship attack ours?"

"Your ship was in our space," the emotionless voice said, which Reed rather thought was its way of saying "yes." "We had a meeting. Your presence was not welcome. We meet in several hours with clients. Your ship stays a distance away. When our clients go, we will take you to your ship."

Broken ceramic cannonballs. Clients. Nonlethal fire. Biodata on key crew members, given by Enterprise to these aliens. In a flash, Reed got it, and he started to laugh. Hayes stopped coughing and gave him a baleful look.

"You seeded the planet, didn't you?" Reed asked, laughing incredulously. "You filled those spheres full of platinum and shot them onto the surface. Scans from space reveal platinum, and I'm sure when your clients dig, they'll find it too. They'll find it...because you put it there."

The featureless visor merely faced him, of course revealing nothing. Reed turned to Hayes. "Those spikes we saw—that was the transporter signature interacting with the platinum and dust we found near the broken spheres. And of course the spheres are inert to sensors, so they don't appear on scans." Reed made an expansive gesture with his arms. "And along we come, scanning for whatever we might need, and we find platinum just as your deal is ready to go down. The clients are due any moment, and you've got aliens blundering around on the planet's surface and a strange ship in orbit, completely fooled." He had to pause to laugh again. "Major, we have here a crew of long-con artists. I'm sure the traces of equipment we found were there to create a test dig site."

"If you say so," Hayes said hoarsely. He wiped his eyes, which, like Reed's, were clearing. "I can't see Captain Archer worrying too much about a business deal if he gets his people back, I'll give you that. He might have given them our biodata if he thought that he'd get us back unharmed."

Reed turned back to the alien. "Am I right about what you're doing?" Then another thought occurred to him. Archer probably had to pay a little something for their return. "And what did you get for us?"

The voice from the sphere said, "We do not discuss our business with others. We own the mineral rights to this planet. We will sell them to the highest bidder. Your ship did not wish to bid. We have no wish to injure you. You will be returned."

"All right, all right." The translator didn't seem tremendously sophisticated, but it got the message across. "Could we talk to someone on board our ship?"

"No. You will be returned in one day and one night."

"Fine." Reed sat down next to Hayes.

"You will stay in this room."

"Also fine," Reed assured the alien. "We find your air hard to breathe."

"Your needs here are met, but we have no food for you."

This time, Hayes answered. "We have food." If they counted ration bars as food, that is, Reed thought.

"One day and one night."

The alien took the sphere and, to Reed's dismay, both masks before it departed. The swirl of noxious air forced into the room by the door's motion set them both coughing, but the room's ventilation system quickly cleared it. While Hayes settled himself as far away from the door as possible, Reed examined the room. "'Your needs here are met' translates as, 'You have an empty bucket and a bucket of clean water,'" he reported. "And—" He tried the door. "Locked."

"Of course."

"I actually preferred being on the planet's surface," Reed said, pacing the length of the small room. "Fresh air to breathe. Corgis to play with." He paused by the bucket of water. "Do you have a sample jar?"

Of course Hayes had a sample jar. Hayes silently proffered one from the limitless supply he apparently carried with him at all times, and Reed scooped out some water and took a sip. "It's fine—tepid, but palatable," he opined. He refilled the jar and handed it to Hayes, who drank some and then used some to bathe his eyes.

"Why did you attack the soldier?" Hayes asked, wiping his face. His eyes were bloodshot. His face now sported stubble, which made him look less clean-cut than usual—they probably both did, Reed amended.

"Because you didn't take the shot."

"I couldn't see you."

"You should have taken the shot."

"I couldn't see you," Hayes repeated. "You didn't trust me to take the shot."

"And you didn't trust me to be in position to take out the third soldier," Reed snapped.

Hayes drank down the last of the water. "No, sir," he said at last. "No, I did not. I waited until the last second in case the third soldier moved into position within range of the shock grenade."

Reed crossed his arms, fighting for control, because Hayes had gone cold and bland, and that, Reed now knew, meant he was angry. "We weren't fighting a fair fight, Major," he told Hayes. "Captain Archer gave the soldiers our biodata."

"That's really not the issue, is it, sir?" Hayes set the empty sample jar down deliberately, then stood up, a little too close, a little too loud, a little too aggressive. "I suggest preparedness drills, and you decide I want your job. I go over your head when I know you won't hear me out, and you decide I'm subordinate." He dropped his voice. "Everything I do, I do for the safety of the crew."

"In your opinion."

"Yes, sir. In my informed opinion." Hayes took a step closer, looming over Reed, using his height as a threat. "And now I discover that you took a risk because you didn't trust me to carry out my part in a mission that we had agreed on." He lifted his hand, as though to tap Reed on the chest, but he stayed the motion. Instead, he put his hands on his hips. "I will always have your back, Lieutenant."

"But you won't, Major," Reed burst out. "You'll decide my orders aren't worth following. If you don't like them, you argue."

"So you want unquestioning obedience."

"Yes," Reed hissed. "Yes, in fact, I do. When I issue an order, I expect it to be followed." It was his turn to take a step forward. Their voices weren't loud, but they were low, harsh, and angry. "You have a certain amount of autonomy over the MACOs. But ultimately, you report to me, as head of security. You are there to back me up, not question my every move. Your assumptions that I am inept offends me." He threw up his hands. "Excuse me! We have already had this conversation. You don't find me inept; you find me soft. Forgive me for mischaracterizing your opinion of me."

"I doubt you care one way or the other what I think of you."

"You're right. I care only insofar as it affects my relationship with Captain Archer." Reed tilted his head. "If you continually go over my head and voice your...concerns, then..." He let it trail off, the threat implicit. "Make no mistake, Major. Whatever passed between us down on that planet doesn't change the fundamental problem between us. You won't follow orders, and I won't have that. And we don't trust each other. I would trust Travis Mayweather, Jonathan Archer, Commander T'Pol, Trip Tucker, Hoshi Sato, even Doctor Phlox with my life. But I do not trust you."

"It's strange what you trust me with," Hayes murmured. "Lieutenant."

Hayes brought up a hand, fast, but Reed knocked it away easily. He struck at Hayes's jaw, but the dance was just that: a dance. Hayes evaded the blow, grabbed the front of Reed's uniform, and pulled him in. Reed let himself be pulled. The scorching kiss that followed proved to Reed that with Hayes, cold preceded heat. Hayes pulled Reed's uniform down to his waist. Reed tugged Hayes's familiar, heavy jacket off, then found Hayes's waistband, fumbling as he undid the unfamiliar trousers. He nearly tripped as he stepped out of his boots, but Hayes steadied him by pulling him against his body, pressing Reed against his long, hot erection.

The bed was too small, but it didn't matter. Reed gasped when Hayes ran a stubbled cheek down his chest, then lower, and he gasped again when Hayes took him in his mouth. He thrust up, one hand tangled in Hayes's dark hair, the other pressed against Hayes's neck, deep into Hayes's mouth and swirling tongue. He moaned when, a few minutes later, Hayes pressed a finger deep inside him. The shock that went through his body was almost like orgasm.

"It's all right. Yes," he gasped when Hayes lifted his mouth from Reed's hardness, and he let Hayes turn him over. The finger returned, finding his center, and he heard Hayes prepare himself. Then the slick, blunt head of Hayes's cock pressed against him, relentless, and a moment later, he'd been pierced. Hayes stayed deep inside for a long moment as they both adjusted to the new sensation. Reed felt it through his core like a thrust of fire.

He put a hand on his own cock as Hayes began to push. Hayes didn't speak—there were no words of endearment, no gasps of "Malcolm" or cries to God. Instead, Hayes's gasps spoke volumes, his broken moans speaking of an extremity of pleasure. Each sound was pulled from Hayes as though against his will, and Reed reveled in it, knowing how desperate the man was for it, how much he wanted it—and with Reed, no one else. Each thrust touched him deep inside, sparking a dark pleasure so extreme that he could make no sound at all, other than that of his ragged breathing. Hayes's large hands pulled apart his buttocks, then stroked up and down his back, then grabbed his hips so he could plunge in deeper, each caress speaking also of power—power to do with Reed as he liked, even as Reed's mounting excitement told Hayes that Reed had given in, if only for this moment.

Hayes bore one hand down between Reed's shoulder blades, and Reed let himself be pushed down as he angled himself back, Hayes's hardness filling him. He realized that in this, he trusted Hayes. Hayes would not leave him trembling on the edge. Hayes pulled Reed into his body hard with one hand on Reed's hip, and Reed felt Hayes spurt deep inside him even as his own balls tightened. A moment later, he fell into ecstasy, his orgasm consuming him, his cock pulsing in his hand. His breath left his body, and all he knew was a strong hand on his hip and a firm, hard length inside him, keeping his body present as his soul left.

Hayes wrapped his arms around Reed's waist as they struggled for breath, finally releasing him when Reed lowered his body weight. He felt Hayes slip out. He rolled onto his back and pulled Hayes down so he could find Hayes's mouth with his own. He pulled Hayes in with an arm crooked around his neck, and Hayes surrendered, letting Reed take the lead as he licked and stroked.

He still didn't trust Hayes with his life. But he trusted him in this. He could give Hayes his body, and Hayes would not hurt him. He would repay Reed's trust with pleasure so intense that he lost breath and voice.

It was a start.

Epilogue

"It's good to have you both back," Captain Jonathan Archer said to Reed and Hayes as they stood, unshaven and disheveled, in their less than clean uniforms. Reed stood at parade rest, trying to look awake. The table in the Situation Room was dark. "Do you need to report to Doctor Phlox?"

"No, sir," Hayes said, and Reed echoed the words.

"Dismissed, then. Report to your quarters, get cleaned up, and take tomorrow off." Reed had done nothing more than inhale to make his displeasure known, but Archer staved it off. "That's an order, Lieutenant."

Reed said, "Thank you, sir," but what he really wanted was to get to tactical and make sure everything was shipshape. He could probably sneak onto the bridge tomorrow when the captain went to lunch.

"I would have liked to be a fly on the wall to see you two down there," Tucker commented to Reed as the debriefing broke up.

"We got along swimmingly," Reed said frostily, but Tucker just laughed at him.

Mayweather pounded Reed on the back in friendly solidarity. "You figured out the seeding all on your own," he said admiringly. "It took T'Pol a day to figure it out from the sample I brought up. The canisters had been filled with platinum."

"I admit to being worried when I couldn't raise you on the communicator," Reed told him. "But I knew you'd be along sooner or later."

T'Pol's calm voice answered that comment. "We were required to keep six light-years distant, well out of communicator range."

"Commander, do tell me," Reed said in a low voice to Tucker as they headed for the turbolift. "What did Captain Archer give the aliens to buy our freedom?" He hadn't dared ask Archer himself—at least, not in public.

"Why, nothing," Tucker said, too innocently.

"Trip." Reed slanted a laughing glance up at Tucker and was suddenly aware of Hayes behind him, wooden face betraying nothing. What was it Hayes had said about Reed with Tucker? "Your eyes follow him. You smile when you're with him. You almost become human." Maybe he did, ready to open up to a man who could never want him.

Tucker shrugged. Reed remembered his hair in the clearing, a corona of light. "Maybe some antimatter containment units. Nothing we couldn't spare."

"It's awfully good to have you back," Sato told him as she squeezed herself in next to Reed in the lift. "We were really relieved when we heard they'd captured you." At Reed's look, she added, "That...came out wrong." She pressed Reed's arm and gave him a smile. "We were just glad you were all right. Travis told me that the last shuttlepod couldn't have lifted off if you and Major Hayes had been on there."

"That's why I ordered it to leave," Reed noted. He pressed a button to keep the lift's door from closing. "Major?" he inquired. Hayes still stood outside the packed lift, along with Captain Archer. Commander T'Pol had remained behind, as she had the bridge for the night shift.

"I'll take the next one, Lieutenant," Hayes said. He wouldn't meet Reed's eyes, and Reed immediately lifted his finger from the button. The door slid shut.

"I would not like to have been down there with the two of you," Mayweather commented as the lift whispered on its way. "Plus, you were armed." He gave a mock shudder.

"We were fine," Reed said easily. "See? No broken bones. No black eyes. It was all perfectly civil."

"If you say so." Mayweather responded.

The lift stopped, but when the door opened on B deck, Reed made no move to leave. Every eye in the lift turned toward him. "What?" he asked the group at large. "The captain said to take tomorrow off, but that doesn't mean I can't stop by the armory tonight."

Tucker gave him a wry look and pressed the button to close the door. "I'm not going to argue with you, Malcolm. You probably had plenty of that down there with Major Hayes."

Reed favored him with a glower as the lift began moving. When it stopped on C deck, Mayweather said, "This is me," and stepped out.

"Me too." Sato followed after giving Reed's arm a final squeeze. "Good night. I'm so glad you're back, and safe."

"Good night." Reed gave his colleagues a genuine smile, and then the lift was on its way again. "Heading to engineering?"

"Yeah, got to tuck the engines in for the night," Tucker said. After a beat, he asked, "You don't want to tell me what happened down there? Did you two...you know...talk?"

"You could say that," Reed said cautiously. "You can read my report."

"I will," Tucker assured him. "But the best stuff is never in the report."

"How true," Reed said blandly, earning a grin from Tucker.

The lift door opened, and Tucker got out, only to turn back to glance at Reed, his expression full of concern. "You all right?"

"Nothing has changed," Reed assured the man he considered his best friend, for all that the two had grown apart since Tucker's sister's death in the Xindi attack on Earth. "Hayes thinks I'm soft, but not inept, which as you can imagine is a great comfort to me." When Tucker snorted, Reed admitted, "I still don't trust him with my back. But, we found common ground. Little enough good it did us," he added ruefully.

"He's a good man. A little duty-bound, a little rule-bound, but then again—" Tucker let it hang.

Reed's voice dripped irony. "Ah, we don't get along because we are so alike. Thank you very much."

Tucker shrugged, unapologetic. "Good night, Malcolm. I'm glad you're back safe."

"Thanks, Trip. Good night."

As the lift door slid shut, Reed resisted the urge to watch Tucker walk away. The engineer did like the ladies, and Reed's small advances toward him had been either cheerfully ignored or honestly not perceived as advances. Reed knew he had no hope there, but he found that he minded that less than Hayes knowing about it.

Suddenly restless, he decided he didn't need to check the armory. He punched the button to take him back to B deck and the familiar confines of his cabin. It was exactly as he'd left it: small, cold, and sterile despite the friendly touches he'd attempted, like displays of family photos, his diplomas, and his last few weapons proficiency certificates. The first thing he did was clean up and shave. He wasn't particularly tired; in fact, the day and the night he'd spent in the small room with Hayes had made him restive, for all that he and Hayes had found ways to keep busy. The gym—that was it. He needed to exert himself, to sweat until he was tired instead of anxious.

He pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, then flung a towel around his neck. It was late, and the corridors were quiet as he headed for the lift. Once inside the lift's car, he hesitated only briefly before he directed the lift not to the deck containing the gym, but to the deck where Major Hayes's quarters were. He had never been to Hayes's quarters, but of course he knew exactly where they were. He rang the door's chime without hesitation. Sometimes it was better not to think too much.

It seemed to Reed that the door took too long to open. When it did, Hayes stood there, wearing only pajama bottoms, his face still sporting stubble. He looked tired. He took in Reed in his ratty T-shirt and his too-long shorts. "Lieutenant," he said. His eyes weren't cold but instead appraising.

"I thought I'd go to the gym, but now I find I'm not so keen on the idea," Reed admitted. "Are you alone?"

"Not any more," Hayes said, stepping aside so Reed could brush by him and enter the room. The door slid shut behind him.

"Good," Reed said, reaching for Hayes. The silk of his skin rippled under his hands. Trust was a strange thing, he reflected. "Very good."