It turned him on. Ah, Christ, he was hardening. The tube was starting to pinch. Mike’s voice broke the silence between them with a quiet groan.
“Think of something else, Liam.”
Like maybe baseball scores? Naw, soccer. That last World Cup had cost him a shitload of money. It still pissed him off when he thought about it. Those fucking Belgian players fucking stole the goddamn match!
The pinching sensation lessened.
“Good boy,” Mike murmured.
“Once that’s in place,” Phil droned on, “locate the side straps. They should be on each side of the slip suit. Pull them up and over the hips, then pull them tight…like that. At this point, a soldier’s slip suit is tight against his ass cheeks and his dick is snug in the tube. The only thing left is to ensure the slip suit across the crotch is sealed and secure.”
Mike ran his fingers up Liam’s body from crotch to belly button, causing the suit to close behind his pressing touch.
Lightning streaked through his balls. Omigod…so good…
“It’s as easy as that,” said Phil.
Mike moved his hands away from Liam’s crotch. In fact, he stepped backward. Liam swayed, but caught his balance. Fuck. He gets fondled by Gorgeous and doesn’t even get to blow his wad?
There’s some shit-tastic luck.
“Now get to work on the upper section of the slip suit,” Phil ordered. “Off with your shirts, both of them. The slip suit needs to be in contact with your skin at all times. The hood is pulled up to cover the scalp and neck so only the face is exposed. Your mask protects that area. Oh, and you can turn around Mr. Sinclair. Thank you for volunteering.”
Right. “Volunteering.” That bit of unfunny command humor seemed to span culture and species. Since making eye contact with the dudes who’d watched the first sergeant apply a space diaper was something he’d rather avoid, Liam happily turned his back on his audience.
Mike strode back to his original position, rubbing the knuckles of one hand with the fingers of the other as he did so. Scowling, he took a moment to point at Phil, while holding his fisted hand in front of his chest.
Hopefully that’s another thing that spans cultures, Liam thought. If he’d interpreted the gesture correctly, a promise of a knuckle sandwich had just moved between the two Urilqii.
Phil didn’t appear concerned, however. In fact, a fast grin flicked across his expression, which led Liam to hope he would be there to see delivery of that knuckle sandwich.
Dickhea— He cut off the thought. The last time he’d used that word had resulted in—
Did Mike just wink at him?
CHAPTER 8
All things considered, Liam thought, this flight thing wasn’t so bad. Sure, he’d nearly pissed himself the moment his boots lifted off the ground, but controlled by the training sled that hovered beside them, his squad left behind the comfort of Mother Earth and went airborne. Escalator slow, yeah, which was no doubt deliberate. He was glad as fuck that a cannonball launch into the sky wasn’t his introduction.
He could imagine how that would’ve played out. A gray, uniformed blob, his body curled in a fetal ball, headed across the sky to the accompaniment of his screams. Yeah, that would have been fun.
Not.
The slow passage upward had been okay. Well, as long as Liam didn’t look down. He’d made that mistake a couple of times early on, which had caused his stomach to freeze and flip behind his ribs, dark rings to encroach on his field of vision, and a yellow light to pulse slowly on the bottom left of his helmet display.
Urilqii hovered in the air around them. One in particular hovered nearby in a manner he felt was both watchful and protective. He thought he recognized the markings on the helmet from his first day on base.
Was that Mike?
How high were they? He looked down…and jerked his gaze back to the horizon with a taste of panic in his mouth. The light lit up on his screen again, blinking with the racing tempo of his pounding heart. The maybe-Mike-unit shifted angle and path to move closer.
Why?
Liam had other things to worry about. He gasped and gagged and finally his heart slowed its speeding beat. His nausea receded.
The blipping light went dark. The maybe-Mike eased away, leaving Liam and the rest of his team to the barked commands of their squad leader.
The slow rise stopped. The helmet display reported a height of two miles. ( Miles? Oh, translation protocols. Considerate. ) Below, cars looked like matchboxes, the Columbia River looked like a ribbon of blue, and the trees looked like clumps of green moss.
A bird flew past him, then reversed its trajectory to fly past him again. They exchanged glances as it did. The thing looked startled.
“Yeah, bird, it’s a weird moment for both of us,” he muttered.
It flipped upside down and dove toward the earth. Liam’s stomach roiled.
He jerked his gaze from the ground and studied the white mass on the horizon. Was that Mount Hood or Mount Ranier? Was he looking east or north? Where the hell was he, anyway? Motion on the edge of his vision resolved into the curious bird as it swung around and resumed its original path.
Damned bird made it look so friggin’ easy…
If man was supposed to fly, he’d have had wings at some point in time, right? But he was here and didn’t have much of a choice other than to tough his way through it.
Obedient to the commands that came though the helmet communication, he learned how to “float” in the air (the water beneath him was clear not missing), to experience and understand the world around him from this height (don’t look down, dammit!), and move about in the flight suit. Lights and information blipped and blazed on his mask information data screen. This equipment was easy, as Phil had promised. It was like wearing footy-pajamas on a cold, winter
