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  “Wasn’t thinking anything,” Mike defended.

  O’Malley’s lips tightened. “We’ve got a stretch farther to go. Just stick with us long enough to get into friendly territory.”

  “Right. Because it’s so easy to tell friend from foe around here,” Mike muttered.

  “Hey, hold on—it’s not like that,” Sal said. “We don’t borrow souls, we save them. We saved you from being taken by the Machts.”

  “From where I sit, I don’t see much difference. How do I know I wouldn’t have it better with them?”

  “Oh, you’ll see all right” Sal spat.

  “Drones,” Preach sauntered over. “That’s what we call them—souls borrowed by the Machts—nothing more than drones. When those souls are piped into the bodies they use, the ones died of bio-disease…” Preach shook his head.

  “Come on,” Sal said. “Cap’n’s giving the signal to go. Don’t worry, gunner, you’ll get a chance to see for yourself.”

  Sal slapped his shoulder. “Don’t worry. They’re not gunnin for us. That’s Raptor Division plastering the bejebas outta the Machts. We radioed in our position. A squad’s waiting for us just inside those trees.”

  They ran along a crevice for several more miles, then, on a signal from the captain, scrambled out of the soggy ground to make a frenzied dash across an exposed field for the cover of a breaking line of forest

  “Stay close to me, I’ll lead you straight in.” Sal smiled and a bullet slammed into his back. He fell like a bag of cement.

  “Drones!” O’Malley shouted.

  Bullets buzzed around them like flies. Mike couldn’t see anyone shooting, just the direction the shots came from. Their immediate left. Grabbing up Sal’s gun, he slung the young soldier over his shoulders and sprinted toward the trees.

  “C’mon, c’mon.” Preach ran by his side, firing his weapon backward.

  Mike could see them now, gray-clad soldiers moving fast to intercept them. They weren’t even ducking for cover.

  The squad emptied their ammunition into them, striking them over and over, but none of them went down. What the hell were they?

  Finally someone threw out some kind of a grenade. The air whooshed and erupted in red streaks of lightning and violet flame right on top of a man. His right side and half his head gone, he took a couple of steps before crumbling into the snapping strands of electricity. More lightning grenades were hurled, finding targets, but not near enough.

  Mike strained for the treeline, ran into the forest.

  “Hey, hey, this way! You’re going the wrong way!” O’Malley shouted over the roar.

  Mike veered for him. “What are those things? They don’t die!”

  “Drones!” O’Malley shouted. “They die. Just takes some doing. Here. Put Sal down. Raptors are coming.”

  A squad was racing toward them from deeper in the trees, readying their weapons. O’Malley sprinted off to join them. Relieved, Mike glanced back out toward the charred field. Almost inside the treeline, the captain and his men were still laying down fire. Splinters of bark and leaves danced hypnotically in the air. Farther out, to the left, Mike caught a blur of movement as Rich went down. What was he doing caught off by himself? No one else had seen him.

  Damn! This wasn’t his war! Taking Sal’s weapon, Mike ran out of the trees. Where was the damn trigger? It looked similar enough to a tommygun, but there was no trigger mechanism. Useless.

  He reached Rich in moments. The sharp staccato of firing pulsed. A drone rose above Rich.

  Acting on instinct, Mike pulled back on the sliding undercarriage with the palm of his hand, and the gun vibrated and barked satisfactorily. Blood flowered on gray uniforms like tiny red explosions. He hit them over and over at point blank, yet they came on.

  He grabbed Rich, pulled him up under the arm, still shooting.

  “Behind you,” Rich rasped.

  Mike spun. A drone swung a busted rifle toward his head, gem-bright eyes terrifyingly flat and absent of life. With his own weapon awkward across his chest, Mike dove into him, dropping Rich, and toppled the drone onto his back. The drone grabbed the rifle, trying to wrest it away.

  The hell he would! Ramming his arm forward, Mike smashed the butt into his temple, heard and felt bone crack.

  Might as well have been a love tap for all the damage it did.

  The drone shoved Mike off him, ripping the gun away. More of the drones rushed passed, firing at the soldiers. Mike flew through the air, landed in a stunned heap.

  The drone pulled the gun into position. Mid-step his body jerked back and forth like a pinball stuck between counters. Blood splattered Mike’s face. A nickel-sized hole sprouted in the drone’s forehead and he toppled over.

  “Gotta get ‘em in the head! In the head!” Preach shouted and he and Nial passed them, running back into the drones.

  “Go! Go!” Preach shouted.

  Mike pulled Rich across his shoulders. A sting flicked past his ear. He ran, his vision dimmed by the smoke. His ears rang from the heavy barrage. Bullets buzzed around them. He reached the trees and raced past the captain and his men before he realized half of those bullets were being fired by them. They had all come back to give him cover. Abruptly, O’Malley, the captain, and the others were with him, running back into the trees, slapping low-hanging branches, while gunfire plowed the forest around them.

  Mike felt a shift in himself, recognized it because he’d felt it once before decades ago with different men. Men he’d cherished his entire life with those kinds of emotions that never diminish over time. Seeing those alien soldiers come back for him, firing at the drones, he knew their caliber. He didn’t know them, barely knew a few of their names, but it didn’t matter.

  The Raptors streaked toward them, shouting for them to make it, and as soon as they were past, poured their thundering heavier artillery into the drones. The ground lit up with snaking layers of red lightning.

  Mike staggered to his knees into a press of arms and legs and a dozen hands. Rich was lifted off and one by one the rescue squad stumbled and rolled down beside him.

  Mike shook his head, rolling the back of it on the trampled grass while the sweet sound of the Raptors’s fire slowed to stilted coughs. “This is all real, isn’t it? Has to be. Those things were too hard to kill. I’ve never imagined anything so hard.”

  O’Malley popped his head up. “Hell, you think that’s hard. Back on Earth, I was a woman.”

  Mike stared at O’Malley speechless. And remained quiet as Sal explained everything about this new world, imploring at how much they were needed here.

  But Sabrina. All Matt could think about was Sabrina. He stared at the alien weapon in his hand. Just one shot and he could be with her.

  Apparently Nial noticed where his gaze landed and he stalked off.

  Mike got to his feet. “Tell Nial…hell. Tell him I’m sorry, but I got a wife. She’s waiting…”

  “Yeah, okay. But Mike?” Sal asked, hunched over with pain as O’Malley prodded the wound in his back.

  “Yeah?”

  “How do you know your wife’s there?”

  A great weariness settled over Mike. “She was a good, decent woman. Of course she’s…” A chill prickled his flesh. Sal wasn’t talking about heaven or hell. “How long? How long have the Machts been using the soul-snatchers?”

  Preach stood to join him. “Only five years, but the seasons are different here. Maybe nine, ten years back on earth. Matthews, you okay?”

  Mike heard Preach as though from a vast distance. Nine or ten years? No. Nononono. Lowering his head, he let the weapon drop.

  FISHING

  The old pond didn’t look any different from how he remembered it. Maybe a bit smaller, the vegetation and trees more overgrown. But this. This scrubby little smelly backwater hole in Frankincense, Texas was exactly what he needed.

  Jake hadn’t been back here in ten years, not since he’d turned eighteen a
nd signed up with the navy. Life had been a full-throttled adrenaline rush since: earning his wings, earning his dare-or-die reputation, and breaking hearts up and down every coastline of the good old US of A.

  Yet his own heart had never been broken, and up until this week when he’d started his three week furlough and found his current girlfriend, former Miss Canowick Falls, doing the jungle mamba with some long-haired guitarist on his kitchen counter, it hadn’t bothered him. What did bother him was that he really wasn’t unsettled by it in the least. In fact, was relieved to have an excuse to send former Miss Canowick Falls packing.

  What did that say about him?

  That he didn’t want a relationship? Because he was fairly certain that he did. Marriage, kids, the whole nine. He’d just never been able to see it with the string of groupies that cropped up around the pilot bars.

  So he’d tossed his clothes back in his duffel and driven, concluding somewhere along the highway that what he needed was the calm and relaxation that came from a fishing trip.

  And there was only one pond that would do.

  He couldn’t really say if it was a conscious decision as he passed the worn welcome sign to Frankincense and turned into the first hardware store he came to in search of fishing gear and bait.

  Now he sat in a new camp chair, one leg propped up on a cooler, his cowboy hat perched low, and a shiny new rod secured between a pile of stones he’d pushed together, enjoying the late afternoon breeze and the quiet plop of turtles poking their heads out of the green algae. He wondered if Old Snagglesnout still prowled the pond or if someone had finally caught the ancient catfish while he’d been away. He and his pals had only come close once.

  “Gotta be at least thirty pounds,” Scuff had informed them, his pointed chin lowered between his knobby knees as he concentrated on placing the hot dog just right on the hook. “Today’s the day I’m gonna get him.”

  “Not with that hook.” True eyed Scuff’s handiwork critically, crouched down beside him, several strands of her wild hair unraveling from the loose braid trailing down her bony back. “It will never get through Snaggle’s thick mouth.”

  Scuff huffed. “Like you know anything.”

  True slammed her palms in the dirt and pushed to her feet. “I know I’ll catch Old Snag before you do. It’s so true.”

  So it had gone every summer, his childhood friends quarreling over who was going to catch the monster fish although none of them ever did.

  Scuff came close once with a bigger hook and an epic battle between boy and thrashing fish that ended when Snagglesnout dragged him in and ripped the hook from its mouth so hard it left a mean slice as long and jagged as the Grand Canyon.

  Jake grinned at the memory, thinking he might just give Scuff a call and pull him away from his pawnshop for a few hours. I’d been a couple years. It’d be good to catch up.

  “Um, excuse me.” A feminine voice jolted him out of his reverie. “I’ve been baiting this hole for weeks.”

  Too relaxed to stand, Jake pulled his hat off and tilted his head way back to squint at the incongruous sight. Pinched angry mouth. Mirrored sunglasses reflecting the shine of light on the water. Severe kind of updo pulled back off a pale face. Tight skirt. Shiny blouse. She looked ready to PowerPoint her way through some high-functioning boardroom affair instead of standing here beside his fishing hole, giving him grief about little nets of bread she’d been leaving in the water to get the fish accustomed to feeding where she wanted them to.

  The contrast was so odd that he lowered his head and turned to face her straight on.

  Hands on hips, she frowned at him. Wow. She really was in mousy business attire, from unflattering bun down to her…He grinned. Bare feet with glossy pink painted on her toenails.

  His stomach took a slow little dip. The combination was sexy as sin. He lowered his shades just enough to glance over their frames for a sharper look-see. “Seems you missed the turnoff for the company picnic, missy.”

  The toes of one of those dainty little feet curled into the soft dirt with the woman’s hiss of exasperation. Now this was fun and relaxing.

  She ripped her sunglasses off to glare heatedly down at him. “Now look here, mister. I’ve had a long and arduous day working with a load of jackasses. I’m in no frame of mind to deal with one here. Especially not here. So if you don’t mind…” The stiffness in her shoulders deflated. “There’s another pond half a mile south down the road. It’s even stocked. Please, for the love of…I don’t know, chivalry or something, could you please just take your gear and go?”

  Playing the gentleman card, was she? That was pretty low, although admittedly in any other place or circumstance it would work on him.

  “Sorry, but I believe my claim supersedes yours. This has been my hole since I was a kid, so if you don’t mind…”

  Her nose scrunched, and her head canted to the side as she looked hard at him.

  “Jake?”

  He frowned. Did he know her? He searched his memory, sifting through all the uptight, pinched-lipped, bossy girls and couldn’t place her. Not that he’d made a habit of hanging around the starch-in-their-drawers types.

  “It’s me. Shelly.”

  Shelly? Did he know a…wait. “True?”

  Never in a million years would he have guessed that the adventurous, thrill-seeking kid who could outrun, outspit, and outclimb any of the guys would become the prim pantheon-to-society creature before him in a lackluster business skirt.

  Before he could form a coherent greeting over that shock, she was in front of him, pulling on his arms. Numbly, he let her drag him out of the chair and found himself thoroughly enveloped around the waist in an enthusiastic hug.

  Warmth crested inside his chest, pushing away the surprise, and he had to admit it felt nice. He brought his hands up along her spine and squeezed back, more content than he’d felt in a long time. This. This was what he needed. A simple embrace by someone he’d once known, who accepted him as him, not as the hotshot pilot the base groupies wanted to notch on their headboards. He doubted True even knew what he did for a living.

  “I can’t believe you’re here. What are you doing here?” Her cheek pressed into his sternum while she talked a mile a minute, and Jake found himself quite content to stay right there, was actually disappointed when she pulled back, breaking the embrace, and slipped a flat leather bag like most business types used for their laptops off her shoulder.

  He grinned when she pulled out a second pair of clothes, still rambling on. He wondered if she realized he hadn’t yet answered any one of her questions.

  “I made a beeline to get here as soon as I left the office. Didn’t even stop at the apartment.” Bent way over, she stepped into a pool of cutoffs. Pink toenails disappeared fleetingly. “I’ve had the most horrendous day.” The cutoffs were tugged upward, pushing the hem of the skirt high as they made their journey, revealing silky legs that kept going up, up, up while Jake’s mouth went dry, dry, dry. “My client will just not cooperate for his own sake. I know he’s innocent, but he’s so nasty and hardcore it’s going to take a miracle to get any jury to believe that.” The skirt dropped to her ankles. Stepping out of it, she folded it neatly and exchanged it in her magic briefcase of tricks for a pink T-shirt. “He’s so damn annoying I almost wish he was guilty.” The silk blouse was replaced with the little pink top, though Jake had no idea how that happened. He’d watched the entire time—intently—catching flashes of skin and the cup of a white bra while every single…damn…muscle in his entire frame locked up agonizingly tightly.

  He doubted he could take the strain. He knew his jeans couldn’t.

  “Jake?”

  His eyes snapped up to her face.

  “You all right?”

  No. He most definitely wasn’t. He was lusting after one of the best friends he’d ever had in his life. That was not all right.

  Nodding, he sucked in a breath. Let it out. And True pulled the knot out of her hair and shook it free.
>
  The blood rushed from his head so fast it nearly dumped him on his ass.

  All curves, long legs, and tumbling hair, True could give any calendar babe adorning half the mechanics’ walls from here to New York a run for their money.

  It was time to punch out and pull the chute. The pond down the road was looking like a safer option. “Man, True, it’s really great to see you and all…” She had no idea. “But I got to be heading out.”

  Her forehead crinkled, same as it had years ago, and warmth and nostalgia hit him in the gut. “You sure? It’s not me, is it?”

  Sure as hell it was her. She was just too gorgeous. And warm. And sunny cheerful. And knew him as just Jake, or at least had known him, and he wanted that, wanted that familiarity. And she was his friend.

  Looking at her, he realized he wanted that in his life so damn bad it crashed through his carefully constructed lifestyle with the force of a wrecking ball.

  He’d never find what he wanted within the target-rich environment of the pilot-groupie pool.

  What he needed was standing right here with the letters USA stretching across her pink shirt, and he lacked the training in how to navigate around it.

  Damn. Because, well…damn.

  Fight or flight. He didn’t know what to do.

  True was staring at him in concern.

  He stared back, running through strategies…

  And the line on his rod joggled. Water splashed. Both of their gazes jerked to the pond just as a huge flubbery spine crested the surface. Large.

  “Snagglesnout!” they cried simultaneously, both diving for the pole as it was yanked out of the pile of stones.

  True grabbed it first, sliding on her knees. Jake’s leg collided with her thigh, snagging the very end of the rod.

  Together they pulled back, feeling the resistance of the granddaddy fish.

  “Snag’s still out here?”

  True laughed. “Not much longer.”

  “Let out the line,” he told her.

  “I got it.” She expertly let the reel turn. Thirty pounds of angry fish thrashed beneath the surface, jerking the line.

  “Not too much.”

  “Gah.” A huge tug and True was yanked forward.