Training Day One
Jim and Blair now work for the SGC, training Sentinels who can join SG teams in the field. But Jim and Blair are going to make sure that if they're training Sentinels for the military, they're going to do it their way. This is part of the Shadows universe.
A new potential Sentinel meets the colonel and the doctor, two men who definitely don't fit her concept of covert ops military men.
Rated: Safe
Genre: Slash
Lieutenant Rebecca Sims stood by the windows overlooking Highway 2 which ran just north of Fairchild Air Force Base. She ignored the other four military personnel, and they largely ignored her, but as a woman, she'd largely grown used to that. What she wasn't used to was the wide range of services represented in this one room. She was Navy, a Cryptologic Technician specializing in Middle Eastern languages. But from the looks of things, not only was she the only woman, but she was the only geek and the only Navy officer.
The oldest person, a captain with hair just starting to recede, was regular Army. A young black warrant officer with a strong jaw and huge shoulders was Marines. Another lieutenant with buzz cut red hair and shoulders nearly as wide as the warrant officer's was Air Force. The last man was chatting with the Air Force lieutenant, and while he didn't wear anything indicating rank, he had a Ranger's patch and weathered skin, and Rebecca was willing to bet he had climbed pretty high in rank.
The door came open, and a man in a Ranger's dress uniform with colonel's insignia walked in. Every person in the room snapped to attention and offered a salute. He quickly returned it, and gave them all an appraising look. Hopefully he knew what was going on, because in normal military fashion, Rebecca had been ordered here without even an explanation as to why. Her commander asked her if she wanted to volunteer, mentioned potential combat time, and refused to give her anything more specific than that.
"Welcome to Washington. I hope you're enjoying our rain. I'm Colonel Ellison, and this is Dr. Sandburg."
"Hey," a second man offered with a wave as he walked into the room. Suddenly Rebecca didn't feel like the odd man out, irony intended. The doctor had long curls pulled back into a ponytail and an earring that shone when he turned his head. Around his neck was a rawhide necklace with a bright blue bead, and he looked around all curious smiles and a slight bounce. Colonel Ellison fit her impression of a military man with his sharp uniform and stoic expression, but this Dr. Sandburg was the unknown. And Rebecca always did like puzzles.
"Why don't we all take our seats so we can begin the briefing," Colonel Ellison suggested as he walked to the far end of the room to command the chair at the head of the table. Dr. Sandburg took the chair to his right. The captain and the Ranger claimed the seats opposite of Dr. Sandburg, and Rebecca quickly moved to sit next to the unusual man before the other lieutenant could claim that seat. The warrant officer took his seat last, sitting next to the Ranger, and all faces turned to Colonel Ellison expectantly.
"Your commanders recommended you for this program based not only on outstanding performance in your duties but because of a genetic predisposition each of you has that could prove very beneficial in covert ops."
Rebecca did a quick scan on the room, immediately surprised and wary. The military might have all the equal rights banners out, but women were not ever welcome in covert ops. Ever. That was one gender barrier that they just did not break, but Colonel Ellison certainly didn't seem particularly distressed that she'd been included in the briefing.
"Before you can be briefed, you need to make an educated decision, so we're going to handle this in stages since this is strictly a need to know program. First, you are all being offered a chance to work covert ops in some of the most dangerous territory the U.S. military works in. If you are not willing to take a much higher level of risk than the standard soldier, you should excuse yourself. In addition, the training being offered would, in essence, prevent you from ever exceeding the rank of captain." The colonel stopped and looked around the room.
"Sir," the Ranger said and Colonel Ellison tilted a head in his direction. "Sir, excuse me, but how can advanced training preclude us from promotions?"
"Simple. You will be trained to work some of the most difficult... equipment available in the world." Rebecca frowned at that small hesitation. What equipment was Colonel Ellison talking about? Colonel Ellison, however, wasn't elaborating on that. "You will need all of your attention for your task, which means that you will be unable to take the wider view of a mission required by a command officer."
"Sir." This time the captain spoke, and once the colonel focused on him, he asked, "If we complete the training, how likely are we to be given transfers out of the program?"
Colonel Ellison's expression tightened, but it was Dr. Sandburg that really commanded everyone's attention. He not only snorted, but completed a very complex eye roll that pretty much told everyone that this was not a simple case of transferring units. Colonel Ellison looked down at the doctor for a moment, and Rebecca prepared to see the young man chewed out. Instead the colonel shook his head and gave an abortive eye roll of his own as though exasperated by his colleague but clearly unwilling to address the situation.
"Soldier," Colonel Ellison said seriously as he returned his attention to the captain, "this training will effectively change the rest of your life. There are some things which cannot be unlearned. If you wish to have your own command or if you are not comfortable with behind the lines deployment, you should excuse yourself from this briefing before you hear anything more."
The room was silent for a moment. "No repercussion and no judgment, gentlemen." The colonel glanced at her, "And lady of course. The military wants only people who can give their careers to something that will place them in a subordinate position within any command structure." Colonel Ellison slowly sat as he just waited.
"Sir, request permission to leave, sir," the Ranger asked first.
"Excused," the colonel said without censure. The man stood, saluted and left. Colonel Ellison turned to focus on the Army captain, but the man didn't move.
"It would mean an end to any thoughts of your own unit," Colonel Ellison said softly. When the two had first walked in, Rebecca thought the doctor was the odd one, but now the colonel seemed to be quickly putting himself in the odd category with the long-haired doctor. Commanders often showed a softer side of command with their own unit, but for this colonel to show so much concern for men who were largely unknowns... it didn't fit with her concept of military discipline.
"I understand, sir," the captain offered without any other comment. The colonel nodded.
"Then I'll turn this over to Dr. Sandburg." Colonel Ellison physically rolled his chair to the side and all eyes turned to the young man who just about jumped to his feet as he put a briefcase on the table.
"Okay, this is the first time for this particular presentation, so excuse me if I do some rambling," the man said with a brilliant smile, and Rebecca found herself smiling back instinctively. His grin widened even more. "Oh man, I thought Jim's little speech was going to send all of you out of the room which would have been a total letdown and a waste of a whole lot of adrenaline, you know?" he asked the room.
Rebecca could only see the captain and Colonel Ellison from where she sat. Colonel Ellison had an almost fond look on his face and the captain had no expression at all. Whatever this guy did, he had to be good because this type of ebullience was not well-tolerated by military types. Of course, Rebecca actually appreciated a briefing that wasn't either dry or punctuated with crude jokes.
"I've been told to get to the point first, so you're all potential Sentinels."
Rebecca didn't know the word, and as she risked turning around to glance at all the others, it was clear they didn't either.
"Which means nothing to you. Okay, let's back up a little," Dr. Sandburg started again. This time Colonel Ellison actually had a small smile on his face. "Sentinels are individuals with heightened senses. They're able to conduct surveillance that would require about a hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment for a normal person to duplicate. And if I'm walking around with that much equipment hanging on me, not only am I going to be tired, but I'm going to stick out like a sore thumb." Dr. Sandburg stuck his thumb out as a visual aide. "But Sentinels or Guardians or Watchmen have been a part of the human experience for thousands of years. They serve today in units focusing on search and rescue and intelligence gathering, but ancient tribes relied on Sentinels to track changes in the weather and follow game."
"Oh man, those are the disbelieving faces," Dr. Sandburg said with a sort of grimace that made Rebecca wanted to reassure him that she believed him... even if he sounded rather unbelievable. Even more unbelievable was the idea that the Navy would allow her to work behind enemy lines, but if she had a chance to work a combat unit, she'd call herself a Sentinel or a blue-bellied sap sucker.
"Dr. Sandburg is telling the absolute truth, but he is focusing on the more useful aspects of Sentinel life," Colonel Ellison offered without moving from his position well to the side. Rebecca fancied herself an expert not only on written and spoken languages but on body language as well, and the colonel was breaking about every rule she'd come to expect from officers. Instead of competing with the doctor for position in the group, he seemed to be yielding his authority, staying to the side.
"And this is where you try to scare the rest out of the room, isn't it?" Dr. Sandburg asked as he looked at the colonel with a sort of resigned sadness.
"The senses that Dr. Sandburg described-the doctors know how to activate them and bring you online, but no one can take you off-line. So, you'll have your senses as you walk through a village trying to identify which hut a hostage is being held in. But you'll also have to deal with being able to smell everything a person had for dinner. You'll have to be careful of what detergent you use on your clothes because the same tactile sense that you can use to determine which wires carry current will also make you scratch yourself raw if you have too many chemicals near your skin. Loud, unexpected sounds will drop you about as fast as a bullet. This is not about having superpowers but about having a very particular skill that can either help or hinder you depending on how well you learn to control it." Colonel Ellison leaned forward, and suddenly Rebecca found herself believing everything he said.
"Sir," the warrant officer said slowly. "Sir, if a loud sound can drop us, what good are we on a front line unit?"
"A fighting battalion, very little," the colonel immediately answered. "But as reconnaissance, you can walk through an area and determine the location of every single individual. You can identify targets from long distances and pinpoint the locations of friendlies. You can listen to a conversation a half-mile away while looking like you're just leaning back enjoying a sunny day. You can track enemy scouts and birddog for heavy artillery, all without revealing your identity by carrying bulky surveillance equipment. A Sentinel works behind enemy lines. But he also has a back up team, including a partner who must stay with him both in the field and at home."
"At home?" the warrant officer blurted. "Sir," he quickly added, his dark skin blushing darker.
"At home." Dr. Sandburg was the one who answered this time. "Your partner is there to make sure that if the senses go haywire, someone can talk you back. And Sentinels weren't designed for the modern world, so some idiot setting off an air horn is just as much of a danger as a sniper. So, your partner has to be close all the time. I mean, you're not joined at the hip, but your partner should never be more than a half hour or hour away, and living together is a must. And medical power of attorney… your partner has to have medical power of attorney because doctors just do not get it."
"Sirs," Rebecca said, waiting until the colonel looked at her and the doctor gave her a huge smile. "How will our partners be assigned?"
Rebecca put up with a lot for the military, but if she had to have some pig-headed sexist in her house, someone was getting shot, and it wasn't going to be her. Most of the people she served with were honorable, good people, but she couldn't say they all were, and some she wouldn't let in her house if they offered her any job she wanted. And truth be told, these two were offering her exactly the job she wanted. She could work covert ops, work in combat areas, and use her language skills in the field. Even now she could imagine herself under a burkha walking the markets of Kerman and collecting intel directly from the source instead of getting reports dropped on her desk.
The colonel looked at the doctor, clearly deferring to him. "No problem. Man, partners are not assigned. You'll have a chance to work with a lot of people with the right clearance, and whoever you want to work with is fine with the military."
That had everyone trading uneasy looks. The military just didn't work that way.
The colonel cleared his throat, and all eyes were on him again. "Being a Sentinel means that the military is going to make a lot of concessions to your unique talents and... difficulties. You may not think it's a big deal now, but once your sense of smell comes online, you will find that some people smell good and others just don't. A partner who is constantly aggravating you by smelling unpleasant is not going to work. The same is true for a partner whose voice has an unpleasant pitch that you and no one else can hear.
"So, the military knows that you and only you can choose a partner who is compatible with your heightened senses. However, the military does insist that you live with your partner and that the person has correct clearances." Colonel Ellison's voice went from conciliatory to firm on the last point. "All of you were chosen because as far as your superiors know, you don't have a significant other. If you are not willing to deal with the potential lifelong consequences of having heightened senses or if you have someone at home with whom you already have a commitment, you need to leave now." Colonel Ellison looked around several times before his eyes drifted to the Air Force lieutenant sitting next to Rebecca.
Turning in her chair, she looked at the other lieutenant, and the man was sitting stiffly. He turned to the colonel. "Sir, permission to leave?"
"Granted," Colonel Ellison answered. With a salute, he was gone and the group was down to three. Colonel Ellison looked around the room and gave them a smile for the first time. "I think it's time for introductions," he suggested and he looked right at Rebecca. It took her a second to answer the unasked question.
"Lieutenant Rebecca Sims, Navy Cryptologic Technician specializing in Arabic languages."
The colonel's eyes slid to the next man, and he sat up a little straighter. "Warrant Officer Jacob Freeman, Marines."
"Captain John Churchly, Army, instructor at the Joint Readiness Training Center."
"Nice to meet you all," the colonel said. "And now I'm going to ask you to do something truly difficult." The man looked around the room, and Rebecca braced herself to handle whatever challenge he was about to put in their way. "We need to forget rank. In fact, tomorrow, for day two of this training, I'm going to ask you to wear civilian clothes."
Rebecca found herself looking at the captain as the second ranking officer in the room, and he had a slightly confused expression on his face, but before he could ask a question, the doctor had jumped in there.
"Man, the whole command structure thing is... like whoa. You guys even used rank to decide who sat where, without ever saying a word, which is a fascinating study in proxemics, but so not healthy for what we're trying to do here. When you're dealing with the senses, you have got to speak up and describe what's going on. This week is going to be all about trying to impress the hell out of you with what a real live Sentinel can do and then get you ready for becoming Sentinels yourself. But if you don't feel free to speak up the second something feels wrong, we could end up doing some serious damage."
Rebecca looked at the colonel to see how seriously he was taking this. He looked pretty serious.
"Oh man, that's exactly what I mean," Dr. Sandburg exclaimed and Rebecca found herself with a doctor about six inches from her, his hands going. "You so have something rattling around, but no way will you ask with a colonel and a captain sitting there, but everyone's in the same boat here. A Sentinel is a Sentinel is a Sentinel. Just ask."
"Sir..." Rebecca started.
"Blair."
"Sir?"
"My name, it's Blair," the doctor repeated, and Rebecca glanced over at Colonel Ellison. "I don't think Jim's going to contradict me about my own name. So, do you go by Rebecca or Becca? Becky?"
"Rebecca," she quickly said, just as a form of self defense to keep from ever being called Becky.
"Okay, Rebecca," Dr. Sandburg said with a smile, "what are you thinking?"
Rebecca glanced over at Colonel Ellison, and this time the man wasn't even trying to hide a smile. Okay, if he wanted the truth, she could give it to him. "Sir, it seems foolish to ignore rank. Rank indicates who has the most experience and whose judgments are most likely to be accurate in the field."
"A real opinion and inside the first hour, you so owe me twenty bucks," the doctor said triumphantly as he turned to look at the colonel.
"I'll take it off your back rent, Chief."
"Asshole."
Warrant Officer Jacob Freeman, Marines, choked as the water he was drinking obviously went down the wrong pipe at exactly the same moment.
"Think about it," Dr. Sandburg started again, not even acknowledging the shock in his audience. "If you're the Sentinel and you tell Colonel Ellison here that you heard two men a mile away, what's he going to say? No you didn't? Rank has nothing to do with the senses. And with your partner rank can be a disaster. I mean, if your partner happens to outrank you, that doesn't mean he's right about what's going on with you and your senses and your instincts. And as a Sentinel, there will be times that you are way too close to something, and if you have the higher rank, that doesn't mean you get to ignore your partner. Bad things happen when Sentinels ignore their partners."
Dr. Sandburg turned and pinned Colonel Ellison with a look that pretty much said it all, including that the colonel was a Sentinel. Rebecca leaned forward and studied the man.
"Yes, I am a Sentinel, and Blair is my partner. I'm also a colonel in the Rangers, and I'm telling you right now that rank does not matter among Sentinels or between a Sentinel and a partner. On a team, I report my information and take my objectives from whomever has rank, but if the ranking officer does not understand some limitation on my ability, either myself or Sandburg need to inform him. As a Sentinel, I sometimes make a mistake because I'm too close to the matter, and I need Blair to tell me that, and the fact that I'm a colonel can't matter. And between us-" Ellison looked up at the doctor and smiled. "I'm not sure it would matter if I were the president. He would still be just as mouthy."
Captain Churchly was leaning forward, his eyes going from Ellison to Sandburg and back. "The partners, they may not be military?"
"They could be," Dr. Sandburg... Blair... jumped in. "You're going to work with a lot of people after your senses come online this week, assuming that they do come online after the sensory deprivation tanks and survival training. Every once in a while the senses just," he made a strange face and gestured, "just aren't there. But assuming everyone comes online, you'll have a chance to work with military people and civilians with military clearance, with soldiers and linguists and anthropologists and engineers. Whoever works for you, just go with it." The man dropped back into his seat and actually pulled his legs up under him.
"Whoever?" the captain asked as he looked from the doctor to the colonel. Rebecca frowned as she tried to understand the sudden undercurrent. The colonel crossed his arms and gave the captain a look that just dared him to say anything more. The doctor gave another snort/eyeroll.
"The testosterone is threatening to poison the rest of us," Blair commented. "And to answer the question you're not asking, sex is sometimes a part of the partnership. You can totally work together and your partner can help you control the senses without sex, but Sentinels have heightened senses, including a heightened awareness of pheromones. If a Sentinel has a regular sexual relationship with his partner, that pheromone awareness, over time, becomes focused on the partner. If there's no sexual relationship, then the Sentinel's judgment can be impaired if you have an enemy with red hair and long legs up to here and huge," Sandburg made motions like he was holding enormous breasts, all the time giving the colonel a meaningful look, and truly, Rebecca didn't need to know that much about Colonel Ellison's taste in women.
Colonel Ellison raised an eyebrow. "But once you start having regular sex with your partner, then leggy women are not an issue," he pointed out dryly. "And when the relationship has continued long enough for other people's pheromones to not affect your senses, then the military refers to that as being a bonded pair. You hear people call the partner Guides as well, and for some branches that's a euphemism for a sexual partner."
"Sirs, you're together?" Warrant Officer Freeman asked in a shocked voice.
"Blair is my bonded Guide," the colonel said with another withering look, and this was the military Rebecca knew. Here was an officer with an expression that just dared anyone to disagree with his command. The quiet colonel who deferred to his partner vanished under someone who Rebecca could very well believe had a number of years working covert ops. Only....
"Sir?" That cold stare transferred to her, and Rebecca felt a nagging urge to salute. "Does that mean that Dr. San... Blair has served on front lines?"
The ice melted from the colonel's expression as he glanced over at his partner and pursed his lips. "Oh yes. Blair's a lot tougher than you give him credit for. And his training as an anthropologist allows him to make observations from a different perspective."
"An anthropologist behind enemy lines?" Captain Churchly narrowed his eyes, and Rebecca could almost read the disapproval in his face.
"Captain," Colonel Ellison said, his voice ice again, "as the Sentinel, it is my job to protect Sandburg and to save him when the situation warrants."
"And man, I get kidnapped way more because of my own stupidity than I ever have because of Jim's work."
"I'm not so sure that's true, Chief," the colonel said, and now Rebecca could see it, she could see the affection, and given that most military men in uniform would cut off their own cocks before showing anything other than manly affection complete with arm slapping and belching, it was no wonder Rebecca had missed this before. Oh, military men were way closer than they ever admitted, but it wasn't this sort of affectionate closeness.
"I couldn't... I don't..." Warrant Officer Freeman had turned a nice shade of gray.
"Then don't," Blair quickly said with a snort. "Come on, who you pick, who you're attracted to and who's attracted to you is totally up to you. We are so not the NID wanting to order you into bed with someone based on files."
Rebecca sat up straight at that little dropped bombshell, and Captain Churchly seemed even more disturbed as he half pushed himself out of his chair.
"Chief," the colonel warned with some heat in his voice. "I promise you, that is not an option," Colonel Ellison said firmly to the group. "When I partnered with Blair, I was not aware of any potential for a sexual relationship. I had actually left the military and because I attempted to hide what I saw as a tactical weakness, the military never briefed me on the logistics of being a Sentinel. Blair and I worked well together, and the sexual relationship developed naturally after years. However, this program through the Air Force is based on full disclosure. You do not have to have a sexual relationship with your partner. If you don't, you will be considered at risk by enemy combatants who can distract you with pheromones. No one will ever order you to complete a bond or engage in any activities which you find offensive."
"But other services do ask that of their Sentinels," Captain Churchly finished for the colonel. Rebecca could feel a cold draft at the thought of someone dropping her file into the hands of some secret agency and being told who to sleep with, who to bond to. Even without fully understanding the dynamics, the very word bond implied a connection that made Rebecca nervous.
Ellison sighed. "We will not be sharing confidential information," Ellison stopped long enough to glare at Blair who didn't even bother looking sorry, "however, we will not in any way lie or omit information."
"So, if we leave here, are other agencies interested in recruiting us as Sentinels?" Captain Churchly settled back down into his chair, but Rebecca could read the tension in his body. Hell, she felt it in her own. Her skin crawled like someone was running cold fingers down her back.
"No way," Blair quickly assured him. "I mean, idiots do not have good luck with Sentinels."
"Chief," Ellison warned.
"Hey!" Blair held up both hands as though in surrender, but he kept right on talking. "I'm so not disclosing anything confidential. Simple fact... Sentinels are men and women with a high drive to protect others, and when they get screwed and are ordered to screw others, and I mean that both literally and metaphorically, their protective instincts do not respond well."
"Instincts?" Rebecca repeated the word. It was an unusual word for a military man to use, not that Blair was much of a military man. Her gut tightened at the word because it didn't have particularly positive connotations in many of the languages she spent her time thinking in.
Blair nodded. "Totally. Sentinels are driven by instinct to protect the tribe."
Ellison's hand fell on the doctor's shoulder as he stood, and Blair fell silent. "Each of you has felt an almost insane frustration at being held back from the front," Ellison said quietly. "You watch other people go out to fight and it nearly kills you. You might even go home and drink or engage in conduct unbecoming an officer to try and deal with that frustration. So, when someone offered you a chance at frontline work, not even knowing what offer was on the table, you left everything to come here."
Ellison's voice was low and absolutely certain. And in Rebecca's case, he was absolutely right. She nodded. "I write intelligence reports and I know that if I were in the field instead of sending others out to gather intelligence, I could do my job better. I hate that I am left behind," Rebecca said softly.
Freeman spoke next. "I go out, but I'm always in the rear, part of the technical support. I'm so close I can hear the bombs, but the only action I ever saw was diving for cover from an incoming bomb. My CO... he was close to sending me home on a general unfit for duty bill."
"At least you're there. I'm stuck stateside training boys young enough to be my sons." Captain Churchly gave a crooked smile and the man had a real charm to him when he smiled. "Well, they could be my sons if I had started a lot earlier than I did, anyway."
Blair was almost bouncing in his seat. "You're Sentinels. I mean, yeah, the senses aren't online yet, which means you don't yet need a partner to help you keep your balance in the field, but you're still Sentinels. You want to be out there doing the protect and serve thing, and the fact that the military isn't allowing you to fully follow that programmed directive, it's frustrating the hell out of all of you."
"So, do all Sentinels want to protect?" Rebecca asked, completely ignoring the protocol of a meeting, but if these two wanted to throw rank and protocol out the window, she was more than happy to follow their lead.
Blair and Ellison traded a pained look, and Blair suddenly looked down at the table top. Inching closer, Ellison actually leaned his leg into Blair's side, and the hand on Blair's shoulder slid over to the far shoulder so that Ellison was fully leaning into him. It was Ellison who answered. "Mothers have a strong instinct to care for their children. It's part of their genetic makeup, but that doesn't mean that there aren't mothers who disregard that need, who ignore that maternal drive."
"Sir?" Freeman asked, and he waited until Ellison's attention was on him. Freeman fidgeted a bit. "Sir, a military unit functions under rules, even if Sentinels are given a pass, so how can you function within a unit when the others know you're..." Freeman looked helplessly from Ellison to Blair. As a linguist, Rebecca knew exactly what Freeman was thinking. In his brain, two men only fucked, so the word 'fucking' should go in that slot. But looking at the affection and mutual emotional support each man had offered, 'fucking' didn't work. But Freeman was so caught up in his own linguist assumptions that he couldn't find a substitute.
She took mercy on him and finished his sentence for him. "Does it create a problem that you're mutually committed and sexually intimate given that other members of the unit are prohibited from serving with a significant other?" she asked. Blair gave her a bright smile, but then she wasn't surprised that another academic would understand what she had done and why Freeman was having difficulties even asking the question.
"The other members of the unit have seen me zone," Ellison said dryly. Rebecca noticed she wasn't the only one at the table clearly confused by that term.
Blair jumped in. "Zoning happens when you're totally focused on just one sense. The sense becomes so overwhelming, so fascinating that you just sort of slide into it without noticing."
"I once zoned on the image of sunlight filtering through a red Frisbee, on the way the light created a halo that contrasted against the blue sky. It was beautiful," Ellison said, but where Rebecca expected a reverent voice, the colonel sounded disgusted with himself.
Blair gave a huff of laughter. "Yep, it was beautiful until the garbage truck tried to squash him and I had to knock him to the ground so the thing drove right over us. I thought I was going to have a heart attack."
"But that's what the Guide is there for," Ellison said as he ruffled Blair's hair. "But to answer your question, you unit is going to see how difficult it can be to control your senses, especially when you're using them in a combat situation and the unknown is always there ready to ambush you. You can't prepare to see something totally unexpected. They'll see how your partner's touch will bring you out of a zone or soothe you when a sense spikes and you're in incredible pain from having too much sensory input at once. Some of the men will see you touching and assume that it's just a Sentinel thing, and other will assume you're having sex, whether you are or not. If the men do cause trouble, they will be transferred away because a Sentinel in the field is too valuable to lose over some misplaced anger."
"We'll be in the action?" Captain Churchly asked.
"Captain," Colonel Ellison said with humor in his voice, "you will have more action than you know what to do with. Sentinels are most useful when deep in hostile country where surveillance equipment would turn a standard soldier into a target. And Sentinels who can learn to control their instinctive need to take out a threat immediately… the ones who can learn to control their impulse and make careful decisions… they will sometimes be asked to do wetwork."
Blair frowned at that, and Rebecca realized that the anthropologist didn't like that side of the job. She wasn't particularly interested in assassinations herself, but there were enemies that if ordered, she would take out. It didn't bother her the way it seemed to bother Blair.
"And Dr. Sandburg goes, even on those missions?" Captain Churchly leaned forward with a concerned expression.
"Dr. Sandburg goes with me on all missions, but the only time I've specifically been asked to target someone for elimination, I only identified the individuals. My team did the actual take down. And Blair agreed with the necessity of the mission, otherwise I would have refused outright. That's why rank is not as important with a Sentinel. The Guide has to come first. I've been in situations where I had to put the mission first, ironically most when I was a civilian police officer, and it's not an easy situation. The internal conflict and the stress meant I did not operate at peak efficiency. That's why if you have a conflict with an order, you have to refuse it. Your senses make you more vulnerable to failure if you're trying to fight either your instincts or your Guide."
Rebecca considered that simple statement. Ellison was military. Yet he would disregard orders and rank for his Guide, which suggested something fairly deep ran there. The use of the word guide was odd as well. If Ellison was the one with the heightened senses, then he would be literally guiding them through enemy territory, which led her to wonder when Dr. Sandburg guided the pair. And who chose the word Guide?
"So, I'll either have to open up my sexual boundaries or take a woman into combat," Captain Churchly said slowly and thoughtfully. "No offense, lieutenant," he tacked onto the end with a nod in her direction. Rebecca ignored the condescending nature of his comment and thought about what it would mean to take a civilian into enemy territory. To hell with having 'the little woman' in combat, Rebecca was concerned about any civilian in the middle of enemy territory. Part of her job was translating, but that meant culturally as well as linguistically, so she knew exactly what some enemies were capable of.
Churchly gave another of his half smiles. "I think I may consider changing my sexual preference."
Rebecca looked over and where Captain Churchly looked strangely at ease with a mid-life change of sexual identify, Freeman still looked seriously gray. Dr. Sandburg must have noticed as well.
"Hey, no pressure. You pick who you pick, and there are lots of women to pick from," he offered helpfully.
But Freeman was already shaking his head. "No, sir. No, you're giving me a choice of going into combat with a woman I love or doing something I just can't do with a man. Sir, that is not a choice that as a soldier I should be asked to make."
"Dismissed, soldier," Ellison said firmly but calmly as he sat next to Blair. For a second, Freeman just sat there as if not quite processing the words. Then he stood and offered Colonel Ellison a stiff salute. The colonel returned it and Freeman turned and left.
"And then there were two," Blair said softly. "Man, I told them that if they wanted five Sentinels they needed to give me a minimum of ten candidates, but did anyone listen to me? Nooooo. I'm just the anthropologist… I'm just the one who knows what he's fucking doing," Blair said sarcastically. Ellison reached over and rested his hand on Blair's forearm.
"They'll figure out that you're always right sooner or later, Chief. Meanwhile, I think we have two Sentinels to impress with a few demonstrations." Ellison looked first at the captain and then at her. "And after today, I will not be demonstrating anything for you two. You two, however…" and Ellison got a not-nice smile on his face, the kind that Rebecca's brother used to get on his face about two seconds before dropping a frog in her bed. "You two are going to be doing a whole lot of demonstrating and testing and proving you have a baseline of control before we turn you over to General Hammond for part two of your training."
"Another Sentinel?" Churchly asked.
Ellison's not-nice smile grew even bigger. "Oh no. No, there are even bigger surprises than you know waiting for you down this path."
"Oh man, we still have two left. Knock it off before I don't have any Sentinels to work with at all," Blair said with some despair. From the look Ellison gave him, Ellison wouldn't mind that at all.
"I thought we were fully sharing information," Rebecca asked suspiciously. The words were out before she edited herself, and the second they were, she was furious with herself for questioning a superior officer, but Ellison just gave her a friendly smile.
"Those are not our secrets to share. He'll be briefing you on a possible combat position; however, if you find you cannot deal with his secrets, there are plenty of commanders in other arenas who will happily have you in a more traditional command," Ellison offered with a shrug. Rebecca narrowed her eyes and considered these two. She had good instincts, she always had, and something was just screaming that these two hadn't even shared the good secrets yet.
"One secret at a time, man. Otherwise, the brain is in serious danger of exploding. Scrambled brains everywhere. So not pretty." Blair was bouncing, literally. His ponytail bobbed as he practically vibrated in his seat. "Meanwhile, if you are still up for finding out what a Sentinel can do, follow us," he said as he got up and headed for the door, Colonel Ellison one step behind.
Giving Churchly a half second head start, Rebecca followed.
When she'd joined the military, her parents hadn't been thrilled, but it felt right. Today, Rebecca felt more right than she had on any day since she'd stood in the recruiter's office signing the final papers. Whatever secrets were coming, she'd deal. And if she got to have a friendship… a relationship… like the one Ellison and Blair shared, well that would just be one hell of a bonus.
A new potential Sentinel meets the colonel and the doctor, two men who definitely don't fit her concept of covert ops military men.
Rated: Safe
Genre: Slash
Lieutenant Rebecca Sims stood by the windows overlooking Highway 2 which ran just north of Fairchild Air Force Base. She ignored the other four military personnel, and they largely ignored her, but as a woman, she'd largely grown used to that. What she wasn't used to was the wide range of services represented in this one room. She was Navy, a Cryptologic Technician specializing in Middle Eastern languages. But from the looks of things, not only was she the only woman, but she was the only geek and the only Navy officer.
The oldest person, a captain with hair just starting to recede, was regular Army. A young black warrant officer with a strong jaw and huge shoulders was Marines. Another lieutenant with buzz cut red hair and shoulders nearly as wide as the warrant officer's was Air Force. The last man was chatting with the Air Force lieutenant, and while he didn't wear anything indicating rank, he had a Ranger's patch and weathered skin, and Rebecca was willing to bet he had climbed pretty high in rank.
The door came open, and a man in a Ranger's dress uniform with colonel's insignia walked in. Every person in the room snapped to attention and offered a salute. He quickly returned it, and gave them all an appraising look. Hopefully he knew what was going on, because in normal military fashion, Rebecca had been ordered here without even an explanation as to why. Her commander asked her if she wanted to volunteer, mentioned potential combat time, and refused to give her anything more specific than that.
"Welcome to Washington. I hope you're enjoying our rain. I'm Colonel Ellison, and this is Dr. Sandburg."
"Hey," a second man offered with a wave as he walked into the room. Suddenly Rebecca didn't feel like the odd man out, irony intended. The doctor had long curls pulled back into a ponytail and an earring that shone when he turned his head. Around his neck was a rawhide necklace with a bright blue bead, and he looked around all curious smiles and a slight bounce. Colonel Ellison fit her impression of a military man with his sharp uniform and stoic expression, but this Dr. Sandburg was the unknown. And Rebecca always did like puzzles.
"Why don't we all take our seats so we can begin the briefing," Colonel Ellison suggested as he walked to the far end of the room to command the chair at the head of the table. Dr. Sandburg took the chair to his right. The captain and the Ranger claimed the seats opposite of Dr. Sandburg, and Rebecca quickly moved to sit next to the unusual man before the other lieutenant could claim that seat. The warrant officer took his seat last, sitting next to the Ranger, and all faces turned to Colonel Ellison expectantly.
"Your commanders recommended you for this program based not only on outstanding performance in your duties but because of a genetic predisposition each of you has that could prove very beneficial in covert ops."
Rebecca did a quick scan on the room, immediately surprised and wary. The military might have all the equal rights banners out, but women were not ever welcome in covert ops. Ever. That was one gender barrier that they just did not break, but Colonel Ellison certainly didn't seem particularly distressed that she'd been included in the briefing.
"Before you can be briefed, you need to make an educated decision, so we're going to handle this in stages since this is strictly a need to know program. First, you are all being offered a chance to work covert ops in some of the most dangerous territory the U.S. military works in. If you are not willing to take a much higher level of risk than the standard soldier, you should excuse yourself. In addition, the training being offered would, in essence, prevent you from ever exceeding the rank of captain." The colonel stopped and looked around the room.
"Sir," the Ranger said and Colonel Ellison tilted a head in his direction. "Sir, excuse me, but how can advanced training preclude us from promotions?"
"Simple. You will be trained to work some of the most difficult... equipment available in the world." Rebecca frowned at that small hesitation. What equipment was Colonel Ellison talking about? Colonel Ellison, however, wasn't elaborating on that. "You will need all of your attention for your task, which means that you will be unable to take the wider view of a mission required by a command officer."
"Sir." This time the captain spoke, and once the colonel focused on him, he asked, "If we complete the training, how likely are we to be given transfers out of the program?"
Colonel Ellison's expression tightened, but it was Dr. Sandburg that really commanded everyone's attention. He not only snorted, but completed a very complex eye roll that pretty much told everyone that this was not a simple case of transferring units. Colonel Ellison looked down at the doctor for a moment, and Rebecca prepared to see the young man chewed out. Instead the colonel shook his head and gave an abortive eye roll of his own as though exasperated by his colleague but clearly unwilling to address the situation.
"Soldier," Colonel Ellison said seriously as he returned his attention to the captain, "this training will effectively change the rest of your life. There are some things which cannot be unlearned. If you wish to have your own command or if you are not comfortable with behind the lines deployment, you should excuse yourself from this briefing before you hear anything more."
The room was silent for a moment. "No repercussion and no judgment, gentlemen." The colonel glanced at her, "And lady of course. The military wants only people who can give their careers to something that will place them in a subordinate position within any command structure." Colonel Ellison slowly sat as he just waited.
"Sir, request permission to leave, sir," the Ranger asked first.
"Excused," the colonel said without censure. The man stood, saluted and left. Colonel Ellison turned to focus on the Army captain, but the man didn't move.
"It would mean an end to any thoughts of your own unit," Colonel Ellison said softly. When the two had first walked in, Rebecca thought the doctor was the odd one, but now the colonel seemed to be quickly putting himself in the odd category with the long-haired doctor. Commanders often showed a softer side of command with their own unit, but for this colonel to show so much concern for men who were largely unknowns... it didn't fit with her concept of military discipline.
"I understand, sir," the captain offered without any other comment. The colonel nodded.
"Then I'll turn this over to Dr. Sandburg." Colonel Ellison physically rolled his chair to the side and all eyes turned to the young man who just about jumped to his feet as he put a briefcase on the table.
"Okay, this is the first time for this particular presentation, so excuse me if I do some rambling," the man said with a brilliant smile, and Rebecca found herself smiling back instinctively. His grin widened even more. "Oh man, I thought Jim's little speech was going to send all of you out of the room which would have been a total letdown and a waste of a whole lot of adrenaline, you know?" he asked the room.
Rebecca could only see the captain and Colonel Ellison from where she sat. Colonel Ellison had an almost fond look on his face and the captain had no expression at all. Whatever this guy did, he had to be good because this type of ebullience was not well-tolerated by military types. Of course, Rebecca actually appreciated a briefing that wasn't either dry or punctuated with crude jokes.
"I've been told to get to the point first, so you're all potential Sentinels."
Rebecca didn't know the word, and as she risked turning around to glance at all the others, it was clear they didn't either.
"Which means nothing to you. Okay, let's back up a little," Dr. Sandburg started again. This time Colonel Ellison actually had a small smile on his face. "Sentinels are individuals with heightened senses. They're able to conduct surveillance that would require about a hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment for a normal person to duplicate. And if I'm walking around with that much equipment hanging on me, not only am I going to be tired, but I'm going to stick out like a sore thumb." Dr. Sandburg stuck his thumb out as a visual aide. "But Sentinels or Guardians or Watchmen have been a part of the human experience for thousands of years. They serve today in units focusing on search and rescue and intelligence gathering, but ancient tribes relied on Sentinels to track changes in the weather and follow game."
"Oh man, those are the disbelieving faces," Dr. Sandburg said with a sort of grimace that made Rebecca wanted to reassure him that she believed him... even if he sounded rather unbelievable. Even more unbelievable was the idea that the Navy would allow her to work behind enemy lines, but if she had a chance to work a combat unit, she'd call herself a Sentinel or a blue-bellied sap sucker.
"Dr. Sandburg is telling the absolute truth, but he is focusing on the more useful aspects of Sentinel life," Colonel Ellison offered without moving from his position well to the side. Rebecca fancied herself an expert not only on written and spoken languages but on body language as well, and the colonel was breaking about every rule she'd come to expect from officers. Instead of competing with the doctor for position in the group, he seemed to be yielding his authority, staying to the side.
"And this is where you try to scare the rest out of the room, isn't it?" Dr. Sandburg asked as he looked at the colonel with a sort of resigned sadness.
"The senses that Dr. Sandburg described-the doctors know how to activate them and bring you online, but no one can take you off-line. So, you'll have your senses as you walk through a village trying to identify which hut a hostage is being held in. But you'll also have to deal with being able to smell everything a person had for dinner. You'll have to be careful of what detergent you use on your clothes because the same tactile sense that you can use to determine which wires carry current will also make you scratch yourself raw if you have too many chemicals near your skin. Loud, unexpected sounds will drop you about as fast as a bullet. This is not about having superpowers but about having a very particular skill that can either help or hinder you depending on how well you learn to control it." Colonel Ellison leaned forward, and suddenly Rebecca found herself believing everything he said.
"Sir," the warrant officer said slowly. "Sir, if a loud sound can drop us, what good are we on a front line unit?"
"A fighting battalion, very little," the colonel immediately answered. "But as reconnaissance, you can walk through an area and determine the location of every single individual. You can identify targets from long distances and pinpoint the locations of friendlies. You can listen to a conversation a half-mile away while looking like you're just leaning back enjoying a sunny day. You can track enemy scouts and birddog for heavy artillery, all without revealing your identity by carrying bulky surveillance equipment. A Sentinel works behind enemy lines. But he also has a back up team, including a partner who must stay with him both in the field and at home."
"At home?" the warrant officer blurted. "Sir," he quickly added, his dark skin blushing darker.
"At home." Dr. Sandburg was the one who answered this time. "Your partner is there to make sure that if the senses go haywire, someone can talk you back. And Sentinels weren't designed for the modern world, so some idiot setting off an air horn is just as much of a danger as a sniper. So, your partner has to be close all the time. I mean, you're not joined at the hip, but your partner should never be more than a half hour or hour away, and living together is a must. And medical power of attorney… your partner has to have medical power of attorney because doctors just do not get it."
"Sirs," Rebecca said, waiting until the colonel looked at her and the doctor gave her a huge smile. "How will our partners be assigned?"
Rebecca put up with a lot for the military, but if she had to have some pig-headed sexist in her house, someone was getting shot, and it wasn't going to be her. Most of the people she served with were honorable, good people, but she couldn't say they all were, and some she wouldn't let in her house if they offered her any job she wanted. And truth be told, these two were offering her exactly the job she wanted. She could work covert ops, work in combat areas, and use her language skills in the field. Even now she could imagine herself under a burkha walking the markets of Kerman and collecting intel directly from the source instead of getting reports dropped on her desk.
The colonel looked at the doctor, clearly deferring to him. "No problem. Man, partners are not assigned. You'll have a chance to work with a lot of people with the right clearance, and whoever you want to work with is fine with the military."
That had everyone trading uneasy looks. The military just didn't work that way.
The colonel cleared his throat, and all eyes were on him again. "Being a Sentinel means that the military is going to make a lot of concessions to your unique talents and... difficulties. You may not think it's a big deal now, but once your sense of smell comes online, you will find that some people smell good and others just don't. A partner who is constantly aggravating you by smelling unpleasant is not going to work. The same is true for a partner whose voice has an unpleasant pitch that you and no one else can hear.
"So, the military knows that you and only you can choose a partner who is compatible with your heightened senses. However, the military does insist that you live with your partner and that the person has correct clearances." Colonel Ellison's voice went from conciliatory to firm on the last point. "All of you were chosen because as far as your superiors know, you don't have a significant other. If you are not willing to deal with the potential lifelong consequences of having heightened senses or if you have someone at home with whom you already have a commitment, you need to leave now." Colonel Ellison looked around several times before his eyes drifted to the Air Force lieutenant sitting next to Rebecca.
Turning in her chair, she looked at the other lieutenant, and the man was sitting stiffly. He turned to the colonel. "Sir, permission to leave?"
"Granted," Colonel Ellison answered. With a salute, he was gone and the group was down to three. Colonel Ellison looked around the room and gave them a smile for the first time. "I think it's time for introductions," he suggested and he looked right at Rebecca. It took her a second to answer the unasked question.
"Lieutenant Rebecca Sims, Navy Cryptologic Technician specializing in Arabic languages."
The colonel's eyes slid to the next man, and he sat up a little straighter. "Warrant Officer Jacob Freeman, Marines."
"Captain John Churchly, Army, instructor at the Joint Readiness Training Center."
"Nice to meet you all," the colonel said. "And now I'm going to ask you to do something truly difficult." The man looked around the room, and Rebecca braced herself to handle whatever challenge he was about to put in their way. "We need to forget rank. In fact, tomorrow, for day two of this training, I'm going to ask you to wear civilian clothes."
Rebecca found herself looking at the captain as the second ranking officer in the room, and he had a slightly confused expression on his face, but before he could ask a question, the doctor had jumped in there.
"Man, the whole command structure thing is... like whoa. You guys even used rank to decide who sat where, without ever saying a word, which is a fascinating study in proxemics, but so not healthy for what we're trying to do here. When you're dealing with the senses, you have got to speak up and describe what's going on. This week is going to be all about trying to impress the hell out of you with what a real live Sentinel can do and then get you ready for becoming Sentinels yourself. But if you don't feel free to speak up the second something feels wrong, we could end up doing some serious damage."
Rebecca looked at the colonel to see how seriously he was taking this. He looked pretty serious.
"Oh man, that's exactly what I mean," Dr. Sandburg exclaimed and Rebecca found herself with a doctor about six inches from her, his hands going. "You so have something rattling around, but no way will you ask with a colonel and a captain sitting there, but everyone's in the same boat here. A Sentinel is a Sentinel is a Sentinel. Just ask."
"Sir..." Rebecca started.
"Blair."
"Sir?"
"My name, it's Blair," the doctor repeated, and Rebecca glanced over at Colonel Ellison. "I don't think Jim's going to contradict me about my own name. So, do you go by Rebecca or Becca? Becky?"
"Rebecca," she quickly said, just as a form of self defense to keep from ever being called Becky.
"Okay, Rebecca," Dr. Sandburg said with a smile, "what are you thinking?"
Rebecca glanced over at Colonel Ellison, and this time the man wasn't even trying to hide a smile. Okay, if he wanted the truth, she could give it to him. "Sir, it seems foolish to ignore rank. Rank indicates who has the most experience and whose judgments are most likely to be accurate in the field."
"A real opinion and inside the first hour, you so owe me twenty bucks," the doctor said triumphantly as he turned to look at the colonel.
"I'll take it off your back rent, Chief."
"Asshole."
Warrant Officer Jacob Freeman, Marines, choked as the water he was drinking obviously went down the wrong pipe at exactly the same moment.
"Think about it," Dr. Sandburg started again, not even acknowledging the shock in his audience. "If you're the Sentinel and you tell Colonel Ellison here that you heard two men a mile away, what's he going to say? No you didn't? Rank has nothing to do with the senses. And with your partner rank can be a disaster. I mean, if your partner happens to outrank you, that doesn't mean he's right about what's going on with you and your senses and your instincts. And as a Sentinel, there will be times that you are way too close to something, and if you have the higher rank, that doesn't mean you get to ignore your partner. Bad things happen when Sentinels ignore their partners."
Dr. Sandburg turned and pinned Colonel Ellison with a look that pretty much said it all, including that the colonel was a Sentinel. Rebecca leaned forward and studied the man.
"Yes, I am a Sentinel, and Blair is my partner. I'm also a colonel in the Rangers, and I'm telling you right now that rank does not matter among Sentinels or between a Sentinel and a partner. On a team, I report my information and take my objectives from whomever has rank, but if the ranking officer does not understand some limitation on my ability, either myself or Sandburg need to inform him. As a Sentinel, I sometimes make a mistake because I'm too close to the matter, and I need Blair to tell me that, and the fact that I'm a colonel can't matter. And between us-" Ellison looked up at the doctor and smiled. "I'm not sure it would matter if I were the president. He would still be just as mouthy."
Captain Churchly was leaning forward, his eyes going from Ellison to Sandburg and back. "The partners, they may not be military?"
"They could be," Dr. Sandburg... Blair... jumped in. "You're going to work with a lot of people after your senses come online this week, assuming that they do come online after the sensory deprivation tanks and survival training. Every once in a while the senses just," he made a strange face and gestured, "just aren't there. But assuming everyone comes online, you'll have a chance to work with military people and civilians with military clearance, with soldiers and linguists and anthropologists and engineers. Whoever works for you, just go with it." The man dropped back into his seat and actually pulled his legs up under him.
"Whoever?" the captain asked as he looked from the doctor to the colonel. Rebecca frowned as she tried to understand the sudden undercurrent. The colonel crossed his arms and gave the captain a look that just dared him to say anything more. The doctor gave another snort/eyeroll.
"The testosterone is threatening to poison the rest of us," Blair commented. "And to answer the question you're not asking, sex is sometimes a part of the partnership. You can totally work together and your partner can help you control the senses without sex, but Sentinels have heightened senses, including a heightened awareness of pheromones. If a Sentinel has a regular sexual relationship with his partner, that pheromone awareness, over time, becomes focused on the partner. If there's no sexual relationship, then the Sentinel's judgment can be impaired if you have an enemy with red hair and long legs up to here and huge," Sandburg made motions like he was holding enormous breasts, all the time giving the colonel a meaningful look, and truly, Rebecca didn't need to know that much about Colonel Ellison's taste in women.
Colonel Ellison raised an eyebrow. "But once you start having regular sex with your partner, then leggy women are not an issue," he pointed out dryly. "And when the relationship has continued long enough for other people's pheromones to not affect your senses, then the military refers to that as being a bonded pair. You hear people call the partner Guides as well, and for some branches that's a euphemism for a sexual partner."
"Sirs, you're together?" Warrant Officer Freeman asked in a shocked voice.
"Blair is my bonded Guide," the colonel said with another withering look, and this was the military Rebecca knew. Here was an officer with an expression that just dared anyone to disagree with his command. The quiet colonel who deferred to his partner vanished under someone who Rebecca could very well believe had a number of years working covert ops. Only....
"Sir?" That cold stare transferred to her, and Rebecca felt a nagging urge to salute. "Does that mean that Dr. San... Blair has served on front lines?"
The ice melted from the colonel's expression as he glanced over at his partner and pursed his lips. "Oh yes. Blair's a lot tougher than you give him credit for. And his training as an anthropologist allows him to make observations from a different perspective."
"An anthropologist behind enemy lines?" Captain Churchly narrowed his eyes, and Rebecca could almost read the disapproval in his face.
"Captain," Colonel Ellison said, his voice ice again, "as the Sentinel, it is my job to protect Sandburg and to save him when the situation warrants."
"And man, I get kidnapped way more because of my own stupidity than I ever have because of Jim's work."
"I'm not so sure that's true, Chief," the colonel said, and now Rebecca could see it, she could see the affection, and given that most military men in uniform would cut off their own cocks before showing anything other than manly affection complete with arm slapping and belching, it was no wonder Rebecca had missed this before. Oh, military men were way closer than they ever admitted, but it wasn't this sort of affectionate closeness.
"I couldn't... I don't..." Warrant Officer Freeman had turned a nice shade of gray.
"Then don't," Blair quickly said with a snort. "Come on, who you pick, who you're attracted to and who's attracted to you is totally up to you. We are so not the NID wanting to order you into bed with someone based on files."
Rebecca sat up straight at that little dropped bombshell, and Captain Churchly seemed even more disturbed as he half pushed himself out of his chair.
"Chief," the colonel warned with some heat in his voice. "I promise you, that is not an option," Colonel Ellison said firmly to the group. "When I partnered with Blair, I was not aware of any potential for a sexual relationship. I had actually left the military and because I attempted to hide what I saw as a tactical weakness, the military never briefed me on the logistics of being a Sentinel. Blair and I worked well together, and the sexual relationship developed naturally after years. However, this program through the Air Force is based on full disclosure. You do not have to have a sexual relationship with your partner. If you don't, you will be considered at risk by enemy combatants who can distract you with pheromones. No one will ever order you to complete a bond or engage in any activities which you find offensive."
"But other services do ask that of their Sentinels," Captain Churchly finished for the colonel. Rebecca could feel a cold draft at the thought of someone dropping her file into the hands of some secret agency and being told who to sleep with, who to bond to. Even without fully understanding the dynamics, the very word bond implied a connection that made Rebecca nervous.
Ellison sighed. "We will not be sharing confidential information," Ellison stopped long enough to glare at Blair who didn't even bother looking sorry, "however, we will not in any way lie or omit information."
"So, if we leave here, are other agencies interested in recruiting us as Sentinels?" Captain Churchly settled back down into his chair, but Rebecca could read the tension in his body. Hell, she felt it in her own. Her skin crawled like someone was running cold fingers down her back.
"No way," Blair quickly assured him. "I mean, idiots do not have good luck with Sentinels."
"Chief," Ellison warned.
"Hey!" Blair held up both hands as though in surrender, but he kept right on talking. "I'm so not disclosing anything confidential. Simple fact... Sentinels are men and women with a high drive to protect others, and when they get screwed and are ordered to screw others, and I mean that both literally and metaphorically, their protective instincts do not respond well."
"Instincts?" Rebecca repeated the word. It was an unusual word for a military man to use, not that Blair was much of a military man. Her gut tightened at the word because it didn't have particularly positive connotations in many of the languages she spent her time thinking in.
Blair nodded. "Totally. Sentinels are driven by instinct to protect the tribe."
Ellison's hand fell on the doctor's shoulder as he stood, and Blair fell silent. "Each of you has felt an almost insane frustration at being held back from the front," Ellison said quietly. "You watch other people go out to fight and it nearly kills you. You might even go home and drink or engage in conduct unbecoming an officer to try and deal with that frustration. So, when someone offered you a chance at frontline work, not even knowing what offer was on the table, you left everything to come here."
Ellison's voice was low and absolutely certain. And in Rebecca's case, he was absolutely right. She nodded. "I write intelligence reports and I know that if I were in the field instead of sending others out to gather intelligence, I could do my job better. I hate that I am left behind," Rebecca said softly.
Freeman spoke next. "I go out, but I'm always in the rear, part of the technical support. I'm so close I can hear the bombs, but the only action I ever saw was diving for cover from an incoming bomb. My CO... he was close to sending me home on a general unfit for duty bill."
"At least you're there. I'm stuck stateside training boys young enough to be my sons." Captain Churchly gave a crooked smile and the man had a real charm to him when he smiled. "Well, they could be my sons if I had started a lot earlier than I did, anyway."
Blair was almost bouncing in his seat. "You're Sentinels. I mean, yeah, the senses aren't online yet, which means you don't yet need a partner to help you keep your balance in the field, but you're still Sentinels. You want to be out there doing the protect and serve thing, and the fact that the military isn't allowing you to fully follow that programmed directive, it's frustrating the hell out of all of you."
"So, do all Sentinels want to protect?" Rebecca asked, completely ignoring the protocol of a meeting, but if these two wanted to throw rank and protocol out the window, she was more than happy to follow their lead.
Blair and Ellison traded a pained look, and Blair suddenly looked down at the table top. Inching closer, Ellison actually leaned his leg into Blair's side, and the hand on Blair's shoulder slid over to the far shoulder so that Ellison was fully leaning into him. It was Ellison who answered. "Mothers have a strong instinct to care for their children. It's part of their genetic makeup, but that doesn't mean that there aren't mothers who disregard that need, who ignore that maternal drive."
"Sir?" Freeman asked, and he waited until Ellison's attention was on him. Freeman fidgeted a bit. "Sir, a military unit functions under rules, even if Sentinels are given a pass, so how can you function within a unit when the others know you're..." Freeman looked helplessly from Ellison to Blair. As a linguist, Rebecca knew exactly what Freeman was thinking. In his brain, two men only fucked, so the word 'fucking' should go in that slot. But looking at the affection and mutual emotional support each man had offered, 'fucking' didn't work. But Freeman was so caught up in his own linguist assumptions that he couldn't find a substitute.
She took mercy on him and finished his sentence for him. "Does it create a problem that you're mutually committed and sexually intimate given that other members of the unit are prohibited from serving with a significant other?" she asked. Blair gave her a bright smile, but then she wasn't surprised that another academic would understand what she had done and why Freeman was having difficulties even asking the question.
"The other members of the unit have seen me zone," Ellison said dryly. Rebecca noticed she wasn't the only one at the table clearly confused by that term.
Blair jumped in. "Zoning happens when you're totally focused on just one sense. The sense becomes so overwhelming, so fascinating that you just sort of slide into it without noticing."
"I once zoned on the image of sunlight filtering through a red Frisbee, on the way the light created a halo that contrasted against the blue sky. It was beautiful," Ellison said, but where Rebecca expected a reverent voice, the colonel sounded disgusted with himself.
Blair gave a huff of laughter. "Yep, it was beautiful until the garbage truck tried to squash him and I had to knock him to the ground so the thing drove right over us. I thought I was going to have a heart attack."
"But that's what the Guide is there for," Ellison said as he ruffled Blair's hair. "But to answer your question, you unit is going to see how difficult it can be to control your senses, especially when you're using them in a combat situation and the unknown is always there ready to ambush you. You can't prepare to see something totally unexpected. They'll see how your partner's touch will bring you out of a zone or soothe you when a sense spikes and you're in incredible pain from having too much sensory input at once. Some of the men will see you touching and assume that it's just a Sentinel thing, and other will assume you're having sex, whether you are or not. If the men do cause trouble, they will be transferred away because a Sentinel in the field is too valuable to lose over some misplaced anger."
"We'll be in the action?" Captain Churchly asked.
"Captain," Colonel Ellison said with humor in his voice, "you will have more action than you know what to do with. Sentinels are most useful when deep in hostile country where surveillance equipment would turn a standard soldier into a target. And Sentinels who can learn to control their instinctive need to take out a threat immediately… the ones who can learn to control their impulse and make careful decisions… they will sometimes be asked to do wetwork."
Blair frowned at that, and Rebecca realized that the anthropologist didn't like that side of the job. She wasn't particularly interested in assassinations herself, but there were enemies that if ordered, she would take out. It didn't bother her the way it seemed to bother Blair.
"And Dr. Sandburg goes, even on those missions?" Captain Churchly leaned forward with a concerned expression.
"Dr. Sandburg goes with me on all missions, but the only time I've specifically been asked to target someone for elimination, I only identified the individuals. My team did the actual take down. And Blair agreed with the necessity of the mission, otherwise I would have refused outright. That's why rank is not as important with a Sentinel. The Guide has to come first. I've been in situations where I had to put the mission first, ironically most when I was a civilian police officer, and it's not an easy situation. The internal conflict and the stress meant I did not operate at peak efficiency. That's why if you have a conflict with an order, you have to refuse it. Your senses make you more vulnerable to failure if you're trying to fight either your instincts or your Guide."
Rebecca considered that simple statement. Ellison was military. Yet he would disregard orders and rank for his Guide, which suggested something fairly deep ran there. The use of the word guide was odd as well. If Ellison was the one with the heightened senses, then he would be literally guiding them through enemy territory, which led her to wonder when Dr. Sandburg guided the pair. And who chose the word Guide?
"So, I'll either have to open up my sexual boundaries or take a woman into combat," Captain Churchly said slowly and thoughtfully. "No offense, lieutenant," he tacked onto the end with a nod in her direction. Rebecca ignored the condescending nature of his comment and thought about what it would mean to take a civilian into enemy territory. To hell with having 'the little woman' in combat, Rebecca was concerned about any civilian in the middle of enemy territory. Part of her job was translating, but that meant culturally as well as linguistically, so she knew exactly what some enemies were capable of.
Churchly gave another of his half smiles. "I think I may consider changing my sexual preference."
Rebecca looked over and where Captain Churchly looked strangely at ease with a mid-life change of sexual identify, Freeman still looked seriously gray. Dr. Sandburg must have noticed as well.
"Hey, no pressure. You pick who you pick, and there are lots of women to pick from," he offered helpfully.
But Freeman was already shaking his head. "No, sir. No, you're giving me a choice of going into combat with a woman I love or doing something I just can't do with a man. Sir, that is not a choice that as a soldier I should be asked to make."
"Dismissed, soldier," Ellison said firmly but calmly as he sat next to Blair. For a second, Freeman just sat there as if not quite processing the words. Then he stood and offered Colonel Ellison a stiff salute. The colonel returned it and Freeman turned and left.
"And then there were two," Blair said softly. "Man, I told them that if they wanted five Sentinels they needed to give me a minimum of ten candidates, but did anyone listen to me? Nooooo. I'm just the anthropologist… I'm just the one who knows what he's fucking doing," Blair said sarcastically. Ellison reached over and rested his hand on Blair's forearm.
"They'll figure out that you're always right sooner or later, Chief. Meanwhile, I think we have two Sentinels to impress with a few demonstrations." Ellison looked first at the captain and then at her. "And after today, I will not be demonstrating anything for you two. You two, however…" and Ellison got a not-nice smile on his face, the kind that Rebecca's brother used to get on his face about two seconds before dropping a frog in her bed. "You two are going to be doing a whole lot of demonstrating and testing and proving you have a baseline of control before we turn you over to General Hammond for part two of your training."
"Another Sentinel?" Churchly asked.
Ellison's not-nice smile grew even bigger. "Oh no. No, there are even bigger surprises than you know waiting for you down this path."
"Oh man, we still have two left. Knock it off before I don't have any Sentinels to work with at all," Blair said with some despair. From the look Ellison gave him, Ellison wouldn't mind that at all.
"I thought we were fully sharing information," Rebecca asked suspiciously. The words were out before she edited herself, and the second they were, she was furious with herself for questioning a superior officer, but Ellison just gave her a friendly smile.
"Those are not our secrets to share. He'll be briefing you on a possible combat position; however, if you find you cannot deal with his secrets, there are plenty of commanders in other arenas who will happily have you in a more traditional command," Ellison offered with a shrug. Rebecca narrowed her eyes and considered these two. She had good instincts, she always had, and something was just screaming that these two hadn't even shared the good secrets yet.
"One secret at a time, man. Otherwise, the brain is in serious danger of exploding. Scrambled brains everywhere. So not pretty." Blair was bouncing, literally. His ponytail bobbed as he practically vibrated in his seat. "Meanwhile, if you are still up for finding out what a Sentinel can do, follow us," he said as he got up and headed for the door, Colonel Ellison one step behind.
Giving Churchly a half second head start, Rebecca followed.
When she'd joined the military, her parents hadn't been thrilled, but it felt right. Today, Rebecca felt more right than she had on any day since she'd stood in the recruiter's office signing the final papers. Whatever secrets were coming, she'd deal. And if she got to have a friendship… a relationship… like the one Ellison and Blair shared, well that would just be one hell of a bonus.