Spears of Uu'kata

Chapter 50 - Delta Strong

"Do you know what they're gonna do to her, Ben?" Vasquez asked, looking at Ben from across the table. He had the start of circles forming under his eyes.

Ben shrugged and stuffed a square of cornbread into his mouth. "Why would I know?" he asked after swallowing only half of it, one cheek puffed out, voice slightly slurred as he fought to keep the food from falling out of his mouth.

It reminded Vasquez of Charlotte. She never had any manners while eating either.

"They are going to remove one of the babies and experiment on it."

Ben hesitated for barely a second before shrugging. "It's an abomination, why would I care?"

"Because it's innocent."

Ben met his eyes and frowned. "I thought you were pro choice," he said, having finally swallowed the rest of the food he'd crammed into his pie hole.

Vasquez had worked Delta pretty hard today and the men were exhausted and starving.

"Oh, I am absolutely pro-choice. But there's no choice being given here. Charlotte is going to have one forceably removed so it can be experimented on in a controlled environment and she's going to be forced to carry the other to term whether she wants to or not, and the entire time both she and that baby will be experimented on.

"Tell me the truth, Ben. How would you feel if you walked into that lab and saw a baby, opened up and splayed the way that Uu'k'asht was? Or, hell, what if it was Charlotte? Because that's what's gonna happen to her."

Ben's icy blue eyes searched nothing for a moment and he tapped his fork on the table a few times. The binding drugs always seemed to affect Ben longer than some of the others and Vasquez couldn't tell if he was feeling anything, or trying to figure out how he would feel when the drugs eventually faded.

"She fucked the enemy," said, though he didn't sound at all convinced.

"Ben," Vasquez said patiently, "People have been fucking the enemy for thousands of years for thousands of reasons. You know damn well that if I were the one coming back from being captured and I admitted to getting all up in some tall Uu'k'asht pussy you'd be giving me high-fives. So quit this high and mighty sexist bullshit cause it ain't a good look."

Vasquez shrugged and sat back. "I know you're pissed and, you know, whatever. But how the fuck you think you have any right to hold her to a higher standard than the rest of us when she already was, no, is the higher standard? She didn't owe anyone shit, certainly not you."

"What the fuck do you want from me?" Ben snapped, dropping his fork with a loud clang.

Vasquez stood and leaned across the table, holding Ben's eyes. "Even with Charlotte on the squad Delta never had a single member who was a bitch, until you started acting like one. So quit being a little fucking bitch, man up, and help me save her life. Because when the time comes, you can either be with me, or I will go the fuck through you, do you understand?" Vasquez said in a low tone with his teeth pressed together.

He must have seemed pretty menacing because Ben leaned back on his seat and swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat.

"Is that an order?" Ben asked.

"Yeah, motherfucker! I'm ordering you to stop being a little bitch!"

Vasquez straightend, wondering if he'd opened his mouth too soon. Ben had already proved that he would go over Vasquez' head, what was to keep him from telling the general that Vas was planning something? Would he do that to Delta?

He hoped not.

Luckily, Ben wouldn't get the chance because Emiko burst into the mess hall, eyes wide as she tried to walk casually to Vasquez' table, but failed to look like anything resembling casual in the entire history of mankind.