Spears of Uu'kata

Chapter 27 - The Vacuum Between Stars

Ben pushed on his chin and his neck popped with satisfying release. He groaned and blinked a few times. His neck and shoulder were still sore and stiff from having a fucking building dropped on his ass. He probably needed some muscle relaxers but those always knocked him out. Especially after being pumped full of binding drugs. He should have been asleep, but he had an itch he couldn't scratch. When he and Vasquez finally dug their sorry asses out of the rubble, he'd seen something he probably wasn't supposed to see. So, he wandered. Going where he probably shouldn't go.

He stalked through the halls of the Artemis as well as anyone could stalk in mag boots. They actually had spin gravity in effect but it was low-g and he didn't like bouncing along. People didn't get the hell out of your way as quickly when you bounced toward them. But the heavy clunk and hiss as the mag boots adhered and released got people to move.

The Artemis was a fancy research vessel currently attached to the ISS Warthog, hovering above Andora 7. In short, it was full of nerds who were too involved in their nerdy projects to notice a pissed-off bio-mech pilot bouncing down the hall like a moron. So, mag boots.

His comlink chimed.

"What?" Ben said.

"Dude, where are you?" Vasquez asked. He didn't sound happy.

"I'm on the Artemis, why?"

"The fuck you doing over there?" he demanded.

"Just checking something out."

"Bro, have you seen the new recruits we have to choose from?"

"No."

"Well, take a look, I'm not picking out our family's replacements by myself."

"I'll look tonight. I'm just checking something out over here."

"Like what? You find a piece of ass?"

Ben scoffed, "I wish. But no. Nothing like that."

"Sounds more interesting that what I'm doing. I'm on my way,"

"Why are you on your way?" Ben asked.

"Cause... we gotta talk, bro," Vasquez said before disconnecting.

Well, fuck. Ben had hoped to avoid this conversation. He supposed he should have let Vas in on more of his plan but he knew the native Earthling would have been opposed. Vas had always had a soft spot for Charlotte. Ben did too, but his soft spot was numbed by the binding drugs when he was in his suit, and by copious amounts of vodka when he wasn't. Besides, all that shite aside, he knew what was best for her.

So... why did he feel like shit?

For all her rough edges, Charlotte had always had a kind voice. A voice meant for singing and stories.

"I love you, brother," she'd said in that kind, musical voice just before her comm link died as he was being yanked with whip-lash force up off the planet.
Those fucking monsters...

Ben had believed Charlotte to be dead. He'd mourned her, along with the rest of Delta. He'd held on to his hate but had let her become a memory. He'd started to move on.

Ever since discovering she lived, he couldn't get her voice out of his head.

At night, her kind voice sang to him in his dreams, during the day, she echoed through his memory at random moments. Throwing him off.

"I love you, brother."

Fuck. Had he done the right thing? Had he done right by her?

Ben considered turning around and heading back to the bottle of vodka waiting for him on his bunk.