BDP

Burke woke to the urgent press of her bladder. The triplets were already taking up more than their fair share of space, packing organs tight against one another until it seemed like she was spending most of her day going to the commode. It was such a routine thing at this point that she had taken several steps before realizing she was wading through grass as high as her chest.

She froze in confusion. The last thing Moira remembered was the fight with Casca in the hallway. The bastard had her shot with a tranquilizer, so why wasn't she back in her cell? She didn't think, even with the enhancement drugs they had been giving her, that she could have made it out of the complex in that state.

"Good morning, Doc," the voice was one she had never thought to hear again.

"Good morning. Mobius," Burke turned with a smile, the last vestiges of sleep pushed aside by joy. The Dragons had chewed through Casca's security, just like she had thought they would, and escaped the compound. They must have found her along their way out.

"How are you feeling?" Moby asked in that rich, rumbled tone that put one in mind of a sated leopard.

"Bloated, clumsy, and I have to take a piss." Moira grinned at him through the whole list of complaints. "But other than that, pretty damn good."

Mobius laughed at her response, pleased to see that her incarceration had not broken her spirit. "We dug a latrine over behind that rock. As soon as you're done we'll fill it in and get moving."

"Thanks," Burke waddled toward the rock, calling back over her shoulder, "Where is everybody else?"

"Scouting or hunting. We have rations but I'd prefer not to rely on them."

"You just don't want to eat them. An M.R.E. is better than shoe leather, but not by much." Burke couldn't blame him for that; she didn't particularly want to eat them either.

"That too," Moby replied, scanning the area. He had some questions, and he wasn't sure he wanted an audience.

Burke finally came back around the rock asking, "What is our status?"

"Better than you might think, but I would have been happier if we could have blown the lab. It would have muddied our back-trail considerably." Mobius shook his head regretfully.

"Yeah, I'm sure they've told whoever was in charge that everything is FUBAR." The thought of Casca cringing his way through that explanation made her smile, but the inevitable outcome of that conversation killed the momentary mirth. "They'll have teams out hunting us, they'll have to. If we get back Stateside, this cover-up will blow up in their faces."

"And just who is 'they' Doctor?"

"We both know our branch of the service is in this up to their eyeballs. I have to assume that they will be out looking for us, even if it's only under the cover of our 'not reporting' or some such excuse." Moira prevaricated. Maybe those months of captivity had made her unnecessarily paranoid, but she just couldn't bring herself to give away too much.

Mobius gave her a disappointed look. He knew that as well as she did. "Yes, but those were not our people back there. The rampant inefficiency suggests a civilian outfit."

"Of course it was. Plausible deniability is imperative in this sort of situation." Burke shrugged, "I'm sure the security forces at the compound were all local muscle. Our government would never be so crass as to be caught holding a pregnant woman captive."

Mobius nodded his understanding of her point, and moved on to something he stood a chance of getting a straight answer for. "What happened to you?"

Burke looked away, wondering where to begin and trying to marshal her thoughts. "That's a long story. Maybe we should wait until the others are back so I can just tell it once."

"It might be better if I heard it first." His reply was very firm.

"Why?" Moira raised a brow, "Are you planning to censor me?"

"No, but I need to know if I'm going to have to restrain Nottingham from going back and tearing the compound brick from brick."

Burke stared at him in silence, surprised by the depth of concern. "What do you think happened to me?"

"After a week of searching, a body was found with your dog tags." Moby paused for effect, "The corpse had been tortured and mutilated beyond making any other form of identification."

"Ah, well it was nothing as terrible as that." Moira shivered for a moment, wondering by how narrow a margin she had escaped such a fate.

"Doc, you don't have to think of some way to pretty it up for me. I could hardly miss the fact that you are pregnant and missing two fingers from each hand." Mobius took her hands in his, turning them to see the rings of scarring around each wrist.

"Frostbite," Burke answered the unspoken question.

"The cold can do many things, but I have never heard it put forth as an explanation for pregnancy." Moby's lips curled up in a humorless grimace.

"I was pregnant before they took me." Moira chuckled, a sound as devoid of mirth as Mobius' grin. "In retrospect, that's probably why I was abducted."

"So Nottingham," Mobius could not quite bring himself to say the words.

"Is the father, yes," Burke finished the question for him.

Moby nodded, it made perfect sense. The scientists had been actively trying to breed the Dragons, although no one was quite sure to what end. Thanks to the quick thinking of the woman next to him, they had kept that from happening. "If you were planning to abort, you might not want to tell Nottingham that the babe is his."

"That would be babes, plural, as in triplets, and no; I was not planning to abort." Burke had given the option thought after they had begun pumping drugs into her system. In the end she had decided that the only way she would take such a path would be if something on the tests conclusively showed that the children's brains had been damaged by the chemicals to the level of non-viability.

"Triplets?" One of the Dragons came out of the brush to Burke's left. Lee had clearly been on a supply run, as there were papayas poking out of his pack and manioc braided by their leaves and stuck through his belt.

"Unfortunately, yes. Three times the weight gain, three times the hormones, and three times the weird food cravings." Moira gave a heartfelt sigh, "Do you have any idea how much it sucks to crave Chinese food, pickles, and raspberry filled donuts when you can't get them?"

"Do you want them all at once?" Lee looked appalled.

"Yes, and don't start." Burke grumbled, knowing full well that if she hadn't been pregnant, she would have thought it disgusting too.

"Well it's not what you're craving, but I did find some Camu-camu." Lee shrugged out of his pack, set it down, and dug past the papaya. He came up with a greenish plum-sized fruit and handed it to her.

"I thought these only grew near water?" Moira asked as she took the Camu-camu.

"There's a pretty good sized river about two clicks back that way," Lee pointed with his machete, and then settled down to chop one of the manioc roots.

As Burke ate the fruit, which was higher in vitamin C than a lemon, the rest of the team trickled in with smiles and welcomes. Soon everyone was back. Everyone that is, except Nottingham.