She heard the naked woman scream right as Stacia’s implants told her Faust was about to become a bigger danger. Unlike Lexton, Faust’s implants would be almost as up to date as Stacia’s, meaning his threat assessment and strategic ability would be almost as quick. Stacia looked to see that Faust has tossed his gun to the side just outside the door and pulled his own sonic blade, which he was raising to the woman’s neck. Stacia didn’t wait to see if this was intended as a threat to get her to stand down or if Faust really was going to kill the woman. Stacia threw her blade. The vibrating mechanism that allowed it to slice through steel like lard didn’t work when it wasn’t in someone’s actual hand, but Stacia’s aim was true enough for it to just barely missed the woman’s shoulder and embed in the gap between armor plates at Faust’s elbow. He hissed and dropped his own knife, then shoved the woman at Stacia as a distraction. Stacia caught the woman from falling even as she grabbed the next sonic blade and prepared to use it on Lexton.
Lexton was already running out the door, however, and both she and Faust disappeared from sight. Stacia took a defensive stance at the doorframe and looked around the corner to see them disappear into one of the rooms on the side, slamming the door shut behind them.
“Where’s that door lead?” Stacia said in a hissing whisper to the Skin.
“Wha… what?” the woman asked, still clutching at Stacia’s arm for support. “I don’t…”
“That door! Where does it go?”
“Um, another bedroom?”
“Why would they lock themselves in a bedroom?”
“That’s the bedroom none of us like to use. It has a window with blood dried all around it.”
That would make it the other exit that Lexton had mentioned. It also made that an unlikely way for Stacia and the woman to escape themselves. Faust and Lexton could be waiting outside on the ground, preparing for an ambush.
“Are there any other bedrooms with windows?” Stacia asked.
“N…no. They don’t want us to be able to escape.”
Stacia nodded as she hurriedly went back to the crate and started loading the weapons. No other way off the second floor meant they would have to use the stairs and go back through the club or bar or whatever it was. Right through the room packed with armored ex-marines.
“I don’t understand,” the woman said. “What’s happening?”
“I wasn’t a fan of the so-called Lord Commander. I didn’t feel like taking orders from her.”
“But everyone takes orders from her.”
“Not me.”
Stacia inserted charge packs into each of the pistols. They wouldn’t be ready to fire for at least fifteen minutes, but until then, she had the 808s, the sonic blade, and there was still the pistol under the desk. She grabbed all the extra ammunition she could and shoved it into her survival sack, then turned to look at the Skin again. The woman stood completely rigid, her eyes tightly shut.
“What are you doing?” Stacia asked.
“Please. Just make it quick.”
“Excuse me?”
The woman opened one eye. “Aren’t you going to kill me?”
“Why would I kill you?”
The woman’s mouth worked for a second as though that question were so bizarre that she couldn’t come up with an answer.
“I had Faust bring you up here so I could take you with me.”
The woman’s muscles un-tensed. “Oh. Oh yes, of course.”
“Do you know how to use any of these?” Stacia asked, indicating the weapons, then realized that was a stupid question. “No, of course not. I’m betting you’ve never even been allowed to so much as touch one.”
“You… you want me to use a weapon?”
“Here, take this,” Stacia said, handing the woman her sonic blade. “If you hold it just like this, it’ll vibrate and cut through practically anything. Keep the blade well away from your skin.”
The woman held the knife as far away as her arm would stretch.
“Uh, good enough. Just swing it at anyone that comes at you. I don’t suppose you have any clothes on this floor that you can put on up here?”
The woman stared at her.
“I guess not. Are you ready?”
“I still don’t even understand what’s going on.”
“Just keep close to me. I’ll protect you.”
“From what?”
“If we’re lucky, nothing. But I’m pretty sure we’re not lucky.”
Stacia gestured for the Skin to be quite as they crept down the hall. If anyone on any other planet saw them, she was sure they would look absurd: a woman in full battle armor with six different guns strapped to her trying to sneak down the upstairs hall in a bar followed by a butt-naked woman holding a knife straight out in front of her. But here on Leviathan, she was hoping that anyone that saw them wouldn’t look twice, or at the very least would be drunk enough that if they did look twice, Stacia could drop them before they could sound any alarm. They got back to the end of the hallway without incident, although the sounds coming from behind two of the doors told Stacia that they weren’t completely alone on the floor. She would have to watch their six if something went wrong.
As soon as Stacia took two steps down the stairs, something did indeed go wrong.
“Everyone!” someone screamed from downstairs. Faust. “This is not a drill! Oathbreaker upstairs!”
All sounds from below stopped. Stacia stopped too, wondering if it was maybe too late to go back and try their luck with the window. But that would be just as problematic as earlier. Faust might have come around to the main entrance of the building, but Lexton would still be waiting below. She might even not be alone anymore.
Potential ambush behind me, definite ambush ahead, Stacia thought, then smiled. Actually, ahead sounds a lot more fun.
She put a hand on the Skin’s shoulder for a moment, hoping she would get that she should stay put. Then Stacia unslung one of the 808s from her back and jumped headfirst down the rest of the stairs.
It was an unbelievably stupid move, which thankfully meant that no one could have possibly thought to prepare for it. Before she was even halfway down, she fired multiple rounds blindly into the ceiling, hoping that would be enough to distract a number of the patrons. Stacia’s implants registered that it did, although not as many as she had hoped and not the right ones. The Skins in the room, apparently ready for everything to explode into violence at a moment’s notice, nearly all ducked and a covered. A few of the ex-marines, likely some of the drunker ones judging by their proximity to the bar, followed suit. From what remained, Stacia scanned the room and registered sixty-four people remaining on their feet, fifty-eight of them in the early stages of taking a hostile position.
Fifty-eight targets, all of them as highly trained as me, Stacia thought. Let’s see if I can do this in under five minutes.
Before Stacia even hit the floor, she’d blown two heads off.
She did the sideways tuck and roll when she landed that she’d been trained to do when she was carrying so much gear. The threat assessment went from fifty-six to fifty-nine as three more people decided it was better to fight than run. Making sure her 808 was set to short bursts rather than continuous fire, Stacia swung the weapon around and made headshots at the eight nearest Shellheads. The bullets connected dead on with four and grazed two. In any other circumstances, Stacia would have been horrified that she’d missed at all, but by now, every person in the room with implants should be running their own threat assessments. The element of surprise was disappearing quickly.