Stacia tried a different question. “Who were your parents?”
“Parents,” Skin said thoughtfully. “I don’t know if I had any.”
“You must have. There doesn’t appear to be the technology on this planet to do anything other than natural birth.”
“Oh! You want to know who birthed me. That’s different, but I don’t know that either.”
“Why don’t you know? And why do you think that’s different?”
“I don’t know because I don’t know. Parents aren’t common. I was raised in a communal house like all the other kids. And it’s different because parents aren’t allowed.”
“Explain that.”
Skin looked at her like Stacia was the naïve one that needed to learn the basic facts of the universe. “When anyone gets pregnant, they’re not allowed to see the baby. It gets taken away right away.”
“This may be a planet full of the worst offenders the galaxy has to offer, but I refuse to believe that every single one of them allow that. There’s got to be a lot of them with parental instincts.”
“There are plenty that wish they could keep their babies. But they can’t. The Skins know better than to try anything, but every so often, a Shellhead thinks they can take their babies and run away before anyone can stop them.”
“And what happens then?”
Skin shrugged. “No one ever sees them in Hobbes again.”
“What about you? Have you ever had a baby?”
Stacia regretted the question the instant a haunted look came over Skin’s face. “I was pregnant once.”
That wasn’t exactly an answer. Stacia waited to see if Skin would elaborate, but she just sat in silence. Stacia decided to let it go.
“So you really have no idea who your mother and father are?”
“No. Well, maybe. There was one time. Right after they made me start working on the stages in the common house. A Shellhead told me to come with him upstairs, and I figured he was going to do the usual things to me. But he didn’t. He had me sit on the bed and just looked at me for several minutes, then said he was done and left. He was killed by a dominatrix soon after. Normally, that kind of thing doesn’t bother me. It happens, and I’ve spent lots of times with lots of Shellheads. But him, I don’t know, I felt sad afterward.” Skin stared off into the distant twilight for a few seconds, then looked at Stacia. “So is that something that happens on other worlds? People know their parents?”
“Maybe not everyone,” Stacia said. “There are a lot of worlds, a lot of sentient creatures, a lot of ways of life. But for me, I know my mothers well.”
Skin tilted her head. “Mothers? No father?”
“Yes and no. I don’t know which of my mothers is my biological mother. They insist it doesn’t matter, that they both love me like I was in their womb. They were in love and wanted a child, so they enlisted a friend to be the biological father. He lived with us and helped them raise me until I was five.”
“Did he leave?”
“No. He died.” Stacia stopped, unsure if she wanted to continue. She was a Galactic Marine. Marines weren’t supposed to dwell on the past or attachments. Except she wasn’t really a marine anymore, was she? It might feel good to say these things to someone, especially someone she didn’t have to worry about getting in her way. “All three of my parents had military training. But Papa didn’t have the same level of combat experience. So when some rebels attacked my homeworld, and the various branches of the service fought back, he got caught in a building he shouldn’t have been in when it was shelled. Completely vaporized.”
“I’m… I’m sorry?” Skin asked, as though she wasn’t sure if this was the correct response for this sort of thing. “Did… did your mothers both live?”
“They lived, and they went back to duty. They felt like they had to. Especially after…” No, Stacia thought. She couldn’t go that far. That much she had to keep to herself.
“After what?” Skin asked. Apparently, she didn’t know what a hint was.
Stacia continued, choosing every word carefully. “The ionic mortar shell that hit the building belonged to the Galactic Marines. Now, the rebels were using a lot of tech they had stolen from various armed services, so no one could be certain exactly where it came from. But there was a lot of evidence someone on our own side fired it with no regard for what it would do to civilians. My mothers came out of their semi-retirement because they wanted to root out anyone that might have been involved. And they had that power. Because they were both generals.”
Skin looked a little confused at the term “generals,” but she at least seemed to understand they were people with power.
“And not just any generals, either. Some of the most decorated generals of all time. They became famous even before then for some of their actions when they were just raw Galactic Marine recruits. Back then, there were a few units designated by just letters and numbers. Mama Gertrude was part of Unit X-7. Mama Linny was in Unit X-9.”
Skin perked up. “That’s where your name comes from!”
Stacia nodded. “When they got married, they both kept their last names, Gertrude Abrams and Linsel Mockmone. But when I came along, they couldn’t decide which surname to give me, and they wanted to do something different anyway, so my official last name became a combination of their unit designations. With that kind of history, it was a foregone conclusion that I would follow in the footsteps of my parents and join the Galactic Marines.”
“But… you’re not one anymore? At least, according to you?”
“No, I’m not. I betrayed the Galactic Marine Corps. I’m no longer deserving of that title.”
“Why? What did you do?”
“I shot my superior officer.”
“On purpose?”
“Yes. Repeatedly.”
“I still don’t understand. I haven’t even known you for a day, but that already seems like something you wouldn’t do. Especially given how dedicated you are to the Galactic Marines.”
Stacia thought for a long moment, took a deep breath, and then looked Skin in the eyes. “General Borealis was the one responsible for the shelling of my home. My father died because of her actions, and she has kept that fact hidden from the public for years. I found out, but I couldn’t prove it.”
“So you killed her?”
“I shot her, but she lived. I was already taken into custody by the time I found out she was going to make it, so I decided to do the next best thing. She took someone special from me, so I’m going to take someone important from her.”
“Is that where we’re going? Is that what that leather says that you keep looking at?”
“Yes. The location of Stanton Borealis. Her last living child. He crashed here but couldn’t get off, because—”
“No one gets off of Leviathan,” Skin finished for her. Her voice had a reverent tone, like this was sacred scripture she had been forced to repeat for her entire life.
“No one leaves,” Stacia agreed.
“Does he deserve it? This Stanton person?”
Stacia didn’t answer. Skin didn’t seem to like that.
“So you’re going to kill someone that doesn’t deserve it.”
“His mother deserves it.”
“But he doesn’t.” There was something interesting about the way she said it, like she wanted to challenge Stacia on this but was afraid and didn’t know what Stacia would do in retaliation.
“You’re entitled to your opinion,” Stacia said, hoping Skin would take that to mean both that she should stop talking like that, yet she wouldn’t be punished if she didn’t. Whether or not Skin took the hint, she remained quiet until the night was fully upon them and she fell asleep in the grass. Stacia contemplated starting a fire, but decided against it. The fire would be an obvious beacon for anyone looking for them, and Stacia herself didn’t need it. Between her implants and her armor, she could survive comfortably in temperatures up to forty below zero, and uncomfortably in even colder. Skin would need warmth, but Stacia could provide that for her just by sleeping nearby. She set her implants to wake her when either the sky started to lighten or they sensed unexpected movement nearby, then she too went to sleep.