“You already lied to me once.”
Stacia paused. “I’m sorry. Sincerely.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
Stacia cocked her head. She didn’t usually make friends. She was all about her work, her duty. She had to admit, though, that over the last few days, she’d started to feel something for the young woman. Friendship didn’t quite describe it. It was almost maternal, like she’d started to look at Skin, no matter how old she might be in reality, as a daughter in need of love and guidance. Stacia hardly thought she was the best person to provide that, but she thought she could definitely try.
“I am your friend.”
Skin was quiet for a moment before saying, “I’m too excited to sleep. I want to have sex.”
It took every fiber of Stacia’s being not to laugh. “I already told you, I’m not interested.”
“There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?”
“Sorry, no.”
“Are you sure? I’m really good at…”
“Skin, I’m sure.”
Another pause. Then, “I’m going to have sex with Stanton, then.”
“Remember what I said the other night? You ask permission first. And if he says no, then you have to take care of yourself by yourself. No exceptions, got it?”
“Got it.” Stacia listened as she padded her way over to Stanton. Stacia turned around just long enough see the young woman kneel down over Stanton and look straight down into his sleeping face before poking him in the chest. Stanton snorted awake, then started violently as he saw the face with a lascivious look just inches away from him.
“Hi!” Skin said with comical enthusiasm. “I want to have sex with you!”
“Whuh? Uh…”
“Do you want to have sex with me?”
“I… I’m not sure…” He sat up and looked in Stacia’s direction, as if he needed her permission.
“Don’t look at me,” Stacia said. “You’re the one who gets to choose. As long as neither of you hurts the other without permission, I don’t care.”
“Do you have protection?” Stanton asked.
Skin cocked her head. “Stacia’s standing right there. And we have guns.”
“No, that’s not what I…” He paused, staring at the young woman who was desperate to jump anyone’s bones, probably thinking about whether or not STDs had a presence on Leviathan. Stacia turned and took up a position further from the camp to give them a little more privacy. The sounds they tried to muffle in the darkness told Stacia exactly what they both decided.
Chapter 14
Daddy’s Adult Toy
Stanton and Skin didn’t get as much rest as they probably should have, although they both pulled themselves away from each other long enough to fulfill an hour each of sentry duty. In the early hours of the morning, Skin was as bright and cheerful as though she’d slept for twelve straight hours, while Stanton noticeably dragged as they all gathered their meager belongings. While Skin joyfully stripped down and cleaned the 808 and the three remaining plasma pistols (which she again had figured out how to take apart and put together with no help from Stacia), Stanton hobbled on over to Stacia and conferred with her in whispers.
“Stanton. You’re looking sore this morning.”
“Yeah. She’s, uh, feisty.”
“Sounded like it.”
“So, no offense to her or anything, but do you think I’m going to need heavy doses of anti-virals and retro-biotics if we get off planet?”
“Given what I know of how she was treated before this? Let me just say this: anyone she was forced to be with before this probably didn’t take a very proactive view of sexual health.”
“Forced? So you mean…” He made an awkward gesture with his hands that, while it didn’t actually mean anything, gave Stacia a pretty good idea of what he meant.
“A little bit of advice, Stanton. I have no idea if any of us will live past today, and even if we do I have no idea what the two of you might do after this, but just remember this. She’s had a hard life, but neither is she a delicate flower. Treat her right, and treat her like a human.”
“You feel responsible for her, don’t you?”
“She’s like a puppy that followed me home. How could I not feel responsible?”
“What about us? You and me, I mean.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“If we live, I’ll owe you my life.”
“No. No more debts. I’m doing this because I felt like I owed your mother. If we get off Leviathan, everything is square between all of us.”
“Come on. I’m my mother’s son. Do you really think I’m not going to look for a time when I can repay you?”
Stacia smiled. “You can be annoying sometimes, Stanton, but there is no doubt that you’re a Borealis.”
“Um, thanks?”
By Stacia’s rough calculations, they didn’t have very far to walk today. She had been given rough coordinates ahead of time for Stanton’s crash site, and more exact coordinates for the escape ship’s resting place. But she had no idea what might lie between them. For the first several hours of the morning, the terrain remained much like they had seen before. The craters became shallower and less numerous. Stacia thought she caught a glimpse of something once near the bottom of one, something that looked like a huge pair of skeletal pincers, but they pulled back into the ground before Stacia could get any other details. Whatever the creatures were, they didn’t leave the craters, and her party likewise refrained from going in.
Later in the day, though, the rocky territory began to give way once again to the grass-like vegetation they’d seen on the plains. The land here was hillier, and every so often, Stacia thought she could see tube-like pillars of dark rock rising high in the far distance, but otherwise they might as well be back on the plains. This included clear signs that a Wet Lisa or two had prowled this area at some time in the past, but the patches and paths of dead earth they left behind were already growing back over with grass. The plants grew fast around here, apparently, likely as an evolutionary trait to make up for the hardy appetite of the weird green puddles.
“We’re approaching the place where the ship should be,” Stacia said, “but it must not have landed exactly where it should have.”
“What’s that over there?” Stanton asked, pointing at a patch of land near the top of one of the hills where the grass didn’t appear to be as thick as everything around it.
“Could be something,” Stacia said. “Let’s go take a look.”
Keeping a close eye out for any fresh sign of Wet Lisas, they made their way over several smaller hills until they went up the much larger one that Stanton had indicated. It was obvious before they even reached the top that they were on the right track.
“Looks like something burned the ground here. Could be the cover explosion.”
“Or it could have been a real explosion and our chance is gone,” Stanton said
“Not feeling too optimistic, are you?” Stacia asked him.
“I was last night, but today I just keep thinking over and over about what they say.”
All three of them said it at once in quiet, almost reverent tones. “Nobody leaves Leviathan.” There wasn’t much Stacia could say to refute that without lying. Still, she preferred to wait to see the status of the ship before she gave in to the planet’s reputation.
They started to see debris as they got closer to the top. Skin thought that was a bad sign until Stacia pointed out that was part of the plan: the outer shell was supposed to be blown to hell, and anyone looking at it from the security platforms would assume there was nothing operable left. It was also a good sign in that so much usable scrap metal was still left sitting out unclaimed by any person or settlement. It meant that the ship had likely not been discovered and looted.