Chapter 16
No One Leaves Leviathan
Stacia left Lexton’s body to the Wet Lisa and made her way back down the hill, this time significantly slower than when she had gone up. When she pulled the sonic blade out of her gut, her armor automatically filled the wound with healing foam that would both help to mend the flesh and keep her from bleeding out. That didn’t mean the stab wound didn’t hurt like all hell, and Stacia doubted that she would be in any condition to fight anymore. Theoretically, she wouldn’t have to. All that remained was getting off Leviathan, and that would all be up to Stanton.
Daddy’s Adult Toy started to rise on its landing gear as Stacia got to the bottom of the hill. Kendara was likewise getting up, although she looked shaky. “Please tell me she’s dead,” she said.
“A Wet Lisa is finishing her off as we speak,” Stacia said. She helped Kendara steady herself, although it might have been more accurate to say that they had to steady each other. Once the landing gear finished deploying, the hatch, which had slammed shut when the ship did it acrobatics, opened up as well. The mechanisms didn’t sound like they were entirely in working order, and the ramp stopped just short of the ground. As long as it would close when they needed it to, though, that was all that mattered.
Stacia stopped and hung her head.
“What’s wrong?” Kendara asked.
“My implants are rebooting. I keep seeing that little spinning circle. It’s making me dizzy.”
“Maybe you should sit down and…”
Gunfire erupted from behind them, and they both dropped to the ground. Stacia turned to look and saw Lexton, or at least Lexton from the neck down. Her face was completely gone, leaving only a dripping mess of gore behind.
“I thought you said she was dead!” Kendara said.
“I said she was being eaten! Not the same thing!”
“Really? You’re arguing semantics now?”
It sounded like Lexton was trying to say something, but there wasn’t enough of her mouth or tongue for it to be anything other than a guttural, angry roar. She’d must have stumbled on one of the dropped 808s and was firing blindly around her, aware that if she kept shooting for long enough she would inevitably hit someone or something important, getting at least a small measure of revenge before she died.
Another burst of 808 fires came from nearby. Most of the shots missed, but enough found their mark that Lexton finally toppled over dead, a few last rounds emitting from her 808 before it stopped.
Stacia looked back to the hatch to see Skin crouching on the partially lowered gangway, the 808 Stacia had left for her in the young woman’s hand. Skin looked with disbelief, first at her weapon, then at Lexton’s corpse, then at Stacia.
“I didn’t drop it this time,” Skin said in a reverent whisper.
Stacia stood back up, both using Kendara for support and helping her up at the same time. “Very nice. We might make a Galactic Marine out of you yet.”
Skin’s face fell. “Please don’t. I like my skin.”
Stacia hobbled over and gently put a hand on Skin’s arm. “I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Skin nodded, although she still looked skittish as the idea that the two former Galactic Marines in front of her might still flay her yet. Stacia and Kendara both climbed up into the hatch and then closed it before making their way to the cockpit, where they found Stanton sitting at the controls with a notably grim expression.
“Thanks,” Stacia said to him. “I’m pretty sure that saved my life.”
“Don’t go thanking me yet,” Stanton said. He paused to look at Kendara, then shrugged when this apparently didn’t surprise him that much. “I’m not sure at this point that we’re going to survive the rest of the day.”
“I take it that little maneuver of yours didn’t agree with the ship?” Stacia asked.
“Nope. Not at all.”
“How long would it take for us to make repairs?”
“A couple of weeks.”
“You’ve probably got less than an hour,” Kendara said. “Lexton had backup on the way. She jumped the gun in coming after you. I guess you must have pissed her off more than most people.”
“Can’t we just shoot them again?” Skin asked.
“I’m not in any condition to do any more fighting,” Stacia said. “I know I tend to make it look easy, but even I have my limits.”
“And there’s at least six in the group that’s coming,” Kendara said. “Maybe more, for all I know.”
“So we probably need to be off the ground and in the air by then,” Stacia said.
“Is the ship at least healthy enough that we can fly it to another location long enough to make all the needed repairs?” Kendara asked.
“No. If anything launches from the surface at all, the security platforms in orbit will shoot it down within minutes,” Stacia said. “We’re lucky they didn’t register the ship flipping as it taking off, or else we would already be slag. Once the ship takes off, it’s outer space or bust. We can only try the escape plan once.”
“So you guys actually have one?” Kendara asked. “Care to clue me in?”
“Does it really matter? If it works, you’re free, and if it doesn’t, you’re bloody shrapnel.”
“True enough, I suppose.”
Stacia indicated Kendara and Skin. “You two go find a seat and strap yourselves in tight. There’s nothing else you can do now.” She looked at Stanton. “Unless you think there’s something one of them can repair in the short time we have left?”
“If they want to do everything they can to make sure the hatch is sealed, there’s that. Other than that, there’s no time for anything else.”
The two of them went, leaving Stacia to strap into the seat next to Stanton. “Give it to me straight,” she said. “Just how screwed are we really?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“If we take off now, I see no way we make it into orbit. That little stunt I pulled forced me to cold-start the reactors, which they’re not designed to do. I didn’t even get anywhere near a full diagnostic, so I have no idea what damage might have been done during the Toy’s original landing. And then you add to the mix any damage done when it hit the ground after the flip.”
“So you’re saying the number of things that could and should be wrong with the ship are numerous, but you don’t actually know for sure about any of it?”
“Like I said, no time for the diagnostics. I could start running them now and they might be finished by the time we get attacked the rest of Lexton’s people.”
“And repairs? Is there any time for anything at all?”
“Maybe a few smalls ones. Which, again, we don’t even know what they are yet.”
Stacia shook her head, less at the situation than in an attempt to get her implants to reboot faster. They were pretty much like the ship at this point: she had no idea what might be wrong with them, and had no time to do anything about it. She would have to make this decision without their help.
No cybernetic implants, no energy to physically fight, she thought. This is where we put my Galactic Marine training to the real test.
“Okay,” Stacia said. “Take off.”
“Seriously?”
“Dead serious. According to you, there’s not much we can do to repair anything. So there’s no point in putting this off. We do this now, before we all lose our nerve.”
“But we’re all going to die!”
“Isn’t that kind of the point?”