Fifteen seconds.
Stacia had a sudden moment of mischievous inspiration. “Mamas, I love you both.”
Ten seconds.
Something very violently shuddered from the back of the ship. Skin screamed again, this time accompanied by Kendara. Stacia hoped the com channel picked that up, then switched it off abruptly.
Seven seconds.
Stanton quickly glanced to make sure that the channel was off, then said, “Stacia, get ready…”
Four seconds.
Stanton yanked on the stick hard.
Two seconds.
Stacia blew the cargo hold doors.
Zero.
The air filled with a spectacular explosion. For several seconds, no one monitoring the ship from the security platforms could see anything.
But when the flash cleared and they zoomed in on what little of the debris hadn’t been vaporized, they could clearly see the charred words Daddy’s Adult Toy on a fragment of the ship tumbling back to Leviathan.
The security teams all cheered, not knowing yet that they were about to be the center of one of the biggest political firestorms in Galactic Marines history. They celebrated because, although it had been a close call, they had still proven that old maxim to be true.
Nobody left Leviathan. Not alive, at least.
Chapter 17
Then They All Died, The End
“Good day or good evening, wherever you might be. I’m Lawrence Zawayon. Our top story today, the fallout from the recent revelations surrounding the planet Leviathan continues. The rumors have been confirmed that Stanton Borealis, notable activist and son of a prominent general in the Galactic Marines, was indeed aboard the ship that recently tried to leave the planet. QLN News Node has acquired the video that he managed to broadcast before his attempt to leave…”
“I doubt that I’m going to survive this, which is why I’m making sure this message is released prior to our taking off. I just hope that it reaches someone outside the military. I have not been allowed to leave, despite the continued assertions we have all heard from Galactic Marine command that Leviathan is not a prison planet. I can also confirm that all the rumors are true. There are, in fact, people living here, people born here, that were not convicted of any crimes. There are rampant and unbelievable sentient rights abuses, including…”
“The rest of the video goes into graphic details. For those who wish to see it all, the rest is available at our sister news node, AQV. While no official statement has yet been released by the Galactic Marines, one source we found that wishes to remain anonymous insists that the video, along with the woman who appears in it later claiming to be one of the native-born of Leviathan, are elaborate hoaxes. While Borealis’s mother, the General Lita Borealis, is still in recovery from wounds she received in an unrelated attack, she did release this statement: ‘I continue to support the mission of the Galactic Marines and always will. But someone within command must be held accountable for the senseless murder of my son, and teams must be sent to Leviathan to judge the legitimacy of his claims.’ Public outcry is growing, with a vocal contingent calling for the Planetary Congress to begin an official investigation. In other news, rogue forces on the planet Behemoth continue their coup, with their leader…”
Stacia turned off the holofeed. Kendara gave a feeble protest that she had been watching that, then nodded off and proceeded to snore as the pain medications coursing through her system took effect. All four of them were sharing the same room together, an anti-septically white medical room with harsh lighting that made it hard for any of them to sleep without the benefit of medications. Less than perfect as it was, though, it was still better than being ripped-apart atoms floating in orbit around Leviathan.
Their escape had been closer than Stacia had wanted, and Kendara had even come close to not making it. Stanton’s maneuver had blown out the last of the inertial dampeners, resulting in all of them receiving some variety of broken bones and damaged organs from their final jump out of the system, which in itself had already been more dangerous thanks to their close proximity to Leviathan’s gravity well. Stacia’s blowing of the cargo doors had also exposed a flaw in the integrity of the hold itself, meaning that when they had vented the pieces of Daddy’s Adult Toy’s exact duplicate into space, several areas of the ship had suffered dangerous levels of decompression. Multiple pieces of shrapnel from the exploding decoy parts as they hit the missiles had damaged their engines on the way out. This, along with the fact that their reactors had already been failing, meant that the ship had stopped before its planned rendezvous point and floated in the void, slowly venting their precious air, for over an hour before their rescuers had finally traced their route and found them. Life support systems would have held out for another hour or two at most, and they all would have died if there hadn’t already been a small group of people expecting them.
But instead of dying, they’d “died.”
Stanton had suffered the fewest injuries when they’d faked their death, which was good because they’d needed him to film the video they had leaked to the press soon after. No one watching it from the comforts of their own home would be any wiser that half the cuts and bruises on his face hadn’t been obtained on the planet at all. Skin’s part in the video had been a little shakier, since she’d never had to act in front of a camera before, and she was still recovering from the shock to her system that was her first space flight. It hadn’t been so much of a shock, though, that she hadn’t later snuck into Stanton’s bed several times when she thought Kendara and Stacia were asleep.
So that was it. To the rest of the galaxy, they were all dead, and their final moments had been used to expose just how bad things were on Leviathan. The mission was done. Stacia had rescued her charge, along with two extras just for good measure. If it had been any other mission, Stacia would have been satisfied and ready for a rest before getting back to battle.
Except there wouldn’t be any more battles, no more missions. She wasn’t a Galactic Marine anymore, and never could be again. The entire point of her life, even the debt she had sworn to repay when she was a child, was now over and done with.
All she had now was her beat-up, secondhand armor and a hospital bed. She would be lying if she said that she hadn’t considered several times just going to the nearest airlock and spacing herself.
The light over their door turned from red to green, indicating that they were about to get a visitor. Security was understandably tight, considering they were all supposed to be dead. If the wrong people found out they were still alive (and they still weren’t even positive who these wrong people might be), there would be hell to pay. Once the unsavory elements were rooted out of the Galactic Marine High Command, then maybe they could come forth and tell everyone they were still alive. Until then, though, the number of people allowed into this room were two doctors, two nurses, and anyone else General Borealis still trusted.
Figuring their visitor had to be a doctor or nurse, Stacia sat up in her bed, wincing at the pain from the wound mending under her armor. She didn’t want any of the medical staff to see her looking weak, as futile as that might sound to anyone else.
It wasn’t a doctor or nurse, though. When the door opened, Mama Gertrude and Mama Linny walked in.
Stacia scrambled out of her bed, ignoring the pain, and found herself torn between standing at attention to salute them and running to hug them. Her mothers made the decision for her when they both opened their arms wide, so Stacia ran to embrace them.
“I did it, Mamas,” Stacia whispered.
“We know you did, honey,” Mama Gertrude said. “We never doubted for a moment that you would.”