Planet Leviathan

^{Chapter 10} Roo-Soh

They had to make much slower time than Stacia had hoped, given that she still had a fear of slipping in the Wet Lisa and both of them being dead before they had realized they’d fallen. Even with her armor-augmented body, Stacia felt the drain of carrying another person all the way across the plains after several hours. She actually had to stop and take a brief nap at one point, a prospect that had scared the hell out of Skin. Stacia, however, didn’t actually need to lie down to sleep. There was a feature in the armor that allowed the marine inside to sleep standing up, designed for those times when the Galactic Marines had to go into swampy environments and laying down might result in drowning. When Stacia woke, she found Skin also out cold, slumped forward on Stacia in the perfect position to drool all over Stacia’s head. Stacia patiently wiped the drool away, then woke Skin up and proceeded on their way.

Late in the day, the Wet Lisa started to lose ground. Stacia found that, even at her less than hurried pace, it still could not keep up a distance of ten feet around her in all directions. Part of that was probably from the sun, which was getting lower again, but also part of it was probably because of the change in terrain. The plains were giving way more and more to rocky outcroppings jutting from the earth, and with that, the vegetation became less dense. With less light and not as much to feed on, Stacia didn’t think the Wet Lisa would continue its dogged pursuit for much longer. Finally, it stopped altogether at a place where broken stones covered the ground almost completely. Stacia stopped, waiting to see what it would do. The Wet Lisa moved back and forth over the ground like it was pacing at a fence, then turned around (or rather just reversed direction, since it didn’t have a back or front to turn) and went back onto the plains. Skin insisted on staying on Stacia’s shoulders for a while longer, just in case this was some kind of trick and the Wet Lisa would be back, but finally Stacia insisted she had to get off. Sooner than Stacia had wanted to today, they made camp in the shadow of a cliff that looked like it had been shoved up out of the planet by some relatively recent cataclysmic earthquake.

“I was told there was a lot of seismic activity on Leviathan,” Stacia said, “but I haven’t witnessed any yet. Do earthquakes happen often?”

Skin cocked her head in an expression that Stacia was coming to know very well, the look of Stacia revealing that the worlds Skin had never seen were more foreign and bizarre than she could imagine. “Of course. You mean they don’t happen all the time elsewhere?”

This led to a conversation until well after dark regarding the various worlds Stacia had visited and all the strange and amazing creatures she had seen (and very often killed soon afterward). Stacia fell asleep first, which surprised her when she woke in the morning. She hadn’t realized she’d already become so accustomed to Skin’s presence that she felt comfortable doing that. She was even more surprised to find Skin curled up not next to her, but next to a completely disassembled 808, complete with all its parts lined up in an orderly fashion. When Skin woke up, she was afraid Stacia would be angry with her. Instead, Stacia was intrigued and questioned why the young woman had done it. She said she hadn’t wanted another incident like the one where she had dropped the weapon in the Wet Lisa, and she’d figured that if she had a better idea of what was inside it, she might know how to use it better. Stacia challenged her to put it back together, which Skin managed to do before she sun had completely risen. She wasn’t as practiced and efficient with it as a trained Galactic Marine, but Stacia suspected that Skin’s long time of servitude, being forced to take care of things behind the scenes where the Shellheads couldn’t see, had given her the beginnings of all the knowledge she needed to work with complex machines. Stacia would need to remember that.

The earthquake ridge nearby, while apparently rather recent in a geological sense, was on the rough instructions Lexton had given her to reach Roo-Soh. According to them, Stacia and Skin were close to their destination. Stacia felt her first tremor on the planet while they were packing up and eating, although Skin said it wasn’t even worth noticing. Once they were ready, the two of them followed the cliff for nearly a kilometer before Stacia finally got her first sight of the town.

“What is that?” Skin asked as they got their first view of the structures in the distance.

“I’m assuming it’s the town of Roo-Soh.”

“It doesn’t look anything like Hobbes.”

“Skin, I know you were probably raised to believe Hobbes was a bustling urban metropolis, but it’s really just a pit. Wait until you see a real city.”

“Is this a real city?”

“Not quite.”

“Then I don’t understand how I’ll ever see one.”

Stacia didn’t answer that. Instead, she climbed up onto a nearby rock outcropping to get a better look at Roo-Soh. While Stacia could see now why someone had chosen to put Hobbes right at the boundary between the barnacles and the plains, this seemed like a much more sensible spot to attempt building a civilization. The people of Roo-Soh had taken a clue from certain ancient Earth cultures and carved their squat homes directly into the rocks of the cliff. Most of them could only be reached by a series of rough-hewn ladders and catwalks. There was still plenty of evidence that this was a town of former Galactic Marines in the form of repurposed drop pod pieces scattered all over.

“Why would they build like that?” Skin asked.

“It’s the perfect defensible position. Nothing can get at them from behind them because of the cliff at their backs. And anyone approaching them from the front has the disadvantage of coming at them from lower ground. Any attacking party would probably get chewed up and spit out.”

“If it’s so perfect, why wasn’t Hobbes made here?”

“I suspect that what they gain in defense, they lose in uncertainty. This area is obviously less geographically stable. Get a big enough earthquake, and the whole town could come tumbling down with the people still inside.”

“I think I’d prefer Hobbes,” Skin said.

“Don’t be so quick to assume that,” Stacia responded. “Especially considering… that.”

Stacia pointed at some movement at the hovel closest to them. There was a woman working outside, a Skin. It looked like she was burying some kind of bowl in a shallow pit, which she looked like she would then set fire to. A makeshift kiln, probably. The Skin had dark skin from time in the sun, and while she didn’t look like she’d lived an entirely easy life, she at least had the muscles of someone who had actual nutrition in her favor. A man came out of the hovel behind her, a Shellhead, and approached the woman. Stacia watched Skin wince at his approach, obviously expecting the woman to be beaten or berated at any second. Instead, the woman stood up from her work, kissed the man. The man stooped for a moment to help her with some of the burying. Then the woman waved good-bye to him as he made his way off down one of the catwalks.

The morning air was disturbed by the wail of a baby or small child from inside the hovel. The woman went in to investigate and disappeared from sight.

“It looks like things you were told about Skins serving the Shellheads aren’t universally believed on Leviathan,” Stacia said. Skin wasn’t the only one staring at the scene with a new understanding. Stacia herself began to realize exactly what “ideas” Stanton Borealis probably professed if this was where he had chosen to live.

Or perhaps chosen wasn’t the right word. Some distance away, Stacia could see the remains of a small ship. The state of it suggested that it hadn’t landed so much as crashed, not that it could be taken off the planet even if it could be repaired. Instead, it looked like the people of Roo-Soh had been stripping it for parts.

“That right there,” Stacia said, pointing at the ship’s remains. “That was Borealis’s ship.”

“How do you know for sure?”

“Most of the conveyances that leave people on Leviathan are drop pods. Actual full-sized ships are rare.”

“Still, couldn’t it belong to someone else?”

“It’s his. I know it.”

Skin hesitated, then quietly said, “You don’t have to do it.”

“Skin, I came to Roo-Soh to accomplish something, and I intend to do it.”

“But why? How do you know he deserves what you’re going to do to him?”

“I know. More than you think.”

“Is there something else you’re not telling me?”

Stacia ignored the question. “Now we just need to figure out how we’re going to approach the town.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I already said how hard it would be to sneak in. But there has to be a way.”

“Why not just walk up and say hi?” With that, Skin started moving.

“Skin, no, wait, that’s not…” Skin waved her arms. Before Stacia could pull her back, a Shellhead that had been descending one of the ladders saw her and called up to raise an alarm. A number of people appeared both along the cliff and from hidey-holes on the ground, all of them aiming weapons at the two of them. Stacia’s tactical implants instantly took note of the fact that all of them were armed with nothing more than bows and arrows, makeshift crossbow, and other primitive and crude projectile throwers.

Interesting, Stacia thought. Looks like Hobbes was the only place that benefited from Faust’s little weapons deal. She made a snap judgment and raised her hands in the air. “Don’t shoot! We’re friendly!”

Stacia thought she heard one of the approaching people chuckle at that. “Friendly” probably wasn’t a word they used for many outsiders around here. The woman that came up to them first was a Skin, and judging from the way she ordered some of the others about, she must have had some authority.

“Yeah, we’ll see. Name and rank, marine.”

Stacia raised an eyebrow. With that kind of introduction, she would have guessed that this woman was an Elite, yet nothing showing anywhere on her exposed skin indicated that she’d taken it from someone else.

“Stacia X-79. And I don’t have a rank. Not anymore.”

“Sure you don’t. Not the first time we’ve had someone from Hobbes try that one. Mind telling me… hey, stop that!” Skin, apparently noticing the same discrepancy Stacia had, was poking the woman in the neck and cheek.

“You’re a Skin!” Skin said. “A real Skin! With a weapon and everything!” She tried to grab the woman’s wrist to take a closer look at it, but the woman jerked it away.

“Sorry about that,” Stacia said. “She has boundary issues. It’s not her fault. I’m trying to teach her.”

“Hmm,” the woman said noncommittally. After several seconds of indecision, she lowered her weapon. Everyone else that had come with her followed suit.

“Did I say something that convinced you?” Stacia asked.

“No, but most Shellheads out of Hobbes don’t come with a Skin that’s not on a leash or something. Not that most Skins make it across the plains without getting melted.”

“We came close,” Skin muttered.

“X-79?” the woman asked. “Is that…”

“Yes, that’s really my surname, and no, I’m not in the mood to rehash the story again.”

“Hmm,” the woman said again. “I’m Cobble Dossen. Current elected leader of Roo-Soh.”

“Elections,” Stacia said. “How droll.”

“Yes, I’m guessing you’ve already been through Hobbes then. All the more reason you’ll understand if we remain cautious. You must be fresh to Leviathan?”

“I was just discharged two days ago.”

Cobble looked at the weapons strapped to Stacia’s back and the blood that still covered Skin’s clothes. “Looks like it’s been an eventful two days.”

“You have no idea.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I do.” Cobble turned and gestured for the other armed guards to head back to their posts. “Come on. Let’s get you situated.”

“Let me guess, I have to swear loyalty to you and Roo-Soh before I can do anything else.”

Cobble actually laughed. “You really have been through Hobbes. No, you don’t have to worry about that. But there’s someone here that I’m pretty sure would like to meet you.”

Stacia tensed, but tried not to let anyone else see. The tactical implants in her head started to work, and the conclusions they were drawing weren’t happy. Especially now that they were starting to point out ways people could have gotten through Roo-Soh’s meager defenses.

As nonchalantly as she could, Stacia slipped one of the plasma pistols into her hand, then did her best to make it look non-obtrusive. Nothing to see here, folks, move along. Definitely not expecting a double-cross at any moment.

Cobble led them over a number of ladders and catwalks in a switchback, zig-zag pattern until they were at the top-most building on the cliff. A little extra care had been taken into its design, leading Stacia to believe it was either Cobble’s version of a mansion or some kind of government building. They went through the leather curtain that served for a door (not human, as far as Stacia could tell, but rather the stitched together pieces of a small, greenish animal) into a wide and tall room, lit by a hole near the top of one wall to let the sunlight through.

Stacia was completely and utterly unsurprised to find ten Shellheads in the room, each with 808s pointed directly at Stacia’s head.