Planet Leviathan

^{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?”

Stanton looked like he was about to ask what that was supposed to mean, but he stopped as a look of grim understanding came over his face. “Are you ready to die?”

“I guess I am,” Stacia said. “You?”

“Hell no. But since when has death waited for people to be ready?”

He flicked a number of switches, and the engines, which had been in stand-by mode, roared to full power. He made a quick announcement over the intercom that Skin and Kendara had better be strapped in, then he pushed forward the lever that brought Daddy’s Adult Toy into the air.

“Do you remember the coordinates I gave you last night while we were talking about this?” Stacia asked.

“Yep. Looks like they’re just over a kilometer from here.”

“Stay under fifty meters until we get to that point. The security platforms shouldn’t pick us up until then.”

“That’s going to be difficult with these hills.”

“I guess that means now’s your chance to prove that your crash wasn’t really your fault.”

A startling number of red lights and alarms went off as Stanton skimmed the hilly surface on the way to their final launch point. Stanton gave most of the lights no more than a cursory glance before he shut them off, but a couple he left on even though he quieted their alarms. Stacia raised an eyebrow at this, but Stanton either didn’t notice or else couldn’t be bothered to answer her silent question. Apparently, he was in the zone, which was exactly where Stacia needed him to stay.

Just before they reached the coordinates, Stacia saw a number of Shellheads coming over a distant hill. Whether Kendara had lied or simply been wrong, there were significantly more than she had said. If they had waited, they would have been slaughtered. It seemed that Stacia had made the right decision in taking off right away, or at least the decision that was less wrong.

“Okay,” Stanton said. “We’re at the coordinates without getting blown out of the sky yet. Want to double check to make sure I’ve got them right?”

“Look’s correct.”

“And what exactly is it supposed to do if we fly up from here?”

“The security platforms in orbit are positioned so that up to five of them can fire on one location all at once for maximum likelihood of hitting their target even from orbit. When we were planning this, however, we found a few spots where the system isn’t quite as secure. If we start up from here, we’ll have only two of the platforms targeting us to start with, and only one able to get us after we leave the atmosphere. Do you remember what you’re supposed to do at the end?”

“I do, but again, I can’t be sure the ship is in any shape to do it.”

“Too late to worry about that now. Any last words?”

“How about ‘Nobody leaves Leviathan?’”

“Nobody but us,” Stacia said. “Hit it.”

Stanton pulled back on the stick, engaged the thrusters, and shot Daddy’s Adult Toy straight up into the air. Stacia had approximately one to two minutes to contemplate the way the g-forces felt like they were trying to rip her apart before they were likely to encounter the first salvo from orbit. Normally, a ship leaving a planet didn’t have to go this fast anymore, or at this extreme of an angle. Even so, the inertial dampeners should have been limiting the gravitational effects of the takeoff on them. Apparently, that had been one of the flashing red lights. From somewhere behind Stacia in the ship (or beneath her, depending on how she looked at it), Skin screamed at the sudden shock to her system. Stacia felt a sudden swell of pity for the young woman. She’d never even seen a ship take off from the planet’s surface, let alone been in one, and she would be completely unprepared for the roughness of their trip. With any luck, Stacia would be able to comfort her later. For now, trying to get out of her seat to go back to her would be suicide.

Another warning went off on the console, this time one Stacia clearly recognized. “First energy salvo from the platforms coming toward us.”

“I see that on the instruments,” Stanton said. “Hold on.”

“I’m already holding on!”

“Well, hold on harder.”

Stanton pulled the stick in a quick jerk to the left. Somehow, the gravitational forces pulling at her managed to get worse for a moment, and the entire ship shimmied to the side just in time to miss an enormous beam of energy lancing down at them. It vanished out of view below, no doubt hitting somewhere in the hills and vaporizing everything unlucky enough to be in its path.

“I think that one might have singed a wing,” Stanton said through gritted teeth.

“The other platform just fired off two beams at once.”

“Crap. This one’s going to be tricky.” Stanton pulled back on the stick so far that they were practically upside down compared to the ground. Stacia couldn’t see the beams from this angle, but the instruments showed that they criss-crossed right where the Toy would have been if not for Stanton’s maneuver. As Stanton wrestled with the stick in an effort to bring the ship back on the right course, the entire craft started to rattle and shake.

“I’m assuming it’s not supposed to do that?” Stacia asked.

“No. That’s bad.”

“Can the platforms see that we’re having problems?”

“Most likely.”

“Okay. Time to do it then.”

“No, we need to wait until we’re higher.”

“If I say it’s time…”

“You may be the rescuer, but I’m the pilot, and I say that if we try your final trick before we reach vacuum, then we’re all going back down to Leviathan the hard way.”

Stacia would have nodded if her head wasn’t plastered against the back of her seat. “Okay. I trust you.”

“You might want to have the switch for the hold doors ready, though. Our window of opportunity is going to be small.”

Two more beams shot past them, both of which Stanton was able to dodge, but with every maneuver, the ship’s shimmy got worse. A large number of new red lights lit up all across the control panels, including one very large and ominous one that Stacia recognized as belonging to the reactor.

“Stanton…”

“I see that, too. Can’t do anything about it.”

I gave up being a Galactic Marine for this, Stacia thought. Everything that ever meant anything to me. Was it worth it? She looked over at Stanton, the son of the woman who had saved her family. One way or the other, Stacia’s part in all this was done. She’d fulfilled the vow she’d made before she’d even been old enough to truly know what a vow was.

Yes. It was worth it.

“They’re changing tactics,” Stacia said. “Instruments show them launching a barrage of missiles.”

“How many?”

“Uh, all of them, it looks like. Every missile ever. How much longer until we’re in position?”

“Thirty seconds.”

Stacia didn’t bother to tell him what he likely already knew. Missiles would not be as fast as the plasma beams, but that kind of wall of explosive material would be near impossible to dodge. And the instruments said they would strike in twenty-six seconds.

In a last moment of inspiration, Stacia opened a channel to the platforms, then talked as though she’d just done it by accident. “We’re not going to make it!”

“We can make it. Just make sure you…” Stacia almost turned off the channel, but he seemed to understand what she was doing just before he gave their plan away. “Just keep hanging on!”

Nineteen seconds. Stacia forced a hand onto the lever that would blow the emergency explosives on the cargo hold doors.

“I can’t do it!” Stanton said. “I can’t dodge them!” Despite his words, he gripped the stick tighter.

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.