Planet Leviathan

^{Chapter 8} Home on the Strange

The Skin was not used to running, especially not in the wide open uneven ground. She tired quickly, so Stacia had her climb up on her back for a time as Stacia continued to put some distance between them and Hobbes. After about two hours of this, and with the sun beginning its descent to the horizon, Stacia realized she wouldn’t be able to keep this up anymore without food and rest. So they stopped to make camp, and Stacia was finally able to take stock of the situation.

Knowing full well now what kind of threats lurked among the barnacle/tree-things, Stacia had gone straight out over the open plain until the forest of barnacles could no longer be seen. The only thing there was to see for kilometers in every direction was the alien grass and the occasional strange trail of dead earth winding among it. She would be able to see or hear any danger approaching. They also didn’t have any shelter. Stacia had no idea how cold this area of Leviathan got at night. The elements could only do so much to harm her, but her unexpected companion was another issue.

The woman got down from her perch on Stacia’s shoulders, hugging her arms tight to her breasts either to keep herself warm or in some attempt at modesty. Given what she had been doing when Stacia found her, Stacia’s guess was the former. She stripped the clothes off the dead Elite and handed them to the woman, then tossed the body well off to the side away from their meager camp. She had no idea what kind of scavengers a dead body might attract, but she didn’t have the means to bury it or otherwise dispose of it at the moment.

The woman wordlessly dressed, although the simple shirt, pants, and boots combo managed to look even more ridiculous on her slight and malnourished frame than she had when she was butt naked. There was also the fact that the shirt and pants had bullet holes and blood on them, but the woman didn’t seem to mind. Stacia figured she’d probably seen worse.

When the woman was finished, she stood stock still, still trembling slightly, waiting for Stacia to tell her to do something.

“Don’t you want to sit down?” Stacia asked.

“Is that what you would like me to do?”

“It doesn’t matter what I would like you to do. What do you want to do?”

She looked shocked by this question. “Is this a test?”

Stacia raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t respond. Instead, she sat down herself, and after several seconds of indecision, the woman followed suit.

“Okay, before we do anything else,” Stacia said, “we’re going to have to figure out your name.”

The woman shook her head. “Skins don’t have names.”

“Yeah, you said that. But I can’t just keep calling you Skin, can I?”

“Why not?”

“Unless that’s what you want me to call you?”

The woman cocked her head and thought about it. “Are you going to kill me?” She said it very calmly, as though a yes answer wouldn’t be that terrible.

“Of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t have a reason to.”

“You killed lots of people at the Head House.”

“That’s because they got in my way.”

“If I get in your way, are you going to kill me?”

Stacia took a long time to respond. “I don’t want to do that. That’s why I brought you with me. After talking to you, I couldn’t just leave you there. But I have something I need to do. Something very important to me. Something I intend to do no matter what. My advice to you is, don’t get in my way, and neither of us will have to find out the answer to that question.”

That seemed to satisfy her. “So you’re not going to eat me?”

“What? No.” Stacia didn’t want to ask why that question would even occur to her.

“And you’re not going to take my skin?”

“No.”

“Then yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I want to be called Skin. If you promise me I get to keep it, that’s what I want to be.”

Stacia shrugged. “Okay then. I promise.”

The woman gave Stacia the first genuine smile she had seen since crashing on this gods-forsaken planet. She waved frantically in greeting, even though she was less than a meter away. “Hi! I’m Skin!”

Stacia smiled back. “Nice to meet you, Skin. I’m Stacia X-79.”

Skin didn’t seem to think there was anything strange about a woman having nothing but numbers and letters as a last name. Come to think of it, given the way people like her were treated on this world, Stacia wouldn’t be surprised if she’d never learned to even write numbers or letters.

“Okay then, Skin, now that we’ve got some time to talk, why don’t you tell me what I need to know?”

She cocked her head again. “I don’t know what you need to know.”

“That’s because I haven’t asked you yet. When Faust brought me to Hobbes, he and the rest of his people looked nervous about getting too far away from the barnacles. Given that I’ve already seen what lives among the barnacles, maybe you could tell me what could possibly be so much worse that people would prefer keeping close to the dominatrixes.”

Skin fidgeted and looked away. “Wet Lisa.”

“Who’s Wet Lisa?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me what you do know.”

“It’s not a who. It’s a what. And there’s a bunch of them, I think. I’ve never been allowed to leave Hobbes, so I haven’t seen one. But I know they’re the reason there’s no grass around Hobbes.”

“Why? What do they do to the grass?”

“I don’t know. Most of the Shellheads I worked with wouldn’t talk about them. Like it was bad luck.”

“Okay. What else do you know about this Wet Lisa?”

“I know that’s what ate the Lord Commander’s face.” She thought about it for a second. “And they only come out during the day. It’s safe at night.”

Stacia looked in the direction of the setting sun again. So they would be safe from whatever these things were. She couldn’t get complacent, though. That also meant any searchers from Hobbes would probably be out and about in the dark.

“Oh, and they’re named after the Lord Commander’s mother,” Skin said.

“Hmm. I’m not sure I want to know why Lexton called her mother Wet Lisa. But what about that wall? It seems to have worked, but I don’t have the slightest clue how.”

“I don’t know,” Skin said with a shrug. “That’s not usually what the Shellheads talk about when they take me to bed. Usually, they just complained that it was unfair that they were on this planet.”

Stacia quizzed Skin on as much as she could regarding the planet, ranging from the length of the days to what local life might be edible to humans. On some things, Skin was helpful, like where to find the little bushy structures that made up the fiber for their clothing, while on other things, like anything about extended life outside of Hobbes, she was unclear on. If it hadn’t been involved with something the Skins needed to do to serve the Shellheads, then it had never been taught to them. Finally, Stacia couldn’t keep dancing around the subject and had to ask.

“Skin, how did this society even happen?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I mean, the Skins serving the Shellheads.”

“That’s just always the way it’s been.”

Stacia thought back to what little she already knew. Alena Lexton had been the first person sentenced to the radical idea of a prison planet exclusively for former Galactic Marines, and since she was still in charge, it stood to reason that she’d had a large part in making Leviathan (or at least Hobbes, she reminded herself, as Leviathan was a very big planet and Lexton was just one small woman) what it was. She didn’t remember what Lexton had been sentenced for, but it had to be something horrible to introduce the idea of an entire planet set aside for people like her.

So it made some sense that Lexton would create a society where people like her ruled and others without her Galactic Marine enhancements were slaves. Sometimes a lot worse than slaves, from some of the things Skin had said. In addition to the natural born of the planet being harvested for their hides, Skin had said one or two things so far that led Stacia to believe that there might even be cannibalism. An entire group of human beings used as slave labor and sex toys at best, cattle at worst.

Stacia tried a different question. “Who were your parents?”

“Parents,” Skin said thoughtfully. “I don’t know if I had any.”

“You must have. There doesn’t appear to be the technology on this planet to do anything other than natural birth.”

“Oh! You want to know who birthed me. That’s different, but I don’t know that either.”

“Why don’t you know? And why do you think that’s different?”

“I don’t know because I don’t know. Parents aren’t common. I was raised in a communal house like all the other kids. And it’s different because parents aren’t allowed.”

“Explain that.”

Skin looked at her like Stacia was the naïve one that needed to learn the basic facts of the universe. “When anyone gets pregnant, they’re not allowed to see the baby. It gets taken away right away.”

“This may be a planet full of the worst offenders the galaxy has to offer, but I refuse to believe that every single one of them allow that. There’s got to be a lot of them with parental instincts.”

“There are plenty that wish they could keep their babies. But they can’t. The Skins know better than to try anything, but every so often, a Shellhead thinks they can take their babies and run away before anyone can stop them.”

“And what happens then?”

Skin shrugged. “No one ever sees them in Hobbes again.”

“What about you? Have you ever had a baby?”

Stacia regretted the question the instant a haunted look came over Skin’s face. “I was pregnant once.”

That wasn’t exactly an answer. Stacia waited to see if Skin would elaborate, but she just sat in silence. Stacia decided to let it go.

“So you really have no idea who your mother and father are?”

“No. Well, maybe. There was one time. Right after they made me start working on the stages in the common house. A Shellhead told me to come with him upstairs, and I figured he was going to do the usual things to me. But he didn’t. He had me sit on the bed and just looked at me for several minutes, then said he was done and left. He was killed by a dominatrix soon after. Normally, that kind of thing doesn’t bother me. It happens, and I’ve spent lots of times with lots of Shellheads. But him, I don’t know, I felt sad afterward.” Skin stared off into the distant twilight for a few seconds, then looked at Stacia. “So is that something that happens on other worlds? People know their parents?”

“Maybe not everyone,” Stacia said. “There are a lot of worlds, a lot of sentient creatures, a lot of ways of life. But for me, I know my mothers well.”

Skin tilted her head. “Mothers? No father?”

“Yes and no. I don’t know which of my mothers is my biological mother. They insist it doesn’t matter, that they both love me like I was in their womb. They were in love and wanted a child, so they enlisted a friend to be the biological father. He lived with us and helped them raise me until I was five.”

“Did he leave?”

“No. He died.” Stacia stopped, unsure if she wanted to continue. She was a Galactic Marine. Marines weren’t supposed to dwell on the past or attachments. Except she wasn’t really a marine anymore, was she? It might feel good to say these things to someone, especially someone she didn’t have to worry about getting in her way. “All three of my parents had military training. But Papa didn’t have the same level of combat experience. So when some rebels attacked my homeworld, and the various branches of the service fought back, he got caught in a building he shouldn’t have been in when it was shelled. Completely vaporized.”

“I’m… I’m sorry?” Skin asked, as though she wasn’t sure if this was the correct response for this sort of thing. “Did… did your mothers both live?”

“They lived, and they went back to duty. They felt like they had to. Especially after…” No, Stacia thought. She couldn’t go that far. That much she had to keep to herself.

“After what?” Skin asked. Apparently, she didn’t know what a hint was.

Stacia continued, choosing every word carefully. “The ionic mortar shell that hit the building belonged to the Galactic Marines. Now, the rebels were using a lot of tech they had stolen from various armed services, so no one could be certain exactly where it came from. But there was a lot of evidence someone on our own side fired it with no regard for what it would do to civilians. My mothers came out of their semi-retirement because they wanted to root out anyone that might have been involved. And they had that power. Because they were both generals.”

Skin looked a little confused at the term “generals,” but she at least seemed to understand they were people with power.

“And not just any generals, either. Some of the most decorated generals of all time. They became famous even before then for some of their actions when they were just raw Galactic Marine recruits. Back then, there were a few units designated by just letters and numbers. Mama Gertrude was part of Unit X-7. Mama Linny was in Unit X-9.”

Skin perked up. “That’s where your name comes from!”

Stacia nodded. “When they got married, they both kept their last names, Gertrude Abrams and Linsel Mockmone. But when I came along, they couldn’t decide which surname to give me, and they wanted to do something different anyway, so my official last name became a combination of their unit designations. With that kind of history, it was a foregone conclusion that I would follow in the footsteps of my parents and join the Galactic Marines.”

“But… you’re not one anymore? At least, according to you?”

“No, I’m not. I betrayed the Galactic Marine Corps. I’m no longer deserving of that title.”

“Why? What did you do?”

“I shot my superior officer.”

“On purpose?”

“Yes. Repeatedly.”

“I still don’t understand. I haven’t even known you for a day, but that already seems like something you wouldn’t do. Especially given how dedicated you are to the Galactic Marines.”

Stacia thought for a long moment, took a deep breath, and then looked Skin in the eyes. “General Borealis was the one responsible for the shelling of my home. My father died because of her actions, and she has kept that fact hidden from the public for years. I found out, but I couldn’t prove it.”

“So you killed her?”

“I shot her, but she lived. I was already taken into custody by the time I found out she was going to make it, so I decided to do the next best thing. She took someone special from me, so I’m going to take someone important from her.”

“Is that where we’re going? Is that what that leather says that you keep looking at?”

“Yes. The location of Stanton Borealis. Her last living child. He crashed here but couldn’t get off, because—”

“No one gets off of Leviathan,” Skin finished for her. Her voice had a reverent tone, like this was sacred scripture she had been forced to repeat for her entire life.

“No one leaves,” Stacia agreed.

“Does he deserve it? This Stanton person?”

Stacia didn’t answer. Skin didn’t seem to like that.

“So you’re going to kill someone that doesn’t deserve it.”

“His mother deserves it.”

“But he doesn’t.” There was something interesting about the way she said it, like she wanted to challenge Stacia on this but was afraid and didn’t know what Stacia would do in retaliation.

“You’re entitled to your opinion,” Stacia said, hoping Skin would take that to mean both that she should stop talking like that, yet she wouldn’t be punished if she didn’t. Whether or not Skin took the hint, she remained quiet until the night was fully upon them and she fell asleep in the grass. Stacia contemplated starting a fire, but decided against it. The fire would be an obvious beacon for anyone looking for them, and Stacia herself didn’t need it. Between her implants and her armor, she could survive comfortably in temperatures up to forty below zero, and uncomfortably in even colder. Skin would need warmth, but Stacia could provide that for her just by sleeping nearby. She set her implants to wake her when either the sky started to lighten or they sensed unexpected movement nearby, then she too went to sleep.

Less than an hour later, it wasn’t the sun that woke her up. Stacia’s implants set off alarms in her brain as she sensed something touching her. She grabbed the sonic blade she’d been sleeping with and immediately put it the neck of the intruder, only to find that the intruder was Skin herself. The woman had huddled up close to Stacia, but that wasn’t what had set off Stacia’s warnings. Instead, the woman had her lips just centimeters away from Stacia’s, and her hand was at Stacia’s legs, working the hatch the covered her crotch. Both of them froze, Stacia fighting her every instinct to slice the throat of someone who’d come after her in her sleep, and Skin trembling slightly, her lip quivering.

“Please do it quickly,” Skin said.

“I won’t hurt you if you tell me what the hell you’re doing.”

“I… I thought… maybe you wanted me to do this. You claimed me as yours by taking me. I figured this was why.” Her hand tried to work its way into the opening below in Stacia’s armor. Stacia jerked her hips away and pressed the knife tighter to Skins throat. All she needed to do was operate the sonic function, and the knife would practically push itself through the woman’s jugular.

“I did not give you permission,” Stacia said.

Skin closed her eyes. A single tear ran down her cheek. Clearly, she expected to die any moment now.

Stacia pulled the blade away and stabbed it into the dirt nearby, close enough that she could still grab it if she needed but far enough away her message would be clear. Skin paused for a second before backing away.

“I’m not one hundred percent sure why I took you with me,” Stacia said. “I think I felt sorry for you, although I don’t know I’ll be able to give you anything better than what you had. I thought I made it clear in that bedroom, though, that I have no interest in using you for sex. Even if you didn’t feel obligated. Because you’re not obligated to do anything anymore, not as long as the two of us are watching out for each other.”

“So… I don’t have to have sex with you? At all.”

“No.”

“Is there something wrong with me?”

“No, absolutely not.”

Skin nodded in understanding. “It’s because I’m a woman. You’re one of those people that’s only attracted to men.”

“No, I’m not attracted to men either.”

“But I’m confused. Who or what are you attracted to, then?”

“Nobody. Not in that way. I have no interest in sleeping with anyone for any reason other than safety and warmth in numbers.”

“Did something happen to you? Is it because of watching your father die? Did that break something inside you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me. The fact that I have no interest in sex does not make me broken, any more than you wanting it would make you broken. Neither of us is broken. We are whole in and of ourselves.”

“So, you really don’t want me to do anything to you?”

“No.”

“Even if I wanted to?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Huh.” Skin lay back down and stared up at the starry sky. “That’s so strange. Is that the way things are on other planets?”

“Most of them.”

“You have a choice. And I have a choice.” She was silent for several seconds before saying “huh,” again, and turning over to go back to sleep. Stacia watched her drift off to sleep, then moved close enough again for Skin to share her warmth before falling asleep herself.

This time, Stacia was uninterrupted until morning.