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Chapter Text

Hound One was born to kill. Plenty of grunts and lesser pilots liked to claim that about themselves, scrawl it on the side of their helmets or spray-paint it onto their death machines, but Hound One felt it in her bones. She remembered nothing from before her first sortie, and everything since had been the thrill of the hunt, the sheer satisfaction of wiping scores of tiny red dots off her map, the radiant tingle of her Handler’s voice reminding her of what a good job she’d done.

How could she not have been born to kill, when killing felt this fucking good?

She soared above the battlefield, crossing post codes in seconds, her mech a lightning-fast dispenser of depleted uranium death. Enemy infantry cowered beneath her, in buildings and bushes and the hulls of IFVs, but none could hide from her all-spectrum sensor suite, or the pouring rain of 20mm slugs from her wrist-mounted canons. Each little blip she snuffed out sent a tiny, precious jolt of pleasure directly into her sensor column, her Handler rewarding her good work through her mech’s neural link.

She was on edge, teeth grit, brow sweaty, panting and keening. These puny mortals weren’t enough, Handler demanded a worthy prize. Something big and juicy, something that’d let her fucking cum.

Handler’s voice sang out from the base of her brain stem, a divine resonance: Enemy mechs, bearing 15 degrees. Kill.

Oh fuck yes.

She redirected with a turn that would have killed a baseline human, her fellow Hounds following close behind. They were a pack, a well oiled machine, constantly sending low-level communication to one another over shortwave: hull integrity, position, vital signs, and a myriad of other signals. They didn’t need words to communicate, only gesture, sight and scent.

Eight enemy mechs appeared on the radar. They outnumbered the pack two to one, but Hound One knew they’d be no match for her. Their mechs were slower, fatter, piloted by mere baseline humans, communicating at the speed of flapping lips instead of thought. None of them had been inside a cockpit for even a tenth of the time the Hounds had, and she would make sure none of them ever would.

The enemies turned to face them, and Hound One’s sensors exploded with an inferno of warning messages: missiles and slugs, a storm of death. She dodged like a mad dancer, projectiles whizzing past, all while locking onto the lead mech.

She felt the lock-on, saw the bulky hostile machine highlighted by her sensor suite, and her vision went red. She felt the dribbling precum between her legs, the sweat running down her brow. She felt Handler’s voice, Handler’s presence, like she was right there with her with a gun at her back and a hand on her cock.

KILL.

She fired one of her shoulder-mounted AMGMs, her breath catching as it whizzed off. The moment between it leaving her chassis and splashing the bandit felt like a thousand eternities.

When it connected, she howled with manic, orgasmic glee, her whole body shuddering in climax. The enemy mech was reduced to a ball of fire and a rain of scrap metal; it was beautiful, like a lover’s face painted white with spunk.

She could hear her sisters having similar reactions to their own kills. It was glorious; Handler rewarded them so well, had trained them perfectly. They were her tools, digits on her hand, extensions of her will, her perfect fighting Hounds.

She regained her senses just in time to realize she was about to collide with another hostile machine. She watched as the other pilot uselessly tried to dodge away from her, before hitting her afterburners and tackling her quarry. They spun in the air, Hound One’s head swimming as she ripped the other mech’s limbs off. She punched her way into the cockpit, feeling at last the warm, shuddering body of the enemy pilot in her hand.

When she crushed them into a ball of wet gore, her climax was even more powerful than the first.

The rest of the sortie continued in much the same way, with their pack combining to destroy thirty-two mechs, seventeen tracked AFVs, and untold hundreds of worthless fucking infantry. Hound One counted fifteen climaxes before she lost count, the positive feedback loop of Handler’s voice and combat stimulants and killing killing killing putting her in a fuck-drunk fugue state.

There were no distractions on these sorties, no units in need of rescue or strategic positions to defend. The pack was just sent out to kill, until they ran out of ammo or got killed themselves (not that any of them would ever dare to disappoint their Handler by letting that happen.) It was heaven for Hound One; every day there were more hostiles to kill, and better yet, they kept getting closer and closer to headquarters, so there was less time wasted on travel to and from the AO.

Alas, all good things must come to an end; the pack’s magazines had to run dry eventually, and it wasn’t long before Handler called them back. Hound Three especially resented the notion that you needed ammo to kill things when you had two perfectly good sets of claws, but even she knew not to disobey Handler.

The flight back to base was uneventful, all those red dots slowly fading away from their radar to be replaced with the bright blue of friendly forces. It was dull, and that bothered Hound One; boredom always made her shake, made her queasy. She tried focusing on the scenery; she knew this planet was called Volga, and that the Takyarch thought it was very important, but all she saw was bombed-out industrial ruins crossed with miles and miles of trenches, bunkers, tunnels, and dug-in war machines.

She often thought about fighting the friendlies too, just to stop the boredom, but she knew from experience that would make Handler very, very mad. She just took a deep breath, secure in the knowledge that Handler would have treats when she got back.

Their home base was a massive concrete dome at the epicenter of Volga’s capital city. It was just about the only structure on the planet that hadn’t suffered some sort of damage from the war; the Takyarch’s black banners fluttered proudly everywhere one looked, while trucks, tanks, mechs, and thousands of soldiers muddled about conducting the tedious business of war. The towering steel doors of Hangar 3 were already opening by the time they arrived. They flew through in single file, before gingerly parking their 3-story death machines in their usual docks.

Handler’s voice came on again, and Hound One was instantly soothed. Welcome home, sweet hounds. Release.

With that single command, Hound One’s neural link was disconnected; gone were the sensations of steel and ceramic plate, the full-range sensor suite and the metric tons of crushing force. She was no longer a pilot and mech, a god of war; she was a sweaty, greasy, fumbling creature of flesh and bone.

Prior releases had given her full-fledged panic attacks, had turned her into a wailing, biting thing. But Hound One knew that Handler was outside, with treats and pets and praises for a job well done. She shut her eyes as her cockpit door opened, the hangar spotlights a dreadful contrast to the soothing dark of her chassis, before squinting and stumbling her way onto the cool concrete floor.

The repair crews were already there, spraying scorch marks and gore off her mech’s angular black frame, repairing all the minor scratches and scuff marks so it shone like medals on the Takyarch’s chest. Hound One knew better than to watch them work, though. She stood shoulder to shoulder with her packmates as they clambored over to her, watching with a beaming smile as their Handler strutted down the runway.

Handler really was the most blessed being to have ever been; icy cold eyes peering out from a sharp, handsome face, jet black hair so straight you could use it as a ruler, with an athletic body clad in the shiny black leather of a Federation officer’s uniform. Hound One always had to stop herself from staring at Handler’s feet; she had the most perfectly fuckable boots in known space, polished so perfectly you could see your own reflection in them. Instead, she maintained eye contact, as Handler always taught her.

She walked with two attaches, clad in similar uniforms to her own; one of them carried a data-slate, while the other wheeled along a tank of water with a garden hose attached.

“My sweet, sweet Hounds, always coming when I call.” Her voice was different in person, if only because Hound One actually heard it as sound, rather than the words being beamed directly into her brain stem. She pat them all on the head, starting with Hound Four, then Three, then Two, before finally coming to her. She leaned into it, letting Handler’s gloved fingers run through her greasy, messy mop of dirty blonde hair. “Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?”

She stepped out of the way, and the attache with the hose sprayed them all down with lukewarm water. The jet was just strong enough to wash the dried cum off of Hound One’s midrift; she noticed Hound Three sticking her tongue out to catch some of it in her mouth, a gesture which Hound One always found supremely undignified.

After a couple minutes of this, the attache turned the hose off, and Handler continued. “You’re all such good girls for me. You pulled off so many wonderful tricks, and I think that’s earned all of you a sweet, sweet treat.”

Without looking, she held one hand out to the other attache, who handed her a transparent plastic capsule. Hound One felt herself perk up at the sight, knowing the sweet, soothing treats that were contained within, but when Handler took a moment to inspect it, she frowned.

She turned back to her attache, pulling her in close. There was a lot of furious whispering, and Hound One could tell Handler was very upset. She didn’t raise her voice, nothing so undignified; it was the way her stone-cut jaw was set, the tension so obvious to anyone who’d spent as long with Handler as Hound One had. For a brief moment, she worried this pretty young attache was about to suffer the brunt of her Handler’s wrath.

Instead, Handler simply turned around, smiling in her usual approving way. “Yes indeed, sweet, sweet treats, but your dear pack lead Hound One has earned herself something even sweeter.”

Hound One didn’t need to look to feel her packmates staring at her with pure envy. She swallowed, watching as Handler stepped forward and fed each of the other hounds.

Four came first, her single remaining eye staring up at Handler like the goddess she was. Handler held her treat up high for a moment, before dropping it down so Four could catch it in her mouth.

Next was Three, whose tongue lolled out of her mouth as she panted for her master’s attention. Handler placed her treat directly on it, even jamming her fingers into Three’s mouth to make sure she swallowed.

Then, there was Two, who didn’t even seem to need treats in order to sleep. Inside the mech, she were perhaps the most ferocious of their pack; outside of it, she could barely motivate herself to take one step forward. Handler just pressed the treat to Two’s lips, not even waiting for them to swallow before moving on.

Of course, it was watching Handler feed Two that One saw the truth of the matter. The capsule was empty; Handler had given Two her last treat. One felt her heart jump in her chest, wondering how she’d ever cope with the boredom, the thoughts, without her treats.

But then Handler stepped up to her, and One felt her breath on her face, and all anxiety was forgotten. “Yes, Hound One, my precious pack lead. You’ve earned yourself something special; a night alone with me.”

She turned to her two attaches. “Lieutenant Nahami, escort the other three Hounds to their kennels. Lieutenant Magne, my collar if you please.”

The Lieutenant with the data-slate reached into her jacket, and produced a simple black collar and leash for Handler to clip around Hound One’s neck. The mere gesture was enough to have Hound One’s cock throbbing against her thigh, and that was before Handler gave it a good hard tug, sending her to the ground on all fours.

“Come with me, Hound One. We’re going to have some fun.”

Chapter Text

Handler led her along with ease, her grasp firm, but not overpowering. Hound One was all too happy to follow, ignoring the strange looks she got from the troops as they passed. Handler had once told her that people found her constant nudity rather odd, a fact Hound One couldn’t help but chuckle at. Clothes were for people; Hound One was a hound.

Of course, the base was rather large, and it consisted entirely of featureless concrete corridors. Hound One tried her best to tune things out, to keep her pesky thoughts at bay, but Handler and her attache were talking, and Hound One couldn’t help but listen to them.

“We’re running out of ammo, running out of food, and now I’m out of fucking Decognizine. What does that lobotomite Stroessner think he’s doing? My Hounds are the only reason we’re still in this fight!”

“We just have to wait for the Third Fleet to arrive, Ma’am.” The attache’s voice was nasally, her level tone betraying no small measure of anxiety.

Handler scoffed. “Oh, don’t go parroting his bullshit back at me, Magne, you’re smarter than that.”

“I know, I know, it’s just… what’s the alternative?”

They had arrived at Handler’s office by now, marked by a simple metal door labeled COLONEL BLANCO in blocky black letters. Handler stopped in front of the threshold, turning to place a hand on her attache’s shoulders.

“Listen to me, Hilda. I will personally strangle every shit-licking commie in this solar system before I let anything happen to one of my girls. Understand?”

The attache nodded, and Hound One felt a strange kinship for her. “I know, Ma’am, I just… I know how they treat our officers, and we’re both part of the Cerberus program, and—”

“It won’t come to that.” Handler’s voice was as authoritative as ever. “And if it does, you were transferred under me as a punishment detail, and were too afraid to disobey me. I’ve got the forged records for that first bit sitting in my desk already.”

The attache’s eyes shined at this, and Hound One could have sworn she was tearing up. “Ma’am, I…” She threw her arms around Handler, who returned the gesture in kind, even patting her on the head. “Thank you…”

“Of course, sweet thing.”

They broke it off somewhat awkwardly, the attache biting her lower lip for a moment. “Come to my bunk?”

Handler smiled in a way that made Hound One’s cock throb again. “Later. I have a Hound to treat, remember?”

She held Hound One’s leash up, prompting her to look the attache in the eye. She’d seemed to have been deliberately ignoring Hound One for the duration of their little stroll, and when their gazes met, Hound One knew precisely why. Her expression was one of pure contempt, mixed with an unmistakable tinge of jealousy.

Hound One couldn’t help but find that funny. This woman, an officer in the Takyarch’s army, was jealous of a dog. She stuck her tongue out at the attache as her Handler dragged her into her office, just able to watch her scoff before the door shut behind her.

Handler’s office was austere, the walls and floor the same concrete gray as the rest of the base. She had a blocky metal desk with a laptop and second monitor, and two framed photographs on the wall: one was a portrait of the Takyarch, required in every Federation workspace and dwelling, and the other was a picture of Handler shaking the Takyarch’s hand. Aside from the entrance, there was another door off to one side, which Hound One assumed to be Handler’s bedchamber.

But they wouldn’t make it to the bedchamber. Instead, Handler turned around and snapped her fingers. “Come.”

Hound was at her feet in a flash, looking up at her with lusty adoration.

“You really are such a good, good girl for me, Hound.” Handler’s voice was a chorus of angels; her hand on Hound’s head was God creating Adam. No treat in all the world could compare to her touch. “And good girls like you deserve so much more than mere treats; you’ve earned yourself a meal, sweet thing.”

Hound One whined when she pulled her hand back, until she saw what Handler was doing with it. She was unbuckling her black leather belt, undoing the fly on her pants, tugging them down just far enough to expose her sex. It was a slow, teasing dance, one that had Hound drooling on the floor by the time Handler beckoned her forth, the sight of her cunt like the gates of doggy Heaven.

But even with her desire at an all-time high, with her gock throbbing between her thighs, Hound One didn’t dare to move… until she heard those four blessed words: “Dig in, Hound One.”

She was on her in a flash, diving for that cunt, stuffing her nose in Handler’s close-cut bush just to huff her gunpowder scent. It had been a long while since Hound had been rewarded with so rich a meal, but she still knew all the techniques Handler liked: the motions of her tongue, when to focus her clit and when to lay off of it, the pace that perfectly matched the slow, instinctual bucking of Handler’s hips. The taste was glorious, flesh and sweat and acrid slick. It was a feast fit for a king, a decadent primitive tyrant of old Terra, and Hound One had it all to herself.

She was humping handler’s leg, grinding her girlcock against those boots, keening and moaning with delight. Normally such behavior would have earned her a punishment, but today her merciful, blessed Handler was instead pushing her shoe up into Hound’s crotch.

“That’s it puppy, that’s it… Cum for me, get me to cum…”

Hound one was stroking herself off, letting Handler mash her harsh boot leather into her tip. She was pumping like a woman possessed, doing her level best to make up for the lack of lube or the drip-feed of aphrodisiacs her mech provided.

She felt Handler’s grip tighten on her hair, jamming her in further. It was that slight tinge of pain, she thought, that tug on her scalp, that finally made her cum.

It was an altogether different experience than the orgasms she had in combat. When she scored a kill, it was like being struck by lightning, a near blinding assault on the senses, brought on by heaping doses of her bespoke combat stim cocktail injected right into her spinal column. This was slower, more sensual, allowing for a greater feeling of the individual sensations: the sweat running down her forehead, the shuddering of her limbs, the tensing and throbbing of her cock as she fired off rope after rope of sticky white semen, which splattered against Handler’s boot as it harshly jammed into her crown.

Through it all, Hound never once thought of taking her face off Handler’s crotch. Even in the midst of orgasm, she knew she lived to serve her master, that everything she did was to her benefit.

Lucky for her, Handler’s own climax followed swiftly. It was down to earth, a few satisfied grunts and curses, with a lovely little high-pitched gasp as Hound’s face was coated in a fine layer of squirt. Handler didn’t even need to instruct her to clean up; she lapped up every last spare drop of slick from her owner’s crotch, before doing the same with her own load. She especially relished the feeling of polishing those gorgeous army-issue boots with her tongue; no taste was finer than that of well-kept leather.

When her work was done, Handler gave her a smile more gorgeous than a sunrise. “Mhm… good girl, good girl.”

As she was bathed in headpats, a strange sort of clarity overtook her. She tried to think back to the last time she’d actually had physical sex with Handler; for all of this trip to Volga, and most of their previous adventure on Khosrau, her and the rest of the pack had fallen into a routine: wake up, sortie, kill kill kill, come back, treats, sleep. Even the time between systems was largely spent in cryogenic storage. The last time she’d properly made love to Handler, had felt her real physical touch beyond the occasional doting headpat, had been… her training.

Her eyes went wide; she really, really didn’t want to think about her training.

She looked up at her Handler with puppydog eyes. “Handler… when are we going to get more treats?”

Handler tilted her neck down to face her so quickly, Hound feared she might pull a muscle. Her mood instantly change, her loving, heavenly smile replaced with a sneer that could melt glaciers.

Hound didn’t even have time to react before she felt the back of her hand hit her square in the face. She went sprawling on the floor, her head spinning from the backhanded blow.

“Rotten little bitch. I give you the best fucking treat you could ever ask for, then you have the balls to go asking for more? To ask questions, of me?”

Her voice was a harsh, drill-sergeant shout, and hound felt herself curling up into a ball. This is why she didn’t want to think about training. “I-I’m sorry, I—”

Her grovelling was cut off by a gasp of pain as Handler kicked her in the gut, knocking the wind right out of her. She felt Handler’s boot, her perfect delectable boot, press against the side of her head, slowly applying pressure.

“Good Hounds don’t ask questions. Good Hounds don’t speak unless they’re fucking spoken to. Are you a good Hound?”

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I—”

She felt the press of cold metal against her crotch. “I didn’t ask for a fucking apology! Are you a good Hound or not?”

She was crying now, sobbing like mad. “I- I am! I’m Handler’s good little Hound! That’s all I am!”

She felt the press of Handler’s boot remove itself from her head; as she opened her eyes, she got to watch Handler re-holster her sidearm, then slowly but surely re-do her fly and belt buckle. “Good.”

Without a word, she went for the door, whistling to two passing soldiers and beckoning them inside. Like all the grunts of the Sixth Army, they’d survived nearly a full year of war, and they looked the part; wiry, unshaven, with wild shell-shocked gazes peering out from deeply recessed sockets. Still, they stood at attention, barely even staring at the naked, sobbing Hound before them.

Handler bent down and grabbed Hound One by the hair, yanking her to her feet. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Hound. These fine soldiers will take you to your kennel, and you will get a good night’s sleep. In the morning, you and your pack will get up, sortie again, and none of you will say a single fucking word about any fucking treats. Am I understood?”

Hound One nodded, sniffling. She hated herself, she wanted to gag on Handler’s pistol until she pulled the trigger… but she knew Handler wanted her alive. “Yes, Handler.”

“Good girl.” Handler just managed to slip her collar off, before shoving her into the arms of the two grunts. “Take it away!”

The walk back across the base was awkward and stumbling; Hound One wasn’t all that familiar with walking on two feet.

Chapter Text

Fire. Blaze. Inferno. Conflagration. Incineration.

Why did that stick with her? Not the charred faces, locked in grimaces of purest agony. Not the endless, desperate, ear-splitting screams. Not even the jovial, relaxed nature of the killers.

One of them had been smoking.

Another was taking a piss.

A third was saying that mother’s tits were the third or fourth finest they’d ever seen on a commie.

But no, it was the fire, the brilliant orange flame, the heat like a dying star, the ash on her face and in her nose and on her lips. Was that her mother’s taste, a gray death?

That was what stuck with her, that was what she feared above all else. They found it rather quickly; between lashings and cuttings and waterboarding, sounding and beating and months in solitary, it was fire that cowed her the most.

Fire, when she threatened to tear their fucking eyes out for what they’d done.

Fire, when she insisted on using her chosen name.

Fire, when she made eye contact without specific instructions.

Fire, when she didn’t come, sit, or bark when told.

They carried grill lighters whenever they were with her, finding the most alarming places to stick them. They built an unventilated fire pit in one of the cells, locking her in until she damn near choked on the fumes. They branded her flesh with a heated iron prod, so the helical seal of the Ideal Federation was scarred into her very being.

Fire, when she wouldn’t get in the simulator.

Fire, when she couldn’t control her death machine.

Fire, when she scored under fifty, seventy, ninety, ninety-nine point nine five percent combat efficacy.

Fire, when she showed even a fraction of a second of hesitation, pulling the trigger for real.

They all had their own weaknesses.

Two’s was water, the suffocation of a wet rag and a torrent of rancid liquid from a hose.

Four’s was electricity; all of them had to wear shock collars, but she screamed like a woman possessed when hers so much as beeped.

Three broke the elemental theme by being especially sensitive about her teeth. The military dentists were very good; their synthesized replacements looked just like the real deal, and felt just as horrible being crushed between a set of metal pliers.

All of them confided these things in one another, in between a thousand other agonies. They knew they were under surveillance, they knew that their captors were using what they said against them. But each other’s company was the one mercy they were given, the sound of friendly voices, the touch of a warm and caring hand. They loathed each other for their weakness, but loved each other because they had nothing else to love.

They even shared their names, once. What were their names? What was her name? Did she even have one?

There was a turning of a latch, a steel door being thrown open. There was a figure in the doorway, a shadow bathed in a hateful white light.

“Handler? Is that you?”

Her form was a sillhouette, save for two features: eyes like the ice of Cocytus, and a wide toothy smile of pure gleeful Hate.

“Good Hounds don’t ask questions.”

In her left hand she held a large red tank, which she tipped into the cell. Hound One felt herself wretch as she and her pack were drenched in gasoline.

In her right hand she held a matchbook, striking it against her boot.

Hound screamed awake as she threw it her way, thrashing and slamming her palms against the cold metal of her cage. She only stopped panicking when she banged the top of her head against the steel bars by mistake, the sharp pain causing her to clench her own head, fully returning her to the waking world.

She wasn’t back in training, thank Handler; she was in her cage in the kennel, on Volga, with her pack, safe and sound. The kennel was a storage closet, and when they’d first arrived on this world, it had been stuffed to the brim with boxes upon boxes of 6mm rifle rounds, “the right hand of the Takyarch’s infantry.” Now, their cages were all that remained, giving Hound One a lovely view of her packmates as they slept.

She wasn’t all that surprised to see them still snoozing; Handler’s treats were powerful things, dosed to give each of them the deepest sleep possible. She thought back on what had happened with Handler last night, how greedy and disobedient she had been to ask for more. The beating and the shouting had seemed like a light penalty for such a crime; perhaps her night terrors were the real punishment?

If so, it only made perfect sense that Handler would appear at the end, reminding her of what she’d done wrong. That had to be it.

Or at least, all the alternatives were too gargantuan and terrifying to think about.

Unable to even consider going back to sleep, Hound One instead crawled back and forth inside her cramped little cage, in between gnawing at her finger nails when pacing grew too tedious.

As she laid on the ground, trying to get her front teeth around a hang nail, she took a moment to appreciate the mat Handler had laid on the floor of her cage. It wasn’t really a mat, but an infantry jacket, made from a breathable synthetic cloth as opposed to the hard leather Handler and the other officers wore. It had once been a dull grey, but everything save the right sleeve was overtaken by a massive dark brown stain. Hound Three had once joked that Handler must have fetched it out of a septic tank. But Hound One could stick her entire thumb through the hole in the right front side.

Her reverie was interrupted by the door to their kennel swinging wide open. It was one of Handler’s attaches, not the blonde who she’d been talking with last night, but the one with the hose, Lieutenant Nahami.

She was wheeling her water cart with her right now; bathing Handler’s Hounds seemed to be one of her primary duties. She noticed Hound One was awake, turning to face her with a too-wide smile. “Waking up early, Number One? Well that’s no excuse to skip your morning shower! Wouldn’t want you reeking up the cockpit for today’s sortie, would we?” Her voice carried a strange venom with it, and Hound One knew immediately that she’d been made aware of last night’s events, either from Handler or Lieutenant Magne.

She had no time to consider the implications of this before she was hit square in the face with a stream of frigid water. She yelped in response, trying to cover her face, before Nahami turned her hateful liquid gaze upon the rest of her back. Each hound was given a roughly ten second dousing, jolting them immediately out of their treat-induced sleep, each one of them whining and barking to be let out of their cage. This was their typical wake-up call.

Once the pack was all riled up, Nahami went around the room and unlocked all their cages, throwing the doors open for them to walk free. All of them howled with delight at the sudden liberation from their cramped confines, taking a few moments to sprint around the room or sniff and nuzzle each other. Hound One joined in on this brief moment of freedom, catching a lovely whiff of Hound Four’s dirty red hair.

But all of them stopped dead when Nahami let out a wolf’s whistle. “Alright, enough of that! Form up, single file!”

She clapped her hands, and at once the pack arranged itself in the center of the room, standing ramrod straight in a ramrod straight line, with Hound One at the front. Satisfied at their performance, the Lieutenant whistled again, two short bursts, which was their signal to follow.

The march from the kennel to the hangar was a short one, but without the warm feeling of Handler’s treats still coursing through her bloodstream, she found herself taking it in with much more detail. She expected more of the soldiers they passed to oggle and heckle them as they had early on in the campaign, but she supposed they must have gotten used to their presence, for none of them so much as spared a glance. Most of them didn’t seem to look at anything, in fact; their eyes were like dulled flint, open without really seeing, as they went about their tasks with an unthinking, undead gait.

For some reason, she found the sight of them unnerving. It must have been the lack of treats in her system; she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about such things.

Then Hound Three had to go and lean in behind her. “So, how about that special treat ya got last night, One?”

Hound One clenched her fists at her sides, turning back to her packmate with a cold rage. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Hound Three didn’t know to take the hint. “Really? Because if I got some TLC from Handler, it’d be the only thing I’d wanna talk about.”

“Yeah, well I don’t, Three!”

“Oi!” Nahami shouted, suddenly turning her hose on and spraying them all down. “Enough with the fucking yapping! Any more of that and the Colonel will have your heads mounted on her wall.”

The fresh drenching did shut them up, but it didn’t do anything to help Hound One’s mood. She and Hound Three shot death glares at each other the whole rest of the way, while Two and Four looked embarrassed to even be in their pack. Two looked especially cross; she hated getting wet.

But, as they crossed the threshold into the hangar, Hound One spotted her beloved Handler across the way, standing at the foot of her mech, discussing something with Lieutenant Magne and one of the maintenance technicians. The mere sight of her was enough to banish any feelings of anxiety, filling Hound One with a fresh determination to make up for her transgressions last night.

Unfortunately, as the four of them stepped closer, it became clear that Handler’s discussion with the maintenance tech was getting quite heated indeed. With the constant noise of repairs, takeoffs, and landings in the hangar bay, Hound One could only hear the tail end of their discussion as she and her pack stood at attention before their master.

That was just in time for them to watch Handler grab the terrified technician by his collar. “We were supposed to have enough supply for another six months! What, have you all been snorting the stuff?”

He was wide-eyed with fear, knowing full well that Handler could squish him like a bug. “L-l-look, we’re just fresh out, okay? That’s all I know!”

Handler looked about ready to snap the poor fool’s neck, until Lieutenant Magne tapped her on the shoulder, letting her know that she had an audience. Handler dropped the poor technician at once, who immediately began running to the other side of the hangar.

Handler clasped her hands together. “Good morning, sweet Hounds! Are you ready to kill some more commies?”

All four of them replied in unison with a simple “Yes, Handler,” but Hound One found herself lingering on that word: commie. She knew the people were fighting were called commies, or communists for long, and that Handler and most of her officer friends hated them vehemently. That should have been enough for Hound One to hate them too, but hadn’t someone in her nightmare mentioned her mother being a commie? Did that make her a commie? Could all commies become good Hounds, with the right conditioning?

It felt so strange remembering her dream so vividly, when Hound One was so used to not dreaming at all.

Nonetheless, Handler continued, and Hound One was rapt with attention. “You’re heading to the southern front today; the eighth and tenth divisions are in a knock out brawl with the reds, and you’re going to be the deciding factor. Scrap as many commie mechs as you can, and there’ll be more sweet treats for you when you get back. Am I understood?”

Again, all of them replied in unison: “Yes, Handler!”

“Good girls! I’ll be off to the war room to guide you along. Now hop aboard and do me proud!”

All four of them yelped in excitement, before running over to their respective war machines. The maintenance techs had left the hatches open for them, so Hound One had no trouble clambering up her mech’s right leg, and into the cooled, padded cocoon of her cockpit. She felt a familiar darkness embrace her as the cockpit hatch shut automatically, nuzzling into her seat as her mech’s neural uplink and stim injectors slotted into the surgically-implanted plug in the back of her neck.

In an instant, she felt herself transform, fully inhabiting her spiky metal exoskeleton. This is what separated Hounds from normal pilots, even those taking full advantage of neural uplink technology; they still thought of their mechs as mere machines, toys of war, something they piloted as a job. To a Hound, her mech was an extension of her very being, a second body she moved in as easily, and perhaps easier, than her regular flesh-and-blood meat suit.

Hound One held her hand up to her external cameras, wiggling her fingers so she could watch the harsh lighting of the hangar dance across her titanium-alloy talons. Each one was as thick as a human calf, capable of cutting through steel, carbon fiber, concrete, and warm red flesh like butter.

Then she felt her Handler’s angelic voice, vibrating down from her implant to the base of her spine. Hound One, Launch.

In that glorious moment, all of her worries, regrets, and pesky pesky thoughts were fed into an industrial woodchipper. She muttered a silent pledge to do well by her Handler, to make up for being such a bad Hound last night, before jetting out of the hangar door like a bat out of hell.

Chapter Text

When the Martian Design Bureau began development on their third generation of Mechanized Combat Frames, it was said that the Takyarch herself gave them one vital quality to build around: Speed. Speed made you harder to hit, and harder to kill. Speed let you get to your objective before the enemy, and allowed you to retreat without fear of pursuit (though of course a true soldier of the Federation would never even consider such a dishonorable maneuver). Speed was progress, the future now: a train racing across the frontier, a bullet passing through your enemy’s heart, a telephone signal traveling across a planet in the blink of an eye, a starship jumping through a Perdition Gate.

It was only natural, then, that the Takyarch would demand that her premier fighting machine not only prioritize, but embody, Speed.

After years of hard work and rigorous testing, the result of the Bureau’s efforts was the MCF-3 “Arctic Wolf,” a frame built entirely out of sharp edges and sharper claws. It couldn’t take that many hits, and if the enemy did land a serious blow, the pilot was all but guaranteed a closed casket funeral. Hell, even operating the damn thing for extended periods resulted in even more chronic health issues than the already-abysmal baseline for career mech pilots.

But it was light, it was maneuverable, it had enough punch to reduce anything in its path to atoms, and most importantly of all, it was the fastest fucking frame in the Orion Arm by a country mile. All across Federation space, every little soldier-in-waiting had a poster of the ‘A-Wolf’ on their bunk wall, hoping against hope that they’ll someday be able to join the Mech Corps and win glory for the Takyarch.

Of course, Hound One didn’t pilot an A-Wolf; she piloted its leaner, meaner sister, the MCF-3H “Dire Wolf.” The already limited crew safety features on the A-Wolf were stripped out entirely; there was only just enough kinetic dampening and cockpit padding for Hound One’s head to not explode when making high-G turns. If she took a true hit in her frame, they’d need to scoop her remains into about five hundred different urns.

But she had four extra Anti-Mech Guided Missles, twice the ammo capacity for her 20mm wrist-mounted canons, a head-mounted laser and two sets of talons for when everything else ran dry, and thanks to a shiny new thorium reactor, she was even fucking faster.

The southern front was a few hundred kilometers from home base; Hound One and her pack got there in well under an hour.

When they arrived, it was glorious chaos; projectiles soared through the air, while infantry and tracked vehicles from both sides swarmed one another like ants below. The dense urbanism of Volga’s capital had faded entirely; this was an agricultural sector, muddy fields left unplanted by civilian farmers who’d fled once the soldiers came to play. The rolling hills were pockmarked by impact craters and the burning hulks of war machines.

Hound One thought it a lovely change of scenery; the lack of cover meant there was nowhere for all the little red dots on her HUD to hide.

She was in the fray at the blink of an eye, finding a nearby infantry formation and landing her mech on top of a commie IFV. She felt her mech, herself, crush it underfoot, the sensation of the crew’s life being snuffed out beneath her sending that first jolt of stimulant bliss into her nervous system.

The enemy were on all sides, wheeling to face her; she danced between them like hell’s finest ballerina, dodging rockets and shells as she tore men and machine asunder. Each kill earned her another little teasing dose, made her that much stiffer and sweatier, had her panting like the mad hound she was.

She knew the routine by now; get nice and warmed up with some fleshy fodder, before Handler pointed out a bigger target. She just had to wait for the war room to paint a more thorough picture of the battlefield.

Lucky for her, she’d just finished scrapping the last enemy technical in her immediate vicinity when she got the call.

Enemy mech team, two clicks north north east. One, Two, move in and kill.

She howled with delight, and could feel Two doing the same. The two of them were by each other’s side in a flash, racing across the battlefield, ducking guided missiles and machine gun fire as they danced around one another.

One felt her voice in her head, laced with a spark that only the heat of battle could bring forth. Think I’ll get a treat if I scrap more hostiles than you?

She could only grin. That’s a pretty big fucking ‘if,’ Two.

They crested a hill, and the enemy mechs were within sight; they’d spread out around an abandoned farm, attempting to use the blocky prefabricated house and barn for cover. Their mechs fit in quite nicely with the buildings; they were Grizzly Bears, a catchall term for the haphazard array of old Terran Alliance frames and stolen MCF-1s the commies tended to field. They were bulky, tanky machines, meant to march alongside more old-school armored formations, trading speed for survivability.

They were Hound One’s favorite meal.

All four of them poked their main guns out from behind cover, unleashing a barrage of 40mm shells at their position. In a flash, Two split off to circle around the hills towards the back of the farm house, leaving One to make a mad dash towards the barn.

Even when she got there, it was hardly adequate cover; the commies could shoot right through the cheap pre-fab walls. But that hardly mattered when her superhuman dexterity let her get right in one of their mech’s faces and tackle him through one of the barn walls.

Once inside, Hound One popped a smoke grenade, ensuring this mech’s comrades wouldn’t interrupt their fun by firing at her, for fear of hitting their friend. She was on top of them, clawing at their front, finding the sensor suite embedded into the top of their frame and ripping it clean off.

Then she felt a metal hand on her shoulder, and was thrown through the other wall of the barn.

Seemed one of the commies had found a novel solution towards saving their buddy without risking friendly fire; getting into melee range with Hound One.

A brave move, but a foolish one; Hound One recovered in mid-air, acquired a lock in a fraction of a second, and fired two AMGMs, one for each enemy frame in her sight.

She’d wanted to save ammo, but a kill was a kill, sweet release was sweet release. As she watched her ordinance soar through the air, connect with her targets, penetrate their cockpits and cook off their ammo racks, she waited for that mind-melting, soul-shattering orgasm to hit her square in the prostate.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Handler?

She knew speaking without being spoken to was bad behavior, especially after the punishment she’d gotten last night. But this was downright alarming; Handler always gave treats for scrapping enemy mechs. Had something happened? Was home base under attack?

Her thoughts were cut off by the barn house suddenly exploding into ticky-tacky plastic shrapnel, a shadow passing over Hound One as Hound Two’s mech flipped through the air to land gracefully at her side.

Her voice crackled down Hound One’s spine, and she knew immediately that Handler could hear it too. Two was far more blunt about the issue at hand.

Handler, where the FUCK are our treats???

Hound One could see the way Two’s mech jolted in response to her own question. She knew immediately what had happened; Handler had shocked her, a fitting punishment for her rude remarks. It had been a long time since Handler had punished any of them like that during an operation.

Hound One just hoped there wouldn’t be any further punishments when they got back to base.

But that was the future; for now, Handler had further orders.

Our troops from the Tenth need help. Sending coordinates now. Hounds, form up on One and move out.

It seemed there would be no answer to the treats question, at least for now. Hound One and Hound Two regarded each other for but a moment, before jetting off.

As they dashed across the battlefield, Hound One came to a conclusion about their lack of release: this was a test.

She had gone and fucked it up, talked back to their lovely, divine Handler, and now the whole pack was paying the price for it. Three and Four hadn’t cum yet either; One could see it in the way they moved, fidgety and uncertain. Handler was going to blue-ball all of them, see how they performed without the constant on-rush of instant gratification, remind them all why they loved her so much, how generous she really was to them.

That was it, that had to be it. Hound Two had already put them on the backfoot by snapping at her; it was up to Hound One and the rest of the pack to make up for her mistake.

Fortunately, they found ample opportunities when they reached the Tenth Division.

They were attempting to stop the communists from advancing over a wooded creek, which served as the natural border between several farming plots. It was slaughter on both sides; entire regiments were being churned to mulch by artillery fire, while soldiers and mechs got within bayonet range of one another.

It was easy enough for Hound One to find her rhythm, her and her pack dancing along the length of the creek, gunning down scores of hostiles. But that familiar buzz of Handler’s treats coursing through her bloodstream was nowhere to be found.

There was no satisfaction to be had in the killing; it wasn’t a nonstop buzz of pre-orgasmic anticipation, it was just going through a checklist, wiping dots off the map.

Fuck, it was frustrating. She found herself idly dry-humping the air inside her cockpit, her dick still stiff from the start of the operation, but with no lovely stimulus to ease the tension.

Once, during a lull in the fighting, she even reached for her groin, hoping to stroke herself off. Her mech followed the motions, a multi-story angel of death pausing in the middle of a warzone for a bit of public indecency.

That was when it was her turn to get hit with the shock collar, a sharp jolt of pain that had her yelping in her chair.

Focus.

She grunted her assent to Handler’s demand, though part of her appreciated the jolt. It at least let her feel something.

The slaughter continued, with the pack soon converging on an all-out mechanized melee, six A-Wolfs who’d gotten themselves surrounded by sixteen whole Grizzlies. They threw themselves in with gusto, unleashing the last of their anti-mech missiles in a salvo that cut the enemy force in half, before joining in the hand-to-hand slaughter. The Grizzlies lacked dedicated melee weapons, their pilots forced to contend with blunt fisticuffs; once the pack got in close, they never stood a chance.

If this had been a normal operation, they would have all scored two kills. It was a silent agreement among their pack; equal share of the prey meant equal share of Handler’s treats.

But Hound Two was different; One could see it in the way she’d been fighting, throwing herself at the enemy with a mania that bordered on recklessness. She’d hacked four entire mechs to pieces with her titanium talons, and her frame was now dry-humping the last of her kills, their metallic groins slamming against one another while her hand was still lodged in the late commie’s cockpit.

WHY. CAN’T I. FUCKING. CUM???

Her voice was an animalistic snarl, manic with frustration. Hound One couldn’t help but relate to the feeling, her cock still throbbing with that aching need even now.

But this was unacceptable. The friendly pilots they’d saved were watching this strange spectacle, doubtless joking with each other over their own comms about Handler’s mangy mutts. One watched Two’s mech jolt as Handler shocked her again.

Two, down. Bad dog.

To her horror, Hound One watched as Two stood upright, her mech tilting up towards the heavens, as if to bellow her rage at Handler herself.

No, no, no! I did good! I KILLED them!

Four had been standing beside One, watching their pack-mate slowly go mad with frustration. She broke lengths, jetting over to try and calm her sister down.

Two, listen, I know it’s frustrating, but---

SHUT UP!

She hit Four’s mech with a harsh back-fist, denting the front armor plating, sending her sprawling onto her back. Two then lurched forward as if to fall on top of her, but One and Three were on her in an instant, their own frames having to hold their feral packmate back.

I killed and killed and killed, but it wasn’t enough! I did well, I was PERFECT! HOW MANY DO I HAVE TO KILL BEFORE I FUCKING--

Hound Two, Release.

In an instant, Hound Two’s mech went limp in One’s arms. The release command detached her neural link, leaving her trapped in her cockpit while her mech became an inoperable husk. One was left to hold her up on her own, while Three went to check on Four.

That was when Handler’s voice rang out in their heads. Carry Hound Two with you and return to base immediately. This operation is over.

They replied in with an affirmative as Three helped Four to her feet. They’d need to replace her front armor back at base, and would probably have to cut her out of her cockpit with an arc welder, but her mech could still move on its own accord.

As Three came over to shoulder Two’s frame, One could hear a rhythmic banging. She realized it was Two, no doubt slamming her fist on her cockpit hatch, desperate and terrified, hating herself for being a bad, bad dog.

She tried to pay her little mind, but surveying the battlefield didn’t help her mood. She noticed that the pilots they’d rescued had already left, either out of fear that Two was going to rip them to shreds, or because they were needed elsewhere on the battlefield. There was still gunfire all around them; now that their melee was over, this little clearing only granted a temporary respite from the industrialized slaughter.

Most depressing of all was the sight of the enemy mechs, now little more than deformed, smoldering hunks of metal and carbon fiber. They’d earned no treats for killing them. The communists doubtless had hundreds more exactly like them, even in just this one battle. What had it all been for? The Takyarch? Victory?

Hound one shook her head. Such questions would only make their inevitable punishment that much worse.

Chapter Text

The flight back to base was miserable, and the added commute time from having to lug Two’s husk with them was only the half of it. In the heat of battle, Hound One had at least been able to put her frustrated libido aside to focus on mere survival; her instincts kicked in, she fell back on her years of training, and the millions of subconscious decisions she made each passing moment kept her just busy enough to not focus on the tension between her legs.

But now that rush was gone, replaced with the boredom of a lengthy commute, and the creeping dread at what awaited them all when they got back to base. They all knew Handler was pissed, that she had terrible things in store for all of them. Worse still, Hound One knew in her heart of hearts that they all deserved it…

But maybe, for that awful stunt, and for damn near killing Hound Four, Hound Two deserved it just a little bit more.

Okay but, why the fuck didn’t we get any treats? Hound Three must have known she was begging for a shock just by asking that question, but the tedium of their flight was causing all their curiosities to fester. They had moved past the muddy hills and valleys of the agricultural sector, and into the bombed-out husk of the capital suburbs, tenements and factories pock-marked with damage from aerial bombardment and rocket artillery. It was, frankly, dismal scenery.

It was a test, Three. Hound One swallowed before continuing. I… I fucked up last night. I asked Handler a question, and she punished me for it.

So that’s why you snapped at me before today’s sortie… She’s punishing all of us because pack lead couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

Hound One felt a familiar tinge of shame run down her spine… until Hound Four piped up.

That’s not it. She’s out of stims.

One could see Three’s mech shift to face Four, still flying alongside them in her beat up frame. The fuck are you on about, Four?

She ignored Three’s hostile tone. When Two hit me, she knocked one of my feeding tubes loose, the one that feeds us our treats. Normally it’s full of that green gunk, the stuff that makes you cum… but mine’s empty.

The implications of this were just dawning on One. Last night, I asked her that question because… she didn’t have any post-combat treats left for me, the ones that put us to sleep. I had a really bad--

She yelped out loud, cut off by a harsh electric shock delivered through her collar. She could feel her pack-mates responding the same way, the voltage higher than usual. Hound Four nearly tumbled out of the sky in response.

Handler’s voice was in her spine again, divine and perfect as ever, but laced with the cold rage of a displeased god.

Focus on getting Two back to base, Hounds.

There was no more conversation after that.

The hangar technicians did end up having to cut Hound Four out of her cockpit. The rest of them had the privilege of watching them work, damn near the whole front plate of her D-Wolf popping off when they finished. She tried climbing out as soon as she could see the harsh lighting of the hangar, only to end up burning her hand on the still-hot steel of her chassis and awkwardly tumbling to the floor.

Despite this, she looked a hundred times better than poor little Hound Two. After an operation, Two was usually exhausted and deflated; now, she was curled in on herself, arms crossed and head hanging low, shaking like mad from anxiety and concentrated self-loathing. Standing beside her, One could hear her choking back sobs, and that was before Handler showed up.

She was there with both her attaches. Nahami didn’t bring her hose; instead, she held an electric stun prod, the harsh blue light of its spark turning her placid smile into a ghoulish grin.

Magne kept things much more simple; she held a semi-automatic pistol in her left hand, which made a harsh clicking noise as she flicked the safety on and off.

Handler made her rounds in her usual way, but instead of doling out treats, she landed a single, stiff punch to Four’s solar plexus, then did the same for Three. Both of them stood as stiff as they could when they took it, doubling over in response.

When she got to Two, Handler considered her for a moment… then held out her hand to Nahami, who handed her the stun prod. She adjusted the settings for a moment, then jammed it directly into Two’s cunt for about three seconds. Her screams were demonic, turning every head in the hangar onto them in an instant. Hound Four dry-heaved.

After that, Hound One considered herself very lucky when Handler simply dealt her another punch in the gut, followed by a second to the side of her head.

Only then, did Handler speak. “Greed. Disobedience. Curiosity. Speaking, without being spoken to. Asking, when it is your Takyarch-given place to accept without question. Where are my sweet, sweet Hounds? By what treachery were they replaced by such a worthless pack of mangy, feral bitches?”

None of them could offer a reply. Hound Two was still on the floor, already weeping, and Hound Four was on the verge of breaking into tears herself.

Handler bent down to lift Two up onto her feet by the neck. Two was the shortest, the runt of the pack; Handler could, and did, choke her with one hand.

“You nearly killed one of your sisters, Two. What’s going to stop you from finishing the deed next sortie? Or worse yet, killing an actual human, one of the Takyarch’s own soldiers?”

Two could barely speak with Handler choking her, but Handler cared not for such frivolities. She held her hand out again, to Magne this time; the Lieutenant handed her the pistol she was holding, so Handler could press it to Two’s temple.

The three other Hounds held their breath, not daring to move a micrometer as Handler uttered her next demand. “Give me one good reason not to put you down.”

Hound One knew that there was a large part of Two that wanted to die, to pay for her failure with her life. She felt the same way, and her own failings were the most minor of infractions compared to Two’s dangerous outburst. But they had not been trained so as to totally eliminate the self-preservation instinct; though each of them knew they were Hounds, below even the lowliest conscript, they also knew they were worth more to the Takyarch, and to Handler, alive than dead.

Ergo, the threat of her service being cut short got Two’s attention. Handler was still choking her, but she managed to gag out a reply. “Won’t… Happen… Again…”

Handler took a couple moments to stare Two down, really considering her statement. Then, she dropped her, watching her collapse into a coughing heap on the floor, before kicking her in the groin one last time.

“You’re lucky I raised you to be so fucking honest, Two. And you’re very lucky I don’t feel like washing your worthless fucking brains off my uniform!”

The three hounds watched as Two took a single, heaving breath, before staggering to her feet. She was still crying, but her shaking had subsided somewhat.

“Today’s fuck-ups are perhaps indicative of a much larger issue. Answer me honestly, Hounds; do you love your Handler?”

All four of them replied in unison, shouting at the top of their lungs: “Yes Handler!”

The smile that came upon Handler’s face after that was straight out of Hound One’s nightmare. “Prove it.”

The setup was quite simple; four uncomfortable metal chairs, each with a few simple straps to serve as restraints, and a plan black vibrator affixed to the seat. The attaches had even labeled each with a number, one through four; their dildos were in slightly different positions, so One and Three could have theirs lodged up their asses, while Two and Four’s could be jammed inside their cunts. They’d even been lubricated, which Hound One considered the greatest of mercies.

Lieutenant Nahami helped One down onto hers, guiding her into position so she could feel that silicon cock slowly slide its way up her ass, before affixing her in place with the straps, making sure her wrists and chest were buckled in nice and tight. She did her best not to shift too much; even with the vibration left off, she could feel her cock slowly stiffen as the sex toy pressed against her prostate.

Once they’d finished strapping the Hounds in, the attaches returned to Handler’s side. Handler had her hands behind her back, inspecting all of them with a practiced contempt.

“You all need to learn something about delayed gratification, so I’ve devised this little training exercise for you.” She pulled out a silver analogue stopwatch, the sort of luxury item that only an officer of the Takyarch was allowed. “Thirty minutes, no orgasms. Last that long, and you get to live to see the next sortie. Failing that, well… you know what happens to Hounds who can’t obey orders.”

The four of them looked to Lieutenant Magne, who still held her pistol. She smiled in a way Hound One found distinctly terrifying.

“Am I understood?” Handler asked.

They once again replied with an all-at-once “Yes, Handler,” which was Handler’s queue to start the timer… and the vibrator.

Hound One’s breath hitched when that buzz clicked on in her rear. It wasn’t all that intense, really, but it was just enough to have squirming against her restraints. She did her level best to ignore it, to unfocus her eyes, to breathe… but then she looked back at Handler.

She had beckoned Lieutenant Nahami over to her, and was holding her in a most gentle embrace, looking down into her big brown eyes with an affection not too dissimilar to that which she showed her Hounds. One got to watch as her hand drifted down Nahami’s back, resting firmly on her left buttock… before Handler did something she never did with anyone in their pack.

She pulled Nahami into a kiss. And not a gentle one, either, but a greedy one, laiden with tongue. From the way she moaned aloud, Nahami was clearly loving it, even as Handler’s hands drifted upwards to start undoing the buttons on her officer’s jacket.

It was enough to make Hound One weep with envy. Her cock was stiff as a board, and all she could do was watch as Nahami’s perky breasts came free, only for Handler to pin her against the back wall.

She couldn’t see what Handler was doing next, but she could see the remote to the vibrators in her left hand, which she held behind her back. She kicked it up to the next setting, and Hound One heard her packmates bark for mercy.

She tried looking over at them, but that didn’t help get her mood any better. Three was thrashing against her restraints like a maniac, her blonde locks damp with sweat. Four had her eyes shut as tight as possible, and was routinely keening to herself. Then there was poor Hound Two, weeping as her whole body shuddered from the vibration.

They all looked so pathetic… but so hot at the same time. They were her sisters, her packmates, she loved each of them almost as much as she loved Handler. Even Two, who she was supposed to fucking loathe in that moment, looked so fucking adorable as she struggled not to cum.

She had to avert her eyes. She looked up at the ceiling, featureless gray concrete, a blocky ventilation duct running along the length. If she ignored the noises, the panting and moaning of her packmates, the buzzing of the vibe, she could almost take her mind off of how fucking badly she wanted to cum.

Then the intensity kicked up again, and Hound One’s body jerked so severely she nearly tipped her chair over.

How long had they been at it? Twenty minutes? Two hours? How much longer? Her prostate was screaming at her, her cock was so tense it felt like it was going to snap clean off. She almost wanted to start awkwardly bucking against her restraints, to hammer herself home, to get it over with.

Until she felt something cold press against her temple.

“Go on puppy… Do it. Cum. Gimme the fucking excuse.” Lieutenant Magne’s voice was dripping with a strange mix of lust and contempt. Hound One looked over, and saw that she was fingering herself, her right hand stuffed down her pants while her left held her pistol to One’s temple.

“You’re such a pathetic bunch of freaks.” She muttered, perhaps keeping her voice low so Handler couldn’t overhear them. “We’re stuck on this shithole planet, nothing better to do but wait til the commies come and bayonet us, or the Third Fleet gets here and glasses everything… and the Colonel has to spend all her fucking time babysitting you.”

She spat on Hound One’s cock, then took her hand out of her cunt to run her index finger along the length of it. One whined like the bitch in heat she was, eyes teary, teeth grit.

The Lieutenant’s voice was venom. “Gonna cum from just my finger? God, so fucking needy. You’re even worse than that feral bitch over there.” She nodded over to Hound Two, whose eyes had rolled back in her skull. Hound One felt herself staring, as the Lieutenant grabbed her cock and started stroking.

One clenched her fists and shut her eyes. She wouldn’t cum, no matter what nasty things Magne said, no matter how good her hand felt. She had to live. Handler needed her. Her pack needed her. Her whole body was sweating; she started to fucking weep, ugly crying, the tension too much to bear.

“S-Stoooooop… Pleeeeeeeease…”

Magne stuck the gun in her mouth. “I’m gonna blow your fucking brains out the minute I see white, mutt.”

She heard the hammer click, and felt her cock hitch for what must have been the final time. She was going to die. She didn’t want to die.

Then Handler, gorgeous, divine Handler, idly checked her jacket pocket while Nahami was eating her out. “Time’s up!”

Hound One came, and came hard. It was a damn breaking after having the weight of all the world’s oceans blocked up behind it. She felt her own cum splatter all over her front, rope after thick, hot rope, for what felt like half a minute. Only when she opened her eyes did she see that Magne had gotten some of her load on her jacket sleeve; she took the gun out of One’s mouth, wiping it off with a disgusted sneer.

Hound One couldn’t help but relish the sight of it.

She felt the vibrator mercifully turn off, then looked up at Handler with her tongue lolled out in delight as she undid her restraints personally. She followed suit with her three packmates, who were in similar states of post-orgasmic deflation… Though oddly enough, she saved Two for last.

She stood at attention by the door to their kennel, hands behind her back. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson today, Hounds. Until next time.”

Nahami and Magne finished re-dressing themselves, before following Handler out of the kennel door to resume their usual duties. They really were no different from the pack; Magne was just jealous because she didn’t know her place.

They all heard the kennel door shut and lock from the outside, but they’d been left out of their usual cages, which hung open in the four corners of their little storage closet. It was an unusual degree of freedom, but One could guess at why they’d been let out.

Hound Two was still sat in her seat, totally shrunken in on her self. Three and Four, meanwhile, had gotten up to stand over her.

“You nearly got us fucking put down, Two!”

“You’re nothing but a feral fucking bitch! You need some fucking sense knocked into you!”

“Or fucked into you!”

“Both!”

Hound One couldn’t take it anymore. “Quit it!”

All three of them looked at her, baffled. Even Two looked confused; she’d resigned herself to further punishment already.

It was Three who piped up first. “The fuck do you mean, quit it? She needs to be punished, One!”

“We’ve all been punished enough already.” She stood up and put her hand on Two’s head. “Look at her, she’s already gone through the gauntlet, had Handler chewing her out in front of the whole hangar bay, and now what? You wanna beat her bloody? Rape her? You think she’s gonna do any better tomorrow after all that?”

Three sneered, but it was Four who spoke up next. “But Handler… she wants us to punish her. That’s why we were let out. We have to make an example, show her we won’t fail her again.”

One quirked her eyebrow. “I don’t recall her saying that.”

Three rolled her eyes. “She didn’t have to say it; it was obvious!”

“We’re Hounds, Three. We aren’t meant to jump to conclusions like that. Besides, I already told you about my fuck-up last night, and neither of you did us any favors speculating about our treats on the way back to base! We share our successes, and we share in our failures. Otherwise, what kinda pack even are we?”

The both of them were obviously cowed by this, torn between their earlier rage and Hound One’s chastising them. None of them were clean of this; they’d all disappointed Handler. Still, One could see in the way Three’s shoulders were tensing that she was about to smack Two across the face anyway… Until Two managed to pipe up, her voice breaking as she began to weep.

“I… I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to! I was so frustrated, so terrified out there… All the killing, the treats, they… Fuck!”

She nearly doubled over, til Hound One caught her. She pet Two’s head, just letting them talk.

“I deserve it… I nearly killed Four… I nearly got us all put down… I’m fucking worthless, I’m terrible, I—”

One looked up as Three and Four put their hand on Two’s shoulder, the four of them combining for a big group hug. As Two’s weeping subsided, they took it in turns to speak.

“You were phenomenal out there until the end, Two. We wouldn’t be a pack without you.”

“We all fucked things up today. You were frustrated, your mind was frazzled; it could have been any of us.”

“Like I said, shared glory, shared blame. We’re all one pack.”

Two sniffled, their tears finally drying up. “Thank you… thank you all. I’m sorry, I just, I love you guys… I love Handler… It won’t happen again!”

Hound One looked her dear packmate in the eyes. Two’s eyes were a brilliant amber, like the moon back on Khosrau. They were the most beautiful thing in the world. “We know it won’t.”

They elected to sleep on the floor that night, using Hound One’s mat as a blanket, each of them snuggled against one another. Her three packmates had managed to doze off some time ago, but Hound One was still awake.

They had all nearly died today. Two was probably still blaming herself for it deep down, despite her reassurances to the contrary.

But Handler was the one who’d run out of treats. Or, the Sixth Army hadn’t given her enough.

Either way, it wasn’t Two’s fault. Or One’s. Or Threes or Fours for that matter. Did they deserve such harsh treatment, for something so out of their control, for a part of their lives that they’d come to rely on so much?

Her packmates were light sleepers, without their treats. They tossed and turned; One could hear Four muttering something under her breath, about the feeling of lightning, the smell of fried hair and ozone.

One knew she would suffer in much the same way. But she also knew that a terrible sleep was better than no sleep at all. She’d need to be wide awake tomorrow, for whatever Handler had planned for them next.

Chapter Text

22:27 TERRAN STANDARD TIME

13 OCTOBER, IDEAL ERA YEAR 42

TAKYARCH’S SIXTH ARMY OPERATIONAL COMMAND CENTER

WAGNERGRAD, PLANET VOLGA

Hilda was squirming like an earthworm, freshly pulled from the soil. Julia found it glorious: watching her pink flesh writhe and shudder, listening to her breathy, canine panting as she pistoned in and out of her cunt, perky breasts bouncing against her still-gloved hands as her blonde hair splayed out in a messy halo behind her.

The creaking of the bed, the slap of their pelvises impacting one another, and the faint slurping noises of Nahami eating her ass as Julia fucked her fellow lieutenant into the Takyarch-damned mattress all combined symphony far better than any the Colonel had ever heard.

She reached down to Hilda’s face, sticking her thumb in her mouth, guiding her glassy eyes up to stare her right in the face. “Go on then soldier, show your Colonel how you live to serve.”

Hilda didn’t respond with words; her panting turned into a high-pitched squeal of a moan, Julia hilting her strap-on all the way inside as she came her fucking brains out. She felt Nahami remove her tongue from her ass, before moving over to press a filthy, greedy kiss to her fellow Lieutenant’s pretty, orgasmic face.

These two were too damn cute together. Julia had done well to pick them as subordinates. She was all set to give Nahami her turn riding the plastic…

When she heard a loud, banging knock at her bedroom door.

Both her girls jumped, but Julia just scoffed. “I’m busy!”

“With what?!” She’d recognize that voice a mile away: General Alexander Stroessner, overall commander of the Sixth Army, and Julia’s immediate superior. She looked down and watched as Nahami’s eyes went wide with anxiety, while Hilda covered her face in shame.

Julia just chuckled. “Fucking your niece!”

She un-hilted all eight inches of her strap from poor Hilda’s tight little cunt, then bent down to scoop her officer’s jacket up off the floor, medals and rank insignia clinking as she stuffed her arms through the sleeves. She fixed her peaked cap, which had gone crooked over the course of the night’s festivities, then turned to inspect herself in the mirror.

She wore nothing under the jacket, and nothing beneath the waist save for her still-glistening strap. She briefly considered leaving that latter article on, before deciding to swap it out with a pair of pajama pants, which she also scooped off the floor. Regarding this as adequate dress for tonight’s proceedings, she threw open the bedroom door before her girls could offer a so much as a word of objection.

Stroessner looked much like the ghoul he was. He had been a healthy, active sixty-something at the outset of this little excursion, but after nearly three months of managing a losing war he had completely let himself go. His bony limbs barely fit into the confines of his dress uniform, the medals he’d won on Terra, Khosrau, and the Affini Core giving his jacket a visible sag. His eyes were recessed into his skull, pupils dilated; Julia knew him to be self-medicating with Pervitin, to ensure he never had to sleep in between micro-managing the entire front.

To his great credit, he scarcely even reacted to Julia stepping out in her ridiculous, half-naked get-up. But she did notice him start twitching, which made her smile.

“You’re not getting dressed?” He asked, defeated.

“Are you ordering me to?” She countered.

Hilda and Nahami both poked their heads out of Julia’s bedroom doorway. The former even offered a wave. “Hi, uncle Al.”

That seemed to be what set him off. He rounded on his niece and her girlfriend, pointing an accusatory index finger their way. “GET FUCKING DRESSED RIGHT FUCKING NOW AND RETURN TO YOUR FUCKING BUNKS! I HAVE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH YOU WHORING YOURSELVES OUT TO THIS ROTTEN FUCKING DOG WALKER!”

This outburst cowed both of them, Julia getting to watch as they re-dressed themselves in record time and scampered out of the office door like scared cats. All the while, she turned to Stroessner and smirked. “’Rotten fucking dog walker,’ huh? That one’s new.”

“Shut the hell up, you piggish fucking idiot.” As his niece shut the door behind her, Stroessner took the liberty of sitting at Julia’s desk, locking his fingers together as he stared up at her. “I came here specifically because of the troubles you’ve been having with your pack of mutts.”

Julia sneered on instinct at this; they had had this argument, far, far too many times. “What, you’ve finally decided to put them down? Sacrifice the finest warfighters in this army, in the Federation, after one little fuck-up?”

Stroessner rolled his eyes. “Quite the opposite, actually.”

He reached into his jacket pocket, producing a plain yellow folder which he unceremoniously slid across Julia’s desk. The Colonel picked it up, only then remembering her gloves were still wet with Hilda’s saliva. She wiped her hand on her jacket, before opening the folder and reading the contents.

Her eyes went wide. “What the hell is this?”

“We executed the governor today.” Stroessner said matter-of-factly. “He was attempting to defect to the reds, not that it would do him much good. While we were raiding his mansion, we found this little dossier, about some... experiments, in a secret facility beneath Volga’s arctic circle.”

Julia read about these experiments from the dossier; they were trying to concoct some chemical to mix with colony’s water supply, something that would increase productivity and compliance with Federal Idealism. Seeing how things were going on Volga, that worked out swimmingly… but Julia’s eyes stopped glazing over when she noticed an all-too-familiar code-phrase.

“XX-001… You’re more clever than I gave you credit for, Al. How’d you figure out where my treats came from?”

Stroessner pointed to one of the medals on his chest. “Personal experience, Colonel. I was piloting an MCF-1 against those demons when you were still in diapers. I’ve seen first hand the effects their pheromones have on unprotected humans, and your Hounds are... all too familiar.”

Julia smirked, tossing the research dossier back Stroessner’s way. “The facility’s probably just gonna have raw materials, maybe a live specimen if we’re really lucky. You got any eggheads spare who can synthesize my shit?”

“I’m sure our remaining doctors can handle it, if you disclose the formulae.”

On paper, Julia knew disclosing that information was sufficient cause for her summary execution. But paper very rarely informed reality; desperate times, and all that. “Sure. Now, how many aces you got picked out for this little raid?”

Stroessner frowned in that usual dismissive way of his. “If you think I’m risking any of my pilots for a suicide mission on the other side of this planet, you’re kidding yourself, Colonel.” He leaned across the desk now. “If your mutts want treats, they’ll have to play fetch first.”

She frowned right back at him. “If they don’t make it back, the front will collapse within a week. The reds are scared of my Hounds; they’re the only thing preventing them from overwhelming us with sheer numbers.”

Stroessner’s eyes twitched at that; he took realistic assessments of their capabilities as direct critique of the Sixth Army as a whole, which of course were no different to personal insults. “You underestimate the strength of this army, and of Federal Idealism. We will hold for as long as we need too; after all, the Third Fleet will be here any day now, and with it, our salvation.”

Julia’s frown turned even more severe hearing that deflection. The Third Fleet was technically due to arrive two days ago, but with how spotty Perdition Gate travel could be, delays were inevitable. They could arrive tomorrow, or next week, or eighty years from now.

And even then, what would happen when they got here? They’d have the Fourth Army in transit with them, but one army had already failed to pacify Volga; she doubted another would make much of a difference.

No, this campaign would end like Khosrau: they’d glass the surface with atomics, find some convenient scapegoat to blame everything on, then have the Information Corps do their level best to erase the name Volga from the history books.

But arguing such things was pointless; she was trapped here with Stroessner after all, and she knew the poor old bastard was just doing his best to cope. “Understood, they’ll sortie tomorrow night.”

“Good.” He rose from her chair, stepping out from behind her desk, pausing a moment to examine her photos on the wall. “Colonel, what was it like, getting to shake the Takyarch’s hand?”

Julia smiled at the memory. “She surprised all of us when she docked at Outpost HC-4; I didn’t even know she was on Luna. My commanding officer at the time did give some indication that she took a personal interest in the project, but I never expected it to be that personal.”

She looked at the photo, smirking at the visual memory of her stiff, nervous posture, staring up at the Takyarch like some baffled school child. The Takyarch herself was the picture of serenity by comparison; a thin, lipless smile, eyes obscured behind square-rimmed glasses, salt-and-pepper hair cut in that razor-straight style so many in the Federation imitated, Julia included. “It was the greatest honor of my career, truly.”

She heard the most unbelievable noise just then: Stroessner, chuckling. There was very little humor in it, of course, but what little there was made Julia very alarmed.

“You know what this is, Colonel?” He gestured to the medal he showed her earlier. “The Sol Medallion, the highest honor of the old Terran Alliance Defense Forces. The Takyarch phased it out around year ten, but it was still in effect throughout all of the Great Filter. She pinned this one on my chest at the Year Zero Parade.”

Julia remembered Year Zero perfectly, even if she was just a small girl. Everyone who’d been alive for it on Terra would have; it was the greatest party in human history, the day the Federation inaugurated the new era of human history, and celebrated the extermination of its first and greatest foe.

“What was she like, Al?”

The look Stroessner gave her could have frozen an active volcano. He wasn’t even looking her in the eye, but at her right hand, the one the Takyarch had shaken before shipping her off to Khosrau. That handshake gave her a level of political immunity most Generals couldn’t even dream of. It was what let her fuck Stroessner’s pretty niece without getting lined up against a wall.

Stroessner looked up, and met her gaze. “She was the same, Colonel. Exactly the fucking same. Forty-two years, and she hasn’t aged a day.”

He turned to the photo of the Takyarch then, and pressed his right hand to his breast, extending his index and middle fingers. He then raised his arm out in front of him, pointing towards the stars, to Terra above, and to humanity’s inevitable destiny as the masters of existence. “Ave, Hail Takyarch!”

He turned to face her, obviously expecting her to follow suit. She did, but her motions were half-assed, more like giving the ceiling finger-guns than saluting the future of the Federation. “Ave, hail Takyarch.”

Stroessner sneered, putting both his arms behind his back. “Get some shuteye, Colonel, and do try to at least keep up a modicum of professional conduct. My troops have enough on their minds without you and your attaches beating your rape-mutts in front of everyone.”

He left in a hurry, his boots clicking against the concrete floor as he went. The poor old bastard had to know he was doomed, that when the Third Fleet got here and reduced Volga to a radioactive ash tray, he’d be shouldered with the lion’s share of the blame for the Sixth Army’s failures. If he was lucky, he’d get a few months of quiet retirement before he succumbed to “sudden illness;” if he was unlucky, he’d be dangling from a street-lamp after a show trial for his incompetence.

Still, he seemed determined to go out swinging, to serve the Takyarch until he met whatever wretched fate awaited him, to embody the hard-faced stick-up-the-ass Federal Ideal until it damn well killed him. Alexander Stroessner lived to serve.

Colonel Julia Blanco couldn’t help but pity the old dog.

Chapter Text

Like last time, One woke up in a cold sweat. Unlike last time, her packmates were already up with her.

They all just sort of laid on top of one another, too groggy and exhausted to speak. That was a feeling Hound One was unused to: grogginess. She was terminally aware of her own body: the sweat and salt caked to her skin, the greasiness of her wild chestnut hair, her dried cum staining her midrift. Her throat was sore, and her stomach was rumbling, and she could smell all four of her packmates from a mile away. It was not a pleasant smell.

It sucked. She hated this. But one discomfort loomed above all the rest.

“I gotta piss.”

Three heard this, and exhaled. “You can wait til today’s sortie to piss, can’t you? The frame takes care of it.”

“Yeah, but like, when is today’s sortie?” Four asked. “Usually Handler or miss Nahami wakes us up for it.”

“… What time is it?” Two asked.

All the other Hounds looked at her with confused expressions. She scoffed.

“I’m serious! There’s no clock, we haven’t got watches, we can’t even see the sun unless it’s through our mech’s sensor suite. So, what’s the time of day? What time does Handler usually send us out on our missions? Do any of you have even the slightest idea?”

All of them thought on these questions for much longer than they probably should have.

Four spoke up to reply first. “There’s a little clock on my mech’s HUD. Whenever we sortie, it usually says 6:00 or 7:00, something like that.”

Three quirked an eyebrow. “Yesterday it said like, 13:00.”

“13:00? That doesn’t make any sense! How can a clock go past 12:00?”

“I dunno, time works different on different planets!”

“Really? So when’s noon on this planet? 13:00? 14:00?”

“How should I fucking know? I’m too busy earning kills for Handler to worry about stupid shit like that!”

They continued snapping at each other, while Two and One stood up and scurried over to the opposite corner of the room. They huddled next to each other, speaking in hushed tones.

“I had a bad dream last night, One.”

One understood immediately. “Let me guess, all three of us were there too?”

Two nodded. “And Handler. But she was… different. Scary. Scarier than last night, even. She was doing all sorts of things, horrible things… And I deserved every single one of them.”

One wrapped her arms around her, holding her close to her naked, scrawny frame. She was warm, so much warmer than this concrete box, or even the cozy confines of her own mech.

“I’m bad, I’m a bad Hound, One. Handler should have put me down. I’m holding the rest of our pack back.” Her voice was soft, cracking from the pain of it all.

One patted her sister on the head. “Don’t say that, Two. It’s just not true.”

Two looked up at her. “You don’t have to make me feel better, One.”

“It’s not just that.” One’s voice was hard, harder than any of them were used to. “I had those same dreams last night, and the night before. I’m sure Three and Four were going through something similar without their treats. Think about what that could mean.”

Two did think about it, for only a second. “...They’re not just dreams. Are they?”

One nodded her head. “What do you remember, besides Handler, and the torture?”

Two took a deep, shuddering breath. “There was a lake, by our tenement. Had a fishing pier going out a good ways. They locked us in cages, heavy iron ones, then shoved us all in. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear my siblings… I couldn’t even hear myself choking down that awful, muddy water… By the time I came to, I… I was the only one left.”

She was crying now, trying to stifle the sobs, but Three and Four still noticed. They ceased their bickering to come over and comfort her, recreating their group hug from last night.

Two looked up at her, desperate. “What does it mean, One? What are we gonna do?”

One honestly had no fucking idea. She still thought of herself as a Hound, she still loved Handler… But how long would that last? How much were they all doomed to remember?

She looked down at Two, and offered the most comforting smile she could. “We survive.”

The next couple hours continued in much the same way. After Two filled Three and Four in on her night terrors, neither of them were in the mood to bicker. They huddled with each other in one of their open cages, occasionally kissing or whispering to one another. Then Four started weeping, and pushed Three away, along with anyone else who tried getting close to her.

That left One, Two, and Three all awkwardly standing in the center of the room.

“Nice fucking going, Two.” Three muttered. “You crying made Four cry.”

Hound One found this remark horribly dismissive. “What did I fucking tell you about blaming her for shit, Three?”

“Don’t give me that, One, we both know this all started with you fucking everything up for us when Handler gave you her special reward.”

“You know what, yeah! I did think that! But now I think there’s something else going on!”

“And what the fuck is that something else? You think Handler’s been lying to us?”

“I think that—”

“Both of you shut up!”

They were all cut off by Two’s sudden shouting, their pack runt raising her voice far louder than either of them could remember. It was only then that they realized Two had her ear pressed to the kennel door.

The sound of it being unlocked made it clear as to why.

Two stepped back just in time for Handler’s two attaches to strut in, with Nahami wheeling along a simple plastic dolley. It had eight bowls, four filled with water, and four filled with some sort of meat puree. Dog food.

Lieutenant Magne took their meals off, arraying them on the floor in a neat row. “Dig in, mutts.”

Three’s mouth was watering the second they came in. She was on the floor in an instant, gobbling up her meal like a woman possessed.

Two exchanged a knowing look with One, before getting down and doing much the same.

Even Four managed to stifle the last of her sobs, before crawling over and helping herself, albeit at a much slower pace than her packmates.

That left Hound One, standing up all alone, looking down at her three sisters. She didn’t know why, but that canine meal looked mighty unappetizing. Maybe she was just being greedy again; this was the wet stuff, the good stuff, not like the kibble they’d had to make do with on Khosrau, or the intravenous feeding her mech gave her most other times.

Maybe it was the prospect of having to eat on all fours. Could Handler have at least given her a spoon?

Nahami noticed her hesitation, and piped up. “Not hungry, One? Your fellow mutts are gonna finish yours if you don’t.”

Hound One was caught off-guard by this, blushing. “No, miss Nahami, it’s just that… I have to pee.” That part was true, and probably helped explain why she was snapping at Three earlier. Her bladder felt like a curled fist punching out from within her abdomen.

Lieutenant Magne wasn’t convinced. “Why don’t you piss in the corner, then? Mark your territory.”

Something about her tone really wrankled Hound One. She found the idea of pissing on the floor, in her and her sisters’ living space, deeply unsanitary.

But would a good Hound really think like that? One instead tried a more measured response. “I would, miss, but having my other three sisters here…”

Nahami snickered. “Shy pisser. Figures. You need us to take you on a walk, One?”

Hilda held her arm out. “Hang on, Yuki. The Colonel said to never give these bitches anything they ask us for.”

Yuki (which was Lieutenant Nahami’s given name, apparently) just chuckled, pushing past her fellow attache. “I know, I know, but… she did give me this.” She produced a collar and leash from inside her jacket, letting it dangle so her lovely partner could see. “Don’t tell me walking one of these mutts around the base doesn’t sound like fun.”

Hound One watched with barely-contained disgust as Lieutenant Magne’s face went from a frown to a smile. She snatched the leash from her partner’s hand, then strutted over and clipped it around One’s neck. She didn’t resist as she tightened it, or when she kicked Hound One down on all fours.

“Walkies it is. Do be sure to hold it in until we get to where we’re going.”

Hound One nodded her silent assent, turning to wave to her sisters before she was off. Two was the only one who managed to make eye contact with her, before Yuki shut the kennel door behind them them.

The walk itself was uneventful, if a bit drawn out. Hound One suspected the two Lieutenants were making it longer on purpose, doubling back on themselves and taking extensive detours. This might have been in an attempt to show Hound One off to as many staff as possible, but there weren’t that many people around the command center anymore. Just a few haggard, shell-shocked guards and twitchy, sleepless staff officers.

The only other reason Hound One could think of for this diversion was to make her wet herself. It very nearly worked; she felt her abdomen downright quivering by the end, teeth grit as her entire lower body clenched. But she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction.

She was still confused about Handler, but her attaches were another matter. Hound One could freely admit to herself that she hated them.

After two flights of stairs and nearly twenty minutes of uncomfortable crawling, they finally arrived at the restroom. Nahami threw the door open, and Hound One was greeted with flickering fluorescent lights and uncomfortably damp floors. She stood up, a motion her two captors mercifully declined to object to.

Magne un-clipped her leash, then gestured towards the nearest stall. “Be our guest, puppy.”

One stepped inside, latching the door behind her. The stall was a mess; scraps of toilet paper littered the floor, while the actual role holder itself was completely empty. Every surface was covered in graffiti, military symbols and vulgar cartoons and profanities of all sorts. As for the toilet, well… Hound One was very glad that she could piss standing up.

She let loose, exhaling at the release of pressure. As she relieved herself, she overheard the two Lieutenants speaking outside.

“The reds took Omsk-5 today.”

“Omsk-5? That doesn’t make any sense. Uncle Al reinforced it with three whole mech brigades!”

“Yeah, and they got there half an hour too late. Infantry were already routed, all they could do was cover the retreat. Half their A-Wolfs were scrapped.”

“Fucking hell…”

Hound One had finished pissing by then, but she stood still, continuing to listen.

“Hilda, look, if they come for us… I can do it for you.”

“It won’t come to that, Yuki. We’re just a pair of Lieutenants. The Colonel said she’d cover for us, and what we did to those mutts.”

Yuki was very quiet after that. Hound One could make some guesses as to why. Handler’s cover story might work for an anonymous junior officer like her, but Hilda was the general’s niece. She had her pick of place, and she’d chosen Handler’s side. The reds had to know that too.

Hound One flushed the toilet, then threw open the door. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Lieutenant Magne. The Third Fleet will be here tomorrow to save us all, won’t it?”

Both women turned to Hound One, their gazes cold as an arctic ocean. Without warning, Hilda backhanded Hound One, knocking her onto her back and that awful, sticky bathroom floor.

“Did I prompt you for your opinion, you fucking mutt?”

Hound One sputtered. “Miss, I—”

“Shut it!” She drew her service pistol, squatting down to point it at Hound One’s forehead. With Handler, such a gesture might have produced a strange mix of emotions, dread mixed with want, the curious arousal of being abused by someone you idolized.

With Hilda, it only filled Hound One’s heart with cold contempt.

“I could kill you without even thinking about it. I could say you tried to bite me, or rape me, and Yuki would be more than happy to back me up. Even if the Colonel doesn’t believe it, my uncle certainly would.” She snickered, holstered her pistol, rose to her feet, and spat in Hound One’s face. “I don’t know why Colonel Blanco wastes her time with mutts like you.”

As the Lieutenant refastened her leash, Hound One really wanted to tell her that to the Colonel, she was just another Hound, a worthless little plaything to fool around with until it stopped being useful.

But that pistol still dangled from the Lieutenant’s hip. Hound One rolled over into her usual crawling position.

“We won’t have another word out of you until we get back to your kennel, One.”

And they didn’t.

The walk back was much shorter than the walk there, confirming Hound One’s suspicions that their journey had been deliberately elongated.

Thankfully, the other three Hounds hadn’t eaten her meal by the time she got back (though Four admitted that Three had damn well tried). She waited for the Lieutenants to leave, then picked her bowl off the floor, slurping it down like one might some particularly delicious noodles.

The other three watched in confusion. It was hardly a neat way of eating, but it was strangely… human.

Hound One looked up at them all, and smiled. They said nothing, awkwardly averting their gazes.

The rest of the day (or night?) passed without much incident. Three started to masturbate at one point, then Four joined in by sucking her off. Two took that as her cue to start giving One head, which One was more than happy to reciprocate.

They laid like that for a few wonderful minutes, One’s face firmly burrowed in Two’s delectable cunt, mewling and moaning and gagging and slurping. They both came at around the same time, Two’s juices coating One’s face as One poured her seed down Two’s throat.

Afterwards, they cuddled together against one of the side walls. Two was almost dozing off, smiling in her arms, nuzzling into One’s side.

It was better than the sex itself. One felt her heart flutter at her packmate’s content, peaceful expression.

“Ain’t you two cute?” Three asked with a smile. Her cock was still lodged in Four’s throat, but One didn’t care.

“Both of you are welcome to join us at any time.” One said matter-of-factly.

Four popped off Three’s cock for a moment, then jammed her fingers into her packmate’s asshole. She came immediately, howling out loud as she plastered Four’s face in cum. She wasn’t even finished before Four piped up to reply.

“I think I will. Your tits are looking mighty suckable, Two.”

One was rather looking forward to seeing Two’s tits enter Four’s mouth, but it was not to be. There was a loud, banging knock at the door, before it was unlocked yet again.

All four of them scrambled to their feet as Handler walked in, standing at attention per usual. She no doubt noticed the fresh cum all over Four’s face, but she didn’t even acknowledge it. Instead, she clapped her hands together, and offered all of them a warm smile.

“My sweet, loyal Hounds. We have had an eventful couple of days, haven’t we?” She paced back and forth as she spoke, not making eye contact with any of them. “All of you have made mistakes, yes, and been punished accordingly… but I think there’s another factor in your sub-standard performance: a lack of treats.”

Hound One found her tone of voice grating. It was like she was speaking to small, stupid children, full of long pauses for them to take in information that was plainly obvious. She didn’t know why she was frustrated, this was how Handler always spoke to them.

She said nothing as their owner continued.

“Indeed, I am loathe to admit that we are out of treats. Completely dry. I did try my best for you, sweet things, but some of my… colleagues, got a little too greedy for their own good. But! We’ve found a solution.

“Way up north, there’s a little facility that has all the special ingredients I need to make more treats for you. And you, my sweet Hounds, are going to fly up there and retrieve them. Are you ready to play fetch, sweet Hounds?”

All four of them replied with an enthusiastic “Yes, Handler!” Before being led off to the hangar. Hound One should have been excited, elated even; more treats meant better performance, more rewards from Handler, an end to these awful nightmares and even more awful memories.

But she was conflicted. The free time she’d had with her packmates, getting to snuggle with Two… such things weren’t possible when they’d had treats. Hound One was starting to think less and less like a Hound. Her collar was chaffing.

That should have been shameful, terrifying to a good pet like her… but yesterday’s fiasco had made it clear that none of them were good pets.

Chapter Text

“You do look so much like a Christian when you do that.”

Mehreen had just finished praying her evening Salat when her darling wife made that little quip. She turned to face her with a wry smile. “My father always told me that, when trying to face the Ka’aba from space, the important thing was to make your best effort, as opposed to being a hundred percent accurate.”

Gabrielle hummed her assent, toweling her platinum blonde hair as she stepped out of their shared restroom. “A fair assessment; given that we’re on some far-flung planet, dozens of light-years from Earth, with both bodies orbiting the center of the galaxy at varying angles and absurd velocities, accuracy becomes impossible without a radio telescope array and a degree in orbital mechanics.”

“So I pray towards the sky, and the stars above, from which my forefathers came to this strange land, and to which we all shall one day return.” She sighed, stepping off her prayer rug. “I think it makes some sense; if I was ever to take the Hajj, I’d first have to go up, wouldn’t I?”

“That’s a rather large ‘if,’ sunshine, for a number of reasons.” Gabrielle took a moment to hang her towel on the bathroom door, before stepping over to press a kiss to Mehreen’s cheek. “But I suppose that’s what we’re fighting for, isn’t it?”

“That, and so much more, sweet moonlight.” Mehreen found her hands wandering towards her darling wife’s breasts. She was well over a year into her HRT regimen, and they’d filled out quite nicely. “How lucky I am, finding the most beautiful woman in the world, and then getting to watch her get a little more beautiful every day.”

Gabrielle blushed in that impossibly lovely way she did when Mehreen sang her praises. She let out a little gasp, before replying. “Well, I did just step out of the shower… wouldn’t want to get all sweaty again, would I?”

“Yes, but I have yet to shower myself, and I certainly wouldn’t mind some company.” Mehreen was still fully dressed, in her woodland camo Volga Liberation Army fatigues, and her favorite red Hijab. Gabrielle was just reaching over to start unbuttoning her jacket… when they heard a loud, banging knock at their apartment’s front door.

“Comrade-Majors! General Rosa needs you at the Operations Room, Code Brimstone!”

Both of them stopped dead in their tracks at hearing that last part. Code Brimstone meant the Four Hellhounds. Without so much as a word, Gabrielle pulled away and began throwing her own uniform back on over her wiry frame.

It had been a day like any other. Her father had roused them all for morning Salat, then taken them to the square to listen to Uncle Ishmael’s preaching. Mehreen was too short to see above the crowd, so her older sister, Leila, had hoisted her up onto her shoulders.

The Takyarch’s armies had only just arrived on Khosrau, declaring their intent to restore order and compliance with the Federal Ideal. Damascus-II, their city of glass, had been transformed by the revolution into a fortress; every rooftop played host to missile batteries or artillery emplacements, and every street corner had an AFV, technical, or bipedal killing machine. Uncle Ishmael had been in the capital when the people had ousted the hated governor, when the clergy of all faiths had put aside their differences to unite against the Proscriptions of Year 28. Now, he was military governor of a whole city.

As a preacher, he was endlessly captivating. Mehreen had been too young to understand his words, but she understood his passion, his outrage, and his faith. He denounced the Takyarch, calling her a red-handed tyrant, an iconoclast, a delusional apostate who sought to put herself above God. It was their duty, to their fathers, their sons, and the creator of the universe, to defend their right to worship from the godless fascists.

For if the Takyarch could kill God, then who couldn’t she kill?

The people cheered at his words, and Mehreen had cheered with them. Even her father, a man carved from stone, was clapping and hollering and smiling at his brother’s words. It filled her with such joy, such confidence, to know that God was on their side.

Then she heard the roar of engines, and the people’s cheering became screams of terror.

The helpful Warrant Officer that Rosa had sent to pick them up was more than happy to drive them to the Operations Room, located in the basement of the New Munich Cosmodrome’s main administration center. This sprawling complex had been built around the base of the Volga space elevator, and had served as both the planet’s main starport, and one of its largest army bases.

While it still performed that latter duty admirably under the stewardship of the VLA, the space elevator was gone; the fascists from the Sixth Army had blown it off its base as they retreated north. The terrible scar of its tow cable collapsing to the planet’s surface stretched all the way to the beach. They’d been very lucky that New Munich was built on the coast; most of the cable’s thousand-mile length had crashed into the ocean.

The admin center itself was located in the shadow of the space elevator’s orbital tether, or what was left of it; an imposing brutalist office block, positively dwarfed by the towering steel edifice of the gateway to the stars. The rattling of trains was a near constant; New Munich was Volga’s main railway hub, dozens of lines terminating in and around the elevator. The VLA had repurposed those tracks to move troops and material back and forth from the Front.

Mehreen had found the commotion of the trains annoying, at first; now, they were an odd comfort. It meant she was home safe.

Soldiers saluted them as they strutted past, through the featureless plaster interiors of the admin building’s first floor, then down the elevator to the Operations Room.

It was a long ride. Mehreen always hated the ride. It made her think.

Gabrielle must have noticed the way her shoulders were stiffened. “Love?”

She sighed. “Any time we talk about them, or I read the latest after action reports, I always think back...”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence. Gabrielle knew it all, her family, her home, the whole of poor Khosrau.

She felt Gabrielle’s hand on her shoulder. “When you meet them face to face, don’t think about any of that. After it’s done, you can celebrate, grieve, relax, do whatever you want. In the moment? They’re just another target.”

Mehreen turned to smile at her. She didn’t know if she could follow that advice, but she’d try to.

The elevator door opened, and they were met with dim lighting and dozens of computer monitors, analysts hunched over as they tracked troop movements and long-range sensor readings. Two much larger projector screens occupied the entire opposite wall, showing maps of Volga’s northern hemisphere, with dozens of bright white blips darting too and fro.

Before this projection stood Comrade-General Claudia Rosa. Her jet black perm shimmered in the moody lighting of the Operation’s room, a greyish cloud floating above her crimson beret as she smoked in what was clearly labeled a non-smoking area.

She didn’t turn to greet her new arrivals, but she did greet them. “’bout time you two showed up. Radar picked up a signal twenty minutes ago, Albatross with four mechs hooked in. Drone photography confirmed it was everyone’s favorite puppies.”

On the right projector, the map zoomed in to one blip in particular, moving north across Volga’s arctic ocean. On the left, the image was replaced with blurry, poorly-lit photos, which nonetheless clearly showed a Federation dropship with a compliment of four jet-black mechs. Mehreen could even make out a light gray “01” stenciled onto one of their shoulder pads.

She felt her heart skip a beat, walking across the chamber to stand by Rosa’s side. “What are they doing that far north? The fighting’s happening south and west of Wagnergrad. All we have up there are listening posts and a few subs.”

Vargas just shrugged, her one good eye shutting as she did so. “Beats me. Could be an emergency cache of WMDs, could be a VIP cooped up somewhere, maybe they wanna try melting the polar ice caps to literally flush us out. All that matters is that they’re completely isolated from the rest of the Sixth.”

Mehreen felt Gabrielle’s hand on her shoulder. “This is our best chance.”

She sighed. “Rosa, how do you expect us to get to the other side of the planet, across enemy lines, in time to intercept them?”

Rosa turned to her, her single gunsteel-grey eye wrinkling with a small smile. “Oh, that’ll be easy, Comrade-Major. You’re already familiar with Project Petajoule, aren’t you?”

In an instant, the square was turned into a charnel house, autocanon fire cutting through flesh like nothing. Dust and blood were everywhere, glass raining down from the surrounding buildings, Mehreen falling from Laika’s shoulders as the survivors scattered and ran for what cover they could find.

She’d landed atop her father, or what was left of him. Both his legs were gone, but he was still breathing. He put his hand to her face, trying to smile, trying to stop her weeping and screaming.

Then the shadow eclipsed them both. Mehreen looked up, and saw the face of the Hellhound.

It was a being forged in the fires of Perdition, jet black and radiating an evil heat. It’s form was stained with the blood of its victims, the rotary cannons on its arms still smoking from the massacre it had just dispensed.

It pointed one of those cannons at Mehreen. She closed her eyes.

Then she heard it jump.

Her eyes opened, and she watched the demon dodge out of the way of a missile, fired from the back of a Revolutionary technical. The beast was on the poor crew in a heartbeat, turning to eviscerate them and their modified pickup truck.

But they gave Leila just enough time to grab Mehreen and run.

The Project Petajoule facility was about eighty kilometers from New Munich proper. By rail, the journey took a little over half an hour. The army logistics syndicate had loaded their mechs onto cargo cars, while Mehreen and Gabrielle sat in a cramped passenger car towards the back, along with their six subordinates.

Those subordinates were killing time, joking and taunting and swapping anecdotes from before the March Uprising. Mehreen, meanwhile, was staring out the window, watching the city pass them by.

Despite the war, New Munich was healing. Construction crews were repairing and rebuilding more and more by the day, dismantling the old propaganda statues and monuments of the Takyarch, making way for a new wave of spontaneous artistic expression.

The city was an experiment in working anarchy; there was no money, no private or state property, and no organized policing or surveillance of any sort. Food, shelter, medical care, and other necessities that people had to earn through service under the Federation were now freely given to anyone in need.

But Mehreen knew full well that they were only half of the story. The other half, her half, was the Volga Liberation Army.

The VLA was perhaps more humane than the Takyarch’s forces, for what little that was worth; its officers were democratically elected, and it was subject to rigorous supervision from the Syndicate of Syndicates to ensure compliance with their human rights charter. But it was still an army, an organization of hierarchy and discipline, a great and terrible machine built to take human life.

“What are you gonna do when this is all over, M?” That was Comrade-Captain Diallo, one of Mehreen’s subordinates, breaking her out of her contemplation. She called her M, short for Mehreen and Major. Mehreen always wondered if the name would stick, if and when she got promoted.

She turned to face Diallo, quirking an eyebrow. “What do you mean by ‘this’, comrade? This operation?”

The Captain’s canine ears perked up at this, a genetic body-mod that would have seen her disappeared under the strictly human-chauvinist Federation. “Oh, after this operation, we’re all getting soft tacos at Tio Enrico’s! I meant like, after the war, and shit. When we win.”

Mehreen considered this question for perhaps longer than she should have. The VLA was meant to disband itself after they liberated Volga, to give way for a drastically-reduced defense syndicate to take charge of safeguarding the planet from the forces of reaction. Would Rosa and the other generals fulfill that promise? Or would they use the threat of further aggression from the rest of the Takyarchy to clench their hands tighter around the hilt of the sword?

Mehreen still remembered her father, and her homeworld. At first, she wasn’t so sure that this would ever end.

But then she felt Gabrielle’s hand on her own, reaching across the booth in which they sat. Mehreen looked at her, eyes full of concern and affection, and her doubts were banished.

“Once we capture Wagnergrad, I’m taking this uniform off and burning it.”

Over the next ten years, Mehreen had killed seventy-three Federation soldiers, scrapped seventeen wheeled or tracked AFVs, and destroyed five enemy mechs. She never saw the demon, or its pack, but she heard the rumors and reports; some top-secret group of brainwashed super-pilots, in heavily modified MCF-3s, wreaking untold havoc across the battlefield.

It was all for nothing. When the Fifth Fleet rained its nuclear Armageddon down on Khosrau, her battered Terran Alliance combat frame simply shut down from the resulting EMP. She wandered the desert for days, lost, starving, and half-mad, until she was captured by a Federation patrol.

They thought her just another terrified refugee. The next few days were a blur, as she went from bus to train to space elevator to transport starship, packed shoulder to shoulder with her emaciated countrymen, dying and wallowing in their own sick from radiation poisoning and the ravages of war.

Her parents were dead. Uncle Ishmael was dead. Leila had taken a bullet for her three years ago. Now, her home, the one thing she had left, the idea she’d been fighting for all this time, was gone.

She’d been shipped off to ‘reeducation’ on Volga. It was penal labor, a mining camp far in the mountains. The backbreaking toil was nothing to her; she was already broken. Her faith was gone.

Then, she met Gabrielle.

“I know what happened, to Khosrau. That’s why I’m here; my paper ran a story on it. We wanted people to know, to do something.

“I’m sorry.”

Mehreen had thought herself as already dead. It was only in Gabrielle’s arms that she allowed herself to weep.

“I have comrades, on the outside. We’re planning on taking the fight to the Takyarch. We’re going to build a better galaxy, one where people don’t have to suffer, where worlds don’t have to burn for one woman’s ambition. Will you come with us, sunshine?”

“Of course, moonlight. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

You never quite got used to how cramped an MCF-3 cockpit really was. With the high-G maneuvers you were expected, nay, demanded to pull in an A-Wolf for it to be combat effective, the only way to prevent a pilot’s head from exploding was to literally ensconce them in crash-pads. Of course, that claustrophobic sensation usually stopped when the suit uplink plugged into Mehreen’s spinal column… only this time, instead of being met with a pretty picture through her full-spectrum sensor suite, she was left staring at nothing.

Project Petajoule was almost as big as the Cosmodrome, ensconced in an artifical crater outside New Munich proper. But where the Cosmodrome was one part military base, one part logistical center, Project Petajoule had a much more specialized purpose.

It was a railgun. A big one. One that filled the entire kilometer-wide crater, able to rotate 360 degrees and launch projectiles at absurd velocities.

Like so much else, the VLA had taken it as a prize from the Federation as they advanced north. It was an experimental static weapons platform, something to defend the Takyarch’s colonies in the event of a second Great Filter, an attack from a near-peer alien civilization.

Always preparing for the last war, never the next one.

The Sixth Army had tried to blow it, like they had the space elevator, but with how suddenly the front at New Munich collapsed, they’d only had time to detonate the topmost portion of the barrel. Seeing as the barrel extended for a few kilometers underground, this was a fairly trivial fix.

Or, so Doctor Maivia had told them. Speak of the devil, she was in Mehreen’s ears right now.

“Alright, magnets are charging up, we should be good to go in five. We’re operating at around ten percent power for this; we shouldn’t even need to switch on a second reactor.” Project Petajoule had six dedicated thermonucelar reactors, each of which could power an entire city. It was, frankly, a complete waste of resources, something only possible under a bloated fascistic bureaucracy like the Takyarchy.

And here we are, stealing their homework.

“Are you sure this little bullet we’re stuffed in is going to hold up?” That was Gabrielle, her frame resting just beside Mehreen’s in the custom re-entry vehicle their squadron was stuffed inside. It was originally meant to carry multi-stage nuclear missiles for shooting down warships, but the on-site engineers had done a lovely job converting it into an improvised transport craft.

“Of course, Gabby! That thing’s rated to survive a full-powered launch… theoretically, anyway. Point being, we got plenty of wiggle room for this.”

Mehreen was not convinced, but that didn’t really matter. Even taking her revenge quest into account, those Hellhounds had put far too many of their comrades in the ground already. They couldn’t let this opportunity pass them by, couldn’t let the dogs scurry back into the pleather-clad arms of their jackbooted Colonel.

They were all flying A-Wolfs, generously provided by the Sixth Army from a supply depot they’d captured a couple months ago. With Mehreen and Gabrielle both leading a team of four mechs each, they outnumbered the Hounds two to one. They’d be fighting on the featureless arctic ice sheets, with no distractions or enemy formations for their quarry to hide behind.

And they had one last surprise in case they did try to call for backup, built into the rear of Mehreen’s mech.

Even so, Mehreen felt herself shudder when she heard the hum of the rail cannon’s magnets firing up. Doctor Maivia was in her ear again. “Launching in ten, nine, eight....”

You’ve got this, sunshine. That was Gabrielle, speaking into Mehreen’s spinal column through the MCF-3’s neural uplink, rather than over shortwave radio. Mehreen always found it strangely intimate.

“...Six, five, four…”

We’ve all got this, moonlight. These Hounds and their reign of terror end tonight.

“...Three, two, one, punch it!”

Mehreen couldn’t see their little bullet accelerate, couldn’t watch as they were flung out of the barrel of Project Petajoule fast enough to touch the edge of space.

But despite the inertial dampeners of her frame and the reentry vehicle, she could feel it in every atom of her body.

Chapter Text

Their frames were meant to be climate controlled, but Hound One knew that only went so far. She could recall how sweaty she’d gotten in the deserts and swamps of Khosrau, the memories far fresher than they’d ever been on her old treat regimen; here, at the top of the world, the chill gave her goosebumps. Her nipples were uncomfortably stiff, and she was positive she could’ve watched her breath fog in the air, if she could see through her flesh-and-blood eyes instead of her mech’s sensor suite.

The churning of Volga’s arctic ocean had given way to rolling sheets of wind-swept ice, waves lapping against glaciers as they soared along the coast. The pack had been silent, as was typical for journeys such as this. The only noise, aside from the ambient roaring of their airborn taxi’s turbine engines, was the incessant prattling of the two pilots who’d been assigned to fly them here.

“No dude, I’m telling you, the handling model for the TA5 in Orion Contention 3 is completely fucking screwy! It feels more like an MCF1 than anything else.” They were using shortwave radio to communicate; Albatross pilots didn’t have neural uplinks. Hearing their voices in her physical ears fucked with Hound One’s synchronicity with her frame, and caused a mild but noticeable headache, but that was only the half of it.

“Oh yeah? And how exactly do you know how either of those fuckin’ frames handle, smartass? Didn’t know I was talking to some Great Filter mech ace.”

“I’m telling you homie, I let my great uncle take a spin on it once, he could tell immediately something was off. OC2 was way better, they dumbed it down for the casuals.”

“Oh, you and your fucking great uncle again.”

“Hey, if it weren’t for him, we’d all be speaking Affini!”

“Affini didn’t make their slaves speak the language, dumbass, their mouths were too fucking weird for us to do that.”

“Well I bet I could—“

“Pilots, kindly shut the fuck up.” That was Handler cutting in, her voice a palliative to the interminable arguments these two chucklefucks had been having with each other since takeoff.

Of course, if Hound One had snapped at them in the way Handler just had, she’d have been electrocuted for her trouble.

But she didn’t have time to think about that. “We’ve picked up a signature inbound on your position. Looks like some kinda ICBM, or maybe an orbital reentry vehicle. Should be touching down… right about now.”

There was a brilliant orange flash as something broke through the bright grey of the cloud cover above. Shooting stars weren’t an uncommon sight on Volga, what with all the space debris from the war’s initial phases raining down on their heads, but this was something else altogether.

This was an asteroid, a burning smoking hunk of death.

Hound One shut her eyes as it crash landed, expecting some nuclear detonation to reduce her and her pack to atoms. She heard the almighty boom of the projectile impacting against the ice sheet… then nothing happened.

She opened her eyes, and saw that the vessel, whatever it was, had landed a few kilometers north of their position, putting it right between them and the supposed location of their treats.

She heard Handler’s voice crackle over the radio. “Alright, I still got your signal, so I’m guessing that wasn’t a nuke.”

One of the pilots piped up to reply. “No ma’am, quite frankly I don’t know what the hell that thing was.”

“That’s what I want you to find out, pilots. Do a fly-over of the impact site before moving to secure the laboratory.”

The other pilot seemed hesitant. “With all do respect, Colonel, what if we encounter… hostiles?”

“Then your mission parameters remain the same. My Hounds will make quick work of them.”

Despite it all, that indirect praise filled Hound One’s heart with a swell of sick pride.

She felt the dropship lurch as it turned to make its way north, the coast disappearing behind them, replaced with the endless expanse of rolling ice sheets. They were completely barren, no signs of life; terraforming programs usually didn’t bother with species that could survive up here, save for photosynthetic plankton and other microbes.

Hound One zoomed her sensors in as they came closer to the impact site. The projectile’s landing had been spectacularly violent; it had formed a massive gash in the ice sheet several hundred meters long, deep enough to punch through to the ocean below. Miraculously, the vessel itself had floated to the surface; it looked to all the world like the detached cone of an orbital rocket, jet black and obviously worse for wear from its rather violent landing.

Unfortunately, its cargo had survived in one piece: eight MCF-3s painted with arctic camo, who’d just finished extricating themselves from their absurd transport craft.

Any hope Hound One had that these might be friendlies was swiftly dashed when her mech’s sensors began screaming at her about incoming missile lock-on.

The dropship pilots noticed too. “Fuck fuck fuck, evasive maneuvers!”

There was a loud clank as they disengaged the mech harnesses, and Hound One found herself falling towards the surface. This didn’t surprise her, as it was what Albatross crews were supposed to do upon encountering hostiles.

Unfortunately, at this range, best practices mattered very little. As the pack’s maneuver jets let them land harmlessly on the packed snow below, Hound One heard the death wail of the pilots over her radio as their Albatross took a missile straight to the cockpit. Hounds Two and Three had to leap out of the way as it crashed in a terrible fireball between them.

But that was only the start of their problems; they hadn’t even hit the ground yet when the enemies began their pursuit.

The pack formed up and began jetting across the snowdrifts and icebergs, zigging and zagging and popping counter-measures to keep ahead of the ever-present swarm of guided missiles from the pursuing mechs.

With the superior speed of their D-Wolfs, the pack was able to stay ahead of them… but the baseline A-Wolfs the enemy had weren’t so slow as to make a chase impossible. Plus, the pack was outnumbered two-to-one, and just based on how they dashed between the icy ridges and canyons, blocking off any route she might take to escape, Hound One could tell they were well-coordinated. The pack wouldn’t be able to outrun them forever.

Handler, orders?

She communicated through neural uplink, thinking her thoughts directly into Handler’s mind back at base. Handler replied, firm as ever.

Your mission remains the same: Get to the laboratory and secure the samples. Don’t let--

There was no garble of static, no pop or click. One moment Handler’s voice was there, and then it wasn’t.

Handler?

HANDLER???

As Hound One felt the icy grip of panic run down her spine, she heard Handler’s voice over her backup radio.

“They’re jamming the fucking uplink signal! Get the fucking samples and get—”

That one was cut off by a garble of static, as the radio signal was jammed too. Hound One couldn’t communicate with her Handler, or her pack for that matter. She was only able to see that Two, Three, and Four were still standing based on her mech’s HUD, or seeing them jet by her vision as they wove out of the way of enemy fire.

They were being jammed, and in the midst of the chaos, Hound One found the culprit. One of the enemy mechs had a slightly elongated rear chassis compared to a regular MCF-3. It wasn’t anything so obvious as a big antenna or satellite dish sticking out the top, but the way it hung back in the fight, refusing to engage with the Pack directly, and seeming to coordinate the maneuvers of its allies, it all led Hound One to conclude that it was the leader of this little kill-team.

If they could take that lead out, this fight would be a cakewalk.

Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. The pack could barely line up a shot being this outnumbered, and even when Hound One could get a lock, that damn lead would always dodge out of the way, or one of her cronies would shoot her missiles out of mid-air before they could make good contact. It wasn’t long before she found her rack totally dry, forcing her to rely on her 20mm cannons, when she could even pretend to get on the offensive in this rat race.

Dodge, weave, turn, a bevy of skull-rattling high-G maneuvers. One could feel her head starting to swim, could feel the sweat clinging to the fleshy pale meat-suit ensconced in her perfect metal body. Combat never felt like this for her; she was supposed to be a perfect killing machine, an orgasmic angel of high-tech death.

Instead, she was getting exhausted and frustrated. She was afraid.

They had to get the hell out of here.

The one advantage they did manage to push was moving further north, towards the research outpost. It wasn’t all that hard to miss: a massive iron door built into the side of a large glacier sticking out from the arctic ice sheet. It had several surrounding outbuildings, including an aircraft hangar and a couple of helicopter pads. It must have housed hundreds, when it was still operational. If she wasn’t so busy trying not to die, Hound One might have wondered where all those staff went.

For now though, all she could manage to do was re-form with her pack, laying down suppressive fire for her comrades as Two and Three lifted the main door open. Then they all dashed inside as the door slammed shut behind them, with Hound Four making sure to engage the magnetic locks so their pursuers would have a harder time getting in.

The interior was quite spacious, but with four full-sized mechs, it felt cramped. Behind them, a series of doorways led further into the depths of the facility, far too tiny for their mechs to ever make it through. They could get out and investigate on foot… but Hound One could hear their would-be assassins banging against the door.

With no radio or neural uplink, they could only communicate in gesture. Three’s mech turned to her and shrugged its shoulders, clearly asking One what to do. One cursed under her breath, looking around one last time… before she noticed a sign on one of the side walls, above a double door that would have been rather large for mere humans.

It read ‘Submarine Pen.’

She hurried over and knocked the wall over, revealing a chamber with a large rectangular pool, carved right out of the arctic ice sheet. It went further down than any of them could see, presumably leading to the stygian ocean hidden under the polar ice cap. A spherical civilian sub hung on tow cables above the man-made tunnel.

All four of them breathed a sigh of relief. This was their ticket out of here; their mechs were rated for amphibious operations, so all they had to do was swim. Sure, they hadn’t equipped oxygen tanks, but they should have no problem making it a few clicks south to punch back up to the surface before suffocating.

Hound One gestured, and Three and Four darted right past her, with Three even taking a second to do a flip into the pool… and banging into the submarine in the process, its cockpit window shattering as her mech awkwardly hit the water.

Two was all set to go next… when her mech’s leg got blown clean off.

It wasn’t the enemy mech force; they were still outside, trying to knock the loading bay door down. The shot had come from one of the doorways leading to the facility laboratories. Hound One turned just in time to watch their assailant scurry away.

Is body was a tangled mess of dexterous green vines, shaping and un-shaping themselves as it glided seamlessly across every surface. They all seemed to sprout from its head, an abundance of dark, shimmering eyes peering out from a protective shell of pale bark. It discarded the single-use rocket launcher it had used to cripple Two’s mech, before effortlessly shimmying into a ventilation duct, too quickly for the stunned Hound One to react.

Affini, the Eternal Enemy, the Great Filter. They must have been the samples Handler had wanted them to collect. Hound One had seen a ghost, and it had damn near killed her packmate.

She heard a loud bang, the loading bay door denting from the impact. One grabbed Two’s broken chassis, hauling it into the submarine room, only to feel her dear sister’s mech press a hand to her front.

Hound One looked back, and noticed the rather sizeable gash in Two’s cockpit, right where her missing right leg would have met the rest of the chassis. “If I try to swim, I’ll just drown, or die of shock.”

Hound One could have wept, but Two propped herself up, hopping on one leg with her hands on One’s shoulders. Her voice was barely audible, but Hound One understood every word. “One… You have to survive. Remember our names. Remember when we were girls, not Hounds. I love you.”

She wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around Two’s mech, then go down fighting for her against those eight commie assassins. Instead, Two shoved her back into the submarine pool, then fired her last three guided missiles into the pen ceiling. They were just enough to cause a cave-in; Hound One had to dive, just to avoid being crushed by several hundred tons of glacial ice.