Cry Havoc Chapter 4 - Blowing off Steam

——————————

Flames rose around me as I crushed another Manticore under Kerberos's foot, savoring the satisfying crunch of metal that vibrated through my neural link. I could almost feel the way the screams of the crew suddenly cut off as I flattened the armored vehicle into a crumpled metal shell. My heart raced as adrenaline surged through my veins, the closest thing to true pleasure I was allowed to feel anymore as I swung Kerberos's massive arm in a wide arc, sending three more rebel vehicles flying like broken toys. I tracked each kill with cold precision, watching the life signatures blink out on my HUD one by one.

"Don't get distracted, Hound." Cernunnos's voice slithered through my neural link, cold and commanding. His tone crawled along my spine like ice water. "Focus on your primary objective."

"Yes, sir," I replied flatly, even as I brought one of Kerberos's rail cannons to bear on a cluster of rebel transports fleeing the battle. Fucking cowards. They'd started this operation against Ka Corporation, and now they were running from it. The weapon discharged with a thunderous roar, the recoil rippling through Kerberos's frame and into my own body. The rebels vanished in a flash of dust and debris and flash-ignited air, incinerated instantly. When the dust cleared, nought remained but scorched earth and a few scattered, smoking fragments that might once have been man-made.

"Efficiently done, Hound," Cernunnos purred in my ear. "Continue the operation. Draw them out."

The mech responded to my thoughts like an extension of my own body, fluid and powerful, and every movement I imagined translated instantly into the machine's actions. The neural feedback let me feel the resistance as Kerberos's metal foot crushed my enemies. Smoke and flame painted the ground beneath my four legs as I waded through what remained of the rebel force. I leaned Kerberos forward, engaging the thrusters to boost over a makeshift barricade and descended on some foot-soldiers that looked up from behind it, their faces contorted in terror as fifteen meters of mechanized death descended upon them.

I felt their deaths through the neural link: the impact of metal against flesh, the pitiful resistance of bone before it shattered, the warmth of blood as it splattered out from beneath my feet. Then it was gone, and the ground stopped trembling beneath Kerberos's feet as I swept my gaze across the battlefield. I felt nothing as I surveyed the carnage, no satisfaction, no remorse. Just the cold calculation of a job nearly complete. Nothing was left capable of fighting by now. Bodies and broken equipment littered the terrain, smoke rising from the wreckage of what had once been a rebel-occupied outpost. The Children of Elysium… as if this planet belonged to them and not to whoever was strong enough to take it.

"Incoming signature," Cernunnos's voice interrupted my thoughts, the words sliding into my consciousness like a knife. "Looks like they took the bait and made a distress call. Fenrir-class mech approaching from the northeast, low to the ground."

I pivoted Kerberos smoothly, the massive machine turning with impossible grace as my neural commands flowed through her systems. My optical systems zoomed in on the approaching figure, enhancing and clarifying the image. The white and gold mech gleamed in the morning sun as it boosted low and hard, her four reinforced legs skating across the ground. It was graceful, but somehow hesitant… like a dancer unsure of the next step. Targeting information and IFF designation flashed across my HUD, data streaming alongside it. Dawn's Hope, another Fenrir-class mech. It was a lighter variant than I was, primarily in a defensive configuration. By the standards of a Fenrir, it wasn’t heavily armed.

I didn’t consider it a serious threat.

"Pilot designated as Dove," Cernunnos informed me, his voice carrying that edge of superiority he always had when dispensing information. "Relatively few known operations. Newly trained. Should be an easy target for you to dismantle, Hound."

"Acknowledged, sir," I replied mechanically, feeling a strange flicker of... something... at the mention of the name. Recognition? Impossible. I'd never encountered this pilot before. Yet something about the name, about the mech's movements, tugged at something buried deep in my mind. I pushed it aside, focusing on the approaching enemy. Whatever it was, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except the mission.

Dawn's Hope slowed its approach as it neared the battlefield, its sensor suite undoubtedly feeding the pilot images of the destruction I'd wrought. The mech raised its hands, the gesture almost pleading, a human motion translated through the machine. Weak. Inefficient. Exposing vulnerabilities.

"This is Dove of the Children of Elysium," a female voice crackled over the open channel. Young. Nervous. "Stand down and surrender! We don't need any more bloodshed today!"

My lip twitched. Surrender. Submission. That was disgusting, and I didn't bother responding. Words were irrelevant. Action was all that mattered. I launched Kerberos forward, thrusters igniting with a roar that vibrated through my body. The compression fluid around me rippled with the sudden acceleration, pressing against my enclosed form as we closed the distance between us.

Dawn's Hope took a step back, a tactical mistake born of inexperience. In mech combat, retreat sacrificed offensive capability for uncertain defensive positioning. The white mech's hands shifted, trying to get its blade into position. She should have focused on maintaining her defensive stance instead. I felt a predatory thrill surge through me as Kerberos's systems calculated trajectories and attack angles. The enemy mech was lighter, theoretically faster, but the pilot's inexperience negated that advantage. I was better armed, and I had no doubts I was the better pilot.

Another communication came through as I drove Kerberos forward, closing the gap between us with implacable purpose. "Please, you don't have to do this! We can talk! We can help you!" The voice was higher now, fear threading through the words.

I ignored the communication channel with a thought. The time for words was past. Now, there would only be violence—and that was a language I'd been programmed to speak fluently. I engaged Kerberos's targeting systems, locking onto the white mech's vulnerable joints as we thundered across the blasted landscape.

The rising sun glinted off Dawn's Hope's pristine armor as it took up a defensive posture, one arm raising up a pulse shield that deployed outward. That could reflect a railgun shot… but the pilot hadn’t thought that far ahead. Shields wouldn’t protect her once I was close enough to get inside her reach, and she had started engaging too late to be effective. Too slow. Too inexperienced. Another rebel who would learn that freedom was just an illusion, a lie they told themselves before people like me came to take it away.

Kerberos's fist crashed forward, targeting the enemy mech's central torso. Dawn's Hope barely evaded my first strike, the white mech staggering backward as Kerberos's armored fist grazed its shoulder plating. The impact sent a satisfying jolt of feedback through my neural link, like the ghost of contact on my own knuckles. The pilot was quick—credit where it was due—but she was also inexperienced. Her movements betrayed her uncertainty, each reaction a fraction too slow, each defensive maneuver telegraphed before execution.

"Please!" the pilot’s voice came again, strained with effort as she forced her mech to sidestep my follow-up punch. The white and gold frame moved with a certain grace, but lacked the fluid precision of a veteran pilot. "Don’t fight us! You're being controlled by their conditioning... You have to fight it! You should be one of us!"

One of them? The absurdity of her plea almost made me laugh. As if I had a choice. As if any of us did. Seeing an opening, I grabbed the arm holding her shield, and my other arm twitched as Kerberos’s laser blade deployed, the weapon extending from the mech's right forearm with a high-pitched whine that resonated through my nervous system. The energy blade cast an eerie red glow across the battlefield, illuminating Dawn's Hope's pristine armor with blood-colored light. Then I swung it in a wide arc, targeting the enemy mech's midsection. Dawn's Hope attempted to dodge again, its thrusters firing in a panicked burst that lifted it partially off the ground. Too slow. The energy blade connected, carving a molten gash across its chest plate. Metal turned liquid-hot along the cut, systems sparking and failing as critical connections were severed.

Through Kerberos's sensors, I detected the spike in the enemy mech's temperature and the sudden drop in its power output. Through the neural link, I felt the blade's passage through the mech's armor—the initial resistance, then the yielding of superheated metal. It was like cutting through flesh, but slower, more satisfying. The blade transmitted the sensation directly to my nervous system, as though my own arm were doing the cutting.

"Good," Cernunnos whispered in my ear, his voice threaded with that sick pleasure he took in destruction. "She's green. Overwhelm her."

I pressed my advantage, launching Kerberos forward in a series of relentless strikes. The amber fluid surrounding my body rippled against my skin as it cushioned me from the g-forces, and I drove Kerberos through combat maneuvers no unaugmented human could withstand without blacking out. My mind calculated attack vectors faster than consciousness, my enhanced reflexes executing them before the enemy pilot could process what was happening.

Dawn's Hope did her best to get that shield back into the way, but it was too big, too ungainly. Meant for putting between the pilot and ranged fire, not a maneuverable blade up close. She was always a little bit late with each move, and could see the Fenrir unit weakening further with each impact, the energy reserves dropping precipitously on my tactical display. The mech's movements grew increasingly desperate as I forced it back, each step taking it closer to the burned-out shell of the rebel outpost.

I feinted left, then struck from the right, a movement so fast that even the fluid around me and my enhanced physiology couldn’t stop the edges of my vision from going black. Dawn's Hope responded quickly—all the evidence I needed to know she was also an augmented pilot, because no normal human would have been able to react at all—but even so, the attack came so quickly that reaction was no option. She needed to have anticipated it, and she had not: Her defensive arm was still swinging to block the feint by the blade while my actual strike connected with her left side. Armor crumpled under the impact, internal systems visibly failing as sparks erupted from the wound.

"Stop this!" Dove’s voice cracked with desperation. "We're both human! We're not meant to be their weapons!"

Human? Was I still human? The thought flickered through my mind and was gone, burned away by the combat protocols that governed my existence. It didn't matter what I was. Only that I won.

Dove attempted a counterattack, firing a burst from Dawn's Hope's shoulder-mounted laser cannons. The targeting was rushed but not incompetent and imprecise. The shots went wide as I boosted to the side, letting the superheated plasma streak past Kerberos to impact the ground behind me. Dirt and rock erupted in plumes of molten debris, the backwash of heat registering on my sensors without posing any threat. I almost felt disappointed at the amateur mistake. Was this the best the rebellion could offer? This frightened girl in a machine she barely understood? "Pathetic," I muttered, the word a low growl in the enclosed space of my oxygen mask.

“Stop playing with her and finish it, Hound,” Cerberos snapped into my mind.

I launched Kerberos into a spinning kick, one of the machine’s legs digging into the pivot in the ground and two others kicking off, helping to spin me as the fourth and final leg fired its boosters and sent the armored limb scything through the air with impossible grace. The move was complex, requiring precise neural commands executed in perfect sequence, the kind of maneuver that separated augmented pilots from unmodified humans. Kerberos's foot connected with Dawn's Hope's midsection with devastating force, the impact reverberating through my body in a wave of savage pleasure.

The white mech crashed to the ground, systems failing visibly across its frame. The once-smooth motion of its limbs became jerky and uncoordinated as emergency protocols tried to compensate for catastrophic damage. Dawn's Hope struggled to rise, one leg sparking uselessly, hydraulic fluid leaking onto the scorched earth like blood from a wounded animal. The once-pristine white armor was now blackened and dented, the gold accents scratched beyond recognition.

"Please..." Dove's voice came again, weaker now. The speaker crackled, damaged by the impact. "I surrender. Don't..."

I cut her transmission off with a thought, silencing her pleas. Surrender was irrelevant. Surrender was for people who could still fight back. I drove Kerberos forward, metal feet crushing debris beneath them as I approached the fallen enemy. With precise movements, I reached down and grabbed Dawn's Hope by what remained of its throat assembly, Kerberos's massive hand closing around the mech's neck. I could feel the metal buckling beneath my grip, the structural integrity failing as my fingers tightened.

"Finish it," Cernunnos ordered, his voice sharp with anticipation. I could imagine him watching through Kerberos's cameras, enjoying the show. "Destroy it."

I lifted the enemy mech off the ground, Kerberos's hydraulics whining with the effort. Dawn's Hope dangled from my grip, four legs twitching uselessly as systems failed throughout its frame. With a savage motion, I slammed it back into the ground, the impact sending shockwaves through the earth that I felt through Kerberos's feet.

Again. I lifted and slammed the broken mech, feeling components break free with each impact, scattering across the battlefield like discarded toys. Metal shrieked and tore, internal systems rupturing in cascading failure. The neural link let me feel each break, each snap of support structures, each system overload. It was like breaking a body: the resistance of bone, the giving way of flesh, the rush of fluid.

Enough of its armor plating had jostled free. With a final, decisive move, I drove Kerberos's fist through Dawn's Hope's abdomen below the cockpit. It was a delicate move to avoid damaging the pilot, but I was careful as I drove my punch directly through the armor to close my fist around the containment unit for its fusion reactor. Then I ripped her reactor out, flinging it into the distance where it overloaded with a flash of plasma lancing in a half dozen different directions. The mech convulsed on released hydraulic pressure as its systems failed catastrophically, limbs twitching in a macabre dance as power surged uncontrollably through its frame before dying altogether. Smoke poured from the gaping hole in its chest, the once-bright lights of its optical sensors fading to dull gray.

"Target neutralized," I reported coldly, standing Kerberos over the broken remains of Dawn's Hope. The white mech lay shattered beneath me, barely recognizable as the elegant machine that had approached just minutes earlier. Its limbs were splayed at unnatural angles, its armor torn and melted, its systems dark and silent. A mix of coolant, hydraulic fluid, and synthetic lubricants spilled into the soil, her machine's lifeblood now poisoning the planet she had fought for.

"Excellent work," Cernunnos replied, his voice carrying raw pleasure. I felt a wave of it, chemically induced, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut and clench my fists for long seconds to get myself back under control from the addictive ecstasy of obedience. "Now, retrieve the pilot. She may be a valuable intelligence or propaganda resource if she survives."

I looked down at the broken machine through Kerberos's optical sensors. The cockpit area appeared relatively intact; Fenrir mechs were designed to protect their pilots even in catastrophic failure. There was a fair probability the pilot was still alive, trapped inside the neural cradle of her destroyed machine.

"Acknowledged, sir," I responded, already calculating the most efficient way to extract her. The mission parameters had shifted from destruction to retrieval. It made no difference to me. Orders were orders. I would comply. As I always did.

Kerberos's sensors scanned the fallen mech, identifying the access points to the pilot compartment. The hull was compromised in multiple locations, but the neural cradle's containment remained unbreached. I reached down and grabbed the armor plate, ripping it away. Then I settled my mech into a stable stance and activated the cockpit release protocol with a mental command. The amber neural fluid that had surrounded me throughout the battle began to drain, the liquid level dropping rapidly around my encased body. As the connections disengaged one by one, I felt the momentary disorientation that always came with separation: the sudden absence of Kerberos's sensors, the return to the limitations of my own augmented but still human senses, dulled by my suit. A chill ran through me as the final links severed, my nervous system adjusting to the loss of the mech's vast sensory input. I hated leaving it behind, but unlike last time, I wasn’t leaving Kerberos to become weak again. Now I was leaving to demonstrate my strength. It took the edge off the discomfort.

The neural cradle hissed as pressure equalized, the tight seals around the cockpit loosening as fluid pumped back into the mech's reservoir tanks. The sensation was always uncomfortable. Like being born, I imagined. The cockpit split open above me with a hydraulic whine, revealing the smoke-filled sky. I disconnected the remaining manual safety tethers and climbed up and out of the neural cradle, my bodysuit still slick with residual neural fluid. Droplets of the amber liquid caught the sunlight as they fell from my form, glittering briefly before disappearing into the dust below.

I hit a switch and an external ladder deployed from Kerberos's side. I climbed down with the precise, economical movements of a spider crawling down its web. My muscles still hummed with the energy of combat, the augmented fibers beneath my skin charged with potential. My boots hit the ground with a soft thud, dust swirling around my ankles. The battlefield looked different from ground level. My vision was far worse… I couldn’t zoom, I couldn’t see anywhere near many parts of the spectrum, and I couldn’t make out a fraction of the detail. The other sensory elements hit me even harder, though… Things like the stench of ozone and burnt metal and the stink of acrid smoke had no reason to be translated into my cockpit. The smell of fire and death permeated everything.

I didn’t hate it.

I surveyed the destruction I'd caused. Bodies lay scattered across the battlefield, some whole, others in pieces. The rebel outpost was nothing but smoking rubble now, the structures reduced to twisted metal and crumbling concrete. Ahead of me, the broken form of Dawn's Hope lay sprawled like a fallen angel, its once-pristine white and gold frame now blackened and torn.

I approached the destroyed mech methodically, my gaze cataloging the damage I'd inflicted. The chest cavity was completely caved in where Kerberos's fist had punched through. One leg was severed at the knee joint, the other three bent at impossible angles. The head unit was partially detached, hanging by a tangle of cables and hydraulic lines. The once-elegant machine was barely recognizable, its design aesthetics obliterated by brutality.

From up close, I was able to simply turn the emergency release for the cockpit. The amber-tinted fluid flooded out in a rush, but I was ready for that. I held onto the side, waiting while viscous liquid slowly receded to reveal the form within. I waited impatiently, ready to fight if she were active. As the last of the fluid drained away, however, I could see that there was no chance of that. Dove lay unconscious in the neural cradle, her white flight suit now stained with blood from a gash beneath her enclosed helmet. Her breathing was shallow but steady, the rise and fall of her chest visible beneath the form-fitting suit. Her face was relaxed in unconsciousness, making her look even younger than the nineteen years her file said she had.

The proper procedure would have been to initiate a gradual disengagement, allowing her nervous system to adjust to the loss of the mech's sensory input. But I wasn't concerned with her comfort. She was a rebel, an enemy. Her well-being was relevant only to the extent that Cernunnos wanted her alive for questioning. I reached in and roughly disconnected her neural links, not bothering with the proper shutdown sequence. Her body jerked as the connections severed, artificial signals suddenly cutting off from her nervous system. A small moan escaped her lips, her eyelids fluttering without opening.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled, dragging her limp form out of the destroyed mech and onto the scorched earth. Her flight suit tore slightly as it caught on a jagged piece of metal, exposing a glimpse of pale skin beneath. I let her fall to the ground without ceremony, her body landing with a soft thud on the dirt. On impulse, I took her helmet and visor off, tossing them aside. "Pilot recovered," I reported, looking down at her face.

She was beautiful, with delicate features, smooth skin, soft brown hair down to her shoulders, and her long bangs resting against her cheeks. Something stirred within me, an emotion I couldn't quite identify. She was familiar. Well, yes… of course she was. I had seen her before in her dossier. Dove… Her real name was Marina. I had files on her, same as all the rest of the known rebel pilots.

"Is she alive?" Cernunnos asked, his tone suggesting he already knew the answer but wanted confirmation.

I knelt beside her, placing my fingers against her throat to check her pulse and making sure it was stable. Her skin was warm under my touch, her pulse steady if slightly rapid. I could feel her life beating beneath my fingertips, so fragile and yet persistent. She was in no danger.

"Affirmative, sir. Unconscious but stable," I reported, my voice flat despite the strange sensation spreading through me as I touched her.

"Good. We want her alive for questioning." His voice took on that familiar, slithering quality that made my skin crawl even through the comms link. "The retrieval team is en route, but they'll be a few minutes. And Hound? Try not to damage her. Too much.”

What did he mean by that?

I stared down at the unconscious woman, my hand still on her throat where I'd checked her pulse. Her chest rose and fell with each breath, the rhythm hypnotic. She had come into this battle woefully unprepared, ready to negotiate, trying to make peace. Something twisted inside me, a complex tangle of emotions I didn't have names for. Rage, resentment, envy?

She had chosen to do that. She was free. Or had been, until now. Despite being on the losing side, she had chosen her path. She had decided to fight for the rebels, to pilot Dawn's Hope, to stand against Ka Corporation. To try pleading over fighting, peace over war. Every action in her life had been her choice.

While I...

The rage built suddenly, hot and unexpected. I had no choices. No agency. No freedom. I was a weapon pointed and fired by others and a living FLESHLIGHT for my master. Why should she have what I did not? Why should anyone? The unfairness of it burned in my chest, threatened to consume me. I looked at her face again, at the peaceful expression of unconsciousness, and it just made me angrier.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't notice for a full quarter second when Marina's eyes fluttered open. Confusion clouded her features for a moment before crystallizing into fear. She recognized me. Or rather, she recognized what I represented. Not my face of course, but my featureless hood and glowing visor and the danger I embodied. Her body tensed, survival instinct kicking in as she tried to scramble away, her movements clumsy from injuries and neural disconnection trauma.

"Don't," I commanded, my voice flat and emotionless inside the confines of my hood. The single word dropped like a stone between us.

She froze, eyes wide with terror, her chest rising and falling rapidly with shallow breaths. A trickle of blood ran down from the gash on her forehead, cutting a path through the dirt on her face. Her gaze darted around, searching for escape routes, for help, for mercy. Finding none.

"Please..." she whispered, her voice cracking. "I surrender..."

I almost laughed. Rules of war. Ethics of combat. These relics of civilization meant nothing here on Elysium, nothing to the Ka Corporation as it prosecuted its war against these rebel scum. Were a bunch of terrorists actually naive enough to believe that surrender offered protection? "Surrender doesn't mean shit," I told her coldly. The word was crude… I couldn’t remember ever using it before. It felt good on my lips. "Nothing means shit except power. Who has it. Who doesn't."

I stared down at her, this woman who had been free to choose her own path, to fight for what she believed in. She had friends. Maybe even a family. Meanwhile, I was nothing but a designation. Hound-91. Not even a name. A tool. Ka Corporation property, to be used and discarded as they saw fit. My rage continued to build. How was that fair? Why should she have what I did not? Why should she know her own history, her own family, her own purpose? Why should she have chosen to fight, while I was built for it?

"Get up," I ordered, taking a step back to give her room to comply.

She struggled to her feet, wincing as she put weight on her right leg. Probably injured from the beating she’d taken when her mech went down. The injury might not even be real: It could have been a phantom pain conducted through the nervous system of the now-destroyed Fenrir unit. She swayed slightly: Enhanced or not, she was still disoriented from the neural disconnection and her injuries. The tears in her flight suit exposed glimpses of her pale skin in… somewhat intriguing places. "What are you going to do with me?" she asked, her voice small but with a thread of determination running through it. Brave little rebel, still thinking she had any say in what happened next.

"Ka Corporation will take you in for questioning," I replied mechanically. "The retrieval team is on its way." I relished the way her face paled further at the implication. Slowly, I smiled… my teeth glinting between the gap of the black suit that covered me. "But they're not here yet, are they?" I added, something dark uncoiling inside me. "For now, it's just you and me."

Understanding dawned in her eyes, fear blooming anew. "Please, you don’t have to hurt me," she whispered, taking a step back. "You don't have to do this. Whatever they've done to you, whatever they've made you into, you can fight it. That’s not who you are in there! You’re still a person!”

Person. The word struck something inside me, a raw nerve I didn't know existed. Was I still human? A person? Or was I just a collection of augmentations and conditioning protocols wrapped in flesh? I didn't know. I had no memory of being anything else.

The rage flared again. I was going to enjoy seeing what happened to this little BITCH after the Ka Corporation finished rebuilding her into a toy just like me. But that would be a long time coming… I wanted satisfaction now. Why should she have identity when mine had been stripped away? Why should she be allowed to refuse and beg while I had to accept whatever degradation my handler visited on me?

"Turn over," I ordered, reaching for the seam of her flight suit. The access point at her neck where the fabric parted for the neural connections.

"What? No, please—" Her voice broke as understanding dawned on her face. Real terror now, not just the abstract fear of capture.

I grabbed her shoulder and roughly threw her down to the ground on her stomach, ignoring her cry of pain as she landed hard on the packed dirt. My fingers found the zipper of her flight suit and yanked it down, exposing the smooth skin of her back. Another difference between her and I: Her suit came off, where mine did not. Metal injection ports from the augmentation procedure were visible along her spine, small, silver-white circles where the machines had done their work.

"No!" she screamed, struggling weakly against my grip. Her fingers clawed at the dirt, trying to drag herself away. "Stop! Please!"

Her struggles only fueled my anger. Every time she fought back, I thought of how I couldn't fight. Every time she resisted, I thought about how my body betrayed me to Cernunnos and obeyed his every command no matter how degrading. If I couldn’t have freedom and dignity, then no one could. I peeled the flight suit down to her waist, revealing more of her pale skin. The contrast between her body and mine was stark; her skin was pale, natural, and beautiful, and all of mine was covered by the black suit I could never remove, turning into something as black as night.

"Please don't do this," Marina sobbed, her body trembling beneath my hands. "I'm begging you!"

I flipped her over again, wanting to see her face, to see the fear in her eyes. Her flight suit was bunched around her waist now, her upper body exposed to the air. Tears streaked down her dirt-smudged face, cutting clean paths through the grime. "You think begging helps?" I asked coldly, leaning closer to her. "It doesn't. Trust me."

I grabbed her breast roughly, the same way my handler had grabbed mine that first day, and I squeezed until she cried out in pain. The sound sent a jolt of power through me; I was in control here. Not like with Cernunnos. Here, I made the decisions. I decided what happened to her body.

"Please..." she whimpered again, her eyes squeezing shut as tears leaked from beneath her lids.

I slapped her hard across the face, the impact snapping her head to the side. The sound of my covered palm connecting with her cheek echoed in the stillness of the battlefield. "Shut up," I hissed. "You don't get to beg. You don't get to say no. You don't get to have choices."

Her eyes opened again, wide with shock and pain. A red handprint bloomed on her cheek where I'd struck her. "Why are you doing this?" she whispered, her voice breaking. "What did I do to you?"

"Nothing," I replied, and it was the truth. She had done nothing to me personally. Her only crime was existing in a state of freedom I could never know. "You exist. You live. You choose. That's enough."

I grabbed both her wrists and pinned them above her head with one hand, my augmented strength making it easy to hold her in place. With my other hand, I roughly groped her exposed breasts, feeling the softness of her flesh, the hardness of her nipples responding involuntarily to the cold air and rough treatment. I… was enjoying this. More than anything I ever had when outside of Kerberos. This was fair.

Marina turned her head away, eyes squeezed shut, tears streaming down her face. "Please, please stop," she whispered, the words barely audible. "Please!"

Her continued pleas only intensified my rage. I slapped her again, harder this time. "I told you to Shut. Up," I snarled. "You don't GET to ask for anything. You don't get to want anything. You just get to take what I give you." Just like I had to take whatever Cernunnos gave me. Just like I had no choice but to spread my legs whenever he decided he wanted to use me, she was going to have to do the same for me.

I pulled down the zipper, parting it until it hit the end of the row. I felt the moment the suit started ripping instead of unzipping, and the shocked look on Marina’s face as the tight fabric tore with a satisfying shredding sound that exposed Marina's body inch by inch. Her petite frame trembled beneath me, skin pale and unblemished except where I'd already marked her. Those small FUNBAGS were nothing like mine, barely a handful each with light pink nipples that puckered in the cold air. The left one already bore an ugly purple-yellow bruise from where I'd squeezed her earlier, the discoloration spreading across her delicate flesh like a watercolor painting. She was like a doll beneath me, something to be positioned and used however I wanted—a fragile, breakable thing with slender arms that couldn't push me away and narrow hips that jerked uselessly against my grip.

Her ribcage fluttered with each panicked breath, and I could count every rib beneath that soft, virgin skin. I wondered if I was this soft-looking beneath my suit, made of this much yielding flesh that dented under my fingertips. Somehow I doubted it. The contrast of her unmarked right breast against the bruised left one made my cunt throb with sick anticipation. The power was intoxicating after being so powerless. She wanted mercy, but watching those frightened eyes—wide and wet with tears—I had none to give. Mercy was not part of my programming. I was Hound-91, Ka Corporation's weapon, Cernunnos's PET. And now, for this brief interval before the retrieval team arrived, I would be her nightmare.

Blood trickled from the corner of Marina's mouth as she stared up at me, terror and confusion warring in her eyes. I felt nothing looking at the red streak against her pale skin: no compassion, no guilt, only a cold calculation of how much damage I could inflict before Cernunnos's retrieval team arrived. Her split lip trembled as she struggled to breathe through the panic, her chest rising and falling rapidly beneath my weight as I straddled her fallen body.

I shifted forward until my knees pinned her shoulders, trapping her arms at her sides. Her eyes widened as she realized her complete helplessness, the full weight of my augmented body making escape impossible. I reached for the seam of my bodysuit between my legs, finding the permanent slit that Cernunnos had cut there. He had meant it as his convenient access point that left me perpetually exposed, perpetually vulnerable. Now I would use it for my own purposes. I could make it mine again, and I wouldn’t hesitate for a second.

I shifted forward until my crotch hovered over Marina's face, her eyes widening in understanding and horror. She could see me now, see the exposed flesh beneath the suit. "Lick," I commanded, lowering myself until I could feel her breath against my exposed flesh. The sensation was strange, warm and intimate in a way nothing in my life had been for as long as I could remember.

She turned her head away, sobbing. "No, please, I can't—"

I grabbed her hair and wrenched her head back into position, slapping her again, harder this time. The impact split her lip further, fresh blood welling up from the wound. Her cry of pain sent another jolt of power through me. "I said lick. Now." My voice was flat, emotionless despite the rage burning inside me.

When she still hesitated, I hit her again, my hand connecting with her cheek with a sharp crack that echoed across the ruins of the battlefield. Her head snapped to the side with the force of the blow, a red handprint blooming instantly on her skin.

"Every time you disobey, I hurt you. Understand?" I tightened my grip on her hair, forcing her face back toward me. "This is what happens. This is what they do to us. This is what I'm going to do to you."

Fear finally overcame resistance. Her tongue darted out tentatively, touching my flesh with the lightest contact. The sensation was electric. Not just for the physical pleasure, though Cernunnos had demonstrated that part of my body still worked just fine, but for the raw power it represented. I had commanded, and she had obeyed. Just as I was forced to obey Cernunnos. This time, I was the one making the commands. This time, I was obeyed.

But it wasn't enough. This hesitant compliance felt too much like my own reluctant submission. I wanted more. I wanted complete control. I ground down against her face, forcing more contact. "Properly," I growled. "Or I'll break your fucking jaw."

Her tongue moved more deliberately then, sliding between my folds. I felt a surge of power rush through me as she obeyed, as she submitted. This was what it felt like to be in control, to have someone else's body bend to your will. This was what had been taken from me, what I took back now through her.

"That's it," I murmured, rocking against her face. My bodysuit's hood cast my features in shadow, the crimson glow of my visor the only thing visible to her as she looked up. "See? It's not so hard to obey."

Her technique was clumsy, untrained. I could feel her revulsion in the hesitancy of her movements, in the way her tongue trembled against me. It reminded me too much of myself, of how I felt when Cernunnos used me. I slapped her again when her rhythm faltered, leaving another red handprint on her cheek. "Better than that," I demanded, grinding against her face harder. "Fucking do it right."

Tears streamed from her eyes as she worked her tongue against me, the salt mixing with my taste on her lips. I could see her disgust, her humiliation, and it fueled me. That was how I felt. This was power. This was control. This was everything my handler took from me, now mine to take from someone else. With every stroke of her tongue, every involuntary moan of pain or humiliation that vibrated against my flesh, I felt more of the control I'd been denied. For this brief moment, I wasn't the one being used. I wasn't the one forced to submit while I was violated. For this moment, I was Cernunnos; I had the power.

"Harder," I ordered, gripping her hair tightly. The strands wrapped around my fingers, soft and fine. Pretty hair… not like mine, buried somewhere beneath my hood that separated me from all human contact except the kind Cernunnos forced on me. "Make me cum."

Her tongue found my clit, circling it with increasing pressure as she learned what pleased me. Her survival instinct had kicked in, showing her what she needed to do to avoid more pain. Just as mine had, long ago, when I learned exactly how Cernunnos liked to be serviced.

I rocked against her face, chasing the building pleasure. My breath came faster, my body tightening with approaching release. The bodysuit restricted my movements slightly, the permanent cutout not designed for this position, but I didn't care. I was far from an expert in this, I just wanted it, and the discomfort only added to the sense of forbidden power, of taking something not meant for me. "Yes," I hissed, bearing down on her. "Don't stop."

Marina's face was wet with a mixture of tears, blood from her split lip, and my arousal. She looked broken beneath me, all resistance gone, reduced to a FUCKTOY for my use. Just as Cernunnos reduced me. The parallel should have disturbed me, should have made me stop. Instead, it drove me harder, made me grind against her more roughly.

The orgasm hit me in waves, intense and liberating. This wasn’t the thing that my handler had forced on me… it felt completely different, completely deserved, completely freeing! I shuddered above her, my thighs clamping around her head as pleasure coursed through my body. The release was beyond physical; it was psychological, emotional. A moment of complete freedom. A moment where I wasn't taking orders, wasn't following programming, wasn't saying "Yes, sir" through gritted teeth in agony. I was giving orders. I was forcing compliance. I was the one saying "do this" and having it done. For those few seconds, I wasn't Hound-91, wasn't even Ka Corporation property; I was powerful, I was in control.

I rode out the aftershocks, her tongue still working obediently against me until I finally shifted away, releasing her head. My breath came in short gasps, my body still tingling with the aftermath of release.

Marina immediately turned to the side and retched, her body convulsing as she vomited onto the scorched ground. The sound of her heaving was harsh in the stillness of the battlefield, her body expelling what it could of the violation she'd endured. As if it were possible to purge the memory as easily as the taste.

I should know.

I watched her dispassionately, the momentary sense of power already fading, leaving the familiar emptiness in its wake. The high was gone, leaving only the cold reality—but I still felt better. I might still be just a Hound, just Corporation property and Cernunnos's pet, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have some agency. Even a trained Hound wasn't always leashed.

Marina continued to retch even after her stomach was empty, dry heaves wracking her slight frame. Tears streamed down her face as she gasped for breath between spasms, her body trying desperately to reject what had happened. But it couldn't be rejected. It couldn't be undone.

I stood over her as she curled into a fetal position on the burned dirt, her body wracked with sobs. Her flight suit was still bunched around her waist, her exposed skin covered in dirt, sweat, and now my fluids. The marks of my hands stood out like badges on her pale flesh, red outlines of fingers where I'd gripped too hard, the beginnings of bruises blooming beneath the surface. I felt nothing looking at her: no remorse, no satisfaction. The momentary sense of power had already mostly faded, leaving the familiar emptiness that constituted my emotional baseline.

Marina's shoulders shook with each sob, her breath coming in ragged gasps. A proud rebel pilot, reduced to this broken thing on the ground. Had I even been so pathetic? I hoped not.

"Why?" she choked out between sobs, not looking at me. Her voice was raw, barely recognizable. "Why did you do that?"

I didn't answer. What could I say? That I'd violated her because I was violated? That I'd taken her power because mine was taken? That I'd hurt her because I was hurt? None of it mattered. There was only one answer. Because I could.

The distant sound of engines broke the silence, the Ka Corporation retrieval team approaching. The heavy thrum of ventral thrusters vibrated through the air, growing louder with each passing second. Soon Marina would be their problem.

"Transport approaching," Cernunnos's voice came through my comms, sounding amused. "Did you enjoy your little... inspection?"

Of course he knew. He had been watching through my visor, no doubt. I wondered if he had his cock in his hand, stroking it as he enjoyed the show. Nothing was private. Nothing was mine. Except maybe my thoughts—maybe. I wonder if he knew what I was thinking.

I didn't respond, watching as Marina struggled to pull her flight suit back up, her movements hampered by pain and shock as the transport ship appeared on the horizon, its engines roaring as it approached. Marina's fingers fumbled with the zipper of her flight suit, trying desperately to restore some dignity before the transport landed. Her hands shook violently, tears still streaming down her face as she struggled to cover the evidence of what had happened. As if it mattered. As if the Ka Corporation soldiers would care that she'd been violated. As if they wouldn't do worse themselves once she was in custody.

The transport touched down thirty meters away, kicking up a cloud of dust that swirled around us like a dirty halo. The engines powered down from their landing cycle to a low idle, the change in pitch creating a momentary silence that emphasized Marina's ragged breathing.

The rear ramp descended with a hydraulic hiss, and six armed soldiers marched out in formation, weapons at the ready. Their faces were hidden behind tactical masks, their bodies encased in standardized combat armor. Faceless, just like me. Tools of the corporation, just like me. The only difference was that they might have lives outside their armor. They might remove their masks at the end of their shifts. That wasn’t a right I had anymore.

The soldiers surrounded Marina, two of them roughly hauling her to her feet. She didn't resist, her body limp with defeat and trauma. One of the soldiers checked her face, confirming her identity with a handheld scanner. "Confirmed capture of callsign 'Dove,'" the soldier reported into his comms. "Proceeding with retrieval."

They didn't look at me, didn't acknowledge my presence beyond a cursory nod from the squad leader. I was just another Ka Corporation asset, no more significant than a security camera or an automated turret. I had completed my function by capturing the rebel pilot. Now they would complete theirs by taking her to a processing facility.

As they dragged her toward the transport, Marina's head lolled forward, then suddenly snapped up. She looked back at me, her eyes hollow and haunted, yet somehow still burning with a final spark of defiance.

"You're just like them," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the transport's engines. "A monster."

The words should have meant nothing, just the desperate insult of a captured enemy. Yet they vibrated through me with unexpected resonance. A monster. Yes. I suppose I was.

The soldiers shoved her up the ramp and into the ship's hold, her slight form disappearing into the darkness.

"Return to your mech, Hound-91," Cernunnos ordered through the comms. His voice had that edge to it, the one that meant he was excited, aroused by the events he'd witnessed. "The Ka Corporation will be establishing a forward operating base at the captured rebel position. Report there for maintenance and resupply. I'll meet you personally."

The unspoken promise in his words was clear. He had watched me take my pleasure from Marina, and now he would take his from me. "Yes, sir," I responded automatically, already turning back toward Kerberos. The massive mech loomed over the battlefield, red optical sensors glowing dully in the morning light. Its black armor absorbed the sunlight rather than reflecting it, creating a void in the shape of the war machine that was my true body.

As I climbed back up the ladder to the cockpit, I pushed away the memory of Marina's face, her tears, her broken voice. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered except the mission, the orders, the next target. Sentimentality was a weakness that had been conditioned out of me long ago. Or at least, it should have been. For just a moment though, I allowed myself to feel a sinking feeling in my stomach. A fragment of guilt. Then I buried it.

The cockpit opened at my approach, the neural cradle waiting to embrace me again. The amber fluid would surround me, the connections would plug into my ports, and I would become one with Kerberos once more. Less human, more machine. The powerful being I was meant to be.

I settled into the cradle, feeling the familiar embrace of the system as it closed around me. The neural fluid began to rise, warm and viscous against my bodysuit. The connections sought out my ports, plugging in one by one with precise mechanical movements. Each link sent a small surge of data through my nervous system, like a tiny electric shock.

The cockpit sealed, cutting me off from the outside world. Inside this metal womb, I was alone with my thoughts and Cernunnos's voice in my ear. This was my reality. This was my existence. I initiated the startup sequence, feeling Kerberos come alive around me. The mech's systems integrated with my own, its sensory data flowing into my consciousness. The battered battlefield reappeared in perfect clarity, every detail enhanced and cataloged. The destruction I had caused. The lives I had ended. The innocence I had destroyed. All reduced to actionable data.

I was Hound-91. And I would obey.

——————————

Are you enjoying this story? You can buy the whole thing, complete with a second ending exclusive to the book and support me making more stories like this!