Cry Havoc Chapter 5 - Poisonous

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It was almost funny. I could get used to the alien feeling of connecting with Kerberos and coming to life. I could get used to unpleasant sensations like sleeping in the cold on hard floors. I could get used to the waiting in between my missions, the lack of any interaction at all. All of those things got less exceptional and more normal with repetition.

This never did.

I knelt on the cold metal floor, my knees aching against the hard surface as I forced my throat more firmly onto my handler’s cock. My throat worked automatically, letting myself gag on his length so that my throat squeezed him more the way he liked. It was disgusting, but it was what he wanted, so I obeyed without question, trying not to think about the way the taste of him filled my senses. I hated that I knew exactly how to please him, how to hollow my cheeks and work my tongue in ways that would increase his pleasure and hasten my degradation.

"Your target is Viper," Cernunnos said, his voice as steady as if he were reviewing mission parameters at a conference table instead of having a woman bounce her face up and down on his crotch. His fingers flicked over the ears on my hood, gripping into the unyielding material and using it like handles to yank my head forward hard. My head hit his pelvis hard enough that my nose flattened against his pubic hair. I gagged, but my body betrayed me, adapting instantly to accommodate him and still squeeze his dick with my throat. "You are going to neutralize her."

Morning light sliced through the small window of the makeshift command room that he had established in the small outpost I’d captured for them, casting harsh shadows across his face. His eyes remained cold, analytical, watching my performance with that clinical detachment I'd come to recognize. There was no passion in his gaze as he looked down at me, just hunger and amusement. I fought against the burning in my lungs as he held me in place, his cock blocking my airway. The digital readouts in my visor flashed warnings about my oxygen levels that I didn't need to see… I already knew I was suffocating.

Finally, he pulled back just enough to let me gulp down a ragged breath before I pushed myself forward again. "She used to be one of our Hounds… but she betrayed us. Intelligence suggests they've developed technology to undo loyalty protocols in our older models of augmented humans. Now she’s been seen providing heavy support for the rebel push at our mining operations," he continued, establishing a rhythm now, using my mouth while delivering the mission briefing. My augmented mind catalogued the information even as my body was used. Viper. Former Hound. Traitor. Rebel protector. Technology that could undo loyalty protocols. Each data point filed away with mechanical precision while something deep inside me stirred at that last bit—technology that could free me from this programming? Could that work on m—

The thought was dangerous, forbidden. I buried it immediately.

"You will eliminate her mech, and any rebel forces with her," Cernunnos said, his pace increasing. "Capture her intact if possible. We need to understand how she broke her conditioning." He smiled down at me. “Make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else, you understand?” His fingers tightened painfully on my hood, forcing my head to move faster.

For just a single, mad instant, I had a flash of anger, an urge to bite down. I could sink my teeth into him, digging into flesh and making him scream. The impulse was gone even quicker than the mad urge I sometimes got to jump from the tall height of Kerberos’s cockpit, the idea abandoned as quickly as it came. I was trapped in my own body, forced to service him while my mind raged impotently. "You were created after her," he said, his breath coming faster now. "Generation five augmented human. More advanced. Better. She's only generation three." He smiled down at me, a cold expression that never reached his eyes. "The job we did on you was better than what we did on her in every way.”

Pre-cum coated my tongue, bitter and thick. I didn’t want to be on my knees, out of my true body. I wanted to be in Kerberos. I wanted to be powerful again. Instead, my body continued to serve him without my consent, my lips tightening, my tongue working the underside of his shaft, my throat relaxing to take him deeper then squeezing once he was there to grip him as I drew back. All automatic responses programmed into my nervous system, bypassing my conscious control.

"Her mech was state-of-the-art when it was made, but it’s no match for Cerberus," he continued, using the wrong name for my mech again. It was Kerberos, not Cerberus. But I couldn't correct him. Couldn't speak at all with my mouth full of his cock. "But don't underestimate her. She was once among our best."

She had found a way to break free.

Something about the way my handler said that made me wonder if he'd used her this way, too, before she escaped. Before she betrayed Ka Corporation. Had she knelt before him like this? Had she hated it as much as I did? Yes… I suspect she had.

Maybe, if I returned her to him, she would be the one kneeling before him again, and he would leave me alone. That slut belonged on her knees… I didn’t.

Cernunnos gripped my head with both hands now, slamming me forward as he thrust to meet him. "When you find her—" His voice caught, a momentary break in his composure. "When you capture her, you will bring her to me. Alive. Damaged is acceptable. Dead is not. Do you understand me?"

I felt him tense, his fingers digging into my hood with bruising force. His cock swelled, and then hot spurts of semen filled my mouth, coating my tongue. The taste was revolting, but I couldn't spit it out. Couldn't turn away. "Swallow it," he commanded, his voice hoarse but firm. I obeyed without question, muscles contracting to obey my master’s order. I felt his cum slide down my throat, warm and viscous, as my conditioning left me no choice but to comply. Only when every drop was gone did he release his grip on my head, allowing me to pull back slightly.

"Good," he said, tucking himself away with businesslike efficiency. "Cerberus should have been prepped by now, and it will be waiting for you in the vehicle bay. You deploy in thirty minutes." He ran a hand over my hood in what might have looked like affection to an observer, but felt like ownership to me. A dismissive pat on the cheek, as if rewarding a pet for a trick well performed. "Don't disappoint me, Hound-91," he said, turning away to review the tactical displays on the wall. "I expect Viper's capture by nightfall."

I rose to my feet, my knees stiff from the hard floor, the taste of him still lingering in my mouth despite my attempts to swallow it away. My visor displayed the route to bay three, along with mission parameters and target data. All business now, as if what had just happened was nothing more than standard procedure.

Which, for us, it was.

I moved toward the door, my body once again responding to commands I could control. But the memory of kneeling before him, of being used and unable to resist, burned inside me like acid. I banished that thought. I had a mission. A traitor to hunt.

And perhaps, in hunting her, I might discover a bit of mercy for myself.

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I watched the battle unfold below with my systems running silent.

I positioned Kerberos behind the ridge line, my reactor running on fumes as I let thermal imaging paint the world in reds and blues. Ka Corporation forces engaged with rebels around the mining facility, brief muzzle flashes punctuating the gathering darkness like deadly fireflies. Cernunnos was in my ear as always, his voice a constant reminder of the chain around my neck as he provided updates from what the satellites could see and I could not. The waiting… it didn’t suit me. There was prey down below. Rebel forces waiting to be defeated. Sure, they would be easy targets and beneath my station, but at least I’d be able to unleash my helpless rage on something rather than stew in my own head watching as I waited for my target to appear.

Cernunnos’s voice cut in. "Maintain position, Hound. We have every approach covered but the eastern quadrant, so most likely she will approach from that direction."

"Yes, sir," I replied automatically, the words leaving my mouth before I could even think about them.

"Patience, Hound," Cernunnos instructed, his voice flat in my ear. "Let her commit to the battle."

I didn't respond. Didn't need to. I knew he was right. Patience was a weapon… it just wasn’t one I enjoyed. My fingers squeezed the controls, eager to act. A Ka Corporation assault vehicle exploded on the far side of the compound, sending a plume of black smoke into the darkening sky. My sensors picked up rebel forces moving in to exploit the breach, their heat signatures clustering around the smoking wreckage. In response, airborne reserves from corporate forces moved in to plug the gap.

"That will be her strategy," Cernunnos said. "Drawing our forces into a concentrated response, then hitting the weakened perimeter."

As if on cue, my sensors detected a new heat signature approaching from the east flank, larger, hotter, and moving fast. There it was—Basilisk, Viper's Fenrir mech. It emerged from the smoke like a predator, missiles already streaking from its sleek form with a hundred contrails as they lanced toward the Corporation's front lines. Even from this distance I could appreciate the ambush well done. Viper was good, as she would have had to have been to be one of the Ka Corporation’s Hounds.

Too bad I was better.

"Engage," Cernunnos ordered, but I was already in motion. Adrenaline flooded my system as I launched Kerberos forward, thrusters howling as I cleared the ridge in a single bound. The feeling of power surged through me, my neural link translating the mech's movements into sensations of strength and speed. I accelerated fast, fast enough than a normal pilot would have been dizzy or blacked out even with ideal directionality, but my augmented body and the compression fluid absorbed the pressure like it was nothing. I came down just a little behind Basilisk, the impact shuddering through Kerberos's frame and into my body. The ground cracked beneath us, a small crater forming where we landed.

Then I boosted directly towards her.

Viper reacted fast, even faster than I expected. Basilisk pivoted, rear thrusters firing in a controlled burst as it leaped backward, putting distance between us. Smart. She had been able to recognize at a glance that while Kerberos could fight at any range, I didn’t have nearly the long-range armaments that Basilisk had, and that the laser blade on my right arm was capable of tearing through her armor like paper.

Basilisk's missile pods opened as it pivoted in mid-air, and my HUD lit up with targeting warnings. Sixteen projectiles launched in sequence, the smoke from their passage painting angry lines across my visual field as they arced toward me.

"Shit," I muttered, throwing Kerberos into a lateral slide. The neural feedback system translated the mech's movements directly to my brain, making it feel like my own body was skating across the rocky terrain. I felt every pebble, every bump beneath the mech's feet as if they were my own as the boosters turned Kereberos’s four legs into skids. My fingers twitched, sending commands through the interface. Kerberos's defensive systems activated, launching counter-missiles and point-defense systems to intercept the incoming barrage. The explosions lit up the evening sky, a deadly light show that momentarily overwhelmed my thermal imaging.

Two missiles made it through. The first struck Kerberos's left shoulder plate, the impact reverberating through the neural link into my own shoulder. I grunted at the phantom pain as damage reports flashed across my HUD. The second missile I caught with Kerberos's reinforced forearm, the explosion washing over the mech's armor without penetrating.

Not bad… but the bitch would have to do better than that.

I triggered the twin rail cannons mounted on Kerberos's shoulders, sending hypervelocity rounds screaming toward Basilisk. Viper juked right, once again showing off her reflexes and reaction speed, but the point wasn’t to hit her. It was to force her to maneuver, to cost her speed, and I closed the distance further. Basilisk responded with another volley, this time a mix of missiles and energy weapon from arm-mounted canons. The bitch was trying to pin me down, create a pattern of fire that would limit my movement options. Not a bad strategy against a normal pilot. But I wasn't normal.

My augmented brain processed the incoming fire patterns in microseconds, finding the gaps most humans would miss. I launched Kerberos straight up, forward, and down, cranking the thrusters to a bone-shattering maximum burn that put me through a rise and dive that would have turned a normal woman’s brain to mush, and I crashed through the ruins of a collapsed building as it caught the missile that had managed to keep up with me the best. Then I emerged from the ruins at maximum thrust, an arrow pointed directly for her heart.

Basilisk had weapons emplacements on her arms, and that meant no shields, and no blades. I had to get close.

Basilisk was still moving away, circling wide to get a better firing angle. The rebel mech had superior ranged weapons, but even this short exchange proved that Kerberos was lighter, faster, and had stronger boosters. If she didn’t manage to blast me to atoms, I would catch up to her… then I’d be close enough for my blade to do its work. I burst from cover, pushing Kerberos into a zigzag pattern that made targeting difficult. Basilisk tracked me with continuous fire, energy beams slicing through the air where I had been milliseconds before. The neural feedback from the near misses tingled along my skin. Another building collapsed to my right as one of Viper's missiles went wide, concrete and steel crumbling in a cloud of dust.

I fired my own missiles, not aiming at Basilisk directly but at the structures around it. Predictably, Viper focused on the missiles that posed an immediate threat, shooting them down with precise energy weapon fire. That split-second distraction was all I needed.

I pushed Kerberos to her limits, covering the distance between us in a burst of speed that briefly overwhelmed even my enhanced visual processing. One moment I was several hundred meters away; the next, I was in striking distance.

Basilisk tried to backpedal, but I was already inside its optimal firing range for missiles. My laser blade hummed to life, the energy field surrounding it vibrating at a frequency that could slice through reinforced battle armor. Through the neural link I felt the blade's power as an extension of my own arm, hot and eager.

Viper really was good, I’d give her that. Basilisk twisted at the last second, avoiding a direct hit to its power core. Instead my blade sheared through its right missile pod, the severed component exploding in a shower of sparks and metal. The feedback hit me like a shot of pure pleasure, the destruction transmitting through my neural link as a burst of dopamine that had me grinning behind my visor. Half of the bitch’s teeth pulled. I beared my teeth in a snarl and boosted to keep up as she tried to open the distance again, pressing my advantage.

"Neutralize the target without damaging the pilot, Hound-91. I want her alive," Cernunnos said.

“Yes, sir,” I tried not to growl.

Basilisk countered with a desperate close-range blast from its energy cannon, catching Kerberos in the chest. The impact sent my mech staggering back, and I felt the phantom burn across my own torso. Damage reports flashed warnings, but nothing critical—the armor had held.

I dismissed the pain. My focus was absolute now, my augmented mind calculating angles, velocities, and structural weaknesses faster than any normal human could manage to read the information my computer and sensors gave me. I saw the pattern of Basilisk's movements, the slight hesitation before each evasive maneuver. Through the swarm of missile fire, my opening appeared. I feinted left, then drove Kerberos hard right, anticipating where Basilisk would move to counter me. The rebel mech walked right into my trap, and my laser blade found its mark, slicing clean through the booster engine mounted on Basilisk's back.

The explosion rocked both our mechs, the shock wave momentarily blinding me as it flung me away like a rag doll. When the thermal bloom cleared I saw Basilisk struggling to maintain its balance. The mech’s main boosters had been destroyed: Its back was broken, its mobility severely compromised. A surge of satisfaction went through me. "Target crippled," I reported. "Moving to disable."

Viper refused to give up, even though she had to know it was all over now. Basilisk worked as hard as it could to create distance, its remaining thrusters firing in desperate bursts… but they were trim boosters, there to provide stability and steering, not power. With its main engine gone, it was like watching a wounded animal trying to flee a predator. Pathetic. I closed in again, my rail cannons targeting its legs with the casual grace of a hawk diving on its prey. The first shot took out Basilisk's right forward knee joint, sending the mech crashing to the ground. The impact reverberated through the earth like it had been smashed like a meteor, sending clouds of dust billowing. I circled my prey, savoring the moment. The second shot disabled its left arm, the limb hanging useless at its side.

Viper wasn't done fighting. Even crippled, Basilisk managed to fire its remaining energy weapons, forcing me to dodge. "Is that all you've got?" I taunted, knowing full well Viper couldn't hear me. It didn't matter. This wasn't about communication. It was about domination.

I brought Kerberos's foot down on Basilisk's remaining functional arm, crushing it beneath 60 tons of advanced machinery and hydraulic muscle. The neural feedback was exquisite—I could feel the metal giving way, systems failing, circuits shorting out. And through the link, I knew Viper felt it too, her own body experiencing phantom pain as her mech was systematically dismantled. With all the precision of a surgeon and the mercy of a butcher, I carved my laser blade through two of Basilisk's remaining legs, cutting through the reinforced joint of her knees with deliberate slowness. The blade's energy field melted through metal and circuitry, and I imagined Viper screaming inside her cockpit as the sensory data flooded her nervous system.

"Target neutralized," I reported as Basilisk lay broken before me, smoke rising from its severed limbs. Our fight had taken us a safe distance away from the battle raging elsewhere… I wouldn’t be at any risk if I shut down right now. "Proceeding to pilot extraction."

"Excellent work, Hound-91," Cernunnos purred in my ear. "Bring me the pilot."

I stood over the fallen mech, Kerberos's sensors detecting the pilot's elevated heart rate and stress markers. Viper was alive in there, probably in agony from the neural feedback of her destroyed mech. Good. That would make what came next easier.

"Yes, sir," I replied, powering down my weapons systems as I prepared to disembark. The hunt was over. Now came the interrogation.

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I climbed down from Kerberos, the heat of battle still humming through my augmented muscles as I approached the smoking wreckage of Viper's Basilisk mech. Cernunnos's voice cut through my comm: "Secure the pilot, Hound-91. I want her intact enough for questioning."

"Yes, sir," I responded automatically, the words leaving my mouth before I could even think about them. Through my visor, I could see that the cockpit was still sealed, emergency systems likely engaged. Good. That meant she was almost certainly still alive. That would make Cernunnos happy, which would hopefully mean he didn’t go and make my life more miserable. She could have her turn being weak and submissive instead.

The cockpit's emergency release was hidden beneath a panel on the right side, in the standard place for a Fenrir-class. It took more strength than one normal woman would have to tear that panel off, but my body was conditioned to ignore its limits. The health of my body wasn’t mission-critical, not when the Ka Corporation could restore any damage afterward. I pulled with all the strength in my adrenal system, and the metal shrieked as it bent beneath my pull. Beneath it, the emergency handle glowed red in the darkness, and I yanked it downward, hearing the hiss of depressurization as the cockpit began to unseal and the fluid began to jet from the gaps. I didn't wait for it to complete its cycle. I dug my fingers into the widening crack and pulled, muscles straining as I forced the hatch open. The hydraulics whined in protest before giving way with a sharp crack, the door now hanging useless from a single hinge as I held onto it, making sure the compression fluid didn’t sweep me away in the flood.

Viper was still conscious inside, her face contorted with pain from the neural feedback of her destroyed mech. Blood trickled from beneath her breathing mask and helmet… probably not physical injuries, but the side-effects of a damaged neural interface. Her eyes widened with panic when she saw me, recognition of the threat flickering across her features. She reacted to defend herself, but wrong… Her hands clenched on her control, pulling on them and trying to will the destroyed hydraulics and synaptic functions back to life, too caught up in her mechanical body rather than the one of flesh and blood. I didn’t give her time to correct her mistake: I reached in and grabbed her by the throat, dragging her out of the cockpit.

Viper fought like hell, even after I’d ripped her out of the mech. She landed heavy, rolled, and lashed out with a boot to my jaw that actually made my ears ring. Not bad for a woman who’d just had literal tons of death-dealing warmachine torn out from under her. I bit back a laugh and swatted her leg aside before she could follow it up with a proper kick. She was augmented, no doubt—her hands moved just a little too fast, her recovery time from the first punch was better than any baseline. But she was hurt, her own suit leaking blood and pressure foam from the seams, and the neural backlash from losing her precious Basilisk had to be scrambling her sense of balance. In a fair fight, maybe she would’ve made me work for it. This wasn’t a fair fight. It was a dismantling.

She clawed at my face with gloved fingers, going for the eyes the way all desperate creatures do… not thinking about the way the visor made that pointless. I let her get close, then slammed the heel of my palm into her nose hard enough the visor of her helmet broke. Heard the crunch of breaking cartilage and the wet gurgle of blood as her nose crumpled. She howled, hands flying to her face, and that gave me the opening to drive a hard knee into her gut. Her whole body spasmed and she sagged, trying to curl up. I grabbed the edge of her helmet and used it to yank her up to her knees. “Stop embarrassing yourself,” I spat, glancing down at the dazed, red-streaked face through my visor’s view. “You lost.”

She tried to spit blood at me, but her mouth was too full of it. Pathetic. I punched her in the side of her face, hard enough to rattle her brain in her skull. She went limp for a second like a puppet with its strings cut, and I let her slump to the ground while I wrenched the breathing mask and helmet off her head. The hiss of decompressing seals sprayed pinkish mist across my face, sticky and hot. I tossed it aside.

Now it was just Viper—she was a fit woman, but compared to me she seemed small and pale, with bruises already forming on her cheeks. Black hair, wet with the compression fluids, clung to her back and neck. A bloody tear ran from one bloodshot eye… more damage from the neurological link. She blinked up at me with glassy, defiant hatred, equal parts prey animal and the poisonous reptile she took her name from. It was a good look for a bitch. I knelt over her, one knee pinning her chest, and started tearing at her pilot suit.

She fought again, weak and desperate, using the last dregs of adrenaline to try and shove me off. I rewarded her with another punch to the face, this time splitting her lip and leaving her seeing stars. “That’s enough,” I told her, voice flat and cold. “It’s over. Accept it.”

She tried to say something, a mouthful of blood and broken teeth choking it off. I leaned in, pressing my weight down harder. “You know what happens now, don’t you?” I said, my voice a sneer. “You belong to the Ka Corporation again, traitor.”

Her pilot suit was already torn in places, showing glimpses of pale skin beneath. Not good enough. I needed her exposed. Vulnerable. I drew my knife and began slicing away her pilot suit, the blade occasionally breaking skin and drawing thin lines of blood that glistened black in the orange light of flames. Cutting through the seals at the neck first, I sliced down the front of her chest, exposing the pale flesh underneath. I didn’t care about the patches of blood already soaking through, or the way she tried to squirm away. All that mattered was that she was helpless now—no armor, no weapons, no pride. She tried to struggle, but the neural feedback from her destroyed mech had left her muscles weak and unresponsive. I held her down with one hand on her throat as I cut away the protective layers.

"Stop," she gasped, her voice hoarse. "Listen to me—"

I pressed harder on her throat, cutting off her words. "Traitors don't get to speak," I said, continuing my work until the remnants of her suit lay in tatters around her naked body. When I eased the pressure on her throat, she coughed and gulped down air. Her eyes found mine through my visor, searching for something.

"You don't want to do this," she gasped, her gaze never leaving mine. "This isn't you. I know you!"

Her words stirred something uncomfortable in my mind, a fragment of memory trying to surface. A face, smiling at me. A hand extended. A voice saying a name, one I couldn’t quite make out. Had I known her during my training? When we were both being augmented? I must have, right? I shoved the thought away violently, confused and angry at the intrusion. It didn’t matter, and my neurological conditioning didn't allow for such anomalies.

"You don't know me," I growled, pressing the flat of my blade against her cheek. "You know nothing."

"Fight the conditioning," she continued desperately, words tumbling out as if she knew her time was short. "You're not their puppet! An augmented human is still a human… You’re still you beneath all that tech."

Pain lanced through my skull at her words, sharp and sudden. Warning indicators flashed across my visor—elevated heart rate, irregular neural patterns, hormone spikes inconsistent with combat situations. Something in my programming was fighting against her words, trying to block them out. "Shut up," I hissed, pressing the knife harder until a thin line of blood welled up beneath the blade. “You’re a traitor, Hound-39! Shut up!

"They took everything from us," she continued, her eyes never leaving mine. "Our names, our memories, our humanity. But it's still there, buried deep. You can find it again, just like I did!"

Cernunnos's voice cut through my comm, amused. "Is that what she thinks?” he snickered. “Adorable. Shut her up.”

The direct order triggered automatic responses in my augmented nervous system. I didn’t even think about what I was doing… I just saw red. I had to fight a momentary mad urge to plunge that knife into her eye and see if she’d still talk then, but Cernunnos wanted her alive, so that was never an option. Instead, I pulled it away and brought my foot down on the woman’s face. It was covered in the same synthetic covering as the rest of me, and I pressed it against her mouth, the smooth material scraping against her teeth as I pushed inward. Her eyes bulged as she gagged, tears streaming down her face as she struggled to breathe around the intrusion. I applied more pressure, forcing her jaw wider, watching her struggle with a detached curiosity that didn't quite mask the discomfort her words had caused me.

"Shut the fuck up," I told her, my voice flat and cold. "You were a traitor to Ka Corporation. Now you’ll be lucky just to be FUCKMEAT. That's all you are."

She tried to shake her head, to dislodge my foot from wedging itself down into her open mouth, but I pressed harder, feeling her jaw strain against the pressure. Her hands came up, clawing weakly at my leg, but her strength was nothing compared to my augmented muscles. "You think your words mean anything?" I continued, shifting my weight to increase the pressure. "You think I care about whatever lies you're trying to sell? I am Hound-91. I hunt traitors like you. That is my purpose. My only purpose."

Through my visor, I watched her struggle. A display screen estimated her oxygen level, and I watched it drop, watched her struggles grow weaker as she gagged on my foot. I eased the pressure just enough to let her draw a ragged breath through her nose before pressing down again. "This is what happens to traitors," I said, as much to myself as to her. "You can’t escape your programming, you little slut. You are what you are.” And, a small part of me said, if you hadn’t escaped… then they wouldn’t have needed to activate me. Cernunnos wouldn’t be using me as his toy to masturbate with.

But even as I spoke the words, that fragment of memory tried to surface again—a face, a name, a feeling of connection. I crushed it down with brutal efficiency, channeling the confusion into anger, focusing that anger on the woman beneath my boot.

Viper gagged around my foot, saliva and blood trickling from the corners of her mouth as she struggled for air. Her eyes remained fixed on mine, starting to fill with panic, and that thought made me press harder, smothering her with my foot for a long second. “Just shut up,” I snarled. “You don’t know shit!”

When I finally withdrew my foot from Viper's mouth, she coughed and sputtered, blood trickling from her split lip. Her body trembled, naked and vulnerable on the scorched earth beneath me. Something primal and vicious surged through me: A need to dominate, to punish, to claim power over this woman who dared to suggest I was something more than what Ka Corporation had made me. Who dared to suggest I had a choice. I needed to hurt her for that. Needed to make her regret ever speaking those words.

"You think you know me, traitor?" I hissed, standing over her as she gasped for breath. "You think there's anything human left in here?" I tapped my hooded head, the sound dull against the synthetic material. “There’s not. I’m just a thing. And it’s your fault!”

She tried to crawl away, her naked body dragging across the debris-strewn ground. I followed, stalking her like prey, enjoying the fear that now replaced that insufferable pity in her eyes. "Where do you think you're going?" I asked, my voice flat and cold. "We're not finished yet." Then I drew back and I drove my boot between her legs, slamming the hard toe-cap against her exposed cunt with enough force to make her scream. The sound echoed across the battlefield, lost in the distant explosions of the ongoing fight. The sound sent a rush of satisfaction through me, almost as potent as the neural feedback from piloting Kerberos. Both sensations were power in its most primal form—my body dominating another.

"That's it," I said, watching her curl around the pain. "Scream for me, you simpering traitor bitch!" I kicked her again, harder this time, watching as her body convulsed from the impact. Her flesh reddened instantly, the delicate tissues bruising under my assault. Each impact sent shockwaves of sick satisfaction through my body. This was what I needed—to inflict the pain I couldn't direct at those who owned me, to unleash it on this traitor who had escaped while I remained chained.

"You got away," I snarled, kicking her again. "You broke your conditioning while I'm still their fucking puppet. And they fixed it because of you. They turned me into this thing because of you. And you have the nerve to come back here?" I wasn’t even sure where my anger was coming from, but I was furious, and I drew back and kicked her again. She was trying to close her legs, to squeeze them shut and protect herself from my rage. I forced them apart with my boots, exposing her vulnerable pussy to more punishment. I kicked again, watching her writhe beneath me.

"Stop it!" she sobbed, her back arching in agony as she tried, and failed, to escape the latest in a series of kicks. “Please, what do you want from me! I’ll do what you want!”

Her begging only fueled my anger. I couldn’t defend myself from my handler. I couldn’t stop doing whatever he wanted. I couldn’t stop being a slave, even though I was increasingly sure that I was meant to dominate and not be dominated… but I could unleash on this traitor. On this woman who had found freedom while I remained enslaved. Who had the audacity to suggest I could do the same. "Anything?" I echoed, grinding my heel against her swollen clit, watching her writhe beneath me as I laid my weight down onto her. "Then beg me to hurt you more. Beg me like the traitor whore you are."

She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. "This isn't you," she gasped between sobs. "They made you do this. Just like they made me do these things. You can—”

I cut her off with another vicious kick to her cunt, hard enough that her entire body lifted from the ground for a moment. Her scream this time was ragged, primal, the sound of someone pushed beyond their limits. The power was intoxicating, filling the void where my autonomy should have been.

"Say it," I demanded, stomping down against her bruised and swollen pussy. "Say you're a worthless traitor whore who deserves this punishment."

Her body trembled beneath my foot, her breath coming in short, pained gasps. For a moment, I thought she would continue to resist, to spout more of those dangerous words about freedom and choice. But then her eyes met mine, and I saw something break inside her. "I'm a worthless, traitorous whore," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I deserve to be punished."

The words should have satisfied me, should have fulfilled that primal need to dominate and control. Instead, they left a hollow feeling in my chest. It was like I'd hoped that she would keep on fighting. To keep insisting that there was hope for me too.

I dared not examine that thought too closely, so I pushed it away, burying it beneath more anger, more violence. I drew back and gave her one more kick between her legs, hard enough that her hips rose up off the ground again. Her scream was weaker this time, her body too exhausted to fully respond to the pain. She curled into a fetal position, hands clutching between her legs, trying to protect herself from further assault.

I stood over her, panting from exertion, from the intensity of emotions I wasn't supposed to feel. This fucking whore. Cernunnos wanted her alive, but she wasn’t going to die from this. I just wanted to make sure every time she moved, every time she breathed, she would be remembering what I’d done to her and why. "You're pathetic," I said, my voice steadier than I felt inside. "Is this the great Hound-39? The traitor who escaped Ka Corporation? Just a naked, crying slut on the ground?"

She didn't respond, just curled tighter around herself, protecting her abused cunt from further assault. The sight of her, broken and submissive, should have pleased me. In a way, it did. Beneath the cold satisfaction, something else kept stirring though. Something trying to fight its way to the surface.

Sympathy.

Pity.

Ridiculous.

I looked down at her curled form, at the bruises already darkening on her pale skin, at the blood and dirt marring what had been a perfect Ka Corporation asset like me, once upon a time. My work wasn't done yet. My rage still burned inside me, demanding more. Demanding I take everything from her, just as everything had been taken from me.

And I would. Because that's what I was programmed to do. Because that's all I could do.

Standing over Viper's curled form, I felt the need to break her completely, to strip away every last vestige of the defiance that had allowed her to escape Ka Corporation. I drew my knife from its sheath again, the metal reflecting the flames of the burning remnants of her mech as I contemplated its use. Not the blade, I couldn’t use that on her. The handle, though… That could serve another purpose entirely.

I kicked her legs apart again, unmoved by her whimper of pain as her bruised cunt was exposed once more. The knife felt heavy in my hand as I knelt between her thighs, spreading them wider with brutal movements. The handle was thick and textured for grip, designed for grip in the hand… and promising quite a bit of pain if I used it for what I had in mind. "You abandoned the Ka Corporation," I said, pressing the cold steel handle against her cunt, already swollen from the repeated kicks. "You abandoned me to this nightmare. And you're going to apologize to me for that."

Her entire body shuddered, muscles tensing as she tried to squirm away from the handle of my knife pressing against her swollen, enflamed flesh. I grabbed her throat with my free hand, squeezing until her struggles weakened, until she couldn't breathe. She fought, clawing at my arm, but I was so much stronger than her. The physical difference between us only fueled my anger—I was a new generation, an improvement on her obsolete model, yet she had found freedom while I remained chained.

I pressed the handle into her like a cock, and smiled.

Viper’s cunt put up a hell of a fight, but there was no contest. Augmented muscles and unyielding conviction overbore her. Her swollen pussy might clamp on the knife handle, but it did nothing to stop the ridged metal from stretching her open with a dry, scraping sensation. The resistance just made it better for me, because it showed me that she was being punished. I leaned into the effort hard, savoring that moment when I saw in her eyes that she realized I wasn’t going to let up, that I was going to make her take every last centimeter. That she hadn’t escaped from what she’d suffered at her Handler’s whims at all.

“No!” she yelled, her battered lips sputtering as I ground the handle up inside her. Her pelvis bucked as if she could throw me off, but I had her pinned and I just watched, hungry, as the sick satisfaction rolled through me.

“Apologize to me, you worthless traitor,” I growled, voice flat. I punctuated the order by twisting the blade for leverage, making the traction-seeking surface on the handle carve new pathways of pain through her nervous system as the first of many tears slicked her face.

She choked, her throat raw from earlier, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m…”

She didn’t finish. It wasn’t enough. I clamped down harder on her throat, shutting up the rest. “You can do better than that,” I spat. “By the time I’m finished with you, you’re going to mean it.” I drove the handle in another inch, watching her hips rise. Her legs shuddered and kicked, knees buckling, but my grip on her neck and thigh was absolute. This was what I was built for, the destruction of enemy assets. I was the perfection of the experiment that had begun with earlier generations… and if I had to suffer, so did all of them.

Viper tried to writhe away, but there was nowhere to go with me straddling her thigh, holding her down, the corpse light from her burning mech painting us both in writhing orange and blue. Her body jerked with every motion, every time the ridges caught or popped inside her stretched pussy. I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. I watched her suffering profile, hunted for the moment the final thresholds in the previously-victimized Hound would collapse and her last defenses would shatter. When she would truly understand that she had escaped nothing at all… that this was all that she was meant for.

When she tried to scream, nothing came out. She coughed against my foot on her neck. I let up just a little on her throat, so she could talk. “Say it,” I commanded. “Say you’re a fucking garbage traitor and that you belong to me.”

She sucked in air, her voice a shattered whisper. “I’m a traitor, I’m—f-fuck, please stop—” Her hands fluttered at my arm, but the fight was gone. “Please. I’ll do anything, just—” She seized again as I pumped the handle in and out, slow, mechanical, never letting her catch her breath or hope for mercy.

“I don’t believe you,” I said, bored. “Try again.” I set a rhythm, every thrust slow enough that she had time to dread the next one. She twisted, but it was all reflex, no plan, all her survival programming conflicting with the reality that she was just broken meat now.

She sobbed, the sound ragged and ugly. “I’m a traitor. I’m a worthless piece of shit. I deserve this. Please. Please!”

The apology meant nothing to me. I just wanted more. I wanted the world to see her like this, ruined and conquered, proof that all resistance was a joke. I wanted to see what was left when she stopped pretending. She shook, her whole body arching in involuntary spasms. Maybe she was on the edge of passing out; maybe the pain was so much her vision tunneled. I kept fucking her with the handle, sometimes burying it deep, sometimes working it in tight little circles that made her whine and writhe. The blood that leaked from her earlier beatings mixed with the lube of her own battered body, slick and sticky and hot. I leaned in and spat on her, watched the glob slide down her cheek and vanish beneath her chin.

“You thought you could leave,” I snarled, voice metallic and hollow. “You thought you could be free. You’d throw people like me away, the second you saw an opportunity.” I planted my hand on her breast, fingers pinching until the flesh purpled. “You’re not special. You’re not even interesting. You’re just a cautionary tale.”

I drove the handle in hard enough to make her scream, really scream this time, a raw and broken noise that fizzled out into silence. She tried to curl up, but my hands were everywhere, pinning her down, spreading her legs, using her however I wanted. I felt alive, alpha, the apex of all this biological engineering. This was what they wanted us to be—machines of domination, perfect tools.

But there was something else, too. A little voice way back in the dark, squirming and uncomfortable, saying that what I was doing was wrong, that I was just Ka’s attack dog, no more in control than the handler who’d made me suck his cock. I strangled that voice, laughed at it. This was control, this was power. When I was like this, I didn’t have to think about that. It didn’t have to be that way, for a short time.

“Please…” she whispered, tears running rivers down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should’ve died.”

“Yeah,” I said flatly. “You should’ve.” I yanked the handle out and shoved it in again just to hear the noise she made. She jerked, pain overriding everything else, and slumped back, defeated and limp.

I slowed the fucking, kept the handle deep inside her, let the moment drag. I wanted her to remember this, every second. Wanted it to overwrite every other memory she might’ve had about freedom or hope.

“You’re nothing now,” I told her, words cold and deliberate. “You’re just a toy for the people you betrayed. Is that what you wanted?”

She didn’t answer, just stared at the sky, the fires in the clouds reflected in her eyes. I let her go, letting her sink down to the ground with her pussy gaping around my knife, leaking and ruined. She didn’t react. Viper was gone, checked out somewhere far away, nothing left but the breathing and the tears.

Perfect.

I leaned back, squatting over her, body humming with adrenaline and purpose. Then I yanked her up by the hair, forcing her to sit up. “You’re going to say it,” I told her. “You’re going to tell everyone what you are.”

She blinked, eyes unfocused, but when I backhanded her across the face she snapped to, just enough to whimper, “I’m a traitor. I’m a traitor. I’m a—” She shuddered as I twistedher clit with my fingers. “—a whore. A traitor whore. I deserve it.”

“Louder,” I demanded, driving the handle deeper. "Tell me what you are."

"I'M SORRY!" she screamed, her voice breaking. "I'M A WORTHLESS TRAITOR!"

Her screams echoed across the battlefield, drowned out by the distant sounds of combat. No one was coming to help her. No one cared about one broken woman in the midst of war. Just as no one had cared when Cernunnos bent me over his desk, when he cut a hole in my suit, when he used me like I was using her now. Elsewhere, the Ka Corporation forces and the rebels were still fighting, but my mission was to ensure the capture of the Fenrir pilots… I didn’t care what happened to the rest of the forces.

I twisted the clit sharply one last time, punishing her and showing the wretched sow just how much I hated her. Then I finally withdrew the knife from inside of her. It glistened with hints of blood and her pussy’s pathetic attempts to defend itself, and I wiped it clean on her bare thigh, leaving a smear of red against her pale skin. Then I grabbed her hair, yanking her head up as I brought the handle to her lips. "Clean it," I ordered, pressing the metal against her mouth. "Taste yourself, traitor."

Her eyes, filled with pain and exhaustion, met mine through my visor. For a moment, I thought she might refuse, might find some last reserve of defiance. Instead, her lips parted, accepting the handle that had just violated her. Her tongue moved slowly, cleaning her own fluids from the metal as I pushed it deeper into her mouth.

I watched her tongue work as she complied, tasting the mixture of her blood and cunt on the tool. She looked like she knew what she was doing, and I immediately felt sure I was right about the use my handler, or another handler, had put her to. It looked like she was remembering it, too, and her humiliation was complete in this final act of submission.

Something twisted in my chest at the sight. It wasn’t satisfaction, and it also was not the triumph I had expected. Instead, I felt something closer to shame. A feeling I quickly buried beneath layers of conditioning and cold purpose. I had nothing to be ashamed of.

When the handle was clean, I withdrew it from her mouth, watching as she collapsed back onto the ground, her body trembling with exhaustion and trauma. I stood over her, knife still in hand, the power I'd felt earlier now hollow and unsatisfying.

"Remember this," I told her, my voice steady despite the turmoil inside me. "Remember what happens to traitors."

Cernunnos's voice cut through my comm, cold and businesslike: "Retrieval team will be there for the target in twenty minutes, Hound-91. Secure her for transport." I sheathed my knife and looked down at Viper's broken form. Her naked body was a canvas of bruises and blood, a testament to my handiwork. She wasn't quite unconscious, but was floating in that hazy space between awareness and oblivion. Weak enough not to resist, but aware enough to feel everything.

"Yes, sir," I responded automatically, the programmed words flowing from my mouth while my mind churned with conflicting thoughts.

I grabbed Viper by her hair, dragging her battered body back toward the wreckage of her mech. Her limbs hung limp, occasionally twitching when I pulled her over particularly rough terrain. She made soft, pained sounds which I ignored. Her mech lay in ruins, its once-sleek form now a twisted sculpture of metal and circuitry, and I thought it would probably be cheaper for the corporation to salvage the ruins for scrap and build a new Fenrir mech than to try to repair this one. Its severed limbs lay scattered around it, a testament to my rage and brutality with the laser blade. I propped Viper against the front of the destroyed cockpit, her head lolling forward as I positioned her. Her eyelids fluttered, consciousness returning in waves as the cool night air revived her. That was good… She should be aware for this final humiliation.

Using strips torn from her pilot suit, I bound her wrists to a twisted metal strut that had once connected to the mech's right arm. The synthetic material cut into her skin as I pulled it tight, keeping her from working herself free. I repeated the process with her ankles, binding them to opposite sides of the cockpit frame, spreading her legs wide to expose her abused cunt to anyone who approached.

The position was deliberate—spread-eagled across the front of her own destroyed mech, her naked body would be a visible message to any rebels who turned their visual sensors on the ruins of their fallen champion. This is what happens to those who defy Ka Corporation.

I stood back to admire my work, feeling nothing but cold satisfaction as I observed the bruises blooming across her skin, the dried blood between her legs, the tear tracks cutting through the dirt on her face. Her breathing was shallow but stable. She would live long enough for the retrieval team to collect her, to bring her to Cernunnos. After that, she would only wish that she had died.

Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused at first, then gradually sharpening as they found me standing before her. Where I expected to see fear, or hatred, or even the broken submission I'd worked so hard to create, I found something else entirely… pity. Pity and something that looked disturbingly like understanding. "You'll remember who you are someday," she whispered hoarsely, her voice barely audible over the distant sounds of battle. "Just know I forgive you."

The words hit me like a physical blow, disrupting the cold satisfaction I'd been feeling. A strange pressure built in my chest, uncomfortable and foreign. Was this... guilt? Shame? Emotions I shouldn't be capable of feeling, that had been programmed out of me during my creation. A moment later, my conditioning slammed down on my mind with the weight of a falling Manticore, hammering me back into cool, analytical calm with a small undercurrent of anger. "Shut up," I snapped, taking a step back from her. "You don't know what you're talking about."

I turned away, refusing to acknowledge the uncomfortable twist in my gut that her words had inspired for a moment. They weren’t true. I was Hound-91. I knew who I was. That was my designation, my identity, my purpose. There was nothing before that anymore, and trying to look for it only led to more pain.

And yet... that fragment of memory that had surfaced earlier when she claimed to know me. The face was similar to hers, younger, smiling. The hand extended. The name on her lips. What if...?

No. I crushed the thought before it could fully form. These were exactly the kind of subversive ideas that could destroy me.

As I climbed back into Kerberos, I heard the distant sound of the battle moving into the distance. The rebels, it seemed, were retreating, abandoning their positions beneath the weight of defensive Ka Corporation fire and air support now that their Fenrir backup was gone. My sensors locked onto their heat signatures automatically, calculating intercept trajectories with cold efficiency. Fresh targets. Fresh purpose.

I quickly powered up my mech's systems, moving as fast as I could, and I let the familiar hum of my reactor revving up drown out even the memory of Viper's final broken words. The neural link engaged, flooding my consciousness with data streams and tactical projections. This was clarity. This was certainty. This was what I was made for. I did not shoot one last glance back at Viper’s bound form. I certainly didn’t notice how fragile she looked bound to the remnants of the mech’s frame, waiting for a fate worse than death. That was just the direction I was looking as I scanned for rebels.

And she certainly didn’t know me. Not anymore.

"Target secured," I reported to Cernunnos, forcing my attention away from Viper and back to my mission. "Proceeding with pursuit of remaining hostiles."

"Excellent work, Hound-91," came the reply, his voice carrying that rare note of approval that sent a crushing avalanche of dopamine waterfalling down on my psyche and obliterated all conscious thought for a glorious half a second. I needed that. I longed for it, and the total mental oblivion it provided.

Just before I lost myself, though, a single, treasonous thought attacked my mind like the viper she had taken her callsign from. Just a question, buried deep beneath layers of programming and obedience: If Viper had once been like me, and had found her way back to who she was before... could I?

The thought was treason.

It might also be salvation.

Then the pleasure was past, and that thought was buried deep, deep down, and I focused on the hunt; on chasing down the targets fleeing through the darkness. I was Hound-91. I served Ka Corporation. I hunted traitors and rebels. That was all I was allowed to be.

For now.

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