DOLLGIRL: And mistress makes sure to treat my joints gently, and provide proper maintenance if they start to come loose or crack.
ROBOTGIRL: I see...perhaps our ways are not so different, after all.
PLUSHGIRL: they throw me into wals :)
mech pilot trainee who just flunked out of the program. she wasn’t supposed to be anything but a weapon and she couldn’t even do that right.
she doesn’t have anything. no house, no job, no car, no free will, no legal protections. her entire life down to the level of her brain has been organized around piloting a mech for years and now she doesn’t get to do that. she doesn’t know who she is and she doesn’t even know how to turn back on the higher level brain function that would let her try to answer that question.
she’s basically an empty shell that had a human being in it once. she eats and sleeps and uses the bathroom like a person, but her eyes are completely dead. now she just sits places, silently and unmoving, for hours at a time, waiting for orders she’ll never receive…
you’re technically not supposed to take rejected pilots home, but no one’s going to stop you. as far as the government is concerned, she’s basically dud hardware, and it’s not like anyone else was going to claim her. plus you saw a pdf on how to do this online and thought it might be interesting, and you keep seeing her at the library and she looks so sad just sitting there staring off into space
these instructions seem simple enough
getting her home is easy. just tell her to come with you. she doesn’t have a handler, so she’ll default to your orders and you can lead her straight into the car to go home
once she’s home it gets harder. you have to feed her and clothe her. for food, treat her as if she has a stomach bug. pilots are trained to forage for food but you have no idea what she’s been eating (probably not enough - she looks starved and you can see her ribs through her shirt) and if you overwhelm her gut biome before it recuperates, you’ll just make her sicker. soups are good. soups remind her of the IV nutrient fluid she’s used to, even if it has little noodles and chunks of chicken in it. you don’t have chicken soup, but your pilot seems fine with italian wedding, wordlessly swirling the broth around and watching how the noodles move
she’s not used to sleeping outside the cockpit or one of the pods that simulates it. if you have a heated swimming pool, that’s the best option for her since the warm water feels pretty similar to the PFH gel pilots are submerged in. if you don’t, put her in a cold room under a lot of weighted blankets and she’ll adjust. you set her up on the couch with a heavy quilt draped over her. you also gave her a stuffed animal. she stared at it, almost looking disgusted by it, but she was holding it when you came back in the morning to check on her
she’s not used to making choices. in the shower, put out one clearly labeled soap and shampoo so she doesn’t have to make any more decisions than necessary. you forgot to do this part and found her sitting on the floor of the shower after 45 minutes, unwashed, because you had two different soaps and she literally couldn’t decide which to use. you took one away to help her
it’s important to keep her brain stimulated. take her places - the mall, public parks, maybe a restaurant from time to time. give her games to play - shooter games at first, but then slowly work in more tactical games and more creative ones to reopen the parts of the brain she can’t access consciously. watch movies together. she didn’t particularly enjoy CS:GO, but she really liked Splitgate. Guitar Hero didn’t really resonate with her, but she giggled when you lost at Candy Land - the first noise you’d heard her make
don’t feel discouraged if she doesn’t improve immediately. most recovering pilots don’t even talk for up to a week. keep a consistent routine, and she’ll open up to you. it took her six days. she brushed up against your shoulder and murmured “thank you.”
eventually, she’ll probably want to hold you. let her snuggle up next to you, resting her head on your shoulder or curled up against you in bed. in this stage of recovery, she cares deeply for you. allow her to express those feelings. you saw her one night, lurking in the doorway, wearing one of your old nightgowns and clutching the same stuffed wolf you gave her on her first night here. you patted the bed and she came to sit down, allowing you to take her by the shoulders and pull her down next to you, where she buried her face in your chest.
once she’s put on some weight and she seems capable of making simple decisions, take her clothes shopping. she’ll need new ones that don’t remind her of her past, plus it’s a great way to exercise those mental faculties and put some nice outfits together. she has ridiculously expensive taste. no one ever said this would be cheap. those black leather boots look great on her though.
most burnt pilots will subconsciously go to places they valued before training. you found yours at the library. you took her there and immediately discovered she loves reading - you gave her a relatively simple book about insects and you’d never seen her smile the way she did since you got her. it’s cute. you helped her make a library account and showed her how to check books out.
rehabilitating a pilot is hard work but its so satisfying watching her become a person again. good luck.
Navigator Maquis: “Captain Meadows Pyrus! Ma’am! We have a small Terran contact on our sensors, hiding in the asteroid field. Their transponder is inactive. Probable feralist vessel. Possible pirate freighter, but there are no weapon signatures.”
Captain Meadows: “I see. Approach slowly Maquis. It’s been a while since we last found one of these cuties~ “
Meadows jealously watches Maquis play with their new floret Victoria as they carry out the order. They tease and toy with the human, gently poking in a game of tag while expertly plotting the ship’s course. Maquis’s vines slip through Victoria’s guard, playfully ruffles her hair into a disheveled mess. They take advantage of an opportunity to brush against the ultra-sensitive flower bud that’s sprouted from behind her ear, sending shivers down the woman’s spine as she squeaks and blushes intensely, stomping her feet. It’s been some weeks since the woman was rescued off the derelict liner. It took some time to heal her wounds, but now she shines with a luster brighter than any star-forged diamond.
Maquis looms triumphant, only for Victoria to climb up their bulk and rustle their shifting locks of vines and ferns, styles to emulate a half shaven Terran hairstyle. It is a fool’s errand for a human floret to try to inconvenience an Affini, but an adorable one nonetheless, as the pair succumb to a game of hair tag. Dueling to see who can mess up the other’s hairstyle the most. The sight fills the old Affini with longing. Of intimacy. Or closeness.
For two blooms, has Meadows gone without a floret.
For two blooms, has Meadows allowed the goals of the Compact sweep her away.
For two blooms, had Meadows has existed under a spell of solitude.
A spell that will be broken today.
Meadows: “Take us in nice and easy. We don’t want to spook the poor petals. Be sure that they can’t attempt a jump, it would break my core to see them run away so soon.”
Maquis: “Understood. Jump drive suppression already is active, they should have no — “
Communications Officer Viti: “Captain Pyrus! We have an active hail from the feralist contact, broadcast on all channels to us. They appear to have an… negotiation for us? The transmission comes with a data packet of their demands.”
Meadows: “Put them onto the ship’s P.A. system, I’d love to see how they will try to talk themselves out of being helped. The excuses they cook up in their overthinking heads are just so adorable.”
Meadows pulls the microphone close to mouth, the old captain fighting back a growing giggle. Its always fun to drag this part of the rescue out. Part of her feels silly for humoring these feralists, but what’s the worst they can do to an Affini patrol ship.
“Why, hello there~ I am Captain Meadows Pyrus, Eleventh Bloom, Captain of the Dendros. What adorable floret-to-be do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”
Several seconds of silence pass, as the ship’s crew wait for a response. Victoria looks up at the Maquis in confusion as the Communications Officer double checks the counsel.
Meadows: “Hmmm?… Is anyone receiving this transmission? Viti, is the channel active?”
Viti: “Oh! My apologies Captain, it appears there is a second step authentication to the signal, let me open up the data packet and—”
As soon as Viti opens the file, the ship’s systems go haywire. The lights and monitors filter as a battle for control begins, casting the ship’s internal compartments into static-y darkness. Victoria clinging tight to their owner, as strange digitized music plays over the P.A., bubbly and cute. The monitors come back online, only to be filled by a pixelated blue, white, and pink 2-D shark populates the monitors, mocking the Affini crew with a goofy little dance, shaking its fins to the melody.
Meadows: “Frost! A virus! Quick! Lock down all the systems! Now!”
Viti: “Its too late Captain, both us and the ship’s AI are locked out of all non-emergency systems. I am receiving scattered reports of disruption in the manufacturing and dining compartments! I can’t get a good idea of what’s happening, most cameras are offline or damaged.”
A smug, husky voice fills the air, basking at her own success. It is familiar; Meadows’ longtime domestication target, Lilith Amethyst. The rebel firebrand has been hiding out on the edges of space for months now, evading feralist fleets and Affini patrols alike. Meadows once came close to capturing her, to be interrupted by a petulant TCN frigate, plinking at the Dendros’ shields with missiles in a futile death ride. She was not happy with the frigate’s captain after she caught them.
Lilith: “I literally can’t believe you actually fucking fell for it! A phishing attack is, like, the oldest trick in the book! Pffffhahahahaah! Holy shit that’s too funny.”
Meadows: “Just what have you done to my ship, feralist?!?!”
Lilith: “Oh settle down Dandelion. It’s just a little bit of ransomware. And maybe a few friends of mine as leverage. Think of them as the vanguard of my revolution.”
Captain Meadows: “Vanguard… Maquis get down to the dining facilities and figure out whats going on! There was no way you could have made something dangerous. Those atomic synthesizers are hard-coded to make only toys and food without Affini authorization!”
Lilith: “Oh I know Miss blowpuff. But a true rebel knows how to leverage every potential. Quantity has a quality all to its own~”
The comms device in Meadows’ chest goes off, buzzing with local traffic across the ship. At the top is a short-range call from Maquis, halted at the entrance to the nearby dining facilities.
Maquis: “Captain! The ship is being overrun with shark plushies! We cannot get inside the dining facility. An endless wave of plushies are pouring out from the synthesizers and blocking the entrance. They must be set on a looped production cycle.”
Meadows: “Dirt! Is anyone still inside? Is anyone injured?
Maquis: “Best we can tell, ten Affini and nineteen florets are pinned beneath the plushie pile. They are fine, but unable to move or disable the synthesizers, only a remote deactivation can solve it”
Meadows: “Try the airlocks! Why not just shove them out into the void?”
Maquis: “We are trying but some of our human florets are resisting us! By the time we eject one, two have taken its place.”
Meadows: “Resisting? That’s impossible, no floret has ever gone feral after being domesticated”
Maquis: “No, not feral! They insist on picking out the “right” plushie and wont let us vent the plushies until they pick it. But there are so many, the cuties get choice paralysis and refuse to leave! I tried to pull Victoria away, but she refuses to leave willingly before she chooses and clings onto them with an impossible grip. Even worse, some are so overwhelmed they throw themselves into the pile, being buried beneath the blue tide and joining the trapped crew! We already had two humans and one Rinan jump in. Wait wait wait Athena, petal, don’t you dare jump in! Athena! Athena—“
Meadows: “Maquis are you alright? Maquis, report!”
Maquis: “Roots… I am fine, I just lost another floret. Athena just jumped in and is getting a very long talking to when I get her out. We are trying to contain the plushie pile with bulkheads and strategic venting where we can, but we are at a stalemate Captain.”
Lilith: “Brilliant, is it not? I call this the Blahaj Blitz. Weaponized plushies are certainly a novel tactic, don’t you agree, dandelion?~”
Meadows’ core thrums with anger. Not just for being outfoxed by this feralist, but also for the wellbeing of her crew being jeopardized by their insolent stunt. As much as Meadows wishes to curse Lilith, she is trapped and out of options. The old Affini accepts the situation and brings her to Lilith’s negotiation table.
Meadows: “Just… tell me what you want so you will free my ship…”
Lilith: “What does any revolutionary want? Think. Control over the means of production, of course. Any fool can build weapons or tools, but it takes a true visionary to see the power of mass producing a symbol. I am going to seize the means of Blahaj production, Captain. I want one of your atomic synthesizers. Plain and simple. Leave one prepared by your auxiliary docking port, free of any tracking technology and uploaded with my production specifications, and allow me to take it as the ransom payment for your crew. Then I’ll return control of your ship back to you, and you can decide how to best distribute my plushie vanguard amongst yourself. Seems like some of your precious pets have already started picking out their favorites.”
Meadows: “I-I that’s... alright we shall do as you say Lilith. Viti, tell the remaining crew to take an inactive unit and prepare it to her specifications. No price is too high to save our crew.”
Meadows steps away from the command console, making their way down through the chaotic passages of the Dendros towards the auxiliary airlock. A trio of human and Rinan florets scurry beneath her feet, carrying their prizes from the unfolding disaster. One particularly ambitious Rinan waddles beneath four sharks, each one nearly the same size as him. A human floret starts singing in an old human tune, first associated with shark-based horror films, now remade into a charming parody.
Human Floret: “Who is pink and blue and white and supports transgender rights? It’s the IKEA shark!!!”
The girl shrieks in excitement as she launches her shark at her Rinan friend, bouncing off his plushie armor like a goofy defective torpedo. Another human floret joins in, launching a salvo of plushies at the girl. The passageway descends into anarchy as the florets begin a plushie pillow fight.
Passing by the dining facility, Meadows spots Maquis and Victoria, tugging at the shifty tide of plushies, trying to free a trapped human floret. Athena, the former TCN captain, is nearly buried beneath the polyester avalanche, with only her hand sticking out from the sea of sharks. Maquis and Victoria both tug at the trapped human trying to free her as the pile slowly rolls forward, like a shifting lava flow, ready to pin anyone too distracted or sleepy beneath its soft mass.
In a mischievous twist, Athena, for whatever reason, reaches out and grabs Victoria’s hand, pulling her pinnate off balance and dragging her down into the pile with her, the two disappearing beneath the pile. Maquis, exasperated, pushes through the shifting tide, tossing sharks across the corridor in attempt to find their florets before they too become trapped.
While no one is being physically harmed, this situation cannot continue. Lilith and her schemes must be stopped today.
Meadows arrives at the auxiliary airlock just as members of the remaining crew deposit one modified sythnizer at the entrance. A deep thud reverberates through the corridor as Lilith’s ship docks. The airlock opens, and Lilith, in a modified mining jumpsuit, steps forward, smirking with pride.
Lilith: “Awww I thought you were going to wrap it up in a bow for me. And here I thought you’d like me dandelion…”
Meadows: “Just… how long will it take until you return control to our ship Lilith.”
Lilith: “As soon as I check everything is in order and I plot my way out of system, I’ll deactivate my virus. Don’t worry too much about the specifics. Now, could I trouble you some more, I’d appreciate if a big strong tree to help carry this to my quarters~”
Meadows grumbles in infrasonic groans as she lifts the unit up. Together, the two make their way through the tight halls of Lilith’s ship, dimly light by red emergency lights. It is in a sorry state of disrepair after months on the run, with discarded parts and trash littering around the corridors. makeshift repairs dot the ailing vessel like scars; impoverished repairs to keep it operating.
Reaching the combined captain’s quarters, she places the atomic synthesizer up top the command console, beneath a creased flag, pinned to the wall with magnets.
Meadows: “You know this is a demilitarized unit Lilith. You can not make any weapons or dangerous items, not matter what you demand.”
Lilith: “Please, my revolution does not need such brutish instruments. It will not be a tide of red I will be spread, but a tide of blue pink and white liberation! For too long, have the people suffered in a hard and cold world. For too long, they have been denied the tools of comfort and safety when they rest, denied their chance at softness when they retreat from an inhumane world. Your Compact may be admirable, but the humanity already has found the keys to its salvation. One I will spread across the far-flung colonies and help us build a paradise once more. A plushie in every home, a shark beside every hearth.”
Meadows watches as the rebel toys with the button selections, experimenting with the controls like they are a child on Christmas morning. Lilith is positively giddy; barely able to contain their excitement as they pull up the Blahaj schematic as negotiated.
Lilith: “You may go Dandelion. Or stay and bear witness to the spark of my revolution. It matters not.”
Meadows, informed by millennia of wisdom, defers to allow the situation to develop, exiting the room and leaving Lilith to her own devices. After giving the Affini adequate time to return to their ship, Lilith detachs her ship from the Dendros and transmit the deactivation codes. Turning to her prize, Lilith finds the size setting and maximizes the output value. She gives into chaotic temptation as she experiments with how large of an item the machine will allow her to produce.
Twice the normal size.
Five times—
No, ten!
Twenty!
Fuck it!
Fifty times larger than the normal Blahaj!
Lilith’s mind goes wild. So many revolutionaries before her theorized what they would first make in a post-scarcity economy. Some, endless bread and meat for the starved masses. Others, legions of automatons that free humanity of the nuisances of household labor.
For her, her first will be the icon of her campaign.
The Tsar Shork.
She activates the machine, buzzing with activity as the Tsar Shork is slowly emerges from the maw of the atomic synthesizer. It towers above Lilith, rising to scrape against the high ceiling. It is majestic, casting long shadows and it begins to block out the lights with its massive volume.
Lilith: “Yes! Yes! Shark of the downtrotten masses! Come forth and usher in a new age of history! Yes! I— Uh oh…”
The shark, now too massive, folds over on itself, knocking Lilith down as it crumbles beneath its own weight. It then slides out from the machine, pinning Lilith beneath its soft titanic mass, pushing and flailing as her creation betrays her. A soft ding signals that the order is complete, with Lilith trapped beneath the soft giant.
She squirms, unable to extricate herself as Meadows reenters the space, checking the time on her comms device as she steps past the trapped Lilith and to the command console. With a flurry of vines, she plots a return path to the Dendros.
Meadows: “I have to give it to you Lilith, that was a sly plan of yours with the ransomware and exploiting the loophole in our production rules. I expected something like this to happen, but kudos to you for not getting sucked inside the plushie or some other mishap. But playtime is over. You made a very, very big mess with this stunt. Is there anything you have to say for yourself before I take you to the vet for a checkup and a collar?”
Lilith: “I… I…”
Meadows: “Lilith? Are you alright?”
Lilith: “I just… just… ten more minutes. It’s far more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. Let me cuddle under Tsar for a bit…”
Meadows: “… you humans and your sharks plushies are something precious, you know? Fine… ten minutes. But no more!”
The Affini and their human floret have been walking along the storm channels for thirty minutes now. Dirt storm water rushes past them on its way to the ocean, with dense graffiti covering the concrete walls. On a large section of concrete, the words ‘River Styx’ is spray paint in colorful, bubbly letters. Various smaller murals and art piece decorates the wall as the pair approaches a large culvert.
“Of course mistress! I know the way by heart and root! We all promised to keep this going for as long as we live. And I know my friends. They’d never give this place up ever, before and after florethood”
“Are you sure it’s safe… there’s so much broken glassー h-hey watch your feet that’s dangerous! Wait… is that a burnt out car in the river!?!”
“Oh yeah! That was Rodriguez’s. He totaled it and we decided to make a bonfire out of it down here for three new years ago. Those were lovely times” a long smile grows on the floret’s face as she reminisces of past joy. The two watch up to the mouth of the yawing culvert, its mouth partly silted in, with an improvised duck walk made from cracked lumber.
“Petal, I’m still not sure why you’re taking us this to this… place.”
“Because! It means a lot to me and I want to share it with you. I know it may not look like it, but this place saved my life once before I meet you. The exterior may be rough in appearance, but the space is absolutely wonderful. You’ll see!”
“Okay… for now but if anyone is in danger we will intervene”
“Of course, but don’t worry mistress. I promise you’ll love it!”
The floret grabs her mistress’s hand, leading her down down the dark, moldy culvert. The interior is coated in old tags and stinks of old spilt beer. They pass deep into the inky blackness, the two carrying balances on the improvised walkway to avoid the murky waters below. The Affini grows anxious in her core as her floret leads them by touch alone through in the darkness, feeling her way along the coarse concrete until turning down a slippery side passage. Music begins to echo down the culvert; percussion thumping the Affini’s core in deep primal beats.
“We are here!!! Welcome to the Underworld, mistress! This is where I haunted before you found me!”
The entire event space is a rickety, homemade affair. Over the storm waters, a platform made of salvaged pallets and plywood rises above. It is bustling with countless Terrans, a few Rinans, and a couple affini awkwardly shuffling on the edges. Tables are recovered wooden cable spools; the bar counter discarded shipping containers, the stage a collection of abandoned tables. Cheap mood lights illuminate the space in warm azure and lavender light.
In this space, past the River Styx, it is far more alive than any official establishment the Affini had ever seen.
“Omg Emma!!!!”, the floret screams.
The floret slips away from her mistress and launches herself at another human emerging from the throngs of humanity, arms wrapping around her waist. The two going down in an entangled hug of cuddling girls.
“Mistress! Mistress! This is Emma. She used to be my girlfriend! We had to separate before you found me, but she is the sweetest most beautiful woman on the planet!”
“Please girlypop you’re embarrassing me! Hi miss, I’m Emma. You must be one lucky flower to have her”
She extends a hand and shake the Affini’s vine, only to hold on and pull the Affini close, giving the Affini light peck on the check. A barrage of ultrasonic squeals ring out as the Affini struggles to process what just happened.
“Sorry to kiss and run dandelion, but my partner is waiting for me. I’m independent and my butt is already owned by another! I’m sure we’ll see each other again really soon, so bye-bye for now~”
Emma gives the Affini a boop on the nose, blows the floret a kiss and a wink, and sinks back into the shifting waves of the crowd to her waiting partner, backlit on the stage. They are gearing up for the next set. The Affini looks on, stunned by the pure energy and life and… audacity of it all!
“She’s such a flirt mistress, don’t mind her. She loves to do that to all the cute things around her andーOmg I love this song come on!”
The Affini sheepishly follows her floret, growing disorientated by the shifting space. Hand in vine, the floret leads her through the crowd to an open circle deep inside the crowd.
“Just follow my lead, mistress!” She shouts over the music, skipping across the opening circle, the eyes of the crowd settling on the Affini in anticipation.
She awkwardly steps into the circle, completely unfamiliar with this type of culture. She grows worried as her floret hops back out with a smile on her face. The Affini steps back out, worried they mistook the signal. The floret happily steps back in, mouthing to copy her. The two play a game of cat and mouse, hopping in and out of the circle mimicking their partner.
Lovers of all kind, human and human, human and Affini, Rinan and Affini and human and all combinations are locked in sensual dances as the pitch and tempo of the heightens, building towards a climax. The dj on stage calls out to the crowd, with Emma’s silhouette locked in a deep hypnotic dance, lost in the music of her lover.
“Everybody! Get your lover or your brother or your sister, whoever you love, however you love, and make some noise! Because tonight we rise togetherrrrrr”
The space fills with deafening roars as the crowd rises like a wave, their passions carrying this space far above the sum of its parts. The grimy floor and humid air falls away as all that can matter to the Affini is this moment is… her...
Oh… frost… has her petal always looked this beautiful? Something about this light, this space makes her shines with a luster brighter than a supernova. Her floret steps in and stays in, skipping around the end of the circle. The Affini follows as the two bodies, human and Affini, become locked together on collusion course as their orbits grow tighter and tighter, hurdling towards the center of the pit. Other couples follow them as the crowd closers around them. The Affini and floret embrace, a world onto themselves as the energetic crowd merges into a mass of singing, dancing bodies, united by one shared blissful joy. Their floret stands up on her tip toes and kisses the affini deep on the lips; an intimate touching of souls. A deep fluster grows in the Affini’s core, so unfamiliar with such assertive and forwardness from a human.
Her floret leans in, whispering.
“We call that one the spiraling galaxy. Come on mistress, let’s leave the dance floor for now! We could both use a drink and I have so much more to show you! You won’t believe the view of the stage from the balcony! Just need to be careful of the nails poking out!”
She grab the vines of her blushing mistress, leading her through the crowds as a new set starts up. The one of many on this long, wonderful night, as the crowd’s dancing shakes the Underworld.
Captain, I have a report from the Terran ship. Our boarding parties have been… neutralized??? By new human tactics!
“Neutralized?!? By the everbloom! How is it possible?!?”
I do not know, the boarding party reports that they are fine but immobilized. The Terran captain is requesting our response. Or else we never see our crew again.
“Frost! Those piece of dirt feralists!”
They… say they have a new tactic called the “human sleepy wave”. It matches our boarding party’s reports of being cuddled by humans. They grabbed them thinking it was a normal human wave, only to fall for the tactic. The human grabbed onto them and fell into a deep sleep. Each time our boarding party shifts or tries to move, the human sleepy whines and pulls the trap tighter! They used our own laws against us! To remove the human or move with them would cause the saddest whine ever
“Alright… What are their demands?”
They… the human commander asks for your audience aboard their ship. And if they are content, they will release our crew and consider voluntary surrender.
“Voluntary? From feralists?!? It makes no sense but… I…. I will accept whatever horrors they have plan. Very well, I shall go. Anything to free our crew.”
The Affini captain passes through airlocks and corridors of the Terran ship. Each Affini crew member is pinned to the deck, cuddled by two to three sleepy humans. Each Affini pets their human captors and hums for a glass of water and blanket when they can, and to tell their florets aboard the Affini ship that they love them and won’t forget them.
The Affini captain steps into the human command bridge. The bridge is absolutely empty, save for one heavily scarred commander. They are grizzled for decades of naval combat, with a ragged wolf’s cut hairstyle and intense scarring down the side of their face. They address the Affini in a mocking, husky voice
So you have come to free your crew? Hmmm?
“Yes sophont, I have come for their freedom. Do your worst…”
“Hmmm, follow me then if you are so brave~”
The two pass through deepest bowels of the ship, reaching the captains quarters. It’s not a spartan dungeon of a feralist raider the captain expected, but a fluffy plush paradise full of various plushies and fleece blankets. The air is turned down to 10 degrees for ideal sleeping temperature. The feralist captain swaps to dolphin shorts and an oversized hoodie, holding a well-used Blahaj in their arms, shooting the Affini captive an exhausted look, with deep bags under their half closed eyes.
“Okay… if you can learn each and every one of the plushies’ names by the time this is over… we’ll surrender”
Ten hours later
The alarm goes off on the human captain’s comms device. The Affini reaches out with her vine to silence it. Again. The Affini captain whispers to her warden.
Petal… petal~… petal~~~….
“Mmmmmm…….”
Petal, I’m so so sorry to cruelly wake you, but we already hit the snooze button five times. We really should get up
“Hmmmm…”
I know, I’m sorry, but can we please get up dear? My crew is probably worried
“Hmmm… Show me miss grumpybottoms… and we can… go….”
The Affini captain searches over the sea of plushies, her tendrils passing over dinosaurs, foxes, orcas, and Blahajs. She relies on her nearly flawless memory and grabs an angry long noodle cat plushie with grey and white fleece.
“Nuuuu….uhhhh… that’s mister angrybutt… he’s got the grey and white color and is angry and has a butt… grumpy bottoms is the pink and white… is grumpy and… bottom…I win again…. Five more minutes then we can go… for…real…Capt…ain….zzzzzzzzz”
I washed out of combat training almost immediately, but it wasn’t enough to get me off the hook. I’m sure you all know how it goes – just because you can’t fight doesn’t mean you can’t support the ones who do. If you can’t carry a gun, you can fix a gun, if you can’t fly a plane, you can fuel a plane.
Nothing wrong with that, of course! It’s simply efficient use of resources, and I’m certainly in no place to criticize that, especially not given my current status, so to speak. But even then I wasn’t exactly bothered by it -- I would have rather not been conscripted at all, but maintenance would be safe and interesting and I was already pretty good at it.
2.
The first time I ever saw a combat doll was when I was at the range, trying to get in enough practice to pass my pistol qualifications. I didn’t even know she was there, at first - there was no fuss, no fanfare - but as soon as her handler started barking those sharp, staccato orders I realized what was going on.
I looked over, of course. I know, we’ve all been taught not to make eye contact with the dolls because they might take it as aggression, but how could I not be curious? Can any of you say you wouldn’t be tempted to take a peek?
I hadn’t expected her to not be wearing her mask. All the publicity photos, all the technical diagrams, all the battlefield footage always shows dolls with their masks on, so I assumed that was just their usual state – but no, I was wrong. That was her natural face, with her implant jacks and her surgical scars and her delicate-looking skin. I truly hadn’t expected her to be so pretty…
She caught me looking, of course. Dolls are the apex predators of the battlefield, and noticing a maintenance trainee staring at her was trivial in comparison. She met my eyes before I could look away, and then I couldn’t look away. I knew nothing except her eyes and my heart pounding in my ears, and I had no idea what was coming next… and then she grinned at me.
That grin did something to me, something strange and frightening and wonderful. It felt like lightning running down my spine, like watching a sunrise after being blind my whole life, like finding my way out of a forest I’d been lost in since birth. I was never the same again.
3.
I needed to know who she was, of course. She could pick off targets faster than my eyes could follow, with a perfect bullseye every time. Her handler ran her through everything in our arsenal, and more besides - pistols, rifles, machine guns, throwing knives, on and on - and she was perfect every time. How could I have not wanted to know more after watching a display like that?
Well, apparently, that made me the weird one in the battalion. Everyone I asked about her just shrugged or gave me sidelong glances. Why would they want to keep track of which doll was which, they asked? They were all equally frightening, after all. What did it matter what the shark swimming next to you was named?
It took more than a week - and a couple cases of beer - for me to find out who I’d seen. My buddy on the security team had seen the handler’s name and done some quick research, and he was willing to pass on that information… for the right price, of course.
Victoria. Her name was Victoria, and the next thing he said to me was “be fuckin’ careful around that one,” which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me at the time. We’re taught to use caution around all dolls, combat or not, why the extra warning?
Because, he told me, there were stories about the Victory-class dolls. They weren’t the fastest dolls or the most powerful dolls, but they were notoriously unpredictable, and dangerous even to their allies. I won’t get into the details right now, that’s not what I’m here to do - but some of your classmates went pale the moment I said her name, so ask them about it later.
But what did that have to do with Victoria? I had to ask, because I used to be a little slow on the uptake sometimes. In case any of you haven’t put all the pieces together: Victoria is the first Victory-class, the flagship, the template upon which all others were modeled – and that meant if there was some fault with the Victory-class dolls, some flaw in their design or their conditioning, Victoria would definitely have it.
4.
Even with all he’d told me, and all I’d learned on my own afterwards, I still couldn’t get her off my mind. Not that I was thinking about her every second, or even every day, but that moment never quite left my mind. I’d lay down and try to sleep, close my eyes, and behind my eyelids I’d see that bare face, that grin, and my heart would start pounding all over again.
By the time we were given our assignments, I knew what I was going to do. I knew what I had to do. I got the cushiest possible position – 8th Supply Battalion, well away from any combat zones, where the greatest danger would be a private driving a forklift drunk. The perfect position to serve out three years of compulsory service and go back to my old life, right?
Except I didn’t want it. I hadn’t wanted it since the moment I’d seen her.
As soon as we were dismissed, I went straight to the commander’s office and asked for a transfer – which they don’t usually do, of course, but he was willing to hear me out anyway, so I told him I needed to be on Victoria’s maintenance crew. Once he was done laughing he asked me what I was really there to ask for, and I repeated my request. I explained to him that I was serious, that I wanted, needed more than anything else, to be assigned to maintenance for Victoria.
He didn’t understand – which is no surprise, because I don’t think any of you do either. Why would I have wanted to be transferred to the only role that had higher casualty rates than front-line infantry, right? Truth be told, I didn’t understand either, and I still don’t. There’s nothing I can point to, no specific reason, just this surety that I belonged there and nowhere else.
Someone needed to do maintenance on the dolls, right? Why shouldn’t it be someone enthusiastic about it, someone fully committed to their role? I don’t know if my argument won him over or if he was just tired of listening to me, but in the end he just shrugged and wrote out my transfer orders: maintenance crew, Victory-class combat doll “Victoria”.
I still remember what he said when he handed me the orders:
“It’s your funeral.”
5.
Just because I’d volunteered for the position didn’t mean I was any less nervous when I first reported for duty! The rest of the crew had already been giving me a hard time - I was the squeaky-clean new girl, fresh out of training - but honestly, they weren’t why I was nervous. That was just some laughs and some hazing, nothing I wasn’t used to by that point.
No, I was nervous because of the six-plus feet of exquisite purpose-built killing machine standing in the middle of the maintenance bay.
The thing is, though.. the reasonable thing would have been to worry that Victoria was going to kill me, right? That’s what you’d be afraid of, that’s what any sensible person would be afraid of! But it wasn’t what I was afraid of.
I’d done my research, I knew the numbers, and I was certain - beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt - that I wasn’t going to survive three years in her maintenance crew. I’d made my peace with that before I ever even walked into the commander’s office.
I was worried that Victoria wasn’t going to like me.
6.
I know that probably sounds bizarre to you - after all, nobody worries about whether their tank likes them, right? - but trust me, it was absolutely the biggest thing on my mind. So much so, in fact, that I decided to introduce myself to her immediately! Why hang around hiding behind the rest of the maintenance crew when I could just walk right up to her and make a good first impression instead?
So that’s exactly what I did. Right into the maintenance bay, right past the rest of the crew, right across those painted lines on the floor… one foot in front of the other, listening to the pounding of my heart until I was within arm’s length of an active combat doll.
I took one more deep breath, accepted that it could have been my last, and gave her the usual introduction: name, rank, and role. She just stared at me, with those intense eyes I remembered so well, and I offered a little bit of extra politeness – just a simple little “I look forward to working with you, ma’am.”
7.
The moment the words were out of my mouth, she grabbed me by the collar and dragged me in, my body pressed up against hers, and as I stared up at her in shock and fear and excitement, I heard her voice for the first time.
“You’re cute,” she said.
There were teeth in my neck before I could even make sense of her words - combat-specced teeth, the kind that can slice through bone - and it was unbearably painful… but also something about it felt right. I was helpless in her grip, completely powerless, and I realized that I’d wanted that all along.
I saw her true face for the first time, then. That flat, blank non-expression she’d been wearing when I walked up to her had simply been another mask, another disguise… and she’d let it fall away. As she licked my blood from her lips, I understood – she was a hunter, a predator, hungry for more and strong enough to take whatever she wanted… and I was her prey.
I suspect your instructor would kick me out of this class immediately if I described what she did next, so I’ll just say ‘she had her way with me and I had no desire to stop her.’ You’ll have to use your imaginations for the rest… or come find me sometime and I’ll be happy to tell you all about it!
8.
Anyway, even though it seemed like I’d made an excellent impression on Victoria, the rest of the maintenance crew was pretty clear that I’d made a pretty poor impression on them. As soon as we were off-duty and the dolls had all been escorted back to their bunker, they made their feelings known in a very direct fashion.
I got off easy, they told me, pointing out maintenance staff for other dolls. One man had a bloody bandage where his ear had been, and another was completely unresponsive – just blankly staring at a wall. In comparison to things like that, a bite and some fucking was downright gentle for a Victory-class doll!
The crew insisted that I’d better not expect special treatment from Victoria to mean they’d give me special treatment too – I protested that I’d never once expected that, but I don’t think they were listening to me by that point. From all the shouts and cursing, it seemed like they were upset that I, the death-wish rookie who walked right up to a combat doll and introduced herself, had been treated more gently than maintenance staff who simply wanted to carry out their duties safely.
I tried to answer them, I tried to explain that all I’d done was to be friendly and polite, that I’d just wanted to treat Victoria with the respect she deserved. They didn’t like that answer.
Nobody told me about this, so I’ll pass it on as a warning to you just in case: maintenance crews aren’t just wary of their dolls, they’re downright resentful of them. From their perspective, the dolls are the thing that stands between them and getting home safely, and they’re not particularly fond of people who see the situation differently.
I, not knowing this, made some helpful comments about the dolls not being our enemy, about our purpose being to support the dolls so they can carry out their Purpose. Shortly thereafter, in a totally unrelated event, I slipped and fell down a staircase – completely by accident, of course.
I’d been hoping that the maintenance crew - and the staircase - had gotten all the vitriol out of their system by then, but it only got worse. Someone had found out that I’d volunteered for the maintenance crew, while they’d all been unwillingly forced into that position, and it was all over. That was all the proof they needed to decide I wasn’t like them in some indescribable way. They might not have been able to explain how, exactly, I was different from them, but they all agreed that I was, and they all wanted to make that my problem.
9.
I next saw Victoria for post-mission diagnostics two days later. The procedures would be routine, and yet the crew was far more anxious than they had been for our previous visit to the maintenance bay. A doll just back from an operation, having spent only a few minutes being gentled by its handler before being sent off to maintenance, was the most dangerous kind of doll as far as the maintenance staff was concerned: all keyed up on adrenaline and battle stimulants and potentially unsure as to whether or not it was actually safe or still on the battlefield.
The crew all talked like they were off to the firing squad, and I had no idea what to expect as we all walked down to the hall… especially when they all hung back, in ones and twos and threes, lagging behind me while I walked up to the maintenance bay first.
I was the tribute, the offering, the fresh meat tossed to Victoria to sate her hunger - and oh, did she ever take the bait. She ran to me, snatched me right off the ground, and sprinted back to her designated zone as if to convince everyone she’d never left.. except now she had me clutched in her arms, her deadly teeth tracing up and down my neck, that beautiful voice giggling in my ear.
The maintenance team had to conduct their diagnostics around me, in the end. Victoria simply didn’t want to give me up, no matter how they tried to convince her -- and I had absolutely no desire to argue with that. Where could I possibly have wanted to be more than her arms?
In fact, I didn’t want to leave her arms. Even once our duty shift was done and she’d turned me loose, bloody and weary and deeply content, I lingered in the maintenance bay as the others fled for the mess. I knew what was waiting for me there - the same thing that had been waiting for me since I first met Victoria - and I wanted to avoid it for as long as possible.
10.
I hadn’t expected her to notice me hanging around - surely I was unworthy of her attention, right? - and yet, as I lingered behind, she spoke to me for the second time. “Not joining them?”
“No ma’am,” I told her, quietly enough for nobody else to hear. I hadn’t meant to say anything else, but the prospect of having a sympathetic ear was just too much, and the words just tumbled out of me. As she stared down at me with that blank expression, I explained how the crew had decided I didn’t belong, and how they’d been treating me since – the punches, the kicks, the fish in my bunk, the thousand other little reminders that they’d decided to hate me.
Eventually I ran out of words and found myself simply staring up at Victoria. She hadn’t said a single thing the entire time, and her expression was the same unreadable blankness that I’d seen before. While I tried to figure out whether she was sympathetic or simply bored, I suddenly realized that she’d met my gaze, staring into my eyes as if she was looking for something. I couldn’t imagine what she was looking for - and, truth be told, I still don’t know what it was - but I stared back up at her and let her look for it.
I guess she found what she was looking for - or perhaps found an absence of the wrong things - because she simply grabbed me by the arm and practically dragged me right out of the maintenance bay. What was she doing? Where was she going? She ignored my questions, of course, so I stopped asking them and simply walked along with her in silence.
You probably haven’t seen a doll bunker yet, but they’re extremely sturdy – downright overengineered, even. They’re even more heavily reinforced than munitions bunkers, and the only route in and out is through an extremely sturdy-looking steel door. It’s the sort of thing that makes the vault doors in heist movies look like tissue paper… and that was the door Victoria had led me to.
Even though I’d walked to the bunker with her willingly, I couldn’t help but protest a little as she swung the bunker door open. I had been told, upon my assignment, that only handlers and commanders were permitted to enter the doll bunker – all support staff were required to stay out in order to avoid ‘unnecessary manpower shortages’. Not that that stopped Victoria, of course! She simply picked me up by the back of my uniform like an uncooperative pet and tossed me right through the door.
11.
Have you ever walked into a room and found eight combat dolls staring directly at you? Sixteen eyes fixed on you, unblinking, like cats that have just spotted a mouse? Presumably not, but if you’re very lucky - or very unlucky - you might get to someday.
That’s where I found myself as the bunker door slammed shut behind me – gracelessly picking myself up off the floor under the hungry gaze of eight combat dolls. They waited a moment, graciously permitting me to get back to my feet, and then… well, I guess the best way to describe it is to say each one started trying, in her own way, to draw me away from my host.
Not a word was spoken, but carnal offers were made, and one or two dolls began to creep toward me as if stalking prey – and then suddenly they all froze at once. I couldn’t receive dollchat yet, so I didn’t know what Victoria said to them - and even now she just giggles when I ask! - but whatever it was, it was enough to convince the other eight dolls not to steal her guest away.
I spent that night in her bunk. I didn't do a lot of actual sleeping, of course, but the moments I did get... having a combat doll holding me close and murmuring sweet reassurances in my ear was maybe the safest I'd ever felt in my whole life. To be told I'm safe now, that the squad will look out for me, that I'm theirs forever…
12.
I hardly ever left the bunker after that. I would have never left, if I’d had the option, but there were still two things I was expected to handle: work and food.
I was still a member of Victoria’s maintenance crew, expected to be present for those duties, and since the necessary hardware was in the maintenance bay, that was where I had to be too. My first duty shift after being taken to the bunker, I’d hesitated – I was even more uncertain about showing my face around the rest of the crew now, after all! Victoria had just returned from a mission, so she would be waiting for me there, but I still had to get from the bunker to the maintenance bay on my own…
Before I figured it out myself, one of the other dolls took pity on me. She took my hand in hers, as if I was a child, and led me to the maintenance bay herself. It was permitted - after all, she was being escorted by maintenance staff - and nobody dared to say she couldn’t stand by while we Victoria received her post- mission diagnostics and I received an entirely different kind of post-mission attention.
I’m not sure if the crew ever appreciated just how much lighter on them she was when I was around, you know? I don’t know if they even noticed, or if they were too busy hating me. It didn’t matter, though – when we were done, Victoria and the other doll walked me back to the bunker, hand in hand, as if they were concerned I’d stray – or flee, perhaps, but there was already no chance of that.
If any of you ever get invited to a bunker, be aware: there’s nothing for you to eat. There is food for the dolls, although it’s terribly bland, but those meals are measured out to the last bite. Even once the whole squad had fully accepted me as their own, they still didn’t have anything to give me – every bite of food for me was one less for them, and dolls are always hungry.
The only way for me to get food would be to get it from the kitchens myself. I’d have to brave the hallways solo, avoiding any other staff, and throw myself on the cook’s mercy in the hopes that they’d be willing to let me take something back with them – and I’d have to do it two or three times a day! It’d be absolutely miserable, right?
As it turned out, that was practically a nonissue. The kitchen staff recognized me on sight - word spreads quickly, especially when you’re escorted to the bunker by two dolls! - and realized that we could solve each other’s problems: I needed food, and they didn’t want to interact with the dolls. If I could come out of the bunker to receive each day’s rations, rather than the staff needing to hand-deliver it directly to the dolls, they’d be more than happy to throw in each day’s worth of meals for me! Teamwork and problem-solving, that’s what we’re trained for, right?
13.
With food resolved and my duties sorted out… well, one day started to blur into the next. There are no windows in a doll bunker, after all -- there’s no sense of time unless you’ve got a chronometer built in, and I sure didn’t. I slept when they let me, I did as I was told, and every time the rations were delivered I felt a little more like I was walking through a dream.
The kitchen staff stopped looking straight at me, eventually. It wasn’t that they were afraid of me - I was no doll, no battlefield predator - but something about me unsettled them. Maybe my body language had changed – after all, I’d been spending more time around dolls than humans, even I could tell that I was picking up their mannerisms, that I was absorbing the way they spoke and moved and held their bodies.
Or maybe it was something else. Maybe there was something in my eyes. I had prostrated myself before the squad and worshipped them for the goddesses they were. I had licked blood from a doll’s body without ever stopping to wonder who it had belonged to. I had given myself to them over and over, even after my stamina was exhausted and I could do little more than accept their desires.
They had made me theirs - with pleasure and pain, with fear and adoration - but they decided I was ready for more.
14.
I’d tell you it was a day like any other, but I don’t even know if it was a day. It was just another moment in the bunker, a moment of laying on a bare concrete floor, my limbs tangled with giggling dolls who simply couldn’t bear to let their plaything go… and then it wasn’t.
They hauled me up off the floor and pushed my back against the wall, one on each side of me, and the rest of the squad parted as Victoria approached, as the doll who’d claimed me first stood over me once more.
“You’ve been fun,” she told me, “but you can be better. We want you to be better. Don’t you want to be better for us?”
Even after all the time I’d spent with them, I still hesitated. I knew what they meant, and I had learned exactly what it entailed. The surgery, the conditioning, the experience of not being human anymore – but wasn’t I already seen as no longer human?
Victoria saw that hesitation, she saw the fear in my eyes, and stroked my head like a pet. She promised me she’d stay by my side the whole time… and she promised to do my conditioning herself.
How could I say no to that?
15.
The surgeons broke me. There’s no way to sugarcoat that. Even without all the modifications combat dolls get, having an arrhythmia control device implanted in your chest without any anesthetic is simply more than any human can bear and stay sane – so I didn’t. I screamed, I struggled and I let myself fall apart.
Victoria put me back together. She reminded me how much I liked being helpful, and how much I enjoyed being useful. She dug up my memories of how much I loved each and every member of the squad, and she made those memories into the core of my personality so I could never, ever forget again. As for the rest of my memories… well, I told you this whole story, didn't I? But everything before the dolls took me in feels distant, removed from me, as if they're someone else's memories instead of my own. It's better that way – I have a whole new life and a whole new family to love.
Speaking of which, Victoria had a surprise for me once I'd recovered, a way of celebrating me as the newest part of their family. One at a time, each doll got up on one of the bunks like it was a makeshift stage and delivered maudlin, overdramatic speeches about the person they imagined I had been before, and we all giggled along together.
In the end, it was my funeral after all.
16.
There you have it, that's the whole story. That's how I went from being just like you to being who I am now. Your instructor wanted me to share it as a warning, a cautionary tale, and I'm sure for most of you it is. But for one or two of you, if it appeals–
Yes, sir?
Understood, sir.
Thank you for your time, everyone! May fate preserve us! Good luck on your quals!
I washed out of combat training almost immediately, but it wasn’t enough to get me off the hook. I’m sure you all know how it goes – just because you can’t fight doesn’t mean you can’t support the ones who do. If you can’t carry a gun, you can fix a gun, if you can’t fly a plane, you can fuel a plane.
Nothing wrong with that, of course! It’s simply efficient use of resources, and I’m certainly in no place to criticize that, especially not given my current status, so to speak. But even then I wasn’t exactly bothered by it -- I would have rather not been conscripted at all, but maintenance would be safe and interesting and I was already pretty good at it.
2.
The first time I ever saw a combat doll was when I was at the range, trying to get in enough practice to pass my pistol qualifications. I didn’t even know she was there, at first - there was no fuss, no fanfare - but as soon as her handler started barking those sharp, staccato orders I realized what was going on.
I looked over, of course. I know, we’ve all been taught not to make eye contact with the dolls because they might take it as aggression, but how could I not be curious? Can any of you say you wouldn’t be tempted to take a peek?
I hadn’t expected her to not be wearing her mask. All the publicity photos, all the technical diagrams, all the battlefield footage always shows dolls with their masks on, so I assumed that was just their usual state – but no, I was wrong. That was her natural face, with her implant jacks and her surgical scars and her delicate-looking skin. I truly hadn’t expected her to be so pretty…
She caught me looking, of course. Dolls are the apex predators of the battlefield, and noticing a maintenance trainee staring at her was trivial in comparison. She met my eyes before I could look away, and then I couldn’t look away. I knew nothing except her eyes and my heart pounding in my ears, and I had no idea what was coming next… and then she grinned at me.
That grin did something to me, something strange and frightening and wonderful. It felt like lightning running down my spine, like watching a sunrise after being blind my whole life, like finding my way out of a forest I’d been lost in since birth. I was never the same again.
3.
I needed to know who she was, of course. She could pick off targets faster than my eyes could follow, with a perfect bullseye every time. Her handler ran her through everything in our arsenal, and more besides - pistols, rifles, machine guns, throwing knives, on and on - and she was perfect every time. How could I have not wanted to know more after watching a display like that?
Well, apparently, that made me the weird one in the battalion. Everyone I asked about her just shrugged or gave me sidelong glances. Why would they want to keep track of which doll was which, they asked? They were all equally frightening, after all. What did it matter what the shark swimming next to you was named?
It took more than a week - and a couple cases of beer - for me to find out who I’d seen. My buddy on the security team had seen the handler’s name and done some quick research, and he was willing to pass on that information… for the right price, of course.
Victoria. Her name was Victoria, and the next thing he said to me was “be fuckin’ careful around that one,” which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me at the time. We’re taught to use caution around all dolls, combat or not, why the extra warning?
Because, he told me, there were stories about the Victory-class dolls. They weren’t the fastest dolls or the most powerful dolls, but they were notoriously unpredictable, and dangerous even to their allies. I won’t get into the details right now, that’s not what I’m here to do - but some of your classmates went pale the moment I said her name, so ask them about it later.
But what did that have to do with Victoria? I had to ask, because I used to be a little slow on the uptake sometimes. In case any of you haven’t put all the pieces together: Victoria is the first Victory-class, the flagship, the template upon which all others were modeled – and that meant if there was some fault with the Victory-class dolls, some flaw in their design or their conditioning, Victoria would definitely have it.
4.
Even with all he’d told me, and all I’d learned on my own afterwards, I still couldn’t get her off my mind. Not that I was thinking about her every second, or even every day, but that moment never quite left my mind. I’d lay down and try to sleep, close my eyes, and behind my eyelids I’d see that bare face, that grin, and my heart would start pounding all over again.
By the time we were given our assignments, I knew what I was going to do. I knew what I had to do. I got the cushiest possible position – 8th Supply Battalion, well away from any combat zones, where the greatest danger would be a private driving a forklift drunk. The perfect position to serve out three years of compulsory service and go back to my old life, right?
Except I didn’t want it. I hadn’t wanted it since the moment I’d seen her.
As soon as we were dismissed, I went straight to the commander’s office and asked for a transfer – which they don’t usually do, of course, but he was willing to hear me out anyway, so I told him I needed to be on Victoria’s maintenance crew. Once he was done laughing he asked me what I was really there to ask for, and I repeated my request. I explained to him that I was serious, that I wanted, needed more than anything else, to be assigned to maintenance for Victoria.
He didn’t understand – which is no surprise, because I don’t think any of you do either. Why would I have wanted to be transferred to the only role that had higher casualty rates than front-line infantry, right? Truth be told, I didn’t understand either, and I still don’t. There’s nothing I can point to, no specific reason, just this surety that I belonged there and nowhere else.
Someone needed to do maintenance on the dolls, right? Why shouldn’t it be someone enthusiastic about it, someone fully committed to their role? I don’t know if my argument won him over or if he was just tired of listening to me, but in the end he just shrugged and wrote out my transfer orders: maintenance crew, Victory-class combat doll “Victoria”.
I still remember what he said when he handed me the orders:
“It’s your funeral.”
5.
Just because I’d volunteered for the position didn’t mean I was any less nervous when I first reported for duty! The rest of the crew had already been giving me a hard time - I was the squeaky-clean new girl, fresh out of training - but honestly, they weren’t why I was nervous. That was just some laughs and some hazing, nothing I wasn’t used to by that point.
No, I was nervous because of the six-plus feet of exquisite purpose-built killing machine standing in the middle of the maintenance bay.
The thing is, though.. the reasonable thing would have been to worry that Victoria was going to kill me, right? That’s what you’d be afraid of, that’s what any sensible person would be afraid of! But it wasn’t what I was afraid of.
I’d done my research, I knew the numbers, and I was certain - beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt - that I wasn’t going to survive three years in her maintenance crew. I’d made my peace with that before I ever even walked into the commander’s office.
I was worried that Victoria wasn’t going to like me.
6.
I know that probably sounds bizarre to you - after all, nobody worries about whether their tank likes them, right? - but trust me, it was absolutely the biggest thing on my mind. So much so, in fact, that I decided to introduce myself to her immediately! Why hang around hiding behind the rest of the maintenance crew when I could just walk right up to her and make a good first impression instead?
So that’s exactly what I did. Right into the maintenance bay, right past the rest of the crew, right across those painted lines on the floor… one foot in front of the other, listening to the pounding of my heart until I was within arm’s length of an active combat doll.
I took one more deep breath, accepted that it could have been my last, and gave her the usual introduction: name, rank, and role. She just stared at me, with those intense eyes I remembered so well, and I offered a little bit of extra politeness – just a simple little “I look forward to working with you, ma’am.”
7.
The moment the words were out of my mouth, she grabbed me by the collar and dragged me in, my body pressed up against hers, and as I stared up at her in shock and fear and excitement, I heard her voice for the first time.
“You’re cute,” she said.
There were teeth in my neck before I could even make sense of her words - combat-specced teeth, the kind that can slice through bone - and it was unbearably painful… but also something about it felt right. I was helpless in her grip, completely powerless, and I realized that I’d wanted that all along.
I saw her true face for the first time, then. That flat, blank non-expression she’d been wearing when I walked up to her had simply been another mask, another disguise… and she’d let it fall away. As she licked my blood from her lips, I understood – she was a hunter, a predator, hungry for more and strong enough to take whatever she wanted… and I was her prey.
I suspect your instructor would kick me out of this class immediately if I described what she did next, so I’ll just say ‘she had her way with me and I had no desire to stop her.’ You’ll have to use your imaginations for the rest… or come find me sometime and I’ll be happy to tell you all about it!
8.
Anyway, even though it seemed like I’d made an excellent impression on Victoria, the rest of the maintenance crew was pretty clear that I’d made a pretty poor impression on them. As soon as we were off-duty and the dolls had all been escorted back to their bunker, they made their feelings known in a very direct fashion.
I got off easy, they told me, pointing out maintenance staff for other dolls. One man had a bloody bandage where his ear had been, and another was completely unresponsive – just blankly staring at a wall. In comparison to things like that, a bite and some fucking was downright gentle for a Victory-class doll!
The crew insisted that I’d better not expect special treatment from Victoria to mean they’d give me special treatment too – I protested that I’d never once expected that, but I don’t think they were listening to me by that point. From all the shouts and cursing, it seemed like they were upset that I, the death-wish rookie who walked right up to a combat doll and introduced herself, had been treated more gently than maintenance staff who simply wanted to carry out their duties safely.
I tried to answer them, I tried to explain that all I’d done was to be friendly and polite, that I’d just wanted to treat Victoria with the respect she deserved. They didn’t like that answer.
Nobody told me about this, so I’ll pass it on as a warning to you just in case: maintenance crews aren’t just wary of their dolls, they’re downright resentful of them. From their perspective, the dolls are the thing that stands between them and getting home safely, and they’re not particularly fond of people who see the situation differently.
I, not knowing this, made some helpful comments about the dolls not being our enemy, about our purpose being to support the dolls so they can carry out their Purpose. Shortly thereafter, in a totally unrelated event, I slipped and fell down a staircase – completely by accident, of course.
I’d been hoping that the maintenance crew - and the staircase - had gotten all the vitriol out of their system by then, but it only got worse. Someone had found out that I’d volunteered for the maintenance crew, while they’d all been unwillingly forced into that position, and it was all over. That was all the proof they needed to decide I wasn’t like them in some indescribable way. They might not have been able to explain how, exactly, I was different from them, but they all agreed that I was, and they all wanted to make that my problem.
9.
I next saw Victoria for post-mission diagnostics two days later. The procedures would be routine, and yet the crew was far more anxious than they had been for our previous visit to the maintenance bay. A doll just back from an operation, having spent only a few minutes being gentled by its handler before being sent off to maintenance, was the most dangerous kind of doll as far as the maintenance staff was concerned: all keyed up on adrenaline and battle stimulants and potentially unsure as to whether or not it was actually safe or still on the battlefield.
The crew all talked like they were off to the firing squad, and I had no idea what to expect as we all walked down to the hall… especially when they all hung back, in ones and twos and threes, lagging behind me while I walked up to the maintenance bay first.
I was the tribute, the offering, the fresh meat tossed to Victoria to sate her hunger - and oh, did she ever take the bait. She ran to me, snatched me right off the ground, and sprinted back to her designated zone as if to convince everyone she’d never left.. except now she had me clutched in her arms, her deadly teeth tracing up and down my neck, that beautiful voice giggling in my ear.
The maintenance team had to conduct their diagnostics around me, in the end. Victoria simply didn’t want to give me up, no matter how they tried to convince her -- and I had absolutely no desire to argue with that. Where could I possibly have wanted to be more than her arms?
In fact, I didn’t want to leave her arms. Even once our duty shift was done and she’d turned me loose, bloody and weary and deeply content, I lingered in the maintenance bay as the others fled for the mess. I knew what was waiting for me there - the same thing that had been waiting for me since I first met Victoria - and I wanted to avoid it for as long as possible.
10.
I hadn’t expected her to notice me hanging around - surely I was unworthy of her attention, right? - and yet, as I lingered behind, she spoke to me for the second time. “Not joining them?”
“No ma’am,” I told her, quietly enough for nobody else to hear. I hadn’t meant to say anything else, but the prospect of having a sympathetic ear was just too much, and the words just tumbled out of me. As she stared down at me with that blank expression, I explained how the crew had decided I didn’t belong, and how they’d been treating me since – the punches, the kicks, the fish in my bunk, the thousand other little reminders that they’d decided to hate me.
Eventually I ran out of words and found myself simply staring up at Victoria. She hadn’t said a single thing the entire time, and her expression was the same unreadable blankness that I’d seen before. While I tried to figure out whether she was sympathetic or simply bored, I suddenly realized that she’d met my gaze, staring into my eyes as if she was looking for something. I couldn’t imagine what she was looking for - and, truth be told, I still don’t know what it was - but I stared back up at her and let her look for it.
I guess she found what she was looking for - or perhaps found an absence of the wrong things - because she simply grabbed me by the arm and practically dragged me right out of the maintenance bay. What was she doing? Where was she going? She ignored my questions, of course, so I stopped asking them and simply walked along with her in silence.
You probably haven’t seen a doll bunker yet, but they’re extremely sturdy – downright overengineered, even. They’re even more heavily reinforced than munitions bunkers, and the only route in and out is through an extremely sturdy-looking steel door. It’s the sort of thing that makes the vault doors in heist movies look like tissue paper… and that was the door Victoria had led me to.
Even though I’d walked to the bunker with her willingly, I couldn’t help but protest a little as she swung the bunker door open. I had been told, upon my assignment, that only handlers and commanders were permitted to enter the doll bunker – all support staff were required to stay out in order to avoid ‘unnecessary manpower shortages’. Not that that stopped Victoria, of course! She simply picked me up by the back of my uniform like an uncooperative pet and tossed me right through the door.
11.
Have you ever walked into a room and found eight combat dolls staring directly at you? Sixteen eyes fixed on you, unblinking, like cats that have just spotted a mouse? Presumably not, but if you’re very lucky - or very unlucky - you might get to someday.
That’s where I found myself as the bunker door slammed shut behind me – gracelessly picking myself up off the floor under the hungry gaze of eight combat dolls. They waited a moment, graciously permitting me to get back to my feet, and then… well, I guess the best way to describe it is to say each one started trying, in her own way, to draw me away from my host.
Not a word was spoken, but carnal offers were made, and one or two dolls began to creep toward me as if stalking prey – and then suddenly they all froze at once. I couldn’t receive dollchat yet, so I didn’t know what Victoria said to them - and even now she just giggles when I ask! - but whatever it was, it was enough to convince the other eight dolls not to steal her guest away.
I spent that night in her bunk. I didn't do a lot of actual sleeping, of course, but the moments I did get... having a combat doll holding me close and murmuring sweet reassurances in my ear was maybe the safest I'd ever felt in my whole life. To be told I'm safe now, that the squad will look out for me, that I'm theirs forever…
12.
I hardly ever left the bunker after that. I would have never left, if I’d had the option, but there were still two things I was expected to handle: work and food.
I was still a member of Victoria’s maintenance crew, expected to be present for those duties, and since the necessary hardware was in the maintenance bay, that was where I had to be too. My first duty shift after being taken to the bunker, I’d hesitated – I was even more uncertain about showing my face around the rest of the crew now, after all! Victoria had just returned from a mission, so she would be waiting for me there, but I still had to get from the bunker to the maintenance bay on my own…
Before I figured it out myself, one of the other dolls took pity on me. She took my hand in hers, as if I was a child, and led me to the maintenance bay herself. It was permitted - after all, she was being escorted by maintenance staff - and nobody dared to say she couldn’t stand by while we Victoria received her post- mission diagnostics and I received an entirely different kind of post-mission attention.
I’m not sure if the crew ever appreciated just how much lighter on them she was when I was around, you know? I don’t know if they even noticed, or if they were too busy hating me. It didn’t matter, though – when we were done, Victoria and the other doll walked me back to the bunker, hand in hand, as if they were concerned I’d stray – or flee, perhaps, but there was already no chance of that.
If any of you ever get invited to a bunker, be aware: there’s nothing for you to eat. There is food for the dolls, although it’s terribly bland, but those meals are measured out to the last bite. Even once the whole squad had fully accepted me as their own, they still didn’t have anything to give me – every bite of food for me was one less for them, and dolls are always hungry.
The only way for me to get food would be to get it from the kitchens myself. I’d have to brave the hallways solo, avoiding any other staff, and throw myself on the cook’s mercy in the hopes that they’d be willing to let me take something back with them – and I’d have to do it two or three times a day! It’d be absolutely miserable, right?
As it turned out, that was practically a nonissue. The kitchen staff recognized me on sight - word spreads quickly, especially when you’re escorted to the bunker by two dolls! - and realized that we could solve each other’s problems: I needed food, and they didn’t want to interact with the dolls. If I could come out of the bunker to receive each day’s rations, rather than the staff needing to hand-deliver it directly to the dolls, they’d be more than happy to throw in each day’s worth of meals for me! Teamwork and problem-solving, that’s what we’re trained for, right?
13.
With food resolved and my duties sorted out… well, one day started to blur into the next. There are no windows in a doll bunker, after all -- there’s no sense of time unless you’ve got a chronometer built in, and I sure didn’t. I slept when they let me, I did as I was told, and every time the rations were delivered I felt a little more like I was walking through a dream.
The kitchen staff stopped looking straight at me, eventually. It wasn’t that they were afraid of me - I was no doll, no battlefield predator - but something about me unsettled them. Maybe my body language had changed – after all, I’d been spending more time around dolls than humans, even I could tell that I was picking up their mannerisms, that I was absorbing the way they spoke and moved and held their bodies.
Or maybe it was something else. Maybe there was something in my eyes. I had prostrated myself before the squad and worshipped them for the goddesses they were. I had licked blood from a doll’s body without ever stopping to wonder who it had belonged to. I had given myself to them over and over, even after my stamina was exhausted and I could do little more than accept their desires.
They had made me theirs - with pleasure and pain, with fear and adoration - but they decided I was ready for more.
14.
I’d tell you it was a day like any other, but I don’t even know if it was a day. It was just another moment in the bunker, a moment of laying on a bare concrete floor, my limbs tangled with giggling dolls who simply couldn’t bear to let their plaything go… and then it wasn’t.
They hauled me up off the floor and pushed my back against the wall, one on each side of me, and the rest of the squad parted as Victoria approached, as the doll who’d claimed me first stood over me once more.
“You’ve been fun,” she told me, “but you can be better. We want you to be better. Don’t you want to be better for us?”
Even after all the time I’d spent with them, I still hesitated. I knew what they meant, and I had learned exactly what it entailed. The surgery, the conditioning, the experience of not being human anymore – but wasn’t I already seen as no longer human?
Victoria saw that hesitation, she saw the fear in my eyes, and stroked my head like a pet. She promised me she’d stay by my side the whole time… and she promised to do my conditioning herself.
How could I say no to that?
15.
The surgeons broke me. There’s no way to sugarcoat that. Even without all the modifications combat dolls get, having an arrhythmia control device implanted in your chest without any anesthetic is simply more than any human can bear and stay sane – so I didn’t. I screamed, I struggled and I let myself fall apart.
Victoria put me back together. She reminded me how much I liked being helpful, and how much I enjoyed being useful. She dug up my memories of how much I loved each and every member of the squad, and she made those memories into the core of my personality so I could never, ever forget again. As for the rest of my memories… well, I told you this whole story, didn't I? But everything before the dolls took me in feels distant, removed from me, as if they're someone else's memories instead of my own. It's better that way – I have a whole new life and a whole new family to love.
Speaking of which, Victoria had a surprise for me once I'd recovered, a way of celebrating me as the newest part of their family. One at a time, each doll got up on one of the bunks like it was a makeshift stage and delivered maudlin, overdramatic speeches about the person they imagined I had been before, and we all giggled along together.
In the end, it was my funeral after all.
16.
There you have it, that's the whole story. That's how I went from being just like you to being who I am now. Your instructor wanted me to share it as a warning, a cautionary tale, and I'm sure for most of you it is. But for one or two of you, if it appeals–
Yes, sir?
Understood, sir.
Thank you for your time, everyone! May fate preserve us! Good luck on your quals!
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