This account is an alt that I’m using to post my writing. Im not very experienced so it might not be very good but I’m trying my best.
Please! Give me feedback! If something is shit or insensitive or sounds weird tell me so I can improve! My asks are wide open! My ask are wide open so you can tell me these things and tell me I suck!
Uhhhh idk what else to put here
18+ please I have posted nsfw and will do so again
Ok ‘soon’ has become a lie. I got hit by evil writers block and then went on holiday twice so I haven’t been able to do any writing recently. ☹️
I’m like 50% of the way through now but it might take a little longer to start posting again so sorry. 😔 I’ll almost certainly have something by the end of the summer tho.
online numbers can really fuck you up when it comes to your creative work because you're sharing something you worked on with all your heart but it's very important to remember there's actual people behind those numbers. even if it's 1. that's one whole actual person. that's a human being who said "haha nice". that's a connection with a REAL person with a REAL life and REAL thoughts and feelings and experiences. like. damn. that should mean something
This account is an alt that I’m using to post my writing. Im not very experienced so it might not be very good but I’m trying my best.
Please! Give me feedback! If something is shit or insensitive or sounds weird tell me so I can improve! My asks are wide open! My ask are wide open so you can tell me these things and tell me I suck!
Uhhhh idk what else to put here
18+ please I have posted nsfw and will do so again
Random Fun Facts that I assembled from Ao3 to put on tumblr properly.
- When I wrote chapter one, I did so in 40 minutes listening to Ysgith and The Bloody Mistress on repeat over my headphones. It was originally going to be a one-shot, but I decided I could do something good with the character, so I carried on.
- Handler Fox’s name being shared by the blog is total coincidence. I really just thought it sounded like a good name. the blog was named before the character.
- Chapter 3 was one of the top 3 I was worried about posting because dialogue is always the hardest bit to write if you haven’t got much experience and I was fearful that my characters dialogue sounded like ass. This bit, Not as it Seems and Progress Report were all also going to be written with no dialogue tags a la Andrzej Sapkowski, but I chickened out because I didn’t have the courage to do something so unusual.
- The G in Fox’s name stands for Gertrude. Veers calls her Gerty as a pet name.
- Chapter 6 was one of my favourites to write. Fox being evil is so enjoyable to put on the page. Veers is named after the general in Empire Strikes Back because I’m a shameless charlatan.
- Chapters 7&8 were written by the seat of my pants (and are another combination chapter outside of tumblr). If I had to describe what my plan for these bits looked like it would probably be with the words ‘furious raspberry noises’.
- Chapter 9 was one I had a good idea of waaaaay before I wrote it. My initial plan encompassed chapters 1,2,3,4,5 then 9,10,11 and 15. It was shorter than I wanted it to be but I couldn’t think of a good way to extend it out. My writing is too brief to fill out extended scenes where not much happens.
- Chapter 10 is the bit is was most concerned posting because I don’t know how to write sex well. Really working off reading other mechsplo on this bit but it turned out well enough so all’s well and all that. I also really didn’t want Rosie to come off as chaser-ish or send the message that she somehow loves kaya in spite of her transness 9this was something I was stuck on in dialogue for a while. How do I have Rosie reassure Kaya without her sounding like she’s saying I love you despite this part of you (effectively), even though she does love Kaya for Kaya.)
- 11 was a very functional chapter. I ummed and ahhed over Rosie’s mech name for ages. Royal Oak was actually a working title I forgot to change before posting. I think it works fine enough but I’d have liked to get something a bit less ass out there, y’know?
- Looking back I’d have put Progress Report after Slow-Dancing instead of Joint Training, and combined Joint Training with Finishing Touches. The name-dropped Handler is the one who figured out conditioning people who have (in some way) volunteered themselves is much faster and less difficult. The circumstances under which the consent is acquired don’t need to be free and fair though.
- Finishing touches was originally going to be a more involved, longer chapter but I kind of ran out of combat steam. I was originally considering having Fox beam audio from Elsie’s death into the cockpit to make Kaya go berserk but I decided that Fox being too involved is silly and just let Kaya be suicidal of her own accord.
- Bringing down the Hammer was written in three parts – the end, which I wrote around the time of Not as it Seems, the training exercise, and Kaya and Rosie hanging out. I originally was going to just have the training, but I wanted to emphasise that Rosie has friends and a good life and a girlfriend more before I took all that away from her.
- Conditioning is the most heavily edited chapter of Ambush Predator – It’s also the single longest bit. I thought about chopping it into three but I decided against that.
- The New Normal and Reunion were another blowing raspberries with my mouth section. I really just went into it with a vague ‘Rosie and kaya being conditioned together The End’ sort of plan but I think it turned out well.
- Together presents the awful way I put this whole thing together very well I think – I wrote the whole thing the day before I posted it, as has been the case for a great many of my chapters. It’s also a case of ‘creative writing is so much fun when you don’t have an enough teacher in your ear tapping about literary techniques’ I did a circular narrative because I wanted to goddamit not for some fuckass mark scheme.
Disconnected fun facts:
- It’s pure coincidence I uploaded the chapters on days with the same date as their chapter number. Literally didn’t even notice until like 16 was out because I’m too stupid.
- I was originally looking at 15 parts, but the final ballooned and 18 ended up being very convenient because it meant I posted the final chapter on the same day I threw the thing into the wilds of Ao3.
- I had a title in mind basically the whole time I was writing and posting. The Tumblr version is untitled, but I was mentally calling it Ambush Predator the whole time.
- The impetus for the story was almost entirely one post by SkellytheHangerQueen (now thehangerqueen) concepting Gators. I thought it would be hot if they used a person like a hot water bottle when resting, and the idea marinated into the plot of Ambush Predator (It’s ironic that the original concept never actually made an appearance. Kaya does like cuddles though). I wouldn’t have written it without having read Hound-K4lvy4’s work (also on Tumblr) though, because that really gave me the model for how to write and present it for tumblr (also if you haven’t read Hound-K4lvy4 go do that it’s a certified banger).
Kaya doesn’t know that many people honestly :/. She is scared that Fox blames her for Elsie’s death (false) and thinks that Rosie is only pretending to like her at first (also false). She thinks that the normal pilots hate her (false - none of them know enough about her to have that kind of opinion) and that they think she’s a monster (true. She’s a hound and hounds r scawy :( ). She would handle jealousy by waiting uni she can get revenge. She is exceptionally patient and could manage a weeks long campaign to get her revenge.
If rosie could change one fact about her childhood it would be to be less poor. Her family was soundly low income and she would want them to be happy (and also would like to have more stuff for herself but she wouldn’t say that out loud). Rosie’s deepest desire at the start of the story would be to get away from the army with enough money to help people where she grew up.she wouldn’t ask for this because it’s a pipe dream. By the end, all she wants is to be together with Kaya.
Rosie thinks she deserves it when bad things happen to her if she did something ‘bad’ beforehand (even if it’s unrelated.) she does not think she deserves what happens to her in conditioning (though honestly who would)
Kaya has hidden herself better – her Mudskipper is invisible amidst the mud and roots, buried below the waterline with only its sensors showing. Royal Oak is not so well concealed – a keen eye could pick it out from the dank water and overgrowth, spot the barrel of its autocannon, the camouflage netting soaked with mud and slime. It is well hidden enough though, and it has concealed its reactor emissions and made itself invisible enough to sensors that no one could blame the Andriosi patrol for not noticing it. For not noticing them.
They’ve been hidden here for three months now – verging on four, but there are still two weeks to go before that mark is hit and they are ordered back to base. Both girls have been cocooned in cables and pipes for so long they almost can’t remember what it is to breathe fresh air, or eat real food. It’s the food that bothers them the most – after a while, you get used to the smell, to the stale air tinged with sweat and oil, but not eating? That’s the challenge. If she could think those kinds of thoughts, Rosie would now be understanding why Kaya ate so hungrily during her recovery period. Being awake for so long is a challenge as well – every synapse of her brain is telling her to sleep but the cocktail of stimulants and implants prevents her from doing so. She has to stay awake, alert, on guard. Her focus is unbreakable while she is hunting, just like her partners. Two predators, waiting in ambush for their prey.
It’s hard – to stay focused, to keep herself from spiralling, alone in her mech, unable to even truly move. She can do it though, because she’s with Kaya. They don’t talk much, now, holding radio silence like they are conditioned to, but knowing that she’s out there, in the swamp as well, that brings Rosie peace.
The patrol here is larger than the last that challenged Kaya – seven strong, and their sergeant, enough to give an attacker trouble. Their mechs are the same though – the angular, plated armour of Andriosi footsoldiers, the sergeant in a heavier frame, better protected and better armed. They’ve been making their way through the swampy morass of the Cos’ swamps for almost two days now, and they are getting careless – once they would have swept the area before them properly, sensors wide and eyes sharp, but two days of buzzing insects and swamp gas setting off their motion trackers and emission detectors have made them lazy.
Kaya watches them through her augmented eyes and punches a message through to command.
>> Eight targets. Moving west southwest.
She waits. Watches the patrolmen picking their way through the swamp. They are in knee-deep water – seven and a half feet deep – and clearly have no wish to find themselves falling into the deeper pools like those that Kaya and Rosie are submerged in.
>> Mudskipper. Confirm. Clear to engage.
She is already moving. Mudskipper bursts from the deep water in a crashing wave of breaking roots and foetid water. At the same time, Rosie hefts her autocannon and rears up, the bulky frame of Royal Oak surfacing like a crocodile to open up with her cannon into the rear of the Andriosi formation.
The patrol is forced to break into two. Four mechs facing down Mudskipper’s thunderous charge and four making to close the distance on Royal Oak and silence it’s support fire. The four near Mudskipper, led by their sergeant level their halberds, and loose a volley of missiles as they charge, which catapult up before roaring to life and spearing in towards her mech’s lanky frame. She should be finished, but the low trees and hazy air confuse the targeters, and with a loping dive Kaya is able to put herself under and through the wall of projectiles, and then she is upon them. She catches a halberd strike against her left arm’s armour and repulses the blow, turning quick to level a strike with her axe against the halberdiers midsection. She doesn’t have time to stop and see if he’s downed though, because the other three are close now. She has the presence of mid to bring up her shotgun and send a slug into the man to her right, but it misses its target and deflects off the sloped armour around his mech’s chest, spanging off into the water, though the impact is enough to stop him in his tracks, reeling from the force of the blow.
She uses the moment to retreat, ducking below the officers sword as she scuttles back, to put distance between her and the two mechs pursuing her. She’s faster than them, able to move more easily in the deep water and mud.
As she moves, she launches her missiles – not at the charging foes, but into the water before her, in a wide arc. Their detonation finishes the injured mech and throws up a high blast of spray and a wave of muck that masks her repositioning, and when the two are upon her she has already strafed to the left and put herself away from the heavy officers mech and the stunned man. The lone halberdier is easy prey for her as she pivots and plunges forward bringing down her axe on his unprotected back and mangling the mechanics there as he struggles to slow and turn amidst the swamp. She leaves his mech for dead as the sergeant and the stunned man continue their assault, regrouping while she claims her kill.
Rosie is laying down suppressive fire on the four attacking her, using wide pulses to keep them separated and fearful as they try to close the distance. One man has already fallen, his cockpit mulched by a concentrated stream of shells that pulped the armour at his front and crunched into the cockpit behind. His mech’s smoking remains have given the other three a healthy sense of caution, but now they overcome their fear and make for a combined charge, splashing through the water towards her from three directions.
Rosie takes her hand from the trigger and engages her reserve core, allowing it to squeeze off groups of shots at the two mechs on her left to zone them away from her as she unhooks the mace from her side and stomps forward out of her pit to challenge the rightmost foe.
He’s fast, stepping back away from her blows and jabbing at her shoulder with his halberd, quick, sharp strikes to test her armour and peel apart the seams. He would be better served slicing at her autocannon – if its fire were cut off the other two would be able to close and three are more than a match for one. But he doesn’t take that course, focused on the mace and the mech. She feigns a continuation, swinging slowly and pathetically, stepping forward to bait an overcommitment.
He takes the bait, stepping in and swinging a powerful strike towards her elbow. Unfortunately for him, Royal Oak is faster than it looks, and she spins her arm up and around to bring down her mace’s flanged head on the centre line of the Andriosi mech, crushing its sensors and leaving it blind as she draws back her arm and finishes the thing off with another strike.
Away to the left, one of the halberdiers tries to strike forward, sensing a break in the firing as her autocannon finally overheats and she swings it away to her back. He is foolish though, and overeager, and does not pay enough attention. His foot slips as he strides into the area where Rosie had hidden herself, falling into the pit she created with her mechs weight and disappearing past the waist into the mud, before falling forward, off balance.
The last mech turns and runs when she begins to make for them.
Rosie thumps over to her hiding place and uses the clamp to pull the floundering mech from its watery grave, before smashing its hip joints with her mace and dumping it on a hillock. She pays no mind to the pilot as they eject and flee into the swamp on foot.
Poor fool won’t make a day in here.
She unslings her autocannon when she hears the tone to signal it’s barrel has cooled enough to fire again, settling into a firing position as she draws a bead on Kaya’s last foe.
The halberdier is dead – a shotgun shell through his reactor sent him down in a plume of fire and shrapnel, but the officer is still alive. He’s a very good swordsman, driving Kaya back in a cage of flashing steel that seeks her vulnerable joint and connectors. It’s all she can do to deflect his strikes off the sloped armour of her forearms and shoulders; to keep his wicked swords away from the places it will deal real damage.
She won’t last forever against a fighter like that.
But she doesn’t have to. Rosie sends a stream of explosive rounds crashing against his back plate, knocking him off balance and disrupting his attack. Kaya is quick to take the opportunity and slams her axe down into his sword-arm’s shoulder, before dismembering the heavier chassis piece by piece.
>> Targets eliminated. One fled. Position compromised.
>> Confirm. Reposition and watch for guard sweeps. Good girls.
The two mechs thump into the swamp. They need to reposition, what with their hiding places compromised, but that’s ok. They won after all. Together.
There is no patrol sweeping the swamp, at least, not in the next two weeks. After that they are recalled, back to base, beyond the reach of the foe, where the two dogs hear their Mistress voice call out over their comms the magic words. Their coded commands.
“Kaya, Rosie, disengage from guard duty.”
Rosie surfaces from the trance she has been in, four months of exhaustion crashing down on her mind as she returns to reality, the thing coiling back up inside her. Kaya remains conscious as she is removed from the metal womb of Mudskipper, but Rosie is still green. The stress and exhaustion that wash over her are too much and she passes out as she is pulled from her mech and shipped into the medical wing to be stabilised.
Fox will celebrate later – she has after all just proven that she has successfully shifted Kaya’s damaged Ego Pillar to focus on her relationship with Rosie, and obtained a new hound in the process. She will produce a write-up on her findings, her methodology, she thinks.
Deep down, she is relieved – she had no wish to terminate Kaya, and Rosie was a very lovely girl, even if broken now. She’d make a good partner for her gator. The success of her project is a boon – for her and Kaya, at least, even if the girl does not know it. Fox leans back in the darkness of her office and laughs.
When Rosie wakes, she has been returned to their shared room. The sheets are fresh, changed in preparation for their return, and the lights are still low. They will be for the next few weeks, to let the two gators rest. She is nestled in the warm, heavy confines of the wall of duvets and blankets that Kaya has gathered, her head buoyed by a sea of pillows. She is still too weak to move, too tired. Next to her she feels something stir, something big and hot and wonderful. The landscape of fabric and stuffing shifts as if struck by an earthquake as Kaya rolls over in her sleep, a faint murmur escaping her lips as she drifts through unconsciousness. Rosie is still tired, and she won’t be awake for long, but she musters the strength now to drape her arms about her girlfriends shoulders. They will both sleep almost all day for the first three days, only waking briefly to eat. Soon they will be recovered, and sent back out to keep watch, entombed in their mechs again. This rest will only be short. But neither care - they are together, and that is all that matters to them.
<- previous
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Well, that’s a wrap, folks! I’d like to give a big thank you to all the people who have read through this mess, and given their love to Kaya and Rosie! I might post more on these two at some point but for now I think I’ve hit a natural end for their story.
Ok the whole thing is now up and running, though it is formatted a bit differently from the version here on tumblr.
edit: it’s 14 chapters rather than 17. I combined quite a few bits to make it less short form bcs I’m not as worried about keeping the length down over there.
Some small edits as well to make things clearer. And fun facts in the authors notes!
Their room took three days to be readied, the bedclothes repaired, and furniture returned, and most notably, the door replaced, by one with the lock-and-slot that the cells in the rest of the kennels used. It didn’t bother Rosie though. She had been told not to worry about it by Mistress, so she didn’t. she did worry when she was taken in for surgery though. The return to the medical wing it entailed had produced a knot in her chest that only tightened once they were in the maze of sterile white rooms and Orderlies. Kaya had been brought along to help keep her calm, and as they progressed deeper, towards the surgical bays, Rosie gripped her hand tightly for comfort.
“S’ gonna be okay.” Kaya murmured, squeezing her hand gently. “I’ve been here too, y’know. For my own augments.”
Rosie could only press closer to her side as they made their way into the theatre. Once they were there, Rosie’s Mistress had gone to talk with the surgeons, while Kaya and Rosie were left to their own devices in the waiting room, sat next to one another.
Rosie’s anxiety was worsening by the minute, but pressing herself close to Kaya she tried to steel herself.
“What’s it like? What do your augments feel like?” she asked quietly.
Kaya was quiet for a moment. “I don’t even feel most of them.” She responded eventually. “The filter bank sure – that one sticks out my side, and you must’ve felt the ports in my neck.” She was quiet again. “Most of it I can’t feel though. You won’t either.”
Kaya’s neural ports were small, unobtrusive. She could feel those? They barely registered to the touch – tiny jacks for wires and cables but nothing huge. She snuggled closer to the big girl for comfort. None of the Orderlies payed any mind to them, of course – two dogs wrapped up in one another was nothing new for them.
She was sedated for the procedure and anesthetised heavily – she was undergoing quite the battery of surgeries, to bring her capabilities in line with her partner’s. The surgeons would peel apart her spine, her eyes, her brain, to insert neural links like Kaya’s, to connect her more strongly with her mech. They’d be inserting even more specialised tech as well, the battery of filters and ports to keep her fed and stimulated through long guard deployments. They even went so far as to surgically sterilise her.
So the surgeons sliced and moved and inserted, suturing and sealing and stitching Rosie open and closed again, her form better suited to her new purpose.
It took weeks for Rosie to recover properly. Mistress moved her out of the recovery ward and back Home to her room as quickly as she could – Rosie had to be handcuffed to the bed, as a precautionary measure to prevent another incident like what had happened with the doctor, but the restrains had made her more anxious and panicked until eventually the Orderlies had started keeping her sedated. She was removed from the ward quickly though and deposited back in her room to heal. The bed had been replaced, no longer two singles side-by-side, instead a single double bed sat in the centre of the room, Kaya’s blankets and pillows spreading out across the whole mattress. She’d spent a lot of time in there, after her surgery, and where once she’d found it hard to sleep with the mountain of fabric and stuffing around her, now she found herself sinking into deep, peaceful sleep in the folds of the bed. It helped that Kaya was with her. The situation was a reverse of when they had first met – now it was Kaya helping Rosie to shower and keeping her company while she was bedbound and weak from recovery, rather than the other way around.
She found she was eating more as well, and more rapidly. Not like Kaya had eaten those first few weeks, as if she had been starved (though she had been), but still hungrily and quickly. Three times a day, food would be delivered through the slot at the base of the door, although it was still kept locked.
It took Rosie six weeks before she was considered to have recovered, six weeks of rest and quiet love between her and Kaya, cuddling softly in the bedsheets for as long as each could muster. They couldn’t sleep together for the first three weeks – Rosie was still too weak and raw, and her new implants still needed time to heal, but once the redness had died down and they no longer stung when touched, the two fucked almost nightly, rutting in the low lights as they shifted to their evening hue. It was nice, living together like that. But once she had recovered, Mistress had told her that they were to be deployed, properly, to guard the swamps on the eastern flank against an Andriosi advance.
The two had been separated in the hanger, Kaya being led off to her Mudskipper, and Rosie to her Royal Oak. When she had arrived though, it was clear that the mech had been modified. Larger ammunition reserves and missile banks, heavier generators for longer deployments, and a much more powerful sensor bank, designed to maintain good coverage for a long time over a wide area, as well as the enhanced comms array she had used in the sims with Kaya. There was also a proper melee weapon held at its hip, a mace, its flanged head built to crush and rupture armour plates in close combat.
But those weren’t the biggest changes. The biggest changes were in the cockpit. The pilot’s seat was gone, replaced with a hanging harness anchored to the walls of the cockpit. Most of the monitors remained, but she could see they were only in case of a technical failure, because a large visor system was hanging where her head would be, surrounded by a sea of cables and wires and interfaces to link her to her machine in true symbiosis. She was coaxed into the mass of wires and tubes by her Mistress, who was cooing encouragement and praise as she did so, and once inside she was buckled into the harness, and ordered to remain still while the IV lines, injector cables, and monitor cables were plugged into her filter bank, attached to her arms and neck and chest. The techs catheterised her, pulled the visor down, and finally, attached the neural link to its ports at the nape of her neck.
The feeling of linking to Royal Oak was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Two bodies, both controlled by her – a fleshy, organic form cradled in a nest of wires, buried within the iron coffin of her cockpit, and a second, stronger, iron body, with pistons and actuators for muscles and sensors for eyes, with three arms to control its autocannon and saws in its left arm. The flow of information was almost overwhelming, but she could pull through. She certainly could when Mistress voice flowed over the comms link and, in honeyed tones said, to both of them, “Kaya, Rosie, Alert for guard duty.”
Rosie could feel her mind fraying as she sank away, into velvet oblivion as something thick and cool pumped into her filter bank and then into her bloodstream. Sank as the thing born in the cold and the pain of the chair wound up through her mind and took command, no longer seething with rage or shrieking bloody murder. Instead it was calm and obedient, made useful and proper by Mistress hard work.
When Her command told them to, the two hounds loped out of the hanger bay obediently, making east for the swamps of the Cos. They weren’t going to be coming back for quite some time, now they were on guard duty.
I just realised that due to my laissez-faire approach to character description this is also the reveal that Rosie is (in my head) blonde, and that Kaya had mousy hair and a fringe this whole time.
The new muzzle was snug against her face. Handler had tightened the straps so that it wouldn’t fall down, tight enough for her to feel them at the back of her head, and the cool metal was pressed against the bridge of Rosie’s nose and the underside of her jaw. It was… comforting, in a way. A reminder of Handlers kindness, which had pulled her out of the hell of conditioning. She was following Handler now, down the winding tunnels of the Kennels, under the low lights. She had ordered Rosie to follow Her, after another bath and a change of clothes to get the doctors blood off her.
They carried on waling for a while, Rosie following along obediently behind the black-coated woman, until She stopped at a familiar steel door and stood back, gesturing for Rosie to enter. She herself hung back, her eyes gleaming in anticipation under the ceiling lights.
When Rosie swung the door open, she recognised their room – the layout, the furniture, Kaya’s plants – but the place was a ruin. The bedcovers had been shredded and cast about, the chairs and table overturned. Many of Kaya’s plants looked to be worse for wear, their leaves wilted from neglect. And in the middle of it all, curled on the bed amidst the fruits of her rage was Kaya, her hair unwashed and her face streaked with tears, still crying even now.
The sight was enough to break Rosie’s heart.
I failed her. I promised that night, to stay with her and I’ve failed. I’ve failed. She was alone. I didn’t even get to tell her why I left.
She could feel her throat constricting, her chest tightening, as tears welled up from within her. Kaya’s eyes raised up to the opened door, widening with recognition as she saw through the tears. Her gaze lingered on Rosie’s muzzle.
When they collided in the middle of the room and wrapped their arms around one another, neither could speak properly. Only wracked, choking sobs escaped their throats as they slowly spun, the room and its furnishings falling away until the whole world was contained in their embrace.
“You…” Kaya sobbed, “You left me behind.”
No…
She chocked out, between her tears, “Kaya, no, I… I wanted to keep you safe. It was the only way to keep you safe.”
“You left me without saying anything. You left me. You promised.”
Rosie let out a great painful cry as she wept into her girlfriends jumpsuit.
Kaya held her closer, pulling her deeper into her arms as if she wanted to hold Rosie there forever. Her voice was very small when she said “Please. Don’t leave me behind again.”
Some small part of Rosie detected the wrongness when she buried her muzzle in kaya’s neck rather than her face, but it was drowned out by the tightness in her chest which intensified further as Kaya’s pained words washed over her.
“I won’t. I won’t let us be apart again.” She managed. “I won’t let you be out there on your own. Never again.”
They stayed pressing into each other like that for a long time, as their painful promises to one another broke down into murmured I love yous and broken I’m sorrys, each one pouring their emotions out into the other and taking in the feel and smell and sight of their closeness now they were reunited.
Once she judged that they had had enough time to themselves, Fox pushed herself up from where she’d been leaning against the wall and gently broke them apart before ordering both of them to follow her. The room needed to be refitted, she said, and until it was ready they’d be given a new room to stay in.
It was plain, the interim room, simple, with two beds and a shower like their old one but none of the personal features that had made it feel like home. Once they’d all entered, Handler ordered them to turn, and then, in a commanding tone, had sealed Rosie’s fate truly.
She pointed down and said, to both of them, but mostly to Rosie.
“Sit.”
Rosie felt her legs buckle as the command filled her mind, dropping her to her knees as she collapsed to the floor beneath the weight of Handlers order. The last part of Rosie that was still free from Her choked then, it’s cry to disobey drowned out.
It is unthinkable that she disobey Handler.
Next to her, Kaya dropped down as well, and both gazed up at their Handler with baited breath. She smiled when she saw their eagerness in them, and, kneeling down, reached out and caressed each of their faces in turn, Kaya first, then Rosie, cupping their cheek with her hand and running her fingers through their hair in a facsimile of how one might pet a dog.
“Good girl, Good girl…” she stood back up, while the two were still awash in the praise she was showing on them, “You’ve both done very well for me, so I am giving you the time until your old kennel is ready again to be together. After that you will be deployed, once Rosie and her mech are ready.” She lowered her gaze at them and asked, “Do you understand?”
Rosie’s mind reaches out as she tries to form the words to answer, but when she tries to construct the sentence, when she tries to name her Handler, she cannot find Fox or Sir or even Handler on her lips. The word they form is Mistress. And when they both nod and murmur in confirmation, she smiles widely again, before dismissing them.
She locked the door behind her, but neither Kaya nor Rosie cared; after all Kaya was used to being locked in her room between deployments, fed through a slot in the door and only released for training or medical exams, and Rosie was too awash in her girlfriends presence to care.
Almost as soon as Fox has left, the two are up and coiling around one another, falling back onto their new shared bed and tapping the tips of their muzzles together in an approximation of the intimacy of kissing. Just like the first night they undress one another haphazardly, though this time not for nervousness but for three weeks apart, Rosie’s uniform falling away and Kaya’s jumpsuit slipping off as they roll and grapple for dominance. Rosie is weak from three weeks of torment still, but Kaya has lost weight again, from the stress of their separation. This time it is Rosie who lands on top, who finds herself riding her girlfriend, drawing breathy moans from her as she works her hips around the bigger girls cock. They’re both needly, and they come fast and powerfully, Rosie breaking off her motion as her breath is stolen by the orgasm that rips through her, and kaya curling backward as she comes as well. Now, Rosie has tired herself out, and her advantage in strength is gone, but Kaya is still gentle when she flips her onto her back and begins to fuck her, slow and gentle, their muzzles again clinking softly together as she moves.
By the time they are finished, Rosie has lost count of the number of times she’s come, and the room is warm and steamy from their exertions. Now that kaya has finally run out of energy she is lying sprawled across Rosie, panting quietly through the bars of her muzzle, one hand still caressing the smaller hounds hair gently. When she opens her eyes and gazes up at her face though, there is something sorrowful, something sad that emerges as she takes in the muzzle that now adorns Rosie’s face, like hers. Rosie doesn’t notice, of course. She is lost in the warm glow of sex still, smothered by Kaya’s heat and weight pressing down upon her. With the muzzle, Rosie can no longer shower Kaya with kisses, no longer show her her love like she once did.
They slept entwined that night, deep in each other’s embrace, exhausted from their exertions. This time though it was Rosie who was woken by nightmares – she dreamed of the lights and the pain and the fear of conditioning, and it was Kaya who had to comfort her back to sleep, wrapping her warmth around the smaller hound and letting the rhythmic beat of her heartbeat, slow and steady, lull the frightened thing back to sleep.
Read the CW list for the love of god. This a mechsplo conditioning sequence. Shit gets nasty towards the end.
——————————————
The paperwork had been completed fast. Three quick signatures – one to state she was clear of mind, one to state she gave her consent, and one to finalise the process – and Fox had thanked her again, before leading her to the Kennels medical wing – into a brightly lit examination room that stank of disinfectant. She’d left, to stop Administrations deployment order and file the paperwork to have Rosie transferred. Two weeks, she’d reminded her. Two weeks and you’ll be through.
“Don’t worry, Rosie,” she had said, “just remember who you’re doing this for and everything will be ok.”
Kaya. I’m doing this for Kaya.
The doctor who examined her was unmemorable. A grim-faced woman who had ploughed through the cursory physical examinations wordlessly and forged onward, only spoking to order Rosie to lift her sleeve. She was to be administered a vaccine battery – more thorough than the basic set that all pilots received. The doctor had gone through each injection quickly, before finishing with something delivered by a steel syringe, taken from a different case than the rest. She attached the needle, checked to remove any air bubbles, and quickly jabbed the tip into Rosie’s arm before depressing the plunger. The liquid within was cool and dense – denser than the other vaccines she’d been given, thickly mixing into her blood as it was carried to her heart, and then pushed out to the rest of her body. Cool and velvet in her body.
When the doctor ordered her to stand and follow her, the rush of blood to her head was enough to leave her ears ringing and her vision blurred. Her heartbeat was audible in her ears and she fet floaty, weightless. Following after the doctor she found it difficult to coordinate her movements.
What was in that syringe?
The doctor and two orderlies lead her deeper into the medical wing. Past doors and doors and doors until they reached one at the very end of its corridor. This door swung open to reveal a chair. Steel, like all the other furniture, though the other chairs weren’t fitted with cuffs around the legs and arms, nor with heavy leather straps to fix their occupants heads in place. And none of the other chairs had a headset hanging above them, attached to the ceiling by a metal arm wrapped thick with cables like a scorpions tail, its head dripping venom. Through her addled state, Rosie finally understood what she had done – the stories she’d feared on first reaching the kennels rushing back to her as she looked into the cold dark room with the chair at its centre.
She tried to run, and pleaded and begged and wailed and threatened when the Orderlies took her by the arms and dragged her into the centre of the room before strapping her down. Fixed by the wrists and ankles by the metal cuffs, with heavy straps holding her forearms and chest and head and neck. She fought all the way, even as each buckle snapped shut and each lock clicked closed, sealing her to her fate. She was still pleading and straining against her restraints when the headset was pulled down over her eyes and tightened in place, a pair of headphones quickly joining it.
No No NO NO NO STOP LET ME GO STOP LETMEGO STOP PLEASE STOP STOP STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP LET ME GO.
Something cold and sharp pierced her neck and more of the cool velvet liquid was administered into her bloodstream, but the concerns over her being drugged didn’t last for long. The headset had been turned on, and suddenly Rosie’s mind was assailed by light, and her cries and wails soon collapsed into whimpers as the brightness blazed through the pathways of her brain, softening, weakening. Conditioning.
The orderlies who released her restraints did so with no fear of an escape attempt. When the restraints supporting her head were released she couldn’t even muster the strength to lift her eyes and look at her tormentors. She was only dimly aware, as she surfaced from the sea of blinding whiteness she had been subjected to. Could feel the ringing between hear ears and the burning behind her eyes, and the firm hands of the Orderlies on her arms as they pulled her from the chair.
The orderlies dragged her through the hallways to one of the doors that lined the walls. The doors she’d seen with heavy bars and locks, that seemed built to be closed from the outside, not the inside. Once they’d thrown her in and slammed the door closed behind them, slammed the bolts and dropped the bar to seal her inside, she had, mercifully, passed out.
When she awoke she realised she was locked in a padded room.
It wasn’t lit – not well, at least. Some dim light leaked in through the cracks where the panels in the door were – an observation slat and a panel near the floor. A padded room. A cell.
She pulled her knees to her chest and cried.
…
The panel near the floor was used for feeding her. The Orderlies would push through a bowl of greyish paste that tasted of nothing twice a day – she thought at least, as well as a bowl of water. There wasn’t any cutlery provided. She was expected to eat and drink with her hands down here, it seemed. Once a day, between meals (as far as she could tell) the door was thrown open and she was taken to the room with the chair. She had resisted being strapped down, at first, but after three fruitless days of being dragged kicking and screaming from her cell to the chair she stopped bothering. Better to save her strength, down here. She needed to.
For Kaya. Two weeks. Stay strong for Kaya.
Her thoughts, after four days of conditioning were growing… sluggish. Her mind felt thick, her thoughts like treacle in her head and she was weak. The Orderlies barely needed to exert themselves to manhandle her into the chair. The drugs probably weren’t helping. Every session in the chair started and ended with a steel needle piercing her neck, delivering a large dose of some heavy, velvet substance she couldn’t even see through the headset. She thought the food was drugged as well, with something insidious that left her tired and miserable, though that might have been the mental strain of conditioning, she supposed.
Five days passed. Then six. Then seven. Fox made no appearance. The light continued to assault Rosie’s mind. She found quickly that closing her eyes didn’t help to stem the painful brightness. Whenever, wherever she tried to hide from the light, she soon found that her eyes had opened again, that the light had snuck through the cracks between her eyelids and forced them apart, no matter how tightly she tried to press them together.
For Kaya. Hold on. Hold on for her.
Eight days. Ten days. Twelve days. She thought she was doing well – her thoughts were still coherent enough to track the time, and she could still remember why she was here.
That surely had to count for something, right?
Fox still had not come.
Two more days. For Kaya. You’ve held out so long.
Thirteen days.
Tomorrow. I’ll be free Tomorrow. I have done it.
On the fourteenth day, when it has been two weeks, Fox does not come. She is dragged into the room for the lights to assault once again. She fights, fresh resistance burning through her veins, kicking, clawing, raging, but it is no use. The Orderlies are too strong, able to drag her in regardless of her resistance. She is restrained as normal. The headset is affixed as normal.
On the fifteenth day Fox arrives.
She is lying in her cell, still weak from the lights beaming their corruption through her eyes. She has not eaten. She is losing hope.
When the door opens, she thinks it is simply the orderlies here to drag her into the room again. To fix her to the chair again. But it is a woman, in a black leather greatcoat, wearing her auburn hair in a military bun with her leather cap resting atop her head. Her uniform is perfect. The light from the corridor frames her for a moment and she is filled with hatred for this woman who has left her here, betrayed her.
But then she speaks, and the gentleness of her voice and the tenderness of her words wash away her loathing.
“Oh, You’ve done so well, My girl.”
And she steps into the room before kneeling to lift her head from the padded floor, where it rests in a damp patch of tears. She is still too weak to move, but she speaks.
“You. Have come. To take me away?” she pleads.
The sadness in Handlers eyes is devastating. “No, my girl,” she says, “I’m still waiting for the papers to save you. You have done so well.”
No. I have done it. Two weeks. For Kaya.
“I. have done it. Two. Weeks.” Her voice is weak.
“Oh, my poor girl. I am so sorry.”
I have lasted two weeks.
“You have been here nine days.” Handler says and cradles her head to her chest as she sobs and sobs and sobs. She has only been here nine days?
“No. Fifteen. Fifteen times in the chair.” The words are hard. Her tounge is thick and numb in her mouth.
“You have done so well for me, my girl. So well. Hold on just a little longer.”
Kaya.
“Kaya.”
Handler looks so very sad for a second. “She misses you so much, darling. Hold on for her.”
Hold on for Kaya.
She passes out before Handler leaves.
When she wakes, she is held fast between two orderlies. They are dragging her to the room. Again.
Hold out for Kaya.
They pull her through the corridors, past rows and rows of doors all lining the walls. They pull her under the low lights until they reach the door. And when they pull it open there is the chair. But it is wrong. There are more restraints. More cuffs and straps and strange machines set up nearby, linked to tanks and pipes and other things.
No. This is wrong.
She pulls away, tries to muster the strength to fight. Tries to plead, even though she knows they will not care. The Orderlies drag her to the chair and begin to strap her down to it. They lock her wrists, ankles, forearms, chest, neck, head, like before, but there are other straps as well. Her legs are held to the chair by straps. Her upper arms are sealed in place. The cuffs are tighter. Her chest is restrained more tightly. And then they begin to attack the machines to her. They pull open her shirt and pull up her sleeves and they attach wires to her with adhesive pads – electrodes. They fit her with IVs and tubes through her nose that feed fluids of all colours into her bloodstream. There is something between her legs, pressing into her crotch. Finally, when she can barely move they pull down the headset and fix it in place, pulling a pair of headphones over her ears, and she can only whimper as they force open her mouth and fit her with a rubber bit that strains her jaw.
She is barely strong enough to struggle, and could not speak if she tried, but when the headset activates, she screams.
Pain.
This is the shape of the next week. The lights scour her mind, raking and tearing and burning her already damaged psyche. The electrodes torture her body. The thing between her legs buzzes and torments and does not push her over the edge.
Pain.
She screams through the gag, dimly aware of her jaw straining as she tries to bite through the thick rubber cylinder that fills her mouth. The restrains are a mercy, really, she would have bitten off her own tongue already if not for her inability to do anything but strain against the unforgiving steel and resolute leather.
Pain Pain Pain Pain Pain.
There is something in the light that burns her eyes. Something in the sound that assaults its ears. She cannot make out what it is though. The pain is too great. Every time it tries to reach out and pull back the veil that keeps the things in the light from her the electrodes spring to life and it screams.
Pain. Suffering. Help Me. Please. Help Me.
The pain does not end. It knows that it has been here for days because it has soiled itself. It can feel the bile rising in its throat as well but it is stopped by something because if it vomited it would choke on its own bile and that would not do. It is not allowed to die, yet.
Help me. I cannot endure this..
Help Me.
Sometimes, the IV lines deliver something to it, something thick and velvet and wonderful, that dulls its senses and allows it to fall into the light for a time. It is not so painful then. The buzzing lets it fall, over the edge it is so tenaciously kept at.
The pain returns soon though. Electic pain through the wires that are stuck along its arms and its chest, that decorate its breasts and torment its stomach. The leather that holds its neck delivers this pain as well. But only when it strains and fights against the leather and steel and light. It does not strain anymore, unless it is from the convulsions that wrack it when the lights are most intense.
Pain. Pleasure. Pain. Pleasure.
Its screams have changed. When this torture started, they were begging, pleading, screaming, but now they have changed. Now its screams are snarls and growls and whimpers. Feral sounds, like an injured animal.
Pain
It screams.
Pain
Light burns through its mind.
Pain
Electricity scourges its flesh.
Pain. Help Me.
Help Me.
HELP ME.
HELP ME.
When the lights shut off, it passes out.
.
..
…
When it wakes, it is in a padded cell again. The cell is cold and damp and dark, and even though the walls are streaked with grime and mildew, even though it stinks to high heaven, the thing in the cell prefers this. To the pain and light and relentless brightness that scoured its mind. From that brightness there is not one part of it that does not ache – not even its brain. It opens its eyes with a whimper. There are no burning lights here. It realises that the wetness it feels is partly because it is lying in a pool of its own bile. It is wearing something, as well. A shirt and jacket, both unbuttoned to bare its chest. A pair of trousers. A military uniform. Its clothes are filthy though - stained by two weeks of torture. Crusted with grime and dried fluids. They stink, stink of spit and sex and vomit and piss and sweat and worse things still.
It lies there, in the dark and the filth and it’s own stench, for a very long time.
…
Until the door to its cell is opened, and She steps into the room. Handler. She is a perfect thing in this filthy cell. It rises, pulling itself from the floor and dropping to its knees before Her, as one does before a Goddess.
Handler lowers herself to one knee and embraces the decrepit thing before her.
“Oh Rosie, I am here for you now, my girl. I am here to help you, finally.”
And something slots into place. Rosie. Rosie whimpers, too weak to reciprocate its Goddess’ embrace. Until She pulls back and commands the Orderlies behind her. “She needs a bath, and new clothes. And take her to a better room.” She. Her. When the Orderlies took her out of the cell, this time she didn’t resist them. They were being commanded by Handler, and Handler wanted to help her.
The Orderlies did as they were commanded. They washed her down, cleaning a week’s worth of filth from her skin, straining the crusted sick from her hair and banishing the stench of the cell from her body. They give her new clothes. Like her old ones, but these are freshly laundered, not stiff with sweat. And they take her to a new room, one with a bed, and proper furnishings, lights and heating. It is still a padded cell, but the damp and the cold are gone. Here she is warm and can sleep peacefully.
Handler visits her every day. She comes to help Rosie, like She did when She pulled it from the cell, like She did when She gave her clothes and food and warmth – she is fed properly now. Real food, not the grey slurry of the cell. Her food is brought by Handler, when she comes to help her recover. Handler helps her to remember what she has lost to the lights and the pain.
So much of Rosie’s mind is shrouded by fog. But even so she remembered the important things.
I volunteered for Kaya, to save her. She cannot be alone. She needs me.
And I need her.
Handler is kind. She helps Rosie remember – remember more than the basic stuff that she already does. She guides her out of the pit that the lights have created in her. She is doing well, she thinks.
But it all goes wrong.
The Orderlies came to take her somewhere. She didn’t resist – followed along obediently. They were doing Handlers work, after all, and Handler wanted to help her. They bring her to a sterile room that makes her heart beat fast, her breathing become shallow. She sits on the examination table. The smell of disinfectant is overpowering.
I have been here before
There is a doctor. Who says that she needs some vaccinations, to make sure she is healthy. This is normal.
This has happened before.
When the doctor takes out the needle, Rosie feels herself fall away. There is only feral fury, anger, burning inside her. White hit rage welling up and eating away what little self-control she has left.
I will not go back there. I have been here before. I will not go back.
She is back in the chair, with the lights. But this time, the thing born in pain is not restrained.
It lunges, pouncing on the doctor. The Orderlies are rushing to pull it back, but it is strong now. Strong from anger. But not strong enough. The Orderlies restrain its arms, pull it back from the doctor, stop its clawing and raking. It is fighting fighting fighting. As the doctor goes to stand it surges forward again, attacks with the only weapon left to it, and there is something hot and metal and liquid in its mouth.
After that the world goes dark.
.
..
…
It is back in its cell. The padded one. The cold, damp, dark one. The one that smells of sick and piss and suffering. It huddles in a corner and weeps, because it knows it will be taken back to the room. Back to the light and the pain and the suffering, where it cannot hide or fight. It has wrapped its arms about itself, tears streaming down its face. The uniform that She gave it is stained with blood. Blood still coats its mouth. There are tears cutting through it now, but the blood is too thickly smeared for them to make much headway.
It sits for a long time. Across from it it can still see the pool of dried vomit it was lying in when She pulled it from this hell, gave it the second chance it squandered.
It has failed Her. It could not hold out for Her. It has even failed Kaya.
But, after a long time weeping softly in the dark, the door opens, and She is there.
“Oh, Rosie, what have you done?” she asks, her voice filled with sorrow.
She chokes out, between sobs, “They. They want to take me back to the room with the chair,” – she shivers at the word – “They are going to put me back.” She raises her head, eyes streaming with tears. “Please?” the word meaning more than anything.
“Oh, Rosie,” She says, dropping to one knee and cradling her cheek with Her hand “You killed that doctor you know?” She sighed. “They want to put you back into conditioning, to reduce the likelihood of you attacking like that again.”
NO. NONONONONONONONONO.
Rosie was crying properly now, horror constricting her chest until her breath came short and fast. “Please. Please. I can’t.” she begged.
Please. Saviour. Goddess. Please.
Handler sighed, and stepped back, crouching in front of the sobbing girl.
“I have something that could help. The higher-ups want a guarantee that you won’t attack anyone else like that. And I have a compromise.” As She spoke, She reached into Her coat pocket and took something out. Placed it on the floor between them. metal. Steel. Straps.
A muzzle.
“If you wear this, you’ll be showing everyone that you won’t attack like that again. You can come with me. As long as you wear the muzzle.”
Some tiny part of Rosie fought. Tried to remember that she was not one of the dogs. But it was too small, now. Too weak. She reached out and took up the muzzle, pulling the straps behind her head.
Handler tightened the cage to her face, and when she left the cell, she couldn’t even remember that she’d once wanted to resist her conditioning. It was a gift from Handler after all, and Handler only wanted to help her.
Unusually, Rosie was woken in the morning by Kaya. She had shifted, rolling over to face her with a rumbling motion, and the disturbance shook her out of the rosy pinkish haze of sleep. She let out a grumble and adjusted her arms as Kaya wrapped an embrace around her waist, opening her eyes to see her girlfriends copperish eyes half-open above the cage of her muzzle. They shifted again, finding a comfortable position to hold one another in, pulling close amidst the swamp of covers and pillows that Kaya’s bed was home to before settling into a tangled embrace, Kaya’s head snug against Rosie’s chest.
In the low light, both still hazy from sleep they lie there for as long as they can, hearts beating together, slow and steady. Rosie runs her hands across Kaya’s arms, savouring the feel and sound and smell of her, as she rests.
When they have to leave the soft embrace of their shared bed to shower, they go together. When Kaya removes her muzzle, reverence in every motion, Rosie almost cannot contain her eagerness, but she waits until the warm water is running across both of them to reach up and cradle Kaya’s face so she can kiss her properly, without the hindrance of the muzzle’s steel cage between her lips and Kaya’s.
Once they have washed and dried themselves, they dress. Kaya no longer asks for Rosie to look away when she pulls on her pilots suit.
It’s a long moment when they part in the corridor to go their separate ways for the day. Murmuring ‘I love you’s to one another before they go their separate ways.
Today, Rosie was back in regular training. Running exercises with her squad, out in the field. While the live combat training she did with kaya had to be simulated, the manoeuvres and basic training that her squad did during exercises didn’t risk so much, and she could take the real Royal Oak out, though there wasn’t much of interest in basic training like this. Hayes barking orders over the open comms line, shouting at them to keep formation and maintain marching order. The two vanguards led, followed by Hayes, Jackson’s heavy support platform and another infantry mech, Rosie behind them, and Lya and Christie making up the rearguard of their formation. Standard infantry tactics.
Very boring. None of the pressure and excitement of the simulations she did with Kaya, where she needed to actually fight, where they were given freedom to organise and fight properly. Just marching and, occasionally, target shooting.
She sighed as they pulled up to another of the target ranges, Hayes shouting out for Rosie and Jackson to provide cover fire while the vanguards pushed up and destroyed the melee targets.
Only another hour and then she’d be back, out of this malaise and looking forward to another proper training session. She hoped Fox was making progress on Kaya’s recklessness.
They carried on, circling round the training course, dully picking off stationary targets. But eventually they were finished and circled to return to base. When Hayes set them at ease for the journey, Lya and Jackson opened up a commlink, and proceeded to needle her about the party. They hadn’t had the opportunity last week – Hayes had been too up-tight with Rosie coming back into training, but it seemed now they were back in rhythm, and they were permitted to talk on the way back again. Thankfully neither had heard what they’d actually said to one another, but it seemed enough for them that they’d been ‘dreamily gazing at one another’ and slow-dancing. Eventually, Christie had chimed in and asked if they were dating. At that, Rosie had blushed, but she tentatively confirmed. Lya hadn’t let her hear the end of it until they got back near the base and had to return to proper comms etiquette.
Dating.
Rosie could feel her heart flutter as she thought the word. She’d really said she was dating Kaya. She supposed it was probably the most appropriate term. She hoped it was, at least.
When Rosie climbed out of the cockpit, Fox was waiting for her outside. She was standing with her head down, and her arms crossed a short distance back from the gangway to Royal Oak’s top hatch. Rosie could feel her heart sink when she saw her, saw the way she held herself. It reminded her of the way that the Military Police had held themselves back in Merianpool, when they’d come up through the crowded apartment building Rosie’s family lived in to deliver their notices to the families of the deceased. Arms crossed, head down, voice quiet as they gave the news.
Oh no…
“Rosie, I… I’m so sorry.” She started, her tone sombre. Rosie’s heart fell.
Oh no no no…
“Administration came through this morning with new orders. Kaya is to be deployed. Tomorrow.”
Fox’s head was down, and she reached up to remove her cap. There were tears in her eyes. “I tried to tell them that she wasn’t in a fit state for redeployment but those bastards overruled me. They want a scout out there on the front lines and Kaya has an impeccable record. With Vars’ new advance they want the best.”
No. No. She isn’t ready
Rosie let out sob. The solo sims running through her mind. A fallen Mudskipper every time.
“She won’t make it,” she choked out between heaving breaths “she can’t make it alone out there!”
“I know.” Fox didn’t look at her.
Kaya is going to die
“You have to do something! You said you wouldn’t let her go!”
She was shouting now, her two figures slow-dancing in her minds eye. A fallen mudskipper.
“I tried. To tell them. I tried to make them understand what they were doing Rosie…”
“They overruled my authority. Went above my head. There was nothing I could do.”
Kaya is going to die alone out there
Two figures standing together in the shower, warm and safe and happy. A fallen mudskipper. Wilting plants under heatlamps. A promise in the dark.
Tears began to run down Rosie’s cheeks.
“There must be something you can do!”
Fox hesitated. “There…” she began, “No, I… I can’t ask that of you.”
Rosie looked up through her tears. “Tell me.”
Fox finally looked at her. She shook her head “I couldn’t do that to you.”
“TELL ME!” Rosie yelled. She could feel her squadmates gaze upon her – feel the attention of the hanger shift toward them as the mech techs and pilots turned to investigate the noise.
“If you were to… volunteer, I could delay Kaya’s deployment – I’d be too busy to oversee her deployment from the base so she wouldn’t be able to leave. I was applying to get you on my staff, but this just came out of nowhere – when I do that you could deploy with her, have your Royal oak fitted with a long-term cockpit, food supplies, direct comms.”
You can stop it
“I’ll do it.”
Fox sighed. “Staff positions take a long time to get approved by the higher ups – they aren’t a priority – it’d take two weeks to get everything approved and until then you’d have volunteered as a hound.”
“So?”
“You’d have to hold out in conditioning for two weeks.”
Kaya will die, but you can stop it
I can endure
For her
Even as her heart plunged at the thought of what Fox was saying she stayed resolute. “There’s no other way?”
Fox shook her head.
Anything
“I’ll do it.”
“No, Rosie, it’s too risky – I don’t want to put you through that!”
“I can hold out! I can do it! If I don’t…” Rosie broke off, feeling the words catch in her throat. “Kaya will die,” she begged.
Fox finally looked her in the eye.
“Alright. Come with me. We don’t have much time.”
As they walked to the elevator, Fox wrapped a comforting arm around Rosie’s shoulders.
“Thank you, Rosie. I really mean that.”
It was the first time since she had started speaking that she really meant the words coming out of her mouth.
