#houndhandler

Your hound hops nimbly down from the access stairs to its mech, bypassing the steps. You stride up to it, each strike of your foot against the steel consistent and explicit and a threat that it seems to have forgotten the gravity of. Its eyes lock on you as you approach, bringing its hands behind its back to stand at attention, and without a word you strike the upper side of its muzzle to jam the rigid steel into the bridge of its nose. "Down.". It makes a little whimper and collapses to the deck, still knowing enough to fall when told, but the sound it made was wrong. Not fear, not the right fear, not the atavistic dread that gives you an unshakable yoke to control its every action and emotion.

It sounded anticipatory. The damn thing expected this after its disobedience, and it was looking forward to it. It confirms your suspicion, that its deviation from orders was not an unconscious failing of the extensive conditioning you've performed on it, but rather that it was a deliberate action taken to get punishment from you, like it could ever request something from you, like it thinks it can make you do a god damn thing. "Up." It climbs up off the steel floor and starts to tuck its legs under itself to present to you, but you knee it in the muzzle again and it slams back and down again, nose dripping blood. "Up."

It should be moving slower, cowed and scared, but its motions retain their energy, and it's wrong. All fucking wrong. It reaches the proper position, both calves tucked under its thighs, hands holding each other behind it, staring up at you, and… right into your eyes. This god damn thing has broken. Yards behind you, your commanding officer and her hound stand watching beyond the railing of the ten yards of walkway approaching the Executioner mech's open cockpit, and her hound can immediately see the problem. It starts to growl, and the pack mentality should be making your mutt shy, but this thing is so fucking miswired that its mouth opens in a slight pant while it stares right into your eyes like it should know it's forbidden to.

"State your name."

"This hound has no name."

That's one thing it got right. Maybe its last.

"State your designation."

"This unit's designation is ES-Zero-Zero-Three."

"State your purpose."

"To go to war and destroy the foes of the Cecilian Consortium."

"State your value."

"This hound's value is in how many of its enemies lie broken at its feet."

Hair prickles up on the back of your neck at the final test. "State its mistake."

"It became too excited to see Handler and left its final target to die on its own without confirming the kill."

That's it. It's lost its fear. Your handgun slides smoothly out of your holster, and you can watch a sick kind of sexual adoration in your hound's eyes for the metal. The slide pulls back with a metallic sound like ceramic across an executioner's axe, and you can see the sweat bead on the hound's skin. Its eyes are locked on the weapon and not on the floor where they should be, and when the barrel is pressed to its temple, those blue eyes find their way up to yours. The pupils are dilated, clearly aroused by the threat, but then they shrink to pinpoints when it sees the look on your face, one that a good, subservient hound would have never been able to look you in the eyes to seem, a look that a good hound would never had as a warning. Its proper fear returns in one massive ice-cold wave, but it's too late.

There are no second chances for a hound under your command.

Recoil.

Its body is left to drain copper blood and cool on the deck as a warning and a reinforcement for those other beasts in the unit that witnessed its disobedience.

Massive clamps lock around the sparking chassis of your Hound's bulbous mech, the struts barely able to support its weight at the awkward angle created by its failing double-jointed leg. A lone technician in dirty overalls immediately rushes past you with a high powered plasma torch to burn away the destroyed latches on the exit hatch. A medical officer in a scuffed blue jumpsuit waits behind them, stepping forward the moment the latch is removed, but over the sharp clicking of your boots on the deck you call out "Don't. Don't touch her."

You reach the hatch and brace to crank it open yourself, and your Hound immediately lurches past you and collapses to her knees on the deck, bone crunching against the hard steel, blood spattering out of her mouth, hands smearing red prints onto the grey steel. You circle around to her front, and at the sound of your boots she immediately huffs and growls as she forces one leg up, bracing her hands on it to push her torso up, and her left eye focuses like a laser as soon as she can see you, though the right lags as it attempts to keep up. She grunts again and manages to stand all the way onto weak legs, one arm shakily attempting to reach a salute, failing and hovering halfway beside her face.

"Cynthia." At the word she attempts to complete the salute, bringing her hand down, but something cracks sickeningly in her shoulder and she stumbles, almost falling, but she recovers and grits her teeth through pain as she tucks both arms behind her as far as they can go, pushing her chest out with as much pride as her fracturing body can manage. "Did we-"

Her face goes pale halfway through her sentence and she starts to waver, in danger of collapsing again. "Down." Visible relief pours down her face and she starts to crouch down and neatly tuck her legs under her to sit on her calves, but you can hear cartilage snap and see pain shoot across her face like lightning, and you dart forward to catch her before she collides with the deck. At your contact the air expels itself out of her lungs in one big burst, and for a moment you worry that the damage is so severe that she won't get even these final moments. "Breathe."

Her pupils are dinner plates at this much physical touch and intimacy, but she calms herself and breathes. Her mouth and nose are wet with blood, and through the ocean of admiration in her eyes you can see fear. Her right eye is starting to dilate of its own accord, and you can see her start to sense her brain starting to fail her alongside her body. You sit the two of you down on the deck, making sure to angle her on your thighs to avoid more pain. Warning klaxons kick on in the distance and you can feel her tense up in your arms, but you snap a gloved finger twice beside your head, and her attention locks back on you with the rigidity of an electromagnet. Her gaze does not move as the technicians starts to sprint toward the exit and the medical officer rushes over to you to frantically insist "Ma'am, you should evacuate! Ma'am! Major Fare-"

"Dismissed!"

You look away from your subordinate and back down at your Hound, clumsily pulling off a gloves to place your hand on her cheek, granting her rare skin-on-skin contact. You can see her start to salivate through her cracked lips and lean into the contact, and you softly caress her face. She closes her green eyes for a moment, and you let her have that moment amid sirens and spinning red lights as nearby hangar doors start to slam shut in a cacophony of iron that your Hound in your arms is dutifully ignoring to focus entirely on you.

The blood running out of a jagged cut on her wrist is starting to slow. Her eyes open when you command "Up." It's clearly a massive strain for her, but she raises her body, and you're able to untuck your right leg and prop it up, very quietly pulling the handgun out of your thigh holster. "Down." She lies back against your leg, providing her face a luxurious proximity to your face while simultaneously creating the proper angle to gently place the steel tip an inch from the back of her head. She returns to the question she attempted before her collapse, managing to get it out this time. "Did we succeed? Did the second wave finish the mission after I extracted?" A distant explosion echoes through the base, and from her lack of response to it and the way her eyes are starting to stare right through your head at something a million kilometers away, you can tell that she's slipping.

Nearly gone.

"Yes." A lie, a small mercy after a decade of control and manipulation and force. There was no second wave. You ordered her to return on her own, the datapad displaying her vitals flashing with nearly as much red as the screen beside it showing the crimson tide of Resistance mechs pouring down the mountainside, a mere two hours away from reaching the Consortium command outpost.

"Did I, do well?"

"Yes, you were a very good Hound tonight." After so many commands, so much indoctrination and appearance of perfect control and affected deification, you let a little compassion into your voice, and you can see it instantly draw tears from her eyes. The liquid trailing from her right eye stains her face red. Time to debrief.

Your voice returns to the crisp dictation she's learned to expect. "State your name."

"Cynthia."

"That's right." Her cheeks flush slightly. You continue.

"State your designation."

"My designation is ZX-Six-Six-Alpha." She nearly coughs out the last word.

You nod. "State your purpose."

She's starting to wheeze in between words. "To-go to war-and destroy-the foes of the-Cecilian Consortium."

"That's correct. State your value."

She takes one massive breath and recites her most poignant indoctrination. "My only value is in how many of your enemies I crush and maim under your command."

"No."

Fear blossoms across her face, but before she can panic, you correct her with an words she's never heard before. One that no one under your command or even in the entire Consortium has ever heard from you or any other commanding officer. "Your value is in being a good Hound for your Handler. And you've been a very good Hound for me."

New tears blossom in her eyes, and you can see love and fulfillment wash over her features.

You'll grant her one last grace. "Your last name."

"Hounds have no last name." A recitation of an old tenet, but she holds a mote of curiosity in her failing voice.

"You do. Farenheit."

"Cynthia Farenheit."

Recoil.

Another explosion rocks the hangar, and the massive bulk of Cynthia's mech collapses down out of its berth, crushing a transport vehicle beside it a story below you. You don't flinch.

You don't flinch as rocks start to crash down from the ceiling from the artillery bombardment.

You sit with your most loyal Hound. The one whose wounds overcame her at the battle's most pivotal moment. Whose mech became too damaged to fight even as she tried to force it past its limits. Whose failure cost the Coalition the war.

Who cost you your life.

There are no second chances for a Hound in your command. She failed you. She lost.

She lies limp in your arms. A Hound. An animal. A weapon. A tool. A designation.

A single name granted to her as a slice of personhood.

Given another in her final moment.

A family name.