Outside of Kione’s quarters, there are dogs.

She knows this because she can hear them—running, scraping, barking, howling, snapping, screaming. They race through the confines of Leukon Base day and night. Mostly when Kione has just woken or when she’s lying down to sleep, but not just then. At all hours of the day. It’s unbearable. How’s she meant to sleep with the constant racket? It’s kept her from proper rest for days on end, ever since Kione returned exhausted from that doomed rescue mission. Her exhaustion has only grown since; every bout of nightmare-filled sleep is ended prematurely by the awful sound of sharp claws scraping on the door to her quarters.

Kione hasn’t seen the dogs. They’re always gone by the time she hauls herself over to the doorway, no matter how fast she hurries. Maybe it’s just a few of them sprinting by, even though it sounds like a huge, endless pack. That would make sense; there can’t be that many dogs on the base. None at all, if Amynta Tet is to be believed.

Kione doesn’t believe her.

She ran into radio girl yesterday, on her way to slip in and out of the canteen for food. A dismal meeting. As predicted, Amynta apologized to her for the harsh words they had exchanged in the hangar. It wasn’t Kione’s fault, she said. Kione had just been doing her best. It was nobody’s fault but the Empire. Amynta had simply been struggling with her grief.

Well, all true. The problem is that Amynta herself doesn’t believe it.

She’s hardened her heart against Kione. She can tell. Happens a lot to mercenaries. A wall has come down between them and even though Amynta will make nice, her words don’t come from the heart. Kione sensed no affection from her. Whatever little spark there had been between them was snuffed out on a snowy mountainside. It’s a shame. Kione genuinely liked Amynta. But the young rebel is too judgmental, clearly. It’s not fair. Kione shed her own tears over Vola, privately, in Sartha’s arms. Whatever Amynta and the others think of her, she’s not a monster. She’s not a monster. She’s not a monster. She’s not a monster.

She is not a monster.

Amynta seems to think she’s crazy too—or maybe she’s just pretending. She certainly seemed concerned, when Kione asked her about the dogs. It’s funny; more than ever, Kione is sure of her sanity. Crazy is in the past. Crazy was when she still suffered from gold fever, and the delusion of Sartha Thrace’s humanity. No longer. Mercilessly, Kione has extinguished each and every misconceived idea within herself. More than ever, she sees the world as it really is.

That’s why she didn’t believe Amynta about the dogs. Only, she checked later and there really aren’t supposed to be any dogs on the base. Which leads Kione to another theory: perhaps it’s the rebels themselves. Perhaps it’s their version of a cruel joke, making those noises outside her quarters to wake her up and remind her of her supposed misdeeds fighting against the Imperial handler’s dog-mechs. Perhaps Amynta’s in on it. That would make sense. Kione will catch them in the act, sooner or later.

For now, though, it just seems safer to stay shut up in her quarters as much as possible. Not that Kione is scared of the rebels. She just doesn’t want to be out there with the dogs. She can stay in bed with Sartha instead. Sartha believes her about the dogs, even if she hasn’t heard them for herself.

Sartha always believes her.

Sartha is a dog too, but that’s different. She’s a splendid, obedient hound. Sartha knows her place perfectly, and that’s a wonderful thing. A blessing. More people should be so lucky. If everybody was like Sartha, the world would be a better and brighter place.

Kione laughs. It’s funny how she never stopped believing that, even as it began to take on a very different meaning.

Then, Kione glances over the room to the IV bag of sinister, iridescent green fluid that she has placed carefully on an empty shelf. All she knows is that it’s Sartha’s medicine—and that it was used on the poor, mind-broken wretches wired into those dog-mechs. Some kind of neuroablative agent, designed to soften the self so that it can better be molded beneath the handler’s perfect hands.

Which means Kione can use it too, on Sartha. To fix Sartha. Medicine, to cure what ails her. Despite mountains and dogs, Kione has not forgotten her one and only purpose: to reach into Sartha’s head and rip the handler out of it. To tear her face and her voice from Sartha’s memories. To make Sartha hate her, and love Kione instead with all her ruined heart—just as it was always meant to be.

And today is the day.

Right on cue, there’s a knock at the door. Kione knows the knock well; it’s Sartha. As always, when Kione answers the door she’s standing there wearing a look that straddles surreptitious shame and barely contained excitement. She reminds Kione of a woman sneaking away from her betrothed for a sordid tryst.

“Hey, Sartha.” In her presence, all hesitance and uncertainty is gone. Kione becomes more focused. More determined. A wolf among dogs.

“Hey, Kione.” With Kione, and Kione alone, Sartha is eager. Sheepish, but excitable. With every nervous smile and delicious shiver, she bares her neck and invites Kione to take what she will.

“Come on in,” Kione beckons, grinning. As Sartha steps inside, Kione spares a moment to peer past her. No dogs at the moment. That’s a relief.

With the door shut, they are safe. Kione wastes no time with niceties. It’s not like Sartha needs them. “Muzzle,” she instructs.

“Yes, Kione.”

At once, Sartha fishes it out and hands it over. She needs her usual fix so very badly.

“Lose the rest,” Kione instructs, after carefully, lovingly fixing the muzzle to Sartha’s face. The act has become second nature. Her face slides into an ugly, lop-sided smirk as Sartha strips off all her remaining clothes. Whoever thought it’d ever be so easy to get Sartha Thrace naked?

And whoever thought it’d ever become so natural? By now, Kione has seen this so many times it barely registers as remarkable. Sartha really does look breathtaking, though. Every bit as heroic and handsome in real life as she is on the posters, especially now that the bruises Kione left on her are healing.

Maybe Kione should give her some new ones. That’s what she sees, when she looks at Sartha now: a blank canvas. The chalk outline of a hero, waiting to be filled in. A pretty shape—but above all, empty. Sartha can be painted in any color. A hero, a villain. A person, a hound. The purple of a bruise, the red of a razor line. Anything.

No wonder Kione doesn’t want to fuck her anymore.

Certainly, she still finds Sartha attractive—but that’s not quite the same thing. Kione has always loved, above all, the delicate push-pull of the chase. The frisson of negotiation that persists even during sex; wills and bodies pressing, colliding, heaving against each other, competing for position and gratification. That was always the best part of fucking Sartha—trying to make-believe that Sartha wouldn’t always end up on top.

That’s gone. For a little while simply possessing Sartha was enough to drive Kione crazy, but the novelty has worn off. There’s no resistance when Kione pushes against her, and so, inevitably, incredibly, using Sartha to satisfy her lusts has become rote. Boring. Not Sartha herself; Kione is simply discovering she likes her better as a pet than a partner. And that, Kione doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of. Plus…

Authority is as essential to her as degradation. Beasts fuck other beasts. Their master provides something altogether different.

Kione points at Sartha to catch her attention, then curls her finger to beckon her forward, then points straight down. “Sit,” she instructs—then giggles, when Sartha attempts to perch on the edge of her bed. “No, not there. No pets on the furniture.”

Sartha turns deep red as she sinks to her knees on the floor instead. Her gratitude at each little morsel of dehumanization is such a rush. That’s another thing Kione will never get tired of: seeing how deeply she needs to not be a person.

Kione turns and grabs something out of her footlocker: a medical syringe. The last time she took Sartha out for walkies, she made her go fetch it from the infirmary for her. The obedient little hound didn’t even ask why. Now she learns, as she watches Kione fix a sterile needle to the syringe and then plunge it into the valve on the IV bag she took. As she retracts the plunger, the syringe fills with the unnatural, roiling, green liquid.

“You know what this is, don’t you?”

Sartha nods. Her green eyes are wide. Rapt. Her expression could be mistaken for fear, but Kione knows better.

“It’s your medicine. Isn’t it?”

Sartha nods. She’s not afraid. She’s desperate. Kione has no way of knowing exactly what the substance in her syringe is. But if she’s right about what it does, it’s potent enough to render the victim a pliant, helpless participant in their own unmaking. To obliterate the very self. And that, more than any singular drug, is Sartha Thrace’s addiction.

“ And you need your medicine, don’t you?” Kione asks softly, menacingly.

“Yes, Kione,” comes the wet drool from Sartha’s lips.

It’s funny, really—the idea that what’s wrong with Sartha could ever be cured. Kione remembers when she used to believe that. Gods, she was so naive then.

“Don’t worry,” Kione tells her. “I’ll fix you, Sartha. I’ll save you.”

I’ll save you from her.

Bit by bit, she’s learning how. Her technique may be unrefined, but hasn’t Kione already proven herself a savant? She knows what makes Sartha tick, and she knows how to mess with the clockwork. She’s gleaned more than a little, too, from the little secrets that Sartha’s handler has, in her arrogance, let slip. Kione spends hours pouring over each pearl of poisoned wisdom, turning it over, wondering how best she can exploit it. The handler thinks she can bait Kione with these things, taunting her with knowledge and tools she isn’t prepared to make use of. Too bad, Imperial bitch. You don’t know what Kione Monax is made of. She’ll do whatever it takes.

Kione has a plan. One thought through meticulously. She’s spent her nights concocting what she’ll do and what she’ll say, and her days rehearsing the words as she paces around her quarters, trying to ignore the dogs outside. It’ll be perfect. She knows it.

“Head to one side,” Kione instructs, as she advances on Sartha with the needle. She remembers where the IV was connected to the dog-mech pilot. She’s given herself a dozen shots in the same place. Gotta know how to patch yourself up, when you’re a merc. Nobody’s gonna do it for you. “Keep your eyes open. I want to see it happen.”

Sartha doesn’t move a muscle as she readies for the shot, neck exposed, but her muzzled face registers endless obedience. Kione is already tripping on the power she feels when the moment comes crashing to a halt with one simple, stupid realization.

The dose. Kione doesn’t know the dose.

“How…” Kione asks, reluctantly. “How much does she usually give you?”

“I’m not sure,” Sartha whimpers, with equal reluctance. She’d much rather be of use.

“Fuck.” Kione turns her back and starts pacing.

Too little, it won’t work. Too much, and… fuck. How much was that dog-mech pilot being dosed with? Too much, probably, but clearly not enough to kill. She was wired up with a full bag, but who knows how quickly or slowly it was drip-feeding the drug into her veins?

Kione could ask the handler, of course.

No. No, fuck that. Kione isn’t going to give that bitch another chance to mess with her head. She isn’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing Kione come crawling and begging for help. What does that leave? Asking some rebel doc? Like they’d know. Like they wouldn’t try to mess with her, especially if they knew why she was asking. Kione finds herself breathing fast and pacing furiously. This is no good. She needs to pass this test. If only she had a test subject. It’s all she needs, really. A warm body that, unlike Sartha’s, isn’t irreplaceable.

Oh.

It’s a stupid idea, Kione thinks to herself as she raises the needle to her own neck. Sartha thinks so too; that much is plain from the look on her face as she watches Kione. Doesn’t say a word, though. Good as gold, when she’s muzzled and kneeling. Briefly, Kione wonders if she should heed Sartha’s concern. Maybe wait for another day. Maybe see if a wiser course comes to her.

No, it has to be now. It has to be this moment. Kione senses it, just as she does when she takes Theaboros to the skies. She’s taken insane risks in her mech and lived because her gut is sharp, and she knows when to let it guide her. This is no different. Kione feels the hand of destiny on her shoulder, wearing a black, leather glove. A crazed instinct demands she press onward. If she backs down now, she is nothing and no-one. And that’s one thing Kione will never, ever submit to.

She presses the needle into her jugular vein and depresses the plunger. Not all the way. Just a little, for what she hopes is a small dose. Not enough to ruin her. Just enough that she’ll feel something—and know what to give Sartha.

Moments later and, oh, she’s certainly feeling it.

But it’s nothing Kione can’t handle. Room spinning? Perspective distorting? Please. This isn’t her first rodeo. Hells, this isn’t even her first rodeo with Sartha. She’s piloted mechs in worse states. Kione grins, her momentary anxiety banished like it was never there. Kione is soaring now. The world is hers. She can do anything.

Best not to waste the moment. Unsteadily, Kione refills the syringe. Clearly, the dose she gave herself was little more than a taster. It’ll take more than that to get what she wants—especially with Sartha, who’s built up gods know how much tolerance. She can handle a full vial, at least. Kione doesn’t know how she knows that, but she does. Her instincts don’t lie.

She can do anything.

Whatever concern was in Sartha’s face vanishes the moment the needle kisses her skin. She craves this too badly to care about anyone or anything else. Poor, pathetic Sartha; no oblivion is too deep. Kione is, as always, here to provide. She does fuck up the injection a bit though. Her hands are shaking. She draws blood here and there haphazardly, but eventually she finds the vein—and buries the plunger to the hilt as quickly as she dares.

Sartha’s eyes dilate impossibly as her soul yawns open. She welcomes the drug into her body like a lover. No hint of reluctance or resistance. Sartha relaxes into the high, evidently conditioned to accept it as her natural state. As Kione commanded, she keeps her eyes open, letting the mercenary savor the fall. Savor the way something at once foggy and starry settles over her eyes—a sheen, a layer of unreality, thick and impenetrable. This goes beyond Off The Leash. Sartha is even stupider than a dog now as her eyes wander, chasing stars only she can see, enthralled by even the slightest movement of Kione’s hand.

“You can still hear me,” Kione breathes. “Right?”

“Yes.”

Sartha’s voice is emptier than ever, and the music of her emptiness sends a shiver down Kione’s spine. She can’t look away from those eyes—from those wide, blank, starry eyes.

“How do you feel?”

The answer is worse than empty. Sartha infuses one word with all her breath, and a ragged, bliss-filled awe the likes of which Kione has never heard, even from her. The depth of her addiction is chilling.

“Wonderful.”

“Good.” Kione nods. Even that one word is music, and Kione feels it strike a harmony within her. Wonderful. Yes. She feels wonderful too. She can do anything.

She can make Sartha hers.

“I want you to repeat everything I tell you,” Kione begins. Just as planned. She can do anything. “Understand?”

“Yes, Kione.”

There’s that music again. Kione could listen to it forever. She could do anything, which means she could listen to it forever. She giggles a little as it washes over her, giddy even though she loses her place for a moment.

“Uh…” It’s weird; Kione had it so clear a moment ago. Doesn’t matter. She can do anything. “You…” She finds the thread. “I own you, Sartha.”

“You own me.”

The echo is instant. Unhesitant. Not without meaning, though. She speaks the words with all the ardor of a bride on her wedding day. It’s not that she doesn’t understand what she’s giving to Kione. It’s simply that her normal, human desire to own herself has been completely snuffed out. Kione giggles maniacally. She perches down on the edge of her bed so she can kick her feet. Better that way, anyway. She was starting to get dizzy.

“Say it again!”

“You own me.”

Instant. Sincere. Once more, Kione giggles.

“Again! Again!”

“You own me.”

Kione slaps her bed as she laughs. It’s so good to hear that—from her, from Sartha fucking Thrace. All she ever wanted, and it was this easy to take. All it took was a little syringe of green liquid.

“I’ll always own you,” Kione presses.

“You’ll always own me.” An oath. An offering.

“I own everything about you.” Kione can’t stop laughing. Howling like a hyena, loud enough to drown out the dogs outside.

“You own everything about me.”

“I own Sartha. I own the hound.”

“You own Sartha. You own the hound.”

“Yes,” Kione hisses. “Yes! You obey me.”

“I obey you.”

“Only me!”

“Only you.”

“Not…” Kione licks her lips. She’s reluctant to taint the ritual with any mention of the other woman—but it must be done. “Not her.”

“Not…” Sartha begins—but the word catches in her throat. Her head tips back. Her eyes widen, and even Kione can see the stars in them. When she speaks, it’s not an echo. It’s a prayer. “A-ah! Her!”

“No!” Kione snaps.

This isn’t right. She can do anything, so this isn’t right. Kione leaps to her feet. Starts pacing again.

“You obey me! Not her!”

“I obey you. Not her.”

“I am your handler!”

“You are my handler.”

It’s just not right. Not anymore. That one moment of misplaced worship given to the woman Kione hates more than anyone else in the world, and the music is spoiled. Out of key. There’s a note of insincerity that Kione hears—or thinks she hears—in Sartha’s voice. Like she’s only saying it to please her.

Fuck.

Calm down, Kione. You can do anything. Think. Think!

When it comes to her, the smirk is returns, lazier and uglier than ever. It’s simple. Kione just needs to dig a little deeper, to rip out all the poisoned seeds that have been buried in Sartha’s head. It was never going to be easy. She shouldn’t have expected it to be easy. But Kione can do anything. So it can be done—and she just has to make use of another one of that handler’s tricks. Stupid woman. It’s like she didn’t realize she was giving Kione every tool she’d need to beat her at her own game.

Sartha has been conditioned to crave sexual gratification and objectification.

“Up,” Kione orders. “On your knees.”

Sartha moves like she’s swimming through tar, but once the command makes its way into her drugfucked skull, there’s no hint of hesitancy. She raises herself upright on her knees, starry-eyed and expectant. Kione goes rooting around in her footlocker, and fishes out her prized trophy: Sartha’s strap-on dildo. Kione spits into the suction cup at the base, then bends down unsteadily to stick it to the floor between Sartha’s legs.

“Down.”

Sartha is so out of it that even though she just watched Kione put it there, it seems to come as a surprise to her that lowering herself back down means filling herself with the dildo. The way she shivers and shakes once the toy reaches full depth is gorgeous. Drugged as she is, the penetration is overwhelming. Overstimulating. Kione will not let that go to waste.

“I am your handler,” Kione impresses on her. “Say. It.”

“Youareee,” Sartha gurgles. “Myy… handler.”

“Good!” Kione giggles. This is better. This is power. The humiliation makes it real again. She can do anything. “Now say it again.” She leans down, putting her face close to Sartha’s muzzle so she can see how very lost her eyes look. “But bounce.”

It takes a gargantuan effort. Not physically—Sartha’s in as fine a shape as ever—but mentally. The pleasure she’s getting from her strap-on makes her weak at the knees. Her usual barriers are gone, swept away by the sinister drug. Sartha howls as she fights her way upward.

“You… are… my… handler,” Sartha grunts, between moans. Kione laughs. A sheen of sweat already covers Sartha’s entire body. She can barely hold herself upright. Her pupils are dilated unhealthily, and her wetness splatters against the floor beneath her as her body heaves with exertion. After a long moment, Sartha’s legs give way and she slumps back down again, once more impaling herself to full depth. Her stupefied, wailing moan is downright operatic.

Ah, Sartha! Just when it seems like she can’t get any more beautiful. Who would ever recognize her now, if they’d only seen her on the recruitment posters?

“Good girl,” Kione cackles. “Again.”

And again. And again. Kione runs her through each of the promises she’s already given, and many more besides. Each one a reckless, heedless, mindless pledge of fealty. Each one, punctuated by the wet sound of Sartha’s cunt tightening around the silicone shaft as it enters her, or the high, warbling, pathetic moan she makes when the sensation ruins her composure. The ritual drags on, minute after minute, until time loses its sense. Kione makes Sartha pledge herself in every way she can think of, and Sartha echoes her every word with the unblinking, unthinking obedience of a lost puppy as her body, drained of energy by the handler’s soporific drug, pushes itself far beyond the limit of her endurance in a senseless, pointless, utterly pornographic display of abject loyalty.

All while Kione masturbates furiously at the sight. It’s been a little while since she actually fucked Sartha. Her lusts have bled away from her here and there, as her focus has become more and more consumed by the task of brainwashing Sartha. Her idle moments are rarely given to self-gratification, haunted as they are by the noises of distant dogs. Now, though? Now, Kione is more turned on than she’s ever been in her life.

Hunched over, her hand is stuffed down her jumpsuit, furiously pumping at her throbbing, needy cock. She can’t help it. Her body sings with need, threatening to pull her attention from Sartha unless she satisfies it. Better to give in. Kione can do anything—which means she can do this, without distracting or demeaning herself. It’d be a shame not to, really. Sartha is stunning like this. The way she twitches and thrashes and shudders as she forces out each and every demeaning mantra Kione feeds her. Sartha Thrace is always the star, always the center of attention, but now she seems like she belongs on some passed-around porno tape, not a propaganda film. Not using her to get off would be a waste. But more than anything physical, thinking about all the ways she’s stamping her mark on Sartha’s psyche is what drives Kione into a frenzy. Each mantra, each repetition, etched by pleasure into the beleaguered hero’s mind. Bit by bit, chipping away that other woman’s signature, leaving Sartha less, and less, and less—until she’s nothing more than the simple, obedient dog she ought to be.

Sartha is Kione’s.

Sartha obeys her.

Only her.

Kione owns her.

Kione is her handler.

Forever. She can do anything with Sartha, forever and ever.

“F-f-fuck,” Kione pants, seeing white. Seeing stars. It takes her several seconds to realize that she’s orgasmed, and even longer to actually stop pumping her hand up and down her now-slick shaft.

Kione looks down. She frowns. She lacked the presence of mind to take her clothes off; her jumpsuit makes the process a touch laborious. Now, her underwear is hopelessly stained at the front. That gnaws at her. The sensation, sticky and unpleasant, dampens her euphoria. Even if Kione can do anything, she needs that to stop right now. Clumsily, Kione peels away her sweat-drenched jumpsuit and liberates herself from her stained underwear. The relief is immense; being naked feels so, so much better. Kione is about to toss her ruined garment aside, but then a better, meaner idea comes to her.

“Hey,” Kione calls out, already giggling filthily. “Stop for one second.”

Sartha crashes to a halt and rocks back on her knees, strap-on deep inside her. Delirious, grateful for the respite, her eyes swim around, starry and unseeing. Kione loosens Sartha’s muzzle a little and pulls it an inch or two away from her face.

“Here,” Kione tells her. “Something for you to sniff on, puppy. Take a deep breath.”

She stuffs her cumstained underwear into the cage of Sartha’s muzzle, and tightens it back into place. This is what you do with dogs, right? Scent training?

Sartha obeys. She breathes deep, and as she fills her lungs she shudders again, the aroma of Kione’s sweat and seed curdling in her parietal lobe. Another layer of stimulation, when she was already over her limit. There’s no escaping it. No clean air to be found. As Kione watches, Sartha’s eyes begin rolling back into her head. Kione wolf-whistles appreciatively, and starts getting hard again.

“You,” Kione says, in that careful, intoned voice that cues Sartha up to accept yet another mantra, “belong to me.”

“I b-b-belong to you!” Sartha moans, her words muffled, just slightly, by the panties in her muzzle. As she speaks they slip partway into her mouth, forcing her to spit them out and leaving them sodden with drool.

“You don’t need anyone but me,” Kione pants.

“I don’t need an- ff… anyone b-but you!” Hearing Sartha drone her own words back to her in that stupid, drooling voice is so much better than sex could ever be.

“You don’t want anyone but me.” You don’t want her. You don’t want her. You never wanted her. As she speaks, Kione imagines her tongue reaching into Sartha’s skull, lapping at her gray matter, leaving a wet imprint of her will.

“I don’t… want… anyone… but… you!” Sartha’s chest is heaving fiercely. Her voice gasps and strains to make itself heard, and pleasure rips her words into shrill, insensate ejaculations of noise. She looks like she’s about to pass out, like maybe she’s overdosed or something, but Kione won’t let this end here. Not just yet. Would the Imperial handler let her stop? No. Not before Kione inflicts the final, crucial mantra.

“You love me,” she orders Sartha.

“I… I…”

At that moment, Sartha’s mind seems to snap. She shudders again, more violently than before. Her back arches and her face tilts upward. She can’t speak. No air in her lungs. Instead, it’s like her eyes are fixed on something—a single point, perhaps on the ceiling. It’s like there’s something she’s just now seeing. Kione knows she’s probably simply hallucinating. But before that thought can catch up with her, the mercenary makes a catastrophic, fatal mistake.

She looks up too, and sees the stars.

All of them. All at once. The whole night sky, pouring in from above. The blank ceiling of Kione’s quarters has become ephemeral, leaving the cosmos’s expanse hanging directly overhead, bearing down on Kione and Sartha. A thousand pinpricks of starlight spear through Kione, transfixing her. This is an unspeakably beautiful sight. Once-in-a-lifetime, in the centuries since the sky was ruined. It’s enough to make Kione forget everything else, and simply stare in wonder.

It’s special to her. She knows this sky.

Just once in her life, she’s seen it.

Growing up far to the south, in Kinbashi, one of Kione’s many neighbors had been an old man with a star chart printed across two pages of a big, old book. He looked out for Kione when her parents were looking for work or aid, or when they ended up crowded together in a shelter. He’d take out his book and show her the stars, pointing out the names and constellations with a slow, kindly voice and a long, crooked finger with a broken nail. For the longest time, Kione loved it. It had seemed like a secret, like magic; up there, beyond the brown sky and bleeding clouds, there were all these bright lights with names and personalities, just like people had names and personalities. That wonder is back with her now, in the present. It’s like Kione can hear that old man’s voice again. It’s like she can taste Kinbashi on her lips. The memory is strong enough to make her tremble.

After a time, she’d grown up. She gave up on the stars, especially after the old man left—or died, more likely, although her parents would never have told her that. What did it matter if they were up there? And besides, wasn’t that where the Imperials came from? Up there? For all intents and purposes, the stars were gone. They had abandoned the world. No lights in the sky except for the dim sun, and the ailing glow of its radiation on the bleach-stripped atmosphere.

Then that night. Then Sartha.

It wasn’t their first battle together, but it was when they were first truly getting to know each other. Kione barely remembers the place. Was it Odesza? On the eve, there had been a few beautiful, magical hours when the sky had well and truly cleared. No smog, no clouds, no sickly aurora or Cherenkov glow. And for the first time in her adult life, Kione had felt well and truly proud she knew the names of the stars. That night is back with her too. Cold, yes. Tense, yes, but all the more reason to press close together in Ancyor’s open cockpit while they stargazed. Kione remembers reflecting that a lifetime’s mercenary pay couldn’t have bought her the feeling of Sartha Thrace, hero of the rebellion, clinging to her arm so she could peer along its pointing arc, mouthing the words after Kione as she told Sartha what each star was called.

Those moments had always been magical. The ones when Sartha wasn’t really a hero at all. Just a young woman, beautiful and strong, full of awestruck curiosity, her heart open to anyone and anything, eager to learn, eager to take in whatever of the world’s beauty remained and keep it close. After that, it had gotten so hard to say ‘no’ to her when she talked about Kione joining up as a true rebel. She made it sound so good. Her optimism was overflowing and infectious, her hopes naive, yes, but just weather-worn enough to make them feel tangible. Nobody believes like Sartha. Nobody makes you believe like Sartha. With her, you can truly-

No, wait. That’s not right.

Kione sways unsteadily on her feet.

That’s not right. Sartha isn’t like that. Wasn’t like that. Was she? Kione remembers her that way. But she knows another truth now, a deeper, greater truth. The empty Sartha. The broken Sartha. The Sartha cracking and breaking under the weight of her own heroism. Kione has become accustomed to Sartha the traitor. To the Sartha that hates everyone who ever looked up at her, and hates herself especially. What need would a Sartha Thrace like that have ever had for the names of the stars?

Kione must be remembering it wrong. However vivid the memory seems, it can’t have happened that way. It can’t, because Sartha is empty, Sartha was always empty, because if she wasn’t, then what is Kione doing to her now? If there was ever something real to her, Kione should have tried to salvage it. She should have said ‘no’ to her, when she came to her door—properly. She never should have used those three terrible words.

But she did. Kione has done those things, and worse besides. Which, if there was ever anything of Sartha to save, makes her just as bad as-

No. She’s sure of it now. That night never happened quite like that. Sartha was always broken.

But isn’t it a nice memory, however false?

It’d be nice to indulge it, for a time. To bring every detail into clear view, aided by the wonderful drug singing through Kione’s veins. She feels as though she could play it out from start to finish, and it would be like living it all over again. How did it start? Kione remembers pointing. Guiding Sartha’s hand along with hers. Look for the brightest star, she’d said to her. It’s always the easiest to find, and then you can work outward. Sirius, it’s called.

The dog star.

Kione’s face twitches into a frown. Something about that makes her deeply, profoundly anxious. She tells herself it’s just a coincidence, but it doesn’t help. This is starting to feel like some awful, cosmic joke, played on her by a malicious god. She needs to stop thinking about this right now, but it’s too late. She’s already following along with her memory. She can see the stars again above her head, more vibrant than ever. Kione cannot stop herself from joining one to the next, lines etched into the night sky, the constellation taking shape before her eyes.

Canis Major. The great hound.

No. No, no, no.

But that’s right. It is—Kione knows the stars too well to deny it. And she can see it now. The great hound. Its form is pure starlight, canine and vile and impossibly large. It’s like it’s coming towards her, consuming maw open and hungry, but it just looms eternal, Kione’s vision telescoping to make it always approach and never arrive. There is a beast in the stars. Kione has never known terror like this. She backs away, wheeling crazily for balance.

It’s not real. She knows it’s not real. Knowing isn’t enough. Because it’s not the beast she’s scared of.

It’s Her.

How did She do this? It’s Her. It has to be Her. There’s no other explanation. How did She write Her name in the stars? How did She make them wrong? The stars are ancient and vast. Is She that old, and that distant? No, of course not—but something in Her, perhaps, some animus, ancient as humanity, ever-living, ever-devouring, ever-cruel, and Her its latest avatar, ever-rising to snap up the brittle bones of people like Sartha in its jaws.

It’s coming for Kione too. It has her scent, she can feel it. She’d flee, but there’s nowhere to go because how could you ever flee from the stars? They were beautiful a mere moment ago, but not anymore. They’re too bright. Too close. Her head is splitting open from their presence. Sirius the dog star is worst of all. She can’t bear it a moment longer—but it’s not real in the first place. Kione slaps the side of her head, anguished. What’s happening to her? Maybe she’s crazy, like with the dogs outside. Maybe it’s the drug—it has to be, really, but Kione doesn’t feel reassured by that. Maybe she took too much, maybe she’s overdosing and she’s going to die alone, in her quarters, jerking off and blubbering about starlight.

Wait. She’s not alone. She has Sartha. Kione can’t help but trust in Sartha’s presence. She’s her friend, despite it all. Her hero, however fake. Her beloved hound. Thinking of Sartha gives the strength to tear her gaze away from the warped stars. For a moment she stares stupidly at the wall, and there are stars there too. An endless field of them, near and far. It’s like she’s peering through some kind of celestial fog. It makes her nauseous. She needs to look at something concrete. Something real. It has to be Sartha. She saves people when nobody else can. Perhaps even Kione, even now. Panicking and on the verge of a sobbing breakdown, Kione decides to look to Sartha to be her anchor.

Looking at Sartha is an even worse mistake than looking up.

Sartha Thrace is the one dark thing in a room of starlight. She’s still kneeling there on the floor, twitching and throbbing, half-mouthing a few of the deranged mantras Kione worked so hard to etch into her shattered mind. In short, she’s just as Kione saw her moments before—but there’s something else, too. In the moments between her heartbeats, Kione sees Sartha as something else entirely. Her silhouette collapses in on itself, leaving her cast in shadow. The shadow collapses further to become a door, a gateway to something beyond. A sunken space, darker than darker, Sartha opens out into something just as endless and terrifying as the stars above. But there are no stars inside Sartha Thrace. Just a great turning wheel, dark and dark and dark, gnawing at her insides, gathering what little light remains into itself with such fury it glows red-hot along the mad, whirling, spiral pattern of its arms.

A black hole.

Kione’s arms fall limp to her sides. It’s beyond hypnotic. More beautiful than all the stars, and more terrible. She could look it at forever, and perhaps she will. Perhaps she already has. There’s something calming about the black hole. It scared her, but only at first. Then it took her fear into its heart and stretched it beyond breaking point. In its presence, the great hound of the stars is forgotten and Kione is no longer afraid. She sighs gladly. Blood drips from her nose. She watches the black hole’s glowing arms spin and spin.

It has more to take. Kione has more to give. Her guilt, for instance. Her doubt. Her hesitation. Even her memories—all the ones about Sartha that don’t agree with the black hole she sees before her. It feels good to give herself to the void. Everything that’s ripped out of her is a tension finally releasing, the sensation of their departure as addictive and cathartic as picking at a scabbed wound. In the wake of each loss, Kione feels hollow—but a blissful, tranquil kind of hollowness. It’s like she’s floating. A dead log in still water. It feels like like she’s exactly where she needs to be, in all the universe.

Exultant pleasure rises in her. Oh, to be hollow like this forever! Is this how She feels? Is this what She sees, whenever She looks at Sartha? If so, it’s difficult to resent Her—for any of it. This is a transcendant truth. It goes beyond any the handler has shown Kione before. It goes beyond hero and hound, Empire and rebels. It goes beyond words. It sings in Kione now, the truth, and she throbs with it, the heartbeat of a dead star within her breast, and it’s almost as though she could reach her hand all the way through Sartha and-

And then it’s gone.

All of it. No more stars. No more black hole.

Kione is standing in her quarters, above Sartha Thrace, who is still obediently kneeling at her feet; a dog, awaiting her master’s command. Kione must have orgasmed again. She can see the evidence streaking down Sartha’s chest. Besides that, it’s like nothing has changed at all. Except everything has, because that perfect hollowness is still with Kione.

Kione’s heart is a barren cave. A smirk comes to her face. She sees it so clearly now. No more doubts. No more shame. No more sentimentality. She’s been holding back. No more of that. No more trying to preserve anything of Sartha Thrace. The only victory lies in possessing Sartha utterly. The Imperial handler has a fearful head start, but Kione is making fine progress. Now, as inspiration strikes, it occurs to her that there are moves the handler has not availed herself of.

Why keep Sartha’s unmaking a secret? It makes sense, but only from a military perspective. It serves to maintain the fog of war and make the psychological effect of Sartha’s arrival all the more devastating. How many rebel battle lines have crumpled into nothing simply because nobody was prepared to see Ancyor, of all machines, coming at them? If the rebels knew, if they could prepare, they might be able to harden themselves against it. Smarter to keep them in the dark.

But Kione doesn’t care about any of that.

“Up, Sartha,” she whispers. Her throat is painfully dry. Sartha looks at her with dull, adoring eyes as Kione helps her to her feet. Her strap sticks inside her for a moment, before slipping free and falling to the ground with a wet, ugly noise. The two of them slump over onto the bed and Kione cradles Sartha’s head to her chest, wincing only slightly as the metal bars of her muzzle dig into her skin.

“Good girl,” Kione murmurs. Against her, Sartha lets out a low, pleased, animal sound. Gods, she’s perfect. “You did very well for me,” Kione tells her. “You deserve a reward.”

Sartha shifts ever so slightly. She’s eager, despite her exhaustion. She wants to hear about her reward. Kione kisses Sartha’s forehead. Then, she nods her head toward the door—to the outside world, to the base, to Amynta and all the rest. To the rebels. To the dogs.

“I promise you,” Kione whispers, stroking Sartha’s hair lovingly, blessing her the way only a benevolent goddess could. “I will set you free from all of them. One by one, I will ruin you forever in their eyes.”