Nothing makes Sartha Thrace feel good the way being saddled up in the cockpit of a-

Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha.

She doesn’t really still believe that, does she?

Stupid question. Of course she does. She has no choice. Sartha Thrace loves to pilot, and she is Sartha Thrace. That tautology forms a singularity at the core of her being, pulling everything around it into a flattened disk. Sartha Thrace’s personhood has been meticulously crystallized, and shaped carefully to the gloved hand that wields it. Growth and change are as foreign to her as they are to a petrified tree. So the primal, adrenaline-rush pleasure that piloting a sixty-foot steel colossus provokes is what defines her; it will always define her. It is what makes her useful; Sartha must always be useful. She tries—she fails—to dredge up a little of that spark now, as she sits behind the controls of her ever-faithful Ancyor.

If only this were a real battle. If only this were a real battlefield.

It is anything but. Ancyor stands at one end of a huge oval covered with a thick layer of sand to better distribute the immense forces a mech places on the building’s foundations. It was once a testing field, then a parade ground, but since then it has become something altogether more perverse. On all sides, lining the arena, towering stands of seats rise up in monumental tiers, reaching so high they make even a sixty-foot mech seem small. Sartha tried to estimate their total capacity as she entered. The numbers slipped through her fingers, but it has to be in the tens of thousands at least—and each one of those seats is filled. Compared to Ancyor, each of the spectators individually is but a speck, but together they are a ravaging locust swarm, their gleeful cheers and chants bristling together into a monstrous drone as they incite one another to still greater ejaculations of wanton schadenfreude.

The building is called a colosseum. Sartha remembers Her telling her that.

A sudden stillness, as the gate opposite Ancyor begins to open. It mirrors perfectly the one Sartha entered through, which is how she already knows what’s waiting for her on the other side: a rival machine. A mech she has to kill. An opponent.

Will Sartha recognize this one?

The question blossoms in her mind before she can suppress it. A momentary lapse in trigger discipline. It should be easy to unthink—Sartha has had plenty of practice—but her capacity for blissful ignorance fails her. It’s this place. It itches at her. She hasn’t felt right ever since she came here. At Handler’s side, it’s almost bearable. Without Her…

No. Better not to dwell on it. Better to focus on the mech instead. Or perhaps not; as it steps through the arena gates, Sartha realizes that she does recognize it after all. Not personally, exactly. But from rad-blurred photographs dating back to the Empire’s first planetfall and from fanciful stories of the very first hero who stood against them.

The earliest rebels found it out east—or so they say—at some nameless place within the endless steppe-sea of sickly grass. They had always known about it, really. That strange temple of concrete thorns where nothing grows, covered in bizarre, windworn sigils. Even the most desperate scavenger knows well to heed a warning like that, but when the Empire came, those first rebels had nothing to stand against its swarming legions of black Dorus. Their early mechs were little more than press-ganged scrapwalkers, built more to guard against environmental hazards than hostile gunfire. They needed a weapon.

Desperation drove the rebels to break open the temple, and before its curse claimed their health they found that its ancient custodian was not quite dead after all. Beating in its chest was a star-heart that would never perish, only vomit forth an endless stream of invisible poison to taint a planet that was already on the brink. Taboo, yes, but what choice did they have? The machine awaited their coming. It needed merely to be refueled with sacral rods, its screeching joints anointed with oil, and, repainted on its shield in the hopes of placating its fathomless anger, the symbol of whatever lost god it had once served: a great, red, five-point star that glares angrily at Sartha now, as the name of the last knight of the atomic age beats like a rallying cry inside her head.

Kosterion.

There is no mistaking it. If there ever was another mech like it, there isn’t now. Kosterion looms ahead of Ancyor, dwarfing it, so large it needs to lower itself to pass through the gate, and clad in enough armor to drown most machines. To bear the bulk of its radiation shielding it stands centauroid upon four legs, body elongated like some beast of burden except for the torso that stands proud at its front, topped with a thick, slanted neck and crowned not with a head but simply two large, prong-like horns. In one hand, that shield; in another, a sword. Two brute slabs of steel so massive they should render Kosterion hopelessly sluggish, but Ancyor’s readouts are already warning Sartha that the monstrous output of its nuclear reactor will make it anything but. The ancient machine walks forward into the colosseum, and its every step is a percussive thunderbolt of pistons and camshafts, barely visible around the joints and so intricate they resemble a doll’s clockwork more than the sleek motive gear of a modern mech. Some would mistake Kosterion’s antiquity for obsolescence, but Sartha knows that the old priests of the red star built it to last.

As it bares its blade, the crowd goes wild.

The collective intake of awed breath as Kosterion appeared was the ebb; now comes the flow, a tide of noise from every direction that builds upon itself until it resembles nothing so much as one single scream from one enormous, inhuman throat. Even safely ensconced with her mech, Sartha feels the force of it wash over her. There is something frightening about such a mass of humanity, unified by a single swell of violent emotion. Sartha wastes an idle moment zooming one of Ancyor’s cameras and scanning it across the crowd. Its members all seem indistinct, somehow. All she can see are the mouths, all open, all twisted with glee, each haloed by a cloud of flying spittle as the spectators scream and chant and bay for violence. There are so many of them, but the same expression wears each face. It’s like it’s one entity, a hive mind so large it makes even Ancyor seem small.

She looks away. The crowd will have its violence. Sartha has a job to do.

Her attention belongs to Kosterion. She studies it, as an unseen announcer begins to whip the colosseum into an even deeper frenzy. She should be looking for weaknesses. Should be forming a plan of attack. Instead, she asks herself: how is it here? Kosterion haunted the Empire like a demon until one day it disappeared into the fog of war—but that was twenty years gone. Before Sartha’s time. They captured it, that much is clear, but what of the pilot? Did they capture her too, or has she simply been replaced? Would she ever go along with this willingly? Not her, surely. Of all people.

It’s funny, Sartha realizes. These are all the things that they all must think about her, when she fights. So this is what it’s like. Sartha is a ghost looking at a ghost.

Perhaps they’re two of a kind. Perhaps Kosterion’s pilot wears a muzzle now, as Sartha does. Perhaps she spent twenty years languishing in some Imperial prison before a woman in black leather appeared at the door to her cell. The thought is so awful it breaks Sartha’s heart to picture it, but she-

‘Sartha.’

It’s Her.

The crowd, gone. The other pilot, gone. Sartha’s worries, most of all, gone. All that’s left is a lingering sense of shame. Awful? No, no! That every pilot, that every stray dog, should be so blessed! A stupid mistake—but as ever, Handler is here to put her right. Handler is never wrong. She never lets Sartha be confused. She is goodness itself. Sartha is so, so, so grateful.

“Yes, Sir,” she replies reverently over the comms channel.

‘Are you ready?’

In truth, Sartha isn’t sure. So much of this is difficult for her. Trying to make sense of where she is, or why, is like walking across broken glass. The jagged edges of her thoughts press close. But she knows she needs to be brave for Her, and she knows that She isn’t interested in hearing her doubts right now.

“Yes, Sir.” It’s only a small lie. She will admit to it later on, and accept Handler’s judgment.

‘Very good.’ The swell of pride in Her voice makes it all worthwhile. It eases the pain. Anything to make Her proud like that. Sartha no longer hears the crowd’s sickening roar or the announcer’s patter. All fades before Her. ‘And you understand that you will need to do this yourself?’

“Yes, Sir.” Sartha’s other self—her real self—is strong, but she can be messy. More is at stake than can be risked on a hound’s temperament. Handler is always right about things like that, and Sartha understands—even if she wishes she didn’t have to.

‘Good girl.’ A rush of pleasure banishes the unease already creeping back in. Sartha shudders rapturously. She cannot believe how lucky she is. ‘I will be watching.’

The line clicks shut. The glow Handler’s voice conjures fades all too quickly. Sartha tries to focus instead on the reward her victory will surely bring, but it’s no good. There’s no time. Kosterion is before her, and the rising tempo of the announcer’s voice, though muted by the metal colossus surrounding her, lets Sartha know that the duel is about to begin. A mercy, in a way. Combat will keep distraction at bay. Sartha is an ace, even now.

Sartha takes a long, deep breath. The crowd is holding its breath too. After a few moments, she hears:

“PILOTS! LAUNCH!”

And they begin.

But not quickly. Sartha is not eager to close the distance. She knows Kosterion only by reputation and she cannot afford to guess at its capabilities, or at the skills of whoever sits in its cockpit. Handler’s triumph must be perfect. Her influence put Sartha on this stage, but it is up to her to perform. A choreographed dance would have been meaningless. It would not dispel any doubts. Only real combat will elevate Her. Only a duel to the death—Kosterion against Ancyor. Both CQC specialists, to judge from the weapons. Kosterion’s size and bulk gives it the edge of lethality. One swing of that absurd sword could decide it all. Durability too; if Kosterion is anything like as armored as it looks, it will take time to dismantle. Of course, Sartha is no stranger to hunting large prey. She has the skill, and Ancyor the strength. Speed is the lingering question; big machines are usually slow, but you’d hate to die betting on ‘usually’.

Sartha decides to let Kosterion come to her. That’s the smart way to play this. Besides, all the better to let Handler’s audience stew in the anticipation.

That proves another jagged thought. What kind of rebel pilot plays to a crowd? Handler’s all-important wishes threaten to encroach on the sunken parts of Sartha’s mind. The memories into which she dare not tread. Why is she here? What is she fighting for? Who are all these people, and why are they cheering for her—if, indeed, it is her they’re cheering for, and not merely the spectacle of mechanical gore about to unfold before them?

Isn’t she supposed to be a h-

Oh. Perhaps that’s why. Wherever Sartha goes, people love to cheer her on. Isn’t that how it’s always been?

Jagged thoughts.

Sartha can already feel herself slipping—but she can’t. Not today. It’s too important. She strains with all of the thin self that remains to her, knotting together all her wants and needs, all her questions and doubts, everything that makes her human, into one all-surpassing urge.

Make Her proud. Make Her proud. Make Her proud.

Uneasily, Sartha unshackles Ancyor’s reactor output. As strength and heat fill its limbs, she begins to pad restlessly back and forth across the colosseum’s compacted sand surface. Testing the grip. Finding her balance. Watching. Waiting.

Let’s see what that old relic can do, Ancyor.

Opposite her, across the mockery of a battlefield, Kosterion does similarly. It stands in place, surveying its opponent, but the four elongated feet that tip each leg are adjusting one by one, optimizing their purchase on the sand beneath. It raises one foreleg, then lowers it and scrapes a small gash in the arena’s surface, testing, perhaps, its grip. Then, with no clear cue, Ancyor’s sensors alert Sartha to a colossal power surge from the other machine.

All at once, the thing begins to charge at her.

It surges into motion with an alacrity that defies all reason. No acceleration; in an instant, Kosterion is coming toward Sartha at full tilt, shield in a close guard, sword raised and held with its tip presented forward like a lance. It will be atop Ancyor in seconds. The crowd erupts along with it, the seething roil of its impatience erupting into a crescendo scream of bloodthirsty glee. The air buzzes with the sound, and the ground trembles with each of Kosterion’s footfalls. Sartha does not panic as the beast charges. The shot of adrenaline that hits her system merely takes her reaction time to the next level. Already, she’s searching for an opening, angling for a counterattack—but there’s the rub. She can’t find one. Kosterion is huge. Armor covers every surface. Its slab of a shield is braced, its sword as ready to guard as to thrust. Sartha begins to shift from side to side, feinting a dodge, then a lunge, hoping to elicit a sudden motion. Kosterion does not falter. It’s still picking up speed. Sartha has seconds left to decide.

Make Her proud—but Handler’s pride cuts both ways. The impetuous hound within Sartha yearns to reply in kind, to meet Kosterion blow for blow, to show the screaming crowd just how fierce Handler’s champion can be. Another part of her, though, knows that nothing could be more shameful or disappointing to Her than succumbing to her opponent’s very first blow.

No more time to think. It’s here.

Caution wins. Girding Ancyor’s powerful limbs, Sartha throws herself cleanly to one side, beyond the reach of Kosterion’s blade. Momentum will not permit it to change direction. It surges past the spot Ancyor was standing. No exchange. The crowd howls its disapproval. Sartha ignores them. Keeps her speed up. She wants to put distance between them. Makes it halfway across the arena floor before she turns to look. Part of Sartha expected to see Kosterion crash through the perimeter and into the stands, but no. It kills its speed as effortlessly as it gained it, wheeling about in a slow circle until it faces Ancyor once more.

And again, without pause, Kosterion charges.

This time, Sartha is determined to meet it head-on. She already sees the game that’s being played with her, and she will not be harried to exhaustion back and forth across the sands like some panicked doe. Kosterion picks up speed. The crowd’s resurgent glee howls in Sartha’s ears. She stands her ground. She drops her stance. She prepares.

This time, just as she’s about to enter the range of Kosterion’s strike, Sartha ducks to one side. Ancyor drops to all fours, pressing itself flat to the ground to duck beneath the oncoming sword-strike. As the monolith of razor-sharp steel passes overhead, Sartha gathers strength in Ancyor’s limbs, ready to spring up and strike.

Then she sees the sword coming back around.

With whiplike speed, Kosterion reverses its strike. Sartha realizes too late that she underestimated the monster. From her crouched pose, she has nowhere to go; at her command, Ancyor topples to one side, rolling awkwardly away from the backhand swing. It almost works. Almost.

Sartha flinches as she feels the edge of Kosterion’s blade scrape perilously along the side of one of her beloved mech’s legs.

The crowd goes wild. First blood has been struck.

And then Sartha is away and clear. Heart pounding, she checks the damage readout. Nothing significant. That’s good. What’s not good is that, clearly, Kosterion is more than capable of keeping up with Ancyor in close combat. And already, it’s coming around for another tilt.

Sartha does not back down. It’s not in her nature, and she has plenty more tricks up her sleeve. This time, as Kosterion bears down on her, she tests the other side, darting just beyond the full extension of Kosterion’s sword arm. Pushing the slavering crowd-roar from her mind, Sartha launches up at Kosterion, confident, this time, that she has made it past its blade.

She lands just one blow on its armored hull before a vicious shield-bash sends her flying off.

Ancyor’s stabilizers can take it, and Sartha has been rattled around far worse in her time. The real problem comes when Kosterion wheels around to face her, and she gets a good look at the spot she struck.

Nothing. No damage. Barely even scratched it.

That hurts far worse than the shield bash. Sartha felt her blow land. It was solid, and Ancyor’s sheer strength is the stuff of legends. Even Genetor would struggle to handle a hit like that without toppling. But Kosterion’s four legs give it stability, and its infernal reactor permits it both preposterous armor and alarming speed. Theaboros might be the only mech built since that can boast a similar energy output, but it traded any potential sturdiness for those wings. Kosterion seems, so far, all but impervious. An alarming reminder of what Earth’s old superpowers could build at their peak.

But there has to be a weak point. With all her heart, Sartha believes that. She’s never met a mech she couldn’t kill. Ancyor’s new roar could make short work of it, but that is another asset denied to her. Too dangerous to the crowd. Just one more way the mass of spectators is vexing her, along with its stupid, jeering noises. Sartha wishes very badly that she could submerge into the part of herself that would not hear them. Her hands are shaking at Ancyor’s controls. She does not want to be here.

Keep it together, Sartha. Make Her proud.

Kosterion comes at her again. This time, Sartha tries something else. She dashes to one side of the arena, placing herself so that Kosterion will have to kill its speed as it approaches. Once it does, Sartha doesn’t bother choosing between left and right. She goes over. Her opponent is large, but Ancyor can clear its height in one leap. She just has to get behind it and stay there. Kosterion’s elongated body should keep it from turning quickly enough. The crowd signals its appreciation as Ancyor hits the apex of its jump. For one beautiful moment, Sartha feels like she’s above it all.

Then the alarm sounds. Another power surge from Kosterion.

Sartha took the strange, horn-like protrusions atop Kosterion’s torso for sensor mounts. Maybe cameras. Wrong. A heatmap view shows her a sudden flood of energy flowing through them; an EM lens, a blossoming flare. An instant later, crackling arcs of visible electricity span the horns. Then, between them, something appears. An unearthly globe of radiant matter, wildly unstable, but held in check by the crushing magnetic fields Kosterion produces. As it grows in strength, it scorches the air around it a vibrant red, too bright to look at, a perfect match for the symbol painted on Kosterion’s shield.

A red star.

The star’s birth takes no more than a second. Ancyor is still in the air. Sartha cannot maneuver. She can’t do anything at all as a strange, winding, red arc erupts from the plasma orb between Kosterion’s horns and seizes Ancyor in its burning grasp.

Sartha braces herself for… something. She doesn’t know what. She’s never seen a weapon like this. At first, little seems to happen. No force of impact, no sudden damage. She’s almost surprised when Ancyor lands on its feet.

Then she takes stock of Ancyor’s displays and realizes that its heat is already off the chart. This thing is cooking her alive.

Within moments she starts to feel it. The heat, encroaching on her even within the shielded cockpit. Alarms fire off one by one, a discordant orchestra that does drown out, at least, the crowd’s awestruck gasps. Glancing out of her viewport, beyond the red corona surrounding her, Sartha can see Ancyor’s armor beginning to blacken. A second more, and the exposed corners of the thinner armor plates start to curl. The plasma’s heat is unbelievable. Ancyor’s cooling systems are far beyond their limit. Kosterion is standing right in front of her, turning, perhaps vulnerable, but Sartha has only seconds more before her own mech starts melting down.

It’s no choice at all. Sartha turns and runs.

The tendril of plasma remains anchored to Ancyor, horrifically unaffected by her attempts at evasion, but after she puts a little distance between it and Kosterion, it vanishes. Sartha breathes a sigh of relief. A short-range weapon, then. Maybe for point defense, though clearly no less effective against larger things than missiles. How the fuck is she going to beat that? Can’t dodge it, it seems. The speed of light is a bitch. Kosterion’s red star behaves like lightning, and what is Ancyor if not one gigantic lightning rod? That must be the reason the weapon has been sanctioned for use here, in the colosseum. No danger to the crowd. Sartha can still hear its delighted, awestruck gasps at Kosterion’s true strength. Each one is like a nail being driven into her skull.

No time to resent them for it. Again, relentless, Kosterion comes.

Sartha tries fighting fair. Confronting the beast head-on, trading with it blow for blow, relying on her instincts to keep her safe. It just about works—but as soon as she’s within range, Kosterion’s red star lights her up again. The scant moments she has before she needs to bolt and let Ancyor cool aren’t even close to enough for her to pick her way through Kosterion’s immaculate defenses.

The crowd boos and jeers as she flees.

Next time, when Kosterion charges, Sartha does too. She means to leap straight for the thing’s horns. They look fragile enough for Ancyor to make a fine mess of. At the last moment, though, Kosterion grasps her intent. It pivots, skidding to a halt and bearing its massive bulk against Ancyor while its blade flashes in a deadly thrust, a killing stroke that forces Sartha to veer off. The opportunity is lost, and the ionized plasma from Kosterion’s star is already timing her out.

Sartha retreats to a safe distance. The crowd howls with laughter at her impotence. Kosterion simply walks to the opposite edge of the arena, comes about, and charges again.

And again. And again. And again. Each time, Sartha tries something new. She runs through her whole bag of tricks, then starts inventing new ones. Nothing works. Kosterion is too fast, too armored, too dangerous. Its reach is too long, its unearthly red star too deadly. And it’s not just the mech. More and more as the two of them trade blows, Sartha’s conviction grows: she’s dealing with one hell of a pilot. An ace, certainly. Perhaps even someone on her level. Whoever it is, they pilot a brute but wield it like a scalpel. Their swordsmanship is supreme. Their tactics strange, but suited to their machine and undeniably effective.

Which begs the question: who is it? Is it her?

It can’t be, can it?

There is no time to dwell on the question, but Sartha can’t stop herself. Just like she can’t stop listening to the fucking crowd as it laughs and howls and chants at her expense. She really, desperately wishes it would shut the fuck up. This is all wrong. The unease gnaws at her. Make Her proud, yes, but why? How? Where is she, and why is she fighting this fight? Repression is a constant effort. Under pressure, she is coming unspooled. As Kosterion charges at her yet again, distraction almost proves her ending as the tip of Kosterion’s sword comes within inches of Ancyor’s cockpit.

Sartha can’t fight like this. She doesn’t even know what she’s fighting for. She is hopelessly off her game. She is not herself, and she is losing.

Which is why it feels so strange when she catches a glimpse of herself reflected in one of Ancyor’s many monitors and sees something beneath her muzzle.

A big, eager, wolf-like grin.

When Sartha asks herself why she’s grinning, the answer is no less surprising. Beneath all the noise, all the unease, all the doubt and confusion, there is something else. A kernel. Something more real, more true. Something that feels good.

Here, facing death, dancing with a worthy opponent, Sartha Thrace is having the time of her life.

It’s always been like that for her. The joy of her mech’s power, the thrill of combat—these, above all, are primordial to Sartha’s psyche. Her heroism is that very pleasure, pointed in the right direction. Her other half is the feeling distilled and purified, then tempered with unfaltering obedience. But before it all, she is this. A huntress. It’s been so easy to forget that lately.

Maybe it’s time to start remembering.

As she watches Kosterion line up for another charge, Sartha gives herself to the thrill. The more she remembers, the better she feels. The crowd? The colosseum? The circumstances? They do not matter. Not right now. All that matters is the intimacy that exists between her and the enemy pilot. Abruptly, Sartha realizes that she’s been a bad lover. Why is she letting her jagged thoughts distract her? Why is she paying so much respect to every little thing that Kosterion does instead of giving her all to the contest of strength? When did she start holding her own life so precious? She is Sartha Thrace, ace of aces, and nobody has ever been better than her. Who cares about some fucking crowd?

It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. Only victory.

So stop thinking, Sartha.

And.

Just.

Win.

Kosterion begins to charge, and Sartha looks at her opponent anew. The way it moves. The way it’s built. The limbs, the joints, the machinery peeking through from beneath. The way it holds its sword. The plasma-star between its horns. She drinks it all in, and searches for the path to its defeat. However slight, however impossible. Sartha closes her eyes, just for an instant. The crowd falls away. The world falls away. Sartha inhabits a perfect silence and, within it, dreams a perfect dream.

She opens her eyes and finds herself laughing. Now all she has to do is make her dream real.

Follow me, my Ancyor.

It begins as soon as Kosterion comes within reach of its plasma weapon. The glowing arc snakes its way around Ancyor, lighting it up. Sartha is on the clock. She dashes right, toward Kosterion’s shield. No feints this time. No point. The other pilot is too good, and Sartha wouldn’t have it any other way. This is about speed, not deception. Kosterion, undaunted, turns to bear down on her. Ancyor cannot outrun it like this. It doesn’t have to. It just needs momentum.

Kosterion is atop her. Its upraised sword begins to fall in a huge, sweeping arc, sure to bisect Ancyor if it lands. Sartha races the blade, pushing Ancyor’s overheating reactor to its screaming limit. Another thing she can’t outrun, but that’s not the dream. Sartha waits until the last moment, and then a moment longer. An instant before the sword crashes through her, she drops Ancyor to the ground, skidding so hard the sand sparks against its armor.

At once, Kosterion strains to turn its sweep into a backswing. But Sartha made it far enough into its backhand; sword-arm this far extended, her opponent is truly, finally off-guard.

Time to make it count.

Guiding her mech effortlessly, Sartha has Ancyor roll out of its slide and onto its haunches. Its pistons and motors thrum as they gather strength; then, before Kosterion can move, Ancyor springs straight up toward it. Sartha holds nothing back, not even when Kosterion heaves its shield into position, ready to batter her out of thin air. Sartha grips the controls, and braces for impact.

When it comes, she does not go flying. She grabs on.

All four of Ancyor’s limbs grasp the edges of the shield that is trying to pummel her. The shock that passes through Sartha’s mech is spine-shattering; she barely feels it. She’s too busy keeping one eye on the heat warnings, and another on her next trick.

Sartha’s hand dances across the array of switches in Ancyor’s cockpit. Fine-tuning the balance servos. Shifting power exactly where it needs to go. C’mon, girl. Don’t let me down.

Kosterion starts pitching forward, evidently set on slamming Ancyor into the ground. Slow, far too slow. This nuclear monstrosity seems appallingly slow to Sartha now. Ancyor, meanwhile, is finally coming alive. It scrapes its clawed feet against the surface of the shield, finding what purchase it can, while hanging low on its powerful arms.

Then, from that hanging pose, Ancyor launches itself upward. To anyone watching, it looks like the same failed gambit Sartha tried before. Sartha doesn’t care about anyone watching. She’s not trying to make it into Kosterion’s blind spot. That’s a fool’s errand. She’s simply counting on Kosterion’s pilot to do what any consummate swordsman would do in this position. Main hand still fully extended on the backswing, Kosterion tilts its sword down into a cross-body guard. The huge, steel blade blocks Ancyor’s path skyward. Sartha looks set to sunder herself on its edge. So, she does something so crazy, no consummate swordsman would ever think of it. Something nobody but Sartha would do.

She catches the blade between Ancyor’s palms.

A thousand tiny feats of piloting take place in the microseconds before impact, and each of them spells the difference between life and death. The timing has to be perfect. The force has to be perfect. The balance has to be perfect. Sartha’s hands make microscopic adjustments at the controls. It all has to be perfect—but she isn’t scared. Ancyor is her body now. She knows it as her own.

And she is perfect.

Ancyor clamps down on the flat of Kosterion’s sword near the tip, anchoring itself to the slab. Immediately, Sartha braces its legs against it too. The arc the blade travels through leaves her clinging on for dear life. Warning lights appear. Superficial damage. Heat risk. Sartha doesn’t care. She’s alive. She’s so fucking alive.

Atta girl, Ancyor.

And the two of them aren’t done. Kosterion’s sword carries Ancyor to the huge mech’s main-hand flank, now completely exposed. Sartha is running rings around it. With one more leap, Ancyor vaults straight down toward the ground. On the way, a claw lashes out and snaps one of Kosterion’s energized horns in two. The plasma globe dissipates. That’s one condition cleared. With Ancyor’s other hand, Sartha draws the only additional weapon afforded to her: a progressive knife, mag-clamped to Ancyor’s hip. Her long fang. At her command, its vibrating edge springs to life.

Ancyor pivots in midair. It lands on its feet at Kosterion’s flank. Kosterion’s sword arm is still fully extended. In front of her, she sees exactly what she wanted to see.

The exposed joint behind Kosterion’s arm.

Its joints are armored, like most mechs’. But when Kosterion extends a limb, there’s a tiny gap through which its intricate inner workings are visible.

Just big enough for a nice, slender knife.

With a wild howl, Sartha thrusts Ancyor’s fang into the gap. All hell breaks loose.

Sparks like fireworks erupt from Kosterion’s joint as the progressive knife bites deep into fast-moving machinery. The way the impact shock rattles Ancyor is a nightmare, especially when Sartha starts using the knife’s tip to pry apart whatever she can’t cut. Her hands ache from white-knuckling the controls, but she won’t let go. She’s laughing. She’s winning. Kosterion’s interior is solidly built, but it isn’t hardened like the outer armor. Sartha can feel the damage she’s doing. So can Kosterion’s pilot, judging from the way the monstrous mech’s body is bucking and flailing wildly. It’s trying to shake her off.

Just a little more, babygirl.

Ancyor doesn’t let her down as Sartha dances alongside Kosterion, sticking close, avoiding its desperate kicks. It gives a little more and, with one final heave, slices straight down through whatever structural bones support the weight of Kosterion’s sword-arm. Without those, the whole thing tears free and clatters to the ground, leaving behind an awful crater of twisted, gory, red-hot machinery.

Sartha’s laugh turns bloody and foul. Perfect. Time to really fuck this thing up.

She slams a few more buttons in the cockpit. The roaring chainblades lining Ancyor’s claws and forearms rev into life. Once they’re running hot, Sartha retracts her knife, plunges Ancyor’s right hand as far as it will go into Kosterion’s empty shoulder socket, and starts chewing it up from the inside.

Now the sound and fury of Ancyor’s violence becomes even more extreme. The screams of tortured metal from within Kosterion’s bulk are deafening. The deeper Sartha reaches, the more it flails, but as Ancyor turns its innards to shreds, Kosterion’s mighty armor starts buckling inward. Ancyor uses one big crack as a hold, slipping its left hand into it and grabbing on, riding Kosterion as the beast comes apart. Fluids drip and spray from the cracks forming in its hull. Sartha is laughing so hard she’s spraying the bars of her muzzle with spittle. Killing something this strong feels incredible. The kind of challenge she hasn’t had in a long time. The kind of challenge that’s a balm to her soul.

Eventually, Kosterion starts to lose hydraulic pressure. Its struggles weaken. Collapsing from within, it slumps to the ground. Still Sartha doesn’t stop. Not even when she reaches so far inside, she wrecks the cooling lines to its all-important nuclear reactor. Ancyor’s sensors inform her that it’s failing safe. Total power loss.

And with that, the last knight of the atomic age dies.

Even then, Sartha doesn’t stop. It feels too good to stop. She plunges Ancyor’s other arm into Kosterion’s wreck, and rips and tears until there’s nothing left but a pile of scrap. Finally, once her prey’s corpse is barely recognizable as the remnants of a machine, Sartha disengages the chain blades. She allows Ancyor to rock back on its haunches and vent heat. She laughs until she’s wheezing.

Fuck, it’s so good to be alive!

The afterglow is bliss. But it comes to an abrupt end when Sartha notices a distinct piece of wreckage from within Kosterion, resting, by happenstance, just by Ancyor’s foot. A metal sphere, heat- and splinter-shielded, and coated with both electronics and life support systems. It’s the cockpit; still, by some miracle, intact.

And this fight isn’t over. It’s a duel to the death. Not the mech’s. The pilot’s.

That thought is enough to rob all of Sartha’s joy. She knows what she is supposed to do. She remembers Her instructions perfectly, as always. But you don’t do that. Not to another pilot. Not ever. Even most Imperials wouldn’t. It’s not combat, it’s just murder. Does she truly…

The crowd. Sartha remembers the crowd. It’s still there. Still watching. Part of it is still cheering from the way Ancyor circumnavigated Kosterion like a gymnast around a pommel horse before tearing it to shreds. Most of it, though, is jeering. Booing Sartha’s obvious hesitation. Demanding blood with their cries. They are insatiable.

Sartha has to give them exactly what they want.

The mechanics of it are simple. Unsteadily, Sartha lifts one of Ancyor’s legs and rests a foot atop the cockpit. Even the slightest bit of weight she puts on it makes it creak and groan. Sartha feels like she’s going to throw up. She isn’t sure she can do this, not to anyone—but maybe it’s not just anyone. Maybe it’s her. Maybe it’s actually her. Gods. She can’t. She can’t.

Paralysis sets in. Weakness sets in. There is only one thing Sartha knows to do when she’s weak. She reaches for her radio.

“P-p-please, S-sir,” she whimpers. “D-d-do I… I have… c-can’t…”

After a long moment of panic, Sartha hears the line click open. When She speaks, Sartha cannot tell if She is disappointed in her.

‘Off The Leash.’

There’s always that little moment of clarity, as it happens. This time, that moment is filled with shame—shame at how blissful it feels for Sartha to have all her uncertainty and doubt simply melt away. She knows being freed from those things is wrong. She knows that if she were still a real person, she ought to stand firm. Insist. Refuse. But she is not—She taught Sartha that lesson a long time ago, and part and parcel with it is the ecstasy that fills her now as it all vanishes, all the confusion and regret and all the jagged thoughts, as Sartha becomes something else, a creature of violence, a hound who does not hesitate as she engages Ancyor’s limbs and brings the foot down and-

‘On The Leash.’

Silence, but for the dying screeches of the metal underneath.

It’s all gone. It’s all back. All the awfulness. Only so much worse, when Sartha looks down and sees the ruin of Kosterion’s cockpit broken open like an egg beneath Ancyor’s claw. A bright red mess seeps from the cracks. Sartha shudders and chokes back the vomit. It could be some kind of coolant. It could be anything.

Oh, Gods.

Is it her? Is it her? Sartha can’t see. There’s too much debris in the way.

Then the crowd comes back too.

It held its breath as Sartha—as Hound—did the deed. Now, that breath erupts from its throats in a scream louder than any before. At first, Sartha can only hear it as a disgusted, hateful howl. Exactly what she deserves. Only, after a moment, the cacophonous sound resolves into something far worse. Something rhythmic and distinct. A chant. An outpouring of adulation. The crowd’s mood has turned. A single word fills every throat, and once Sartha realizes what it is, it’s all she can do to hold back from begging Handler for another release.

SAR-THA! SAR-THA! SAR-THA! SAR-THA! SAR-THA! SAR-THA! SAR-THA! SAR-THA!

They’re cheering her name. They’re all cheering her name. They love her. Her adoring crowd is cheering her name.

Well, Sartha? Do you feel like a hero yet?

* * *

In her old life, Sartha often dreamt of this city. Those were fine dreams. Dreams of conquest. In her dreams, she always led a triumphant procession through the city’s heart, joy and relief and comradeship flowing as freely as milk and honey through the halls of the Gods. Yes, those had been wonderful dreams. They let Sartha indulge the guilty, giddy hope of an end to it all, without making her feel like she was betraying anybody.

In her dreaming eye, the city was half-formed, ever-shifting. Only the strange magic of sleep kept her certain that, night after night, it was the same place. Nobody Sartha knew had ever seen the city, so her imagination was left to take turns as it pleased. Sometimes it was little more than a vast factory yard, churning out mechanized horrors to sate the Empire’s gluttony for war. Sometimes it was a wound in the earth, an open mining pit, with a citizenry of awful, stooping miners that peered uncertainly at the rebel triumph from within their tunnels and hovels. Still other times, it was a perfect match for the ruin-cities of old, a dense warren of glass spires like the ones rebel salvagers would sometimes guess about to pass the time.

Now, as she looks out across the city from within the angular palace at its heart, Sartha can finally fill in a gap in her mind instead of excavating one. The truth is, it turns out, even worse than she had feared. Of all the atrocities her fecund imagination supplied, none could equal the one currently staring her in the face.

The capital city of the Empire is green.

Between the countless streets forming a perfect, orderly grid across the landscape are rows and rows of individual habitats. Some are still of the very oldest type: orbital recolonization modules simply landed and planted in the earth, each containing everything one family of ark-settlers might need to eke out a spartan existence. Most are much newer; across the city, reconstruction is a constant fever, new habs replacing old, invariably in some bizarre, needless, antiquated style that strikes Sartha as at best atrociously wasteful and at worst actively hazardous during extreme weather.

But when it comes to waste, nothing surpasses the greenery. Each hab, new or old, sits in its very own little paradise, a perfect, square plot covered with a perfectly flat, perfectly maintained lawn of grass. At first, it defied Sartha’s ability to explain. Green plants grow en masse in greenhouses and almost nowhere else. The Earth has long since lost the ability to sustain vegetation as dense as this. Then Sartha noticed the fine mist in the air, just visible at the nearest habs, moving in an unnatural, oscillating pattern.

It’s water. They’re constantly spraying each and every one of these awful, fruitless gardens with water.

Abruptly, the beauty of this ocean of green and plenty falls from Sartha’s sight. She does not see the verdant, pleasant-scented grass. She sees the pipes—small, almost invisible, but everywhere, leading to monstrous, belching water treatment plants, placed carefully beyond the inhuman chasms of barbed wire and military checkpoints that demarcate the city’s boundary. She sees the sprawling camp-slums beyond, housing the guest-workers that operate the plants even as the noxious by-products of the water treatment process make the air they breathe into poison. Sartha sees beyond even that, to the vast Imperial heartland that has been rendered inimical to life by the sprawling networks of pumps and pipelines that extract what little moisture is left in the soil to feed the grass, leaving the land utterly desolate for a hundred leagues in every direction.

Sartha sees all this, and she knows: this place is evil on a scale unfathomable to the people living in it. The green is a lie. This is hell. It is Knossos—named, so She told Sartha, for the capital of the very first empire to leave its mark on the continent upon which they stand.

“Does it impress you?” Handler asks.

Sartha turns away from the window and salutes as She arrives. Her gladness at Her presence is almost enough to wash away the horror, even as anxiety makes her heart skip a beat. “Yes, Sir.”

“Hm.” Handler glances out of the window. She drinks in the same sight. Her lips form a thin line, and Her own evaluation is elusive.

She is not alone. Behind her trail two other figures. One is Leinth Aritimis, Sartha’s sister in bondage. She does not meet Sartha’s gaze when Sartha glances up at her, but Sartha already knows the look of numb, muted horror she would see in her eyes if she did. The other figure is a stranger sight by far: Phylax-General Athina Kynilandre. The presence of the older woman, clad in full dress uniform, raises Sartha’s hackles. This woman has done so much to frustrate Handler; no punishment is sufficient to match the crime. Sartha knows the two of them have been sharing company of late, but even if Handler is, in Her infinite mercy, quick to forgive, Sartha is not.

She has something more pressing to do than growl at the general, though. Better that they were in private, but this cannot wait.

Sartha crumples to her knees at Handler’s feet. “Sir, please… I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I failed You. I-I needed your help, even though t-that was the one thing You told me…

Confession is a balm for the soul—but only so much. It feels good to admit it, to throw herself upon Handler’s mercy, but it does not erase her failure. Only forgiveness can do that.

“You did,” Handler acknowledges. Sartha is torn between agony and ecstasy. The blessing of Handler’s voice, the curse of her admonishment. “But I suppose it is to be expected.”

That remark puts a vicious twist in Sartha’s gut. It’s expected? That she fail? That she is weak? Tears form in her eyes. Is she such a poor hound after all? “I-I-I’m ssorry,” she blubbers. “S-ssorry Sir I’m sosoooorry I-… I-…”

Sartha cannot bear to raise her eyes and look Handler in the face. Seeing disappointment there would shatter her. She just keeps whimpering her apologies, waiting for Handler to decide her fate.

“Tell me, Sartha,” Handler says, eventually. “How are you doing?”

Sartha sniffs and looks up in pure adoration. Such a kind question. It’s so like Her to be so kind at moments like this. Her infinite kindness gives Sartha the strength to pull herself together and answer.

“N-not… well,” Sartha admits. She glances out of the window again. “Being here is… hard. It doesn’t feel right. I can feel…” She struggles for a moment to articulate the crushing weight bearing upon her brain. A hundred jagged thoughts, a thousand terrible realizations held at bay. “I-I think I need some time in the kennels.”

The kennels help. They always help. It’s awful down there, of course, but it’s at least easy not to think. Regular sessions with Handler are what keep Sartha as she should be. After her duel out on the sands, Sartha can feel something creeping back into her heart. Something that does not belong. She needs to be fixed again.

“I see.” Handler seems to consider Sartha’s reply for a long moment. Then, She delivers Her verdict. “Sartha, listen to me very carefully: you did not fail me.”

Sartha goes very still. Jubilation surges within her, but is stilted. If Handler says so, it must be right—but it doesn’t feel right.

“But… b-but… I needed…”

“You put on a fine show,” Handler soothes. “You only needed me for the very hardest part. Nothing was ruined by it. You were very good. I will always be with you for the hard parts. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course!” Sartha nods fervently. Handler never lets her down. Handler is so good to her; that’s exactly why her failings are so unforgivable. She needs to convey that to Handler somehow, even though she cannot bring herself to contradict Her. “But-”

“Hush now, Sartha.”

Her command is punctuated by a hand resting on the back of Sartha’s head. At once, Sartha is silent—inside and out. Handler’s touch quells at once all the turbulence inside her. It sends shivers down her spine. It is bliss incarnate.

“Listen to me,” Handler beckons, and Sartha does. She cannot do otherwise. “You did well. So very well. You made me proud. You always do.”

Pleasure, raw and unfiltered, lights up the ends of all the gnarled doubts that have been growing in Sartha’s skull. She feels Handler’s words erase her, diminish her, and her face forms into a wide, dumb, drooling smile. Still on her knees, one of her legs starts shaking. Tapping. Her excitement cannot be contained.

She made Her proud.

The guilt and shame do not disappear. Not right away. But they begin to shrink. Handler’s glowing praise extracts them from her like pus from a wound. The catharsis of their departure makes Sartha shudder. Tears pour from her eyes. She feels indescribable. Sartha allows herself a lapse in discipline; stray fears and denials drip from her lips in incoherent pleasure-groans. It feels good to let them out, to give them voice, and allow them to evaporate in Handler’s rarefied air.

“Nnnooooo,” Sartha drools happily. Handler starts raking Her nails gently across her scalp, and she gasps. “I dooooon’t… I’m b-bbbaaaaadddd.”

“No,” Handler tells her adamantly. “You’re my wonderful hound. I’m proud of you.”

And the thoughts are gone.

Sartha is left a needy, slavering thing, panting euphorically. Her eyes turn to the shiny tip of Handler’s boot. She will not presume, of course—she never presumes—but if she has been as good as Handler says, perhaps a reward is due. It would feel so wonderful.

“Up, Sartha,” Handler instructs. No reward, then, at least not now. Sartha does not feel even a flicker of disappointment. Whatever Handler decides is best. She springs to her feet. “We’d best not delay any longer. I would hate to be anything more than fashionably late. Leinth, come here. I have something for each of you.”

Leinth approaches. She is not so numb now, Sartha perceives. Envy is eating her up. Sartha indulges in a little inward, petty smugness. Poor Leinth will never know what it is to be Her favorite.

“Here.” From a coat pocket, Handler produces two collars and two leashes, each a long, red cord. She fastens the collars around her hounds’ necks, then winds the leashes around her wrist to free her hands. “There we go. Something to make sure you aren’t led astray.”

Sartha and Leinth share a look. “Where are we going, Sir?” Sartha asks. “Back to the kennels?” she adds hopefully.

“Not just yet,” Handler replies. “There is work yet to be done. You have won over the many. Now it’s time for the few. This way. You too, general.”

Sartha and Leinth immediately follow along at Handler’s heel as she turns to lead them deeper into the palace. It takes General Kynilandre longer to obey, and she does so with a slight, shambling gait, and a strange look that leaves even Sartha uneasy.

But she has more to worry about than her master’s former enemy. As they walk, Sartha takes one last look out of the window. She sees, some way distant, beyond the awful grid of green lawns and pristine habs, the colosseum. The memories return, try as she might to keep them at bay—and with them, the question.

Was it really her?

She tries to keep it in. She really does. Sartha would hate to ruin it all, after receiving such mercy. But perhaps, if she gets the answer she needs, she can finally banish the thought.

“Sir,” Sartha says, quietly and uneasily. “Back there. That pilot. Was it-”

Handler does not deign to turn Her head. “You do not need to worry about it, Sartha. As I said, you did well.”

The praise should be enough to shut her mouth. To put an end to her inner treason. It should be. Sartha clenches her fists and scolds herself. Be a good dog.

Please. Why can’t I just be Her good dog?

The view out over Knossos soon disappears behind them. The palace is a dense warren of cramped passageways, but eventually it opens out to reveal a large double door, flanked by soldiers. They salute as Handler’s party approaches; evidently, She is expected. Sartha studies the door for a brief moment. It is made of fine wood, and its intricate carvings tell a story. A colossal ark station, hanging above a ruined Earth. Nurturing, for generations, the inheritance of its once-great powers. Their technology. Their order. Their civilization. Then, as the carvings tell, it descends. The ark station unleashes its returner module, surrounded by a swarm of shuttlecraft; the returner module is a spike, planting itself in the earth, becoming the very building in which Sartha now stands. And from it, in the carvings, springs forth a fine phalanx of mechs and soldiers, ready to save humanity’s cradle from the degenerated primitivism that has claimed it.

Thus was the very notion of empire reborn.

Sartha looks down. She doesn’t need to think about it. She isn’t supposed to think about it. She only needs to be good for Handler. And it’s show time.

One of the soldiers standing guard turns and touches a control panel on the wall. The wooden door begins to open. As it yawns wide, Handler leads Her followers across the threshold. Sartha follows faithfully at Her right hand. A great, warm mouth of violin music, tinkling champagne glasses, and polite conversation swallows her up.