Chapter II:
Enduring Freedom

Present day
HE.12106.02.19, Fars Province, .5 miles west of Ghalat

It's well past midnight when the battle-worn Tantalus sinks against the cave wall and finally begins to initiate its shutdown sequence. In settling, it draws a screeching protest of metal against rock, and before the Control Link goes quiet, it makes Calliope feel every bit of the jagged scraping down her own back, but that cannot be helped.
She's pretty sure that in her desperate attempts to untangle herself from the dead Faisal, she has messed up one of the claw feet, and better the paint on the back get scratched than that something inside the battered frame give in and it collapse on top of somebody.
Or roll down the sloped cave floor and flatten half their camp.

Inasmuch as it was their camp.
In truth, the Task Force 619 has pushed ahead and hunkered down in the same cave that their would-be ambushers had used for a home base. With the Ambush force annihilated, the handful of sentries left behind were easily dispatched by the smaller scout mechs and gun carriers. And this way, they didn't fall back, better for morale, and they might be able to replace some of the material and supplies lost in the explosion of the Crawler.
Maybe even grab a trophy or three.
Great. Fucking fantastic.
Except it had taken two long, endless fucking hours of waiting, hanging in her cockpit, aching all over, while the dismounts swept the camp for traps. That's probably sensible, militarily speaking.
If the sentries had been warned, they could have easily spiked munitions, or poisoned the supplies or pissed in the water tank or a hundred other nasty surprises.

But Calliope cannot, for the life of her, muster the energy to care about any of that crap.
The only thing more miserable than piloting a mech suit into battle is piloting it back out. Especially if there is a mindless fucking beast at the controls during the fight. A beast without a shred of regard for the state that it leaves mech and pilot in. There's not a single part of her body that doesn't hurt, if not all of them for the same reason. She's every bit as battered as the Tantalus is, every bit as worn.
Or maybe that's just the Link biofeedback screwing with her brain.
Who the fuck knows?

It's not supposed to happen, no sane mind rides their mech this hard. Hell, no human could, cause the strain of the biofeedback would slow them down. That's part of what the biofeedback systems are for, so pilots don't go so rough and hard they damage their machines unnecessarily. She can practically hear Dr. Vanth lecturing some general or another: "Another advantage of the Program."
To the stupid beast inside Calliope's head, little things like pain or injury are utterly inconsequential.
And afterwards it's her that gets stuck footing the bill, not the Hound, isn't it?

But the pain isn't the worst. She's gotten used to hurting. Over the… fuck, how long has it been? Years? It's been years, hasn't it? Her memory is a bit fuzzy on that front, or most fronts really, but she remembers he's been hurting for most of that time, and often worse than now. The blisters, where heated-up buckles have burned her, the strain in her joints, the murderous headache from the Control Link, the exhaustion… she can deal with all that.
She's been taught to.
Besides, they've done things to her body, down in the labs of Lethe, things that have made her more than just quick, and she's pretty confident she can sleep the beating she's taken off in a day or two.
Hopefully.

No, the worst thing is the loneliness.
Or the lack thereof.
Hard to tell.
Fuck.
Why is everything so fucking hard to figure out? Why is it so hard to think when she's not fighting?
Is that even me that's thinking in a fight?
Is it now?
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Calliope shakes her head and wants to scream her frustrations out into the quiet of her cockpit, and what comes out is somewhere between a snarl and a whine, and none of it is human.

Handler Vanth has not spoken to her, not since the ambush, not since the Handler had woken her… fuck. Not since the Handler had woken up the beast that lives in the back of Calliope's skull.
Hours ago.
Long, lonely hours.
Not a single word.

And that's good! That's what she wants, right? This deployment, it's been the longest she has been away from Handler Vanth. In years! Decades? Ever? Doesn't matter! What matters is that it's easier to think clearly the further away she is from her… fuck! from the Handler.
The longer she stays away.
And sure, yesterday was a setback.
Yesterday she had begged.
But that's OK.
She's a civilian, she's not a soldier, she's not supposed to be here. It's OK to be scared.
It's OK to beg.

Handler Vanth has told her so, and Handler is always going to take care of her, if only she asks for…

Fuck.

No contact with Handler, not since the start of the fight, means no one to put the beast back in its cage.
No one to put it back to sleep.
That doesn't mean it stays around, not exactly - sometime between ripping its limbs free from the falling mech and fold-stepping up another cliff, and the eternity of waiting outside their new FOB, the creature had conceded control of her body back to Calliope.

But the cage door isn't closed, the Hound is still there, in the far corners of her skull. Licking its wounds. Lurking. Whining. And whenever this happens, it becomes so very difficult to untangle. Which of the thoughts wafting through Calliope's head belong to her, and which ones belong to the Hound?

It's dizzying.
And it's just plain scary.

Not that the hound bears her any malice, the hatred she feels for the creature that Handler Vanth has seeded into the depth of her psyche and nurtured into a war beast is entirely one-sided, and the hound either doesn't notice or doesn't seem to mind.

No, the Hound is not angry.
It is hurt.
Confused.
Upset.

She's been so good! She's done great! She got her orders, and she fulfilled them! With time to spare. Told to fetch, sent to hunt, and she's delivered victory, just like she is supposed to. Like she has been told to.
With time to spare even!
So why is the Handler quiet?
The hound has done nothing at all wrong, nothing to deserve punishment, nothing to deserve the soul-crushing weight of silence. Or at least nothing that the painfully simple beast understands.
Hound knows she's done well, and Hound knows if she does well, she gets praise and attention, and she knows no greater joy than to hear Handler Vanth be pleased with her, no greater love than to be praised, and to feel the gloved hands in her hair and gentle reward for a job well done.

And Calliope has…
FUCK!
The Hound has done so well!
And Hound and Calliope both know that they can't expect much thanks from the soldiers or the other pilots of the Task Force, they never get that.
But Handler Vanth is different, the Handler is just and fair and kind, and Call… Hound gets a reward when she has been a good girl. A good dog. The simple, immutable connection of obedience and reward is a foundational constant of their existence, as much as the laws of gravity are.

Hound wants her reward.
She deserves her reward, she has earned it, and she wants it. She wants her Handler, misses her Handler so badly it feels like her chest is going to burst open.

The hound wants her well-earned treat that she's fought for and bled for and killed for.
And its incessant, desperate whining and mewling and raving is a constant gnaw at the edges of Calliope's heart and mind, a constant tug that is so very difficult to ignore, so difficult to push aside. The wait for the cave to be cleared for entry had been an infinity of trying and trying and failing to hold onto thoughts about anything, literally anything else.

And the worst thing is, Calliope gets it deep down.
No matter how much she tries to hold onto righteous anger, no matter how much she tries to nurture her spite, how much she stakes what's left of her on resisting this whole fucked-up situation, no matter how much she tries to hate the woman that has done this to her…

… it's been weeks, long, lonely, agonizing weeks, devoid of any sliver of comfort, and Calliope misses her Handler too. Misses her something fierce, misses the sensations and the scent and even just her voice and the conversations they have sometimes.
Gods, Calliope hates herself so much for being this weak, this fucking pathetic.

There's also a much more… urgent craving, one that Calliope and Hound share, one they feel with equal, whimpering desperation.
Getting rewarded, getting a treat, that means release.
It means getting off.
And Calliope wants to blame the combat stims that the Tantalus pumps through the Control Link and aerosolizes into her breathing mask, or all the things they've done to her in the laboratories of Lethe, but right here and now it doesn't matter whose fault this is, it doesn't matter what the fuck is wrong with her.
Coming out of a battle, she's rock fucking hard.
So hard it hurts.
So hard it makes her fear she'll burst, and not in the fun way.
So hard it makes her dizzy, because the blood that's used for swelling is really needed elsewhere.
And after weeks without a treat, without reward, and even longer without feeling her Handler's touch, she is so incredibly, maddeningly pent up.
Calliope wants to scream.
Doesn't, because she's afraid what animal noises her throat is going to choke up.
Wants to cry and sob, wants to let out some of the despair she feels.
Still, she doesn't cry, or at least she thinks she doesn't, with all the sweat and probably blood running down her face underneath her helmet.
Fuck.

Unlike the simple, wretched beast cowering at the back of her mind, Calliope understands why Handler Vanth isn't speaking to her, of course.
Why there is no reward, even after she has singlehandedly wrestled victory from the jaws of imminent disaster. Or well… the Hound has, but it's still her body, and her training, and… it's kind of also her thoughts, isn't it?
No it isn't. Fuck that.
The beast and the girl are altogether separate, and that is that.

And that's why Handler Vanth is quiet.
Because Calliope has demanded it.
Over comms, as soon as she shipped out on this deployment.
Obviously.
There's not enough willpower in the world to face Handler Vanth in person and make demands, that would be utterly unthinkable. And willpower is something Calliope has a preciously short supply of. But she had gathered it, and all her miserable little courage to boot, and she had ranted and raved at Handler Vanth.
Cast blame, made accusations.
Demanded to be left alone.
Declared that she is a person, her own person, and not a beast, not a tool or a weapon.
Declared that she'll be just fine on her own.

And to her genuine surprise, Dr. Vanth had… just agreed.
Promised to leave Calliope be.
To only check in during emergencies.
And as best as she can tell, the Handler has kept her word.
Of course she did. Handler is kind and just, Handler always keeps her word, Handler…
FUCK OFF!

And the days of freedom, the long nights of quiet, it's been…
…miserable.
It's been painful and scary and confusing, and oh so desperately lonely.
A dreary slog of exhaustion, self-pity, and indignity.

And the silence now, the gaping maw of an absence, the void where rewards of tenderness and praise and relief should be waiting, that is… can it even be called punishment if it's exactly what she has asked for?
Calliope has no doubt that Handler Vanth knows exactly how her pilot is feeling.
That woman can read minds, even those she hasn't personally messed up.
This is all on purpose.
Part of this sick and twisted game, designed to break her even more.
This is the price of defiance.
The price of some measure of freedom.

Another vicious, angry snarl escapes her lips.
Well, fuck you too, Handl… Tannit.
Fuck you too, Tannit.
Calliope almost takes delight in the surge of anxiety that ripples through the beast when failing to properly address or outright insulting the Handler, even in thought alone.
The most petty and meager of satisfactions, but it will have to do.

Dull red light floods the cockpit.
A series of metallic clicks as the sleeves around her limbs unlatch. A cold vacuum hiss and an icy chill run through her spine when the needle of the Control Link retreats from the port at the back of her head. The Tantalus is done shutting down and lies still.
Finally.
Time to get some rest.
Hopefully.
With a hiss, the visor retracts. The breathing mask comes loose, and the rank, burned air in the sealed cockpit assaults her sensitive nose. A click, and the helmet folds away. Her hair knot has loosened at some point, a flood of sweat-soaked blonde pours from her head.
With her limbs free to hang loose, it's only the web of straps that is holding her up. One by one, Calliope begins unbuckling herself. There's supposed to be a method to this, a way her weight remains evenly distributed, a way it doesn't hurt quite so bad when the straps cut into her as her weight shifts.
She can never remember the awfully complicated sequence.
And who even cares?
Her lower half comes free, her knees hit the deck, maybe two and a half feet below.
Clumsy fingers rip the last buckle open, free her torso.
Mechanical spurs whir as the straps retreat just a little, out of the way.

And Calliope collapses, flat on her face.
She's meant to brace herself, sure, but her limbs are so heavy and so clumsy and feel so strange after hours inhabiting the gigantic metal body, and one of her shoulders might be dislocated, and she just falls flat, whining in pain from the sudden smack of landing on her tits and from the awkward way she lands on her genitals too, but at least that pain gets her erection to recede for a moment.
Pathetic.
At least there's no one here to see.

It takes Calliope longer than she cares to admit, even in solitude, to scrape herself off the floor. To open the little compartment with the satchel, filled with the meager possessions she's been able to bring, to hoist the bag over her aching shoulder.
By the time she has managed to wrench the heavy latches of the cockpit seal open, the ground crew has long pushed the little gangway up against the spot where the Tantalus' massive chest plates separate to permit pilot egress.

She clambers out of the hole, blinks a few times, her retinas sore from the information flood inside the helmet. Lets her gaze wander. The cave is not a bad spot to camp out, as far as she can tell, not that she knows anything of military matters.
It's certainly colorful compared with the drab and gray camo colors of FOB Calea. Clearly the soldiers of the League had been in for the long haul, and below stretches a labyrinth of individual cots and spaces, separated by a million cloths and wall carpets in rich reds and purples, hanging from string or rope, and all around, colored camp lights have lit up.
So much color and so much bustle with the soldiers of the Task Force pouring in and getting comfortable, it makes her dizzy, and she has to tear her gaze down onto the gray mesh of the gangway, that is nice and boring at the very least.

It'd be three, maybe four steps to the little freight elevator - and thank fuck there is an elevator, in her state a ladder would probably kill her - but with her legs so weak and wobbly, she needs the better part of a minute, both hands painfully on the guardrails, dragging her legs along, forcing her spine to be straight.
Because the Tantalus is part wolf and part dragon, its legs bend backwards and hers do not. It stalks and prowls and lopes in an animal crawl, hunched deeper than Calliope's spine could even arch, certainly lower than she could ever hope to hold her balance. Without going on all fours, that is.
And her brain is still too scrambled from hours deep in the link, hours where the giant metal body was truly hers, not this malleable, pitiable sack of meat she is stuck in now. What she remembers of the dysphoria of her old life doesn't have shit on the sheer, overwhelming dissonance between pathetic flesh and steel truth.
She knows it'll fade in a few hours.
The worst of it, at least.
It always just drains out of the gaping holes that they have torn into her psyche.
Small wonder this stuff fucks up the other pilots.
Still, she's grateful she can crumble into the little freight basket.

The techie that's operating the elevator doesn't bother to salute her when the grate snaps open.
Sure, a pilot outranks a junior maintenance techie by a mile - but Calliope isn't really a military pilot now, is she? She's not even sure she has an official rank.
No, she is… a civilian?
Part of the equipment.
That's what she is.
And a part the maintenance techs are none too fond of, because she runs the Tantalus at the absolute limits of what the machine can take, frequently beyond, and someone is going to have to pull an all-nighter fixing all the wear and tear.
So there's no love lost there, and no words are exchanged, she's just pointed towards a slit in two nearby fabric panels of lush red and sand yellow. Her quarters for the night, apparently. Pilots in the field are usually quartered as close to their mech suits as possible, that's what the doctrine says, and in this at least, even Calliope is no different.
There's no guardrails down here though - just a dozen feet of naked rock and tarps and a carpet or two - and she's too tired to bother with pretense. It's just so much more comfortable to crawl, the palms of her pilot gloves are padded, so are the knees of her suit, and being down on her four is less dizzying, and it takes pressure off her spine and weight off her aching hips and strained ankles.
And fuck the techie too, for snickering behind her back.

On hands and knees, it only takes Calliope a few moments before she learns that at least for tonight, her position has its perks. The space she's been assigned by virtue of proximity must have belonged to someone of serious rank. It's spacious, at least by the standards of a military bunk, and it's cozy. The actual cot is practically invisible beneath a pile of blankets and pillows and lined with wall carpets covered in Arabic signage that drown out a good bit of the camp noise.
She wonders if the plush plenty of this camp is the result of Leaguemen pilfering the surrounding villages and towns. They have that reputation, wherever they are deployed.

Calliope decidedly does not wonder if this cot, richly decorated in religious symbols and mosaics and right next to the largest space suitable for sitting a mech down, might have belonged to the pilot of the Faisal, whom she had cooked alive inside his mech just seven or eight hours earlier. Nor does she think about all the other hundreds of lives she has taken today, the sight of gun crews melting to slag under her fiery wrath, men and women with families and homes and Gods only knew what else to return to, rendered to ash in a matter of fractions of seconds.
Such thoughts would cause Calliope a great deal of grief, and so the Hound, ever diligent, is happy to snatch them up and devour them whole before they can bubble to the surface of the mind they share.

She discards her bag onto a long box and crawls to the bed.
Kicks her useless and untied boots off along the way. It takes conscious effort to resist the siren call of softness and sleep for just long enough to pick out some of the pillows she likes the best and throw them to the side, toss a blanket over them. Firm in her plan to squirrel them away in her cockpit later, when they leave. And Calliope is still human enough to realize that without a thorough shower, she'll definitely make a mess of the bedding she's about to collapse into.
But at least for right now, she's just not human enough to care.
And so once her future prize is secured, she lets herself fall with a happy little sigh and doesn't even think to try and slip from her sweat-soaked flight suit until she is safely enveloped by the primal comfort of warm, heavy fabric.
With some small effort, she manages to get the zipper open and contort herself to at least wriggle her upper body free. Gentle softness against her sore skin, her burns, and her bruises.
This is nice.
Her good arm reaches for a second blanket to pile on top of her. The heat of the combat stimms is waning, and the winter nights out here in the Iranian highlands can be icy. But she's got plenty of…

A different sensation cuts through the self-satisfied, comfortable drowsiness.
She catches the intensely dissonant scent before she hears the boots on stone or sees the cloth part.

"Hey tyke! Wake the fuck up!"
Spoken with more hate than authority, but loud and sharp enough, made harder by the heavy Dutch accent, that it hardly matters for the effect it has on Calliope, especially while she's beat, and while she had been drifting in the twilight between waking and sleep.
She jolts up into a sitting position in an instant, nothing more than raw, Pavlovian reflex.
Looks up attentively, sees the faces gathering in the entrance of her temporary quarters.
Wilts back a little under their leering hate.

The other pilots.
Or some of them, at least.
Most of the officers and a lot of technical personnel and foot soldiers just keep their distance from Calliope because her state makes them uncomfortable or because they find her presence distasteful.
Not so the regular pilots of the Red Spear, the SEU's mech combat forces.
They hate her.
So much.
There's many reasons for that, of course.
She's less than they are, less trained, a civilian without rank, and less of a person, obviously.
But she's also so much more than they are. Upstaging her proud and reckless peers at every turn. The pilots glowering down on her have spent years after enlisting, training tirelessly, all for those three, four precious fights where they get to be one with their machines.
Where they get to be titans.
Calliope has linked with the Tantalus seven times on this deployment alone. It's harder without Hound, but just the same, it does not mess her up the way it does them. And on a day like today… well, these people had been cowering in their mechs too, pressed into cover, half of them probably wondering if it was worth linking up. Perhaps some of them had, in the expectation of throwing themselves into a terribly doomed and heroic blaze of glory.
A battle that, for the most part, had taken Calliope forty seconds to finish.
Proud veteran soldiers, left in the dust by a mutt yet again.
No wonder they despise her, is it?
Especially since her mere existence is enough to spread rumors. To make everyone suspect that maybe the Council is weighing their options. Wondering if all the effort of training and pampering regular pilots is even worth it when Director Vanth can mold a better weapon from worse stock in less time.

And then there's the most primal reason. These pilots too, just like here, just got to ride the high of being in command of a death machine the size of a house. Of feeling invincible. And unlike Calliope, they've not had their pride and ego scooped out their ears bit by bit. So right now, cast out of their majestic steel bodies for routine maintenance, they crave nothing more than feeling powerful.

Envy and anger, jealousy and arrogant hate all radiate down on Calliope, and it takes conscious effort to remind herself that she's a person too, and not a dog, beaten or about to be.
Not entirely.
She still looks down, but at least she finds enough of a backbone to keep her back relatively straight. Enough spite to keep herself from whimpering when she mumbles, "What is it, Lieutenant?"

That still elicits a shower of sneering chuckles. Her reflexive meekness and the overwhelming compulsion toward obedience and respect for rank never cease to amuse them. The Dutch pilot that has been speaking steps forward, the voice oozing with smug, cruel satisfaction: "The League fuckers had a hell of a stockpile of perishables. Captain says we got to wait for chemical analysis to see if the stuff's been poisoned or spoiled, but we figured there's a quicker way to figure out if the food's safe than waiting for a few hours until the nerds get set up."
Another round of mean-spirited chuckling.
"So eat up, tyke!"

The source of the smell comes into view when the pilot places it down, underscored by more hateful laughter. They have found a large, metal dog bowl somewhere. Of course they have. They always seem to, wherever they camp, no matter how many of them Calliope quietly breaks or disappears.
But this one is overflowing.
With real food. Her superhumanly fine nose can pick out notes of cardamom, and of cumin, of cinnamon and clove, some kind of citrus note she doesn't recognize, and meat.
Not nutrient- and vitamin-rich, but deathly bland and odorless shavings and nibbles from the soy ration block in her pack.
Real, actual, seasoned, marinated meat, from a grill, no more than a few hours ago.
Poultry and Goat.

Calliope hasn't gotten real meat since she left ho… TOC Lethe.
Some of the laughter dies down when they realize, roughly at the same time as she does, that her mouth is hanging open. That she's fucking drooling.
The growling, churning rumble is from her stomach, not her throat.
So fucking what if these assholes get a show out of it? She's so ravenously hungry all of a sudden, or perhaps she has been for a while, and it had just gotten lost in the storm of general malaise.

Her legs are still sluggish, but it's only a few feet to crawl, and her fingers are stiff and clumsy, cause the Tantalus' fingers have a different number of joints, but she doesn't need fingers to eat, does she? Her maw will do for that, and by the time she's made it over, her vision has narrowed so much, all she can see is the food, not even the jackboots around her.
There's no need for hesitation. She has permission, no, she practically has an order.
Calliope dives her face into the bounty with reckless, no, joyous abandon.
It doesn't matter that it might be dangerous or spoiled, surely it smells too good for that.
It doesn't matter that she's a soaked sports bra away from being topless.
It doesn't matter that in their effort to get a range of dishes tested, they have thrown sweet and savory, entree and dessert into the same bowl, and there's so much sauce that has mixed and run together.
No one has a discerning palate after weeks of flavorless soy rations.
Least of all a dog.

Calliope is happy to lose herself in the joy of gluttony for a little while.
Not like she's got any dignity to maintain, certainly not in front of these people.
And besides, there's a lesson that she has learned a long, long time ago. They can't take what you throw away first. A lot of people lose their stomach for bullying if you make them uncomfortable enough. As her teeth sink into marinated flesh, that is the last thought she has for a while, and everything else is just sensation and flavor.

By the time she heaves herself back into an upright kneel, because she's well and truly full and content, there's only a gooey, oily mess at the bottom of the bowl. And on its edges and the ground around it. Her hair is everywhere, loose, sweaty strands sticking to the sauces that her face is no doubt covered in.
Calliope takes no small amount of satisfaction in the fact that she's made things gross and pitiable enough, her audience has dwindled substantially.
The Dutch pilot is still there, staring, angrier now than before.
And even though the full belly doesn't exactly make thinking easier - or perhaps because of it - Calliope just cannot help herself. Contorts her face into a smile that's supposed to look innocent - and with just a smidgen of insanity. Speaks, labored, as though human words don't come easy to her - and if she's honest with herself, they really don't: "That was delicious, Lieutenant. Thank you so much for the room service, that was very…" She's happy for the deep, content burp that escapes her, because it gives her time to fish for the right word: "considerate of you. It seems safe to me. But of course that might just be my stomach being different and such, so it might be safer if you wait a little more."
Another burp, louder than the first. She noisily licks her lips and falls into an easy, vacant smile.
The last of her would-be tormentors turn to storm off in disgust.
Victory.
Fuck you too, bitches.

She settles down a little. Contemplates if she wants to go fishing for leftover scraps of chicken in the bowl. Basking in her petty victory, her senses occupied by the afterglow of the feast, Calliope doesn't even notice the woman that has stayed, not until she feels a rag on her cheek, gently wiping away oil and cream and tomato splatter.

"Hey. Easy there."

The voice is gentle and tender enough that Calliope almost doesn't flinch. Just a little, before she freezes, lets the woman work and studies her with wide doe eyes.
She's muscular. Dark hair, sharp jawline, high cheekbones. A couple years older, if she had to guess, late thirties maybe. Blue eyes, warm with concern. Dressed in an infantry uniform. An officer of some kind? Calliope vaguely remembers seeing her around the FOB.
A woman like her, in some ways, or at least she thinks so.

"Warrant Officer Kaya Dabrovka, 4th Combat Engineers. Third…" Her expression hardens for a split second as she corrects herself. "Second in command of the survey detachment, as of today."
Calliope is not used to people bothering to introduce themselves anymore and only mumbles out a meek "Sorry about that," which doesn't exactly seem to please the woman currently wiping her face down.
Warrant Officer Dabrovka furrows her brows, but she doesn't sound angry when she speaks, which is a mighty relief in and of itself: "Way I see it, you've got less to be sorry about than anyone else here. You saved all our asses out there." She gestures at the bowl, full-on frowns. "And look at all the gratitude that got you, huh?"

Calliope bares her teeth into a wide grin and quips: "Hey, dinner in bed is not so bed. Saves me the trip."

The chuckle she gets in response is just a little forced, and the combat engineer's smile doesn't quite reach her eyes. "You… sure you're alright? Calliope, is it, right?" She finishes wiping down the kneeling girl's features and brushes some of the soiled hair from her face.

"I'm fine." Calliope's response is instant, pure reflex, and as fake as her smile. Cause it's so much easier to sustain herself on spite when she's being hated than if she's being pitied. Besides, there's only one person in the world that truly, really cares for her, she knows that for sure, so she adds, "Anything for victory, right? I can handle it, really."
Liar, liar, liar.

Kaya's expression is inscrutable when she tosses the soiled rag away, reaches into one of the pouches on her kit, rummages around, produces a small, opaque Ziploc bag.
"Listen, Calliope. I got a package. Before we deployed. Bunch'a weird orders. Above my pay grade, really. But this evening… your Director Vanth said you could have this. That you've earned it, and it's yours. If you want it."

Calliope can feel how she has perked up. Can tell that she's staring at the little bag, that once more her vision has gone utterly narrow. Treat, treat, treat, treat! Handler kept her word, even though we were rude to her. Handler always keeps her word, treat… The Hound is suddenly awake again, in an excited frenzy, bouncing around her skull like mad.
C'mon! Focus.
Fuck.
It's a sick game, her game, it's not the first time she's left packages and instructions with others.
And those little gifts have always… always…
In spite of all the sauce she's just slurped down, her mouth is dry again when she asks, "D-did Handler Vanth tell you that you could use me too? For… stress relief?" Wouldn't be the first time that Handler delegates her relief. And also, she can feel herself get hard again at the mere thought.
Calliope can only see the warrant officer's slow nod from the corner of her eye.
Her gaze is still spellbound by curiosity and yearning, and she catches herself leaning forward toward the bag in the muscular woman's hand. Whatever it is, she wants it badly, so badly, she needs it.

"She did. Tell me that. I said I'll think about it. Do you want that, Calliope?"

The yearning has grown so bad, the hound has grown so loud, and Calliope has no idea if the other woman is talking about the treat or about fucking, and she's just trying to think, trying to figure out if this is some new form of surrender or if she can indulge, just this once, and it wouldn't mean anything.
She has earned a treat, hasn't she?
After this long and fucked-up day?
After… after…

She only realizes that she's been nodding enthusiastically, that she's been panting, mouth ever so slightly ajar, when the precious bag is dropped into her open, waiting hands that she can't remember raising. So much for that.
Too late to try and resist now.

She rips the package open, and the scent hits her before she can even identify the object inside.
Potent, burrowing citrus of fresh, blooming heath. Gentle sweetness of juniper and lilac.
Her scent.
Handler's scent.
Calliope breathes deep, and the wave of comfort washes over her, the safety that comes with knowing she isn't alone, that she is cared for, will always be cared for, that she is loved, that her Handler loves her enough to make sure she won't be sent on deployment without treats prepared in advance.
It flushes every conscious thought from her mind, and a couple of subconscious ones to boot, and all that remains is a happy, incredibly horny hound. Two fingers pluck the soft leather glove imbued with the Handler's scent from the bag, animal greed tempered by sheer reverence for the precious gift.

A trembling hand lifts it to her face, presses it over her nose, sinks backwards into the pillows, her legs kicking and squirming, wriggling free of the rest of her pilot suit. There's someone here with her! And Kaya has been given permission to use her! Which means she has permission to… to… finally…
Calliope turns fully, buries her face in a pillow so the thin, soft leather of the glove covers her eyes and nose, and it almost feels like it's actually Handler's hand pressing on her face.
Sticks her ass in the air, shakes it at the warrant officer, paws meekly at her underwear.
Like a bitch in heat.
That's what she is, isn't she? Heat, so much heat.
There's a constant, mindless drizzle of words flowing from her lips, desperate, undignified begging.

"Pleasepleasepleasetakemefuckmefuckmefuckmeplease."
It's been so long. Too long.
She can't tell if it's her speaking or if it's the Hound, and she does not care any which way, and the scent overpowers all the silly thoughts and worries, all the cares she might have.
She loves that smell so much.
She loves her Handler.

Her Handler, who has chosen her nice, gentle messenger with wisdom and care, of course she has.
Calliope has done well, and if she does well, she gets a treat, and Handler Vanth always keeps her word.

Calliope can hear a grunt and some human words, but her minds are beyond human words that aren't orders right now. She can feel her panties get pulled down roughly, a little further, and strong, calloused hands that seize her hips.
Yesyesyespleasepleaseplease.

She hears a spitting sound.
Finds that Kaya Dabrovka is in fact like her when the woman's cock enters her from behind, without any ceremony or tenderness. And Calliope would not have it any other way.
She's been pent up for weeks, the Handler's scent is fuel to the flames of her desperate neediness.
She wants, no, needs to get fucked.

The woman on top of her is neither small nor gentle, and she is hard, and perhaps it's no wonder that a soldier would be just as pent up.
Calliope writhes as she is impaled, pushes back against the intrusion, howls with pleasure, muffled because the weight of each thrust pushes her face deeper into the pillow, pushes her nose deeper into the Handler's distant touch.

Her fumbling, flailing hands manage to stuff a pillow underneath her bucking hips. Something to grind her own erection against while she is being railed, used, a piece of meat for her betters to relieve their stress into.

It's perfect.

Each thrust, the grip on her bruised hips tightens. Each thrust the heat inside of her mounts a little more.
As they rut, lured by scent and overwhelmed by sensation, Calliope sinks into an ocean of wonderful, utterly mindless animal bliss.

The pleasure mounts more and more with each violent push rocking her hips, each little bit of friction and pressure her own cock manages to catch on the pillow.
She feels beautiful.
Content.
Happy.

A grunt as the weight on her increases. A hand in her hair, pushing down hard. The cock inside of her begins to spasm, and the Handler's scent has filled the furthest reaches of her mind. And with one last breathless, triumphant animal howl, her pleasure peaks and overwhelms her, and she spills herself into the fabric, at the same time, Kaya fills her up with warmth.

The orgasm she's been denied for so long ripples up her spine.
Short-circuits the last vestiges of coherent thought.
And just like that, Calliope is gone.

****