Chapter Text
It's a beautiful night sky, and Alida Chondax is very, very tired.
She hasn't gotten to experience many of those, lately. The skies above the planet she serves on are often choked with smog and duststorms, and even if they aren't, the many searchlights, aircraft, and low-orbit space vessels drown out any stars that might have been visible. The only reason she can see the many stars is because she's in such a remote place - there's no reason to be here for either the Imperials or the rebels. Almost no reason for Alida to be here. Except, of course, that She wants Alida here, and so this is where Alida should be. In this far-out corner of the planet that nobody even bothered fighting over.
Alida furrows her brow. The planet. There is something about it, she thinks. A feeling she had for it, once. Her stomach rises up. It's a thought she should not be having, clearly. Her Handler told her not to. She always knows what's best. Alida would do anything for Her.
Handler asked Alida to be her tool, and so Alida acquiesced. Let Her melt down her mind and soul, and beat it into a shape more useful. For Her, Alida opens her eyes every morning in that cold, cramped cell with its iron walls. It's not locked anymore. It doesn't need to be. Alida knows Handler wouldn't want her to leave, so the thought never even occurs to her. For Her, Alida ignores her screaming muscles, her heavy bones, her exhausted everything, and clambers back into the cockpit of her Sparrowsong, ready to make Her proud.
Only, she hasn't made Her proud very often, recently. She's been slipping. Oh, she's never failed Handler, not yet, but her form has not been perfect for a while. Hesitation at crucial junctures; confusion at the worst possible moments. Her work has grown sloppy. Her victories almost pyrrhic.
Praise and treats have been few and far between, and a note of disappointment has crept into Her voice as of late, every time Alida returns from another barely-completed mission. What reward She did deign to hand out was perfunctory, an acknowledgement that, yes, the task set out before Alida had technically been completed, but little more.
Alida knew this would happen, eventually. She'd seen it happen to so many of Her other dogs. Broken things put back together that, over time, inevitably fall apart under the pressure again. Husks that fill themselves with Her presence to sustain themselves, invariably splitting at the seams as they could not contain Her glory.
She'd held out longer than any of Her other creations, much longer. She'd seen dozens of rebels - some strangers, some familiar faces, some she isn't allowed to remember, but whose faces contort and who spit at her when they see her - come and go, be broken, rebuilt, and broken again. None of them know how long they'd served Her, of course - that time always only ever danced on the twin edges of 'an eternity' and 'not long enough' - but she'd been here before any of the others. Alida is - was - Her prize possession, Her finest work, Her masterpiece. The magnum opus that proved Her methods to the powers that be. Alida had dared hope she would be able to last forever. She suspects Handler had, too.
Alida snaps out of her reverie as a voice crackles in over her comms. For a moment, she hopes it's Handler, but the gruff, coarse vowels spat at her through her earpiece are nothing like Her supple words.
Remember the plan, dog, if your brain still works. No fuckups this time.
"Yes, Ma'am," Alida barks mechanically. It was a simple enough mission; ambushing a rebel patrol. Intel indicated only three of the ramshackle hodgepodges the rebels call machines. Alida's squadron counts seven top-of-the-line Arcadia-class light assault vanguards, plus the Sparrowsong. They had hidden themselves underneath the latest iteration of Imperial Lightbreaker camo-field tech, ready to spring an ambush on the open plains, where the enemy would have no chance to hide. A task like this is insulting for an ace of Alida's skill, especially since she could be leading the main assault instead, like she'd so often had. Or rather, it would be insulting, if she hadn't been showing she couldn't be trusted with anything more complicated. And if the mission hadn't come from Handler, of course. Any mission that comes from Her is perfect for Alida, because it gives her the chance to please Her.
Out of sheer habit, Alida runs another quick round of pre-battle checks. Cooling good. Guns loaded. Annihilation plant within parameters. Shields operational. Engines at full power. Sparrowsong is ready. Alida hopes she would be, too. Despite herself, she feels her hands shaking like she's some rookie in her first engagement. She's not afraid of dying, of course - only of failing to please Handler again.
Comms spark to life once more. Another trooper, this time.
Can't believe we finally get a deployment where this bitch can do the hard work for us, and she's used up. Think she's even gonna bother getting a single kill?
The rebuke comes quickly and sharply. The Imperials value their comms discipline, much more than the rebels ever had.
Alida stops for a moment. Wait, how does she know that? How would she know what the rebels were like in their rag-tag, impromptu units? Her mind quickly clouds again. Not something she's supposed to think about. It's not important, anyway.
Her earpiece lights up with sound again, and immediately, Alida's hands stop shaking. Her mind becomes clear. A fuzzy warmth fills her chest. It's Her.
You will not fail me, Alida, Handler speaks.
Alida nods eagerly, suppressing a whine. She can hear the displeasure that saturates Handler's voice. Handler is upset at Alida. She'll need to do good this mission. Show her that she's still a good hound.
Then her screen flares red as targeting arrays lock on in the distance. The mechs around her grow still. The enemy is approaching.
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"Can't believe we got stuck with blastin' patrol duty again," Jaxie Thornth moans over her comms. "Did you have to trade with that Ponthax floozie, Sesk?" The almost-rhythmic rumbling of her mech would at least be soothing, if her inertial dampening system hadn't been shot to hell. She loves her beat-up old Havensword, but right now, riding it was a literal pain in the ass. Over the comms, Jaxie can just about make out Sesk's response through the static.
"You didn't have to be here, Jax. I could've gone with just Hueth here. Or, hell, on my own - not like anything ever happens in this outta-the-way corner." Jaxie grunts in response. Sesk isn't necessarily wrong, she supposes. The only reason they are even here is because Command got it in their heads that a decoy base would be a good idea. There is nothing here - no resources to secure, no objectives to hold, barely even any people to defend. Nothing to defend them from, either, for that matter.
Still, it's bad opsec to go out on your own. Pairs at least. Trios when possible. And, Jaxie had to admit, Sesk's company is at least a better time than staying back at base with fuck-all to do. So, here she is, getting her tailbone shaken to shit.
Her eyes lazily flow over the flat, grassy plain. A few trees in the distance. Thanks to Havensword's excellent night vision, fairly pilfered from a beaten Imperial scout mech, she's able to make out a few leaves blowing in the wind. Her gaze follows, with little else to focus it on.
Jaxie is very confused when she sees them vanish into nothing, only to pop back into existence again seconds later. Like they briefly flew behind an invisible wall or somethi-
Lightning runs down Jaxie's spine. Her eyes widen. For a fraction of a moment, her breath catches. Then she throws open her comms.
"SCATTER!" Jaxie shouts the warning as fast as she can before sending the Havensword diving to the side. The rebels aren't expecting it, but they're veterans to a one, and the sheer urgency in her voice is enough for their reflexes to kick in. Hueth kicks his mech backwards, sending it flying through the air in the way only his machine's custom legs can take without splitting like a twig. Sesk cuts his banter off mid-sentence and flings himself in the opposite direction of Jaxie. A practiced maneuver - spreading out while still providing overlapping arcs of fire.
For a fraction of a second, nothing happens. Briefly, Jaxie wonders if she is just being paranoid.
Then all hell breaks loose. The ground where the three rebel mechs had stood just moments before is torn to shreds as the rich, dark earth explodes under a shower of artillery fire. Rapid-fire hotshot rounds shriek through the sky as the camo-field drops and the silhouettes of over half a dozen Imperial mechs become visible. Jaxie's heart drops. Her warning had spoiled the element of surprise for the ambush, but they are still outnumbered by more than two to one. No cover nearby. No reinforcements that'd be able to scramble in time. This is not a good position.
Vaguely, she can hear her comms lighting up - Hueth radioing in to command and calling for backup, Sesk barking orders at his team and shouting bravado at his foes. It barely registers to Jaxie. All she can notice through the haze of adrenaline and cortisol is a very familiar outline, and her heart sinks. She hadn't wanted to believe the rumours, but across from her, indisputably, stands the Sparrowsong.
Jaxie thinks her day couldn't get any worse. Then she realises it's barrelling straight towards her.
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Alida howls in frustration, drool dribbling down her muzzle. She knows, on some level, that whatever had given them away couldn't possibly have been her fault. She'd run on minimum power. She'd bottled up her heat emissions. She'd not so much as moved a muscle in her cockpit.
But she still feels guilty. Alida is supposed to be perfect, and yet something had gone wrong. Something had given them away. Handler would be displeased - unless Alida fixes this. Now.
She'd picked her target as soon as the rebels made it clear they'd spotted the ambush - the first one to move. The one that spotted them, probably. She would pay for ruining yet another of Alida's missions. For upsetting Handler. For taking her Havensword and leaving Alida to die at-
Her mind snaps to blankness, and Sparrowsong nearly tumbles over its own feet. She can't even question why she knows the name of the mech, or what happened between them. Handler doesn't want her to think about that, and so she can't.
Her reflexes kick back in after the abrupt stop to her train of thought, but it was there. Another hesitation. Another notch on her now-lengthy record of failures. It's enough - the mech she was charging at got the time to reposition and bring its main gun to bear, and a hail of bullets comes flying at the Sparrowsong. Cursing, Alida is forced to break off her charge and swerve to the side, outrunning the trail of gunfire desperately trying to catch up behind her. She sees one of the other rebel mechs fling something at the charging group of Imperial machines, and a few seconds later a massive explosion consumes that side of her view. An annie-plant IED. Imperials never use them; too unstable, as dangerous to the user as whatever poor soul it's thrown at. The rebels live for that kind of self-sacrificing bravery, though, so a few of the stupider or foolhardier ones keep a few on their mechs in case of emergency.
Whether the rebel pilot is brave or just lucky doesn't matter - most of the Imperial mechs manage to evade the blast, but two machines are reduced to slag where they stand. It's now six to three - still a significant numbers advantage, but this was supposed to be a no-cas milk run. Handler is definitely going to be disappointed. Alida whines and stamps her foot on the floor of the Sparrowsong, gunning it even faster as she desperately hopes her chosen opponent will run out of bullets.
Thankfully, she doesn't have to. One of her allies takes advantage of the distraction she poses and takes a shot at the rebel with his arm cannon. It's a glancing hit, but the Havenswo-the machine is knocked back like it took a direct hit, sending the bullets arcing up in a wild sky-trail. Inertics must be inoperational, Alida muses. That's good. That gives her a leg up in doing what she's best at. Without a moment's hesitation, she turns the Sparrowsong on a dime and resumes her charge.
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Jaxie curses. This is not going well. Sesk's little annie-bomb knocked a few mechs out of the fight, but they were still outnumbered, and the Sparrowsong was on the enemy's side. She at least takes heart knowing that it couldn't possibly be Alida in there, though - the Song had nearly tripped mid-charge like some dipshit boot-camper on a joyride, and barely made any headway in getting to her to put its fearsome CQC armaments to use. Alida Chondax would never make mistakes like that.
Still, Jaxie has to admit she is barely doing better. She'd fired up her guns, but she can't quite bring herself to actually hit her old friend's mech, even if it is now on the enemy's side. She'd need to get over that, and fas-
The hollow sounds of metal-on-metal ram through her ears as a few Imperial shots find their mark. The Havensword staggers back, and Jaxie is flung through her cockpit, only held in place by her harness straps. Hastily-aimed shots, but with her inertics still fucked, they might as well have been direct-hit artillery fire. Her gun-arm goes wild, and she pulls off the fire as she reorients herself from her daze.
In the second she needs to find her bearings, the Sparrowsong is already on top of her. Its chainarm revs up, slicing through her cannon arm like tissue paper, knocking her main arm out of the fight. Its vibro-maul slams into the side of the Havensword, shattering and shaking its armour plates apart on a molecular level. Jaxie feels all of it, of course - she's going to need a massage if she makes it out of this, part of her mind thinks.
That's a small part, though, and most of her is focused on fighting back. Unlike Song, Sword isn't built for close-quarters fights, but she's got few other options right now. Jaxie rams the knee of her mech up into Song's body and is rewarded with the screech of tearing metal and the crackle of snapped wiring. She doesn't think she's caused any critical damage, but it might be enough to slow Alida dow- slow Alida's old mech down a bit. She doesn't know who's in the cockpit, but it can't be Alida. She refuses to entertain the notion, even if she is using all her old moves.
That familiarity with Alida's style is all that's keeping Jaxie in this fight, though, and only because whoever's in Sparrowsong is a pale shadow of what Alida was. They move sluggishly, a beat too late, as if they've studied Alida's techniques extensively but can't quite pull them off right. The poor timing almost throws off Jaxie's defensive maneuvres, as used as she is to the split-second reactions she normally has to make, but at least they provide plenty of opportunity for counter-attacks. The small Elysial Dagger embedded in Havensword's remaining arm is quick, and she gets a few good jabs in, draining crucial energy from Song for short bursts of time. It was a fool's errand to try and depower a mech - annie-plants generate so much energy from so little matter that a pilot could keep their machine running for months to years on minimal reserves - but briefly knocking out the power to the targeting system, stabilizers, or an energy weapon could provide the critical edge needed to emerge victorious.
Song swings its maul for Sword's head, and Jaxie ducks, sending her careening forward in the cockpit. Undeterred by the nausea summoned by her tumbles, she jabs upward, and nearly catches her friend's old mech right in the centre of mass, only batted aside by the chainarm at the last possible moment. Still, the blow hits the side of the machine, carving a vicious, deep gash right through some hydraulic systems. The Elysial Dagger sparks as it bites, and Song's maul-arm falls limp as if the mech had a stroke. It starts up again in seconds, but by that time Jaxie has already pressed her advantage and kicked Song's leg out from under it. The machine crashes to one knee, struggling to regain its balance. Jaxie drives Sword's dagger through the side of the Sparrowsong, right into the heart of the machine, and the overlays and tac-visors that normally obscure the pilot from view to the outside world falter for just a second.
Jaxie sees who's piloting Sparrowsong, and she promptly pukes.
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Alida's heart is simultaneously in her throat and sunk to the bottom of her shoes. She's not had much fight in her, lately, and she knows it. Her enemy's been running circles around her. The rebel even forced her to take the knee - something only Handler should ever be able to do.
She is torn out of her anguished reverie by the agonized shriek of pierced metal to her left and the sudden death of all electronics around her. It only lasts for a normal heartbeat - three for Alida, thanks to her panic and her combat stims - but it's enough to confuse her. She knows she should move - dodge backwards, gain ground, or at least try to block the inevitable attack - but she can't get herself to move.
Weirdly, neither can the other pilot.
The two mechs are locked like this for a few seconds, frozen in the maelstrom of combat as Imperial mechs fall and rebel machines take grievous injury after gaping wound. Alida stares, wide-eyed, as her opposing number refuses to move. She knows she can be seen, with her tac-overlay down. All she gets from the other mech is her own, distorted, hollow, reflection.
When power is restored to her cockpit heartbeats later, Her voice is in Alida's ear, and for a moment, everything is alright.
That changes when Allida hears the tone of Her voice. Icewater floods her veins. She has never heard anger in Handler's voice before.
You are failing me, dog.
Alida whines. She knows it's true. Anything She says is. She has nothing to say for herself. There is no defence against such a piercing knife flaying her flesh until only the truth of her failures remains.
"I-I-I'm… sorry, Handle-" Alida begins, desperate to placate Her, but she is cut off by the flensing daggers of Her voice again.
I am giving you one last chance to prove your worth to me, hound. Return with the pilot opposite from you, or not at all. Are you ready?
Alida's ears perk up. Some of her old fire comes back at those words. A new objective. A new chance to please Handler. She nods, knowing what comes next.
Alida. Hunt For Me.
Alida's head rolls back as a deep breath involuntarily storms her lungs, and all that she is is dissolved into blissful nothingness. All her exhaustion falls away, all her thoughts, all her everything, until only the Hound remains.
With slavering jaws dribbling drool through its muzzle, Hound growls and readies itself to pounce. It has a job to do.
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The autowipers clear Jaxie's bile and the remains of her breakfast - mostly bile, at this point, they haven't been resupplied in weeks - from Havensword's cockpit within moments. It's not uncommon for pilots to dump the contents of their stomachs all over their machines, so most are built to quickly restore vision in case of emetic emergency. The wipers move the last bits of stomach stew out of the way, and Jaxie catches one last glimpse of Sparrowsong's cockpit before power is restored and its tac-screens go back up. That glance confirms what she'd already seen, and she damn near hurls again.
Opposite from her, in the mech that once was the poster machine of the rebellion, indisputably sits the greatest rebel hero alive today. Her old friend. Apparently, though her mind still tries to reject this, a traitor. Alida Chondax, piloting her mech at the behest of the Imperials. Jaxie can barely comprehend the notion. Not Alida, surely. There'd been defectors, yes, but they'd never been true believers. Not like Alida was. She'd never do this.
And she is wearing a fucking mu-
Jaxie is shaken out of her reverie as the Sparrowsong slams full-tilt into the midriff of her mech in a flying tackle, sending both machines sprawling on the ground. Song lifts its vibro-hammer and begins pounding on Havensword, chainarm revving ominously. Jaxie tries to respond, but mechs are not made to fight horizontally - Alida's move was damn near suicidal, considering she isn't much more likely to be able to get back up than Jaxie is, at least not in the middle of an active firefight - so there is little she could do, even if she hadn't been quite so sure that she'd gotten a concussion from the way her head was sent bouncing around like a pinball during the fall. This fight is a matter of elbows, knees, and headbutts.
Sparrowsong sends its chainarm directly at Sword's cockpit, and Jaxie only barely manages to roll her mech to the side in time, desperately trying to ignore how much worse this makes her splitting headache. She is rewarded for her quick reaction times and grit by a swift smash from Song's hammer to her machine, and the pain in her head blossoms into an all-consuming agony that threatens to overwhelm her completely. At least - thank the gods for small mercies - her Elysial Dagger is vicious up this close, and Sparrowsong quickly finds itself haemorrhaging coolant fluid from a dozen different stab wounds, parts of its body shutting down and starting back up again like some macabre, broken animatronic.
None of this seems to give Sparrowsong - give Alida - even the slightest pause, however. When her arm fails, she just swings at Jaxie with her other, or perforates her mech and tears its insides to shreds with the serrated spikes on Song's knee joints. Once, Jaxie even manages to strike quickly enough to disable both Alida's hammer and her chainarm, she responded by simply ramming Sparrowsong's head against Sword's torso until the visor in Jaxie's cockpit cracked and damn near shattered.
Jaxie curses. This is bad. Her machine, while having the advantage of bringing a knife to a knife-fight, is primarily designed for medium-ranged fire support. They are both covered in slick fluids from a dozen tears and holes, both rolling around in the shrapnel covering the ground that was once their armour, but Song is built to take it. Sword isn't. Even now, alarms are blaring all around Jaxie - critical systems failing, Elysian Dagger running dangerously hot, her annie-plant nearly taking a few hits during the fight. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realises that, even if they both survive this, neither Sparrowsong nor Havensword will ever fight again.
Jaxie fights back the tears and shoves that sad thought back into the corner of her mind, for when she has the luxury of dealing with it properly. For now, she wants to make sure that she, at least, can walk away from this. The problem is, she's running out of options on how to do that. Something in Alida seems to have changed - almost like her old fire is back. Except not quite. Alida fights with a recklessness, an utter lack of self-preservation that she's never displayed before. She'd always been bold, yes, but the moves she's pulling off right now are downright suicidal. Alida doesn't block, barely even bothers to dodge. All she seems focused on is pummeling Sword into dust.
Sparrowsong slams its hammer directly onto the battered glass of Havensword's cockpit. It holds. Barely. A fine network of cracks spiderwebs out from where the hammer impacted, but, surprisingly, Alida doesn't move the hammer back for another blow. She simply presses it harder and harder against the cockpit, the rapid vibrations of the hammer smacking it against its target again and again. Effective, but slow, and it gives Jaxie an obvious counter-play. She rams her Elysial Dagger into the joint of the hammer and pulls it up and down, again and again. The hammer immediately stops moving as soon as its power is sapped, of course, but the sheer weight of the mech leaning on top it still causes glass-splinters to rain down on Jaxie's face. She doesn't have long before the visor will give way and that giant maul turns her to paste. She yanks the dagger free with some effort, tearing out a bunch of cabling and sending sparks flying everywhere, and plunges it back in again, over and over. Eventually, the screeching metal of the hammer protests, bends, and finally, with one final dagger-strike, snaps. The hammer falls uselessly to the side, sliding off Havensword's ruined body, and for a moment, Jaxie breathes a sigh of relief.
That promptly fades as Sparrowsong pulls back its one remaining good arm, the one with the massive chainblade, and revs it up, ready to plunge it right through into the cockpit.
Within fractions of a second, Jaxie's panicked mind runs through all her options. They're depressingly few and useless. Depowering the chainarm wouldn't do her any good - with how fragile the glass is, its teeth do not need to be spinning to go straight through.
She can't block.
She can't dodge.
She certainly can't parry.
She only has one chance left. She really doesn't like it.
Taking a deep, shivering breath, Jaxie presses the requisite buttons with shaking fingers. Everything around her goes dark as her tac-visor is disabled, revealing her face to the outside world. She throws open her comm unit to all frequencies.
As she sees the chainsaw plunging directly at her face, Jaxie shouts out two words.
"ALIDA, PLEASE!"
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Hound howls. It bays for blood. It knows what it wants, and it is right there. Crack the cockpit open and find the quivering flesh inside. It can't kill it, of course, She doesn't want that, but it's careful with its claw - it can pry into its prize's shell without harming it. Hound ignores the desperate plea coming from its beaten enemy. It only savours the desperate look on its face, not recognizing its target. It does not, for a second, slow down its killing blow.
But Hound is not alone in there. And Alida does.
It's not deliberate, of course. Any such notions have long since been trained out of her. Alida may not be Hound, but she is a very disciplined dog. She can't consciously resist Handler's commands, and even if she could, she wouldn't want to. Her resistance is one of pure instinct. The reflexes of a soldier realising they're aiming at friendlies - not just any friendlies, but their battle buddy. Before she realises what she's doing, Alida pulls the handles, and the chainarm stops in its tracks.
Hound howls in impotent fury. But, for the first time in a long time, it fails to overrule Alida's instincts.
Everything goes silent. She hadn't realised the battle was over - had been, for a while, by the looks of it. One more Arcadia had gone down, but the other rebel mechs had been roundly beaten. One had been professionally disabled, its joints shot out with disciplined fire. Another had been reduced to slag - plasma, by the looks of it, from the fireteam's heavy support machine. All that had been left had been for Alida to finish off the last pilot.
And she'd failed.
The mech underneath her struggles, strikes at her with its annoyance of a dagger a few more times, but it doesn't matter. The leader of the squadron barks a few orders, and the other mechs calmly put holes in Havensword's critical systems, rendering the mech fully immobile. A few more orders are barked over the radio - at her, Alida eventually realises. Mechanically, she obeys, getting up, off the mech she'd moments before pounced on, limping to the side, Song still leaking fluids everywhere. The other members of the team begin disarmament and capture procedures, keeping their weapon trained on the rebels as they are forced to clamber out of their cockpits. Jaxie can barely stand, Alida notices. She doesn't even realise she knows her name.
Dreadfully, with the weight of inevitability, the sound that Alida knew would come arrives. With a buzzing sputter and static, her damaged comms just barely manage to spring on.
It is Her voice, of course.
She doesn't sound mad. That would've been a relief. She is not even disappointed.
No, what utterly destroys Alida is the sheer indifference in Handler's voice.
You have failed, mutt. Leave, and do not return.
Her comms click off again, and Alida recoils from these words as if they leave gaping wounds across her body. They certainly do on her psyche. They rattle around in Alida's head, destroying every other thought, every other feeling that she has ever had, until nothing but those nine terrible words remain.
You have failed. Leave.
For the first time in a long time, Alida and Hound act as one. They turn, away from their former comrades, and the comrades they had had before them - traitor, now, to them both. Sparrowsong protests; creaks. Alarms blare. Something snaps, and the entire mech lurches leftwards. Alida barely notices it. With one last command, one they could certainly not fail, Hound and Alida drop Song onto all fours - threes, now, with the hammer-arm gone - and begin to sprint away from the site of their ultimate failure.
Alida is not sure if it is tears or blood that are streaking down her face. Mercifully, she has no chance to think on it, as the weight of her failures prove too much for her psyche, and she sinks into sweet nothingness, until only a broken Hound remains.
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Jaxie groans as she's dragged out of the holding cell she'd been unceremoniously tossed in some indeterminable amount of time earlier. Her concussion hasn't had any real time to heal, yet, and she's feeling dizzy. Still, she's enough of a veteran to deduce some timespan. She hasn't been fed yet, and she is hungry, but she isn't tired. Only a few hours at most, then.
Jaxie twists her arms, turns her hips, spits at her captors - anything to break away - but it's futile. She's far too weak from her injuries, and the soldiers holding her seem to barely exert any effort in keeping her subdued. She wonders if she's going to be dragged to a more permanent cell, even deeper in the giant complex she'd been taken to, or if she is just going to be taken out back and shot. She hopes it'll be the latter. Probably not. They'd have done it in the field if that had been the plan.
Far quicker than she expects, she's brought to a door. One of the soldiers knocks, and a feminine voice answers from the other side.
"Enter."
The soldiers open the door, and nonchalantly fling Jaxie into the room, sending her crashing down on all fours. Unlike the concrete hallways and airlocks she'd found herself taken through, the floor Jaxie finds herself on is burnished oak. She looks around the room. 'Spartan' does not begin to describe it. An elegant desk. A filing cabinet. A computer. A mirror. A plank with a few books - biochemistry, neurology, and psychology, from a glance. The letters dance. Her eyes water. She looks away before it makes her pounding headache worse.
Boots clack upon the floor before her, and Jaxie realises the woman that had answered the soldiers was now standing in front of her.
A tall, graceful woman, dressed in the most authoritative Imperial military fashion - a black Navy greatcoat, impeccable boots underneath, leather gloves on her hands - glances down at Jaxie with eyes like ice, lacking any discernable emotion. A peaked cap adorns her slender face, a few subtle freckles peeking out from between her gold-blonde hair, accentuating her otherwise-unblemished skin.
"Jaxie Thornth," she says, in a perfectly level voice that forces Jaxie to suppress a shiver. "You took my prize Hound from me. I will be extracting payment in kind."
Any questions Jaxie has - who this woman is, how she knows her name, what she did to Alida - die on her lips as the woman casts a nearly-imperceptible glance at the faceless footsoldiers next to her.
"Take her to the kennels," she says, and Jaxie's heart fills with fear. The words that follow inject even more terror.
"After a visit to the barracks, of course," the woman adds, the faintest hint of a cruel smile dancing around the edges of her lips. "After such a disaster at this rebel's hands, it would be proper for the surviving loyal soldiers to get some… payback. Some stress relief."
Jaxie's breath quickens. She's heard the tales of what happens to captured rebels - especially the pretty ones - from the few survivors they'd been able to break out. Her heart pounds in her chest. And… kennels? Is that where they do… whatever they did to Alida? It's all too much for Jaxie. Her body struggles against her captors, by rote, but her mind circles and circles around the woman and the words she just said, threatening to overwhelm everything until nothing but She is left.
Mercifully, dissociation already begins to set in as she is dragged away into the bowels of the Imperial strongpoint.