Kennel Club

"Hey, Zayas! You ready?" Keira's voice over the radio snapped Portia awake.

"Yes," she said, hastily adding, "sorry, sorry," and sending out her comms flag, barely present. She wasn't actually sure whether she had finished her pre-checks; unable to sleep the previous night, she had turned the overheard conversation around in her mind—agonized over ignoring Anita—until her alarm blared. She had made brief eye contact with the older pilot before boarding the shuttle that morning, and found an expression that said, plainly: don't say a word.

And so she hadn't. She was silent as they touched down amidst the Hellas highlands, while she watched thorny mountains erupt from the surface and yield to the crater that would play field to their scrimmage. (You could just make out Phoebe from the landing site at the top of the crater's rim: a grey-ish smudge on the red horizon.) Tucked within the ovate valley was a dust-enriched UEF encampment. Dozens of perfectly square barracks spanned the crater floor—each only a handful of feet taller than Arsonist—arranged without any semblance of structure. At the center of it all was a cluster of much larger buildings, with a large runway extending from either side, slicing the field in half. A hangar and officers' quarters, Portia guessed.

She had even remained silent while she suited up and trudged to her mark for her rematch with Dawn, as if concerned that Anita would hear her from the sidelines and kill her with a single glare.

Now, frantic, though still unable to rein in her wandering mind and battling a headache that was only growing worse, she mentally ran down the list of pre-checks to see if she had missed anything. In her stupor, she set the radar calibration going for a second time.

She didn't understand why she had lost sleep over the older pilot. It wasn't as if she owed Anita anything—she had shown Portia little more than ambivalence—but out of some misplaced sense of solidarity, she felt she could at least have the courtesy to keep her mouth shut.

"Alright, princess," Keira was saying, "let's see what you can coax out of this girl."

"I thought I told you not to call me that."

"Who says I was talking to you?"

Their brief back-and-forth was interrupted by Bishop's flare screaming upward from the crater's edge, signaling the start of the scrimmage. Almost immediately, Portia spied something else hurtling through the air from the opposite end of the valley, a kind of oblong drone. She watched it climb high, high up and stick there, hovering, while she darted her way through the maze of identical barracks. She kept herself low, with the cloak pitched atop her to provide cover.

On the ground, Arsonist moved like a shadow: it slinked from one shape to the next, squashed itself into abstraction underneath its metal cape. When Portia approached a row of buildings packed too tightly to slip through, she beat its arms downward and glided toward the nearest roof—Keira was already laughing her awful cackle over comms rather than relaying anything useful, so Portia switched to the public channel.

The instant Arsonist left the ground, the drone in the sky fired off a puny little dart, which nestled itself in the metallic folds of the cloak well before Portia could react. She landed on the roof and ruffled her makeshift wings to dislodge the projectile—wedge-shaped, bright crimson and affixed with a short-range beacon—but it had already done its job.

Keira hadn't warned her about that. Before she could flip the comms back on to bitch about it, her proximity sensors beeped with urgency. Shit. A pitch-black sphere zipped toward her with remarkable speed and accuracy. She shook herself awake, scrambling to dive underneath it, and heard something break off from her machine with a SNAP as she somersaulted off the roof to grab onto the ledge of the next one.

Then the barrage really started.

The second pitch crashed into the ledge Portia was holding, crushing it to dust in her clutches. She landed on her back, and the next two pulverized the rest of the building. Reinforced concrete rained down on her, plinking against her frame as she scrambled it back to its feet, dodging a wedge that would've crushed Arsonist's head.

Dawn's primary strategy in the Hit by Pitch was to ensure her opponents lived up to its name. She would set up shop at the highest elevation she could reach, and throw cartoonishly oversized cannonballs until you stopped trying to catch her. From a distance, it looked as though they materialized in the Pitch's palms, but there was obviously a massive stockpile of them inside the frame's giant-brick-shaped abdomen.

It was at this moment that Portia realized her radar was stuck recalibrating, though it was easy enough to guess where Dawn would be. She flapped the cloak again to scale another barrack, and swept along the rooftops toward the hive of larger structures at the center.

She heard the next pitch, whistling through the air, before she saw it. It struck Arsonist in the shoulder, sending it spinning down on all fours. Then another, which landed just in front of her and shattered the roof, sending Arsonist tumbling into the barrack below.

Portia bounded to her feet just in time to see the next pitch soaring directly at her. She drew in a deep breath, and spread the cloak out behind her to create drag; she planted Arsonist's feet wide; watched the ball appear to double in size as it sped closer and closer. She held Arsonist's palms up, squared in front of the cockpit, ready to accept the pitch. The ball slammed into her frame's waiting hands with such force that she stumbled backward, and careened through the wall of the barrack. Rubble crumbled underneath her, and an alert informed her that the cloak had shed some of its plating. But she had caught it.

Portia let out her breath in a relieved huff and tuned her radio to Keira's frequency.

"—absolute nutcase!"

"Stars above, shut the hell up! Can you see where Whitlock is?"

"Top of the big hangar in the middle. But watch yourself, she'll be able to see you—"

"I've got a plan," said Portia, and dialed back to the public channel.

Keira was right: Dawn wouldn't let her scale the hangar without crushing her beneath a cannonball, or worse. She drew the cloak around her—tucking her catch up against Arsonist's chest with both hands—crept between the barracks, toward the center of the crater, and kept a close watch on the sky, waiting for that beacon-firing drone to reappear.

She had noticed during her test flight that she could use the arc launchers in Arsonist's palms to rapidly expel heat—combined with the fluid cooling system inside its new musculature, Portia had remarkably fine control over her frame's temperature. She focused all of Arsonist's latent heat on its palms, and spun up the arc launchers.

"Aww. Running and hiding again already?" Dawn's voice took an antagonistic edge, clearly trying to goad Portia into revealing herself. Maybe she only had one of those darts?

"Figures you would. I was just hoping you'd actually be something special, y'know?"

Ignore it. She just wants a reaction. Portia's heart was in her throat.

"I guess Renwick was wrong about you."

She was close to the hangar now. Directly in front of her was one of its neighbors, a windowless rectangular tower of, essentially, several barracks stacked together. She once again spread the cloak out into wings, and launched Arsonist at the wall; its missing pieces meant it didn't catch the air quite right, and she tumbled, lopsided, into the side of the building. She shook off the exhaustion still chasing her, and galloped vertically, three-limbed, the cannonball now clutched in her right palm and turning more molten with every second, and the surface of the barracks melting to slag in the clutches of her left. Her head felt like it might melt along with everything else.

"Oh, good. About time." Dawn's words were drowning in honey, begging Portia to overextend. "Stay reeaalll still for me, won't you?"

The pitches resumed with ferocity. The first one sailed downward, parallel to the building. Portia leapt off with as much strength as she could gather from Arsonist's new muscles, but she was a millisecond too late, and it clipped her foot. Two more flew past, a hair's width away from Arsonist's head. It wobbled, pitched toward the ground; she stretched the cloak out underneath her to keep steady, and laid back as though stargazing. The cloak fluttered, twitched. She sized up her shot. She cocked her arm back, and found the Hit by Pitch's head—a faint shadow poking out over the edge of the roof above her—she placed it dead center of her targeting reticle. She would only have one shot.

And then a cannonball struck Arsonist dead in the chest with the force of a meteor, and Portia fell eighty feet to the ground.

Plunging into an ice bath was worse than any hit Portia took during the fight. It made her vertebrae chatter along with her teeth—raised pinprick bumps all over her skin—turned her legs to goo and her arms to slightly more constituted goo. She decided only a few seconds in that she hated the experience. She shut her eyes tight, grit her teeth, and sank down to her chin; she lost track of her skin as its temperature matched the water around it. The soreness in her back and shoulders prickled with static, before melting into numbness, though her chest still ached with the aftershocks from that final pitch.

Not to mention that her headache was worse than ever. The ice water threatened to split her skull in half and flood her brain with frost. She opened her eyes again, to find the clock on the wall—she had been in the water for just over a minute. Ugh.

Maybe she really wasn't cut out for this. Nobody besides Renwick seemed to want her there; even Keira only had patience for her insofar as she facilitated working on Arsonist. Bishop hadn't let her fight Anita—wouldn't want to risk unnecessary damage, she had said—and prescribed her the ice bath to stave off inflammation, while her teammates kept practicing.

If this was how it would be on tour, Portia was contemplating ditching the whole thing. Whatever the penalty was for breach of contract, it couldn't be any worse than the stream of embarrassments she could imagine were waiting for her in her tournament matches.

She ventured another glance at the clock. Not even a second full minute had passed. At least her shivering had slowed to a light sway. She closed her eyes again and stretched her arms out, underwater; extended her fingers, her legs and toes; arched her back; and felt it all vanish within the water. She was almost beginning to enjoy it, when she felt a hand on the back of her head, snaring itself in her curls, and-

She was forced below the surface utterly unprepared. The ice stung her cheeks, and in a panic, she opened her eyes; water flooded them and froze the lids open. Her limbs thrashed on their own, fighting to empty water from the tub however they could. She was under for only a few seconds—long enough for her body to recognize futility—then yanked back above, gasping. Water dribbled out of her mouth and nose, lingered on her face, and stung her eyes. The hand forced her under again, longer this time, even as Portia didn't fight back. She remembered to close her eyes, at least.

Just as her fight instinct was about to kick back to life, Portia felt arms hooking underneath hers, dragging her from the tub and throwing her to the floor. The re-cyc air in the shuttle locker room was stale, and felt even colder than the water. Her undershirt and boxers, soaked through and clinging to her skin, did little to help. She curled into herself, shivering, until she was interrupted by the hand returning to her hair and heaving her to her feet. Despite the panes of frost still clinging to her eyes, it was impossible not to recognize the blurry silhouette staring her down.

"Ugh," said Dawn, "pathetic," and punched Portia in the stomach.

Portia collapsed to her knees, hardly noticing the tiled floor beneath scraping up her skin. The impact lingered, like it had flash-frozen her insides and shattered them.

Fuck. None of the hits she sustained while piloting Arsonist could compare to the old-fashioned way. It had been far too long since a woman so beautiful had touched her in this way.

"I really thought you'd put up more of a fight."

Portia was still trembling; the breeze from the air cycler bit at her exposed skin, tearing it away until it was raw. She focused all of her effort into not getting turned on, and was unsuccessful. Dawn crouched down, held fast to her curls and punched her again.

"Shana's little pet project. She was talking you up for months. Got real neurotic when you didn't call for so long."

Again. Again and again and again, and again, all across her abdomen; each blow froze in its place, leaving a permanent impact. It was a good thing she was so practiced at keeping her lunch down, by now. She didn't used to be able to take this much. A dull ache swam through her body, evaporating every thought, lifting her away from herself. She bit her tongue so she wouldn't smile.

"I really don't understand what she sees in you."

Dawn let go of Portia's hair and kicked her in the legs—kicked her in the stomach, in the side, in the arms, until she dropped onto her back, then she paused. Portia, taking in ragged, choppy breaths, blinked away the mist from her eyes and stared up at her teammate. She was wearing her hair down, a nest of dirty blond twigs, still matted and stiff with sweat from their fight. She must have slipped away while the Pitch was getting refueled.

That familiar look of contempt trembled across her face, with her small rounded nose bunched up into a mountain range of wrinkles, and her jaw set as hard as her round, cat-like cheeks would allow. Even after being half-drowned, frozen, and tenderized by her, it was hard to be properly intimidated when it looked like the slightest touch would melt her.

Then Dawn's gaze broke away, and she discovered the growing tent in Portia's boxers, and something in her expression changed; it was like her whole face flinched. She placed her heel between Portia's legs. Portia avoided eye contact, and drank in the boot—black, military-style, though likely a mass-market imitation; the sole hovered above her crotch, stained red with martian sand; it was badly scuffed, with scratches all over the toe and little dents in the rubber; the laces were tight and even, crossing up the height of the boot, to the middle of Dawn's calf—until:

"Look at me."

Guilty, Portia swallowed and met Dawn's eyes: the same deep grey as the night sky above the colony, nearly black all the way through. She could feel her face growing warm, and her cock growing stiff in tandem, underneath their attention.

"Well," she said, "I'm so sorry that I haven't impressed you. I guess smashing my frame to pieces doesn't do it for you anymore?" It didn't quite have the power she was hoping, with her voice still wavering from the cold.

"Shut the fuck up," said Dawn, lowering the sole of her boot onto Portia's crotch, "and listen to me, rookie." She spoke that last word with such venom that Portia could see it dripping from her perfect teeth.

"I don't care if you turn out to be just another mediocre prospect. I'm used to that. But what I really hate is a thing that doesn't understand its place." She pressed her boot down further, and Portia bit her tongue to suppress a moan. Arousal churned along her length, commingled with the mortification of her situation, and argued with the chill still lingering in her skin.

"I'm the future of this franchise," Dawn continued, "and you're just another minor-league burnout waiting to happen. If you don't get the fuck in line, I can get you dropped before anyone even sees you fight."

Portia rolled her eyes and found the clock again. She should've been just getting out of her cold plunge by now. The boot pressed down harder still—she fought against her body's urge to writhe underneath the pressure—and the toe dug into her bladder.

With a start, she felt all the electrolyte water she had drank before and after her scrimmage screaming for attention. She worked to keep the cocktail of bladder and arousal at bay, and to keep from saying something tremendously stupid. Dawn wrenched her face back to face her, now inches away. Portia could feel the callouses on her palms; could see the faintest freckles dotting the bridge of her nose. Fuck. It really wasn't fair how pretty she was. Her cock twitched again.

"I thought I told you to look at me. Gods only know you're already used to that, you little creep."

And finally, after all that posturing, the truth. Dawn didn't actually care about misplaced expectations. She didn't care about Renwick overhyping her, or even that she didn't respect the pecking order—not really. Dawn cared about power, and Portia presented an easy opportunity with which to wield it: she was a creep, an outsider, a degenerate—a queer. Something to control without consequence from anyone, least of all Portia. Her distaste for power games never was a sufficient defense against landing inside them. She was especially inept at dealing with the exact type of woman she was now faced with: stubborn, self-obsessed, and with a fuse much, much shorter than her shoelaces.

Portia ran down her limited options. She couldn't fight—even if she could land a hit from her current position, then what? Dawn had at least twice her muscle mass and knew how to use it. (She could still feel the evidence of that rippling through her abdomen.) Running presented much the same issue. For a moment she thought about spitting in Dawn's face.

Instead, she just asked, "Could you ease up on the boot a bit? I think I might cum."

Stupid stupid stupid. Portia had yet to see an expression so sickening on her teammate's face. An awful grin stretched further than it should have, slicing her cheeks with blood-red, cracking lips. Her eyes narrowed and brightened simultaneously. She stood back up, leveling all of her weight on the boot that was crushing Portia's crotch (she released a whine that had been stuck in her throat since the boot had first settled there), and laughed, breathy and almost silent.

Portia did her best not to squirm, grasping at every bit of composure that was still within reach. Every blow Dawn had landed on her body remained, dulled but persistent; she was numbing everywhere else from the chill—everywhere except her bladder. Dawn seemed to recognize this, and dug her toe further into the spot on Portia's abdomen, watching as her face betrayed the sensation.

"You and that mechanic really deserve each other," she said. "Depraved fucking animals."

Something in that last word—the distaste that oozed from Dawn's lips as she spoke it, the satisfied smirk from which it emerged—it broke through Portia's resistance, like she had been given permission.

There was a sudden and mollifying warmth between her legs, spreading upward through her gut, her chest, her face. She hadn't realized her cheeks could get so hot. Her whole body twitched, glowing in unearned relief. Urine pooled underneath her, slipped into the cracks between the tiles and spread like mycelium. Dawn took a satisfied step back; Portia shut her legs instinctually, and let a hand cover her face. It was way too late for that. Pale golden liquid was streaming from her cock, trailing down her legs and hips, ammonia mingling with the scent of mildew and iron. She tried to stop it, to will the process to reverse. It only slowed to a trickle.

When all the fluid was finally expelled from her system, Portia lowered the hand from her face, trembling, and was further relieved to find herself alone again.