ExSol Ch. 02

***

Himiko Yamane drummed her fingers on her desk as the two people she'd called into her office got settled and did one quick check through the files in their respective hand terminals. Wasseim was a tall, lanky man with thinning yet greasy hair. He was, in some capacity, in charge of the Abrandia militia. Shayala was Abrandia's foreign minister and had been occupying that position for decades, far before Himiko had even been working for the government, let alone running it.

"Knight-Major," Himiko looked at Wasseim and addressed him by his title to indicate that he could speak.

"Ye. We rounded up two of the gunners. Caught 'em trying to flee the district on foot. Didn't get far with their vehicle in the state it was. I saw the interro myself, both of 'em flipped pretty fast. Either they're ace black ops feedin' us a story, or just some local badgers willin' to hoist a slug thrower for a clip." Wasseim rambled on about the incident with a goofy grin on his face like he was talking about a party he'd just come from.

"Do we have any leads on who hired them?" Himiko asked, keeping the Knight-Major fixated with a cool gaze to keep his leash taut.

"Ye. Looks like it was one of the 'davers in the vehicle. She and it, they look like they got fragged with a heckin caster of all things. Not tot' sure how that happened. We runnin' tests on the scoring." Wasseim snickered at that a little and Himiko's frown did little to dissuade his attitude.

She nodded to him even as she took a few quiet moments to puzzle the meaning out of his stupid slang. It was a source of eternal frustration that part of her job seemed to be teaching government officials to not talk like teenagers, but now was not the time to derail the meeting. "And what were they supposedly hired to do?"

"Crack some Zenith-head 'n swipe their terminal. They were pretty foggy on the details. Gonna squeeze 'em harder for those. I'll have more details as soon as I can, GovGen." Wasseim winked at her and Himiko scowled at the abhorrent truncation of her title.

"Do you have any information on this transient, Minister?" Himiko turned away from the socially oblivious Wasseim and addressed Shayala.

"Do I ever." Shayala sighed, sifting through some files on her terminal. She flicked an image onto one of the displays in Himiko's office and it lit up with an image of what appeared to be an official-looking piece of identification. "Transient's name is Dawn, they rode in on a Mech that they registered as Dusk. I know, I know, I checked to see if it was an alias. I interviewed the customs agent that registered this pilot and they said that this had no means of verifying whether or not the identification was legitimate but the Mech's navigation log did confirm that it was from Neo-Venus. I've gotten confirmation that the navigation logs don't look forged but we're going to keep running tests."

"How can we possibly not have any idea whether or not this is legitimate?" Himiko asked, studying the picture that Shayala had thrown onto the screen.

"Neo-Venus is anywhere between four to ten trips gate-to-gate. We've literally never had official contact with what passes for government over there, just rumours and stories. I dug through records and couldn't find a single thing to compare this identification to."

"So..." Himiko said, scowling at the two of them. "Do either of you have an idea how this person fled the city in this Mech of theirs?"

"Stealth field," Wasseim explained, leaning back in his chair. "Techs are combing over the sensor data. Sounds like this Mech out-gleams everything but Titan. Even then, might be close."

"And why exactly did we let a military-grade stealth Mech into the city completely unsupervised?" Himiko asked.

"Someone either slothed out, hecked up, or took a coin." Wasseim answered cheerfully, much to the displeasure of both women.

"Customs agents not doing their jobs should be a great concern to us all and not a joke, Knight-Captain," Shayala looked over at him, accusing him no doubt in the hopes that none of this failure would blow back onto her.

"Ay, not sayin' its not a concern, Shay. Full hardware audits of every machine that comes through 'ere aint 'xactly easy as pettin' a fox. Can't expect underpaid customs shrews to do counter-intel work for us." As Wasseim spoke, his hand terminal chimed softly and he looked down at it. "Oho. Facial recognition came back with the woman helpin' the Zenith-head. Nina Sahara, juv del, former Smithson Cartel, Pulse Ascension, on parole, works outside the city somewhere."

"Can you bring her in?" Himiko asked.

"Parole docs usually don't cover espionage, but ye, if I can find her I'll get her. See what she knows. Sounds like maybe she works for one of the scavvers out there. I'll ask around." Wasseim spoke with a little more focus as he looked through the accomplice's file. He sent the file to Himiko and Shayala a moment later, and then stood up.

Himiko waved to him to indicate that he could go and Wasseim gave a quick salute before he took off, already talking to someone through his terminal before he was even outside of the office.

"I want to know what this pilot is doing here and who sent them, Minister," Himiko addressed Shayala icily.

"I've got a few meetings planned. Someone in my network of contacts knows someone from Neo-Venus. As far as who tried to have them killed, well, I've got a short list and it only has one name on it."

"Hallucia, I assume?"

"Of course. The fact that there's no hardware audit of this machine is probably why they were so interested, too." Shayala sighed and shook her head, looking annoyed. "This Mech comes in, no hardware audit, almost no document trail, looks like a ghost to them. They probably thought we were the ones trying to keep it quiet. No surprise they'd look into it and consider taking out the pilot so we can't use it."

"And the connection to this Sahara girl?" Himiko asked, sharing in Shayala's displeasure.

"Wrong place wrong time? Hired help? Neo-Venutian asset? Could just as easily be any of those. We'll have to scoop her up to get a better guess. As far as grabbing this operative, all three of the Gate outposts on the continent have been alerted to watch for them and I'm talking to the Hallucian government to ask for their passage logs around their Gate but I doubt they'll co-operate. I'm sorry Governor General, but the truth is that If this operative wants to get off-world then they may already be far beyond our reach."

"I figured. Something about this incident doesn't sit right with me. I want people in custody and I want them talking." Himiko gave Shayala a look every bit as frigid as the one she'd given Wasseim. She wanted the Minister to know that she wanted results, not another political maneuver to pin blame on the militia. "You're dismissed. I want an update as soon as you have it, Shayala."

"Of course, Governor General."

***

One week ago...

Dawn sat cross-legged in their little domed garden, watching the green glittering of the light of Neo-Venus' star scattering across the atmosphere. They closed their eyes, settling themselves, centering themselves, letting go of all their worldly concerns. Their mission and the various aspects of it slipped into their mind, and they let it go. The details slipped away, Dawn's mind too still and calm for such complicated things to find purchase. Slowly, the barely audible howl of Neo-Venus' winds were drowned out. The warmth and humidity of the indoor garden barely noticeable. Dawn was alone with only themselves in the void.

Nothing came for a while. Dawn remained detached for a while, at peace with the world. Dawn's anxieties about the mission didn't rise up. They'd trained for this mission, prepared for every contingency. They'd literally been born for this mission. Nothing should have bothered Dawn. This meditation should have been as easy as the hundreds they'd done growing up, perhaps should have been on-par with some of the more difficult ones over the past year. But no, she always wormed her way into Dawn's darkest thoughts, Dawn's nightmares and paranoid moments.

And that was all it took. Dawn's mind returned to Emilia and her torments, her humiliations. Dawn tried to brush them off, to be still and empty and let the thoughts slip away, but they returned again and again. Emilia and her "sessions" with Dawn. With a sigh, Dawn gave up, opening their eyes and looking up at the sunset. Neo-Venus' short ten hour day was almost over. Four hours of light, six of dark. Several sunsets and sunrises every day.

Dawn wondered if Emilia would come to them, tonight. It would be the last night she could, before Dawn left on the mission to Ishtar. Perhaps to die and never to come back. Perhaps to be reassigned and never be on the same planet as her again. It was both a hopeful thought and a terribly melancholy one. Dawn would have stopped Emilia the first time she'd come in to torment them. They probably would have stopped her even now, if they could. But there was some dark part of Dawn that had grown accustomed to her visits. Emilia paid a perverse sort of attention to Dawn completely independent of their ability to pilot a Mech. There was also no denying that Dawn got off on what she did. Whether that was an unintended side-effect of Dawn's conditioning, or just a quirk of their psyche, they couldn't tell.

An hour passed. Two. Darkness settled completely upon the room and Dawn glanced at their hand terminal to see the time. They were scheduled to be in bed in seventy minutes. Emilia could certainly show up after that, she could appear whenever she wanted, but Dawn would still go to bed on time if she didn't show up. The clock had ticked down to fifty five minutes before bed, when dawn heard the door to their quarters open unbidden.

Dawn didn't know it was Emilia. Several people had the keycode to access Dawn's quarters. Unlike Emilia, most of them were supposed to have it. But nobody ever came. Dawn was summoned when they were needed. Dawn was assigned training drills and appointments, nobody came here but Emilia; Dawn didn't get social visits.

"Hey, Sewer, you're fuckin' leaving tomorrow, I just saw," Emilia's voice came from directly behind Dawn, and they felt a shiver of dread pass through them. Dawn's fists clenched in their lap, and they lowered their head a little bit. Why were they nervous? Emilia did this all the time. Now was no different... except that it was maybe the last time.

"Hey!" Emilia walked in a circle, standing in front of dawn with a wide posture, her hands balled into fists. "Look at me!"

Swallowing, Dawn raised their head. Emilia had short, blonde, messy hair that fell in pieces around her cute, delicate features. Features that were contrasted by a demanding, angry expression that was a permanent fixture for her, except for when she was around her father. He was the president of the Reunification Commission and de-facto ruler of the planet, and she was flawless in his eyes. Dawn met her eyes, swallowed again, and nodded.

"And you didn't fuckin tell me, huh? You thought you could slip away without me knowing?" she asked. Dawn didn't answer. Their thoughts on the matter were confused and muddled, not deliberate in the way Emilia was implying. With an annoyed huff, Emilia grabbed Dawn by the collar of their uniform and dragged them onto their feet and out of the garden. Dawn followed, feeling impotently annoyed with themselves for not resisting any more, but they knew that resisting her was purely symbolic. Emilia dragged Dawn into their bedroom, away from the window to the outside where someone might see the two of them.

"Miss Emilia, ple—"

Emilia raised the little device in her other hand and flicked a switch, creating a subtle low-frequency sound. "Knight, Seven, Tertiary, Gray, Philosopher." she recited. The words underlaid by the thrumming sound of the audio playback cut into Dawn's mind like a knife, and they reeled at the impact of it. No matter how many times Emilia did this, it was always a shock, always a surreal experience. Emilia let go of Dawn's uniform and crossed her arms. "Get on your fucking knees."

Dawn's body responded automatically, collapsing down onto their knees so fast it stung. They still had no idea how Emilia had gained access to their hypnotic trigger, only the President and Dawn's handler were supposed to be able to read that file. It could have been as innocuous as a computer screen left unattended, it could have been a serious security breach.

"You're fucking disgusting, you know that?" Emilia sneered down at Dawn, tossing the playback device off to the side.

Dawn looked up at Emilia, struggling. Words formed half on their own, but Dawn also forced them out as the only tiny defiance they could muster. "...yes."

smack

Emilia slapped Dawn across the face, hard. The impact might have sent Dawn to the floor, but the weight of Emilia's command was still foremost in Dawn's thoughts and they remained on their knees using a lifetime of pilot's training.

"You piece of garbage. You're not supposed to talk to me, you're only supposed to do one thing when I ask you a question. What is it?" Emilia snarled angrily. Dawn did know. It had been all they could do not to follow her earlier instructions, but Dawn's trigger didn't quite work that way. Emilia couldn't completely imprint commands onto Dawn that persisted from session to session, but it had still been difficult to disobey in even that tiny way.

Dawn looked up at Emilia, and opened their mouth, sticking their tongue out as far as they could. "That's fuckin' right," Emilia huffed, and then made a rumbling noise in the back of her throat. She spat a wad of saliva and slime right onto Dawn's outstretched tongue, and then sneered down at them expectantly. Part of Dawn wanted to let it slide off their tongue and onto the ground, but the weight of Emilia's words echoing against the subtle thrum of her playback device were irresistible. Dawn retracted their tongue, swallowed the gob of spit, and then opened their mouth again, obediently sticking out their tongue.

"So fuckin' nauseating," Emilia said with unconcealed derision. Dawn wondered what was different today. Emilia was always hostile, always called Dawn these things and always did these things to them, but she wasn't normally angry. She was normally cold, arrogant, sometimes gleefully sadistic, but almost never angry. Was Emilia actually upset that Dawn was leaving? That made no sense, she must have known that Dawn would leave eventually. Dawn was a pilot, and Dusk was a long-range espionage Mech. If Emilia had access to Dawn's hypnotic trigger, she surely had access to Dawn's mission dossier.

Dawn didn't respond to Emilia's comment, they kept their mouth wide open with their tongue hanging out as Emilia had ordered. Even if they could have denied Emilia's accusation, it would be a superficial denial. The trickle of arousal between Dawn's thighs was undeniable. Dawn knew it was there and that their cunt would only get wetter as Emilia continued to abuse them. Worse was the fact that Emilia knew it too.

Emilia watched her for a moment, eyes narrowed. "Get on your back, Sewer," she ordered as she undid the buckle of her pants. Their mouth locked in the lewd, gaping position that Emilia had specified, Dawn lowered themselves to the floor, lying flat down on their back. A moment later, Emilia appeared in Dawn's vision, kneeling with their head between her knees, her pants and panties gone, assuming she'd been wearing any of the latter in the first place. With no warning and no restraint, Emilia dropped her weight pussy-first onto Dawn's face. The acrid taste of residual urine assaulted Dawn's tongue and they winced a little as Emilia gyrated her hips on Dawn's face. A moment later, Dawn realized that Emilia had almost certainly come straight here after having sex with someone else - probably her boyfriend but not necessarily just him. Dawn swirled their tongue across Emilia's sex, drawing a small pleasured grunt out of her. Emilia would often sit on Dawn's face like this for an hour or more until Dawn was drenched in sweat and cum and their tongue ached terribly. Today, Emilia raised herself up after only a few minutes without even taking the time to cum on Dawn's face. She twisted, reorienting herself to face towards Dawn's feet instead of away. Her ass came down on Dawn's face where her pussy had been a moment ago and she squirmed and twisted to wedge Dawn's face as deep between into her crack as it could go. Dawn was trapped in the darkness of Emilia's prominent ass cheeks, and Emilia pressed her weight down hard to put her asshole in direct contact with Dawn's tongue.

"You soaked yet, Sewer?" Emilia asked with a soft grunt of relaxation. She pressed her weight down on Dawn's face as she raised one of her feet up and dropped her heel onto Dawn's cunt, kicking them firmly in the crotch. Dawn moaned and twitched involuntarily as Emilia roughly ground her heel into their cunt. The force and pain of Dawn's arousal flooded their entire body in much the same way that the shame did. "Yep. Foot's damp through your fucking uniform." Emilia laughed cruelly, lifting her foot for just a moment to inspect it before she started to roughly and erratically bounce her heel onto Dawn's cunt, the lack of a proper rhythm preventing Dawn from building up for an orgasm of their own.

Emilia grunted again, her asshole flexing outward a little and Dawn felt a surge of dread hit them when they realized she was pushing. Dawn wanted to shove Emilia off of them or at least to close their mouth, but the weight of Emilia's commands still paralyzed them, kept their mouth open and tongue out. Emilia's asshole pushed outwards again and farted out a gob of thick liquid onto Dawn's tongue which filled them with an immediate sense of relief since it was just cum. It was probably her boyfriend's cum from earlier in the day but could just as easily have been from one of a half dozen of her casual partners, or even some random person she's met for specifically this reason. More oozed out and Dawn sucked and licked on the tight ring of muscle. Emilia laughed at Dawn's meek hypnotically-induced subservience and continued to casually kick them in the cunt, endlessly amused at Dawn's groans and twitches.

"You're so gross. I can't believe you get wet doing this. Does the hypnotic trigger even still work? I bet you just pretend, you love this so much." Emilia snickered, giving Dawn a particularly firm kick that drew a muffled howl out of them. Dawn's hands seized up and twitched, their body wanting to curl up into a fetal position to push away the pain and the dreadful pleasure of Emilia's abuse. Dawn wanted to defy her suggestion that the hypnotism wasn't working, so faced with the reality of being unable to control their own body, but even if they could, their face was so deep up Emilia's ass it wouldn't have been possible to do anything other than let out a muffled mumble

The pleasure thrumming through Dawn's body wasn't rising up to any kind of satisfying peak, but their cunt was starting to get sore and to ache. Normally Emilia didn't abuse their genitalia so hard so quickly, but today she acted with a sort of vindictive purpose, her actions moving towards some goal that Dawn couldn't fathom. Dawn had never been much for understanding people's motivations, and certainly didn't know what Emilia's were aside from a sheer sense of sadism.

Emilia grunted again, her ass pushing out and releasing another spurt of cum onto Dawn's tongue. With the amount that had been stored in her rectum, it became clear that more than one load had been shot up there, which explained why she'd been so eager to get her ass over Dawn's mouth. This recent spurt tasted different, though, there was an underlying bitterness to it and Dawn retched violently as their imagination ran wild at what the difference might be, much as it might be nothing but their own imagination.