relia-robot

Trans married robot/doll

[Robot/doll/moth/slime/NHP]-girl. DGN-001. I like writing!

See post-cohost writing at https://reliarobot.dreamwidth.org/, on tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/relia-robot-writes, or collected long-form pieces at https://reliarobot.itch.io/


Aster stormed down the city streets, her combat boots sinking into the muddy roads. Spring, such as it was, had turned the whole damned city into a marsh. Didn't any of these people know how to build a street?

People tended to avoid her in any case, the seven-pointed stars on her jacket marking her as "the enemy" despite having lived here for months. Some of her squad had talked about removing theirs. She'd made hers larger. Didn't they have any pride? Didn't they still want to loyally serve the Empire? There were other Telluris operatives in the region right now! They could just go back!

Rumors about units that got left behind being executed for treason when they returned were only rumors. Drake was a coward, and he'd damned the whole unit with him.

She tried not to think about how many of the others had agreed with him, when they'd discussed it together.

Her foul mood befit the foul weather, and as she walked her frown became speckled with muddy rain as the clouds overhead collided with an oncoming dust storm. She didn't really have a direction. She just needed to be away from her squad. Really, she was grateful for the weather - it meant she couldn't look up and see the moon, or the sparkle of the orbiting ship that had brought the team there and back.

Everything had looked so small from up there.

It had to be a trick. A manipulation, from those exoplanetary bastards who'd taken over management of these fucking yokels. Without their influence Telluris would have owned this continent inside of a month! They weren't even human anymore, all scales and fangs and horns and soft, furry ears... she shook herself, sending droplets flying, and gritted her teeth. This place was getting to her.

Where had she been? Right, those bastards. They'd all but conscripted her squad. Hauling crates of supplies for refugees. Dealing with this unknown black squadron, which mostly meant a lot of running away while firing lasers blindly. Standing guard for the town - the town they were supposed to be gathering intel on for, you know, the invasion?! All while insisting it was "their choice" if they stayed or not. And making some really good tea and jam. She stopped moving and pinched the bridge of her nose. Drake said the reception had been really nice, and that people were starting to warm up to him. They weren't supposed to warm up! They were supposed to be terrified! She gripped her seven-pointed amulet under her jacket so hard it hurt. That was... that was what the Saint wanted!

Right?

A roll of thunder grabbed her attention from her inner turmoil. She looked up, and saw the path before her darken. The rush of water pounded on her ears like a drum, and she had to dive into a side alley with an awning between the buildings to avoid drowning in the oncoming deluge. This fucking city.

"Quite the storm, huh?"

Aster whirled around to see none other than her hated rival, the exoplanetary squad's leader, Tachyon. Her hands were in the pockets of her leather jacket, her face covered in soft-looking black fur, her ears out wide underneath her curled horns. Those strange, rectangular pupils stared out at her, half-lidded as Tachyon looked down on Aster from her extra six inches of height. She wasn't even wearing combat boots, just her unshod hooves that sunk slightly into the mud of the alley.

Tachyon smiled at her. "So, how was space?"

Aster wanted to be anywhere else but here, at the business end of that smile, but the alternative was becoming entombed up to her knees in fast-flowing muddy water. She settled for glaring at Tachyon, trying to cut through the beam of her grin.

Tachyon's mouth twisted. "No good, huh? The others seemed to like it." She leaned back against the wall, where it was marginally drier. "Did you get space sick? Happens to me a lot if I'm not in the cockpit, actually. I have meds for it, if you'd like."

Aster sneered. "How would goat medicine even work on a human?"

Tachyon raised an eyebrow. "It's not gonna turn you into a cute goat girl, if that's what you're worried about. My body's the work of a lot of time and effort on my part! You don't get to look this good just after one pill." She tossed her hair dramatically backwards and struck a pose, then snickered and slouched back against the wall. Her face was almost level with Aster's. "Seriously, though, we can hook you up if there's a problem. Got a lot of anti-motion-sickness meds in the last stash, not a lot of use for them around here."

Aster's face reddened. "M-my constitution is not the issue, you heathen!"

"Yeah? Well, that's fine, space isn't for everyone. It sounds like your crew is raring to go for round two, though, so we should find you something else to do for the next sortie." She pulled out a datapad from an internal jacket pocket and poked at the screen a few times.

Aster folded her arms. "And what if I don't want to?" She tried not to sound petulant.

Tachyon looked at her over the datapad. "Well, I can't say as I recommend just sulking in your warehouse for a whole week, but you do you, I guess."

"I am not sulking! I am a prisoner of war!"

Tachyon straightened up at that. She towered over Aster. "No, you're not. We don't have the time, energy, or effort to deal with POWs right now. Either you go home, take your chances in the wilderness, or help us out. Ain't got time to be babysitting prisoners." She sighed, and slouched again as the rain pounded on the awning overhead. "If you wanna go home so bad, why don't you just do it already?"

Aster turned away. "I have... a loyalty to my squad. It'd be... against the Saint's teachings to abandon them." Even though they were abandoning the Saint. She gripped her amulet under her shirt again.

Tachyon sighed behind her, and Aster jumped as a black-furred hand landed on her shoulder. "Alright, then. How about you ride with us next time? We're heading southeast, gonna see if we can't find the operating base of those dudes in black. Shouldn't run into any other Telluris folks that way, and if our intel is right your folks out there have been having problems with them, too. Win-win, huh? A nice feather in your cap for when you get back." She'd turned Aster around, and now had a hand on either shoulder. She smiled again, nothing but perfectly open.

"Why are you being so-" Aster cut herself off. The rain slackened on the canvas overhead, and she took that as her cue. "I'll think about it," she said, and dashed off before she could be infuriated any further.


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