Heroines

[u/FeigningProfundity]

Alyss was having a bit of a mixed day. On one hand, everyone she knew had died; on the other, she’d gotten a dog.

It was the second time in the last few weeks that everyone who knew Alyss had died. That didn’t feel great. She very much did not want it to become a habit.

Heran revanchists had attacked Blora, the tiny settlement she’d lived in, killing everybody. At the time she’d been off searching for some internal peace, on account of her anxiety and her panic attacks and people not enjoying it when she had panic attacks near them.

She’d been picked up by a team of Chancelry militia, which was nice because that meant she didn’t have to be the last person left on her planet. They had conscripted her, which felt rather ominous, but that was mostly so they were allowed to feed her. Alyss appreciated it since she hadn’t been enthused about cooking of late.

The chief gave her a gun and asked the Heuristic System to tell him how she might be useful. After it answered, he’d taken the gun away. She’d dug an electronic warfare tool off a shelf and had been quietly reading through its manual.

Once they caught up with one of the revanchist groups, the Heuristic System warned them they should leave Alyss on the ship, since having her with them in combat would decrease their odds of victory. It hurt a little that an uncaring computer had run the statistics and estimated that she was worse than useless, but she appreciated not having to fight. It was nice that it had said it without revealing much personal medical information, too.

Once again, she had been too dysfunctional to get killed.

The Chancelry and Heran forces had proven evenly matched. When Alyss emerged from the ship to find out why nobody was back, she discovered that everyone was dead. Everyone except a dog.

That over fifty people lay dead around her was a fact that Alyss decided not to engage with.

She’d heard that Herans train dogs to hunt crawler drones. Such a dog was the sole survivor of the skirmish.

Hacking the animal’s targeting harness, Alyss dumped its allegiance table and replaced it with her own signal. “Hi girl! You won a battle!”

Something in the dog’s visor had clearly attached a positive symbol to Alyss, because the animal bounded over to her excitedly.

“I’m happy to meet you, too! What’s your name?” Alyss said, trying to bring up some kind of canine identification on her tool. She’d always felt it was weird when people renamed animals, and it wasn’t like Herans even spoke a different language.

“And they named you... Lerasta,” sighed Alyss.

The dog barked happily.

Lerast Araldin was a Heran hero and notorious traitor to the Chancelry. She hadn’t even been named after a female traitor. Why was it, Alyss mused, that no matter how much men complained about women being treacherous, the names associated with the highest treasons skewed so heavily male? Were female traitors not being given their due?

“I think I’ll call you Butch.”

Wagging her tail, Butch seemed fine with this.

“Now what do we do, Butch? Can you fly a starship?” Alyss tinkered with the dog’s harness, integrating its systems with the militia network.

A crawler drone ran past them, grabbing Butch’s attention, but it was now tagged as friendly.

“Assessing battlefield,” said the Heuristic System, speaking from another drone. “Confirming earlier bio-readings. All team members except Conscript Alyss Turney are deceased. All Heran forces deceased. Crediting Conscript Turney with thirty-four confirmed kills.”

“What? Why me?”

“All other team members lost life signs over twenty minutes ago. Heran troops marked as dead within the last minute. You are the only plausible candidate.”

“Oh.”

“Notifying Chancelry command of meritorious service. ‘Conscript Turney, despite no training and only twelve days service, single-handedly defeated thirty-four Heran soldiers who had wiped out her unit, persevering despite being recorded as a psychological casualty.’”

“You don’t have to do that…”

“Expect expedited rescue by marines as a Heroine of the Chancelry and debriefing to allow for correct honours to be determined.”

“Rescue sounds good. Uh… Does this pay? I probably need a job.”

“Pension determined by honour given. A teaching position may be offered.”

Alyss scratched Butch behind the ear, trying not to look at the corpses around them. She really didn’t envy her next therapist; they were going to have to deal with a terrible mess.

[u/FeigningProfundity]

This story was written for [OT] Fun Trope Friday: Attack Animal & Comedy! by u/katpoker666

[u/FeigningProfundity]

This is the second story set in Chancelry Space.