The K-9 Urban Warfare School?
That’s it, a real town: Mitchell, Oregon. Sealed off, abandoned, and still filled with active Gs. Hound Town. It actually should have been called Terrytown, because most of the breeds at Mitchell were small terriers. Little cairns and Norwiches and JRs, good for rubble and narrow choke points. Personally, the hound in Hound Town suited me just fine. I worked with a dachle. They were, by far, the ultimate urban war fighters. Tough, smart, and, especially the minis, completely at home in confined spaces. In fact, that’s what they were originally bred for; “badger dog,” that’s what dachshund means in German. That’s why they had that hot dog look, so they could hunt in low, narrow badger burrows. You see how that kind of breeding already made them suited to the ducts and crawl spaces of an urban battleground. The ability to go through a pipe, an airshaft, in between walls, whatever, without losing their cool, was a major survival asset.
[We are interrupted. As if on cue, a dog limps over to Darnell’s side. She is old. Her muzzle is white, the fur on her ears and tail is worn to leather.]
[To the dog.] Hey, little miss.
[Darnell gingerly lifts her to his lap. She is small, no more than eight or nine pounds. Although she bears some resemblance to a smooth-haired, miniature dachshund, her back is shorter than the standard breed.]
[To the dog.] You doin’ okay, Maze? You feel all right? [To me.] Her full name’s Maisey, but we never used it. “Maze” was pretty fitting, don’t you think?
[With one hand he massages her back legs while with the other he rubs under her neck. She looks up at him with milky eyes. She licks his palm.]
Pure bloods were a total washout. Too neurotic, too many health problems, everything you’d expect from breeding an animal for just its aesthetic qualities. The new generation [he gestures to the mutt on his lap] was always a mix, whatever would increase both physical constitution and mental stability.
[The dog has gone to sleep. Darnell lowers his voice.]
They were tough, took a lot of training, not just individually but for working in groups on LRP missions. Long range, especially over wild terrain, was always risky. Not just from Zack, but also from feral Ks. Remember how bad they were? All those pets and strays that degenerated into killer packs. They were always a concern, usually in transition through low-infestation zones, always looking for something to eat. A lot of LRP missions were aborted in the beginning before we deployed escort dogs.
[He refers to the sleeping dog.]
She had two escorts. Pongo, who was a pit-rot mix, and Perdy…I don’t really know what Perdy was, part shepherd, part stegosaurus. I wouldn’t have let her anywhere near them if I hadn’t gone through basic with their handlers. They turned out to be first-rate escorts. Fourteen times they chased off feral packs, twice they really got into it. I watched Perdy go after this two-hundred-pound mastiff, grab its skull in her jaws, you could actually hear the crack over the harness’s surveillance mic.
The toughest part for me was making sure Maze stuck to the mission. She always wanted to fight. [Smiles down at the sleeping dachshund.] They were good escorts, always made sure she got to her target objective, waited for her, and always got her home safely. You know they even took down a few Gs in transit.
But isn’t Z flesh toxic?
Oh yeah…no, no, no, they never bit. That would have been fatal. You’d see a lot of dead Ks in the beginning of the war, just lying there, no wounds, and you knew they’d bitten infected flesh. That’s one of the reasons training was so important. They had to know how to defend themselves. Zack’s got a lot of physical advantages, but balance isn’t one of them. The bigger Ks could always hit between the shoulder blades or the small of the back, just knock them on their faces. The minis had the option of tripping, getting underfoot, or launching themselves at the knee-pit. Maze always preferred that, dropped ’em right on their backs!
[The dog stirs.]
[To Maze.] Oh, sorry, little miss. [Strokes the back of her neck.]
[To me.] By the time Zack got back up, you’d bought yourself five, maybe ten, fifteen seconds.
We had our share of casualties. Some Ks would have a fall, break a bone…If they were close to friendly forces, their handler could pick them up pretty easily, get them to safety. Most of the time they even returned to active duty.
What about the other times?
If they were too far, a Lure or an LRP…too far for rescue and too close to Zack…we petitioned for Mercy Charges, little explosive packs strapped to the harness so we could detonate them if it looked like there wasn’t any chance of rescue. We never got them. “A waste of valuable resources.” Cocksuckers. Putting a wounded soldier out of his misery was a waste but turning them into Fragmuts, now, that they’d consider!