I started running, concerned about the yarsp situation. The joy of running faster than I ever could before combined with the immediacy of a yarsp attack on the compound, and I forgot to collect Dro’erja and Shela.

By the time I remembered them, I was on my way down the final tunnel, and could hear gunfire. They were safer down there for the moment anyway.

As soon as I exited the basement hatch, I froze. Sporadic gunfire filled the air, coming from the northern portion of the wall, where our secondary gate system existed.

But it was Doofus that stopped me dead in my tracks.

He was standing in the shallow where Mr. Sada’s kitchen used to be, staring down at me with his head lowered and teeth bared. A deep, angry growl filled the air around me, and the massive dog took a slow, intentional step forward.

I sighed and turned to face my accuser. The normally sweet, gentle Malamute stalked toward me, growling with his eyes locked on mine.

“I’m sorry, Doof,” I said. My eyes lowered, unable to meet his.

He cocked his head and stopped. The same sensation of burning tears welled up behind my eyes before something tensed and strangled it again. Doofus sniffed the air in my direction and sat down.

The dog was no longer growling, but his ears were still pasted against his head. As if unsure, Doofus walked in a quick circle and began sniffing. He focused on the patch of land Mr. Sada’s house used to be on, and I saw him standing roughly where the stairs had been, sniffing the air.

He sniffed toward me again and sat down, staring directly at me.

Fun fact, dogs have a sense of smell anywhere between ten thousand and one hundred thousand times more powerful than ours, depending on the individual canine. We can’t even imagine what the world would be like if we had twice as strong a sense of smell as we currently have.

Doofus definitely understood that I had killed his former owner and sat challenging me for the first time I had ever known him.

I looked at him and sighed. Then I sat down on the dirt and took my helmet off. “Yes. I killed him, Doof. I’m sorry. I had to.”

His head cocked to the side, and he perked his ears.

“He was going to get us killed, Doof. I didn’t want to, and I’m not happy that I did it. But I didn’t have any choice,” I said to the dog. I suppressed the tears that wanted to come. There was no time, and I didn’t know if Mr. Sada deserved any tears shed over his passing anyway.

Doofus noticed though. He rose from the dirt and plodded over to me. I raised my arm when he nudged at it with his nose, and the giant malamute flopped into the desert sand at my side before he licked my right hand.

Then he zoned out for a few seconds, while I lightly petted his bristling new fur.

Doofus licked my hand again and got up, as a BuyMort pod slipped in over the wall and approached us. It warped in a package, and then hovered a short distance away and turned to wait.

The dog carefully grabbed a strip of flesh-tape with his teeth and pulled back on it to tear the gummy substance free. It looked like his package had tape designed to be pulled free by a dog.

Inside the box was a thin, metal, square frame. Doofus immediately plunged his head into it, and it activated. Tiny robotic arms folded out from the external portions of the frame and attached to Doofus’ collar. When the dog raised his head from the package, the frame came with him, a thin metal box around his head.

He had another item hanging from his mouth, and as I watched, the robotic frame reached an arm down to take it from him. The small item was a hexagonal grid, made from some kind of gold material. It attached to his collar, in one of the spaces left by his shield.

Once the frame was finished installing his new item, Doofus stepped away from the box and lowered his head. The tiny robotic arms let go, folding back into place, and the frame clattered harmlessly to the ground.

The BuyMort pod flew over and warped it away, then whistled its happy tune and fled over the wall, ignoring the sporadic gunfire.

Doofus panted happily, staring into open space before he snapped at the air and turned back to face me.

A range of holographic buttons appeared on the ground in front of me. It looked like a larger version of the tiny hexagonal grid on his collar, but elongated horizontally along the ground. The grid of buttons formed a semi-circle in front of Doofus, and the dog stared intently at them.

Then he reached forward and pressed one with his paw. A male flavored robotic voice with a British accent said, “Pack!”

Doofus growled and his eyes went unfocused again. He began nosing gently at the air in front of himself until he suddenly snapped at nothing and closed his interface.

He stepped on the button again. This time, an American accented male robotic voice said, “Pack!”

I couldn’t help but smile. Doofus was learning how to talk.

The Cow goes Moo. The Duck goes Quack. But what are they really saying? Introducing SPEAK! GOOD BOY by SkyeMan InterSpecies TeleCommunications. Specially fitted for the multiversal variants of canine species across all known space, SPEAK! features not just the means to enact speech — it also enables the ability to send text in real time.

SkyeMan InterSpecies TeleCommunications. The Sky is the Limit. 850,000 morties, 4.9 stars.

I walked over to him, and his array of holographic buttons on the ground vanished.

“Yeah, buddy. We’re pack. And pack comes first.” I crouched, and offered him my fist to bump.

The giant dog immediately lifted his own paw and pressed it into my fist. I leaned forward and rested my head against his shoulder.

Doofus licked the side of my ear, but then sighed and leaned back.

“Thank you Doofus,” I whispered. “Thank you for forgiving me.”

He woofed lightly and I straightened.

“Let's go help with the yarsps, buddy,” I said. He fell in at my side, and we jogged to the gate.

I looked back before we left and saw a major change to the landscape beyond the wall. Buried in deep shadow, behind the national forest in the distance towered a shape. It seemed like a great tree, but extended impossibly high, into the clouds.

With a shake of my head, I ran to keep up with Doofus.

The gate at the far end of the long mud-crete hallway banged and rattled, and the telltale grunt of dying yarsps filled the air. We picked up our speed, running to join in the battle.

Doofus beat me up the steps to a rudimentary guardhouse at the top of the gate wall corner. It was between all three walls and was being used as the coordination center for the hobbs effort against the yarsps.

And boy did we have yarsps, I saw as I reached the top of the steps. I gripped the mud-crete wall and stared out over the usually peaceful Arizona desert. All the way up the forest line, it crawled with activity, yarsps filtering out of the forest and drifting toward us in groups of various sizes.

A smaller group of a dozen had just been dealt with, and the hobbs were all reloading or staring in the distance to determine which group would approach next. Rayna was on her phone at my side, grunting and muttering under her breath.

I stared at the poorly lit desert, the gray pre-dawn light illuminating more and more of our situation as it slowly grew. The towering structure in the distance glinted, great lengths of metal shining in the pre-dawn light, reflecting on our infested front porch.

The desert outside camp was crawling. Hundreds of the land wasps roamed around out there. Maybe thousands, the treeline showed signs of constant movement in the gloom.

The hobbs at the walls had been using suppressed weapons fire and maintaining strict silence to avoid attracting the entire horde, which grew by the moment. Eventually we were in for a hell of a sustained fight, and the group returning from Sundew Valley was about to make everything worse.

“Sundew Valley crew not back. On the way now,” she grunted. Her lips were a tight, gray line as she scanned the road south with her rifle scope. The hobb commander turned to a rifleman at her side. “Get to the armory, bring up everything. Need the flamer fast though, get that first.”

The hobb nodded, saluted her with a fist to his chest, set his own weapon down, and hurriedly descended the stairs.

“What’s the plan here, Rayna?” I asked, keeping my voice down.

She crouched at my side, bending to pet Doofus. The dog reached his head around to give her pebbly hand a cursory lick but went back to staring at the gathering yarps. A small growl issued from his throat.

The hobb took a deep breath, then looked me in the eyes. “We secure the road in front of the gate, allow access at speed, get primary gate closed, and fight the overwhelming rush that follow.”

She pointed back at the strange hallway of mud-crete and blacktop. “This may save us. Yarsps almost certainly break down front gate. Sundew group can exit to Sada’s lot, secure secondary gate, and join the fight.”

The hobb bit her lower lip while she stared at the far gate. “If that gate hold, we have real chance.”

“Anybody down on that road aside from me is dead,” I whispered.

She nodded. “I ask for volunteers. Hobbs are brave. We will secure the road. Make sure Tollya and the others make it home.”

I shook my head and retrieved my helmet from my bag. As I pulled it over my head, I said, “No time, here they come.”

Rayna’s head whipped back to the road, and she saw the glint of headlights. “Gates open!” she hissed. Hobbs scrambled to work, as a large group of yarsps to our direct north noticed the campground.

“No reason for anyone else to get hurt,” I said, gripping Rayna by the shoulder. “Keep Doofus up here, and do not let anyone else go down there with me. I can do this.”

She blinked, and I turned away to drop off the wall. I landed with a crunch in the gravel beside the road, reaching back and hauling my highwater blaster into my hands.