Laika Sobaka

# The First Cosmonaut

*"Unbreakable Soviet Willpower, Comrade!"*

- Laika after breaking free of Darwin Horizon's black hole attack (*Starry Knight*, *Vassal Of The Cosmic* #6)

In the beginning of the Soviet's space program, the CCCP deemed spaceflight too dangerous for humans. Strays from around the Soviet Union were used as the first living creatures to be launched into orbit. Called the Space Dogs, these invaluable animals paved the way for manned interstellar flight and all of the advancements therein. While most of the Space Dogs either landed safely or died en route, one exception was the mongrel Laika. Her craft, the Sputnik 2, vanished from the sky at exactly 04:02:16 MSK on November 2nd, 1957. What started as a spatial anomaly and a lost mutt turned into the origin story for one of the galaxy's most tenacious defenders.

## History

### **Origins**

Sputnik 2 and Laika were swept away by Darwin Horizon, the mad geneticist fascinated by Laika's tenacity and courage in a situation literally beyond her comprehension. Using the power of the Primeval Unrestricted Aleph, Horizon uplifted Laika to both anthropomorphism and sentience. Curious and insatiable as only a dog can be, Laika was released to wander Horizon's facility as a kind of living artifact. Left to her own devices, Laika studied and explored the Corona Null Station. Over time, she learned a wide array of skills necessary to survive on and around the station. Engineering, xenomedicine, gunplay, and a swath of alien languages, among many others.

Even with her relative freedom and abilities, Laika was still trapped aboard Corona Null; Horizon had stolen the remains of Sputnik 2 and hid them away. But Horizon was not as clever as he thought he was. Laika eventually discovered the craft and began to work on it in secret, upgrading it with new technology and weaponry, forging it into the interstellar Sputnik ∞. Laika had been plotting to assassinate Horizon and escape with a small group of refugees to find help. But she was betrayed by her closest ally Malleus, Laika getting captured by Horizon's guards and sent to the Null Gaol to await her execution.

### Introductory Arc: *All Those Stars Are Mine Alone* (Starry Knight #1-7)

When Blasphemy Tomorrow was granted the Caliber Blade and became Starry Knight, he turned his eyes to rescuing the prisoners held for study in the Corona Null Station. Assembling a strike team of Duplicity the Polyman and Pareidolia, Starry Knight inserted into the station's maintenance section. Their stealthy entry was eventually discovered, their planned route deviating into the Gaol. Laika and Montgomery Mainline were among the prisoners that escaped during the fighting, and the two joined up with Starry Knight's crew. After defeating Horizon and liberating the station, the group decided to begin operations as celestial protectors under the team name of Daybreak Riders.

### Notable events

* The Flying Circus (*The Incredible Trapeze* #51-55): The first permanent Lunar Colony experiences a murder days prior to their centennial celebration. Ward Director Highborn Nathanial is found with a knife pinning him to the wall of the easternmost civilian airlock. Laika, already on the colony, began her own investigation after the local authorities bury the case. Summoning the career criminologist Trapeze to the scene of the crime, the two eventually hunted down Nathanial's murderer and unraveled the underlying drug smuggling conspiracy that had gotten him killed.
* Arrangement In Black And Grey (*The Adventures Of Laika*, #12-28): Shipments across galactic space have been interrupted. Craft arrive before their departures, crewed by none but the dead. Strange omens paint the stars, casting a shadow over both scientists and sorcerers. Laika is drawn into investigating the group behind it, a powerful multi-planet-spanning conspiracy lead by a mad dozen calling themselves the Black Pharaohs. Penetrating to the heart of their masquerade, Laika discovered the eldritch mind behind the cult to be a writhing chaos of angles bound to the thing called Unfettered Dogma. Using her quick wits, mechanical expertise, and trusty blaster laser, Laika disrupted the summoning of Dogma and scattered the Pharaohs to the stars.

### Powers and Abilities

#### Powers

1. Uplifted Animal - Stolen from the skies above Earth by Horizon, Laika has been genetically and morphogenically altered into her current form. Horizon's customizations were designed to make Laika more interesting in his eyes. To that end, her uplifted features are:
	1. More-Than-Man Physique: Were Laika a human woman and not a PBF anthro canine, she would be considered in the "top human physique" realm. She can lift up to 500 kilograms, run at a dead sprint up to 40 km/h for about five minutes, jump over 1.5 meters from a standstill, and perform other feats of physical ability that would put her in the top 3% across the board.
	2. Improved Intelligence: While Laika is a certified whiz at engineering, linguistics, and several other extra-planetary survival skills, she does not possess any 'superintelligence' or other form of enhanced mental capacity in reference to the average sapient biped. That being said, she is vastly more intelligent than a contemporary Earth dog.
		1. Enhanced Spatial Awareness - However, Laika's brain has been altered on a biochemical level to supercharge her visual pattern recognition abilities. Her eyesight is specifically been cultivated to more accurately conceptualize an object's component shapes and assembly1. While this makes her an excellent mechanic and crack shot, she does need to be careful; any source of extreme visual noise confuses her eyesight and can briefly 'shut down' her visual center. Super-saturated colors, hyperobjects, or other visual attacks can all blind her.
	3. Adapted Durability - Laika has been designed to more easily inhabit extra-planetary environments. Her respiration and circulatory system is not impacted from being in low- or zero-gravity. She can survive for several minutes in hard vacuum without protection. This has the secondary ability of giving her enhanced endurance and physical defense. Because of this, her body requires a special high-oxygen atmosphere to function and she'll generally wear her modified space suit and helmet when outside of Sputnik ∞.
2. Canine Abilities - Laika was not stripped of any of the benefits her former body granted her; specifically, she still has a canine's innate sense of smell, tracking abilities, powerful jaw strength, and so forth.

#### Abilities

1. Expert Ship Mechanic - Talent and experience have made Laika very skilled when it comes to maintaining and upgrading interstellar craft.
2. Expert Gunplay - Energy guns, lead throwers, even heavy munitions have all passed through Laika's hands. Her preferred weapon is her trusty laser blaster picked up from Corona Null.
3. Expert Xenolinguist - Laika has an ear for language, especially its component syntax and vernacular. She is fluent in several terrestrial and alien languages, though Russian is her mother tongue.
4. Adept Marital Artist - Laika has always been a scrapper, and her enhanced physiology makes her a terror in close-quarters martial arts. Mostly experienced fighting in tight hallways and lower gravity, Laika is able to adapt on the fly to fight in multiple different environments and enemies.

#### Weaknesses

1. Instinctual Resonance - Laika's brain is still fundamentally a dog's, and therefore she will still have momentary bursts of reflexive canine responses. When frustrated, she will snap and growl. If she is content, she will wag her tail. While happy, she will leap about and bark.
2. Visual Hyperacuity - As stated previously, Laika's eyes simply cannot edit out or obfuscate information in the same way that a human's eyes could. She sees things *as they are*, which can be extremely dangerous. Additionally, this visual information can simply become too much for her, and her visual centers will shut down.

#### Paraphernalia

1. Weapons
	1. Laser Blaster - Snatched up from Corona Null's armory, Laika's 'Extranomad Special V-24' laser blaster is a fairly standard photonic sidearm across the galaxy. She has upgraded and customized the blaster to facilitate a quick draw and a fast reload.
	2. Canine Jaws - Laika can bite and rend like any other dog, with her bite strength proportional to her larger frame.
2. Equipment
	1. Sputnik ∞ - The original Sputnik 2 frame has been reinforced with a Nicate inner skeleton and mounted with a surplus Screwtype Apparatus, making it an interplanetary Craft. A pair of forward mounted linear cannons, as well as a rotary mass driver, make the Sputnik a scrappy little fighter that can go toe-to-toe with anything of similar size, but not something that can make a dent in ships larger than Beast-Class.
	2. Atmo-suit - Laika's suit maintains constant pressure and an oxygen-rich atmosphere for her while she is wearing it. The suit is lightly reinforced around the joints and torso with a Nicate mesh, offering some protection without sacrificing flexibility or maneuverability.

1Between this ability and being a dog, Laika is immune from optical illusions.