FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

In the late twenty-first century, humanity spread throughout the stars. We colonized worlds, built farms on distant shores, and erected booming metropolises. The United Earth Coalition reached into the heavens and for two centuries, humanity thrived. But in all that time, visiting so many worlds, humanity was alone in the emptiness of space. Groups and organizations arose, their purpose to search for someone to share our culture, our experiences with.

They found them and almost immediately had begun to wish they hadn't. An alien race calling themselves the Pillar eliminated one of humanity's farthest reaching scout ships. And they didn't just plunder the vessel. They vaporized it, leaving only a cloud of vapor in their wake as they sped toward UEC colonies.

We liked to think we were ready for this possibility. We liked to believe we could stand up against anything we found in the blackness of space. We controlled hundreds of worlds and stood united under one flag. We had conquered the cosmos and we thought we could conquer whatever obstacles stood in our path. We were wrong.

The Pillar washed over our colonies like a tidal wave. They left dead planets in their wake. Smoldering balls of glass that once had been lush farm land or sparkling cities. When humanity realized how powerless they were to stop the Pillar, they withdrew.

Every ship, every soldier, they all returned to Earth. Everyone knew it was hopeless to think they could stand against the Pillar. They wiped out entire fleets with minimal casualties. Even withdrawing and wiping planetary computers data cores, it was only a matter of time before they found us. And they did find us.

The Pillar landed a dozen ships all over the planet. Their troops infested every corner of the globe. In orbit, the two fleets fought desperately for every meter of space. Humanity outnumbered the Pillar's fleet a hundred to one. It was an even fight. Both fleets fought each other to a stand-still. The Pillar, confident in their victory over humanity, withdrew their ships and blockaded the planet. Humanity was trapped on a planet that could not support the trillions of lives on the surface or in orbit.

The fighting on the surface went on without end. It covered the entire globe, especially population centers like New Denver. Soldiers and citizens alike fought for their homes. Perhaps that is what evened the odds against the all-consuming Pillar. Humanity had something to fight for.

Most of the fighting around New Denver was done by militia units, civilians who had taken up arms against the Pillar. There were quite a few marines on the ground who did most of the heavy lifting. One such soldier was huddled in a blown out apartment building.

He laid prone on his belly, peering through the digital scope on his rifle at an intersection nearly a mile away. He and a dozen other snipes had been positioned at different distances all around the intersection. Will knew the plan backwards and forwards. He'd been reciting it over and over for hours now.

They were waiting for a column of small armored soldiers that were heading into the city to eliminate the militia and marine units. Most of the armored soldiers were three-legged machines with two plasma cannons on either arm. Some of the armored suits were smaller and six legged. Those ones were the tricky ones. They were quick, agile little bastards with lighter weaponry, but much harder to hit. When the shit hit the fan, they scurried up the sides of buildings and disappeared into the rubble. Sometimes they scurried home, sometimes they lied in wait for any unfortunate sod to come close.

It begged the question, which one of the suits looked most like the alien driving it? No one had ever seen the Pillar in person and lived to tell about it. Were they bipeds, tripeds, or were there different species with different physiologies or-…

The question was washed away as shapes emerged into the wide intersection. There was a column of three armored suits side by side, flanked on either side by the quick-legged sixers. Will let his fingertip rest on the trigger and set the circle in the middle of the scope rest on the bulge on the base of the spidertaur-esque suit, where he knew the armor's power supply was hidden.

The plan was to wait until they reached the other side of the intersection, then go weapons-free. He licked his lips and slowly inhaled and let it out through his mouth. He inhaled twice by the time the Pillar troops reached the crosswalk.

He squeezed the trigger and quickly turned his sights on another of the sixers. Before the first one's power supply exploded, he squeezed off another round. It bounced harmlessly off the pavement and struck one of the threes' back legs. It stumbled and fell, but the sixers had already scattered, clambering up walls and into holes blown into the sewers.

The threes turned, their canons firing at holes the sixers weren't already escaping into. Will fired again and again, always targeting the bulges in the armor housing the suits' power supplies. Many of them fell before they turned and started to charge back the way they came. Even as they rushed out of his line of sight, Will heard the distant explosions of more of them being hit by other snipers in other parts of the city.

As soon as he couldn't see any more of the Pillar soldiers moving in the intersection, Wills stood up and slung his rifle over his shoulder. Magnetic clamps on both his armor and the rifle fused together, holding the weapon in place on his back. He rushed to the door, picking up an assault rifle as he went. No telling if any of the sixers would make it to his hiding spot before he got far enough away. If they did, his sniper rifle wouldn't do him very much good.

He made his way down the back side of the building, half stairs and half rubble of what had once been the rest of the large office building. He peered this way and that as he reached the streets. The reports from distant gunfire no longer echoed to him. The rest of the team was probably doing exactly what he was. He jogged through the alleyway, his eyes and rifle barrel looking the same way as if unable to look anywhere the other didn't.

He scanned the rooves high above, the blown out windows along the sides of the building, doors both ajar and sealed. Sixers could come out of anywhere, doorway or otherwise. He didn't want to be caught in the narrow alley with one and no hope of backup!