FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

“Silver Fang 2, how are things looking on Reina’s Comet? Everything in working order?”, a tinny voice comes out of the intercom of the ships console, directed at the lone figure at the helm.

His lips pull back in a snarl, showing his silver veneers admits his midnight colored fur. The snarl turns into a grimace as he sighs, letting the air leave his nose and his fur relax. He places a scarred paw on the intercom button, “Silver Fang 2 to Ground Control, everything is in good condition on Reina’s Comet. Should be landing on Jupiter in 3 cycles with some time to spare.” He looks briefly out into the darkness of space, broken only by the fires of the stars and illuminated planets; flint eyes trying to track movements that arent there. “No space debris, asteroids or unknown objects have been spotted either.”

Silver Fang 2 removed his paw from the intercom, removing his gaze from space beyond his ship, to stare abjectly at the intercom. Waiting for the common follow-up to the weekly check ins.

A brief buzz fills the ships interior cabin, “Copy! Please let us know about any sudden changes or unidentified space crafts that break the Intergalactic Noticary guidelines. Any craft that breaks them will have no identifying number or code, deny all forms of communication, and attack through lasers or force launched projectiles. Please do remain cautious as you continue your mission to Jupiter-Achoo!!” The regulated speech is cut-off by a sudden sneeze from the lagomorph operator, followed by a sheepish voice. “Oh goodness, so sorry about that Silver Fang 2. Anything you want me to relay before ending this weeks check in?”

Silver Fang gives a soft chortle, eyes softening, “No ground control. Nothing to relay at this time. You take care of yourself now.”

“Of course sir! Hear from you next week.”

The resounding click echoed with a firm finality. The soft look in Silver Fangs eyes changed to one of resigned loneliness. He runs his paw through the fur on his head, fluffing out the areas behind his ears and under his jaws.

With a sigh, he leans back in the pilots chair, closing his eyes, brow furrowing in frustration at his past self for taking this mission.

The mission itself was pretty standard. Relay mission to Jupiter to pick up samples from the way-station surrounding the planet and deliver extra supplies to the sentients running the station. The Jupiter station mainly got supplies from the Avian Explorers from Kronus 20. A separate legally distinct contingent from the Avian Ravagers of Arctirus 70, that had a lock on the fastest space trade routes in the Milky Way galaxy.

So why the need to send lone wolf astronaut to Jupiter? Fruits and eucalyptus mainly. The Avian Explorers could get a hold of as many meats as there are species, but fruits where a bit harder due to preservation temperatures and the tendency to spoil at light speed travel.

Eucalyptus though? Mainly because no other planets had it, and the Koala’s taking part in the research of Jupiter would not eat anything at all without it being mixed in.

So with little need for fruit and eucalyptus in his diet, Silver was a prime candidate to take the mission as the contents would remain intact.

The only catch was that he had to do it standard travel with no light speed until all the perishables had been delivered. Standard travel from Earth to Jupiter with no hiccups was about 6 months, with hiccups maybe 2 years. All the foods were cryofrozen before launch and placed in some newly made magic time box or whatever to keep them fresh, but even with that better to get them delivered sooner rather than later.

Now 6 months alone on paper sounded doable, something he has done before on trips to the Lunar stations. But this one was...somehow lonelier than the others. The noises where more dampened, the plant room was smaller than the ones prior with no space for a sprawl, and he was just to aware of everything!

Every creak in the vents, the rubbing of his uniform against his skin, the monotonous beeps from the console he could hear even in his cabin. It was all getting to be too much. Hell, he couldn’t even howl to let out his frustrations because it would just echo back unnervingly, making him even more aware that he was the only sentient creature aboard the ship.

But enough of that, wallow to long and he would have trouble finishing the mission. With a little groan he stands on his back paws, nails giving a little clack on the metal floor, and begins to make his way to the restroom on the ship.

Brush the fangs, comb the fur, brush the tail, clean and trim between his paw pads, put on the regulation pajamas and off to bed. He does two circles on his bedding before curling up with the covers over him.

3 cycles till he see’s other beings.

Just.

Three.

More.

Cycles.

---

RED ALERT

RED ALERT

UNIDENTIFIED SHIP DETECTED

RED ALERT

RED ALERT

UNIDENTIFIE-

Silver wakes up with hackles raised, fangs bared at the noise. His mind still muddled he only processed the blaring sounds, but after a moment he makes out the sound.

Eyes going wide he immediately begins changing into his standard uniform and sprints on all fours to the deck of the ship. Skidding to a halt with his nails screeching on the metal floors he lunges for the captains seat and scrambles to a fully seated position.

Clamping down on his panic he begins going through the system logs to see when the ship came within range of Reina’s Comet. It looked like it had appeared to the starboard side 3 hours ago. Pulling up footage from the outside of the ship he makes out a battered seemingly undulating vessel. Gaps could be seen from the camera’s vantage point showing the inside of the ship ravaged, debris slowly floating out from the confines a mix of broken furniture, wires, and frozen fluid.

Feeling unsettled he placed his paw on the small zoom dial and slowly zoomed in on floating objects. As he zoomed in closer he hoped that the crystal where water or crystallized urine. Both explainable easily reported.

An eye blocks his view. Rectangular pupils look into the camera, then small creaks are heard from the starboard side, as the thing seeming anchors itself into the side of the ship. Then slowly it lifts itself away from the camera, blinks diagonally once and rams its eye directly into the camera, breaking it as the last image it shows was the razor sharp maw behind the eyes membrane.

Shit…

Fuck!

Silver sat shocked, but spurred into action with the impacts the creature was making to the hull of the ship.

He took off for his suit and hastily put it on, helmut and all. If that thing was what had destroyed the unidentified ship, this suit would be the only thing between him and a painful frozen death. Double checking that his O2 was high, he began looking for the flare gun in the captains quarters.

The impacts had started changing, instead of dull thuds they where now full asteroid impacts, shaking the ship with each one, the metal itself groaning in agony.

He’s checked all the drawers nothing. The mounted night stand, nothing. Come on, come on!

Where the hell could it be?! He had to regain his footing, the impacts growing stronger as the creature grew more frenzied. Not much time, wait… he looks towards the clocks and the thin cabinets next to them.

As the next impact hits he launches himself at the cabinet frantically tearing open the doors and pawing the insides until finally he feels it, the handle of the flare gun. He takes it into his paw the exact moment the hull gives way.

He’s no longer alone.

The lights go out before the back up generator kicks in, the emergency lights flashing red truly adding to the already tense atmosphere. He takes a step propelling him forward toward the door. Then grips the metal bars on the wall with his free paw as he makes his way forward.

No gravity. Good to know. He continued in measured motions to slowly drift through the ship, paw in the trigger of the flare gun ready to aim.

Since the creature entered the ship it had made very little noise. A horrifying thing really, that meant that it had either found what it wanted, or that it was lying in wait ready to trap the nearest living thing.

Drifting slowly he makes his way to the docking area. On alert ears swiveling back and forth he doesn’t pick up any sounds nor does he see any visible indicators of the creature. He takes one more glance around before directing his body weight to the storage area.

He’s a quarter of the way down the hall when he hears a mix of tearing and guttural screeching.

The door to the storage section is completely torn open, looking like it was pried open by the jaw of life before being sliced apart into uneven chunks.

Silver tightens his grip on the gun, grabs the metal bar on the wall and cautiously peaks his head around the now bent frame.

The creature is shoving the dried fruits into its eye blinking only to swallow. The tendrils around the eye show the fruits traveling through them to heavy sacks on the ends filled with the creatures acidic digestion. On the creatures back 4 prehensile limbs thick around as Silvers arm float behind it. Two limbs with suckers like that of an Octo-kin but with visible moving muscle beneath it. The remaining two limbs have suckers on the middle length that eventually fade out as the end of the limb forms a sharp curved point, not unlike a scythes edge, but with smooth bumps on the side, for what purpose Silver really didn’t want to know.

Silver pulls his head back making sure to keep his breathing quiet as he panics. How the hell was he supposed to kill that thing with just a flare gun! He should have gone for the axe, but in his panic the gun seemed the safest option, if only for being out of reach of the thing.

Looking at the remains of the door, that decision wasnt the worst one to make. Now it was a matter of shooting it, dodging the inevitable retaliation, and surviving. Low hopes on the last one, but he could at least try.

He centers himself, reaffirms he has a good grip then drifts slowly to the opposite side of the storage opening, hooking his tail barely under the railing to keep him anchored for the shot, but able to launch himself to either side with the kickback.

Silver lifts and aims the gun at the creatures center mass, the mouth eye thing, and shoots.

The flare illuminates everything in a unnatural green light highlighting the fear in Silvers eyes behind his eyelids, and the slowly digesting dried fruits in the creatures tendrils. The creature turns at the sudden illumination, mouth eye open as the flare lodges inside.

It forces itself to blink inadvertently swallowing the flare, and locking onto Silver. The creature launches itself with a deep screech that Silver felt in his bones. Silver dodges out of the way towards the left, with the kickback from the gun aiding him only barely missing being sliced apart.

He rams himself into the wall and uses his hind legs to launch himself further up the hall as the creatures dislodges its limbs and begins to hunt him down. Silver ears pick up the dislocation of air before he does, allowing him to only be thinly cut by the creatures hooks instead of dismembered as he shifts his weight to the side.

The creatures hook lodges itself in the wall next to him, allowing it to pull itself forward.

Thinking swiftly, though some would say foolishly, Silver triggers the mechanical claws in his suit and gouges into the muscle connecting the hook to the rest of the creatures limbs.

Mucus blood sprays from the wound as the creature howls in horrific pain stopping its forward movement to bring its claw in towards its main body.

Before it can full retract it however Silver goes to gouge again, this time putting as much weight as he possible can behind it until he is see’s a veritable wall of blood floating above the now detached stump.

He only has a moment to take in his minor victory before one of the creatures more muscular limbs slams into him, pushing him further up the hall with his flare gun firmly in his grasp.

The air leaves his lungs and he feels his ribs crack from the sheer force of the creatures limbs. Through his squinted eyes he makes out the creature flailing in pain globs of its blood floating around it, its tendrils seeming to flex around it in a threatening manner.

With the creature enraged and distracted by its immense pain, Silver aimed the gun at the creature again and pulled the trigger.

Another flash of blinding green light and the flare hit the creature, along with its floating blood.

As the flare made contact with the creatures blood a brief spark could be seen, before a resounding explosion occurred.

The force from the explosion sent both Silver and the creature slamming to the ends of the hallway. Silver felt what little breath he regained leave him along with the stability of his vision. He tried to get his eyes to focus but was only able to make out a blurry form of blue fire, at least he thought it was from the heat coming from that direction. His ear drums were rattled with the only thing he could hear being the alarms and only feeling the screams of the creature.

His vision cleared just enough to see the creature burning from the inside, its very veins illuminated by fire from its mouth eyes to its tendrils to its limbs. It’s dying screams as it burned from the inside out would haunt Silver till his own death.

Silver floated there at the end of the hall watching the creature burn until it was nothing more than a charred if slightly gelatinous husk. Confirming that the creature was fully dead, Silver unsteadly floated his way to the captains cabin.

Trying to blink to blurriness from his eyes, he found the distress signal and activated it, briefly recording a summary of the events, “Captain Silver speaking. Coordinates XX-382, Supply ship Reina’s Comet in need of immediate assistance after breach and attack by unknown space creature. The creature attacked the ships storage and captain. It has been fully immobilized but the hull is breached with limited air supply. Please send immediate assistance..” He trailed off at the end as his eyes became heavy.

Before fully succumbing to the exhaustion he felt he sent the message through and hoped that when he next opened his eyes he would be off this nightmare of a ship.