FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 10

Tarrius sat in his chair, watching everyone else working, monitoring security feeds, atmosphere, and getting reports from the outside world. It was strange, they could receive news from the outside, but all transmissions they tried to make outwards were blocked. On at least two separate occasions within the last two days, Admiral Whitcomb had communicated with them, letting them know that he and his men are trying to find a way to extract the remaining survivors. Of course, Tarrius thought, was bullshit. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and yawned stretching. Tarrius knew he was losing his sanity, he had imagined his dead mother time and time again, and she got progressively more agitated and aggressive in her tactics. It felt like his head was about to be split open every time she appeared, and, when she disappeared, it felt like a hangover. His stomach tightened as he heard her voice once more, this time beside him. He glanced over to his left and saw her in pristine condition, her beautiful fur and a warm smile. He returned the smile, then, sighed and frown. She wasn't real, he thought to himself. Gods damn it she isn't real! He shuttered and then, against his will, he looked at her directly.

"Sweetheart, it's time...." She said, in a soft voice. "Our friends are waiting for us, we need to go meet them."

He slowly shook his head. In a low voice, he responded, "Mother, I can't."

Her ears lowered, and she stared at him with sad eyes. "Why is that?" She asked.

"I have a job to do Mother, I have people counting on me to protect them." He responded.

She scoffed, "These people!" She said, loudly. "They are more than capable of handling themselves Tarrius! Please, come with me and see our friends. They want to say hello to you and get to know you! We're all just a big happy family!" She grinned at him.

Tarrius glanced at the command crew, and sighed, giving in. At this point, denying she was real would cause him immense suffering, and maybe it was time to end this suffering. He looked at her and nodded, "Very well..." He said, his voice still low. "Give me a minute." He looked over at a Female Pelzigan Fox, and motioned for her over to him. "Melissa, I'm going to go get some medicine for this headache. Take charge ok?" He said to her.

Melissa stared at him, her ears perked up and attentive. "You sure?" She asked. He nodded to her. "Alright." She told him, "Go and take the medicine."

He smiled and walked out the Command Center and followed his mother down the winding corridors, his tail wagging. Soon, they came across an airlock, and his ears perked up as he heard the sound of claws scratching against the metal. "Are our friends out there?" He asked.

"Yes sweetheart, they are." His mother said. "We just need to open the door and we will get to meet them."

He smiled, and as he reached his paw out to open the airlock, his muscles tightened up, everything in his body, his mind, was telling him that, what lies behind this door, were not friends. But what were they? "Are you sure?" He asked. He looked to where she was, and she was gone. "Mother?!" He shouted, looking frantically for her. "Mother where are you?!" He grew frantic, his heart racing and tightening in his chest, tears swelling in his eyes. "Mother?!" He screamed, panic and terror in his voice. He looked towards the airlock, at the viewport, and saw his mother's face, smiling at him. "Mother...." He said, calming down. "Why? Why are you out there? I want to be with you!" He could feel the tears starting to stream down his cheeks, and he placed his paw against the viewport, staring into her beautiful eyes.

Suddenly, her face contorted into agony, fire started to envelop her right side and she withered in agony. "No!" Tarrius screamed as he reached for the opening mechanism and began to open the door. He wasn't going to lose her! Not again! He opened the airlock, and dozens of paws, their claws razor sharp, reached through towards him. The sound of the dead swarming his ears, and he smiled as he walked into them. His mother stood in front of him and hugged him tightly, whispering loving words into his ears, as the Infected began to tear him apart.

................

Alarms sounded, waking Jack from his sleep. He had a tight hold on the already terrified Kyle whose eyes snapped wide open. They could hear gunfire outside, and Jack almost immediately knew what that meant, They got in. He and Kyle scrambled out of bed, got dressed and Jack grabbed hold of his pistol and armed it. He gripped Kyle's paw tightly and ran to the door and cracked it open to see what was going on outside. Dozens of armed guards ran down the corridor towards the gunfire and screams, a mixture of anger, sorrow, and fear from the guards, and the howling of the Infected. "Come on!" He said to Kyle as he opened the door and ran towards Terra's room and pounded on her door. He was met with a pistol pointed at his face.

Terra stared at him for a brief moment then lowered the weapon. "They got in." She said, and he nodded. "Williams, we need to leave now!" She shouted behind her. There was a quick reply and Williams came up behind her. They began to head away from the gunfire, attempting to go around to where the Avius was docked when they saw Doctor Levin running towards them.

"Not that way!" Doctor Levin shouted at them. "They're down that corridor too! This way!" He ran past them, and without a second thought, the four of them followed. After running for several minutes they came across a large bulkhead door and Doctor Levin knelt down and opened a small panel. He reached in and began to pull wires out and connecting them. "Not much time, there aren't any of them in this corridor. If we can get out of here we can then head towards Security HQ and get some supplies, hopefully wait these things out." He said to the group.

"Sounds like a plan." Terra responded, the door slid open and they ran through it onto the streets of the station. Jack knew immediately where they were, the marketplace. It was a bloodbath. Human bodies were scattered about the place with open chest wounds. The streets were slick with blood. The bulkhead door slammed shut behind them as a group of Infected ran face first into it with a thud. "Come on!" She shouted as she lead the way towards a large building that was built into the wall of the station. Once inside, Terra and Doctor Levin sealed the door shut and barricaded it.

They all panted, trying to catch their breath. Jack looked around and saw several Human bodies in all different positions laying about the place. A few of them were on the tables in the reception area, their organs pulled out of them. He grimaced, disgusted by the sight. "What now?" He said. the lights within the building flickered.

"We need to find the hive mind." Said Doctor Levin.

"The what?" Kyle asked.

"Proto-gravemind." Doctor Levin repeated. "You see, while we were there, I looked over some research data that was collected recently. One of my associates who had been bitten seems to have become a hive mind of sorts that controls the infected. Now, I theorize that this hive mind is what allows the creatures to function as they do. I mean, at the start of the outbreak, they were just running amok. Now, however, they seemed a bit more organized."

Jack shook his head, "You're saying that this one individual is controlling all those things?" He asked.

Doctor Levin nodded. "Now, if we destroy the hive mind, the other infected may return to their feral state making them easier for us to deal with. I mean, yes, they'll be far more aggressive, but less organized. The chances of them adapting to our strategies would lessen." He said to the group.

Terra scoffed, "And how exactly to destroy this hive mind?" She asked. "And why don't we return to the Avius? Sneak past the infected and get onboard the ship and just try to make a run for it?"

Doctor Levin shook his head, "No, that won't work." He said.

"Why not?" Terra asked.

"Well, if you were trying to keep the people you wanted to kill on the station, where would you station the guards at?" Doctor Levin asked.

Terra thought on it, then responded with "I'd post them at the escape pods and locations with ships docked." She paused and she understood. "So....if what you are saying is correct, and there is this hive mind that is controlling them, then that hive mind would position a lot of infected in the area's people are more likely to try to run to and escape from." She said.

Doctor Levin nodded. "Destroy the hive mind, the infected will no longer stay at those locations, they'll start running around trying to find more food and then build another one." He said.

Jack sighed and shook his head, "This is insane!" He shouted. "Where is this hive mind? How do we destroy it?" He asked, lowering his voice as the sounds of the infected started to sound again.

Doctor Levin sat down in a chair at the reception desk and smiled. "Good news is, I know where the hive mind is. Bad news is, there is no oxygen where it's at." He said.

"Where is it?" Kyle asked.

"Bottom level of the station, my lab." Doctor Levin said. He looked down at the desk and smiled. "The only thing is, how do we destroy it?" He asked.

Jack sighed and looked over at Terra, then to Williams, and finally to Kyle. "You've been researching these things Doctor Levin, you have to have some ideas on how to destroy it."

Doctor Levin sighed, "I know how to dispatch the basic infected, however the hive mind seems to be extremely resilient to most things." He said.

Jack growled quietly, and shook his head. "Then how do we destroy it?" He asked.

Kyle raised his paw, and everyone looked at him. "Well," He said, a bit unsure, "We could set the station to self destruct. I'm fairly certain that thing can't withstand an antimatter reactor going off."

They all stared at Kyle, shock on their faces. Doctor Levin cleared his throat "The hivemind is intelligent, if it knows anything about the station, it'll probably try to protect key systems from getting damaged." He said, as he moved over to Kyle and placed a hand on his shoulder. "If we were to try that, we'd have to fight our way to it, and once we start inputting the sequence to overload the reactor, the hive mind would indefinitely attempt to stop us immediately which means we'd have thousands of infected coming down on us." Doctor Levin said as he patted his shoulder.

"Then we distract it." Said Jack.

"How so?" Asked Doctor Levin.

"If someone attacks the parasite, then it'll more than likely divert infected over to its location to fight the attack leaving you guys almost in the clear to overload the reactor." Jack explained.

"Well, how would you attack the hivemind?" Doctor Levin asked.

Jack grinned a devilish grin then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device. "This is a beacon for the Avius, once activated she'll undock and go to the coordinates. I can have her shoot out an area and land, once onboard I can fly her down towards the hivemind and attack her."

Doctor Levin scoffed at him. "The moment you leave the station you'll be fired upon. Unless you want to blow through multiple decks to get to the thing."

Jack chuckled, "Never really cared for this station, and besides, if I manage to destroy the hivemind with the Avius, then all that leaves are the infected which, as you state, would revert back to a very primitive state."

Doctor Levin sighed and shook his head, "No, they wouldn't." He said. "They would have enough biomass to construct a proto-hivemind immediately."

"And how long would that take?" Asked Terra, her arms crossed, tail twitching in annoyance.

"I'd say about five hours, during that time the infected would be completely focused on building a new one." Doctor Levin explained.

Jack nodded, "Then, while they are rebuilding, we overload the stations reactor. Yes, there may be other survivors, but we can't let this infection live."

Williams let out a loud sigh and shook his head. "And what? We all leave at once? In case you forgot, there's a fleet out there that will destroy any ship attempting to leave."

Jack nodded, "But the Avius has jamming equipment, had to install it to get past several pirate gangs and at times a few unfavorable jobs it helped me out, we could jam the ships for a time, give us what is needed to get out of the station and away from any Mass Lock that the fleet has placed up." He said.

They stood there quietly, then Terra nodded. "Alright, we will need to send out a transmission to any survivors within the station to have them get ready to leave. If anyone is left." She said. With that, despite Doctor Levin continuing to protest these actions, the group set to work.

Jack studied the layout of the station and saw that there was a junction just large enough for the Avius to squeeze into that would take it down to the storage area just above the lab, and knew that that was where he was going. Kyle attempted to convince him to let him come along but Jack wouldn't hear it. Instead, he told Terra to take Kyle with her to the reactor room and, if Jack didn't make it back, to head to one of the hangers and try to find a flyable ship. Even if this plan failed, if Jack failed, the least they could do is start an overload in the stations reactors and stop this infection right here and now.

Jack opened the doors to the streets and looked outside, seeing only a few infected roaming the streets, staggering around and giving off weird monster growls. He looked back at Kyle and smiled to him. "I'll be back." He told Kyle, and he was gone. He managed to sneak into a secured area and began the launch sequence for the Avius and within a few minutes, her lights shown through the glass ceiling down at him. The infected around him started to growl and howl as they looked towards the light. Suddenly, there was a bright flash of red as the Avius' plasma cannons fired at the ceiling blowing a hole into it. Air started to rush out of the open area and the Avius lowered onto the ground in front him. He grunted as he stood up and bolted towards the ship, firing several shots at nearby infected, and then climbed onboard sealing the hatch behind him. He rushed over to the pilots seat and strapped in then made his way towards the junction. He grimaced as he saw piles of bodies litter the platform he would land on, and hoped that none of them would suddenly come to life and attack the Avius. He landed on it and began the descension sequence for the platform and he began to be lowered deeper into the station. His heart was racing as he watched the piles of dead bodies, his finger on the trigger waiting for it. And it never came. Within thirty minutes he was on the level he needed to be and he hovered the Avius into the storage area, scrapping her hull against the walls of the station, and angled the cannons down at the floor. He hoped this would work as he pulled the trigger and several bright flashes later, he could see a hole wide enough for the Avius to go down into with stars shining through.

He carefully maneuvered her into the whole and saw the small area the lab was in, and saw the fleet stationed by the station. They hadn't seemed to notice him yet. He had the urge to just make a run for it, leave them behind and escape. He sat there for several minutes debating it, then cursed himself as he angled the cannons towards the lab and opened fire. The stations shields absorbed the shots and he slammed his fist against the console. "Gods damn it!" He shouted. He opened a communication to terra, his muscles tight. "Jack to Terra." He said.

"Terra here." Came Terra's voice.

"I'm right outside the lab, in space, the station has shields up." He said.

There was a moment of silence, then Terra said "Sorry, had to let a group of infected pass by us. I'm looking at the station reports we pulled from a nearby terminal. It seems that the hivemind directed all shielding down to that area. You'll have to head to the control room and deactivate the shielding from there. If the hivemind hasn't already locked the commands down with codes."

He sighed and shook his head, "Copy." He said.

"Jack." Came Kyle's voice, "Good luck."

Jack nodded and said, "You too, I'll contact you guys in a bit." and turned the communications off. He angled the Avius into a position that would allow it to attach itself to the hull of the station and locked it into place then got up from the pilots seat. He had an idea that would be faster, but it sure as hell wasn't a smart one. He made his way over to hatch and then pulled open a small locker that held a space suit and put it on. Wincing as his muscles and bones ached and then sealed the hatch behind him, allowed the system to cycle through, and the hatch to outside opened up. He stepped out onto the stations hull using magnetized boots, pistol in hand, and made his way towards the lab. Once inside, what he saw disgusted him. A vast majority of the lab was now black goo and the like, and he could see five infected, all muscular and deformed bodies curled into balls next to what appeared to be the head of a Human female, her facial features twisted into what appeared to be agony, and joy. He examined the rest of the area and saw that nothing else was here, and aimed the pistol at the female. God's, please let this work, he thought as he pulled the trigger. There was a bright flash as a bolt of plasma struck the female's face. It began to twist and appeared to be roaring as it's left eye socket burned away, and Jack could feel a growing pressure inside his head and then he blacked out. When he came to, he was in lush red fields of grass, the wind and air was crisp and refreshing, and he was naked. His ears flushed as he looked around, unsure of where he was.

"Welcome." Said a male's voice. Jack turned towards the voice and saw a handsome White Wolf, his muscles tight and his body slender. Jack blushed, ears flattening in embarrassment.

"Where am I?" He asked.

"Well, in your own mind." Replied the man as he casually walked up to Jack and placed a soft paw on his. "Or rather, your mind and mine." He said.

"What?" Jack asked.

"The hivemind you attacked, I guess you could call this a self defense mechanism of it." He explained, "When you shot, it retaliated." The man grinned, then gasped, "Oh don't worry, you're not being eaten or used to add to its mass. I just want to speak with you, and ask you why you shot me."

Jack's breathing sped up as the man began to feel around his body, paws gently massaging his arms, then reaching down to his abdomen and rubbing it gently. "The....The reason...." Jack said, gasping and shivering at the touch.

"Oh?" Said the man as he groped Jack's sheeth and then his balls. "Someone is easily excitable."

Jack moaned, and could feel himself getting hard. "Last time I checked, the hivemind had a female face." He said.

The man scoffed, then started to laugh. "Oh please! The Proto-Hivemind started off as female, but as more body mass was added, there was no longer a She, I am now both female and male." He said as he reached behind Jack and fingered him.

Jack moaned loudly, fully erect. What the hell was happening?! He struggled to get his arms up and then pushed the man away. His head started to clear a bit. "The reason why is because you are a monster!" He shouted.

The man snarled at him. "You felt good didn't you?" He asked.

"Doesn't matter." Jack responded.

Suddenly, the man reappeared next to him and placed one paw onto Jack's erection and began to stroke it, and Jack could feel himself slipping away. "Come on now, it does. You could be feeling this pleasure all the time if you just submitted." The man said.

Jack fought against the clouding thoughts of sex and hormones, and said through gritted teeth, "I don't want to....feel this way! You've killed thousands of people, for your own gain. You've eaten so many....You need to be stopped."

The man chuckled as he suddenly appeared in front of Jack, on his knees, licking his shaft as pre dripped from the tip. "Come on now....just give in." He said to Jack as he took the cock into his mouth, tongue massaging the cock.

Jack groaned and howled in pleasure, then felt something tugging at the back of his mind. Who was that? He thought, as the White Wolf sucked him off, almost taking his knot into his mouth. He glanced behind him and saw Kyle, weary and tired, watching in horror, then, suddenly, a horde of infected began to claw at him and eat him. He screamed out in horror and anguish as he died. Jack's muscles tightened as he came close to cumming inside the White Wolf's mouth. He reached down and grabbed the White Wolf by the ears and ripped him off and shoved him away onto the ground. "NO!" He screamed.

The White Wolf wiped his mouth, growling. "You could have been pleasured all the time." He said to Jack, as the scenery around him vanished, being replaced by the lab and the hole that lead out to space, and the Avius. "But you are such a fool."

Jack came to, his body ensnared in the black mass, and he looked down, staring at a White Wolf's face that was at his groin, snout sniffing it. He quickly tore away at the black mass surrounding him and got free. He backed away quickly and aimed at the face and began to fire at it, blowing it to bits. "Fuck off!" He shouted in his helmet, panting. Suddenly, the five bodies began to move and they all stood up and stared at him. Ah fuck, he thought as he backed away further firing at the hivemind. They all opened their mouths as if to roar at him, and then began to slowly make their way towards him. He continued to fire at the Hivemind as he backed out onto the hull of the station and towards the Avius, the creatures now standing in front of his shots. Then he saw them, hundreds of spores as they crawled towards him, their long tendrils snaking out towards him. He kept backing up, firing, and watched as the spores made their way to him. He soon reached the hatch to the Avius and got inside, sealing the door. He pulled his helmet off, panting heavily as he bolted out towards the pilot's seat and sat down. He began the launch sequence and detached from the hull of the station and positioned himself so he could fire into the lab, and armed missiles.

"Go to fucking hell you bitch!" He said through gritted teeth as he fired four missiles into the lab. The first two knocked into the stations shields, the other two passed through them as the shields failed. There was an explosion as the lab disintegrated into particles, remnants of the hivemind floating throughout space. He caught a glimpse of the White Wolves body floating through space, and shook his head as he maneuvered the Avius back into the hole it had made and onto the platform. He glanced at the scanners and saw that several fighters had been heading his way and had now broken off their vector. He growled as he accessed the pads control, and then heard the screams and howls of the infected and closed his eyes. Here they come.