FSE

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Dr. Ellie Lee--gray cat, chief scientist of the galactic quadrant and youngest recipient of the Golden Whiskers Prize for Scientific Achievement all in one--put her paws on the desk. "You mean to tell me this new molecule of yours will improve teleportation efficiency? By sixty-seven percent?" On the other side of the Toughglass sky dome, in the cruel, lifeless outer space of the Hýlkon quadrant, stray comets twirled and intertwined like celestial otters. The hazy glow from countless stars poured in, stars not bright enough for Chemistry Lab 46's main office now that the space station's night cycle had kicked in, but bright enough to pick out Lee's permanent scowl.

"The experiments speak for themselves, Ellie," said Borne, taking his spectagoggles off and rubbing his chafed snout. "Tomorrow you can see the holographic footage, and I've meticulously recorded all the data in the dossier." He put his prescription glasses on and squinted at the desk; all he could see, in the purple and faded starlight, was the emerald glow of Ellie's eyes and her pink pawpads. The Shiba Inu ducked when one of the Lab's many robotic assistants, this one forged and turned into the shape of a Dalmatian, made a grab for the back of his lab coat's collar.

Dr. Lee remained in silent thought for a few seconds, the twitching tips of her toes doing the talking for her. Finally, her green eyes swiveled to meet Borne's, and her bare feet hit the ground with a smack. "I'll have a look at it all first thing in the morning." She looked up and watched one of the comets in its perpetual celestial dance, her eyes tracking its dusty, frigid tail with cold precision. "If this is as good as you say, I can pull some strings and have every starship in the sector fitted within the next six standard months."

---

"Ensign, set thrusters to go into geosynchronous orbit."

"Aye, ma'am."

Cyrene Imbruk, the Quadrant Defense Force's first female to achieve the rank of captain, pored over the bazillion displays and monitors of her station with her heterochromatic eyes. "Excellent," said the vole, her pink, segmented tail fluttering behind her. "Lieutenant Gari, hail the rendezvous team."

"Yes, ma'am. Should I also prepare the teleporter?"

Cyrene leaned back in her command chair and smiled. "You read my mind as usual, lieutenant."

Gari cranked a lever. The entire port side of the fifty square meter bridge stirred to life as the teleporter's enantiomer-powered engine initiated its boot sequence behind twelve inches of chemically inert metal. "Two minutes and we'll be able to teleport team alpha back on board," said the wolf over the fizzing, violently exothermic reactions. He took the communicator off its stand and spoke into the grated plastic. "Team alpha, stand by for reassembly entry."

---

Andorn I was the fifth planet of the quadrant in its solar system's Goldilocks zone. By far the closest to Hýlkon's business, commerce and tourism hub, Andorn I had become somewhat of a political wet dream--whoever managed to terraform the red-and-blue mega-Earth would prevail in the upcoming sector elections; from there, securing the quadrant presidency would be a cakewalk.

But there was one minor hindrance ...

---

"How much longer we gotta stay down here, doc?" Ivan the maned wolf kicked a clump of red granite. It broke up into a dozen pieces in midair before disappearing down the crater the team had dug. "This place makes my feet burn," he said, holding up his hand like a visor to shield it from the system's intermediate-mass main sequence star, a red-orange ball of plasma that oversaw the planet's perpetually light hot pink sky. "Who the hell could even live here?"

Dr. Fern kept his gaze steady on his voltmeter's readout. "That's the reason we're here, Ivan. Have you lost the plot? This place needs to be colonized pronto, and I need to figure out why everything here is dead or dying." Fern got to his feet and used his palm to rub the sweat off his nose. "This hunk of rock's right in the middle of the Goldilocks zone, but most of it's a goddamn wasteland. Hell, there's miles of ocean on the other side of the planet, but the rest of the place is still dry as balls."

"And that's why we need to pop this joint, Fern." Petty officer third class Rehalp let her sonic driller fall to the ground and pierce Andorn I's brittle red crust. "Place is a dump. Look, we made that huge-ass hole for you, and all you've done ever since is fuck around with those gadgets and gizmos of yours." The armadillo sighed and plopped to the ground, and the backside of her camo shorts kicked up a huge plume of cough-inducing dry dust.

"Look," said the vulpine scientist, cracking his knuckles. "You two want to go back up there, that's fine with me. Hell, if anything, I could work here in peace and not put up with your endless caterwauling, so when command tells us to teleport back, you go on ahead without me." He swung his backpack around and stuck his paw in. "They'll be using the new teleporter engine, too. You won't be in limbo for five minutes; you'll get there at the speed of light."

Rehalp, devoid of any semblance of elegance, kicked her driller out of the cracked, dry mud; rocks the size of Old Earth apples peppered Fern's feet. "When's that gonna happen?"

"Can't you just hail them and tell them to haul our asses out of here? You said it yourself, there's no need for us to stay down here if you're just gonna poke around with your doohickeys," said Ivan, digging red crud out of his nostril with a claw.

"Imbruk was very clear--we're to wait for them," said Fern, crouching with his back facing the impatient duo, squinting at a test tube as the universal pH indicator within it changed from red to green.

"What, we're just supposed to sit around here and wait till that rat beams us up?"

Dr. Fern's arms froze and he turned his head till he could just see Ivan out of the corner of his eye. "She isn't a rat, Ivan. She's a vole. Get a goddamn grip on yourself."

"I'd recommend not telling me what to do," snarled Ivan, taking a step towards the crouched fox. "Remember, I ain't on your payroll."

"Why don't you take a step back, sergeant? I'm in the middle of analyzing and storing field samples," said Fern. "Your shadow's making it hard to see these colors."

The maned wolf turned to Rehalp, his paw now on the butt of his holstered service blaster. "Is this dude for fucking real?"

All Rehalp could do, with her legs spread and bent at the knees, feet resting on the harsh terrain, and her arms supporting the weight of her torso, was shrug.

"Yeah, Ivan, I'm for real. I'm here to do a job. I understand you don't like yours, but I like mine, so, again, back off."

Ivan's nostrils flared, and his teeth came into view, glistening harshly in Andorn I's sweltering pink daylight. "You piece of shit! I oughta ..."

In the blink of an eye, with ancient dust being kicked up by his bare feet, Ivan closed the gap between himself and the crouched fox. As he reached down to grab Fern by his collar and yank him up for an extraterrestrial fist fight, harsh radio static filled the now hazy air around the three members of team alpha. "Team alpha, stand by for reassembly entry," said Gari's saturated, crackly voice.

The maned wolf cupped his hand into the shape of a megaphone and yelled in the direction of Fern's chest. "Sure took you long enough!"

"They can't hear you," said Rehalp. "Doc needs to press the Speak button on his intercom."

"Yeah, whatever. Are we gonna leave or what?"

Fern sighed and, with a closed, clammy fist, pushed down on the transmitter embedded in the chest of his space suit-cum-lab coat. "Affirmative. Two member of team alpha ready; I'll still be down here a while collecting samples."

"Negative," said Gari. "Captain wants all three of you back on the Gallant."

Fern folded his arms to his chest and squinted up at the setting sun. "I need more time to figure out what's going on with this hunk of dust." The scientist grimaced as he stood up, a mild ache in his knees. "I want sent here for a job."

"I'm sorry, Fern. I've configured the teleporter to beam all three of you up here. You really do need to come back. The atmosphere gets too toxic in the evening hours. You know that. All you three have to do is touch the Teleport button on Fern's intercom, and it'll beam you up. But remember--all three of you have to press at the same time."

"I won't take too long, I--"

Before Fern could get another word in, Ivan lunged at him and made a grab for his communicator. "This is Ivan! Get me the hell off this heap of shit!"

"Hey! Get your dirty paws off me!"

A flurry of red, white and orange fur and blue-and-gold space suits came tumbling down; the pulverous, arid ground beneath them belched out plumes of dust. "Get me the hell out of here! I can't take it!"

Rehalp got to her feet and made a beeline towards the struggling duo. "Ivan, calm your tits!" she bellowed. "Chill out; this is our chance to leave!"

"Screw it, I'm going up first," said Ivan, wedging his paw down Fern's collar to practically crush the communicator with his gloved paw. "You two can wait. I can't fucking stand being down here!"

"Ivan, no, don't!" Fern's eyes widened; his claws tore into Ivan's suit.

But it was too late--the _Teleport_button clicked and, in the blink of an eye, the maned wolf was gone, leaving behind tattered blue-and-gold strips of space suit under Fern's black claws as the only proof of the maned wolf ever having been on the arid planet.

"Shit!"

"Oh, goddamnit!" said Rehalp, giving her driller a good kick that made its chassis rattle--and this time, the bucket of rust gave up the ghost as tarnished steel plates and bent pins and screws flew everywhere. "What's his fuckin' rush? All we needed to do was press that shit together. UGH!"

Fern, with a dusty space suit littered with scuff marks from his skirmish with the maned wolf, crouched, supporting his weight on his toes and the balls of feet, and stared off into the horizon, where the local sun was just starting to vanish.

"You gonna say something, Fern? That motherfucker left us down here. That toxic gas shit is gonna fuck us up."

"We'll be able to get out of here, Rehalp. I'm not worried about us. Ivan's as good as dead."

"You can say that again. When I get up there, I'm gonna knee that sumbitch right in the balls!"

"You don't get it. This isn't good, Rehalp. They set the teleporter for the three of us, and he beamed up alone."

"Watchamean?"

Fern, one eye watering from staring at the setting star, looked back at Rehalp.

---

"Captain, the teleporter entry bay seems to be occupied, but the gravitational mass readout is on the low side." Gari scowled; he tucked his tail between his legs. "I was also getting some communication from the team after I hailed them, but I think the signal got jammed when I told them all of them had to put their fingers on the button at the same time. I think the teleporter's On sequence was interfering with the communicator's frequencies."

"I'll have a mechadroid look at the display panel after the mission. It's probably close to conking out."

"And what about the communication getting cut off?"

Cyrene crossed her legs, putting her ankle on her knee. "I wouldn't worry about that. I bet it was just cosmic rays or something."

"Should I go and retrieve team alpha, then?"

"Yes, lieutenant. Take ensign Droggo with you, and don't forget the medipack. They may need oxygen."

---

"I don't have a good feeling about this, Gari," said Droggo, standing in front of the teleporter's entry bay control panel. He grimaced as he adjusted the heavy Quadrant Defense Force-issued medical pack strapped to his back. Droggo the border collie took a step towards the molybdenum grade stainless steel door, leaving behind a sweaty, four-toed pawprint on the corrugated metal beneath them.

"Me neither. How can the captain be so chill about all this?" Gari prepared the contamination detector--a three-pronged tool that would attach to the closed muzzle of a recently returned team member and give a detailed breakdown of any biological, nuclear or chemical contaminants.

Droggo's muzzle crinkled. "I wish I knew. All right, so, do I open this thing? Not gonna lie, I'm kind of freaking out here."

"We're gonna have to open it eventually. Go ahead."

The border collie swallowed and, with his teeth glistening thanks to the bay's sole light fixture, put a hesitant finger pad on the Open activator. "OK. It's now or never," he said, his other hand balling up.

The machine gasped and groaned. Actuators and hydraulic pistons engaged. It started with a tremble, but eventually the hardware reached nominal current levels, and the curved, pockmarked, eight-foot-tall door in front of them swiveled.

The first thing they saw was the purple haze of the disinfectant UV light. The next thing was the back side of the teleportation area, rounded and curved just like the retracting door, pitch-black from the coat of nonreflective paint.

The last thing they saw was Ivan's mutilated, twisted and gnarled body.

The mirror-imaging enantiomer molecule that powered the teleporter engine would rotate each and every team member's molecules as they careened through outer space to spin them back upon entry into the bay. The system was designed to distribute its rotating power to all programmed teleportees, so, unfortunately, Ivan received the rotation and derotation of three members.

Droggo and Gari took a step back, the former nearly losing his footing as he slipped on his own sweat.

"Fucking shit, what the hell is that?!" asked Gari, pointing at Ivan's pathetic remains, a red, blue and gold mess of guts, torn and ripped muscles, and snapped, jagged bones with the gooey marrow dribbling onto brown chunks that were either his pawpads or fecal matter.

"Oh, jeez, I'm gonna be sick," said Droggo, acidic bile drowing out the last of his sentence as it hit the back of his throat.

Gari grabbed the gagging ensign by the arm. "We gotta get the fuck out of here and tell the captain! Shit, this is so fucked!"

---

"Fern, got any Band-Aids?" Rehalp grimaced as she wiggled her swollen toe. "Think I messed my foot up when I kicked the driller."

"Sorry, Rehalp," said Fern. "I left my medikit on the ship; I didn't have enough space."

Rehalp hobbled towards the crouched fox. "Oh, come on. I'm sure you got something in case you burn yourself with that colorful chemical crap." Before Fern could stop her, she had her armed wedged into his space suit up to her elbow. "Let's see what you got here."

"Hey, what are you doing?!"

Click.

Rehalp and Fern exchanged looks of horror. A second later, the armadillo disappeared.