FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

A buzzing against her wrist woke her from sleep, as it had done for the past three days. Of course, were it not for the communicator, she probably would have been hard pressed to say she had been here for three days. After all, there were no windows in the escape pod, and the instrument cluster only had a weedy little display, on which it cycled through the information most relevant to her survival. Her and her co-passenger.

Ruefully, she looked over to the seat, bolted into the opposite wall. There, she saw the engineer she had evacuated with, after Station Grey Aegis met with... actually, she never got a straight answer on what happened with the Station, before she was shepherded off to the evacuation chambers. The engineer was not able to help with that. Ever since the escape pod made the trip into subspace, the scruffy tiger had barely said two words, without prompting. Mostly, she just sat there, losing more and more pieces of her uniform and throwing them into a pile right next to the privy closet, where it seemed like she thought they belonged. Apparently, during the night, she had removed the last bit of cloth above the waist, her toned worker's body and small, pointed breasts on full display.

She stared directly at her fellow passenger, as if daring her to say something about it.

Keela sighed. "What is this, then?" she asked. "Are you making yourself at home or something?"

"Overheating," the engineer replied. "That suit I came in with is rated for work around the Void Engine, and there's barely any sort of air conditioning in this box."

"Uh-huh." The gray-furred fox set her jaw, in ineptly restrained annoyance. "Might as well lose the pants, then, since those have to be uncomfortable."

The engineer looked down at the baggy, multi-layered pants around her legs, which were sealed to her boots in order to keep her body heat in as effectively as the nanoweave would allow. "Those were next," she explained, "but only if I really need to. Pretty sure indecent exposure to an Enforcer is a pretty strict penalty, isn't it?"

"I'm not an Enforcer, right now." Standing up, the fox stretched the kinks out of her muscles that had set in from the hours sitting in the uncomfortable crash chair. "Emergency Ordinance 462 states that in the event of an evacuation, all passengers in an escape vessel suspend their..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Caste gets dropped. Everyone gets reassigned to the role of crew members until either planetfall or interception by Federation rescue craft. I go through this talk two times a year as part of safety training, thank you."

The fox sighed. "Right. Force of habit." Rolling her shoulders, Keela planned out a section of the floor to move around on, that wasn't in the way of furniture or equipment.

From where she sat, Terraki the engineer tried to be subtle. After all, it wasn't like there was anything else to look at, around here, except the thin, wiry fox and her daily resistance training. It wasn't like she wanted to watch the flex of those muscles, the way the Enforcer stretched and strained. It was the Department of Peacekeepers fault, she thought to herself. Why would they have put all of their officers in those skintight blue-and-lavender jumpsuits, unless they wanted people to ogle them? Of course, she knew all that was bullshit. She just thought that the fox filled that jumpsuit out better than most.

"Nothing burst into flames, while you were asleep," she remarked, trying to seem casual.

"Good," Keela grunted, as she exhaled, letting go of one pose and lying on her stomach for a second. The flexible armor padding of her suit did a little bit to break up her silhouette, but Terraki was still given a clear view of the valley between her toned cheeks. She had to be such a whippy figure, underneath that suit. Built for speed, unlike her, who had to be trained for backbreaking labor. If they had run into each other at the canteen...

Terraki sighed, tearing her eyes away before she let her imagination get too far away from her. "At least," she added, "nothing's going wrong according to the display. Not like they give us any way to check for ourselves, on these tubs. Don't even have any windows."

"It's fine." Keela knew better than to talk overmuch, while she was in the middle of a pose. Stretched out in an upside down V shape on her hands and knees, she took careful, deliberate breaths as she shifted her weight against one shoulder, then the other.

Terraki chuckled. "Yeah. It's fine. Unless we're headed straight for a meteor." Pulling herself to her feet, she made her way to the console and began idly fingering the buttons. Without looking back, she asked "You know why they don't put windows on these things, right?"

Keela pretended to be focusing, so she didn't have to respond.

"It's so people evacuating don't have to see what's happening to the ship they're leaving. People might not be a good crew member if they know just how fucked all their loved ones are."

The Enforcer exhaled, sharply, before hopping to her feet and stretching out the last of her exertion. "Have you slept?"

Terraki shook her head. "Figured there should be someone conscious, in case the display decides to declare a new emergency."

"I'll watch her now, crewmate. You go on ahead and get some rest." Keela put a hand on the engineer's shoulder. "Don't worry. I'll wake you up if the cluster does something I can't make heads or tails of."

The tiger smirked. "Damn straight, you will. That's the Engineer's Curse, for you." Shrugging off Keela's hand, she stomped back to her seat. "We're citizens and crewmates until somebody needs some actual work done."

The fox did not look back, as Terraki made an exaggerated flop into her crash chair. Instead, she was busy at the controls. Not doing anything to the pod itself, mind. Tampering with an escape pod was a felony in non-emergency scenarios, and mutiny otherwise. However, the cluster had enough power generation to help keep her communicator charged, and a relay to keep her connected to FTLNet. At least, in theory. Connections were spotty, this far out in the galaxy, and without the power of a whole station she was hard pressed to even check for new messages, let alone try and establish proper communications with headquarters. All she could really do is attempt to send an "I'm still alive" back to her precinct, and hope the data stream didn't get lost in a solar flare somewhere between here and Blue Northern.

The communicator beeped, informing her that the message couldn't be sent.

Keela sighed.

* * *

That night, something woke her up. Shaking her head to try and force herself awake, she looked off to her left. There, she saw Terraki in the privy stall, her body half-obscured by the batwings as she faced the wall. The engineer made a series of sharp, uneven gasping noises. For a second, Keela thought that she was crying. Then, the fox heard a sudden, very recognizable groan, and realized that the engineer was definitely not crying. She could only stare, scandalized, as Terraki placed one hand on the wall in front of her and rode out her orgasm.

After a moment, Terraki sighed, pushing her way out into the main room. She did not have her pants on, and as she made eye contact with the Enforcer, she looked down at her still half-erect cock, and grit her teeth. "Fuck," she muttered. "I... woke you up with that, didn't I?"

Keela nodded.

Awkwardly, Terraki put her hands between her legs. "Sorry. Not a lot of privacy around here, and..."

"No, no, that's fine." The fox couldn't take her eyes off the tiger's naked body, even as she tried to play it off. "We're both adults, here."

"Yeah, still..." Terraki chuckled. "Can't help but notice you're staring."

Keela flinched, turning her head to the side. "S-sorry about that."

"Nah, it's fine. Not like I didn't walk right into that. And I guess it's not every day you see a lady with my kind of equipment."

"You'd be surprised."

"Yeah. I guess body mods'd be more common among the people you run into, being an Enforcer, and all." Out of the corner of her eye, Keela saw the engineer take a seat across from her. "My ex was certainly unhappy to see that I'd gotten it, I'll tell you that much, but that's one of the many reasons he's my ex now, so..." An awkward silence fell between the two of them. Terraki sighed. "Right. Tell you what. I'm gonna climb back into my suit bottoms and we're both gonna pretend that didn't happen."

"You don't have to," Keela protested. Meeting the tiger's eyes, her ears flattened as an explanation sprung to her lips. "You took them off because they were hot, right? It's only gonna be until we get rescued or make planetfall, and in the meantime our health is priority one."

Terraki clearly had a thought, but suppressed it. "Are you gonna be okay with... you know?"

"I'm not scared of nudity, crewmate," Keela huffed. "Just don't go swinging that thing in my face, and we should get along just fine."

The engineer chuckled, but crossed her legs to cover herself, respectfully. "Whatever. Guess the invitation goes both ways. If you're feeling overdressed, that is..."

"If I start overheating, I'll take that into consideration."

Again, a thought in Terraki's head stayed respectfully out of her mouth.

* * *

By the time Keela's alarm had gone off five times, something happened. She was in the middle of her exercises, steadfastly trying to ignore the eyes she could clearly feel trying to bore a hole in her suit, when a buzzing on her wrist broke her concentration. At the same time, the communicator on Terraki's wrist also made a noise. Getting up onto her knees, the Enforcer tapped against the little bead on top of her wrist, causing a holographic screen to flicker to life along the back of her hand and forearm. A slew of messages rolled in, from a dozen different sources.

Terraki made a noise of triumphant surprise. "We must've passed by a data node, or something," she explained. "Got a whole backlog of messages thrown at us while we had a decent connection."

Reflexively, Keela checked to see if the connection strength was any better, now. It wasn't. She cursed, under her breath. "Did we pass it? I need to send..." Her fingers were several steps ahead of her, trying to get the status report sent out to Blue Northern, only for the screen to throw up the audio equivalent of an ambivalent shrug. "Damn it! Come on, you stupid..."

Terraki, meanwhile, thumbed through her messages, hoping to find something useful in the slew of poorly masked advertisements, newsletters to services she had left behind on Arcadia, and the set of fawning messages she was still receiving from that skinny mouse after she took half of her... Then, suddenly, one message stood out to her. Her eyes fixated on the name of the sender. "Cpt. Jelikar." When she opened it, a video file began to play, of a haggard looking wolf in a dimly lit station bridge, blaster in hand as he slumped into his seat.

"I don't know when you're gonna receive this," the message began. Keela craned an ear as the file began, but that was all she could hear before the engineer immediately killed the volume. Terraki stared sidelong at the Enforcer, before she skulked to the opposite end of the pod, holding the communicator close enough that she was the only one able to hear the otherwise inaudible speech.

Keela felt a small, instinctual twinge of distrust, as normally happens when a trained officer sees something that might be construed as conspiratorial behavior. She shook it off, trying to convince herself that, as long as she was on this ship, she was not an Enforcer. However, as her old instructor was quick to tell her, suspicion is like pain; quick to make itself known, and slow to fade.

* * *

The engineer had kept her eyes glued to her screen, after that. For what felt like hours on end, she would play that video over and over again. Keela had not made an active effort to listen in (at least, that was the lie she told herself), but the sheer repetition allowed her to pick up bits and pieces.

...don't have much time...

...I only hope the rest of the data makes it...

...I know we went through...

...I love you.

Keela had plenty of opportunities to catch that last one. Terraki played it over three or four times in a row, usually before she closed the message, turned off her communicator, and spent the next little while getting suddenly more agitated. Every time she looked at the video, she would start pacing, or jiggling one knee as she sat on her crash seat, or leaning over the console as if she could intimidate it into revealing more information. Once she calmed down, she would take a seat and, after a brief pause, pull up the message again.

By the third time this happened, Keela finally spoke up. "Crewmate."

"What?" Terraki growled, her tone acidic as her finger hovered over her communicator button.

Keela thought about bringing up the recording, but stopped herself at the last minute. "It's been almost a week. You need to start taking care of yourself, if you want to be in any shape for planetfall."

"I am taking care of myself," Terraki insisted. "Do you see any leftovers around here? I'm eating the garbage rations as fast as the replicators can crap it out."

"I'm not talking about food, crewmate. You've been almost sedentary since we entered subspace. The manual of conduct for rescue passengers suggests a regular regimen of exercise for the sake of maintaining..."

"Will you stop?!" Terraki rose to her feet, hands balled into fists. "I already told you, I know what the fucking rules are."

"Do you?" Keela challenged, also standing. "Because all I'm seeing is you wasting your energy and working yourself into a lather."

The tiger didn't have an answer. Instead, she took a shaky breath, made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a growl. "Oh, you're lucky I know better than to pick a fight."

"Why don't you?" Keela made a beckoning gesture with her hands, before taking a wider stance and getting low. "Come on. You and me. No blows, just submission."

Terraki was confused, but put a hand on her hip and laughed. "Seriously? Seems a bit unfair, with all that padding on you." She made no effort to hide her crotch, turning it towards the fox as if to drive the point home. "Are you gonna fight me on equal footing, or am I gonna have to come over there and take that jumpsuit off of you?"

Keela tried not to spend too much time staring, before she smirked. "Why don't we make it a challenge for you? Since you clearly have to catch up on your exercise."

The tiger crouched down to eye-level with Keela, as the two began to circle around each other. Exposed as she was, Terraki looked no less capable for battle. Her body, underneath her ill-kempt fur, had borne the struggles of hard labor, and her stance was the sort of practiced, but uneducated grace that came from practical experience rather than formal training. Sensing movement that could be construed as a threat, the Enforcer's communicator warbled to life. A holographic display materialized over her right eye, an augmented heads-up display feeding her data on her opponent and suggested courses of action. She dismissed it with a coded gesture.

She didn't need the advantage.

The two met in the center of the pod, arms locked together in a clinch. For a moment, Keela tested the strength of her opponent. As she suspected, the tiger clearly had an advantage in raw strength. It was obvious that Terraki wasn't exerting herself, whether out of a desire to gauge the Enforcer or a genuine sense of concern that she might hurt her. Even so, the weight that pressed down on Keela's shoulders was the sort of tolerable strain that she knew could become much less so, in short order. The two looked into each other's eyes, as they pushed. Terraki's eyes were dark with the lack of sleep, and storming with thoughts she was trying to keep beneath the surface. The fox took a sharp, focusing breath, before she suddenly burst into motion.

Ducking low, she wrapped her arms around Terraki's hips. The tiger fell forward, with the sudden absence of resistance, but recovered quickly as she tried to clamp around Keela's back. The Enforcer adjusted her grip, getting a leg behind one of Terraki's knees, the top of her head pressed against the tiger's hips for leverage. She pulled, taking Terraki's foot out from under her and sending the both of them tumbling to the floor. The engineer's legs wrapped around Keela, one around the neck and the other clamped against her ribs. The tiger squeezed. Keela found her face ground against Terraki's crotch, her right arm immobilized by a deceptively strong thigh. Despite her best efforts to resist, she found herself wrenched onto her back, the tiger looming over her. She lashed out with her legs, tried to angle her free arm somewhere useful, but to no avail. Grunting, she slammed her hand against the floor multiple times, in surrender.

Panting, Terraki loosened her grip but didn't move her crotch away from Keela's muzzle. "Not so strong," she taunted, between pulls of air, "without the HL cuffs... eh, crewmate?"

Keela snaked her arm free and rested it on the tiger's outer thigh. "Believe me... if I wanted to detain you... I would have."

Terraki chuckled. "Yeah. That's Enforcers, for you. Still gotta look tough, even when they're on the ground."

"Call it the curse of my caste," Keela replied. Then, after a pause, she shifted in place. "Are you gonna let me up, or...?"

Terraki was going to say something, but the peek of the Enforcer blue killed her words in her throat.

Keela smirked. "You can say whatever you want. We're just crewmates, right now."

Terraki inhaled, shakily. Beneath the fox's chin, something warm started to prod against her fur. Finally, the tiger said "What... if I like seeing you, like this? What are you gonna do about it?"

Keela let out a sultry chuckle, as she finally let herself take in the sight of the tiger's lithe, naked form. At least, as well as she could, before her vision was taken up by a pair of thin hips, before she became incorrigibly distracted by the oppressive warmth of the rod of flesh the engineer pressed against her lips. "Well," she whispered, her voice suddenly smaller and her tone less official, "perhaps I'll have to just convince you to let me go, then."

"Oh, yeah?" Terraki, emboldened, leaned in further. Her body had worlds more confidence than her voice, which carried an almost teenage undercurrent of hesitation. "Well, come on then, crewmate. I'm waiting."

Keela found the mismatch to be a certain kind of charming. More important, the potent aura coming off of the tiger's cock was making her dizzy with desire. She had been taking in the feel, the temperature, the smell, all in an effort to stave off the one thing she wanted to experience. Slowly, gingerly, her tongue came out, and she was greeted with the first taste. Salty. Strong, without being overwhelming. Accompanied with the reflexive shudder of the body above, as Terraki nearly recoiled at the sudden, electric sensation. The fox's eyes glazed over. She wanted more. She curled an arm under Terraki's leg, giving her a series of slow, loving licks, before her muzzle opened around it and she found herself descending.

"F-fuck..." Terraki put a hand on Keela's head, as much for something to hold onto as to guide the fox's efforts. For a few moments, the pod was silent. Nothing but the sub-audible hum of machines, the slurping passes of Keela's muzzle. They began to be slowly overtaken, drowned out by the gasps and moans of the engineer, as she quickly and chaotically began to reach her climax.

Keela hadn't been expecting the first round. Not this soon, anyway. Somewhere in between the velvet passes of her mouth, she found her muzzle suddenly invaded, strong fingers curling against her head as her nose was ground against pubic bone. Rapid fire strings of cum began to spatter against the roof of her mouth, at a rate not seen even among the more prodigious of her partners. She shut her eyes, moaning around Terraki's length as her cheeks began to fill with the tiger's seed.

"Ah... ahhh-h-h-h..." Terraki backed off, looking down at the Enforcer with a sudden, acute sense of regret. "Fuck. Sorry. That was faster than I'd..."

Keela turned her head to the side, letting a wad of spit and semen collect on the bare metal beside her.

The engineer released her grip, fully, laying down on the opposite side of the fox. Still, she continued to explain herself. "It's... uh... not like I've had a whole lot of... you know. Ever since I got the mods installed. Like, I've been with people, you know? Lots of people. Just, not with... you know, not like I am now."

Keela snickered, as she turned to face the tiger. "Are you trying to tell me you're a virgin?"

Terraki scowled. "I am not a virgin."

"I don't know. Sounds like a lot of virgin talk you're doing, right now."

"Pfft. Whatever, ass."

"Hey. It's all right." Keela wrapped a leg around Terraki's, bringing their bodies close together. "If anyone knows about those kinds of problems, it's gonna be me."

"What do you...?" Terraki began. She stopped, however, when she felt the warm spot against her leg. Keela rubbed her crotch back and forth, causing something hot and unyielding to press against her, underneath the jumpsuit.

Keela smiled, knowingly. "Those mods you got. Are they just one-for-ones?"

Terraki shook her head, dumbly. "Sprung for the advanced package. Reduced refractory period, increased production, all of that. Only thing I didn't get was the full genetic rework. Not really in the market for kids, right now." Awkwardly, her thumb and index finger found the zipper of Keela's jumpsuit, pulling it down past her throat before looking into her eyes, as if seeking permission. "What about you?"

Smiling, the fox pulled herself up. With the zipper still in her hand, Terraki's eyes were glued to Keela's chest. The zipper made a turn, winding to her left side before traveling down her arm and coming undone at the cuff. Keela's arm came free, and with it came her shoulder and one of her pert breasts. The other half of her torso would soon follow, as she peeled it off of her body. Days of wearing the one skintight suit had flattened her fur into an unflattering, matted mess, but neither of them seemed to mind. She shimmied the suit down, so it was just at the top of her hips, took a deep breath, and then pushed further down.

"So, um..." She leaned back against the heels of her hands, letting Terraki get a good look at her modestly sized, tapered cock. "...if you can believe it, mine's all natural."

"No shit?" With only the barest minimum of hesitation, the tiger found one of her hands reaching down to wrap around Keela's length. "Could have fooled me."

"Ahh..." Keela gasped, closing her eyes as warm fingers began to travel along her length.

Finding an amount of confidence in the noises the fox was making, Terraki leaned in, her voice huskier. "I mean, this looks like exactly the kind of cock you'd've chosen. Cute. Lightweight. Aerodynamic. Perfect for running after perps with a full mast."

"Oh, just stop," Keela said with a laugh, her chest rising and falling.

"What?" Terraki pressed, smiling. "You telling me you don't get hard in that suit of yours? Walking around with your every curve on display like you're basically naked? Cause I gotta tell you, I've had my eye on that ass of yours for days now, and it hasn't been making me any softer."

"I... I know..." Keela smirked, back at her. "You're... nnngh, probably the least subtle perv I've had, for a while."

"You're one to talk," Terraki taunted, as she slicked her hand up with the fox's leaking pre, "spitting on me like you haven't gotten any. Any more and I might have enough to fuck you properly."

"Oh, fuck," Keela whimpered, slapping a hand on the tiger's forearm as her breath started to get sharper. "D-don't stop. My knot, it's..."

The engineer felt her own length coming back to life, as she thought about flipping Keela over and taking her right then and there. Despite that, she knew better than to try and venture something like that for the first time with nothing around but spit and pre to work with. Instead, she tagged her other hand in, cradling and squeezing that canine knot, the other flexing as the hot meat between her fingers writhed and heaved. "Go on, then," she said, her voice low. "Let me hear it, crewmate."

The Enforcer's orgasm involved the whole of her body. Bucking and arching, her chest heaved as she pulled in enough air to voice her sudden, violent ecstasy. Jagged ropes of seed shot up into the air like water out of a malfunctioning fountain, the diminished gravity of the pod helping them reach near to the ceiling before they rained down on Terraki's arm, her shoulder, Keela's legs and crotch, and especially the floor. The jumpsuit, still attached to her ankles, tangled itself up as her legs scrabbled for nonexistent purchase. Her hands fell to her face, trying and failing to cover up the look of sheer gasping joy that every other inch of her body was currently betraying.

Terraki kept her hands on Keela's length, massaging her as she wound down, only stopping when the strength seemed to leave the fox's body, all at once. Looking at the mess of matted fur, all up her arm, she snorted. "Wow. Pent up, much?"

Keela kept her face in her hands, in embarrassment. "It's been a while."

"Yeah. I feel that." Laying down beside the Enforcer, she scooped her up in her arms. "It's all right. Like you said, if anyone understands..."

Keela sighed, as she endeavored to put as much of her fur against the tiger's. A few awkward moments ensued, as she kicked out of her shoes and got the last bit of her jumpsuit off. After that, however, the two lay in silence, the rise and fall of their breath the only movement in the pod.

Eventually, however, Terraki sighed. "Fucked up, isn't it?"

"What is?"

"That this is the only way I can deal with my ex dying."

Keela pulled back, meeting her eyes. For a moment, she thought she might have just tried to ignore the statement, but it was clear that Terraki knew what Keela suspected. Instead, the Enforcer merely said "What makes you think he's dead?"

Terraki shook her head. "He told me to call in sick. The day of the incident, that is. Wouldn't tell me why, but... apparently he knew something. Right before the alarm went off I thought I'd just say 'screw it.' I got dressed and prepared to come in late. Turns out somebody from Officer Corps caught up with me before I could get to the Engine." She scowled, at nothing, her features tightening as her eyes began to shine with tears. "Apparently he wanted to make sure I could get to an escape pod."

Keela didn't have a response, so she nodded.

The engineer pulled away, sitting up and resting her elbows on her upturned knees. "This whole thing is bullshit. I should have been there. Whatever the fuck happened, it was clearly an Engineering clusterfuck. That was my problem to deal with. My problem, dammit! But..." She laughed, bitterly, "no. I get the first seat when the evacuation orders go through. Everyone else in Engineering and Officer can just suck vacuum, but I get to sit in this windowless tub with my dick in my hand, because I fucked the captain a couple times."

Keela sighed. Rising up to meet her, she put her arms around Terraki's shoulders. "You're not going to help anyone, thinking like that."

"Well, I'm not helping anyone!" Terraki shouted. "That's the whole fucking problem! I'm stuck in the middle of fucking space, hundreds of miles away from the post I fucking abandoned! Who the fuck am I supposed to be helping right now?"

Keela put a hand on Terraki's cheek and pulled the tiger in, to look into her eyes. "That's enough, crewmate! Focus! Did the captain send you anything, along with that message? Anything at all."

Terraki, confused, was nevertheless cowed by the Enforcer's tone to open up her communicator. "There's a text log, he sent, but it's just a bunch of junk data. I don't see what..."

The pod got silent, as Terraki stared at her screen. Keela scowled. "What is it? What do you see?"

"This language..." The engineer began to scroll through the text, her brow knitted. "I think this is data from the station's black box."

"Can you read it?"

"Not like this. Wrist communicators run on an entirely different system. In order to get this in any kind of legible format, I'd need to spin it up in a suitable analogue..." Looking up, her gaze fell on the pod's display console. "I think..."

Keela, seeing where she was looking, tensed. "Crewmate, no."

"No, no, hear me out. If I can get into the guts of that machine, I might be able to use it as a virtual machine."

"You're not going to do that. Altering the function of an escape pod is mutiny."

"It's fine, crewmate." Terraki started to stand, but was held down by the fox around her shoulders. "I said it's fine, dammit! I don't need to mess with any of the life support or navigation systems. It'll just take a few minutes."

"No!" Keela made a gesture with her fingers. Hard light snapped to life around her fingers and forearms, forming the all too familiar golden Enforcer gauntlets. "If I have to arrest you, I w-"

They were both pulled from their argument when their communicators began to buzz and chime, in unison. Keela looked at the screen hovering above Terraki's arm. There was a hail, coming in from an official Federation ship.

"Answer that." She tapped the tiger's shoulder, excitedly. "It's a rescue craft! Answer it!"

Terraki laughed. "Yeah, yeah, I'm on it."

"Voice only, voice only!"

"I'm not stupid, I got it!"

"This is Communications Officer Braith, of the Federation Vessel Red Scorpion, calling all crewmates aboard the Grey Aegis life vessel. Please report all crewmates and disposition."

Terraki looked to Keela, expectantly. Keela cleared her throat, talking in the most authoritative way she could manage. "This is Enforcer Keela, crewmate of the Aegis. I am here with a member of the Engineering corps."

"Terraki," the tiger chimed in.

"Engineer Terraki," Keela continued. "No casualties aboard this pod; all crewmates are healthy and accounted for."

"Very good," the Communications officer replied. "Be advised: our ship is currently two hundred kilometers from your position and is adjusting heading to intercept. You should be within range of tractor beams within the next forty-five minutes to an hour..." The officer paused, a comment half stumbling out of his mouth, before it died awkwardly. Clearing his throat, he started again, his voice much less formal as he seemed to lean into his microphone. "You two should probably get dressed before we arrive. Maybe get some water and clean up the mess."

Terraki's ears flattened, as she looked down at the streaks of drying cum on the floor. Keela found herself looking up, at the top corners of the pod.

Braith's audio creaked, as he leaned back. "Right. We have your transponder set, and you are now connected to FTLNet. I'll be dropping our hail frequency into your communicators, so call if anything in your situation changes. Good work, crew."

With that, he clicked out of the call as fast as protocol would allow, leaving the two crewmates alone in the room.

"Fuck," Terraki muttered, with a chuckle.

Keela laughed. "I forgot they have feeds of the cabin, to check on crewmates."

"Oh, fuck." Terraki began to laugh harder. "Bet he wasn't expecting to see that, this morning."

Sighing, the fox stood up and began to gather her things. "Come on then, crewmate. Might as well limit our indecent exposure to as few of the Scorpion's crew as possible."

"I dunno." Leaning back on her hands, Terraki took a moment to admire the Enforcer's toned rear, now that it was finally out of that padded suit. "He did say we had an hour to kill, before we got picked up."

Keela straightened out her suit, turning around to look the tiger in the eye. "We'll have time for that later. Once we get on board that ship, I will be requesting that the captain give us access to a device we can use to spin up your black box data."

"Really?" Keela started to stand up, herself. "We're not gonna, like, hand it over to the Enforcers on the Scorpion?"

"The captain gave you that information, for a reason. Besides, unless and until I find a superior officer who escaped the station, I have to assume I'm the highest relevant authority." Keela smirked. "Enforcer's curse, you could call it. Work gets pawned off on whoever's closest."

The two stood there for a moment, in silence. Staring into each other's eyes, they both knew that the thing they wanted was to get dressed, focus on the mystery of what had happened to Station Grey Aegis, and let the rest of what had happened in this pod sort itself out. And yet, still they stood there.

Keela, taking a deep breath, was the first to speak. "It's all gonna be alright, you know."

Terraki fidgeted. "Yeah, I know. Who knows? Maybe my ex is alive, and I'm gonna have to have an awkward conversation with him about you and me."

"Maybe."

"Do you think... do you think we can still, um...?"

Keela raised an eyebrow.

"Well, there's gonna be replicators on the Scorpion. They're probably going to give us a bunk, somewhere. Plus, you know..." Terraki grinned. "In for a penny and all that."

Keela sighed. "I'm not doing anything of the sort. At least, not until I've had a shower." With that, she began to climb into her jumpsuit. "Now get dressed and help me clean up the evidence. The last thing I need is for my sex life to be written down in an official ship log."