FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Oh, there you guys are." Tank walked into the room and took a quick look around, her well-muscled frame taking up most of the doorway. "Asuka asked me to head for Engineering to keep an eye on things, but when I got there, everybody was gone." She grinned at Marissa and waved a hand at her head. "Hey, nice haircut."

Marissa ran her hand over her scalp. "Time to shave again. If I let it grow for more than a day or two, lint from my pillow sticks to my head." She frowned. "If there are any pillows around here. Or razors."

"I use a hair-removal cream. Only need it once every month or so." Tank shrugged. "Of course, I didn't have a chance to pack before we ended up here. But I guess there's more important things to worry about--like what we're gonna do about food."

"Yeah." Seth shrugged before turning back to the large screen on the wall in front of the pilot's console. "Sorry we missed you, by the way; something came up. And then something else came up."

"We've lost two of the shuttles," Asuka muttered, pointing at the screen, which held an image of Roger's and Kamala's shuttle disappearing into the cavernous landing bay of a sleek ship shaped like a stretched-out ovoid. "Lopez sent us these images while he was outside. First we lost contact with Morrison and Luana; I thought something might've collided with their shuttle, but when we saw Roger and Kamala get swallowed up, we figured the same thing happened to the first shuttle."

Tank's jaw dropped and she stepped closer to the screen as the ship turned away. A reddish vortex swirled into existence a few hundred meters ahead of the ship, which accelerated into it. The ship vanished and the vortex dissipated.

"Hey, that looked like--"

"A hyperspace entry point." Marissa nodded. "And we have no way to track them."

"Jesus." Tank tugged on her T-shirt collar and shook her head. "You sure Luana and Morrison got abducted, too?"

"Well, we lost their transponder signal and no one else has been able to find their shuttle." Asuka turned to Seth and pointed at his console. "Hey, see if you can find that ship in the Challenger's records. Maybe someone's encountered it before."

Marissa walked to another nearby control panel. "Seth, let me know if you find anything, and I'll see if there's any detailed info on its homeworld, or planets it's visited, or something. Maybe we can at least find out why they were taken."

"I'm on it." Seth tapped hesitantly at the controls.

Tank frowned at the screen and turned to the door. "Since everything's working except the engines, which can't even be fixed, I guess I'll grab another shuttle and take a look around."

"Okay. Be careful; we have no idea what else might be out there." Asuka crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the screen. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like you to check in periodically, just so I know you're okay."

"Sure." Tank stuck her hands into her pockets and stepped through the door.

A series of sharp beeps came from the console Marissa had just left. She frowned, returned to it and looked at its monitors. Her frown deepened.

"Something's moving--something that's not us, I mean."

"Those spider-centipede things?" Asuka said.

Tank poked her head back into the room and raised an eyebrow.

Marissa shook her head. "They're still confined to the medical bay and a few other areas. This is in the morgue."

"Any of our people in there?"

"No, I've got them on the screen, and none of them are anywhere near the morgue. The spiderpedes aren't nearby, either." Marissa gasped and covered her mouth. "The only things that could be moving in there--"

"The corpses." Asuka scrunched her face up and groaned. "Jesus Christ!"

Tank's jaw dropped again. "You've gotta be fuckin' kidding me!"

#

One last jolt hit the shuttle as it was secured to the floor of the alien ship's landing bay. Roger's ass bumped into his seat and he floated back up until his seatbelt pulled taught against his shoulders.

Kamala grabbed the edge of her console, still floating above her seat and holding his right hand between both of her left hands.

He gave the back of her upper hand a reassuring pat and leaned forward to try to see something outside the front windows. He gave up a few seconds later; there was nothing outside but utter blackness.

He struggled for a long moment to think of something to say. "Well...uh...so...you think we'll meet any aliens?"

She turned to him and her face took on that expression she always had when she needed to shift her mental gears unexpectedly. "Huh? Oh! Well, I'd say I hope so, except whoever just yanked us out of space didn't exactly give us a good first impression."

"Yeah, abducting us was definitely a dick move." He reached for his seatbelt buckle. "Still, if we're lucky, we'll at least find Luana and Morrison here."

"Yeah, there's that to hope for."

Suddenly, the whole world seemed to press down on him, slamming him back onto his chair. In the corner of his eye, Kamala dropped like a brick, the headrest of her chair ramming into her gut. She rolled off, hit the floor, and coiled up, clutching at her midsection and writhing in pain.

Roger's heart pounded and he fumbled with the buckle. "Kamala!" He finally got it to release and heaved himself off his chair. He fell to his knees beside her and reached out, then hesitated, unsure what he should do.

She opened her mouth, trying to breathe, but her diaphragm had been paralyzed by the impact with her chair. She propped herself up on her right arms and reached for him.

"Easy, there, you're gonna be okay." He put his arms around her and held her gently. "Come on, honey, breathe." He rubbed her back slowly, wishing there was more he could do.

After what felt like a lifetime, she finally sucked in a breath and grunted. She pulled him closer, rested her chin on his shoulder, and sobbed.

"Ow," she finally managed to whimper.

He kissed her cheek and pulled back far enough to see her face. He wiped away the tears streaming from her eyes and smiled. "You gonna be okay?"

"I...don't know." She held her lower-left hand against her belly and took a few cautious, ragged breaths. "I don't know how much more of this shit I can take!"

"I know the feeling." He kissed her forehead and caressed her cheek. "When you hit the floor, I almost crapped in my pants."

"Yeah...it was kinda startling." She took a deeper breath and grimaced. "Fuck. What the hell happened? Suddenly, we have gravity."

"It just, well, came on. Like somebody flipped a switch." He frowned out the windows. "Feels a bit higher than one G."

"Huh. Gravity without rotating centrifuges." She winced and raised herself off the floor. "I wonder if there's an atmosphere out there--and if there is, can we breathe it?"

Roger leaned over his seat, looked at the control panel, and shook his head. "Power's still cut off." He nodded at the softly glowing strips lining the ceiling of the passenger compartment, which provided barely enough light to see. "Looks like all we've got is the emergency lights."

"Yeah, and from the look of them, they're chemical lamps; the power failure probably triggered the reaction." Kamala swept her palms around on the floor, found her ultratool, and picked it up. "Can't analyze the air with this unless I'm already out in it."

Roger rubbed his hands over his face. "Well, maybe we should just wait here. Whoever shanghaied us will probably be knocking on our door sooner or later."

"I'm not gonna play their game. Besides, I'm curious." She slithered over to the lockers next to the rear hatch. "Well, at least this thing's got a couple spacesuits. Except they're built for humans, not giant snakes."

Roger turned back to the cockpit. "Well, there should be a breather pack under the console."

"Oh! Right!" She zipped up front and felt around under the control panel, grinned and popped up with a mask and O2 tank. "Well, if you'd rather wait while I take a look around..."

"No, I'd worry myself sick if you went out there alone." He opened the locker and grabbed one of the spacesuits.

"Really?" She stared wide-eyed at him.

"Yeah." He smiled, walked over to her, and kissed her. "I love you."

Her mouth flopped open. When she regained her composure, she said, "So, you're not just saying that because you think we won't ever see our friends or our home again?"

He shook his head and held her lower hands. "I said it because it's true." He hadn't been able to say it before, but the sudden scare he'd received when she was hurt a few moments ago had certainly driven it home for him.

She stared for a few more seconds, beamed suddenly, threw her arms around him and kissed him. When they finally came up for air, she rested her forehead against his for a moment before backing away. She put her breather mask on and pointed a talon at him.

"No wisecracks about getting my mask on completely, damn it." She laughed softly and he grinned.

"Okay, I'll ease up on the ribbing." He winked. "This time."

She gave his ass a squeeze before he was out of reach. He chuckled and put the spacesuit on. It was far less bulky than the ones he'd worn back home. Rather sleek, actually, despite the large O2 pack on its back.

"Sexy." Kamala grinned and licked her lips.

"You're looking pretty fine, yourself." He wiggled his eyebrows. "You might want to put on something besides the breather, though."

"Huh?" She glanced down at herself and gasped, apparently just now realizing that she hadn't put her clothes back on after they made love. "Uh, yeah, hold on a sec."

He picked up his helmet, held it under his left arm, leaned against the wall and aimed one of his brilliant smiles at her. "Take your time. I'll just stand here and enjoy the view."

She blushed and her ultratool slipped out of her hand. She fumbled but caught it before it hit the floor, sighed, and looked around for her double sports bra and denim skirt. "Sometimes, I don't have my head screwed on straight at all. Potential first-contact situation on our hands, and here I am, about to go waving my pussy around."

Roger snickered and doubled over. When he stopped laughing, he took a deep breath and shook his head. "I wouldn't mind that at all, but for all we know, the aliens on this ship might not even know what a vagina is." He frowned. "Which would be kinda depressing, now that I think about it."

"Well, we'll hope for the best." Kamala found her skirt, slipped it on, and picked up her toolbelt. Then she kept glancing around.

Roger pointed. "Under the bench."

"Ah, thanks." Kamala leaned over, grabbed her sports bra, and put it on. "Okay. Let's go find us some aliens."

#

"Well, at least you'll survive a while longer." Morrison stared into the locker holding the three spacesuits for a few more seconds before turning away and leaning against the wall. The spacesuits were made to fit humans and human-size anthros, which made them a bit over a foot too short for him. The shelf above the suits held three breather packs, but again, they'd been designed to fit humanoid faces, not his bovine muzzle.

"That doesn't matter." Luana put her arms around him. "Not if I lose you."

He held her for a long moment. "If I'd been paying attention to what was going on around us, we might not be in so much trouble."

"Hey, if you're gonna play the blame game, this is just as much my fault as yours. If I'd turned you down and insisted on staying at the controls, maybe we could've gotten away from that ship." She shrugged. "But then, it was able to knock out our power and pull is inside, so who knows what else it could do--we might not have even been able to outrun it. Or it could've blown us to hell with a ray gun or some damned thing."

He managed to smile. "I guess you're right. At least there's still a chance."

"There ya go." She grinned, but couldn't keep it steady. "So, here's what I wanna try. I'm gonna put on a spacesuit and pop the hatch in the cockpit. You wait in here since this compartment holds more air, and I'll see if there's a breathable atmosphere outside. Who knows, we might get lucky."

"Okay. Better than sitting here and waiting to run out of air." He leaned down to kiss her.

She held the kiss for a long moment before stepping back and taking one of the suits out of the locker. She turned away quickly, rubbed the backs of her hands over her eyes, and put the suit on. She gave him one last kiss before stepping into the cockpit.

"See you soon."

"I hope so." He kept his eyes on her until the door slid shut and the lock engaged. He pressed his palm against the door and reached over to the control panel with his other hand to switch on the comlink.

"There's definitely power out here," she said. "Can't see anything, though; there's a really thick fog."

"That's not a good sign. It'd be just our luck that we've run into the real-universe equivalent of the 456."

"Crap. Don't put ideas like that in my head." She sighed. "Okay, I'm popping the hatch."

A soft vibration traveled through the door and onto his hand as the hatch opened.

"I'm scanning the air with my ultratool. Hold on a sec."

Morrison waited until the silence had gone on for nearly half a minute. "Luana?"

"Damn," she finally said. "It's an alien atmosphere, mostly methane. I'm sorry."

He sighed and slumped against the door. "Don't be. At least now we know."

"Yeah, but..." She took a few shuddering breaths. "That's it. I can't just sit here while you asphyxiate." A long pause followed. "I'm gonna open my helmet and get it over with."

"What? No!" He lunged at the comm panel. "Are you nuts?"

"Look, first you're gonna run out of air, then a few hours later, I'll run out of air. That's it. That's how this is gonna end."

"Luana, please, don't!" He paced around the compartment. "Please don't leave me alone."

"And after you're gone, I'll die alone."

"Just hang on a while longer. We're not finished yet, you hear me? Go out and have a look around. Maybe you'll find something that'll help get out us of here. And we can keep talking while you're searching."

"And if I don't find anything? What then?"

He pressed his hand to the door again. "At least we'll be able to say goodbye. You can turn off your comlink so you won't have to hear me die. If you still want to end it then, well, obviously I won't be able to stop you. But please, don't give up when there's still a chance."

The only sound coming from the speaker was Luana's breathing.

"Luana?"

"Alright. Fine."

He let a long breath rush out, not even realizing until now that he'd been holding it in. "Thank you." He sniffed and rested his forehead on the door. "Okay, go ahead and take a look around. Maybe we'll get lucky and you'll find a control that can adjust the atmosphere."

"Maybe. Let's keep our fingers crossed."

"Yeah. Be careful, babe."

"I will. I'll let you know if I find anything."

"Okay." Morrison sat on the floor, leaned against the wall, and braced himself for the long wait ahead.

#

"Stay behind me," Asuka said, keeping her voice low as she and Tank and Hitomi crept along the corridor toward the morgue. "Until Omega joins us, I'm the only one who has a weapon."

"Well, I have this." Tank patted the enormous wrench hanging from her toolbelt. "And I've got some sharp, pointy tools in these pouches."

"Unless you've got a heavily reinforced, military-grade prosthetic body like mine, if you're too close to shoot 'em, you're too close, period." Asuka stopped at the corner and peeked around; the door leading to the morgue was at the far end of the intersecting corridor, and so far, there appeared to be nothing moving around. "Especially if they're already dead."

"Ugh. I've never watched zombie movies; just didn't like 'em. If only I'd known that I was gonna end up fighting 'em someday, I would've watched a few so I'd have some idea of what to do."

"If that's even what's going on." Asuka stepped into the corridor and held her pistol at half-mast, ready to snap it up and pop off a shot in an instant. "And if it is, we don't know if these zombies even work like the ones in movies."

"Oh, not this again," Hitomi muttered.

"What?" Asuka stopped and glanced over her shoulder.

"Someone's trying to hack me." Hitomi frowned and cocked her head. "It's happened several times before, but I've never seen one like this. My software considers it a virus, but it's not even remotely familiar aside from its behavior. Not compatible with my operating system."

Before Asuka could say anything, her own antivirus suite shot a flurry of alerts at her and automatically launched countermeasures. From its preliminary analysis, the intruder was quite alien.

"Hitomi, shut off your wireless module. Tank, if you've got a comm implant or any cybernetic augmentation at all--"

"Yeah, I've already cut off my outside access. But if it's alien software, would it even be able to compromise us?"

"If it's smart enough, it'll only be a matter of time before it figures out how to communicate with our software, and then it'll start chipping away at our firewalls. Best to simply lock yourself out from all outside transmissions." Asuka looked at Tank. "I hope you've got a handheld comlink."

"Yep." She unzipped one of her belt pouches, produced a comlink, and handed it over.

"Been a while since I've needed to use one of these." Asuka connected it to the communications console in the control room. "Seth? Marissa? Can you hear me?"

"Yeah. We're keeping an eye on the motion sensors. So far, the only movement is still confined to the morgue, except for you three."

"Well, there's that, at least. Have you been able to bring any of the cameras back online?"

"Not the ones in the morgue. All the other cams are working just fine; it's only those right there that aren't responding."

"Whoever tried to hack us is probably jamming the morgue cameras," Hitomi said.

"Probably. Shit." Asuka shook her head. "So the only way to see what's going on in there is to open the door. And if we open the door, we don't know what we might unleash."

"Hey--what the hell?" Seth's voice in the background.

"What's going on?"

"The controls have stopped responding. I don't get it--it was easy enough to gain access in the first place, but now we're locked out. We can't track anything anymore, either."

"Somebody's jerkin' us around," Tank grumbled, plucking the huge wrench from her belt and clamping both hands around its handle.

The morgue's door slid open and she jumped back.

A burst of static erupted from the comlink.

"Seth? Marissa?" Asuka waited for an answer, but there was only silence. She handed the comlink back to Tank. "Someone's jamming our comms."

The sound of footsteps came from the morgue--shuffling, uneven, as if the thing producing the sounds didn't know how to walk--or was too damaged to do it normally.

Tank covered her nose. "Oh, shit, there's that stink again."

Asuka aimed her gun at the doorway.

The thing that appeared might've been human once, but much of its skin had rotted away--no, not rotted, Asuka realized after zooming in for a closer look. The corpse's flesh had been torn off in spots, and something that appeared to be glowing green optic wires and circuitry was visible through the cracks and tears.

"Whatever happened to them, it was cybernetic. Or maybe nanotech."

It turned toward her and shambled forward. She punched a round through its left eye. Its head snapped back and flopped to the side, but the body continued its advance.

"This isn't happening," Tank moaned.

The body burst into a stumbling sprint.

Asuka kept her gun on it and pointed a thumb over her shoulder. "Back to the bridge! Now!"

#

"Well, at least it's not toxic." Kamala glanced down at her bare midriff. The only clothes she had were the double sports bra and denim skirt she'd been wearing when this whole screwed-up adventure began. Not the kind of things you wanna be wearing when you're stepping into something that might burn right through your skin.

But she and Roger had been walking around for nearly half an hour, and there'd been no burning sensations or blistering or fizzling and dissolving.

"Yeah, there's that, at least." The glow from his ultratool's holofield diffused through the thick fog around it. The display showed the outline of the corridor ahead, which seemed to stretch into infinity.

Kamala's 'tool gave her the same information, sending it straight into her brain and overlaying a grid in her field of vision to show her where the walls and ceiling were.

She checked its motion and heat sensors and found nothing within its range.

"I wonder if this ship's automated," she muttered. "If it had a crew, they wouldn't be able to see more than two feet in front of their faces."

"Assuming they have eyes like ours. Maybe they see in infrared. Or, hell, even radio waves."

"Huh. Yeah, that could be." She shook her head. "If they're that different from us, we may never figure out what their motivations are--why they abducted us."

"I'm curious, too, but not curious enough to stick around."

"Good point. Getting out of here alive would be more than enough." Her motion sensor flagged a dozen points on either side of the corridor ahead, and she stopped in her tracks. "Whoa."

"I see it, too." Roger nodded at the display floating in front of him.

Kamala swept her ultratool over the corridor and more outlines appeared in her heads-up display. "Looks like a bunch of doors just opened."

"Yeah. I wonder why we didn't detect them before. Our 'tools should've been able to."

"Maybe all the walls are seamless until the crew needs a door, then it just kind of morphs out of the wall."

"Kinda creepy, but yeah, that'd definitely keep any doors off our scanners until--"

A low, rumbling growl came from the fog ahead, and Roger froze, staring down the corridor and holding his breath.

Kamala's hearts pounded. She pointed her ultratool straight ahead and tried to stop her hands from shaking. An outline of a horse-size animal with six legs launched out of the fifth doorway on the right and charged straight toward her and Roger. Her first impulse was to scream, but she couldn't even suck in a breath.

Roger let out an incoherent scream, grabbed Kamala's hand, turned and bolted.

He barely traveled a single step before he slammed into a wall. He staggered back and fell on his ass.

The corridor behind them was gone. Kamala's pounding hearts revved up a few more notches.

She turned back just as the creature emerged from the fog. She caught a glimpse of a dark orange body covered with scales and a mouth like an alligator filled with three rows of teeth, before it landed on top of Roger.

Finally, she let loose the scream.

Roger threw his arm up in front of his face and the animal clamped onto it, sinking its teeth in.

Kamala dropped her ultratool, lunged at the creature, and pummeled it with all four fists. It released him and snapped at her. She shoved it away and slithered back to Roger, keeping her gaze locked onto it as it charged again.

"Kamala!" He reached out to her.

She leaped between him and the creature, letting it plow into her--then she coiled her body around it and squeezed. Breath rushed out of its mouth and its eyes widened. She squeezed it tighter, putting everything she had into it, until the animal's bones snapped and crunched under her skin. Even then, she kept tightening her grip.

Its movements grew weaker as it struggled for breath. Yellow fluid--blood, probably--poured from its nose and mouth. Kamala kept the pressure on until it stopped moving. She waited a few more seconds before loosening her grip. She flung it away and scooted back to Roger.

The creature rolled across the floor and hit the wall. She stared at it, expecting it to spring back to life at any second, but it remained limp, eyes frozen open and spiked tongue dangling out through its teeth.

She put her arms around Roger. "You okay?"

"I think so." He ran his ultratool over his body and stared at its display. "Yeah, no suit punctures, broken bones, or anything like that. Heart rate's through the roof, though."

"Mine, too." She held him for a long moment before helping him get back on his feet. She pinged her ultratool and its location relative to her body appeared in her mind. She picked it up and scanned the wall that had been a long corridor a few moments ago. "What the hell? I can't get any readings beyond this wall."

"It's like a bulkhead door, except I can't find a doorway or any seams or cracks. Looks like you might be right about the walls 'morphing.'" He leaned against the wall and took a few ragged breaths. He raised his trembling hands and shook his head. "Oh, shit, I thought--"

"So did I." She hugged him again. What had almost happened to him, and what she'd just done, started to sink in, and she sobbed. He held her gently until she regained control of herself. She sniffled and moved forward slowly, keeping both left arms around him. "Come on. Let's find a way out of here."

#

Air's almost gone. Shit. Morrison had tried to keep his breathing shallow to extend the time he had left, but it still seemed to have run out far sooner than he'd expected.

"So," he said yet again, "found anything yet?"

"No," Luana's reply came from the speaker on the wall behind him. "The fog out here is so thick, I can't see more than two feet in front of me. I'm still using my ultratool to find doorways and passages, but it's not picking up anything else."

"Damn." He rubbed the back of his head, but it didn't ease the ache that had started a while ago. "I'm sorry, Luana, but I think it's almost time for me to sign off. I don't want you to hear what's about to happen."

A sob came from the speaker, followed by a long silence. Then, finally: "I can't. I don't want you to go."

He chuckled softly, but it turned into a brief coughing fit. Once he had himself back under control, he said, "I don't want to go, either. I just don't see any way out of it."

"Henry, I..." She took a breath, let it out slowly. "I love you."

"We barely know each other." He managed a small smile. "I must've fucked you silly." He winced. Why'd I say that? Must be lack of oxygen. I need to shut up before I piss her off.

She burst out laughing, but continued weeping at the same time. "Yeah, that was great, but it's not the only reason I feel this way. I can't even put it into words, I just..._do."_

"Wow. Well, I wish we could've had more time together. What we did have was wonderful." Ah, hell, why not just say it? "I love you, too. Goodbye."

He reached up and fumbled around for the off switch, and after a few seconds he realized that he'd slumped over onto the floor at some point and never noticed it until now. He shook his head and tried to push himself upright, but suddenly he wasn't sure what direction "upright" was.

CLANG!

"Yaaaaah!" He lurched backward and slammed his head against the wall.

"Henry? What happened? Are you...oh, shit, are you--?"

"Dunno. Think something hit the shuttle." He rubbed the back of his head again.

The lights came back on, blinding him for a moment. He squinted and shielded his eyes with his hand.

The rear door slid open. Morrison lunged away from it, scooting back until he bumped into the cockpit door. "Fuck!"

Wind hit his face, air rushing into the compartment. He clamped his mouth shut and held his breath, but realized it was futile since his oxygen was gone, anyway.

Huh. No fog.

He frowned at the darkness beyond the open hatch.

Oh, fuck it. Might as well get it over with. He opened his mouth and inhaled deeply, hoping it wouldn't hurt much.

Nothing happened. He released the breath and drew in another. Again, nothing--no pain, no suffocating, no rupturing lungs, nothing out of the ordinary at all. He fell forward, plopping onto the deck, and kept sucking in gasps of air.

When he'd finally recovered, he rolled onto his back and said, "Luana, can you still hear me?"

"Yes!" Her voice was frantic, almost hysterical. "Henry--"

"I'm okay. Something opened the door, and now the atmosphere's breathable."

"What?" She let out a long sigh and started crying again. "How--?"

"Hell if I know. Can't see anybody out there." He pushed himself up and leaned against the wall until he was sure his wobbling legs would hold him up. "The atmosphere changed, just like the gravity came on after we landed in here. There's no fog anymore, but it's dark out there." He stepped forward and rested his right hand on his gun. "I'm gonna take a look."

"I'm on my way back. Wait for--what the hell? The door's gone."

"What?"

"The door I came through a few seconds ago--it's gone! It's like the corridor sealed itself behind me. It's not like the door closed; the door's completely gone_. Like it never existed."_

Morrison stopped at the doorway, frowned, and drew his gun. "You starting to get the feeling somebody's just fuckin' with us?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

He took one more step and planted his left hoof on the solid metal deck surrounding the shuttle. "Hold on. I'll find you."

#

"Don't look back!" Asuka pressed herself against the wall and waited for everyone to run past her. She kept her gun aimed at the zombies and spider-centipedes behind them--not that her last remaining bullet would have much effect. The previous dozen sure as hell hadn't done more than make the zombies stagger. The other creatures were more vulnerable, fortunately--but they were also much faster, flowing between the zombies like liquid.

One of them caught up with a straggler. His scream stopped everyone in their tracks.

"Marcus!" Tank lunged past Asuka.

Asuka grabbed her arm.

The spider-centipede wrapped itself around Marcus's leg and jabbed a set of metallic fangs through his jeans. He screamed, collapsed, and thrashed around.

"Let me go!" Tank pulled the huge wrench from her belt and raised it over her head. "Let me get that thing off him!"

"It's too late." Asuka dragged Tank toward the next hatch while the creature slid down Marcus's leg and rejoined the others, which passed him by as if he were already dead. "I'm sorry."

He continued thrashing and screaming. Asuka zoomed in on him and found glowing lines spreading up his neck, as if hair-thin wires were growing under his skin. He met her gaze.

"Please..."

She aimed at his forehead.

"Do it!" He released another strangled scream. "Do it!"

"I'm sorry." She fired her last shot through his head and pulled Tank through the hatch. She risked opening her internal comlink long enough to hack the lock, and the hatch sealed just as the flood of spider-centipedes reached it.

<There you are! What the hell is going on?>

Asuka raised an eyebrow as she and Tank caught up with everyone else. <Lopez?> She'd almost forgotten that he was here.

<I'm in the hangar. Got tired of walking around on the hull, looking for ways to be useful. I've been trying to contact you, but everyone's comms were off.>

<Sorry. Someone tried to hack us, so we couldn't risk leaving our wireless on.> She filled him in on what had happened over the last few minutes. <Those things overran the control room. We're heading for the hangar now. We're gonna board the shuttles and take our chances.>

"Where's Marcus?" someone whispered.

Tank shook her head and pushed through the crowd. She shoved her wrench back under her belt and stopped at the ladder at the end of the corridor.

Asuka held in a sigh. <Better attach yourself to one of the shuttles. We'll be there in a few minutes. Contact all the shuttles that are still searching and tell them to stay away from this ship, then turn your wireless off, just in case.>

<Got it. See you in a few.> Lopez broke contact and Asuka shut her comm off again.

Everyone climbed to the Challenger's core and pulled themselves along it until they reached the hangar.

"Everybody, grab a shuttle!" Asuka waved at the ships parked off to the sides. "Only a few of you in each one, so we can maximize the amount of air we have once we launch." She headed for one of the sleek, fighter-looking ships off to the right. In the corner of her eye she spotted the pilots, Tits and T-bone, running toward two other fighters.

"Had the same idea, I see." T-bone smiled grimly.

"Yeah. Given what we've already faced, I figured it wouldn't hurt to bring some firepower along to wherever we end up next."

Both pilots nodded and climbed into the cockpits. Asuka buckled herself into her seat and stared at the console. She'd seen enough of the technology on the Challenger to make some educated guesses as to how the controls worked. She brought its systems online and powered up the engines.

"Okay, everybody, run like hell. I'll cover you." She lifted off, rotated to face the rear of the hangar, and found the weapons systems. Hmm. Plasma cannons as well as kinetic weapons, plus a dozen missiles. Not too shabby.

"The hangar doors aren't opening," T-bone muttered. "I'll fix it."

A missile streaked out from the launcher on his ship's underside, and tore the door to shreds. Asuka's ship rocked, but she steadied it and kept waiting as he led everyone out of the hangar. She waited until the last shuttle squeezed through the wrecked doors, and turned to follow.

"What the hell just happened?" a voice from one of the shuttles moaned.

"Whatever those creatures are, I think they're what turned the crew into zombies. Or whatever those poor bastards are now." Asuka shook her head. "One of them bit Marcus, and he started changing right in front of me."

"I saw it, too," Tank said. "It must've injected something into him. Some sort of nanotech thing, I bet." She exhaled slowly, and it turned into a sob.

"We're lucky he's the only one we lost. But I'm not gonna let that slide. Tits, T-bone, I'm gonna see if I can hack the ship's engines. I doubt they can get through my firewall, but just in case, if I'm compromised and do anything that threatens anyone else's safety, I want you to take me out." She waited for their answer; when they remained silent, she said, "I mean it. If they gain control of my body, they could make me do anything. Don't take any chances. If I turn on you, don't hesitate."

"Alright," T-bone said, finally.

"Got it. Good luck."

"Thanks. Everyone else, just hit your thrusters and put as much distance between this ship and yourselves as possible." She turned her fighter to face the Challenger. "Okay, here we go." She linked up with the ship's computer and found the engine and reactor controls. "Huh. I'm in already."

"I bet that's how we got control of the ship so easily," Marissa said. "Those things let us in. Probably so we'd let our guard down."

"Well, it's about to backfire on them." Asuka set the reactors to overload, placed a series of software barriers around those systems, and launched dozens of snakes, tapeworms, and phantoms to raise hell everywhere else. She smiled at her handiwork. She'd never been a master hacker, but she'd picked up a few things over the last several decades. As long as her stuff could still work on software that was nearly a century ahead of hers...

"I guess now we'll never know what those things are or where they came from," one of the other techs said.

"Yeah." There was a shrug in Seth's voice. "I think I'll be okay with that."

"Alright, everybody, if those things don't undo what I just did, that ship will go up like a supernova in a few minutes. Keep your engines on full burn."

"And then what?"

"Same as before." Asuka turned her ship away and hit the thrusters. "Keep looking and hope we find another intact ship before we run out of air."