FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Warning - There's some reference to suggestive scenes, and mean name calling in here. Be forewarned.

---

A loud buzzer suddenly jarred Viridan from his sleep. It sounded so similar to the buzzer that had been used in the arena, so much so that it made his spine chill and his cock ache. He grunted and tried to rise, but he found himself held fast in the arms of his mate. She looked so peaceful with her head tucked under his chin and her wing draped over his side. With a smile he gently licked the scales between her eyes, and all the way up her forehead. With a gentle stir she woke, fixing her soft orange eyes upon him.

"Did you set the alarm?" he asked softly.

"No," she grumbled, reached up to rub her eye with the back of her hand.

"Then what was that buzzer for?"

"There is a large group of people waiting for you at the door," Gates announced, a little too loudly for the time.

"Who are they?" he asked.

"There are two intergalactic news networks, three local networks, four tabloid journalists and approximately twenty-five unidentifiable individuals,"

"Great, the paparazzi," he groaned. "Do I have to talk to them?"

"It would be advisable," Gates replied. "There are three photographers scanning the perimeter for an alternative entrance."

"Uhh, fine," he growled, and gently pulled away from his mate. "I'll be back soon,"

"I doubt that," she replied as she rolled her eyes.

Shakily, he rose to his feet on the gel bed. He wasn't sure where Jonas had gotten off to, but he assumed that he was somewhere beneath him. He stepped carefully, unused to the bed after such a long time away, and stumbled down onto floor a moment later. With a wide yawn he padded down the hallway towards the door. Everyone these days knew that doors had an automatic bell, but that didn't stop the crowd from pounding away from his door. He realized that he should be excited to see other dragons, but he didn't want to see them like this. He also didn't want to deal with their questions, as Zereck would probably come up. Then again, if the prison had already reported him as found, then they may not ask about him. He didn't even know if the prison had locked him up. The prison planet was in a star cluster where the show was broadcast, but maybe they didn't convict people for the things they did in the arena. They certainly didn't arrest everyone that escaped on rape charges. As far as he knew.

"Alright, alright, I'm here," Viridan shouted. "Open the damn doors, Gates,"

The doors slid open in unison, and he was fortunate enough that the reporters didn't immediately flood into his home. They stayed put just outside, but didn't hesitate to send in their remote hovering cameras and microphones to invade his personal space for him. He was suddenly tempted to run to his workshop and grab his plasma torch, but he decided against it once he saw the price imprint on the bottom of one of the cameras. He didn't know how Vyra and the kids had been getting by without his income the past year, but he was sure that they didn't need that kind of expense.

"Alright, settle down," Viridan shouted. "I'll answer your questions, but you have to be civil about it."

"Can you describe your experience during your imprisonment?" One question rang above the others.

"Not on public television, I can't," Viridan replied. "We all did a lot of things we shouldn't have, and I personally regret quite a large number of things that I did in there."

"As the one hundred eleventh dragon to be kidnapped, were you at all surprised when it happened?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course I was surprised!" he exclaimed. "Getting plucked out of your bunk by a tractor beam doesn't happen every day."

"Your brother, a dragon by the name of Zereck, was also reported as missing. Was he taken alongside you?"

"Yeah, we were both taken," Viridan replied.

"Did he escape with you?"

This was the question he had been dreading. There were a few options he had now, and he wasn't sure he liked any of them. He could tell the truth about what happened, and suffer the backlash. He could also lie about it, and hope that he wasn't found out later.

"What? You mean you haven't heard from him?" Viridan replied. "He went through the teleporter before me, but it didn't look quite right to me. He went through, but I don't know where he ended up."

"One last question, there are rumors that you were in a relationship with another species during your imprisonment. Has that hurt your bond with your mate in anyway?"

"Are you the one who asked that other stupid question?" he asked. "Of course it hasn't hurt our bond. If anything, we're closer than ever now. In fact, I think I hear her calling me now. It really has been fun, bye now!"

With a growl he turned on his heels and headed back towards his bedroom. As he passed, he flicked his tail out to mash a button on the door controls, causing them to slide back together. He heard the thrum of pulse jets grow louder as the remote cameras retreated to their masters, and he could have sworn he heard a crunch as one was sandwiched between the doors. He sincerely hoped it had.

Another yawn escaped Viridan's lips as he reentered the bedroom. As he looked towards the bed, he saw Vyra lying on her side, with Jonas on his back in front of her.

"Oh, you poor baby. You were all alone that whole time?" she asked.

"Yeah, they kept extending my mom's term, plus the ship runs on nuclear power, so it rarely returned to a port."

"You power your spaceships with nuclear power?" she asked. "But what if there is a radiation leak?"

"Umm, it's a boat, not a spaceship," he corrected.

"Oh..." she replied. "You still use boats?"

"Now now, Dear. Let's not alienate Jonas." Viridan piped up, coming over and settling into the bed on Jonas' left.

"But he is an alien," she replied.

"We're all aliens," he replied, nuzzling her snout affectionately. "Speaking of aliens, who's 'Marlo'?"

"What?" she asked, suddenly looking very worried. "Oh, he's my boss."

"You have a job?" Viridan asked.

"I had to," she replied. "We didn't have enough savings money to keep me out of work for all that time. I got it about six months after you disappeared."

"Well, did you have plans to see him yesterday?" he asked.

"No, but he drops by every once and a while to deliver messages," she replied. "I keep telling him to just call me, but he doesn't listen."

"That seems odd," Viridan remarked. "Anyways, where do you work?"

"Umm, I don't know if you'd like it," she replied hesitantly, looking down at the bed as she spoke.

"That doesn't help at all," he replied.

"I...work at a night club in the Artemis cluster," she said.

"Vyra, are you...prostituting yourself out?" Viridan asked, trying to keep his voice level. He wasn't mad at her, it was quite the opposite. He was terrified for her safety.

"Umm, not really," she replied. "It's a very reputable place. I mainly serve drinks, and wait on the patrons. But there are certain menu items that, I prepare personally."

"So it's a brothel," he stated.

"It's a night club," she said firmly. "Trust me, it's not what you think. The clientele is very sophisticated. It's not the mosh pit that you think it is, and definitely not like that awful place you spent the last year in."

"Well, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with you having sex with any guy that walks in."

"There's a medical scanner around the door," she replied. "Nobody with any illness is allowed inside."

"But...we're bonded!" he exclaimed. "Wasn't there some part of that ceremony about stuff like this?"

"A lot of my coworkers are bonded or married," Vyra replied. She sounded far less embarrassed than she had been before, and now sounded a little rebellious.

"I...I still think that you should quit," Viridan stuttered. "I'm back, so you don't have to work anymore."

"You're back, but you're not making money yet," Vyra replied. Viridan was quite aware that the tables had turned on him. "And besides, I'm making almost double the amount of money that you were, working on that tub."

"Hey, that 'tub' could outrun a Vitirian interceptor!" Viridan exclaimed.

"I had a Vitirian customer once," Vyra cut in. "They are as fast as they're ships, I'll give them that,"

"Vyra!" he shouted. "Do you actually like it there!?"

"Well, you remember how...adventurous we used to get, don't you?" she asked.

"Yeah, but I thought you were just having fun," he replied.

"Oh, I was. Working there is like that all the time. Everyone is a little bit different under their flight suit, you know. Everyone is a little adventure. In fact, your friend here looks pretty interesting. Not a lot of species out there have external organs."

"Vyra! Don't hit on my best friend!"

"I was just teasing," she replied, taking a quick moment to wink at the human beside her. "You two should come out tonight. It'll be fun."

"But..."

"Oh, what's the worst that could happen?" she asked. "You guys come out, have a few drinks, I'll introduce you to Marlo, and then we go into the back for a few minutes. Or, there are a few open beds on the floor we could use. Or, and this is one of my personal favorites, there's an open orgy hall. You just go in, find an open hole, and keep yourself open for the next person who comes in. Nobody judges anyone else on their sexual orientation."

"But..."

"Come on," she continued. "You know, Captain Regent is a regular patron,"

"Oh my god, you two don't?" he asked.

"Oh, she doesn't order from me," she replied. "Often,"

"Oh no..." he groaned.

"Come on," she repeated. "What do you think, Jonas?"

"Well, I'm not really old enough to go clubbing yet," he replied.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that," she replied. "I'll just bring you two through my entrance. It leads right into the bar, and the doorman won't even see you. Not that they'd be able to tell, anyway. I don't think there has ever been a human in there."

"Well...we don't have a ship," Viridan said. "How do we get there?"

"The club sends a transport around to collect employees, but I suppose you two can't take that," she said, scratching her chin idly with a claw. "Why don't you give the captain a call? I'm sure she can give you a lift, and she wouldn't pass up a trip to the club."

"What if she's out on a survey?" Viridan asked.

"She hasn't led a survey in six months," Vyra replied. "Scouting priorities have changed, and that old tub doesn't have the fuel capacity to get it to the new targets."

"But there's plenty of room to install new fuel cells!" he exclaimed. "I could have them installed in a week."

"Well then, you'd better give her a call then. I'm sure she'd love to hear that," she said, and suddenly stood up to leave the bed. "In the meantime, I'm going to the city. I need some new makeup."

"Makeup! When did you start wearing makeup!?" he exclaimed.

"Oh, grow up, Vir. It's just a bit of scale gloss," she said, making it to the doorway. "I'll see you two in a few hours."

"Vyra, wait!" Viridan shouted after her, but she did not return. He heard the door open and close with an echoed thud, and let out a heavy sigh.

"I like her," Jonas said, sitting up to sit cross-legged in front of him. "She's so...spunky,"

"Yeah well, she wasn't always like that," he replied, resting his chin on outstretched hands. "She used to be quiet and mild-mannered around strangers, and now she's sexing them up upon their request."

"You know, we weren't so different," Jonas replied.

"But we didn't have much of a choice," he shot back.

"Maybe she didn't either,"

"Of course she had a choice! The galaxy is a huge place. There must have been another job somewhere!"

"Well, when you think about it, she's a little limited in travelling distance." Jonas said matter-of-factly. "You said it yourself, you don't have a ship. That means the only jobs she can get are here. And if there's only a few cities near here, then her job options are really limited. Maybe the included transportation, high pay, and the way it tailors to her sense of adventure made it the only choice for her. You said you had kids, right? You need a lot of money to take care of kids."

"You don't know the first thing about taking care of kids, Jonas," Viridan replied flatly. "And besides, they're not here, and it doesn't smell like they've been here for a long time. They'll probably all left by now."

"Were they that old?" Jonas asked. "I always imagined that you had a swarm of mini-dragons that would climb all over you as soon as you got in the door."

"Oh, we had that a few times," he said with a chuckle. "But no, they're all grown up now. I wish I had been there to see them off."

"Maybe we could go find them?" Jonas suggested.

"I suppose that's a possibility," Viridan replied. "But first things first, I need to give Captain Regent a call and see if she'll give us a lift."

"So you do want to go?" Jonas asked.

"I think I'd feel more comfortable being there with her than being here and unable to protect her," he replied, and stood up.

"I'm sure there that are plenty of people there paid a lot of money to protect her," Jonas said, following Viridan out into the main room and into the kitchen.

"Can I get you something to eat?" Gates asked the second they stepped onto the cold metallic tiling of the kitchen floor.

"Just roast whatever meat's at the top of the pile," Viridan replied.

"Your meal will be ready in fifteen minutes," the computer said, and was silent. Jonas could hear a muffled whirring sound coming from the solid block of metal that was fixed in the center of the room. He had assumed that it had just been a table, but apparently it was much more than that.

"Gates, call Captain Regent," Viridan called, stepping towards a large screen that was set into the back wall. There was a wide camera lens set into the top edge of the screen, giving it a seamless look.

"Attempting call," Gates replied. "Captain Regent has accepted the call. Opening the line,"

"Hello?" A voice came through moments before the large head of a bright red dragon appeared on the monitor. Captain Regent looked no different from how Viridan remembered her. She was quite tall for a dragon, with narrower, sharper features, especially on her face. She was standing in her quarters on the ship, Viridan could tell, but she wasn't wearing her flight suit. All she wore was a pair of flight goggles, which were quite useless, but she insisted on wearing them as an aesthetic piece. She used to double as the ship's pilot, and she always liked to push the goggles down over her eyes when navigating a particularly tight run of space. "Viridan? Is that you? You look so different from what I remember."

"Really? You look exactly the same, Captain," he replied.

"You're not covered from head to tail in engine grease," she said with a grin.

He chuckled. "Well, there weren't a lot of engines where I was," he replied.

"Are you doing alright?" she asked. "How did Vyra react?"

"She was pretty surprised," he replied. "And I was a bit surprised to hear about her working at a 'night club'."

"She told you about that, huh?" Regent asked.

"Captain, have you been helping my mate cheat on me?" he asked.

"There are some lonely nights out here, these days," she replied. "I need some company every once and a while. We usually just talk, and try to make it feel like it used to. You know, before you disappeared. Things kinda, fell apart after you left."

"I heard," he replied. "You need some new fuel cells."

"No one knows there way around this baby like you did," Regent replied. "Most of the shops turned me away the second I showed up in port. 'They don't service that model', they'd whine."

"How old is she now, anyway?" he asked.

"Coming up on fifteen years," she said. "But she's still thrumming along, as well as she always had. Ziggy comes by whenever I need something fixed, but he's not the mechanic you were. He can't install the cells, either."

"Do you have the cells?" he asked.

"Yeah, I managed to find another one of this class in a scrapyard in the Gemini cluster. They needed to remove the cells before they could melt it, anyway, so I bought them off them. I also got a few other bits and pieces to use, but Ziggy's already installed them."

"Well, listen, I was wondering if you could give me and a friend of mine a lift to Vyra's," he replied.

"I'd love to," she replied with a smile. "But you have to do something for me first."

"Is it installing those fuel cells for you?" he asked.

"No, you're already going to do that for me, aren't you, Chief engineer?" she replied with a sly grin.

"If you can afford to hire me back, then of course I'll install them," Viridan replied.

"Well, if you get them installed and we get a job, then I can afford to hire you back," she replied. "I'll come get you in a few hours. I know you want to wait for Vyra's shift to start, but we could always go cruising for a bit. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"I'd love to get back on board," Viridan replied.

"Okay, I'll see you in a bit," Regent said.

"Hold on, Captain," he said. "One more thing,"

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Don't have sex with my mate anymore,"

"Heh, fine," she replied. "See you later,"

"Bye," Viridan said, and ended the call.

****

"Captain Regent is requesting permission to land," Gates announced. It was about two hours after they had finished their call, and Viridan and Jonas has spent the time cleaning up the huge circular landing pad that had been laid beside the cave. It was almost as wide as a big box store parking lot, with large yellow guidance lights that were set all around the perimeter. The shuttle that picked Vyra up for work only used a small portion of a landing pad, and the rest had been left covered in dead grass and loose rubble. Viridan had a set of two hand-mounted brushes, which he attached to one his foot, and gave the other to Jonas, who was bent at an awkward angle as he tried to push the brush with some semblance of effectiveness.

"Permission granted," Viridan replied.

"You have a fancy robotic house that cooks your meals, bathes you, and even masturbates you, but you have to sweep this huge thing by hand?" Jonas shouted. A sudden westerly wind had kicked up, and while Viridan has assured him that it wouldn't complicate the landing, it was making it awfully difficult to sweep when all the dirt just blew back into place.

"I thought about having a mounted laser to burn all the grass, but then I worry that I'll cause a brushfire."

"Put in fire extinguishers!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, don't be so lazy," Viridan replied, effortlessly sweeping the grass off the pad with his right forefoot. His brush was bracketed over his ankle, making sweeping no harder than dragging his feet across the pavement.

A low rumbling sound was suddenly noticeable, and it steadily grew into a loud bass thrum. He waved Jonas back off the pad, and reached down to remove the brush from his foot. By the time he had the brush off and tossed somewhere near the back door, Captain Regent's survey ship was just dropping below the low cloud ceiling. It looked quite a bit like a giant grey turtle, Jonas noticed, with a wide, elliptical body with a flat bottom. On the bow of the ship was a wide, curved window. On the stern, two huge engines were mounted, but they were deactivated for landing. Occasionally, a small jet of flame would erupt from one of the eight stabilizers positioned around the edge of the ship, two on each side. There were rows of circular portholes that ran down both the port and starboard sides of the ship, although there was a break in the center for a massive spoiler-like structure that ran over the top of the ship, attaching at the edge. And emblazoned halfway up the side of this spoiler structure, was a set of large draconic letters.

"What does that mean?" Jonas asked, shouting over the roaring engines.

"That's the ship's name," Viridan replied. "Pathfinder,"

From the bottom edge if the Pathfinder's hull sprouted four metal legs, made up of a large foot on a jointed metal limb. Two small jets between each pair of landing gear allowed the ship to descend slowly towards the landing pad, and when it finally touched down, there was a loud hydraulic hiss as the landing gear bent slightly under the stress. The flames shooting from the engines slowly faded into nothing, and the roar from the ship died as it was turned off. When all was said and done, the ship stood well over even Viridan's head, and took up the vast majority of the landing pad it was situated on.

A moment later, a hiss of steam blasted out of the bottom of the ship as a large platform was lowered from the bottom. On it stood the dragon from the call, Regent. She wore something of a smirk on her face as she watched the stunned human marvel at her craft.

"A human, huh?" she asked when the platform hit the ground. "Not the most common pet to pick up. Ugly, squishy little things. Where, and more importantly why, did you get him?"

"He's not a pet, he's my friend," Viridan replied. "He showed up on that show with me about a month before we got out. I would probably still be in there if not for him."

"Really?" Regent asked, eyeing Jonas with an odd mix of interest and skepticism. "Well, good job, fleshy. I guess not all you humans are useless, squabbling mammals."

"Did you just use mammal as an insult?" Jonas asked.

"That was the intention," she replied. "I suppose it doesn't work on you. That, or it works too well. Humans are just insulting all on their own."

"Play nice, Captain," Viridan jumped in.

"Yeah, yeah, okay," she replied, a little dejectedly. "So, you got plucked up by those reality TV bastards too, huh? I thought I recognized your scent?"

"Huh?" Jonas asked. "I've never been near you before in my life. How do you know what I smell like?"

"Isn't that adorable? It doesn't know what a simple scent cataloguer is," Regent said with a faux-snide grin. "Okay, squishy. A scent cataloguer takes all those nasty little stink particles off you and stores them as data. Because we dragons use scents to categorize stuff all the time, it just makes sense to be able to access data through scents, as well as sights. Now, as for your pungent little aroma, I was on my last scheduled survey of Earth when I saw this tiny little thing come shooting up through the troposphere. I hadn't heard about any launches on the networks, so I managed to get the scanners trained on it about the time it was coming up through the stratosphere. It turned out to be you, wrapped up nice and snug in a suction tractor, and shooting up through the atmosphere at a mile a second. And, as I followed you all the way up into space, you'll never guess what else I caught."

"A...purple space unicorn?" Jonas asked.

"Don't be a smart ass, Pinky," she replied with a hard stare. "No, it was a collector,"

"No way!" Viridan blurted. "You saw one?"

"Well...sort of," Regent said. "I didn't actually see it, per se, but I got a hell of a lot of sensor data on it. Hull shape, density, atmospheric data, temperature levels, electronics, and the like. I'm sure if a spent a little while working with the data, I could build a virtual model with it. I could probably even show you where the shit falls out."

"Virtual plumbing is all fine and good, but did you get a trajectory when it left? Was it heading back to Vega?"

"Well, I didn't get a solid trajectory, but it was definitely headed in that direction. And, if I saw meatbag here fly up into it, and it dumped him on that show, then it must have been to Vega at some point."

"That's great!" Viridan exclaimed. "You need to get that data packaged and sent to the police as soon as possible."

"I'm confused," Jonas jumped in.

"Not surprising with a brain the size of a cantaloupe," Regent said.

"If everybody know that people are getting kidnapped and taken to this specific planet, why don't the police just go there and shut it down?" he asked.

"The planet where the show is run, Vega, is in a tricky part of space," Viridan replied. "There isn't a whole lot that police can do around there. It's the closest thing you can get to a lawless society without all-out chaos. But if Regent's data is accurate, and it is a collector ship, then police will know what to scan for in civil space and can prevent far more kidnappings. Captain, you have to show me that data."

"Hold on there, I'll show it to you when it's all wrapped up and modeled," Regent replied. "I'll get started on it once we're in the air. In the meantime, let's do some cruising. You can show snack pack here around the ship, and I'll let you know when it's done. After that, I see no reason why we can't go down to the club for a good time. I want to see how the water bag acts with a few drinks in him."

"I have a name, you know," Jonas shot back. "It's Jonas."

"Well, ain't that nice?" she asked. "Once you prove your worth, I'll call you by name. Until then, it's going to be spongy or meatpie, or whatever the hell else I can think of. Now, all aboard!"

"Helping your friend out of prison doesn't count?" Jonas asked, hauling himself up onto the platform alongside Viridan.

"Nah, it's got to be useful to me, specifically," she replied, and mashed a button on one of the platform's connecting struts.

With a shudder, the entire platform began to rise, no slower to move even with the increased burden. They rose up into the center of an enormous room, which was mostly empty. There were several large crates stacked up in the far corner secured to the wall with netting, and what was probably a one-person speeder bolted sideways on a wall.

"This is the cargo hold," Regent announced as the platform locked into the rest of the floor with a clunk. "Not that you'll be staying long, but I'm sure you can find an open box full of packing peanuts to sleep in. Now, I'll head up to the bridge and package that data. You two look around. And Viridan, if something looks broken, I won't hold it against you if you fix it."

"Will do, Captain," Viridan replied, and watched as the Regent turned and headed in the direction of the bridge. The moment she disappeared through the automatic sliding door, he turned and led Jonas in the opposite direction. "Come on, Jonas, I'll show you the engine room first."

He led Jonas to a large grey metal door, which matched the color of the other metal surfaces throughout the ship. It wasn't a clean, shiny metal like the metal in Viridan's cave, but rather an old, dingy looking dark metal. The door slid open with an audible whoosh of air, and as they stepped through into a short hallway, Jonas could feel the air temperature shoot up. He was sweating by the time they made it across the hall and through the door, and into the large, even darker room.

Not only was this room hot, it was also unbearably loud. Regent has started the ship, and the engine had just roared to life. This engine, Jonas realized, was a huge block of twisted metal that took up three stories and nearly filled all the space in the room. It was probably half as tall as the whole ship, and far larger than the engine's had looked from the outside.

"This is the engine room," Viridan shouted. "Its primary purpose is to house the engine block, but it also acts as an engineering deck for the rest of the ship's remote-activated systems. Power, sensor, and communication settings are run through the consoles on the wall to the right, and life support and engine power is run through the consoles on the left wall."

"Why is the engine so huge?" Jonas asked, having to scream as loud as he could to be heard over the roaring mountain of machinery.

"The engines aren't usually this big on a ship of this size, but this is a custom set-up of my design," Viridan replied. "You see, the stock ship would have two engines, side by side, at about a third the size of this one. They would independently run the two rear rockets. But, I realized that it would be far more effective to split the thrust of a larger, single engine. A series of shutters allows for the same level of control with the default set-up, but there's a fifty percent increase in total engine output over the standard."

"The ship must have pretty thick walls to keep this noise out," Jonas stated.

"The sound suppression is surprisingly good for a ship this old, but it can get a little loud in the crew cabins when the ship is moving at full power," Viridan explained. "Now, why don't you follow me up the catwalks, and I'll show you the crew deck."

The catwalks themselves were wide, thin-looking scaffolding that ran around the engine in three levels. There were a number of single screens bolted to the railings at various points, all hooked into the engine and displaying some kind of data. As they began up the stairs and passed by the first of these glowing consoles, Regent's voice suddenly boomed above the engine noise through a loudspeaker in the corner over the door.

"Hey meatpie, if you touch anything, I'll ram a pole up your ass and roast you over the exhaust port, got it?"

"Is she always like that?" Jonas asked.

"The captain might be the tiniest bit bigoted," Viridan replied. "She's not usually this bad, though. Maybe it's because you're human."

"What does she have against humans?" he asked.

"Well, those of us that know about humans don't hold your species in very high regard. Especially after that huge war you had seventy years ago."

"You were watching us during World War 2?" Jonas asked.

"Well, not me, specifically," Viridan replied. "It was pretty early into our observation program. Developed mammalians are pretty rare, so our scientists were interested in you. What we saw down there wasn't pretty. In fact, it's one of the worst conflicts in galactic history."

"Somehow, I'm not surprised," Jonas replied with a sigh.

"Let's not talk about this anymore," Viridan said with an attempt at a comforting smile. He could tell that Jonas wasn't taking the news well, but it wasn't really news that could be taken well. Being told that you're part of the most violent species in the galaxy can't be easy. "Come on, let's get upstairs."

He led Jonas around the final floor of catwalks and to another stairway, which led to a hatchway into the ceiling. Grasping the hatch's handle in his jaws, he pushed it up and stepped into the hallway above. Once Jonas had passed through, he reached back to pull the hatch closed.

Jonas was immediately greeted by warm beige-yellow walls, which helped to alleviate his sorrows far better than the cold grey metal. They were in a short hallway, which led directly to a large open room. There were a few doors on the right side, with the rest of the room hidden behind the corner.

"This is my room," Viridan said, leading him to the first door on the right. There was a small keypad to the left of the door that he typed into, and the door opened with a whoosh. They stepped into the small cabin, Viridan heading straight into the bed to give Jonas a place to stand. There was barely enough floor space for Viridan to stand alone, let alone having the small human in there with him. The walls were a grey-blue color, leaning towards blue, while the ceilings and floor matched that of the hallway outside. There was a small window on the opposite side of the room from the door, with a small desk sitting under it. Viridan's bed was to the left of the desk, tucked into the corner. There was a small filing cabinet to the right of the desk, which was nearly full to bursting with various reports and schematics, all printed on a substance similar to cloth. Upon a closer inspection of the desk, Jonas realized that the entire desktop was a computer screen.

"It's a pretty tight workspace, but it's far better than trying to work in the engine room," Viridan said. "It's hard to do handwritten work when it keeps getting sucked into the intake."

"I didn't think you still wrote out things by hand," Jonas replied. "You technology is so advanced,"

"Yeah, well, there are some things I like to be able to hold in my hands," he replied. "Especially blueprints."

"It's must get pretty lonely, living in a room this small," Jonas noted. "You can't exactly have Vyra up here with you."

"No, you're right about that," Viridan replied. "Things can get pretty tense around here during especially long trips. When there are only fifty people on the ship, at best, you grow short with them. Nobody knew how to relax."

"And you did?" he asked.

"Oh sure," Viridan said with a grin. "No one bothers you when you have the door locked. It's a good way to let people know that you're working, and a good way to tell them that you're playing, too."

"Did anybody find out?"

"When you're on a ship this small, there aren't a lot of secrets," Viridan replied. "The only thing no one could figure out was whether the rumors of a secret orgy club meeting in the service ducts. There were some pretty small crewman, but we never could figure out how they managed to do it in those narrow tunnels. All the same, it never did smell quite right under the cargo hold."

"Weird," Jonas replied.

"If you think that's weird, you two should have been there on our last survey," the captain's voice suddenly rang out. "We did a double tour, just to make the most of it, and by the last week we were all feeling a little horny. So, someone had the fantastic idea that the whole crew should play truth or dare in the cargo hold on our last night in orbit. There were only about twenty of us left on the ship, and things got pretty kinky. Vir, you remember how everybody called Gerian a kiss ass?"

"Yeah," Viridan replied.

"Well, he was quite the kiss ass that night," she said with a snicker. "To all the officers,"

"I'm sorry I missed it," he said.

"I'm nearly done here, so you two can head on up to the bridge."

"Come on, Jonas, I'll finish the tour on our way," he said, and stepped out of the bed and towards the door. Jonas had to step back onto the gel cushion in front of the desk to get out of the dragon's way. Once they had managed to worm their way out of the small room, Viridan took the lead while he led him further down the hall.

"This is the galley and the common area," Viridan said as they emerged into large room at the end of the hall. It was full of tables of various sizes, ranging from small tables that were comfortable for Jonas, to huge tables designed for someone of draconic proportions. On the wall behind them was what looked like an automated lunch line. "The general crew's bunks are across the room and to the left, public washrooms are to the right. All the officer's quarters, including Captain Regent's quarters are on this wall to the right of us. We missed the med bay and server room, which are on the way to the bridge from the cargo hold. But that's about it,"

"How long are the surveys, usually?" Jonas asked.

"Usually about a month or two," Viridan replied. "When the captain talked about doing a double tour, they were probably out for around four months."

"That's a long time to spend on such a small ship," Jonas replied. "I mean, it looks so big on the outside, but when you get inside, it's actually kinda small."

"Stupid shorty, that's because everything has to be made for people three times your size," Captain Regent's voice blurted out again.

"Come on, Jonas, let's not keep the captain waiting any longer," Viridan said calmly, and led him through a door ahead of them and down a short flight of stairs. At the bottom, through another door, they emerged onto the bridge, a large semi-circular room full of consoles. The entire front wall was taken up by the huge window that ran across the bow of the ship. There were two stations at the front, one on each side, and a raised seat at the back, forming a pentagonal shape. Regent was seated at the far right terminal, and they headed towards her.

"Okay, this is what the collector probably looks like," Regent said, and tapped a few times at her screen. The display went black for a moment, and a second later, a solid grey model of a ship appeared and spun slowly. It looked a little like a jet on earth, with a long cylindrical hull and two swept-back wing structures jutting out of both sides. A dome-like bump out ran all the way along the top of the hull, and five cone-shaped structures were attached to the flattened aft.

"Based on the temperature reading I got, I think it's got a set-up similar to ours," Regent said. "Except they have five jets, so I can only imagine the pressure that its under. It'll go damn fast, let me tell you,"

"I bet I could increase the pressure on our output," Viridan replied.

"You know I trust you, Vir, but installing the fuel cells is fine enough," Regent said. "I don't want you blowing up my house."

"You're house? I thought you had an apartment on the second residential colony?" Viridan asked.

"I...had to move out," Regent replied with a sigh. "I couldn't afford it once the contracts stopped coming. I'm living in here now, and it thankfully gave me the opportunity to knock out the wall between the officer's quarters next to mine."

"Won't someone need to sleep in there?" Viridan asked.

"Nah, those quarters were supposed to be for the pilot, anyways," Regent said. "And since I am the pilot, that makes it my room, too."

"Well, as long as we have enough rooms for everyone once we get back to work," Viridan replied. "So, are you ready to send that data off?"

"It just needs some final prep work, tidying up and such," Regent replied. "I'll finish it tomorrow morning and send it off. But, as for now, we should get heading for the Artemis cluster. Vyra should be on her way now, and I think I know where we can catch up with the shuttle,"

"Do you follow my wife to work all the time?" Viridan asked.

"Not all the time," Regent replied, getting up and moving to the seat in the front left corner. "Although, maybe a few more times than I should."

"Well, I guess I should go see what all the fuss is about," he said, moving up to Regent's side again.

"Woo!" Regent yelled with glee, grabbing the control stick and swinging the ship around in a controlled arch. Jonas could see the stars in the distance blur as the ship was violently turned, and he couldn't help but feel a little nauseous from the strange movement. It didn't feel like they were moving at all, but the space outside was moving quite quickly. It was all very disorienting, and he forced himself to sit down in front of the captain's chair at the back. "Let's go party!"