FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

by Roland P. Jackal

////////

The advent of the fusion reactor had been the turning point in space travel. For so long no one had bothered to venture beyond a low Earth orbit, save for the odd trip to a rather grey and uninteresting moon (some exogeologists would beg to differ, but compared to a lot of the moons the Solar System had to offer this one really was quite dull). There had been some talk of a brief trip to Mars, but it was never going to serve as anything more than a turkey slap to the rest of the world from the nation or bloc that was making the journey.

But the fusion reactor suddenly put vast amounts of power into very small fuel tanks. With such quantities of energy available, space travel was suddenly easy, and every nation sent up their convoy.

Before long the whole solar system had been explored, anyone who was anyone had visited at least two other planets, and everyone was as jaded and fickle about it as they were about their pathetic lives on Earth.

Mining operations has started on the asteroids, but even they were running low by now. Exploration had to go interstellar.

Even the fastest ship could only get up to around half the speed of light. Higher speeds were theoretically possible, and had been achieved, but the energy drain caused by the force shield one would need to do so had thus far thwarted any practical manifestation of this eventuality. While travelling at half light-speed made even a trip to Eris and back take only a few days (though it may be worth noting that there is only one recorded incident of someone actually _wanting_ to go there), it still took several decades to get to the first remotely interesting star.

Dr. Gareth Plumjob, an otter with a PhD in both astrophysics and domestic science, had a dubious claim to fame for his role in spearheading the campaign to enforce that it be specified in such statements weather or not it was actually the star that was interesting as opposed to the planets that orbit it, as is very often the case. His campaign was brought to an end when an out of control golf cart rolled over him during a particularly impassioned speech to the Royal Society (it had been a nice day and so they'd decided to hold their meeting outside in the sun).

So energy was invested instead in putting the crew in to stasis. True, anyone who spent the most part of a century shielded from the passage of time was inevitably going to find some awkward age differences between them and anyone they knew upon their return (assuming that anyone in that category was still alive by this point), but it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that anyone with anything worth returning to on Earth wouldn't be signing up for interstellar missions in the first place.

It didn't help that those on the said missions knew that, for all practical purposes, they were utterly superfluous. All mining was done by robots - they were efficient, they didn't need oxygen or stasis chambers, they never slept or went on strike and there had only been one recorded incident of a robot getting drunk and and peeing in the reactor core (a micro black hole had wandered in to his circuitry and taken roost next to his CPU - not exactly drunk but the uneven slowing of electrons was nonetheless likened to such mental impairment).

The only reason they sent anyone on deep space missions at all was for the claiming of exoplanets, and that was only because, by international law, any claim to territory required that a national flag be planted by an organic and reasonably sentient being from the nation that was doing the claiming.

The agreement had held up remarkably so far. But then, so far there hadn't been a shortage of exoplanets.

////////

The emergency awakening had been a rude one, and not just because there had been an alarm blaring beside which every primary school recorder recital in the whole of history would have sounded positively sublime. There was also the fact that there had been no gravity.

On a normal trip, one would usually be in stasis long before the ship had reached cruising speed, not to come out again until the ship was already slowing and travelling too slowly for the scoop to power the stasis chambers. With acceleration providing a comfortable artificial gravity both ways, zero-g was not generally experienced at any point.

So Terrance had been pretty sure that something was wrong.

In a manner that could only result from it having looked a lot easier than it really was on the instructional vids, he'd floated his way to his locker and, with only minor concussion, struggled in to a pair of gecko shoes.

Finally able to ambulate in a round-about way, Captain Effective Terrance Sprot padded through to his office and sat at his desk, fastening his seatbelt before prodding his terminal in to life. He was a patagonian fox who would have stood just shy of six feet had he been standing at the time, and though his age was harder to pinpoint, you'd have believed him if he told you he was forty. His moderate frame bore little excess weight and it would have been reasonable to say that he was trim for his age - though this was more due to the regulated nutrition of ship rations than any discipline or luck on Terry's part.

He frowned, and again scanned the readout. The fuel levels were down to critical, which would account for the emergency awakening, but it still seemed absurd given that the EM scoop was functioning perfectly.

Unless there was a fault in the fault locator. They were a bugger to diagnose - for the sake of efficiency they were generally buried fairly deep within the ship's workings to be as close to everything as possible, but as the first logical port of call for abnormal readings Terry couldn't quite believe that no one had thought that putting them within easy reach might also be novel.

Anomalous readings. The fox smiled as he recalled a joke he'd heard a few weeks back, shortly before he'd left Earth - it was about a prostitute and a leper... and it dawned on him, the room growing a shade darker as an all too obvious answer crashed like a falling aircraft carrier through his consciousness:

Dead space.

It had taken disconcertingly long, thought Terry, for him to figure that one out. But then, it wasn't as if the requirements for crew on ExoClaim missions were very high. One was mental stability, or at least a brief criminal check that you hadn't killed anyone important and a willingness to sign the consent form allowing antidepressants and mood stabilisers to be pumped throughout the ship's air supply, the levels of which would be adjusted according to the best judgement of the onboard computer.

Intelligence was also important. Candidates were required to touch their nose with one paw and find their own butt with the other.

Then there was fitness. Or at least a willingness to sign the the consent form acknowledging that you're fine with your food being laced with muscle-building hormones, the levels of which would once again be controlled by the onboard computer.

Terrance Sprot mouthed the words. Dead space.

Interstellar travel had only been made practical by the invention of the EM scoop - which was basically an electromagnetic vacuum cleaner that sucked in stray particles (i.e. hydrogen) for the ship's fusion drive. It was a wonderful invention as it meant that a ship's fuel would replenish pretty much whenever it was in motion, allowing it a virtually infinite range with only minimal onboard fuel reserves.

It also lead to the emergence of dead space. It had first been noted (by the alarmists of the day) when Terry was a kit that there was a sort of hydrogen-free desert surrounding the Solar System, one that they were pretty sure hadn't really been there before. It had then spread to the major spacelanes, and eventually to any area that wasn't a completely useless direction to go in.

The explanation was simple. Centuries of ravenous, hydrogen-sucking mining freighters had done their work. There was no hydrogen left to suck. No hydrogen meant no power, for life support or for shields. If already up to speed a fully automated ship stood a fair chance of getting through unscathed - chances are if a region is so well-travelled that the hydrogen is gone then so are any annoying little rocks that so love to explode when smacking a ship at 150,000 kilometres a second. But for a ship in need of power for life support... the chances of a collision were about the same, but things would be looking grim for anyone on board if they didn't have a good book to read.

Standing, Terry made his unsteady way to the bridge express lift.

Dead space. He shook his head. He really should have guessed sooner.

Historically speaking, the fox had spent over a millennium in space. It wasn't that he needed to - while on his second trip there had been an international skirmish that had ended in the dropping of a few neutron bombs and he'd inherited a rather pathetic excuse for a house that was somewhere in the obscure vicinity an officially recognised population centre and as such had a value approximately equal to three lifetimes of indulgent living. On top of this he'd returned from every trip since to a fat wad of rent. So money wasn't an issue. It was more that every time he tried to stay on Earth for any length of time he'd get depressed at the fact that everyone was still making the same mistakes they were making hundreds of years ago.

Like getting in to wars and paying far too much for housing, for example.

How mundane these trips had become. The Patagonian fox smiled pensively. His first trip had been motivated by a genuine urge to see a new world, and to experience space travel firstpaw. He'd been in awe of the universe - the merest attempt to comprehend the cosmos would send shivers down his spine. He'd also been jobless, friendless, and with a family who didn't like to acknowledge that he existed. These had also been factors, it is true, but then he could have joined the army if he'd wanted to stay earthbound.

The only problem was that he'd returned even more of an outsider. Sure, it had been nice meeting his great-great-nephew when he got back, and that he'd had him around for dinner had made him feel truly welcome, and the generational orientation class had been friendly enough. But real life had to start before long. It was then the similarities began to creep in. Like cracks in his periphery, he became aware of a certain fundamental lack of difference between this world and the one he'd left. Nothing had really changed. There were still the same problems of half the world being too fat while the other half starved to death, of countries being dominated by a ridiculous stock market that was governed by greed and fear.

And while he might in many ways be glad that he was the sole survivor of his own generation of immediate family, it also meant that there weren't many non-relatives left from his generation either. Without anyone to call his peers he was stuck in a world of disrespectful young punks with no one to grumble about it to, and to top it off most of the young punks were older than he was.

So he'd gone back to space. He'd heard somewhere that eighty percent of explorers were veterans.

"Captain Effective on deck." purred the computer over the loudspeaker as the lift came to a halt. With a pleasingly mechanical hum (vast sums of money had been spent researching which sound it was best for a door to make - solid and uneven enough to reassure the user that something was being done but not distractingly so) the door opened and Captain Effective Terrance Sprot stepped through to a saluting Ray.

Ray was a red squirrel. A new recruit of less than twenty, he stood closer to six feet than five, but only just. Terry had at times wondered why anyone would jump straight from school to interstellar exploration, especially since to enter as a Navigation Officer Effective one had to at least _pass_ grade twelve. Didn't he stop to consider his options at all? Was every other door really closed to him? The poor guy probably just didn't know which dicks to suck. That said, he'd been very impressed with the young squirrel, not only in terms of his performance but at him personally. He was precise, well-presented and polite - all qualities that the fox was yet to really master.

"What's the situation?" enquired the fox as he padded in to stand facing Ray. He'd already gathered all the relevant facts from the computer readout, but the computer didn't have Tingle's wonderful Highland accent.

"The emergency call to stations was prompted by fuel reserves falling to critical levels. This is due to our plotted course taking us through space with a hydrogen level averaging less than 115. As effective Navigation Officer on board this ship I assume full responsibility, Sir."

The rodent stared straight ahead as he spoke. Despite his obvious efforts to remain stoic, Terry noticed the squirrel was trembling slightly.

"At ease, Tingle."

Ray was a little nonplussed by this, though the only external sign of this was a slight upward twitch of his bushy tail. After a second or two, presumably only just remembering how to do it, the squirrel relaxed, exhaling slightly and moving his footpaws apart by about two millimetres.

Terry couldn't leave it at that.

"That responsibility is not yours to assume, Tingle." said Terry, now prodding the console at the Captain Effective's chair, poring over readouts he'd seen a few minutes ago, but on a bigger screen this time "I was the one charged with the running of this ship."

Ray re-stiffened with a sharp inhalation through his nose.

"With respect, Sir, I was the one who charted the course."

"Yes, you were."

Momentarily the squirrel's eyes darted to the fox before resetting to their straight-forward standing-to-attention position.

Turning to face the rodent again, Terry asked "Incidentally, who did you commission it off?"

At this Ray was visibly offended "Sir, I charted it myself!"

The grey zorro looked blank for a few seconds before jumping back in to the moment "Oh! _You_ did! In which case may I ask which program you used?"

There was no way Ray could afford a recognised program, but there were some decent freeware ones out there, provided you knew which bugs to watch out for.

"No program, Sir." he said "I drafted it the old fashioned way, Sir, with a stylus and ruler widget."

Terry felt his bowels go limp "I'm sorry Tingle, but you're going to have to repeat that. You won't believe what I thought I just heard you say."

"I said that I didn't use a program, Sir. I charted the course manually."

"Manually." repeated the fox, eyeballing the squirrel, desperately hoping to see the corners of his mouth upturned or a twinkle in his eye - anything to suggest that he was simply having a sick joke with him.

"Yessir." he affirmed.

An involuntary twitch of the eye hinted that this may not have been the response Terry was looking for.

With an ostensibly pleasant smile the fox excused himself and padded in to the lift and closed the door. Once the screaming stopped, the door slid open again to reveal a much more composed Terry. Promptly he padded back in to the squirrel.

"So, Tingle, just to clarify, you charted this course without the aid of computers or anyone else?"

"No on else, Sir."

Terry nodded slowly, smiling weakly

"Computer aid notwithstanding, the contract did stipulate that it be my own work, Sir."

Terry's whiskers twitched, betraying a sharp canine, before he patiently said "Yes, it did."

Terry was beginning to wish he'd thought more about how, as a fresh out of school recruit, Ray probably wouldn't have had time to learn all the _unwritten_ stipulations, like how you should always get an actual Navigation Officer to chart your course because you ARE going to cock it up if you try it yourself.

"It was your privilege to amend or reject it if it was not satisfactory, Sir."

Yes it was. It was another unwritten clause that a Captain Effective isn't going to look at a course for more than the three seconds necessary to see that it wasn't a photocopy of someone's butt and/or drawn with orange crayon because there it nothing a Captain Effective could possibly add to the work of a Navigation Officer proper.

Actually Terry had spent a good deal more than three seconds poring over the course, if only because he was actually interested in where he was going.

"That is all, Tingle. You are dismissed."

"Sir!" replied the squirrel who, with a precise salute and about-turn marched (Terry didn't know how anyone could march in gecko shoes even at the best of times, let alone without gravity, but Ray was managing it somehow) from the bridge.

Once the door had automatically slid shut behind the Navigation Officer Effective, the canid padded over to the main screen and began to rhythmically thump his head against it.

BONK!

He should have known.

BONK!

He should have fucking known.

BONK!

If only he'd bothered to check Ray's background - the file had been sent to him, delivered right to his desk.

BONK!

If he'd just opened it to see that Ray was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed lad with some hope for the future, he might have been able to pre-empt the squirrel acting in a way that wasn't entirely cynical of his own abilities and those of his Captain Effective.

BONK!

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

BONK!

But then, if he were smart he wouldn't be in this job, would he?

BONK!

////////

Ray sat in his Effectively Officer's quarters. He was eating sticky rations. They were never as nice as gravity rations on account of their stickiness.

The flavour was quite good. He'd opted for gummi bear and chocolate sauce flavour because he was endeavouring to be silly - though the inherent silliness was marred somewhat by the fact that the flavour was always synthesised and the nutritional value never varied.

But the consistency. Sticky, starchy goop.

Of course it had to stick to the fork, but that didn't make non-starchy or non-goopy.

His silly, unpleasantly textured food wasn't what was on his mind, however.

The ships returning path had followed a less than direct trail of hydrogen-rich patches through the outer Solar Desert. It seemed to make perfect sense that one would take that route.

He wished he could say he'd been tired, or concussed, or that his annoying little brother had scribbled on the map, or anything to avoid being tied to the tracks of an oncoming blame-locomotive. Of course it made sense: to him and to every single other mining vessel with operations in any number of sectors out that way. It hadn't registered at the time that there might be a good deal less hydrogen when they were passing through 92 years later. The fact that he hadn't even had to ignore any nagging doubts about this somehow made it a lot more worrying.

There was some small consolation. The area wasn't totally devoid of hydrogen (and not in the sense that you might eventually find one atom if you set to work with a large enough EM scoop), it was simply hydrogen depleted. In this case it meant they had enough energy to sustain life support and partial shields. But no stasis until they reached the Sirius nebula (Sirius, along with most of the Solar Neighbourhood, had been blown up in an attempt to make traversable the ever expanding Solar Desert). But that wasn't going to be for another nine years.

Ray's mind was a room. There were no windows, and on the floor and ceiling and every wall someone had written 'you're fucked' several thousand times in a rather immaculate copperplate script.

The rodent closed his eyes and tried to remember happier times. Or to at least make some up.

////////

The patagonian fox floated from wall to wall in the shower as water spattered off him from a multitude of directions. He'd used several different zero-g compatible bathing systems before and this one was by far his favourite. He'd never used it without gravity before, and was quite enjoying the experience. In this design the occupant was sprayed by jets of water that emanated from all major corners and surfaces within the shower bay (the one in the middle of the floor had come as a particular, though not entirely unpleasant, surprise the first time Terry had used it). On top of this the walls were porous and had a regular vacuum so that water drops didn't float around the shower bay indefinitely, or indeed form in to a ball of water around the showeree's head. It also provided an interesting sensation when one held one's balls against it.

Terry reassured himself that everyone with a scrotum did that at least once.

Looking down at himself, one of his eyebrows raised as he noted that there was a definite furrow down the middle of his abs. This was odd because it hadn't been there before.

That is to say, he might have seen something while undressing before getting in to the shower, but literally contemplating one's navel was hardly prudent when tumbling around a bathroom in zero-g. Not unless one was fond of sconning one's temple on a vicious turncock.

Bracing his footpaws in opposing corners of the shower, the grey zorro held himself still for a good look. He'd have had to either have lost weight or gained muscle, and given that there was still a good half-inch layer of fat covering his midsection, he was banking on the latter.

Had the ships computer been overdoing the growth hormones?

Running a handpaw down his chest and abs, feeling his pecs that were each now a generous pawful, any notions of overdone hormones were abolished: This right here was pretty awesome.

Without thinking much about it, Sprot began to stroke his sheath with his handpaw that wasn't occupied with feeling his newfound muscle mass. Part of his mind was agape, astonished at how narcissistic he was being. But another part of him didn't really have a problem with that, and kinda wished the light barrier wasn't so insuperable because who wouldn't, given the chance, travel back in time for a good old self-fuck?

His knob twitched at the thought. Looking through the glass door and to his reflection in the mirror he wondered if it would be more or less fun the second time around. On one paw he'd have done it all before (albeit from another perspective) and so there wouldn't be any surprises, but on the other maybe the familiarity would make it better - like when he'd re-watch 'Holy Grail' yet again, gleefully anticipating the best bits.

His vulpine cock was well and truly making itself shown by now, he sighed as he pulled his sheath down over his not yet swollen knot, giving his base a squeeze.

Then there was the matter of topping or subbing first. He'd not actually mated a guy in the past, it wasn't his cup of tea generally, but in his idle drifting-off-to-sleep thoughts he'd on occasion been excited by the notion of submission to another male: submission, preferably to an unknown... a _slightly_ unknown fate. So subbing would definitely have to come first.

The fox was now rubbing his sheath back and forth over his swelling knot, his soggy tail flicking up (or at least in the direction his head was more or less in relative to it) as he imagined submitting absolutely to himself, his hard knob pressed against his tailhole, before with a bite of his lower lip he'd feel himself prised open as he slid in to the hilt, taking all he had. With a shudder a drop of pre momentarily bobbed on a strand of itself, tethered to the end of his now hard cock until a rogue water droplet collided, taking the pre with it.

Terry continued stroking his meat, with a grunt pulling his sheath back for the last time over his almost fully enlarged knot - he was getting close. Now he was his futureself - fucking his past, pushing he meat again and again in to his tailhole. Feeling his hips with his free paw he imagined his past as he thrust again and again in to the fox, before the inevitable mighty thrust where he'd...

Tie.

With a yelp the zorrito squeezed his base as his vulpine seed was propelled in to the glass door, his soggy-velvet balls tightening with every squirt. Panting he continued to fap his base, his cum getting more opaque as his orgasm progressed, arching his back as tendrils of happy fire ran up his legs to converge in the base of his tail and pelvis and down his shaft. Before long his spurts started becoming sporadic and less energetic, finally slowing to a dribble before squirting a little more as he lightly ran his fingers up his sensitive shaft.

He looked at his handpaw, noting some sticky latter jizz had somehow made its way there. He licked it off automatically. He then looked to where the majority of his seed had ended up, the splatters on the glass rapidly washing away under the bombardment of the water jets. He looked at the now pathetic fox in the mirror, and down at the body he'd always hated - not because of any actual physical shortcomings but because nothing he could do would ever change the fact that he was in it. A minute passed. He began to cry, his shoulders jerking in fitful sobs. He was going to die here. He was going to die and the only possible company he had within a 74 trillion mile radius was a squirrel who hated his guts.

////////

Terry knocked on Ray's office door. Registering the pressure, the computer played a "knock-knock" sound on the inside of the soundproof quarters.

The subsequent wait was agony. He had to make things right between them; the though of being rejected by the only guy in the universe he could ever consider a friend was daunting. Yes he'd had friends - not many it's true but he'd had some, and their friendship had been very special to him.

And he'd abandoned them, gallivanting off to space, not to return until long after they'd all aged to death.

Except for Mervyn Goblore, who'd passed away two months later instead (he'd been 106 - no one was really complaining here).

Mervyn had been a black Maine Coon who'd shared a few classes with the fox at High School. But he'd not been a very close friend. They had talked and joked all through art class but they'd only set footpaw in each other's houses once or twice. Still, Mervyn had made the fox laugh many times, and was the focus of several memories that he still treasured. On top of that he'd been kind enough to show up to his going away party before his first trip (an extremely classy affair consisting of a fast-food lunch followed by a walk around the city).

Terry had thought to catch up with his surviving friends after he'd returned, hence him finding out that Mervyn was actually still alive, but he'd kept on putting it off mainly on account of his feelings of awkwardness and fear that after so long he'd find they had nothing in common and nothing to say.

Fear of failure. Fear of failure until Mervyn had died and he couldn't fail anymore.

The fox took some comfort in the fact that his friend almost certainly hadn't died in tears saying in a feeble, wavering voice "Where's... *cough* Terry?". He frankly doubted he'd been anywhere near the cat's thoughts during his last moments. But part of him was adamant that if he'd only taken the time to visit his last real friend, to say hi and to ask what had been happening in the eighty-five years (Earth time) since they'd seen each other last, at least a small part of him that cared about anyone but himself might have survived.

All friends betrayed.

And now he'd betrayed Ray, the only company he had left. Because even though they had only shared a few weeks of professional aquaintanceship he still thought of him as a friend.

Company. Terry smiled to himself, idly adjusting his groin just as the door began sliding open.

Handpaw snapping back to his side the fox entered to the red squirrel, who was standing to attention as always.

"At ease, Tingle." said the fox as he occupied the seat across the desk from Ray, gesturing for Ray to be seated once he was settled in.

Naturally, the squirrel complied.

Briefly turning the desktop screen toward himself Terry could see a paused FPS of some sort.

Gaming on an ordinary, nonimmersive screen. The fox smiled to himself.

Fully immersive VR technology had existed for centuries, but had fallen well out of vogue shortly after it had been unleashed upon the public. This was because of some pretty fundamental problems with the concept itself, namely the fact that it was virtual reality, and that using Direct Sensory Input it literally tricked the optic nerve in to thinking it was seeing the game world (it tricked the other senses, too, but the most noticeable problems stemmed from the optic nerve). It would be easy to point the finger at games whose designers had opted for a whacky, stylised look and effectively breathed life in to horrid creations that should never, ever take on corporeal form, but far worse than these were the games that attempted to actually do precisely what virtual reality had been designed for: to create a virtual reality, and it only got worse the closer they came to doing so. They failed because no matter how many hours programmers spent tweaking an engine to highlight and shade surfaces in exactly the right way, or how long artists and animators spent polishing their characters and game worlds to jaw-dropping, real-life perfection, they never got it exactly right. This resulted in even the best game worlds being the single most creepy places you could ever imagine going, where you knew something was wrong but you just couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, like in a dream on the verge of becoming a nightmare.

Only you had to pay to be in this one.

So it was decided by the greater consuming public that while it was fine to view a computer game on a screen that one could say acted as a window to another world, it was another thing entirely to actually enter the said world.

Hence Ray was playing nonimmersively.

The ship even had a VR suite. Obviously it had been installed during one of the many attempted VR revivals, and was presumably left there because if nothing else it had novelty value.

"I remember when VR was released when I was a kit." began the vulpid "A friend of mine got one. As a joke I tapped in to the prefs file and disabled the blink and saccadic masking protocols." he continued, watching for something to register on the rodent's face "He was throwing up after about a minute."

Terry glanced down at his lap "It had been a very nice computer before then, too."

There was a pause

"On a related note, if you're going to mon on a computer, you'd do well to aim at pretty much any part of the computer that isn't the power supply. Amazing isn't it, how you're best friends with a guy, so imaginative and full of life until..."

There was another pause, this one pensively wistful.

For what was possibly the first time ever, Ray's eyes met the fox's for what was almost an entire second "Surely not, Sir?"

"Not what, Tingle?"

"Well surely he wasn't dead, Sir?"

Not that Ray would have been completely surprised.

"Oh, no no! Nothing so dramatic - and on top of that he got most of his vision back in the end. But he never spoke again. Not to me anyway."

The expression on the squirrel's face was hard to read as usual, but if Terry wasn't mistaken it was approximately equivalent to an eye roll.

Ignoring this for now he smiled and said "Tingle, I would like you... I would like to say that I don't blame you for our current predicament. As Captain Effective it was my job to ensure that you delivered a workable course."

The squirrel mentally facepawed. Not this. He hadn't ventured in to deep space to get stuck with his mum again.

"Sir, this isn't helping."

Terry's smile fell slightly, "I'm trying to say I'm sorry."

Ray's tail bristled slightly at this, as he endeavoured to fill his mind with scenes of bubbling brooks and sunny days and other things that made him feel less like punching things.

"Sir, do you have any formal training in stellar navigation?"

Terry didn't like where this was going, but answered anyway, "Nothing that is recognised."

"So with respect, how can the failing possibly be yours?"

"Because I am supposed to be on top of things. That is why I wear this hat. It is not a top hat, because maybe that would have been too obvious, but this hat means that the fox under it is on top of things."

Ray leaned back in his chair and resisted the nigh-overwhelming urge to smack nearby foxes with conveniently placed computer monitors.

"Sir, I must confess that I am at a loss as to what you are trying to achieve here."

"Reconciliation!" said the fox, exasperated and a tad indignant, beginning to regret ever thinking the lighthearted, honest and jovial approach might be a good idea.

After a deep breath Ray said "Sir, you are the Captain Effective."

Silence. Now it was Terry's turn to not know what the other was on about.

With a quick clear of his throat the squirrel began "As Navigation Officer Effective I charted the course. That was my appointed task, and regardless of the degree to which I succeeded in doing the said task, you are still Captain Effective, with associated appointed tasks."

"As Captain Effective it is my duty to ensure the smooth running of the ship, which includes the maintaining of crew morale..."

Ray closed his eyes and sighed, resigning to the fact that some were just born to be thick "Sir, this ship is stranded in the outskirts of the Greater Solar Desert and there are certain members of the crew on board who have no prior deep-space experience whatsoever." he said slowly "They would be grateful for some leadership."

For once the rodent had the fox fixed in his gaze, hoping against hope that something of what he'd just said had registered. Terry's eyes widened, as with a suppressed gasp he realised something that should have been obvious to him for a very long time now.

Ray was beautiful.

For a good thirty seconds he couldn't do any thing but stare back at the rodent. Finally, resisting every natural impulse he had telling him to touch the squirrel in some way, he stood, fumbling his seatbelt and nearly kneeing himself in the head.

"Thank you for your input, Tingle. I'll... I'll let you... await further orders."

More swiftly than prudently, the fox strode from the office.

Once the door had closed, Ray unlocked his features and exploded, laughing more than anyone probably should under the circumstances but figured it was about time someone on board had a giggle. He'd not wanted to be there when that penny dropped. Pennies like that rarely dropped well in guys who weren't officially in to other guys, but that had been priceless. He almost pitied the fox.