FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The two stayed in their positions, uneasily eyeing one another. Likely he couldn’t tell she was looking at him. He, on the other hand, was glaringly obvious when his large orbs would swivel about and stare at her with their blackened pits. He remained in his bed, only moving to either poorly gawk or to make himself comfortable.

Every so often he would test his wound, prodding at it and wincing. Despite his frail human form, he was still pushing the rigors of his body. She could only hope that her amount of research helped to keep the sack of flesh from dying. It was hard to tell his condition with his absurd reactions. A shard of metal tearing through him wasn’t enough to weather his spirit. With fate’s hand, that might apply to his ship too.

The human’s ship remained in position. Its engine had kept it mostly steady during the explosion. From what her own ship could gather, it was still running normally and could be cleanly picked for retrofitting. It was coming together. She turned her attention to his spacesuit which sat nearby, the next key for her escape plan.

Naturally, the suit had one large gash in its side. She could probably make some rudimentary repairs and hoped it held. He would have to do the same. There would have to be some way for them to communicate to dictate which parts required removal and how. If he was dumb enough to trigger an armor reaction, he likely didn’t have any intelligence to spare for his own ship.

“Hey, devil, over here,” he said.

Joy, more annoyance. She complied and moved over to him.

“Why did you really keep me alive?” he asked.

“You suspect I was untruthful?” she replied.

“No shit. How are you supposed to fix your ship with mine? If you’re going to kill me, tell me, I’d rather think about my life before you do.”

“Are you not someone who harvests scrap?”

“Yeah, I thought that was obvious.”

“Then you should realize that your ship design is based off of ours. Poorly.”

He paused and furrowed his brow. As petty as it was, it was nice to call him an idiot on simple terms, and further insult his species by calling them thieves.

“Whatever. Nice job on finding my knife, by the way.” He plopped his head back onto his pillow and sighed.

“Any more questions?”

“You got a name? I need to know what to swear at.”

Her jaws tightened. “No.” She retreated back to her station and returned to making sure this simple plan would actually work. With every word that jabbered out of his mouth, she was beginning to feel less and less like this would actually work and more that he would end up with a torn trachea. Everything seemed to be in place, otherwise.

She picked up his knife, which she had stowed away nearby. Away from him. It was a simple thing. Elegant, though. There was something to be admired in their insistence on tradition. Along the wooden handle of the blade read “Joshua.” A funny thing, pronouncing those J letters. She mumbled it, flexing her mouth parts in odd ways, “Joshua.” That was his name, then? Vain to place a name on an object like that. She set it down. Unlikely that he could pierce her body with that, but he seemed brash enough to try.

Time trickled by. The woman grew tired and weary. No sign of incoming ships from either side of the vastness of space, yet that could change at any moment. Or they could have already piled on the far side of the planet. His own ship refused any sort of attempts to gain access to internal workings. No doubt in the time she had been adrift, humans had since fixed any holes to be exploited.

Frustrated, she stood up and walked over to her new asset.

“Yeah?” Joshua said. His stoic face had faltered somewhat. A hand massaged his wound, as ineffective as that was.

“Your ship. Do you have access to its database?”

“It’s not really my ship, so no.”

“Are you being deceptive?”

“Do you think I want you to kill me?”

“Perhaps waiting out time?”

“If I were that lucky.”

“We will need to cooperate to leave. You understand?”

“Yeah, I get it, cooperate. I’m kind of in a bad spot right now. Abducted by bugs, arm shot up, extreme pain. Come back to me later.”

“Later. After rest?”

“Yes.”

“So be it.”

She pulled up on the side of the cot, bringing up a metal door and closing it shut. There was a bang from the other side.

“Just my luck,” Joshua muttered.

“I cannot trust you to move about during rest. You cannot trust me to watch you. This is best, right?”

Another bang, and then a grunt.

That was for the best. The woman moved back to her seat and settled in. Her eyes stared at the container she sealed him in before slowly willing herself into a sleep. The image blurred and her thoughts faded into darkness.

_

There was a thump, and the woman instantly rose to attention, body at the ready. Then came another bang. It took a moment for her mind to catch up, slowly putting the pieces together. To the side lay her new captive assistant, her canned food, and his knife in his hand.

She hissed and snatched the sharp tool away from him.

“Trust is much harder than it seems,” she said, pressing her foot down on his uninjured arm.

“Christ, I thought you were asleep.”

His box had been pried open. A nearby hunk of metal, likely from his pack, confirmed that he was more resourceful than he had seemed.

“I would not kill you in your sleep. Could you not afford me the same?”

“I wasn’t going to kill you. I just wanted my damn knife back. And if I’m going to die, I’d rather my dead body still be holding it.” He gripped her leg. “Now get the hell off of me before you really regret it!”

There was the spark she had seen not long before. The injury must have been healing nicely. She pulled off of him and helped him up. Fully standing they were roughly the same height. Strange, he had seemed so diminutive in that bed of his. No doubt she still had the advantage.

She trained her head on him while her eyes went back and forth between the object and him.

“This is yours, Joshua?”

His eyes widened briefly. “Yes, that’s mine.” He swiped at it, but was far too slow to grab it. “Look, I’ll do whatever you want, just give that back to me.”

As inefficient as the human eyes were, they were oddly expressive. There was a cute aspect to their large pits. In a way she had almost gathered he wasn’t lying from his eyes alone. Perhaps she was biased, but if he were being truthful, then so be it. Carefully, she handed it back over to him, palm open.

He stared at her for a moment, as if truly testing her response. Fair, given the circumstances. Eventually he grabbed it and folded it back up, hooking it into the band of his pants.

“Thank you,” Joshua replied. He hobbled back to his bed, picking up his bag, and tossing it on the bed. He plopped down not long after, staring at the ground. “So, just to get this straight, you need me to rip out some parts and put them in here? Then what?”

“Then we leave.”

“You want me to return to bug space? And then what, I’m a pet?”

“I would not return you to our space.” Her horns flared. “You would receive a distress device and would be left on a planet of your choosing. Simple.”

Joshua raised his head and looked out the front of the ship. “Simple,” he repeated. “Right. Let’s do it now, then.”

“Your suit needs to be repaired first. Then your body.” She pointed to his wound. “Unless you wish to be in paralyzing pain.” Wouldn’t be a surprise. They were gluttons for pain.

“You don’t have any escape pods on this thing?” he asked.

“We do not have fleeing craft.”

“Oh, ‘fleeing craft’ excuse me.” He blew air out his nose. Dismissively, she assumed. “Right, not much for the whole living thing.”

“Insults will only slow you down further.” All her eyes snapped to him.

“Insults have gotten me a long way. Let me have a little fun, I’m in pain, aren’t I?”

“It could be more.”

“Oh, is that a threat?”

She took a moment to relax herself.

“No.”

The two were at a silence. This might’ve constituted a moment of reflection for her species, but she was at least somewhat aware that this would be an emotional toil for him. Good.

“You know, staring, for my people anyways, really is a sign of a threat,” Joshua replied.

“I’m aware.”

“You seem to know a lot about us for such an innocent bug, you know that, right?”

“Innocence is not a factor in either of our existences,” she replied.

“I hope you’re not trying to compare me to you.”

“I would say…” She thought on the word. “Graverobbing is lacking in innocence.”

“Your guys would’ve picked it up anyways, right? Might as well go to a nice guy like me.”

“To fuel what?”

“I don’t see what it has to do with you. Other than I’d be home by now.”

“You would be dead.”

“Maybe that’d be better.” He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “How’d you learn English anyways? You’re a spy, right? I’m sure you’re already figuring out how best to exploit me.”

The insectoid woman grinded her mandibles together. The first human she could speak to and it was this.

“Receive your rest. Consider that you will rot here without me.”

“You think of the same. I’m not going back in the box, by the way.” He leaned back into his container and settled in. “You got my clothes? I’d like those back. Preferably in one piece.”

She reached above the container and retrieved his clothing, tossing it onto the bed.

“Thanks.” He placed his uninjured arm over his eyes.

Perhaps she was a little hasty with her entrapment. Nonetheless, they were at a stalemate. She moved back to her seat and settled in. This would just have to do.