FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Dropping out of hyperspace," Astra said. "Beginning scan."

_I hope this is the one._Asuka braced her hands on the central console and stared at the holofield. _Gotta get some shuteye soon._Even though her prosthetic body didn't require rest, her brain was still completely organic and needed a good night's sleep.

"Two terrestrial planets and an asteroid belt detected. There is an accretion disk around the star, but no other planets. Beginning approach."

"Keep your fingers crossed, guys."

Lopez raised his left arm and aimed one of his cameras at the pincers on the end. "Easy for you to say."

Asuka glanced at him and snickered. "Sorry, buddy. I wasn't thinking."

"No harm done." He aimed the camera at the holographic projection again.

"The outer planet has no atmosphere," Astra reported. "The atmosphere of the inner planet is a mixture of methane, ammonia, and water vapor."

"Primordial soup," Hitomi said, cocking her head slightly. "I'd like to see what might be living there in a few billion years."

"Unfortunately, we can't hang around that long." Asuka chuckled. "Astra, have you detected anything else? Ships in the area, or...?"

"Still scanning."

Asuka nodded and waited silently. Several minutes passed before the ship reached the nearer planet and Astra spoke again.

"One spacecraft and a debris field detected in the vicinity of the atmosphereless planet. Executing intercept course."

Asuka glanced at her two companions and grinned. Hitomi smiled back.

"I hope that's the right ship. We've lost too many friends already."

Asuka nodded and fixed her gaze on the holofield as a swarm of tiny shapes zoomed closer, finally resolving into twisted chunks of metal. Some of the edges still glowed from the heat of whatever had blown the object apart.

"Unable to identify any structures so far," Astra said. "The combined mass of the debris doesn't correlate with any ships in my memory core. Continuing scan."

Asuka paced slowly around the console.

The holofield suddenly zoomed in on one particular piece of debris and Asuka stopped pacing. The object appeared to be a ripped-open cylindrical structure with one end bearing an unsettling resemblance to an open maw.

"This piece of debris bears some similarity to a part of the ship you described," Astra said. "The forward section into which the shuttles were pulled."

"That looks like it." Asuka stared at the image. "Damn. We're too late." No. Oh, goddamn it, no!

"No bodies detected among the wreckage. There is a chance your missing crewmates were taken aboard the other ship. Changing course to intercept."

"Yes!" Asuka thrust her fist into the air, then reigned herself in. "How long?"

"Estimated intercept in four minutes, nineteen seconds."

"Should we wake everyone?" Hitomi glanced over her shoulder at the door.

"Not yet. If this looks like it'll be a reunion, we'll get 'em up then. If it turns into a wake, it can wait until they've had an uninterrupted night's sleep." Asuka resumed pacing around the console.

The holographic image panned and zoomed in on a ship that looked like three long cylinders attached side by side, with an engine pod on one end and a command-and-control module on the other. Light from the local star glinted off its side as it passed above the accretion disk. It came rapidly closer until it filled the holofield.

"Astra, can you identify it?"

"Negative. Attempting to communicate."

Asuka raked her fingers through her hair. Come on.

"No response. Power buildup detected."

"Weapons?" Asuka stopped pacing.

"Weapons and jump engines."

"Are you armed?"

"Yes, with particle beam cannons, pulse cannon turrets, and heavy coilguns." After a quick pause, Astra added, "They are targeting us."

"I hope you have a deflector shield," Lopez said. "Or something."

"My hull is armor-plated and equipped with a defense grid."

"Can you disable their engines before they jump?" Asuka leaned on the console and scowled at the ship in the holofield.

"I believe so. Targeting their engines."

The ship rotated toward them and rows of turrets lining the side aimed at them.

A thick bolt flashed from the bottom of the projection and drilled into the engine pod. Flames erupted for a split-second from the newly-punched hole and vanished, snuffed out by the vacuum. Secondary explosions flashed deep inside and blasted through the sides of the module.

Far ahead of the ship, a swirling red vortex appeared.

"Engines destroyed," Astra said. "Jump engines still functional, but the ship is drifting off-course and will not be able to enter the jump-point before we capture it. Correcting course and maintaining approach."

"Nice!" Asuka grinned.

"Every other ship I'm familiar with has heavily shielded engines to protect their crews from radiation, and are difficult to disable this way. The lack of such shielding on this ship suggests several possibilities, including shoddy construction, a species that is immune to such radiation, a synthetic crew, or a fully automated ship."

"Guess we'll find out soon enough."

"Their weapons are attempting to reacquire lock-on. Firing pulse cannons to disable their weapons."

A flurry of smaller bolts blew the turrets off the other ship.

Asuka grinned again. I think I'm gonna like the future.

"Beginning final approach. Their airlocks don't match ours. You will need to either go EVA to enter through one of their airlocks, or burn through the hull."

Asuka nodded. "Guess we should wake everyone now. Do you have any spacesuits onboard?"

A new, glowing line appeared on the floor.

"The line will direct you to them."

"Cool." Asuka put her right arm around Hitomi's shoulders and put her left hand on Lopez's arm. "Let's go get our friends."

#

"Don't let go!" Roger braced his feet on the sides of the open stasis pod, wrapped his arms around Kamala, and pulled against the metal tentacle coiled around the lower half of her body.

"No shit!" All four of her arms cinched even tighter around him and her hearts pounded a jackhammer beat against his chest. Her whole body quivered as she strained against the tentacle's pull.

That pull increased and his legs started to buckle.

No! No, no, no!

In the corner of his eye, another tentacle snaked toward him.

No...."Kamala..."

Another shape zipped in from the right. He turned his head and found Otto clamping his hands around the tentacle. He pulled and grunted, but it wouldn't budge.

"Can't you just zap it like you did that robot?" Kamala groaned.

"If I try that when it's touching you, it could knock you out--or worse." He continued pulling, but after a few seconds his hands slipped off and he tumbled through the air.

"Hang on!" The woman with cybernetic arms and legs scrambled along the floor to Kamala. She found the end of the tentacle wrapped around Kamala's body and pried. She braced her feet on a lower section of the tentacle, strained and groaned--and finally the tip bent away from Kamala's tail.

Roger kept his feet on the edges of the stasis pod and lifted, putting every ounce of his remaining strength into it. His legs trembled and Kamala's skin began to slide under his palms as the metal tentacle gradually overwhelmed him.

"Roger!" Her wide, terrified eyes stared into his.

He slid his right hand down to her belt and clamped on, desperate to find anything to get a secure handhold.

He tried to shut out the panicked screams all around him. Forced himself not to look around at all the other people being dragged to the stasis pods and locked inside.

Why are they doing this? When they replaced Henry's leg, I thought they were friendly....

Something metal coiled around his waist and yanked him backward.

"No!"

An ear-shattering explosion rocked the chamber and a shockwave slammed into him, leaving his ears ringing and the breath knocked out of his lungs.

Yet he still kept his grip on Kamala's belt.

I won't let this happen, goddamn it! I won't let it take you!

The grip on his waist vanished suddenly. The tentacle around Kamala whipped away, and they shot toward each other, propelled by his tugging on her belt. She managed to brace her upper hands on his chest and prevent them from colliding.

He looked around, afraid to get his hopes up--and found what had exploded. One of the tentacles hung in the air, the severed end in shreds, tumbling slowly. Another quick glance around showed him what had caused it--Luana had her alien pistol out, aiming in the tentacle's direction, her eyes open wide and her mouth frozen in a crazed rictus.

"Fuck you!" she screamed.

Another tentacle snapped toward her and she blasted it.

"You, too! Whoever is doing this--fuck you!" She shifted her aim and exploded a third tentacle, all the while continuing to shriek at the top of her lungs. "Fuck you, you motherfuckers!" She shot another tentacle as everyone near her scrambled along whatever surface they could find a handhold on. Tears gathered into globules around her eyes. "You bastards! Come on out! Show me your fucking faces so I can blow your fucking heads off!"

"Uh, honey?" Henry pulled himself up beside her and reached out, but hesitated, as if afraid of startling her. "Be careful, you might hit one of the pods."

Kamala grasped the top of the nearest pod and pulled herself and Roger across the chamber. She found cover beside a bank of stasis pods, and pulled him into the alcove.

"She's completely lost it," Roger muttered.

"What gave you that idea?" She glanced at him and managed a brief, half-hearted grin. Then she frowned at the wall beside her. "Huh. The vibration in the wall suddenly changed. The frequency's higher."

"Oh, great. What's about to explode now?"

"There's a humming, too. Distant, maybe at the far end of the ship."

"I can't tell. The ringing in my ears is too loud."

Kamala's eyes opened wider again. "It sounds like a jump drive engaging."

He didn't have to ask if that was a bad thing. Another jump into hyperspace would put them even farther from their friends and cut their chances of rescue from slim to none.

A faint, muffled roar came from somewhere behind Roger, and the lights flickered for a fraction of a second. The tentacles stopped moving.

"Okay," he whispered, "that, I heard."

"That was an explosion," Kamala whispered. "The hum is gone, and so are the vibrations."

"The engines must have overloaded." Roger sighed. "So now, wherever we are, we're stranded. I don't know if that's better or worse than the alternative."

Kamala shrugged her upper shoulders and pushed gently on the top of the pod, nudging herself out of the alcove. Roger followed. He glanced at her and a quick laugh burst out before he could stop it.

"Um," he muttered, pointing, "you might want to pull your skirt back up. Your goods are showing. Not that I'm complaining."

"Shit!" She grabbed her belt and yanked her denim skirt back into position. Her face turned darker red and she grumbled, "This wouldn't keep happening if I had hips!"

"Well, you're sexy enough without 'em." Roger reached out and she slipped her lower-right hand into his.

"Come on." She sighed. "Let's see if we can find a way off this damned ship."

#

"Is there a danger of these burning through the hull?" Asuka hefted the sleek rifle and stared at it.

"They are designed for use on ships and space stations," Astra replied. "They fire bursts of superheated helium contained in a magnetic field. They can burn through the hull, but only with sustained fire. A single shot will burn organic tissues and cauterize the wound at the same time, so there will be very little bleeding."

"What about inorganic targets? Robots and other machines?"

"It will disable most known mechs with several well-placed shots."

"Good enough for me." Asuka turned to face the rest of the group. Everyone had volunteered to help rescue their friends, and Asuka had been surprised to find that the variety of spacesuits was wide enough to fit everyone, even the extra tall and bulky anthros. They'd all gathered in the main cargo bay, which had an airlock big enough for all of them to fit into. "Everyone ready?"

They nodded or gave her a thumbs-up. The spacesuits were tight-fitting and looked a bit like futuristic suits of armor. The visors kept their faces hidden, making them look like an army of robots from some cheesy old sci-fi vid.

"Okay. Since Omega and I worked on the security team, we'll take point." Asuka waited for Omega to join her, then she turned back to the airlock. "Okay, Astra, we're ready."

The massive doors parted slowly. Asuka watched the crack in the floor widen until it was wide enough for everyone to descend the ladders. She and Omega led the team into the airlock, and Gasm's team of pilots quickly took a position behind them. Lopez carefully maneuvered himself over the edge and climbed down the wall with his electromagnetic footpads. Once everyone was inside, the inner doors closed, the air was pumped out, and the outer doors slid open.

The disabled ship was directly below. Astra had attached to the largest airlock it had.

Asuka, Omega, and Lopez stepped onto the alien hull and approached the airlock. Asuka looked around the edge and shook her head.

"I don't see anything that looks like manual controls."

"I'll give it a shot," Lopez said. A torch popped out of his left arm. He extended it to the airlock and began cutting through the doors. Twenty seconds later, he'd completed the burn.

The doors remained in place.

"Hmm." Omega nudged one of the doors and it floated down into the airlock. "There's no gravity on the ship."

Asuka pushed the other door away, grabbed the edge of the lock, and flung herself into it. She rolled forward and her feet touched the inner doors, and she bent her knees to decelerate slowly and avoid bouncing back. She quickly scanned the inner lock and once again found no manual controls. She nodded at Lopez and he cut through.

A puff of escaping air pushed the doors slowly toward her. She kicked off from the nearer one and drifted out of its path. "Watch out, everyone."

The doors flipped slowly end over end and bumped into Astra's inner airlock doors.

"That didn't hurt anything, did it, Astra?"

"No damage. I'll keep the airlock open in case you need to leave in a hurry."

"Thanks." Asuka gave the wall a gentle push to send herself through the door and into the corridor beyond. "The lights are all on, so we didn't knock out any other primary systems. Well, either that, or they switched over to a backup."

She glanced down to be sure everyone was following her. She faced forward again and found a sealed door coming up.

"Anybody detecting any life signs?"

Tank tugged on a protrusion on the wall and propelled herself forward. She pulled an ultratool out of one of her belt pouches and scanned the area ahead.

"Huh. Picking up lots of them in the distance, but none in our vicinity."

"How about other closed doors?"

"There's another one a little over a hundred feet ahead."

"Good. If we can keep this door intact after we get through it, we should be able to prevent any more air from escaping."

Tank glanced around, found a control panel, and scanned it. "Give me a minute."

Several other members of the tech crew joined her. They scanned the panel with their own 'tools and all of them began murmuring to each other.

"Think we've got it," Tank said two minutes later. She pried the panel off and fiddled with its innards.

Another minute passed.

Finally, the doors slid apart and a puff of air nudged Asuka backward. She led everyone through the door and nodded at Tank. Tank fiddled with the controls for a few seconds and the doors closed. The group moved on to the next set of doors and repeated the process, and once the doors were closed again, Tank scanned the air.

"It's breathable. Might be a good idea to conserve our suits' oxygen supply." She tapped the control panel built into her suit's left arm and removed her helmet. She inhaled carefully, nodded, and attached her helmet to a clasp on her lower back.

The others removed their helmets.

"So," Asuka said, "a minute ago you said there were lots of life signs?"

"Yeah, right at the edge of my ultratool's range." Tank frowned and ran her palm over her bald head. "Most of 'em were really weak, but over a dozen were normal, more or less. Their heart rates were elevated, at least by human and anthro standards." Tank smiled. "One of them has two hearts. Sound like someone we know?"

"Kamala." Asuka grinned and pulled herself along the wall. "Straight ahead?"

"Yep."

"Sweet. Let's go." Asuka grabbed every protrusion on the wall that came within reach, boosting her speed as much as she could. She led the group through corridor after corridor, and finally entered a large chamber with cylindrical devices lining the walls.

"This is where the weak life signs are," Tank said.

The group spread out around the chamber, taking a quick look into the windows in each cylinder.

"They're filled with people," Marissa mumbled. "All human, at least the ones I've seen so far."

"I've found what might be some anthros." Seth drifted across a bank of the pods and glanced over at Marissa. "Some feline and canine types over here."

"I've found some reptilian ones," Tank said from the opposite side of the chamber. "Could be anthros, could be aliens."

"And they're still alive?" Asuka pushed against the side of a pod and launched herself toward the door at the far end of the room.

"Barely. They don't look frozen, but it seems to be some form of hibernation."

"They're all wearing the same clothing," Marissa said. "Looks like a gray, one-piece uniform of some sort."

"Huh. Why are they in stasis?"

"Maybe this is some sort of deep-range colonial ship?" Seth shrugged and pushed off toward the door. "Heading off to some place that takes decades even by using hyperspace?"

"Maybe."

"Or it could be a prison transport," Omega said. "If they're all violent criminals, putting 'em in stasis would be the safest way to move 'em to a penal colony, or wherever."

"Thanks for putting that idea in my head." Tank sighed and pulled herself forward.

Omega chuckled and followed her.

"What about the stronger life signs you picked up?" Asuka waited at the door and glanced over her shoulder at the others.

"We're close."

"See if you can ping Kamala's ultratool," Marissa said. "Hers or Roger's."

"Gah, what didn't I think of that?" Tank pointed her gadget at the door and waited. A few seconds later, she let out a relieved sigh. "Both of them just pinged me back! They're here!"

"Al_right_!" Asuka pulled herself through the doorway. "Tell 'em we're on our way!"

#

"If I never see another tentacle, it'll be too soon," Roger grumbled as the group continued through yet another corridor.

"No kidding." Kamala managed a shaky smile as she gripped the edge of a doorway and swung herself upward into a branching corridor. "At least they've stopped trying to grab us." Probably because something even worse is about to happen, but nobody needs to hear that.

"Where are we going?" a male voice behind her called out.

"I've got a pretty good idea where the engines are, so it makes sense that the control room--bridge, or whatever you want to call it--is at the forward end. So, we're heading in the opposite direction of the engines."

"And how do you know where the engines are?" another voice shouted.

_Well, because I heard them explode._None of these people needed that one thrown in their faces, either, so she merely shrugged and said, "I'm a maintenance technician for a space station. Well, I _was_until part of the station got pulled through some sort of space-time rift and a bunch of us found ourselves spiraling into a black hole."

A familiar voice moaned directly behind her--the kid who looked like he'd stepped out of medieval times. "I don't understand what any of that means!"

"It just means she knows what she's talking about," Roger said. "We're both on the same repair team. We know a little about ships, though we've never seen one like this before."

"How can this be a ship? Ships have sails and travel on the oceans. And...and people's feet touch the ground!"

"Well, this one was built for traveling in space." Kamala glanced over her shoulder at him. "The sky. We're so far from Earth--or any planet--there's no air outside the ship. So we're sealed inside." She reached another fork and pulled on the edge of the doorway to propel herself into the upper corridor. "If we can find the control room, maybe we can find a way off this ship."

"You said something about a hole," one of the cowboy-sounding voices said.

"Black hole. When a star that's massive enough dies, it collapses in on itself until it's tiny, yet it has so much mass that it pulls in everything that gets too close. Even light gets pulled in and can't escape, which is why they're black. The only way to 'see' one is by observing its affects on nearby objects, or via gravitational lensing." Kamala looked around at the confused expressions. "Um, if you've ever seen a whirlpool, it's a little bit like that. Or a flushing toilet."

Brief, nervous laughter rippled through some of them.

They reached the end of the corridor and found a single door blocking their path. Kamala scanned it with her ultratool and smiled.

"I think this is it."

Roger fiddled with the control panel beside the door, pushing one button and then another. Finally, he found the correct one and the door slid aside.

Air rushed past her and into the room ahead.

Oh, that's not a good sign. Kamala floated past Roger and into a cramped compartment with a long viewport sweeping across the opposite wall. Beneath the viewport sat a console with three--

"Oh, hell." Kamala scrabbled for a handhold, found one, and stopped her forward motion.

"We've found the pilots," Roger said.

"Good." Henry's voice came closer as he spoke. "Think they can tell us what's going on?"

Kamala sighed. "Not without a ouija board." She moved aside and waved her upper-left hand at three somewhat humanoid corpses seated at the console.

Henry poked his head into the compartment, looked at the bodies, and winced. He sighed and returned to the corridor. "What do you think killed them? Not some kind of space plague, I hope."

Kamala scanned them and the data flowed into her brain. "Exposure to vacuum. The ones in the center and on the left suffocated, basically, and the other guy made the mistake of taking a deep breath before they lost their atmosphere; his lungs ruptured."

Roger took a slow look around. "No hull breaches. If there were, we'd hear the air escaping."

"Someone killed 'em, then," Henry muttered. "Decompressed the cockpit while they were locked inside."

"Could've been accidental. Or a malfunction." Kamala shrugged and pointed her ultratool at the console. "Controls are dead. Looks like--"

Something pinged her 'tool. She gaped at it and looked over at Roger. He was staring at the small holo-display floating in front of him.

"Someone--"

Kamala grinned. "An ultratool just came within range." She pinged it back and waited a few seconds. Another flood of data entered her brain and she grabbed Roger's arm and sobbed. "It's Tank!" She opened a comm channel and said, "Tank? Is that really you?"

"It's good to hear your voice, girl!" Tank replied.

"Yours, too!"

"Sit tight. We're only a couple hundred meters away."

"We'll wait right here." Kamala let out another sob and threw her arms around Roger.

"Who was that?" someone muttered.

"Our friends have found us! We're gonna be okay." She kept her lower arms around Roger and cupped his face in her upper hands. She kissed him and both of them clung to one another for a long time before they finally pulled back to catch their breath. Kamala embraced him again and whispered, "We're gonna be okay."