FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Clair lay wide awake in his bed staring up at the dark. Not an unusual situation for the captain of the ship as he found sleep to be an elusive beast for most of his adult life, but it was aggravated by a variance in the hum of the trans-matter drive. The engine of the Proud Mary had developed a small uptick in vibration in the starboard whip coil that he could just barely perceive. Still, he kept hearing that revolving drive momentarily vibrate higher about every two-thousandth or so rotation. It felt like a little weasel in his ear that kept running around and trying to gnaw on his sanity. He couldn't seem to force himself to ignore it even though his head engine specialist assured him that it was still running well inside safe parameters. He made a mental note to press her on looking into it further in the morning.

The engines were something that most people managed to stop hearing eventually. Along with buffeting air purifiers, gurgling coolant lines, and micrometeor impacts on the hull, they were part of the normal background noise always associated with a star vessel. Still, this was his ship. Sure, it was small, outdated, under powered, and had a finicky supercore, but it was his. It, along with the crew, was his responsibility. A little obsessive compulsiveness in matters of the ship was something he was prone to do.

“Open captain's control page." Clair said quietly. A holographic panel lit up above the bed, softly illuminating his quarters. The interface shifted and flashed translucent images of ship schematics and controls, instantly responding to cues given by Clair's eyes. On his left a large mound under the covers moved, disturbed by the light. The figure underneath rolled over against him sleepily and put a purple, two fingered, clawed hand across his chest. A long tail slipped off the bed and thumped onto the floor. The figure rested its elongated horned and feather crested head against his shoulder. It yawned, giving a good view of two rows of pointed teeth inside the wide maw. The color of the creature's scaly skin shifted hues in blotches of green as one of its eyelids slowly opened. A white, protective membrane slid back and revealed the yellow, cat-like iris.

“Mornin' a'ready?" The creature slurred groggily with a rough, but feminine voice.

The captain put his arm around the Onati, a reptilian species from the Raai IV system. “No, Zenais, go back to sleep."

The reptile grunted, pleased that she could stay in bed. She snuggled up closer to his warmth, putting a heavy leg across his smooth skin. Her tail tried to slide back under the covers with them, but only managed to stick out the other side of the bed. As typical of the females of her species, she was much larger than Clair was, but if she wasn't going to complain that his bed was too small than he wasn't going to complain that she was too big for it. He lightly scratched the white feathers under one of her horns until she fell back to sleep, returning to her deep purple contentment hue.

He busied himself looking through the inner workings of his ship. Everything seemed to be in order. The computer gave him a status report: A few dozen minor impacts from meteors and other space debris, a slight course correction was made to avoid a rogue comet that they should pass in twenty-eight minutes, radiation levels normal, air scrubbers at eighty-one percent, inertia stabilizers normal, gravity field set at zero point nine seven, engine core temperature stable, fuel usage normal, fuel supply at forty-seven percent, cargo container stable, and no crew issues reported.

There was nothing to be concerned about, but Clair considered the comet for a moment. That was a very close brush with such a large celestial object. Especially one inside a mapped passage through space. The computer should have plotted a wider course around it earlier. A quick search showed that it was indeed a previously unknown comet. Given the vastness of space that wasn't unheard of. It's good practice to put an iceberg like that on the map. The captain gave it a quick designation of Zenais585 in the computer along with it's relative size, velocity, and direction. The computer automatically updated the collaborative starmap on the interstellar subnetwork, giving other ships access to the information.

Almost instantly he received an message from the map AI moderator. It was requesting more detailed information. Hoping for density, composition, surface detail, and a host of other probably irrelevant data to add to the new entry. Evidently the AI was under the mistaken impression that the Proud Mary was an exploratory vessel. She was a cargo tug and wasn't equipped with a sensor array powerful enough to collect that data from this distance or speed. Clair wasn't about to burn up fuel in order to slow down and do that.

Clair's eyes blinked and flicked around the controls of the panel. A quick command was entered into the computer to shoot a disposeable bandit probe at the comet. It wasn't going to give the moderator everything it wanted, but that was too bad. It was the most he was going to do.

There was a dull “thump" that reverberated through the ship's hull and momentarily drowned out the other noises as the probe was launched. After a minute there was a chime at his door. Not unexpected since the probe probably woke half the crew.

“Come in." Clair called out, but not too loudly. He didn't want to disturb Zenais again.

The latch on the door clunked and it swung open. The dim illumination that was always present in the corridor silhouetted a female form. The female had eyes that softly glowed green in the dark.

“Captain, did you just send out a probe?" She asked.

“Yeah." Clair confirmed. “Found a new rock that needs to be mapped."

“In the middle of the night?" The female stepped into the room. There was a soft whirring as she walked.

“I was up." He said.

The female walked up to opposite side of the bed that the dragoness was sleeping and sat down next to Clair. In the light of the holographic panel her shape looked human, like Clair was, but her naked body had a metallic sheen to it. “You're always up. I wish you would take the sleeping pills that I've prescribed. You know how cranky you can get when you don't sleep enough."

“Sedatives aggravate my condition, Melody, you know that." He said dismissing the idea.

She rested the back of her hand on his forehead. Her metal skin was cool to the touch. “A good nights sleep once in a while would be worth it for you." She leaned in close to him. The panel lit up her face. She had a human face, lovely and youthful with perfectly smooth and unblemished dark skin. However, at the edges of her face the similarities to other humans ended and the metal and polymer panels of her cybernetic body started.

She smiled pleasantly and stroked his hair. “The crew can handle the aftereffects if that's what it takes for you to get some rest."

Melody was little more than a brain in a jar, except the “jar" was a robotic body. Despite her young and fit appearance she was elderly. Exactly how old she wouldn't admit, but Clair knew she had to be at least one-hundred fifty years given the antique model body she wore. It was old enough that replacing the proprietary synthetic skin was prohibitively expensive. Only her face had any. The interface system of her particular model was widely considered to be the tightest bio to tech porting ever created. The problem with the system was that it was too good. It had unsuitable buffering between the cybernetic and biological components, making her susceptible to outside influences and stimuli that modern prosthetics would screen out. She could even catch some diseases that modern models easily prevent.

That also meant that she wasn't immune to the effects his condition had on those around him.

Without asking she slid her legs onto the bed to repose next to her captain. Despite being mostly mechanical, the subdermal shell of her body was designed to mimic a real human body. It was segmented into thousands of interlocking panels held together by a strong but flexible underweave. The panels could slide and move against each other to allow a wide range of motion. The breasts and other “meaty" parts on it jiggled and reacted to outside forces naturally, lending fluidity to her movements and giving her a soft feel despite how she looked.

Clair put an arm around her and pulled the cyborg into a cuddle that mirrored the reptilian female on his left. Melody let out a gasp that sounded orgasmic. Every single panel on her body had a pressure sensor that gave her tactile sensations, but the sensors were designed to be dampened by synthetic skin. Without that she was hypersensitive. As a result of this she rarely wore clothing anymore as the sensation of them was maddening. All she covered herself with was a small pair of thong panties to hide her anatomically correct genitalia. Clair had asked her once if it was possible to turn off her touch sensors. Melody affirmed that it was, but having no feeling on her body was something akin to being dead.

Melody trembled against the captain, the feel of his skin and the warmth of the bed flooded her sensory units to overload. Clair ran his fingers down the cyborg's spinal plates, and she involuntarily arched herself in response, thrusting her metallic breasts into his face. There was a bundle of sensors where each of her nipples should be.

“Don't wake Zenais." He warned right before putting his mouth on one of the sensor bundles.

“Yii--!" The beginning of a scream started to emit from the cyborg before she could mute her vocal unit. She tossed back her head and clamped her hands onto her captain's head, grabbing two fistfuls of his hair. Her expression contorted into an oddly silent pleasure face. The eyes fluttered and the light behind them blinked on and off intermittently as the electric sensations jolted through her. There was a soft buzzing and rattling emanating from within as servo motors responded to conflicting orders. She shuddered and quaked like she was having a catastrophic malfunction. It was all she could do to keep herself from inadvertently crushing Clair's skull.

Clair danced his tongue on the cyborg's exposed sensory gland, edging on the over-excitable machine woman to the point of failure. He could taste iron and the sharp flavor of static. There was a mild aroma of ozone wafting out of the seams of her body. He decided to push her all the way. His hand ran down her back and over her strangely soft and quivering metal buttocks. A finger slipped under the thong and down between her legs. The cyborg shook her head, her lush, synthetic lips forming the word “no", but since her voice was muted Clair was unable to hear it. His finger slid along the opening of her artificial vagina, the orifice soaked with hot, slick coolant. The finger slipped between the folds and came in contact with the most concentrated cluster of sensors on her body.

The cyborg clamped her arms around Clair's head, squishing his face into her breast and coming dangerously close to actually injuring him. If he was in pain that didn't stop him from continuing. His tongue slurped over her nipple sensors. His fingertip traced the shape of her iron clit. Slowly at first, but soon gaining momentum. Melody shut her eyes tightly and gritted her teeth. An internal countdown started and systems began to automatically reroute priorities for her energy core, charging capacitors for a high-output burst. Her programming was committed. Even if her captain stopped it was going to happen. The timer reached zero and Melody's eyes snapped open as she threw her head back. She screamed soundlessly and the light behind her eyes blazed brightly, casting its glow across the ceiling. Her body twitched and spasmed as electricity jumped gaps inside her with a series of short buzzing hums. She couldn't form proper thoughts and a vast swath of her knowledge was momentarily blocked as her backup processor was suddenly designated as non-priority in favor of sensory input. For a short while she was nothing more than an automaton dedicated to a singular task.

Melody knew it was all in her mind. The actual feeling of euphoria was all just the small remains of her biological systems responding, but she was so attuned to the robotic body that she was certain that she could feel the climax surge through it. Not just the sensation of it that was programmed into her. She was aware of the individual circuits and wires as the signal passed through them. Since she had been in this body far longer than the one she was born with that shouldn't have been a surprise. The sensation arched from circuit to servo to sensor all the way though and back again. A closed loop of orgasm that slammed through her at the speed of light. Millions. Billions. Trillions of times. How long did it last? Ten to fifteen seconds on average? For someone who's brain had been upgraded to sense the passage of microseconds that was a lifetime.

A fail-safe to prevent an infinite loop of cumming finally tripped and the cyborg collapsed heavily against Clair. He caught her and settled her down against him. She was hot now, but not painfully so. Her coolant system was overtaxed and her chest heaved and gasped in an attempt to regulate it again. There was a strong scent of ozone on her oven-like breath. She tried to speak but nothing came out. The cyborg remembered her voice was muted.

“That was..." she panted with a grin, “...a m-mean thing to...to do to an old lady." She leaned forward and gave him a scalding peck on the lips before resting on his chest.

Clair smiled and hugged her close to him. With her sensors numbed by the intensity of the orgasm she was less strained by his touch and settled in comfortably. They were very different on the outside but she had once been as human as he was. As the only other human on the ship he felt a kinship with her that he couldn't share with the others.

The captain returned his attention to the projected screen above him when he heard a giggle at the foot of his bed.

Speaking of others.

Melody picked her head up and her eyes glowed in the direction of the giggle. Two familiar faces were caught in the light just before they ducked out of view.

“How long have you two been here?" The cyborg asked.

“Ever since “don't wake Zenais"." The dragoness on Clair's left grumbled. Her eyes were still closed but her skin was shifting blotches of blue and purple. “You forgot to close the door."

“Oh, you are awake." Melody noted.

“Obviously." Zenais muttered. “You know this is supposed to be my time, right?"

“Would you like me to kick everyone out?" Clair asked.

She sighed deeply. “No. I guess it's too much to expect to have one uninterrupted night. You did name the comet after me and that made me happy. To thank you I won't eat either one of them."

Clair reasoned that was more than fair. “Manjeet. Lulu. Up on the bed." He ordered.

There was a flutter of delicate wings and a small, thin alien rose up from the floor and over them. It plopped down onto Clair's stomach with a thud, crossing its two sets of arms and single set of legs in a huff.

“You wouldn'ta let her eat me, would you, Cap?" The three foot tall creature asked with a flowery voice. She had a black carapace that was liberally striped with bright orange and white markings. On her shoulders was a proportionately large head that mostly housed two shiny black eyes. The top and back of her head had a cluster of stiff, quill-like spines that were swept back like hair. Two long antennae sprouted from the forehead and her mouth had pouting lips that hid a set of sharp teeth behind them. Her body had two major components, the slender upper thorax and the larger lower abdomen. She was wearing traditional clothing of her people, which was little more than colorful, lightweight ribbons wrapped around that covered her groin and a few other choice places that were immodest to leave exposed. On her back a set of transparent wings folded behind her.

The alien was a Vask. Creatures that by accounts strongly resembles wasps from planet Earth. Though Clair wasn't able to confirm that since he'd never been to Earth or ever seen a wasp.

“Didn't I ground you for stinging someone?" He asked. That was rhetorical, of course. She knew full well she was supposed to be confined to the brig during her off hours. As of yet he wasn't locking her in there since she was supposed to have the discipline to accept the punishment willingly. He might have to change that policy.

“I didn't want to be grounded anymore." She declared, holding her head up stubbornly. Her mouth didn't move when she spoke as Vasks actually breathed through holes on the sides of their bulbous abdomen. Each of these holes had a structure similar to a larynx that allowed them to speak. Since they had twelve of these respiratory holes speaking in unison it lent a singsongy, melodic characteristic to their speech which sounded pleasant even though they were quite literally talking out of their ass.

“Besides, that was a totally justified stinging." She insisted. Clair couldn't help noticing that she was sitting with her abdomen, which housed the stinger in question, right against his groin. Only the thin blanket was there to protect him. The venom wasn't particularly toxic, but that didn't make him feel any better about it.

“If you're going to go easy on the bug again I might change my position about eating her." Zenais said.

“I have to agree, Captain." Melody said, which earned her a puzzled glance by both Clair and Zenais. “I mean, not about eating her. You've been letting her rule the roost since she got here. I know she's new, but she needs to have boundaries."

The Vask buzzed her wings angrily. “Don't talk about me like I'm not here. And what's this “boundaries" talk? I'm not a larva."

“I beg to differ." Melody retorted.

“I'm eighteen months old!" She argued. “I've been an adult for a while now."

Vasks are exceptionally short lived, typically expiring from old age at around five years. To make up for that shortfall they have hereditary cognition, meaning they are born with knowledge genetically passed down from their parents. They emerge from their larval stage already understanding language, mathematics, history, physics, etc, at a similar level as their parents understood it. What's more they tend to absorb new knowledge much faster than other sentient races. It has been speculated that the only reason they don't rule the entire galaxy at this point is that their short lifespan prevents them from ever learning how to be mature. They continue to exhibit childish behavior throughout their lives. Vask political systems tend to be restructured at the whims of whatever juvenile group has managed to seize the power. This power changes hands on a regular basis, so in a given Vask lifespan they may be born under a dictatorship and die under a republic, with attempts at anarchy, socialism, theocracy, and monarchy in between. This adolescence was evident in Manjeet, as she was an incorrigible brat.

Clair put up his hand to halt the escalation of the argument. “They're right, I've been more than lenient with you and your--" The captain stopped himself. Glancing around he realized someone was missing.

“Where the hell is Lulu?" He asked.

A pair of antennae peeked up from the foot of the bed. “Down here, sir." A harmonious voice said meekly.

“I told you to get on the bed."

There was a pause. “Manjeet told me not to, sir."

“I'm the captain and I told you to get on the bed." Clair explained. “Now get on the bed."

Lulu seemed unsure, but she finally crawled up anyway and sat down at his feet.

“All the way up." Clair told her while waving her forward. “Come here and sit next to your sister."

She hesitantly moved closer, finally sitting down on the bed between Melody and Clair, taking a lower, subservient, position next to Manjeet, who glowered down at her. Lulu kept her eyes shyly downcast, her body bowed in humility. She was also a Vask, but slightly different than her sister. She was thinner and had no wings. The yellow and white markings were less pronounced. The hair spines on her head were shorter. Her body ribbons were dull and a bit tattered. In human parlance she was a worker, which would make Manjeet a queen. In Vask society she was a sterile lower class in service to the few breeding females. In this case that was her younger sister.

“By the hive," her queen scoffed, “you're so pathetic."

“Hey!" Clair admonished. “What did I tell you about talking to her like that?"

Manjeet let out a snort, tossing her hands in annoyance.

“Don't blame her, sir." Lulu spoke up. “This is all my fault, I told her it was okay to leave the brig. We--" She glanced up at her sister. “I mean-- I wanted to see you and she was bringing me... because, you know, I wanted to."

“See, Cap," Manjeet said, “ I didn't do anything wrong."

“Wow." The lizard spoke. “You two are terrible at lying."

Manjeet put two of her hands on her hips. “You're one to talk, Miss I'm-Annoyed-so-My-Skin-is-Blue." She said with a voice even more singsongy than normal.

Zenais growled at the little wasp girl. The shimmering blue blotches of her skin pigmentation deepened and spread with a few swirls of red thrown in.

“But I did want to see him!" Lulu said. She glanced around, shocked at her own forwardness. She put all four of her hands on her head in embarrassment. “I-I'm sorry, sir."

The captain sighed and scratched his chin which had the abrasion of two days stubble on it. The sisters were having difficulty acclimating to life on the ship. Each of them for different reasons. Manjeet was accustomed to having dozens of her sisters meeting her every whim. It was challenging for her to attempt self reliance when she never had any reason to. Instead she leans heavily on Lulu to serve her in the way she has come to expect, becoming abusive when she can't fulfill that expectation. Conversely Lulu feels obligated to continue to serve her sister, but she was used to having others help her in that regard. The burden is far more than she can handle, but she's unwilling to refuse her sister. She has been so loyal that she even shared Manjeet's punishment in the brig and tends to take the blame for most of her sisters disruptive behavior. He had considered separating the two, but they steadfastly refused to be apart for any reason. He was afraid forcing the separation would do more harm than good anyway.

Clair rubbed his eyes. He was tired. This “dear leader, captain" crap was starting to wear on him for the day. Maybe he would try some of Melody's sleeping pills.

“Alright, here's what's happening." He said. “You two have a scheduled private night with me, don't you?"

Manjeet and Lulu looked at each other. The queen nodded. “Yeah, in three days."

“I'm going to cancel that." He said.

Manjeet slammed her four tiny hands down on his chest in disbelief. “What!"

Sir! No!" Lulu begged.

“I'm sorry, but you're not giving me much choice here." Clair explained.

“B-but I can't..." Manjeet was suddenly flustered. “I need..."

“Sir, don't make us wait longer!" Lulu begged. She grabbed her queen by the arm and shook her gently. “Tell him you're sorry! Please!"

“You can't... you... you... I'm... I'm really, really sorry!" Manjeet insisted with a wail.

The two sisters crowded in on him, begging and apologizing. Their musical voices a choir of “sorry"s, “sir"s, “please"s, and “don't"s. Their pencil-thin fingers pawed at him insistently and antennae tapped tiny apologetic kisses on his face. There was a sweet odor to the two. Like honey. Their abdomens stuck up in the air behind them, bobbing back and forth in an inviting manner.

Clair endured the pleading assault for a moment, earning some mirth from the cyborg and reptile. Their captain put his arms around them with his hands over their mouths to keep the two from laughing.

“Don't do this!" Manjeet begged. “I can be good! Please, Cap! I swear! I'll stay in the brig and everything!"

At her side Lulu pleaded her own case, even though she was being drowned out by her louder sister. “It's my fault, sir! I wasn't watching her closely enough! Give us another chance to do better, sir!"

Unbeknownst to them the captain had slipped his fingers into the mouths of the other two females. The cyborg sucked on the digits of his right hand individually, moistening them with her synthetic lubricant. The Onati slathering her long tongue between the fingers of his left hand.

Clair reached behind the two Vask girls and grabbed them both by the underside of their abdomens. Their musical complaining ceased immediately and their black eyes widened in shock. He rubbed his saliva slicked hands up their backsides. They had downy hairs on their carapaces that were sensitive to touch, they tickled his fingers. They were soft and their bodies were warm. He could feel their abdomens expand and contract rapidly as their breathing quickened. The sister's thin arms clutched at each other, each trying to support themselves and not doing a particularly good job of it. Manjeet gulped as his fingers worked their way towards their stingers. Lulu made a soft, fretful, gasp.

“Stingers in." Clair ordered.

Their bodies complied in unison, the sharp points withdrawing inside as Clair buried a lubricated finger into each of them.

* * *

Aydia lounged cross legged in the navigators chair, her booted foot swinging absentmindedly. Her eyes were closed and her head bobbed in time to the music in her earpiece. Her lush, brown, wavy hair bounced in sympathetic motion. She was noisily chewing on a wad of bubblegum. A strange delicacy that she had gotten off of a human cargo ship. The sweet flavor of it went away eventually, but the gum never got smaller or dissolved. Once the flavor was gone she assumed you were supposed to swallow it.

In front of her a helmsman was dutifully manning his station, poking away at the screen with disinterest. He was playing a simple computer game that involved tossing animals at a brick wall in an attempt to knock it down. He tapped his clawed finger on the screen over a graphic of a primitive slingshot, dragged his claw back and released. A tiny graphic of what he understood to be a cow launched forward and slammed into the wall with an excessive splatter of pixelated gore. The wall trembled but didn't fall. A second animal that the computer identified as an elephant gleefully jumped into the slingshot and waited to be launched. The game was inane and ultimately pointless. Probably in another three or four hours he'd get bored enough to quit.

The helmsman was launching the elephant when he heard a new noise. A strange warning beep that was familiar but he couldn't remember it ever occurring in the game before. He snapped himself out of his daze and looked over at the proximity panel. There was a light flashing on it.

“Uh, Captain! Captain, we have an incoming bogey!" The helmsman spoke up excitedly.

Aydia leaned forward in her chair and pulled the earpiece out. “Anything good?" She asked, her tail wagging expectantly.

The helmsman poked at proximity panel and opened the scan data. He grimaced. “Class C tug freighter. Tortoise model. An old one. Probably a private hauler. She has a light load too. Only one shipping container."

Aydia let out an annoyed grunt and sat back in the chair. Two weeks! They've been shadowing this damn nameless comet for two fucking weeks and the first bit of game that comes by is some hard up schmuck who's probably hauling toilet paper to the ass crack of the universe.

She sighed. “Let it pass. Signal the other ships to maneuver the comet between us and the target. I don't want to risk giving away our position."

“Aye, captain."

Another beep emitted from the proximity panel and a second light appeared.

“Ma'am, another bogey." He pulled up a second scan report. “Bandit probe. It's heading right for the comet." He tapped the screen a few more times. “Judging by it's approach it's going to detect us in about five minutes."

Aydia groaned and thought about the situation. They could easily move away from the comet and outside of the probe's short detection range, but that would mean leaving the sensor shadow of the comet. The freighter's normal scans would be able to pick them up clear as day. Either way their cover was blown. Finally she shrugged. “I guess we could use some toilet paper."

“Excuse me, ma'am?"

She shook her head. “Shoot the probe down as soon as it's in range and signal the others to prepare for an attack. Small game is better than no game. This spot was pretty dry anyway."