FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Astra," Asuka shouted as she followed the rest of the group sprinting through the corridors to the control room, "any idea what the power build-up is?"

"Sensors have detected multiple power sources at equidistant points throughout the hull. Their locations don't conform to any known engine or power-supply design, but are placed at the precise points needed to ensure that nothing can be salvaged if they explode."

"Bombs?"Fucking hell.

"Very likely a secondary or tertiary self-destruct system. Detonating the engines or reactors would be enough to destroy the ship, but the former were disabled and the latter may have lost the software or hardware necessary for overload."

"So, the ship had at least one backup." They reached the control room and everyone entered at a dead run. "Someone was _really_determined to blow up that ship."

"Did we set it off?" Shakira braced her hands on the central console and gasped for breath. "Did it happen because we were poking around in its computer systems?"

"It's possible," Astra said, "but I don't have enough information to be certain. Acceleration underway."

"We're leaving?" Kamala stared at the ship in the holographic projection above the console. "Isn't there a way to stop whatever's happening?"

"I've been attempting to do just that, but have not been able to enter any of the other ship's systems. The best course of action is to move us as far away as possible before it explodes."

"But...all those people!" Shakira covered her mouth with both hands and backed away from the holofield. "Isn't there anything we can do?"

"Not without placing all of you in danger from radiation and debris. Continuing maximum burn. Minimum safe distance in--"

A blinding flash overwhelmed the entire holofield before Astra's sensors could measure the explosion's intensity and dim the display accordingly. Shakira and Kamala flinched and Roger bellowed a curse. Some of the color drained from his face as he continued staring wide-eyed at the image. Shakira turned away, took her glasses off, and rubbed her left hand over her face. Tears trickled down her cheeks.

Otto put his arms around her and held her silently.

The flash faded and Asuka turned back to the holo-projection in time to catch a glimpse of a ball of flame snuffing out as the last of the ship's atmosphere was consumed, leaving an expanding cloud of debris, its edges glowing white-hot, zipping outward like thousands of bullets.

"Rotating to present the smallest possible profile to the incoming shrapnel," Astra said softly. "Stand by for impact."

"Jesus Christ," the cyborg woman muttered before closing her eyes and looking at the floor.

A pattering of distant pings and tinks rattled over the hull for several seconds. Then, silence except for the barely audible whoosh of the atmosphere recycling system.

"It's my fault," Shakira sobbed. "I was poking around in the computer without knowing what I was doing. I pushed the wrong button--"

"No, honey, you don't know that." Otto held her tighter and rubbed her back. "It could've been a malfunction. Or if it was an auto-destruct like Astra said, anything could've triggered it. We were all turning on control panels; any one of us might've started the countdown just by powering up one of the computers."

"The kid's right," Asuka said. "It could've been anything."

"It could also have been the last link in a chain-reaction started by destroying the engines," Astra added. "Or a simple glitch or short-circuit caused by the same action. Either way, it could be my fault as well as anyone else's."

"Yeah." Otto kissed Shakira's forehead. "Don't blame yourself."

She embraced him and shook with silent sobs.

"How many people did we just see die?" Kamala whispered.

Roger shook his head. "Don't go there." He stood behind her, put his arms around her, and nuzzled her cheek.

No one spoke for nearly a full minute. Finally, the cyborg turned and trudged toward the door. "I don't know about anyone else, but I need a fuckin' drink."

Gradually, the others left the control room, trickling out in pairs or alone. Asuka followed them and realized after a moment that they were heading for the mess hall. The cyborg walked over to the beverage dispensers and looked them over until she found what she wanted. She carried the plastic bottle to the nearest table and dropped herself onto the chair with a weary sigh.

The rest joined her, some of them picking up drinks of their own. Kamala coiled up at the end of the table and slumped over, propping herself up with her lower arms and burying her face in her upper hands. Roger picked up a drink for each of them, placed one in front of her as he sat, and put his arm around her. Shakira sat with her shoulders slouched, but managed to smile slightly when Otto activated a self-heating coffee container and handed it to her. He pushed the button on the bottom of his own coffee, kissed her, and sat beside her. She stared at the floor for a few more seconds, then shivered.

"I just realized something that makes my skin crawl," she muttered. "When Otto and I were stuck on that deserted planet, after wandering around for a while we found an abandoned city." She shook her head slowly. "And the first thing we did was start turning stuff on just to see if any of it worked. Just like we did on that ship."

Asuka glanced around the table and found everyone's expressions shifting subtly as Shakira's meaning sank in.

Shakira placed her coffee on the table, rubbed her hand over her face, and seemed to remember that she was still clutching her glasses in her other hand. She put them back on and picked up the coffee. "I wonder how many times we came within a single button of overloading the city's power source or something equally disastrous."

Otto put his arm around her and she leaned over slightly to let her head rest against his.

An idea came to Asuka and she nudged Otto's shoulder. "Speaking of that planet you were stuck on, how did that happen? It might help take everyone's mind off...well, this. Or if nothing else, it might take your mind off it."

He shrugged. "If you guys really want to hear it...."

"Sure." Kamala nodded, reached over to touch Shakira's shoulder, and managed a shaky smile. "I've been just a bit curious about it."

"Me, too," Roger added. "I'd like to hear it."

"Definitely preferable to thinking about what we just saw. There's nothing we can do about it, anyway." The cyborg lady took a sip of her drink. "Let 'er rip."

Shakira shrugged, took a deep breath, and let it out quickly. "Well...okay. It started one afternoon when I took a basket of laundry into the utility room, and the entire world fell out from under me."

#

Over a year ago....

"Whaaaaaaah!" Hot wind suddenly blasted across Shakira's face as she plummeted to the ground. Before she had time to get her mind around what had just happened, she plowed into a sand dune and sharp pain tore through her left ankle. She rolled over and lay there, crying, for several seconds before she raised her arm to shield her eyes from the harsh sunlight.

The laundry basket lay upside-down to her right and its contents were scattered all around her.

A shimmering in the air above her caught her attention. She squinted and blinked a few times.

What the hell?

Almost directly above her, ten or twelve feet up, was a roughly circular...spot...with the familiar ceiling and wall of the utility room behind it.

No, not a spot. More like a window._She gaped at it and shook her head slowly. _A window, just hanging there in midair.

She took a slow look at her surroundings, whispered, "Shit," and let a long breath wheeze out. All around her was nothing but desert. Rippling dunes with wind blowing sand across the tops, blue-green sky, a few clouds here and there--and nothing else.

What..._She shook her head again. _Oh, fuck me. This can't be happening.

She pushed herself up, tried to put some of her weight on her left foot, and cried out at another sharp pain. More tears streamed down her cheeks and she slumped against the side of the nearest dune. After taking a moment to catch her breath, she looked up at the "window" and called out the first name that came to mind.

"Otto!" She took her glasses off and dried her eyes with her shirt, then put them back on and stared at the...thing in the sky. "Otto? Jack? Corona? Taura? Kim?"

She waited.

There was no reply.

"Oh, shit. Oh, shit! Can anyone hear me? Hello?" She sobbed and clamped a hand over her mouth. Either I'm hallucinating, possibly from hitting my head when I fell...or I'm in very, very_deep shit._

She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath for a few seconds until she'd regained control. She took a few slow breaths and tried to think of something else to try.

"Oh, hell," she grunted as an idea popped into her head. She fumbled in her pocket for her phone, dug it out, and tapped Otto's name in the contact list.

He answered before the second ring. "Hey, Shakira, what's up?"

"Could you tell me if you see anything weird in the utility room? I need to find out whether I'm imagining things or not."

"Uh, sure, I'll be right down. Hey, are you okay? You sound like you've been crying."

"I took a tumble. Feels like I twisted my ankle. Or sprained it."Or broke it. But I don't want to distract him with that.

She waited to hear his voice again, probably for no more than a minute, but it sure as hell felt like an eternity.

"What the fuckin' hell is that?"

Shakira laughed despite her predicament. "So, I guess that means I haven't gone nuts?"

"Well, if you're talking about the thing that looks like a portal in the floor, then either you're not nuts, or we both are."

His head and shoulders appeared in the window--portal, or whatever the hell--and now she had a way to estimate its size.

Looks like it's a little bigger than an average human. Just big enough for my fat ass to fall through. Terrific.

"Can you hear me?" she shouted.

"Yeah. Your voice sounds funny, though. Kinda...echoey. Distorted."

"Huh. Your voice sounds the same. Must be the...whatever that thing is."

"Yeah. Hold on." Otto tapped his phone's screen and held it to his ear. "Hey, Jack, could you run to the nearest store and pick up some rope. Like, a lot of rope? At least twenty or twenty-five feet, just to be sure. Well, I would, but you wouldn't believe me. Check the camera feeds for the utility room--but do it on the way, okay?" He nodded and smiled. "Great. Thanks. See you soon." He tapped the phone again. "Taura? Could you bring some bottles of water to the utility room? Yeah, some of the big ones--_all_of 'em, actually." He shrugged. "Like I just told Jack, you wouldn't believe it. You'll just have to see for yourself. Okay, thanks."

"Thanks, Otto." Shakira smiled up at him.

"Any time." He peered through the hole and glanced around. "So...doing your laundry, eh?"

"Trying to." She chuckled and shook her head yet again, marveling at how simply seeing Otto's face had calmed her. "I might have to see if I can toss 'em all back up through the hole or they might never get washed."

"Better stay off your ankle. As soon as Jack gets here with the rope, we'll pull you up and put some ice on it." He glanced to the right suddenly. "Ah! Thanks, girls."

A reddish-brown, scaly arm appeared in the portal, handing Otto a gallon bottle of water. He immediately dropped it through the portal and it thumped into the sand a few feet in front of Shakira. She scooted forward and picked it up.

"Just in case it takes Jack a while to bring the rope," he said.

"Thanks." She realized sweat had already started to bead on her forehead and more trickled down her armpits and sides. She opened the bottle, took a sip, and screwed the cap back on.

"What the hell is this?" Corona's dragonish face appeared in the hole, staring down at her with wide, red-glowing eyes.

Shakira waved at her, shrugged, and chuckled. "How's my tan?"

Taura's bovine face appeared next, gaping down at her and then flicking her eyes around to take in the miles of sand.

Shakira shrugged again. "I may have fallen through the floor in our house and into the middle of the Sahara." I doubt the Sahara has a greenish-tinted sky, but I really don't want to think about what that might mean.

"Hmm. I'm gonna try something." Corona stretched out on the floor, stuck her left arm through, and thrust it past the edge of the hole. She bent her elbow and slowly pushed her hand up past the edge of the portal. "Oh, that's fucked-up. My hand is above the opening, should be roughly level with my head, but it's not in this room."

Taura gasped, grabbed Corona's belt, and hauled her away from the portal. "It's shrinking!"

"What?" Shakira lurched to her feet and squinted. After a few seconds, she realized the edge of the portal was indeed inching toward the center. "Oh, no!"

Otto's face turned pale. "Where's Jack?"

"Probably still on the way to the store." Taura glanced at him, shook her head, and raked her fingers through her hair.

Otto stared at her, then at Corona. He turned to meet Shakira's gaze and his face shifted subtly, as if he'd decided on a course of action.

"Otto," Shakira whispered. "Don't--"

He grabbed five more bottles, tossed them through the narrowing portal, and bent over to grab something out of her sight.

"I'm gonna miss you guys. I guess we'll see you when we see you." He dived headfirst through the portal, clutching his backpack in his right hand. He managed to flip over on the way down and plunged toward the ground ass-first.

Shakira lunged to the side and her leg buckled under her weight. Pain lanced up through her ankle again and she fell forward.

"Otto!" both anthro women shouted at the same time. "Shakira!"

Otto landed a few feet away with a thump and sent up a puff of sand.

Shakira rolled over and looked into the sky. The portal was gone. She sat up and stared at Otto as he picked himself up.

"Kid, are you insane?"

He glanced at her, then up into the sky, and shrugged. "I couldn't leave you here alone."

She sighed. "Well, what now?"

"Well, first thing we need to do is find shelter before we get roasted alive." He reached over and nudged her shoulder. "That might take a bit longer for you, but since I'm whiter than Elmer's Glue, I'll probably have blisters all over in about half an hour." He glanced around and reached over to pick something up. "Wow. That's the longest pillowcase I've ever seen."

"It's for a body pillow." She shrugged and looked away. "I like to have something to cuddle when I sleep."

He grinned, gathered up the clothing strewn around them, and stuffed them into the pillowcase. Then he slipped his arms through the straps on his backpack, shoved the water bottles into the pillowcase, and slung it over his shoulder. He turned toward her, opened his mouth, then hesitated.

"Um...you said Sahara?"

"Yeah. Or maybe the Sonora. Preferably that, since it's closer to home."

"I think we're a considerable distance from either." He nodded at something behind her, and only then did she realize she hadn't thought to look in that direction.

She turned and found two suns in the sky, one smaller than the other--or, rather, farther away. She turned her wide eyes back to Otto and muttered, "Jesus Christ."

"Guess that explains why the air looks a little green." He began pivoting slowly, squinting at the horizon. "We're in more trouble than I thought."

"Uh-huh. No shit."

He continued turning, then stopped abruptly. He frowned into the distance, dug his phone out of his pocket, aimed its camera, and pushed the zoom to max. He snapped a photo and turned back to Shakira.

"Huh. What do you think?" He handed the phone to her and she stared at the image of a tower made of dark metal rising from behind a set of dunes. Its shape and color practically screamed, "alien."

She shivered, took a moment to get a grip on herself, and passed the phone back to Otto. "Shelter?"

"Looks like it's all we've got." He reached out to her. "Let's get moving. The sooner we're in the shade, the better."

"My ankle...Otto, I'm only gonna slow you down."

"Maybe I'll speed you up. Ever considered that?" He smiled, leaned over to grasp her hand, and pulled her to her feet. He slipped under her left arm, supported some of her weight, and pointed in the direction of the tower. "I'm not leaving you out in the middle of the fuckin' desert. We're both gonna make it through this."

"Otto--"

"Don't argue with me. Just walk." He stepped forward, keeping one arm around her waist and his other hand clamped onto her wrist, preventing her from pulling away and giving her no choice but to limp alongside him.

She sighed. "Fine. I'll try."

"That's better." He smiled as they trudged through the sand. "Come on. We've got a lot of ground to cover."

#

"Bloody hell," Luana muttered, shaking her head slowly. She and Morrison had entered the mess hall a few seconds after Shakira had begun talking, and other members of the maintenance crew and the people they'd rescued from the alien ship had trickled in after them. "That must've been terrifying."

Shakira shrugged. "We were lucky enough that the planet had a breathable atmosphere. From what I've heard you guys saying about one of those rifts cutting off a part of the space station, you were in a much worse situation. That had to be even more terrifying than what we went through."

"Terrifying" doesn't even begin to cover it. Kamala sighed, leaned her head on Roger's shoulder, and kept the thought to herself. "As well as everything that happened after, yeah. We barely had a chance to relax until last night."

"Our predicament wasn't nearly that bad once we reached the tower," Otto said. "We didn't know whether we'd ever find any food or water, but it's not quite as immediate a threat as exposure to vacuum."

"You obviously found food and water, though." I'd really prefer not to dwell on all the shit we've barely survived. Kamala leaned forward slightly and kept her smile on. "What else did you find in the tower? What was it like?"

"It was goddamned creepy." Shakira sipped her coffee and released a slow breath. "It was about half a mile tall, narrow, and irregularly-shaped. Had parts jutting out here and there. Black all over, with red trim and lights that glowed red at night. But the creepiest thing of all was, it wasn't even attached to the ground. It_floated_ fifteen or twenty feet in the air, and had floating platforms all around it, hovering at uneven heights."

"No," Otto muttered, "that wasn't the creepiest thing. The single most unnerving thing is that it was completely silent. Whatever held that thing in the air, it didn't make a single sound. I would've expected a throbbing or humming, or something like that. But no, not so much as a whisper."

Okay, in trying to avoid thinking about harrowing shit, I've just been fed even more_nightmare fuel. Fucking awesome._ "How'd you get into it if it wasn't touching the ground?"

"One of the hovering platforms was low enough for Otto to climb onto it and pull me up. Then the platform lifted us to an opening in the side of the tower." Shakira shrugged again. "We found the place deserted. Started exploring, trying to find food. Found some consoles that were still active, found the food stores, water, and so on. We had no way to test it, so since we knew we'd die if we didn't try it, we just started eating. Obviously, it worked out. Some of the stuff didn't taste too bad, but a lot of it was...bland, at best."

Otto chuckled. "And some of the stuff, a billy goat wouldn't eat."

Roger laughed. "What else did you find?"

"It was kind of like a self-contained city, only vertical. We found living quarters, shops, restaurants, spaces that looked like malls, swimming pools with stagnant water, gardens with weird, alien flora that had grown out of control--no animals, though. That was another weird thing. No people or animals. No remains, either--no rotting bodies, skeletons, or anything at all. It was like everyone simply left all at once. Or vanished."

"We spent months exploring the tower," Shakira added. "We found vacant quarters--places that looked like apartments or hotel rooms--everywhere we went, so we didn't need to go back to a specific room every night. Gradually, after playing around with consoles here and there, we began to figure out how everything worked. Eventually we figured out the communications system, got it working, and called for help."

"Other than that, we didn't have a whole lot to do. Once we got the media centers working, we discovered some interesting music, but videos, audio, and text were all in an alien language, so we couldn't get much from 'em." Otto shrugged. "For all we know, we might've seen the last messages of a dying civilization, describing what was killing them off, and not realized it."

Yeah, I'm not getting any sleep tonight. Kamala shivered and Roger gave her lower hand a gentle squeeze.

Otto steered the conversation back to a more pleasant topic. "We had a lot of time to just sit and talk, or walk around and talk. And late in the afternoon we'd find a big window or a balcony and watch the suns set." He glanced at Shakira and grinned. "And, eventually, we'd cuddle while watching the sunset."

"So," Asuka said with a smile, "is that where you two 'hooked up?'"

Otto grinned and Shakira looked away and cleared her throat.

"We didn't think we'd ever leave that place," Shakira mumbled, staring at the floor. "We thought we'd never see any of our friends or family again. We thought we were going to die there."

"I don't have any regrets." Otto kissed her cheek.

"I don't, either." She smiled.

"Well, you're a lucky woman." Asuka wiggled her eyebrows. "I saw him naked once, and he's hung like a horse."

"He cums like one, too. I'm amazed I never got pregnant." Several seconds passed and Shakira clamped a hand over her mouth. "Oh, shit! I actually said that, didn't I?"

Otto simply grinned and gave her a double thumbs-up. She took off her glasses and covered her face with her hands.

"That's disgusting," a woman seated two tables away grumbled. "He looks like he's underage."

"Not that it's any of your business, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me." Otto turned to stare at the woman. "Until the next time, that is. And the time after that. And so on. And if you give my babe any shit about it, you and I are gonna have a_serious_ fuckin' problem."

"Take it easy, Otto." Shakira chuckled nervously and patted his hand.

Otto held the woman's gaze for a few more seconds before turning back to the table and sipping his coffee. He shrugged and looked up at Asuka.

"Actually, the thing I'm wondering about is, when the hell did you see me naked? I can't remember that ever happening?" He arched an eyebrow. "Or is it something that happened in your past, but our future?"

Asuka's eyes opened wider and her mouth took on an "O" shape. She tugged on her collar and shrugged.

"Uh...spoilers!"

"Huh-uh." Shakira put her glasses back on, leaned forward, and stared, unblinking, at Asuka. "Girl, you've got some explaining to do."

#

"It happened after an explosion on the Io station," Kamala said, deciding to simply answer Otto's question rather than make him and Shakira suspicious by dancing around it. "Fuel cell on a shuttle blew and breached the hull. Roger and I were caught in the hangar when it happened. A piece of debris knocked him out and I managed to grab a breather mask and put it on him, but I passed out from lack of oxygen before I could get mine secured. You did your little phasing-through-the-wall trick, found me, and put my breather on properly. Saved my life." Kamala shivered, but managed to smile. "When you passed through the wall, you also passed through your clothes. You were naked when the bay was sealed and repressurized. Asuka and the security team found you that way, and I guess she took a good, long look before you could put your clothes back on."

Shakira arched an eyebrow at Asuka, but couldn't hold back a chuckle.

Asuka shrugged. "Well, when you find something like that in front of you, how can you not look at it?"

"I've found myself thinking the same thing on several occasions." Shakira shrugged back. "No harm done, then."

Kamala let a long breath out slowly, relieved that this conversation didn't turn into a fight. To steer it farther away from the current topic, she turned to Morrison and waved her lower-left hand at his prosthetic.

"How's the leg?"

"Seems to be working fine, so far." He nodded at the boxlike device attached to his arm. "Luana and I got worried about this doohickey and went straight to Medical so Astra could give me a thorough scan. We were afraid it might be doing things to me that I'd really prefer it not to."

"Astra didn't find anything except medications designed to prevent infection and help his body adjust to the prosthetic," Luana said. She smiled, put her arms around him, and cuddled.

"We ended up spending the whole night there." Morrison grinned. "Only the last few hours involved sleeping."

Otto and Shakira exchanged a quick smirk and glance.

"I have a feeling a lot of us had the same idea last night," she said.

Luana wiggled her eyebrows and smooched the side of Morrison's muzzle.

He laughed softly, nuzzled her, and took a sip of his coffee. "So, did we miss anything? We have a couple of ideas how to handle that other ship."

Everyone fell silent and stared at him for a few seconds before looking away. Kamala leaned her head on Roger's shoulder and stared at the table until Luana's voice drew her attention.

"What? What's wrong?" Luana glanced around at everyone. "We _did_miss something, didn't we?"

"Yeah," Roger said softly. "That ship...exploded."

Luana and Morrison gaped at him. Luana finally managed to mumble, "What?"

"A small team boarded it to check things out," the cyborg--Nova Luchenko, she'd said her name was--said. "Shortly after we started investigating, Astra detected multiple power surges. We evacuated and she moved the ship away moments before the explosion."

"I'm pretty sure we set off some kind of failsafe when we were poking around in the computers," Shakira said, her voice almost a whisper.

Otto held her hand with both of his. "Come on, we've been through that already. It could've been any one of us, or it could've been something else entirely."

Morrison sighed and slumped over the table, propping himself up on one arm and rubbing his other hand over his face. "Shit. I'm sorry."

"All those people," Luana mumbled, and Morrison put his arm around her again.

"At least they probably never realized anything was wrong, and didn't feel anything when it happened."

Everyone else remained silent and didn't meet one another's gaze for the next several minutes.

Finally, a lilting tone came from the speakers overhead, followed by Astra's voice. "Approaching the coordinates of the next nearest star system. Preparing to drop back into normal space."

"Guess we should head back to the control room. Or bridge, or whatever it's called." Roger rubbed Kamala's back before standing.

"Yeah." Shakira drew in a deep breath, let it rush out, and pushed herself off the chair. "Let's go see what kind of bad news we're about to run into now."