FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

15 January 2083

Kuga’s recovery was going well. He was still a bit slow to move, but he was back to his cheerful self. He spent most of the time in the lab. The ISA was buzzing about the algae sample that Kuga had found. Julio confirmed after examining the algae, that they are where the amyloids came from. That wasn’t the only thing he discovered.

“I had to put in a larger container,” Julio had his arms crossed.

Inside of the glovebox where they were storing the algae was a sealed liter sized beaker. The algae was growing at an accelerated rate. Julio led Diego over to the microscope.

“Take a look,” Julio let out a deep breath.

Diego looked into the eyepiece. The algae on the slide was showing itself growing in real time. Tiny tendrils were expanding from it. Diego looked at Julio with an inquisitive look.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Julio.

“Do you think we should move it off the ship?” Diego asked.

“I’ve already dumped some out of the ship,” said Julio, “But we’ll have to keep dumping it every day to make sure it doesn’t take over.”

“Do you think this is what the bacteria is doing?” the bat asked.

“For sure,” Julio said, “I’ve observed the amyloid causing the replication.”

“It replicates organic matter?” Diego rubbed a hand against his chin.

“That’s my going theory,” said Julio, “No telling what it would do if we came in contact with it.”

“Run me down what all we’ve discovered with this again?”

Julio sighed, “So, we’ve found a bacteria with a similar structure to a known protein bacteria on Earth known as an amyloid. So, the Fresco Caballero was a source of structure in the H. Bac.”

Diego paused him, “Is that seriously what Hugo called his find?”

“He’s an engineer, he thought it was cute because it goes with HVAC, his name is Hugo, and it’s a bacteria; so now we have H. Bac,” Julio rolled his eyes, “Anyway, now the Fresco Caballero is present in the Takeru Algae’s growth structure, and it’s causing it to multiply in an unusual way by rapidly accelerating growth. The H. Bac source is still unknown.”

“If this is the case, shouldn’t the cavern Kuga was in have just been completely full of algae?” Diego asked.

Julio stared at him in disbelief, “Did you just ask a smart question?”

The bat smirked, “You know it.”

Julio looked at the algae and back at him, “Maybe because of the moon constantly changing, the algae gets torn up and buried?”

“That’s a theory,” said Diego as he left the lab, “Keep searching for answers.”

Diego just asked him a critical question about something he didn’t think about. He had a new question that was going to drive him nuts. The hyena ripped a small sample from the algae and moved the rest into the space dump. He shot it out into space.

Today was their first time planning on going back down to Europa after the incident. Magnus and Hugo were outside of the ship with the Spider detached from the station so the gravity wouldn’t interfere. Hyperion was reading a comic on the inside while the two engineers worked. Hugo pulled one of the replacement drill heads from a compartment in the spider.

He made his way over to Magnus. The raccoon had the pipe extended. He had the lock reset and ready to be loaded up with a new drill. He grabbed one side of the drill when Hugo got to him. He got it lined up with the tiger, and both of them tugged the drill into place. Magnus checked to make sure it clicked in. That was the problem with space, no sound.

“We good boss,” Hugo floated over to the drill controls.

“Locked and loaded,” said Magnus.

Hugo retracted the drill. The both of them pushed it up into its compartment and locked it in. Magnus gave Hugo a thumbs up. He floated over the side of the spider and peeked into the window at Hyperion. The raccoon rolled his eyes. The fennec was indulging in the zero gravity environment. He was pushing himself from one end of the Spider to the other.

“Hyperion?” Magnus tried to get his attention.

The raccoon checked his communicator. It showed Hyperion had disconnected. The raccoon pushed off from the Spider and slammed a wrench against the side of the ship. That got Hyperion’s attention. The fennec looked out the window and Magnus pointed at his communicator. The fennec showed him it was on. Magnus sighed.

“Hugo!” Magnus called over to the tiger.

Same thing. The tiger didn’t hear him. The raccoon flew over and grabbed the tiger. Hugo looked at him inquisitively. He pointed at his communicator. Hugo was clearly moving his mouth. He then started calling out to anyone. No one responded. Magnus pulled Hugo to him and placed their helmets together.

“Can you hear me?” Magnus asked.

“Well enough,” said Hugo.

“Let’s go check the ship's antenna array,” said Magnus.

Hugo nodded. The two of them floated their way to the front of the ship. Once they passed the wheel, the both of them turned on their magnetizers to secure themselves to the ship. They made their way to the bottom of the ship. He exchanged a look with the tiger. There was algae covering the entirety of the antenna.

Magnus motioned the tiger to follow back to the airlock. Magnus didn’t bother taking his suit off and made his way up to the bridge. Hyperion got the Spider reattached to the ship. He jumped down the ladder when he saw Magnus.

“What’s wrong with communication?” Hyperion followed after the raccoon with no response.

“Captain! We have a problem,” said the raccoon.

Diego turned around in his chair, “Did something happen to the drill?”

“No sir,” said Magnus, “There’s a little something on our communications array.”

Magnus explained the situation. Diego and Hyperion returned to the antenna with Magnus and Hugo. Diego assessed the situation. He motioned them over to join helmets.

“Solutions?” Diego asked.

“Maybe we should ask the doc,” said Hugo.

“It’s an algae that self replicates,” said Diego, “One of the samples he sent out the ship must have gotten attached to the antenna, and can apparently survive harsher conditions.”

“How do we get rid of it?” Magnus asked.

“Wasn’t Kuga’s space suit covered in this stuff?” Hyperion asked.

“It was…” Diego paused.

“Decontamination,” said Hyperion, “Otherwise the ship would be overrun by now. There must be something chemically bad for the algae in the mix.”

“That would take forever to clean,” said Magnus.

“What about fire?” Hugo asked.

“We’re in space,” said Diego.

“So’s our engines,” said Hugo, “We take the antenna to the back of the ship, and bake the algae off. We do a short burst, enough to blast the algae, it shouldn’t harm the antenna.”

“It’s so stupid, it might work,” said Magnus.

“Make it happen,” said Diego.

Hyperion and Diego returned to the inside of the ship. Hyperion kicked Errol out of the pilot's seat. The weasel was confused until Diego explained the situation to him and Rasul. Rasul nodded and went to engineering to help Bruno prepare to do a quick burn. Hyperion watched the cameras.

Magnus and Hugo were floating the antenna to the back of the station with difficulty. Magnus had them carrying the bottom to make sure they were far away from the algae. The raccoon had them tether to the antenna and he let it float off behind the ship. Magnus held a thumb up to the camera.

Hyperion powered up. The rockets flared up and blasted their flames over the antenna. The fennec hit the kill switch. Magnus assessed the damage. The algae had been burned clean off, but the antenna looked scorched. Him and Hugo set into the task of getting it reinstalled on the ship. Magnus reconnected the power.

“Test?”

“Loud and clear,” Hyperion responded.

“Why did we fire up the ship?” Ken came into the bridge.

“Let’s go to the lab,” said Diego, “I’ll explain there.”

The wolf followed him.

“Julio,” Diego pointed at the algae, “Stop dumping that outside of the ship.”

“What? Why?”

“We just had to burn that stuff off the antenna,” said Diego, “It was blocking out communication with how much had grown on there.”

“You’re kidding?” said Ken, “It was surviving in space?”

“That opens a whole new field of questions,” said Julio, “I guess we’ll have to bring it back down to the planet after study so this doesn’t risk happening again.”

“Different idea,” said Diego, “The mixture in decontamination killed the algae on Kuga’s suit. Use that to kill samples each time, then you can dispose of it.”

“Got it,” said Julio as Diego left.

Ken looked over at the sample he was studying, “Figure anything new out?”

The hyena shook his head, “Just that it can survive in the vacuum of space and thrive.”

“I’m getting more core samples today, hopefully we get more clues,” said Ken.

“We can only hope,” Julio sighed.

Ken loaded up with Marc. Kuga was ordered to take at least a week away from the moon. Rasul was heading their trip down along with Magnus, Hugo, and Errol. The weasel touched them down into a spot in the northern hemisphere. Marc stuck with Hugo and Magnus to get the drill going and Rasul went out with Ken and the auger.

Ken set up the auger. He slid the core collector in place and turned it on. He stood there and stared at it for a moment. He was feeling uneasy about being back down here. He started to run the auger into the ground.

“You ok?” Rasul asked.

“Just nervous about coming back,” said the wolf.

“That’s understandable,” the wolverine squeezed him on the shoulder, “But we all decided to stay and continue the mission.”

Ken nodded. He looked over to the three men running the drill. Marc was proving himself useful. The wolf was happy. The kangaroo got along with everyone even though he was crass most of the time. His eagerness to learn and being friendly got him far. Even Magnus was showing him how to run the drill.

The wolf stopped the auger and pulled up the sample and reloaded, “We’re all fortunate to be together in this. You guys have been really good to us. Most ship crews just see scientists like us as something to drop off somewhere.”

“That’s why we were selected,” Rasul chuckled, “We’re the best at what we do. And we respect people.”

“An’ if ye didn’t respec’ us, we’d beatcha up,” Marc said.

“I doubt that,” said Magnus.

“I’d wrestle ye down,” Marc teased.

“You can’t even handle the doctor,” Hugo fired at him.

“Oi, now y’er jes bein’ mean,” Marc laughed, “But man, do I love how rough he is with me. Ye eva’ bin tied face down wit’ yer legs strapped to yer arms? Fuck mate, it’s good.”

“Fuck Marc,” Ken laughed, “Is that even sex anymore?”

“When he puts it in, yeah,” Marc grinned as he started to retract the drill.

“Better him than me,” Rasul said, he helped Ken pick up the auger and they moved across the field.

Marc slid the drone down into the hole they dug. Magnus built him an improved scooper that he could trigger with a switch. The kangaroo drove the drone through the cavern they hit. The planet was sure full of these. This one was no different, and no algae. He went as far as he could until his screen started to flicker.

“I thought that would happen,” said Magnus, the raccoon punched in a code on his wrist and Marc’s screen cleared up.

“What’d ye do?” Marc asked.

“I rotated the frequency,” said Magnus, “There’s something that interferes with the connection down there, so if I change it anytime the screen flickers, it should clear up.”

“Good thinkin’,” Marc nodded.

Marc drove in further and tilted his head, “What’s that?”

Magnus leaned in for a look, “Whatever it is, it’s unusual.”

Marc had the drone starting a wall in the cavern. There were deep grooves in the ice. It almost looked like they were carved out. Marc turned on the flash and did a few pictures. Magnus showed him how to do the infrared scan with the drone.

Once they finished up with taking pictures, Marc drove the drone back to the tunnel. He dove down to the bottom of their hole and activated his new scoop. He started to back his way up out of the hole as Hugo ran the crank. Marc pulled the drone up as soon as it was visible. There was a good bucketful of rocks for him to sort through.

“Magnus, thank ye for the scooper!” Marc sorted through the rocks like a kid in a candy store, “It got me some good samples.”

The kangaroo got his samples boxed up. He dropped his stones off on the ramp and returned to Hugo and Magnus. He passed them the vials to get a water sample and went to search the surface for anything interesting. Ken was working on his last sample when a message came in.

“Hey guys,” it was Hyperion, “There’s a surge of heat happening nearby. Might be a good time to wrap it up there, and maybe you can fly over and run a scan on the event. We haven’t been nearby when these geysers go off.”

“Good timing,” said Ken, “We’re done here.”

Marc came bounding over with his hands full of small stones. He dumped them into his box and locked it up. Rasul helped Ken put up the auger. Magnus and Hugo made sure the drill was secure before they loaded up to head out. Errol flew them over to the coordinates of the geyser event.

The eruption was already going off. Thick streams of vapor were blasting up from cracks in the ice. Ken and Hugo ran the scans and recorded the event. The water looked rather beautiful as it misted into space and refracted the view of Jupiter. They finished their scans and Errol brought them back up to the ship.

The weasel helped them drop their samples off and headed to his room to relax. He smirked when he entered his room. Hyperion left him a candy bar with a love note on his pillow. Errol ripped the candy bar open and started to chow it down. He added the note to the pile of notes on his nightstand. Hyperion leaned into the room.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“Good!” Errol patted his bed and the fennec jumped in to cuddle up with him.

“Lucky I spotted that hotspot,” Hyperion took a bite out of the candy bar, “How was it?”

“It was really pretty,” Errol nodded, “It was cool to see Jupiter behind the vapors. We got video and scans of it. Maybe we can watch it together later.”

“It’s a date,” Hyperion gave him a smooch.

“Bro, give me a proper smooch,” Errol the fennec to him for a deep kiss.

Hyperion giggled. He pushed himself against the weasel. Errol tugged against the fennec’s uniform as they made out. Hyperion pushed down against the weasel firmly, grinding himself playfully over him.

“Which one’s the pilot?” Diego asked from the doorway.

Errol giggled as Hyperion turned around bright red. The bat was smirking.

“We both like to fly,” Hyperion stuck his tongue out.

“Sorry to bother you guys,” said Diego, “But I was wondering if either of you adjusted our orbit?”

They both looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Well, when you both are done fucking, come help me figure out how to recalibrate our orbit,” said Diego, “We keep having to fix it. And it’s happening more and more frequently.”

Errol chuckled, “We can fuck later.”

Hyperion giggled, “Come on Papa Grande. Let’s get ourselves fixed.”

“I hope not,” said Diego, “I like my balls.”

“Me too,” Hyperion threw his hands over his muzzle.

Diego laughed, “You can always ask for them again.”

“I better be involved this time,” Errol flirted.

Diego ruffled both their heads. They passed by the lab where all the scientists were. Kuga and Harvey were working one station and Julio and Ken at the other. Marc was on his own as he was sorting through his rocks. Ken and Julio kept passing him more stones they found in the ice samples.

The kangaroo organized all his stones. He looked through his magnifying glasses, going through each stone. It was much the same he’d been finding. He held up a flat white stone with a soft glow on it. Marc wasn’t sure it was quartz the more he stared at it. He popped it on a slide and moved it to the microscope.

Marc leaned over the eyepiece and rolled the adjusters. It had a very distinctive and even shape. The edges were raised to the point and dropped down the middle into another point. It was perfectly shaped. Marc zoomed in further.

“No,” he whispered to himself.

“What?” Julio asked.

“Oh, jes a nice blend in this collection,” said Marc, “Real good finds.”

“If you find gold, I need to pay off some loans,” said Harvey.

“Right mate,” Marc slid the stone into a container.

Marc finished sorting through all of his stones. Julio got tired of finding more of the same stuff and left to go take a nap. The kangaroo left the other three there to their notes and headed up to the bridge.

“Cap’n,” Marc approached Diego.

“What’s up Marc?” Diego asked.

“Kin I talk to ye and Rasul?” Marc asked, “In private?”

Diego waved Errol and Hyperion out. Marc motioned for Rasul to join him and Diego as the two pilots left. He pulled the container with the stone from his pocket.

“What’s this?” Diego asked.

“I dint want to get everyone excited,” said Marc, “But I wanted te talk te ye both first.”

Rasul squinted at the stone, “Marc, what is it?”

“It’s a dermal denticle,” he said excitedly to blank stares, and he whispered, “Ye know, shark skin. The scales on em. This uns big.”

Rasul and Diego exchanged looks.

“Marc, are you sure?” Rasul asked.

“Mate, I find these all the time,” said Marc, “Our beaches are littered with em. I’ve also picked out several prehistoric ones out o’ the ground. This design es common, and et ‘as the usual wear an’ tear breaks of use.”

Diego and Rasul looked uncertain.

“How do I proceed?” Marc asked.

“Let's get the team together, and see what they think,” said Diego, “Better to have two heads in on this.”

“Right mate, they’re in the lab,” said Marc.

Diego and Rasul followed Marc back to the lab. Ken was still there working. He looked up inquisitively when they came in. Diego told the wolf to get Julio, Kuga, and Harvey. Moments later, the lab was crowded. Marc had the dermal denticle set up in a microscope.

“Aight mates,” said Marc, “I firmly believe that what ye dismissed for a stone, is actually not a stone. I need ye te confirm.”

Julio stepped forward, “I swear, if you made the next discovery…”

Julio put himself over the eyepiece. He rolled the adjusters as he turned the scale over with a pair of tweezers. Julio stepped back from the microscope after about ten minutes and slowly sank into a chair. The other three moved in to take a look. All of them were silent with looks of disbelief.

“We’re not alone, are we mates?” Marc asked.

“Fuck,” Julio stood up, “It can be a fluke right?”

“Julio, that’s genuine,” said Harvey, “Somewhere beneath the ice in the water is some sort of species that that belongs to.”

“We have to find more proof,” said Ken, “Without evidence of a living subject or a full fossil, we’ll be dismissed over something small like this. We’d need to bring more to the table.”

“They can’t dismiss this!” Julio was incredulous, “Why would they do that?”

Ken, Kuga, and Marc exchanged a few looks.

“What?” Julio stared them down, “What are you hiding?”

“There’s a reason they selected you to lead the team, isn’t there Ken?” Diego crossed his arms.

“Is that your permission to talk about it?” Ken asked.

Julio was getting furious, “Talk about what?”

Ken let out a deep sigh, “During an expedition on Mars, a team of sixteen of us were at a dig site. We were maybe fifty feet down when the discovery was made.”

“Discovery? A fossil?,” Julio pushed.

“Yeah,” said Marc, “We found one bone. We did all the scans and procedures to identify it was real. The investors swept et under the rug, and we were ordered te not bring et up again. The ISA ‘as kept close tabs on us te make sure we never talked about et.”

“Bullshit,” said Julio.

“Not bullshit,” said Diego, “They didn’t release the information because they didn’t find anything more. The leading investment group said they were likely lying about the discovery. The rest have been studying the find in private, out of public eye.”

Julio kicked a chair over, “Why the fuck do they send us up here then!? We find an important discovery that could prove life is here, and it doesn’t matter?! They want more!?”

“Julio, calm down,” said Diego.

“The fuck I’ll calm down,” Julio was heated, “The bacteria and algae was exciting, they received that well. Why not this piece from a fucking alien being?”

The rest of the ship had gathered around the lab to see what all the commotion was. Julio had his hands on his hips. Diego was frowning and the rest of them had their gaze hanging away from the hyena.

“They want more?” Julio nodded, “We’ll get them more. Such assholes.”

The hyena pushed by the crowd in the hallway. He went to his room to cool down. Marc went after him. Magnus poked his head in.

“I assume we found something important?”

Diego nodded, “We found proof of life.”

*****

Tucker was combing through the camera feeds from the Nova when the message came in. The rabbit received a text on his tablet, “This is Captain Lopez, requesting line Perky Bottom.”

Tucker stood straight up and ran off from his station. He quickly maneuvered his way down the hall and up a flight of stairs. He pounded on the office door of Allen Robinson. The badger opened up.

“Hacker, are you trying to wake the dead?” The badger looked like he was just woken up.

“Sir, line request for Perky Bottom,” said the rabbit.

“I hate that he made that a code,” Allen said, “Let’s go then.”

Tucker sat back down and got to work, “Securing the line for the next incoming transmission sir.”

Tucker did what he was good at. He made sure no one else outside of his network would get this message. It was a failsafe Allen had put in place to keep the crew safe. Only Abe, Tucker, and Pekko knew about it. The badger had lost trust in the ISA since the Mars discovery.

“Message is coming in,” said Tucker.

“Good job Hacker,” Allen sat down with him so they could listen in on the same headset.

Diego came on screen, “I hope your code works and your boys are as good as you say they are. We found something. We found a single dermal denticle. We are going to continue looking for more information and hopefully can prove this species exists. Also, the crew is now aware about what happened on Mars. Julio didn’t take it well, but we’re all determined to stay on track.”

The message cut off.

“Sir?” Tucker looked at Allen.

“Hacker, make sure this message is buried and destroyed,” said the badger, “We’re now working against the clock and the investors. I’m going to depend on your team a lot more going forward.”

“You got it,” Tucker nodded and began to obliterate the transmission from existence.