FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

<Viola, huh?> Ilaria sighed as opened the bulkhead to the command module for the day. <You're sure you want to meet her?>

Michelle, alone for once, pouted to her mother as she misinterpreted her body language towards the negative. <I know you don't like her much, but she saved my life. I'd like to know her better, perhaps even learn a bit about how to defend myself as well.>

<How to fight, eh? I saw that... thing that calls itself a girl, and...> Ari found the Captain's console and turned on the display. <Well she did get the job done, even if it looked like she went through a butchering factory. I'll let you meet her, but I have to be there until I'm satisfied you're safe.>

<Thank you!>

<I owe her a second look for watching after you during that raid. She seems crazy, but I suppose being tormented by a demon will do that to anybody.> Ari flipped through a few search panes, then found a security feed showing the girl in question. <Ah, I found her. She's somewhere below, but I'm not sure where. Give me a moment and I'll figure it out.>

<Sure!> Chelle looked around the dark room, then squinted her eyes as she noticed a hint of infrared light coming from the very front near the pilots' seats. <I'll be over there, mommy.>

<Sure thing, dear--though... could you maybe stop calling me 'mommy'? I know you're not even a year old, but with the way you've grown it just...> "What's the right word...?"

<Okay, ~mom~. Don't freak out over nothing. I just thought you liked it.> Chelle grinned and headed over to the heat source that piqued her interest, then crept up behind the strangely dim glow. <Hello?>

"Gods, that's hot..."

Chelle signed out her words to herself, her paws being the only way she could activate her brain's language centers for her symbiont to understand her. <Europa, could I get some help?>

"Absolutely, mistress." The veile faded from her host's sight with a smile, then a moment later reappeared as their comprehensible electromagnetic bracket of sight tightened closer to visible light. "Is that any better?"

<Oh, definitely. Thank you.> No longer relying on a faint infrared blob, Chelle noticed that the person under review was the pilot from a few days ago. <Ah, that makes more sense. She's cold-clooded, isn't she?>

"I do believe that's the case, mistress. Her name was Alexandria, I believe."

<She liked Trick from what I remember. Hello?> Chelle tried again, but shuddered when she noticed the small notebook that was in the amphibian's hand. <Is that...?>

"Hmm... It's still early enough..." Trick slid her free hand down the lip of her pants, revealing the trapped scent of arousal to her undiscovered audience. "Might have to hold onto this for later, too..."

<She's...> Chelle checked on her mother for a moment, then snapped her gaze back to Trick. <Mom said we couldn't have sex. She said nothing about watching others.>

"I'm not so sure about that." Europa tried to block her host's view of the private moment, but was forced to vanish instead. "Maybe it's best for everyone if you kindly stop Trick before she gets started. No need to make things awkward for later."

<You're right... as always...> Chelle sighed in defeat, an action that didn't quite hold up to her stealth status. <Oh, wait-->

"Eeeeeh!?" Trick shot upright from her relaxed slouch, her slathered hand flying straight upward, as she quite conspicuously tried to play off her good time like she was doing nothing at all. "I-I was j-just checking my s-station!"

"Trick? You in here?" Ari stood up and made her way over, towering over the seat's back at just the right angle to see the top of Trick's pants undone and her wet hand hovering inches from her face. "Are... Were you...?"

"Ma'am! I'm so sorry, ma'am!" Trick quickly adjusted her uniform and sulked in her chair. "Please don't get rid of me! I'll never do this again, ma'am! I want to fly this beautiful ship!"

"Woah, woah..." Ilaria placed a paw on the girl's shoulder and shushed her until she calmed down. "Just do your job and you won't be punished, remember? We're easy-going on this ship, Trick. I could care less that you needed some stress relief. At least you were smart and picked a quiet part of the ship in the early morning."

"I'm... I really am sorry, ma'am."

"You don't need to say that every time you talk, you know. This is a civilian ship, remember? In fact, you don't need to wear that uniform either if you want--though it might be best to wear ~something~ around the others." Ari found the notebook Trick had dropped in the commotion and picked it up from the floor as she fixed her attire. "You dropped this."

"I, uh... That was here already." Trick handed the book back and pointed to the pilot's control terminal. "It was stashed behind the screen. It's... not yours, is it?"

"I've never seen this before. No." Ari thumbed through the notebook, but as she actually started to read the contents she froze in place. "This... Oh gods, it was ~hers~."

"Hers?"

"Robyn's..." Ari's eyes went wide at the very graphic descriptions of some of their more personal encounters detailed in the book, suddenly understanding why Trick had the urge to cram her hand down her pants. "...Sorry. She was the fur that got this ship up and running, and the one who named her."

"Robyn... Remington? No, some other rifle make."

"Winchester."

"Yeah, that's it. I went to school with her." The way Trick smiled told Ilaria there was a fair amount of respect present. "We tried to take a few classes together in college before I swapped to the military academy. Smart as they came, to the point some of her ideas trumped the engineering professors. She was a hell of a beast in the sack too." Ilaria's brain nearly popped at that last statement, but Trick was all smiles. "So she built a ship? She was enthusiastic enough about it, that's for sure."

"You two... uh..." Ari shook off the sudden imagery of Robyn and this girl scissoring and forced herself back on track. "No, not the whole thing. We took it from a useless heap to the amazing craft she is now, though."

"So how's she doing? She still around? I'd love to look her up for another friendly fuck or two."

"Hey, that's my wife you're talking about!"

"I... Your...!?"

"Ah... fuck." Ari sighed and pointed to the mantle behind the Captain's chair. "You couldn't have known. Sorry. That's her over there. She... lost her life defending the elevator with this very ship."

"I'm... so sorry." Trick's eyes started to well up a bit, again telling of the kind of relationship she had with Robyn. "Fuck. She had so much spirit, too."

"Enough for the whole world."

Trick chuckled as she mumbled something to herself. "One girl in all the world..."

"Hmm? What's that?"

"Oh, here. Let me see that." The amphibian flipped the diary to a certain page in the back, and amidst various others sat an incomplete poem. "There. That's the side I started reading first, before the, uh..."

"I didn't know she liked poetry. We weren't... married very long though."

"Well you had enough ~adventures~ together I'd say you were together for a lifetime." Trick's eyes suddenly focused downward to the lower wraps of Ilaria's sirat. "Some more interesting than others. These stories aren't... a hundred percent true, are they?"

Ari finally took her eyes off the poems and locked eyes with Trick's, the girl cowering back from her curious stare. "You mean do I have a ~dick~? I don't mind; I've started to come to terms with that part of me." Ari pulled aside her sirat drapes and revealed a large bulge in her gym shorts. "The answer is yes, by the way. Just don't be too vocal about it."

"Uh... S-Sure." The amphibian's eyes shot to Michelle next, curiosity now blazing in her eyes. "While we're on the subject..."

"Yes, she has one too. Well, three actually. That's a hard one to explain." Ari closed the diary and nudged her snout to the amphibian's long, thick tail. "Now for you. You look like you're a frog splice of some kind, but what's with the tail?"

"My mother was a salamander, but yes the rest of my family was frog."

Ilaria reached out and nearly touched a set of barbell piercings around Trick's nose, amongst the many, many piercings adorning the girl. "And those? I thought you couldn't join the military like that."

"Space pilots have a safer position, especially transport pilots. They let us get whatever we want done as long as we can maintain it on our own." Trick showed off the under- and topside of her tail, two rows of bars running the complete length. "I'm proud of my work. I've got some strange ones." She flopped her tail back down and noticed a small bump in Ilaria's top. "Oh, you've got one too? So why didn't you get both girls done? The pain?"

"No... Robby wanted to get this done, and I don't like the idea of going back alone for another."

"Well if you ever feel the need to balance the set, let me know. I've done most of mine by myself. Oh, don't freak out, but..." Trick undid her pants again and slid them down, then rolled down the front lip of her panties to reveal two rows of metal dots likely leading down to her privates. "There's a girl in Wildebrook that does the tricky ones for me though, if you're ever in the area. I'd never know how to do these right."

"Claire, right?"

"Yeah, actually. How did you know?"

"She did this for me... and I've sort of been her testbed for a few more." Ari contemplated raising the stakes and whipping her dick out for a look, but settled for hinting to her groin with a paw. "She does some that are... useful as well as nice to look at."

"Tell me about it. These down here go all the way through. I've had a guy pass out because it felt so good for him." Trick's face flushed darker as she realized what just leaked from her brain through her mouth. "Sorry, ma'am. That might have been too far."

"Don't worry about it, Trick. I was looking for someone I could be open with and it's nice I've found her." Ilaria smiled and placed Robyn's diary on Trick's arm rest. "Here, keep this for now. Some of the stuff in there looks like it could help you figure out the Starbreeze's systems."

"Thanks, ma'am."

"Ari. Just call me Ari when we're not on task, please." Ari turned to her child with a smile as well. <I found Viola, Chelle. You ready to go?>

"Oh, is ~that~ the case?" Trick exaggerated her mouth muscles as she spoke to Chelle. "You can't hear, can you?"

"She can read lips really well. You don't need to do that." Ari raised a finger and then signed a query. <Have you girls figured out how to talk to other people yet?>

<When we're together we can form text with some effort. It's really hard with only one... 'ghost', though. Sorry, there's no sign or spelling for that word.>

<Symbiotic. No, symbiont. Sorry, I'm looking this stuff up in my free time.>

<Oh, that's a good word for her. Thanks.>

Ari nodded and turned back to Trick. "She can't respond without her sister, but you'll be impressed when they do. They've got some fun tricks up their sleeves." Ari chuckled as she pondered her wording. "How did you get that nickname, anyway? Or is it a callsign?"

"It's... sort of a badge of honor, I guess. The guys and gals used to call me the best trick on base. Got me a lot of perks, too. On a base, pussy goes for a premium." Trick lolled out her extremely long, metal-studded tongue and winked. "I do have a few tricks up my sleeves too, I guess."

"That's... Wow, I didn't see that coming. I could see that working out though." Ari laughed as she started heading towards the hallway, the beginnings of a tent pushing out of her shorts. "Now I'll giggle every time I say that name."

"Then don't." Trick slurped up her tongue, her several dozen studs in the muscle making a low zipping noise as it rippled against her lips. "Call me Alex if we're being friendly."

"Sure thing, Alex. Definitely nice to getting to know you better. Don't work too hard, hon." Ari stepped into the hall and waited for Chelle before signaling for the hatch to close. <Ready? Viola is in the fore cargo bay near Uncle Yoyo.>

"Bye, Ari!"

"Bye, Alex. Don't forget to clean up your mess when you're done."

The door shut to a burst of laughter, leaving the two with their own quiet conversation and the hum of the engines. <Want to try out the new gravity field emitters in the elevator shaft?>

<You know I can't understand science-speak like this. Simple, honey.>

Chelle started leading her mother to the elevator shaft and stopped by a control panel. <Want to nullify--turn off the gravity?>

<Oh, yeah. You're sure they won't... uh... malfunction?>

Chelle placed a paw over the panel, her queii near her paw pads interfacing with the system and turning the emitters on in an instant. <In a moment they should have enough charge to repel the Earth's gravitational field.> Chelle once again found her words lost on her mother. <We can float in a moment.>

<Sorry, sweetie. I'll learn that level of signing eventually.> Ari reached her good arm into the shaft, then grinned as her child's invention started to work. <Really cool, Michelle.>

The cargo bay's safety doors started to open as they sensed the lack of gravity on their sensors. <Yay! We can float down now.>

<Lead the way, honey; you've got more reach.>

Chelle lashed one of her vines to a handle near the bottom of the shaft and grabbed her mother's arm, gently tugging until they both coasted downward. <Did it look like Mik was having fun with Uncle?>

<Yeah, somewhat.> Ari tugged on her daughter just enough that they'd both torque for a hindpaw-first landing. <She looked a bit timid though. So do you, by the way.>

<I do?> Chelle touched down and shot out another tendril to tug the pair out of the shaft. <I do ~not~!>

<Calmer, then?> Ari adjusted her balance as she crossed the threshold, then fumbled with her prosthetic leg until it was settled straight. <You're surely not the same as when you're with your sister, whatever you'd like to call that.>

Michelle rolled her eyes and trudged toward the front hold. <I've got to learn independence at some point. We can't always stick together.>

<And I think that's great that the two of you are...> Ilaria huffed as the wording eluded her, falling back on audible speech for a moment. "You're expanding your horizons, and that's a good thing. I love the two of you, and I want to see you learn to take care of yourselves."

Chelle slowed down her heavy pace so her mother could catch up, then threw her arms around her waist for a quick hug. <I love you too, mom.>

<So where is your sister...?> Ari looked around, then heard a piercing crack resounding from the next hull over. <Got 'em. Your uncle really shouldn't be firing anything inside the ship, though... Baby girl?>

Ari just then realized Chelle was now clinging to her side for dear life. <What was that!?>

<You heard that, sweetie?>

Chelle shook her head, then jumped as another shot was fired in the other room. <What's making my chest shake!?>

Ari could only pet her child's hair as she sympathized with her disability. <Look at me, honey.> "That's a concussion wave, Chelle. When you fire a gun, like your Uncle Yoyo is doing now, the gases on the inside expand and make a wave of force. If you could hear, it'd be enough to hurt your ears."

<That's... Unkle Yoyo?>

Ari nodded and helped her daughter start moving again. <It's okay for now. As long as one of us is behind the gun, you don't need to be frightened. Want to go see what your sister and Yoyo are up to?>

Chelle flinched again as another shot was fired, but recovered vastly quicker now that she was armored with knowledge of the event. <Yeah. I want to see Mik.>

Ari smiled as her daughter grew a little tougher before her eyes. <They're right through here.> The two crossed into the forward-most cargo hull, finding the other two furs they were seeking laying down on the floor and pointing Yoyo's railgun at the fore loading hatch--reinforced with a few plates of scrap metal and about a yard's thickness worth of wooden palettes from the reconstruction crew. "Yoyo! Cease fire!"

Another shot rang out, thankfully without the aid of the superb electromagnetic propulsion the rifle offered. <That's better! Don't grab the grip so hard though. You'll pull to the side doing that.>

Ilaria groaned as she was forced to wink her ears shut just as her brother apparently had been doing. «Yoyo! To your left!»

Suddenly Iolvin's head popped up as he received the wireless message from his twin. <Khaila, toggle the safety. Your mother and sister are here.>

Yoyo's words fell on blind eyes as Mikhaila noticed them herself and ran to greet her sister with a strong embrace. <Sister!>

<Sis!>

Yoyo shook his head and flipped the safety himself, then stood to greet his own sister. "Those two act like they've been apart for ages. It's only been half an hour, right?"

"Yeah, and you're already having her fire a deadly weapon." Ari walked over and gave her twin a drawn out kiss. "I trust you, Yoyo. Thanks for helping with this."

"I don't mind, Lulu. I love spending time with my nieces."

"Have you... spent any ~special time~ with them yet?"

Yoyo grinned and shook his head. "No, I haven't fucked either of them yet. I'm assuming that's hell for you though."

"Every night, and this morning too. And in the shower." Ari sighed and looked to her girls. "They're a pawful, but I'd have it no other way."

"Well you look like you're taking it in strides today." Yoyo chuckled as the twins predictably laced their tendrils together. "You having a good day?"

"Nothing too special. I just..." Ari smiled as she thought back to her find earlier, enticing her brother to smile back with her. "Robyn just found a way to surprise me from the grave is all. Did you know she still kept a diary?"

"Yeah. She wrote poetry and stuff in that still. Same one from college, I think."

"Well it surfaced in an interesting way, and now I can't get this unfinished one out my head." The otter rolled her false arm around in its synthetic socket as she mumbled a piece of that rhyme. "One girl in all the world..."

"She never showed me that one." Yoyo gave his sister a hug and nuzzled her snout. "Glad she's still with us in her own way though."

"Yeah, me too. She's always there in our kids as well." Ari looked over to the two as they lightly giggled between themselves. "It's a shame she couldn't see them grow up like this. They're even learning to be independent way sooner than we ever did."

"So I thought the point of them splitting up today was just that, they wanted to be apart for a while? We doing baby steps first?"

"No, just a pit stop." Ari checked on her girls, then looked around the rather barren cargo bay. "Actually, have you seen that Viola girl around? Chelle's looking for her and she's around here somewhere."

"That mutt girl? She's around the divider over there."

"She's not a mutt, Yoyo. She's just a rare breed for us." Ari looked in the direction her brother hinted towards and saw the briefest flash of the African wild dog's leg from around the divider panels. "Cool, I see her now. Thanks, lil' bro."

"Think nothing of it, Lulu."

Ari waved to Chelle and spoke aloud so Yoyo would understand her too. "I found her, sweetie. Come with me if you still want to see Viola."

Chelle nodded, then gave her sister a tight hug in parting. <I sure do!>

"Alright. She looks busy though, so no surprising her." Ilaria walked over in Viola's direction, her daughter quickly passing her in a jog, and waved back to her brother. "See you later, Yoyo. Maybe we can do lunch?"

"Sounds like a plan. Later, sis."

"Alright, let's see..." Ilaria poked her head around the edge of the metal divider. "Viola? Siamun? Whatever you're called?"

Suddenly the tip of a wooden pole swooped in front of Ari's face and stopped two inches from her nose. "Ah, it is you. It is wise to never sneak up on me when I am training."

Ari reeled back her head until the weapon touched the floor. "So you ~do~ have some discipline in you. Hey, where'd that pole come from? There's not much wood like that on my ship."

"There was a small room in my quarters where this was stored on a rack." Vi hiked up the makeshift quarterstaff and offered it to the otter. "Would it please you if I offered to replaced it, in all my glorious grace?"

"That's a coat-hanger rod from a closet. Put it back where you found it." Ari spotted Zoë watching both her patron and the wild dog from the back of the room and nudged her snout her way. "Hey, Zoë. She worth watching?"

"I'm learning a few ways to shift my weight around from watching her. It's informative at least, even if we use different weapons." Zoë looked over to Yoyo and smiled. "I figure it's good in any case, learning to better defend Iolvin."

Ari looked back into the makeshift training area and found a dozen various knives, sharp objects, and even pens stuck deeply into wooden targets. "So she's got some skills? Hey Zoë, care to join us? I'm thinking we could have a bit of a training session together."

Viola perked up and smirked at the thought. "So you seek my purest wisdom and skill in the martial arts? Very well. It may prove entertaining."

"A little pompous, but I'll take it. Thank you, Viola."

"I am always generous to my loyal followers."

Ari shook her head and fought back a laugh as she turned to Chelle. <You ready for something different, sweetie?>

Michelle enthusiastically nodded her head and rushed over to surprise Viola with a friendly hug. <You bet!>

"I've got this one about set up, Lulu. Don't we have another?"

"Prisma and I'll grab it from topside." Ilaria tapped her android friend on the back of her shoulder and they started towards the anti-grav elevator shaft. "We should be able to lift one of those targets, right? Yoyo's already doing enough work setting up the firing range."

"Yes. Balance aside, I should be able to lift two of those deflection targets with ease."

"Cool. Thanks for helping, hon." Ari stopped at the threshold to the shaft and grabbed a ladder rung so she'd have some control once losing her weight. "You know, you're getting much better at English now. Have you and Sprite been studying speech recently?"

Prisma grabbed the same rung, but propelled herself all the way up to the next floor so she could help Ilaria regain her footing. "We have, though most of our time has been spent developing my new body upgrades."

Those upgrades were showing too, the arm that snagged Ilaria's being almost an exact replica of her own oddly muscular prosthetic. "Did my whelps have anything to do with that? They made me a new arm, and apparently have a leg coming along as well."

"Our builds are heavily derivative of their designs, yes." The android helped Ari to her hindpaws and then stood still while she gave a quick inspection. "Do you not approve?"

"Oh, that's not it. It's just unsettling when you're all... artificial muscle now. You had fake fur before."

Indeed, Prisma more resembled a skinless anatomical muscle reference than a living being. "We are still attempting to replicate one of your children's complex skinning systems. Until we devise a proper replication method, sadly our motors must be exposed to the outside world."

"Well didn't you have... ~you~ to make a skin?" Ari walked over to the airlock on the starboard side and circled around the back of their targeted target. "I mean, I'm cool if you like the whole robot look; I actually think it's really awesome. But aren't you technically a pool of nanites? Where'd those go?"

"We... ~I~... am indeed a wetware being composed of trillions of individuals in a collective." Prisma crouched down, then lifted the target effortlessly save for the balancing. "Though due to my... our..."

Ari pressed against the target and steadied it so they could both begin moving it. "It's alright. You can use plurals for all that."

"Thanks. Well, we're able to easily change our density, so as it turns out we're quite efficient as a smart hydraulic fluid." The android slowed to a stop at the edge of the shaft, spotting Carbon, Cid, and Fleur on the opposite corner. "Aside from our central cortex, we reside in our motors now. Your own nanites do the same for your actuators, though they are fairly more complicated due to your daughters' designs."

"So my blood powers my fake muscles? That's kind of creepy, but I guess it's effective." Ari lowered her end of the target for a moment to catch her breath and noticed Carbon as well. "Oh, hey guys. Showing Fleur the ship?"

"We owed her a day together and she wanted to--" Carbon ducked down as thunder sounded outside the hull. "... Uh... W-We decided to take her places she's never been before."

"Huh. Well keep in mind we're doing some installation down in the hold. The rest of the Starbreeze is yours as you see fit." Ari picked up her side again and slipped into the elevator shaft, using the ladder as her anchor and pivot as Prisma did the same. "Hope you have fun, Fleur! We're off!"

"Non. Imposseeble." Fleur stepped back as the two slowly guided the heavy gunnery target down the shaft. "I refoos to enteer zhat deasth trap."

"It's okay, Fleur. There's nothing to worry about." Carbon poked his head in and checked the whole lower end of the shaft. "So the girls got that working? I thought they--?!"

Ari chuckled as Carbon jerked back from some more thunder, but forced herself to quit when she saw how terrified his expression appeared. "You're really not okay with thunderstorms, are you? Anything I can do to help?"

"N-No... Just finish what you're doing. I'll be fine."

"Well if you need anything, I'll be down here. Might I also mention... you can't really hear the storm from the hold?" Ari diverted her attention for a moment as they moved far enough to require her to switch ladder rungs. "Don't be afraid to hide down here with--"

Another bolt of lightning struck down, this time close enough to disrupt power in the Starbreeze. As anti-gravity failed Ilaria immediately curled her arm around her ladder rung. She looked down to Prisma next, hoping she'd done the same and scuttled the target. Instead of that ideal outcome however, she watched in seeming slow-motion as the helpless android fell to the floor of the shaft. Then a hollow, squishy crunch echoed as Prisma's head and chest imploded under the weight of the falling load.

" Prisma!"

Carbon snapped into action, adrenaline forcing himself to overcome his fear-induced paralysis to tend for the wounded. "Don't touch her! I'm on my way down!" He looked around, then simply leaped for lack of quicker options and landed on cushioning stilts of tendrils. "Oh, shit. Her main cores weren't in her head, were they?"

"I don't know!" Ignoring the warning, Ilaria dropped down in a similar manner as Carbon and shoved the target off the poor android. "How... How do we fix this!?"

"Eve, what are our chances here? You know more about fiir than I do."

Evelyn shrugged her shoulders in frustration. "I don't know. She wasn't a normal drone-type fir. I'm analyzing."

"Well we need to think of something fast in case time is--"

Sprite fluttered into view and hovered over the limp body, atypically showing a pained expression on her normally vapid face. Then a message popped up in Carbon's sight, flickering and fading like the artificial fairy was having trouble with the connection. <We... We are joined... and over... limits...>

"Damn. Ari, the small one, uh... Sprite, is having issues now too." Carbon crouched near the body and pulled back Ilaria's flustered paws. "We don't know what touching her in this state would do to her. Please don't touch. Eve, any ideas yet?"

"I can't be sure... but it felt like Sprite had more of a presence to her than normal." Eve floated next to the smaller automaton to study her erratic motions. "I think they're both in there, in that smaller body. If they were a paired entity like I think, maybe the larger one tried to back herself up and is having a hard time squeezing into the smaller one's shell."

"So how do we fix that?"

<Po...wer...> The message only appeared for a split second, but Evelyn cloned Sprite's words for her host. <Nanites...>

"Crap. That makes more sense now." Eve brought up a diagram and illustrated her points. "They really aren't two beings, but trillions that designate and delegate tasks to one of two host shells. Prisma's shell broke and the fii took a shock, but the majority are still partially functional. It'll take a few hundred specialized fii to repair each one, but that's worth it if their data--her memories--are left intact."

"So we need several hundred trillion fii to fix her? You know how much æti that would consume?"

"We could get by with about a million or so, but it would take longer." Eve grimaced as she thought of the various outcomes. "The longer we take to fix this, the more data she loses. Plus the other shell is already being damaged by the information overload. She'll break too if we don't act quickly."

"We barely have enough æti to start our operations. You're talking about, what, half of our reserves?" Carbon sighed as he made an executive decision he wished he wasn't required to make. "I'm sorry, Ari... but we can't afford to fix her. She's a casualty of war now."

"No she isn't! Casualty my ass!" Ari pulled out a headset and wedged it over her ear. "Trick, you there? It's important."

"Uh... Yes, ma'am?"

"Spool up the engines and get ready for flight." Ari tapped the communications headset until she heard her breathing over the ship's intercom. "Everyone prepare for an early launch. I want everyone ready at their stations in fifteen minutes."

Carbon touched the device with his paw and muted it with Eve's help. "What the hell are you thinking?"

"You won't save her, so I will."

"Ari, we can't spare the resources. Don't make me lock up the oxydium by force."

The otter shook her head and pulled Carbon's paw away. "I'm not using your resources. I'm getting my own." Ari unmuted the line and stood tall, confidence building by the second. "We're docking in high orbit to replenish our ballast, then we're starting our mission early. Be prepared for your first inter-universal slide, ladies and gents."

"You can't be serious. They're--"

Ilaria pulled out her pistol and shoved it in Carbon's face. "I don't care if who you are right now; if you aren't helping me then you can get the fuck off my ship."

Carbon took a second to adjust to the formerly-friendly weapon occluding his left eye's sight, then stepped back and raised his paws away from his waist in a show of disarmament. "Alright, fine. But if this goes pear-shaped at any point, I'm taking us back home. Agreed?"

"Agreed." Ari dropped Mjolnir back into her holster and started climbing the access ladder. "Look after her while I get the girls. They might know something that'll help."

"You got it. She's in good paws."

"Thank you, for this and... for understanding." Ari clicked her headset with a nanite tendril, never halting her steady climb. "Dee, what the hell happened? We lost anti-grav..."

"Uh, Carbon...?" Sydney waved for attention above the scene. "How can I help?"

"Pray to your gods, and I'll pray to mine."

"Batton down the hatches, mateys." Ilaria checked her Captain's console on the bridge, then turned to Iolvin. "You get a signal from the loading bay yet?"

"They just closed the doors a second ago." Yoyo verified this with his own console. "Still equalizing the connection gantry, but they're otherwise clear."

"Sounds good." Ari tapped a floating widget on her console and selected engineering from a fly-out list. "Dee, how are we looking?"

"Waiting on you, Ari. We're fueled up and disconnected from Lambda. They only had ocean water though, so our specific impulse won't be quite up to spec."

"What's that mean for us? That's efficiency, right?"

"Don't worry about it. The change is extremely minor, to the point you'd never notice until a few tanks worth of ballast later." There was a slight pause and a couple of taps on the line. "Except for the rear cargo bay not being air-tight, from a mechanical standpoint we're ready to go."

"Thanks, Dee. You're doing a good job."

"I might not be as good with this as Robyn, but I'm doing my best." There was another pause, then Adrian came back in a more apologetic tone. "Sorry. I didn't--"

"No, it's fine. She was the best, and you can't help but compare yourself to the best. Thanks, Dee. We're about to head out."

"We're fully disconnected, sis." Yoyo turned and weakly smiled for her. "You alright, Lulu?"

"Ground Control to Major Tom..." Ari clicked off the comms interface, sat back in her plush chair, and sighed in remembrance of her late wife. "Alright guys, we're breaking back into high Earth orbit. Trick, she's all yours. You have the coordinates, right?"

"Yes ma'am. Engines are up..." The Starbreeze shook and squealed as she started laterally, but once clear Trick engaged the main engine pods and wings. "We'll be clear of the docking zone in ten seconds. Only about... thirty to target? Damn. This is one hell of a ship, ma'am."

"You're damn right she is." Ari tapped a master comms channel for all stations and raised her voice. "This is your Captain speaking. We're about to start our first sortie. Gravity will cut out while we're diving, so I want status lights for all stations immediately once you're ready."

Carmine sat up in his seat and clicked his safety harness into place as his dashboard slowly filled up with green lights. "All go for maneuver, ma'am."

Ari typed out a message to her children near the front of the bridge. <Girls? Ready to dive?>

<Yep! We've started the process in the reactor already. Twenty-three seconds to go.>

<Thanks, sweeties.> Ilaria nodded to them as they confirmed the request and brought back her communications widget. "Here we go, everyone. Ten and counting."

Carmine started walking down the timer, causing those in the know to sigh and look Ari's way. "Twenty. Nineteen..."

Ari sighed back, partially in frustration, and played up a show for her friends. "This is Major Tom to Ground Control. I'm stepping through the door..."

"Fifteen. Fourteen..."

"I'm feeling very still, and I think my spaceship knows which way to go." The otter looked behind her seat towards the urn on the mantle, a pit forming in her chest. "Tell my wife I love her very much..."

A familiar paw came to rest true on Ari's shoulder, then firmly pulsed its grip to comfort her. "She knows."

"Planet Earth is blue," Ilaria turned back to face Carbon with wells of tears in her eyes, "and there's nothing I can do..."

"Three. Two. One. Mark."

A void in space opened up as the countdown ended, causing Trick to jump in her seat. "Ma'am!?"

"That's our target, Trick." Ari wiped her eyes and held onto Carbon's waist partially so he wouldn't float away, with a small part of her just wanting the close company. "This ship has a purpose, and it's on the other side of that wormhole."

"Aye, ma'am!" The Starbreeze corrected route to the dead center of the anomaly and fired up her engines. "Contact range unknown. Sensors are bugged."

"It's fine. You're pinging open space, just in another universe."

The gravity generated by the oxydium reactor slowly fizzled away, giving Trick the hint that she was on the right track. "Contact. Holding her steady."

Ari pulled on Carbon's belt as he started to drift, but he also braced the ceiling and floor with his tendrils to ease that burden. "She'd be proud of your bravery, you know."

"I know she'd never give up if she could help someone. She was a good person. I can't let all of her die away just to save the world. Then it wouldn't be worth saving." Ilaria let go of Carbon once he was settled, then stared out the forward windows at the endless multiverse before her. "If you're somewhere out there, I'll find you. All of you. I promise, Pillow."