FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Gwah!" Ilaria shot awake and pointed her pistol around randomly, then noticed Trick beside her with her hand on the otter's shoulder. "Fuck... It was just a damn nightmare. How long was I out?"

Alex groaned as she handed over a microphone. "We just went past our planned radio silence, so I woke you."

"Six hours? Why didn't you wake me sooner?"

"Because I had to take care of your--"

"My whelps! Oh gods, you're alright!" Ari held out her arms for the two upon noticing them but neither budged an inch, instead cowering back while they stared at the revolver in their mother's paw. "...What? My gun? Kids, I thought you were rabid like the others..."

<You pointed that at us!> Mik pointed at the gun, but quickly resumed cradling her sister. <You're scared of us, aren't you!? Goddess...>

Ari didn't think twice about chucking Mjolnir into the corner of the orbiter and rushing over for a very forced hug. "I love the two of you more than anything, and I won't stand for you suffering like the people of this city. I'll even end that suffering if it's the humane thing to do. I'd hate myself for it, but I'd do it." The otter gave each of her daughters a tender kiss on the forehead to make her next point clear. "But I'd never harm either of you in any other case. I'm sorry if I scared you, girls, but I was confused."

<We...> The two rested their heads against each other as they calmed down. <We forgive you. We love you too, mom.>

"You guys are cute. Quirky, but cute." Trick again tried to pawn off the microphone she held in her hand. "Sorry to interrupt, but we need to check in with the Starbreeze."

"Why didn't you break silence? I think rabid furs eating each other constitutes an emergency, Alex."

"I ~did~ try, but there was no signal." The frog finally handed off the mic and went back over to tap the coms console. "Their transponder signal just came back up a minute ago."

"Which is why you woke me. Makes a bit more sense now." Ari walked over and verified something with the radio logs before clicking the mic and shouting. "Carbon! When I said radio silence, I didn't mean to shut the damn thing off!"

After a short silence, Carmine returned a message. "We didn't mean to, but we had a bit of a problem."

"Carmine, put Carbon on the line."

"Sure--"

"I know what you're thinking. Let me explain it quickly." Carbon sighed over his mic as he obviously tried to compress the information in his head. "A little bit after you left for planetfall, we picked up a Yangurran shuttle in the atmosphere. We had to hit the engines and then shut everything down, that way we drifted out of their sensor vectors unseen. We're keeping them opposite the Earth for now."

"Fuck that; we need to evac immediately. The people down here just randomly went rabid and started... chewing out each other's necks."

"That's... not good." Carbon clicked off his radio a moment as he conferred with the crew. "Fuck. We're about an hour from any possible intercept orbits of your orbiter. How bad do you need that evac?"

"It's only myself, Trick, and my kids in this thing. Everyone else... they're MIA."

"And the oxydium? Any leads on that?"

"Why the fuck would you bring that up right now? Mission's abandoned, Carbon."

"Unless we cross another Earth like this one. We might be able to use that information to find theirs faster."

Ilaria sighed and pulled up a map on the navigation console. "I found... ~someone~ that told me the location. It's in the city somewhere, and so are our guys."

"Really?" Carbon moved the mic away and issued some orders for a moment. "Best we can do is seventy minutes. If you think you can find either the men or the goods in that time, maybe this mission won't be a bust."

Ilaria hesitated for a moment then confirmed the plan. "I don't like it, but we'll try to get the others. See what you can do to help and I'll have Trick patch you into my phone headset."

"Roger that. Good hunting, Ari."

The Commander clicked off the radio and slumped in the co-pilot's seat. "We'll have to be a little daring. Alex, can you land us on top a building?"

"Never spent more than a few hours in one of these, but they're close to the O-22 sparrows we use at base." The frog sat next to her captain and fired up the engines. "I'm sure we can manage. That or we burn in a huge fireball."

"Comforting thought." Ari stood and grabbed some stabilizer bars to reach her children. "Hey, that's right. You said you took care of my kids while I was out?"

"Yeah... The one over there, Michelle? She wasn't breathing until I gave her a shot." Trick took a moment to concentrate on lifting off the ground cleanly then returned part of her attention to the others. "I kept them both comfortable until they got back on their paws."

"Thank you. Thanks for making sure my babies made it back to me in one piece. I owe you big time for that." Ari huddled with her children a moment, then helped them into seats for the flight. "Wait, you know which one's which? Only I seem to be able to do that."

"Yeah... Can't tell you how. I guess we just mesh well or something." The orbiter steadied its path, never really picking up any speed but burning through fuel fighting gravity. "I'd like to chat, but we do have a time constraint here Ari. What are we looking for?"

"Building A-5." Ari finished snapping her girls into their landing harnesses, then joined Trick in the front. "We're gonna try nailing two birds with one stone."

Ilaria hopped out the side hatch, her bow drawn and pointing to all corners of building A-5's rooftop. "Girls, it looks clear. Alex, keep her running."

The twins walked out a bit more cautiously, then turned back to Trick so they could be handed two guns. "Are you sure about this? You almost lost these two once. I'm not sure..."

"They're stronger than they think. Plus, we might need those wormholes of theirs." Ari lowered her own weapon and helped her kids with theirs, Mik getting a hang of her rifle but Chelle neither understanding the safety system of Chelle's machine pistol nor how to grip it with her odd paws. "You flip out the stock to arm this one, dear. Might want to use it, too; she's got a lot of recoil."

"See? They don't even know how to use those guns..."

"They'll be fine, I promise." Ari walked over to a locked door on the end of the roof and started working her magic with her nanites to freeze the lock. "Keep the engines hot and stay on that radio. I'm serious here. We may need you to move to do the final pickup."

"Fine. Just remember for the record I'm against this." Trick closed the hatch and looked out the cockpit windows as she found her radio. "Taking them with you, that is. I'm all for rescuing the guys."

"Nobody called you a monster, hon." Ari stopped what she was doing for a moment and gave Trick her full attention. "Alex, I'm sorry. I know how this looks, but I can't do it alone and I'm not forcing ~you~ to suddenly pick up a gun. At least the girls have had a few days of practice."

"Just... don't get yourself killed." Trick sat back in her seat and clicked her safety harness into place. "I'm still horny and we need to finish what we started. Oh, your kids..."

"Huh?" Ari turned back to her work, only to find Chelle passing her arm through a wormhole. Then the door opened itself from the other side, revealing the paired wormhole on the other side. "Oh... Well that's useful. Thanks, sweeties. I didn't realize you could do something that precise."

Chelle removed her arm and the portals closed. <We can create smaller wormholes quite accurately most of the time.> Mik picked up her rifle and confidently led the way, followed immediately by Chelle. <What's the exact plan, mom?>

"We push downward and clear a path. We already radioed the others to head here, and we sure as hell can't move much oxydium without the extra help. Let's just hope they got the message." Ari paused, pulling up her bow as they reached the end of the stairs. "The heavy equipment that would use the stuff should be ground level. Let's start here and make sure the building's secure."

The girls pushed open the stairwell door and shoved a toppled desk out of the way. <Mom? I think they're in here too.>

"Just stay calm and keep your distance. We don't know how, but it looks to be contagious."

<The tainted fii simply reproduce using spare matter from their hosts.> Mik raised her rifle at a moving shadow, but lowered it when it turned out to only be a broken ceiling fan. <Try to hit them in the head. The fii still require a central nervous system to command their victims' bodies.>

"Will do, Chelle. So you know all about these rabids?" Ari found a scientist crouched over a body and loosed an arrow right into its neck without thinking twice. "You got away from them somehow, right?"

<They attacked us, but we built a wall of light and ran away.> Chelle paused her signing to hold up her pistol at another clueless rabid, but Mik managed to shoot it first. <We lost our inhaler in the chase, but we managed to use the last of our energy reserves to portal back to the dropship.>

"Watch out, girls. That loud shot might have attracted more of them." Ari held still, shuffling noises welling up from somewhere in the building. "You two use some kind of energy for that?"

<Just like Uncle Carbon, we store chemical energy made from light, water, and formaldehyde.> Both twins turned to another shadow, but excused it as there was a broken window nearby. <Our bodies use this to move normally, but our veilee can use their veileet to convert extra energy into gravitational forces.>

"Not gonna lie--that made no sense, honey. You'll have to write all this down for me later--!"

A rabid lizard yanked backward into an office through the glass and blinds lining its side. Immediately the girls reacted to help her, but Mik simply couldn't maneuver well in close quarters with her long rifle. Chelle pointed her pistol at the rabid grabbing her mother, but couldn't guarantee a clean shot. The rabid bit down hard on Ari's shoulder, receiving only a mouthful of artificial skin and the nanite-laden blood it contained. Chelle dropped her weapon and created a staff out of pure light, then poked the creature's head back. It responded by simply switching sides, this time finding purchase on actual fur and flesh.

"Augh! Kids! Just... run!"

Chelle growled as she thrust her quarterstaff fiercely into the rabid's face, this time punching through its eye socket and stirring its brains inside its skull. When she was sure the former scientist wasn't able to move, she huffed for air and fell to the ground with her mother. <Are you alright!?>

"It bit me... Oh gods, what if I...?"

Mik shook her head and propped her rifle against the office door. <No, that won't happen. You won't turn into one of them.> She showed off a bite on her wrist beneath her sleeve and then checked the fresh wound her mother had received. <Something about the veileet in our blood allows them to deactivate those bad fii. Likely your own fii in your blood will do the same. Auntie Sprite may need to reprogram them first, however.>

"Thank the gods..." Ari's wound wasn't bleeding much, so she ripped off a piece of her sleeve and converted it into a makeshift bandage. "Shit, my arm's catching now. Can you girls fix it?"

Both gave the artificial shoulder a quick inspection, and both shook their heads. <The muscle bladders are punctured in the rear. You could possibly command your fii to patch it, but that aside we'd need proper tools.>

"Well I don't know how to do that, so screw it. Guess I'm switching to Mjolnir now."

Chelle helped her mother to her hindpaws, then offered her machine pistol as well. <We could switch. I'm not confident in using this firearm yet.>

"A bow takes way more skill though." Ari took the pistol and let Chelle carry her recurve bow and arrows. "Just keep an eye out and we'll make it through this. Sounds like the commotion downstairs is calming down."

Chelle clipped the quiver to her belt, nocked an arrow, and loosed it into the chest of a rabid heading from the stairs. <It's just physics. There's more control with this weapon so it's more forgiving.>

Ilaria put the final two killing shots into the downed rabid's head from point blank range. "Fine, just don't fire her empty. Gungnir was a gift from your mother and I'd hate to break her."

<We know. We share some of your memories, after all.> The girls nodded to each other and headed back to their mother near the stairs. <This floor is clear. Let's try the ground level now.>

"You two are growing up fast. Just don't get too cocky." Ari led the way this time, shooting another rabid in the stairwell before pausing near the ground level door. "I know you can't hear, but try your best to stay quiet girls. It sounded like a lot of them were in here a minute ago."

<Rubbing salt in the wound, mom?>

"I didn't mean it like that, Mik. You know I don't hold your deafness against you." Ari creaked open the door and took a peek into the main lab area, spotting dozens of rabids. "They're scattered in the labs. Looks like most of them are sealed, so be careful with that rifle and we might not have a problem. Last resort, we'll just run back to the orbiter. You two understand?"

<Yes. We'll follow you, mom.>

Ari opened the door and pointed the her pistol to the nearest rabid. <I've got this one, girls.> She created a knife out of nanites and shoved it below the creature's chin, penetrating his brain from below. <Same to that one...>

Mik held up her rifle and manifested a sword out of hardened light, one so thin on the edge it effortlessly lopped off the rabid's head one-pawed before it fizzled away for a quick bout of signing. <Chelle, two-ten!>

Chelle spun to two-hundredTen degrees and fired an arrow into a rabid approaching from behind. It fell backwards with a carbon fibre shaft poking out its forehead, allowing the trio calm down. <Thanks, sis.>

<Good job, girls.> Ari surveyed the area, noticing some of the contained rabids were realizing their presence. "Fuck it. We need to find the oxydium."

<Over there.> Chelle pointed to one of the labs, thankfully an empty one. <My eyes hurt looking at that room.>

"Yeah, mine too. That's UV alright." Ari calmly walked over, casually firing a trio of bullets into a lone rabid just around the corner. "Jackpot. There's ~barrels~ of it!"

Mik grabbed a beaker full of the odd proto-element and examined it closer. <This is extremely bright for this quantity. There's more energy in this batch than in our own.>

Chelle flipped through a few clipboards nearby, making sure to occasionally check the door to the lab. <We can't read paper too well, but these notes seem to cover enhancing the output of the oxydium. We should take these with us as well.>

"Now we just need the others. It's not safe in here yet so we can't split up to load the orbiter."

"Trying to leave early, are you?" James walked into the main lab, his men flooding through behind him to point rifles at the various test labs and their inhabitants. "So we getting the hell out of here, ma'am?"

"Mr. Morgan. Good to see you're still in once piece." Ari walked over and slapped the giraffe on the back. "Remind me to promote you for surviving this fucking shit. What's the sitrep?"

"We split up when those things attacked, but eventually regrouped in a gym two blocks away from here." James tossed over his radio, speaker letting out a low whine. "Radios are fuzzed out, almost like they're jammed. If we didn't hear your engines coming we'd have never known to mosey over here."

"We were counting on that. Handhelds are useless but sat-phones and heavier units still work." Ari tossed the device back, then pointed to her fresh wound. "What's the head count?"

"We... lost Williams and Souda. Ma'am, I'd like to go back for their remains if--"

"No can do. We only have..." Ari pulled out her phone and checked the time. "Crap, only twenty minutes. It'll take a little under half that to break orbit. We have enemies out there we can't afford to let spot our shuttle."

"But ma'am, we can't just leave them--"

"We can and we will. Besides, they're probably the enemy by now." Ilaria sighed out of frustration, choosing to more productively reveal the bounty of energy they'd found to Ensign Morgan. "We need to load this on the orbiter on the roof. This is our priority. Second floor's cleared, so move as fast as you can."

"...Yes ma'am." James called over his men and pointed to the plastic barrels of liquid energy. "Carry these to the roof, two-byTwo. This building is clear, so lose the weapons for now. Speed is a factor, people. Jenkins, Arlington--you two watch the doors."

"Thank you, James. I promise, I'll do my best to retrieve the bodies if we can create some more time." Ari started gathering up research notes, as she couldn't lift anything heavy with her gimped arm. "Girls, we'll take care of this. Could you please go back to the orbiter? I want to make sure you're safe."

<We can take care of ourselves, mom.> The two placed their notes into a neat stack for Ari and nodded for her anyway. <We'll do it to make you happy, though. Don't take too long.>

<I love you both.> Ari gave her children a wide hug, wincing from the pain in her shoulder. "James, help me gather these papers. This world was onto something big that might help out our cause."

"Aye, ma'am."

The men each paired up beside a barrel and lifted them clear off the ground, then formed a line heading for the stairwell. Each small twenty-gallon barrel looked light, but barely made it off the floor considering the liquid inside weighed five times as much as water. At the current rate it would take three slow trips to grab the whole load, but also longer than their alloted time. They needed to speed things up.

Ari finished grabbing her papers, stuffed them into a pouch on her back, and pulled out her phone. "Trick, we found the others and they're heading up to load the orbiter. Drop the rear ramp. We need to shave off any time we can."

"More than you expected, ma'am?"

"Yeah, much more. My kids there yet?"

"Just got here, actually. Hold..." There was a pause, then Alex chirped over her reply. "They're... Oh, that glowing text is pretty cool. They're asking which canisters are still left, if that means something. Ah, they want exact positioning."

"No, that trick of theirs isn't going to work here. Those barrels weigh a ton and they'll end up busting one open." Ari started heading back to the vessel herself now that the rest were clear, when suddenly one of the laboratory safety doors opened. "Oh, well shit. We're not alone anymore."

"Get moving, ma'am. Guys, we're regrouping at the dropship. Move!" James pulled up his machine gun and let loose a flurry of rounds, eventually dropping the first rabid to cross the threshold. "It's not safe here anymore. We'll get the others on the way back and clear the area."

"We don't have time for that." Ari watched as another door opened, this time spying one of the scientists holding out a key card. "Fuck, they're learning. We'll just have to hope we grabbed enough. Abandon the rest."

"No need to tell me twice, ma'am." Another three rabids broke free near the stairs, leading James to blast another dozen slugs into them that only stopped a single target. "Fucking hell, they're resilient."

"Aim for the head." Ari raised her machine pistol, switched it to single-select fire, and finished off each of the remaining targets with a single bullet each. "You have to keep them from thinking or they won't stop."

"Well crap, that explains a lot. You heard the lady. Headshots, boys." Ensign Morgan reloaded his weapon, then began firing smaller, more controlled bursts into the ever-increasing horde of rabid furs. "Ma-am? There another set of stairs?"

"None that go to the roof." Ari sighed as she realized the inevitable truth. "We're not making it to the ship in time without a distraction and live bait is all they seem to react to."

"Well I'm pretty sure I can--"

"Don't. I'm immune to these things so I'm the one." Ilaria waved her arms and fired towards the horde, then jogged a few paces away from the others and repeated the process. "Hey assholes! Fresh meat over here!"

The team slowly sulked over to the stairs once the horde had shifted, only then hitting resistance from behind as the diversion failed to keep the full group's attention. "Captain! We'll hold them off while you find another set of stairs!"

Ari looked around, spotting a possible rally point from a broken window. "The warehouse, just south of here! I'll climb up on the roof--"

"Got it!" James kicked back a few rabids and cleared himself a small breach of time. "We'll get Trick right on it! Just start running!"

Ilaria nodded, then leaped out the shattered window in a rain of glass shards. Brushing off what was thankfully safety glass from her limbs, she stood into an immediate sprint for her new pickup zone. The otter had to shove a few rabids down to the concrete in crossing the street, but quickly reached her basic destination. She clambered atop a construction dumpster and balanced on the edge, then used the extra height to hop over the barbed-wire fence surrounding the warehouse. Things didn't go as smoothly as expected however, a slight brush against the wires sparking tens of thousands of volts worth of electricity into Ari's smoldering fur.

By the time she regained her bearings, Ari noticed the backwash of Trick's engines flaring up as she began lifting upward. The otter didn't have much time left if they were going to rendezvous with the Starbreeze undetected and safe. She fought past the pain in her limbs and ran into a wooden spool of crane support wire, vaulting off it and onto the low roof of a utility shed. Then Ari's jaw dropped when she finally obtained a clear view of the warehouse's roof. There were about a dozen rabids, likely a former group of survivors, making things difficult. The real problem though was the additional perimeter of electrified fencing guarding the upper perimeter in its entirety. One of the two might be passable, but both only made this rooftop into a minefield of teeth and high voltage.

"Fuck!" Ilaria watched as Trick hovered above, then started shaking her head and waving her arms sideways. She unlocked her phone and set her satellite module to the orbiter's frequency. "It's no good. You'll... have to leave me here."

"Ari!? No--!"

The radio died for a second, then James' voice flooded the line. "Captain, we can still get you if we find another spot."

"No, you can't." Ari sat down on the tin roofing of her shed and crossed her legs. "You've got... four minutes to break orbit and meet the Starbreeze. You're already pushing things. By the time you've picked me up, the Sect will have found us and we'd probably never make it back."

"Ma'am, we can't just leave you!"

"I don't like it either, but it is what it is." Ari sighed and watched as three rabids that had collected below her reach up desperately for a meal they couldn't touch. "I'll try to hold out. I've got my sat-phone, and I think I can still talk with my brother another way. See what Carbon can come up with..."

"Ma'am, don't lose hope. We'll be back for you, I'm sure."

Ari chuckled sadly at her position in this whole mess. "Well in case you don't, ask my brother to take care of my kids for me. At least they're safe."

"I... I don't..." There was a pause for a moment, just before the orbiter's thrusters added a little more lifting power. "We're out of time, ma'am. It... It's been an honor serving with you, Commander."

"Don't get soft on me ~now~, James. Lead them back home, and... try to keep my pups calm."

"I will, ma'am. I--" There was another cut in the line, then a huge whine of static followed by an abnormal drop in volume. "Wait, No! Don't do that!"

"What? James? What's going on?"

A loud pop of static fired off, then the volume raised back to normal. "Gods damnit! Captain, your kids just did ~something~ and--"

"Oh ~fuck~ no! Damn, girls!" Ari scanned around for anything out of the ordinary sans the hordes of bloodthirsty rabids. "Trick, do you see anything up there? Where'd they go?"

"It wasn't like before. They went through the floor. I don't..." The orbiter spun to port side just a bit as it rose higher, then the frog chirped back onto the line. "Wait, I think they're on the roof again. Do you see them?"

Ilaria stood and faced the laboratory, then waved over to her whelps. "I see them, Trick. Gods help us, but I see them."

"What do you want us to do? I can come back, but--"

"You'll bleed too much time doing that and you know it. Go. Be happy. I'll go rescue them and see if we can't make the best of this shit."

"A-Aye, ma'am."

Ari huffed in frustration as she looked for the best path back to the lab, but out of nowhere her kids opened some sort of flat wormhole on the wall nearby. Looking through the portal Ari could see what looked like clear sky. Then one of her children poked her head into view, revealing that the sideways hole in space was orientated on the floor facing upward on their end. After a bit of silent argument over who went first, Chelle hopped through the hole and slid out the other end on her side.

"Baby girls!" Ari pulled her pup to her hindpaws, then they both helped in preventing the same rough landing as Mik followed through. "Gods above... What the hell were you two thinking?"

Both girls held each other's paws, each using a spare paw to sign half their response. <We love you. We'd never leave you alone like that.>

Ilaria stared baffled for a moment, then wrapped her arms around her whelps and kissed them endlessly. "I love you too, girls." She pulled back so they could actually read her lips properly and made her point clear. "I love you both more than anyone or anything else."

The twins rested their heads on their mother's shoulders for a short respite, then eased out of her arms. <This is nice, but we should find a safe place to hide.>

Ari gave her children a look of shock for a few seconds, proud of how much they've grown. <Yes. We should do just that before we get eaten alive.> The otter checked their immediate surroundings, then shrugged her shoulders. <This place might do if we can clear it, actually.>

<That's assuming the power doesn't go out. It appears these fences are electrified.>

Ilaria chuckled and created a knife out of her nanites to take care of the immediate threat beneath them. <At least you didn't have to touch it to find out.>

<You ~touched~ it!? Wow! Did it hurt?>

Ari nodded as she shoved her blade through the eye socket of a rabid bunny below. "Well be my guest, girls. I'll just tell you it doesn't ~tickle~."

Both girls crouched down and helped their mother with the remaining two rabids using weapons of fabricated light. <Lets maybe ~avoid~ the fence for now, then...>

Ilaria sat down once the rabids were properly disposed and her paws were freed. <Good choice.>

The three looked up as the orbiter shrank to a tiny speck in the sky. <Yeah, this ~was~ the right choice.>

Ilaria rolled around as she basked in a warm, loving sensation. Her eyes fluttered slowly as she roused from a well-deserved rest. Then she noticed her children and their veilee surrounding her, their tendrils connecting to the back of her neck. «Oh, that was you two in my dream?»

Both girls nodded and gave their mother a quick hug. «We saw you were having a bad one, so we made it better.»

Ari smirked as she recalled the most basic details of her dream, consisting of some random moment she'd spent laying in bed with Robyn. «I don't know how you did it, but thank you girls.»

«Our pleasure.» Europa and Io conversed with each other over something in the background, only taking a moment to point towards the meager food supply the three had raided from a now-smashed vending machine. «Right. We found some rations, mom. You're hungry, so go right ahead.»

«No, you two eat up first. I'll take whatever's left.»

<You forget we can tell a lot about you in the Link.» Chelle grabbed a few bags of chips and held them in front of her mother's face. «Eat up. We require more water than food for energy, so you should eat most of what we find. We have to balance our supplies if we're going to survive.»

Ari sighed, then took a bag of corn chips from he daughter. «Thanks, sweetie. We should probably look for canned goods though. This isn't exactly nutritious.»

«True, but carbohydrates are carbohydrates. You require far more of those than anything else right now.» Mik picked up a similarly scavenged bottle of cherry cola and popped the can open. «We have enough water in these to last about a day--never mind the sugar--but our next goal indeed should be to find--»

«Wait! Quiet!» Ilaria stood up and headed towards a window facing the north of the warehouse, severing her connection to her pups in the process. "Do you hear that? I think I hear engines of some kind."

<Mom, you know we can't.> The girls stood and walked to another nearby window to get a look at the sky. <You're correct, though. We can see something decelerating itself towards the ground.>

Ari spotted the spacecraft as well, though much later than her infrared-sensitive children. <Girls, that's not one of ours. Actually, that doesn't look like it is from Earth.>

<No, it's Terran. There's heavy Yangurraar modifications, but the design is based off a normal low-gravity cargo loader.>

<What is that word you spelled, 'Yangurraar'? More alien-speak?>

The kids nodded and tried a basic explanation. <It means 'something from the Yangurraa'. That's... similar to the way you say 'Yangurran' we suppose.>

<And in both cases there's no paw signs for either. Maybe you two can create them.> Ari checked the ship again as it changed course slightly, noticing the intended landing zone was atop the laboratory across the street. <Those fucking bastards! They're here for the... 'oxy... di... um' too.>

<And you say ~we~ use odd words. You sure learned to curse faster than anything else, too.> The girls checked the building, then took a few steps back from the wall. <Mom, you may want to clear some room. We're going to try something that may end up messy.>

Ari did as requested, taking a few long steps backward. <Wait, don't be reckless.>

<We've done this before, but the physics are different this time. Let's see...>

The twins Linked themselves with all three sets of their vines, then crouched down and closed their eyes. The air gained a metallic taste, then out of the blue a portal opened on the exterior wall. The connecting end soon materialized as well, revealing the underside of a stack of oxydium barrels. Gravity on the remote end pulled them into the portal, then the three canisters slid sideways to a stop in front of the girls similar to the way they joined their mother hours ago.

<Woah... That's impressive.> Ari went to grab one of the containers, but her children waved her back as they closed the remote wormhole. <How can you two do this? How accurate are you?>

<Supposing we know the absolute or relative positions of both locations, it seems we have very fine control over these two-dimensional wormholes.> The remote portal opened again beneath another stack of barrels. <The far location used to be trouble, but when we work together we can tunnel through space utilizing a nearby location as a starting point.>

<But you still need one end next to you. I think I get that.> Ari rolled the barrels to the side with a few soft kicks to clear some room, then her children resumed the translocation process. <So how far away can you go?>

<If you're asking if we can go back to the Starbreeze, technically we can. We don't know the position or speed of her though.> The girls tried another location, finding the barrels they expected to find were already removed from the manual loading of the orbiter earlier. <The real problem is entropic ingress. There's a growing factor of probable ingress that depends on the distance, entry force, and perceived phase time of the dive.>

<Girls...?>

<You travel through infinite realities going through one of these tunnels. The more you're exposed, the more likely the results of choices in those realities will become results in your reality.>

<I still can't understand you two. Sorry.>

The twins paused their tunneling for a moment and fought to truly dumb-down an answer for their sign-illiterate mother. <The more you do with a wormhole, the more rihzyets you get. More rihzyets mean more chances that another world blends with ours.>

<More what? Oh... 'rihzyets'?> Ari rubbed her temples as she tried to figure out what the kids were saying. <Oh, you coined a term for that invasion factor thing? That's... pretty cool.>

<Yes, that's correct. We thought it was nifty too.> The two resumed their transporting and pulled another two canisters through, then walked over to the rift to inspect the area for any remaining oxydium. <The cubed root of inertial force times cubed root of distance, divided by the quartic root of force and quartic root of distance, all divided by the quartic-cubed root of perceived exposure time.>

<Distance and force... Okay. I'll get the math down later. Verbal calculus isn't exactly easy. So what's that all mean, layman's terms?>

The twins nodded to each other as they agreed that they'd recovered all the oxydium, then closed the ethereal gate. <Every whole number over one is a potential incursion introduced to our world.> Both girls shook their heads to each other, then they formed a bar of text out of light to make things easier. <Two rihzyets means that potentially a binary choice in our world will have the unchosen outcome reproduced by another cause. The shared entropy will seed our world to prime it for a change.>

<So... things get undone and redone?>

The text changed just as quickly as the girls became frustrated. <No, not according to out data. Things never become undone. Rather, a cause leads to one effect, then the second effect also manifests itself.> Both girls stared at each other a few seconds as they thought of another explanation. <Assume you saved a house from burning down. An incursion might make it ready to burn. The result shouldn't just happen though. It's more like soaking the walls in gasoline and walking away. You've raised the chances, but a new cause must trigger the new effect.>

<Oh... okay then. And so three rihzyets mean another choice could be reproduced in addition... So you'd have you and two evil clones, just with choices or something like that.> Ari nodded to her girls as she checked over the canisters. "I think I'm starting to understand this entropy thing, sweeties. Question, though: What happens when we exit into another world, like we did in coming here?"

<The same applies, but to the universe we entered. There's an equal addition of entropy on the return trip however. Entropy is only additive.>

"So... Gods..." Ari froze up for a moment, then sat down on the concrete floor. "You don't think that means... we caused all this? That we got Robyn killed?"

<Our entropic ingress factor was 149.389274 rihzyets. There are potentially over a hundred changes we introduced.> The girls did some calculations and sighed as they came to the same results on their hard light screen. <We probably brought this plague into effect. We can't confirm anything without knowing more about this universe though.>

"Gods above, we did it. We must have brought our damn war with us." Ari drooped her head and clutched her false shoulder, a sudden memory of losing the appendage flooding through her head. "We had to have brought my Robyn's fate with us as well..."

The girls gave up on their math, fizzled their odd display, and slumped against their mother. <We know how much you loved her. We're sorry, mom.>

"You didn't do anything wrong. You couldn't have known." Ari grunted as she fought back tears, until another engine outside flared up its thrust and pulled away her attention. "What the hell? That didn't sound the same as the others."

<The ship?> Both girls perked up and gazed out the windows. <You're right. There's something smaller breaking away from the first. An away party?>

Ilaria stood and hardened her resolve once she could make out the smaller ship's design. "No. That's a ~rescue~ party."

The orbiter had returned, hiding in the turbulent wake of the enemy ship. Trick was really starting to live up to her pedigree with that maneuver, deftly breaking away unhindered and hovering over the warehouse soon thereafter. The small ship held still for a few seconds as the rear hatch opened, then in a loud and destructive show of physics Carbon's walking mech fell onto the roof and partially caved in the ceiling.

"Ari? You still listening to this?"

The otter sighed in absolute relief at the hybrid's familiar voice. "Damn straight I am."

"Sis!" Another voice joined the mix, Ari's twin immediately soothing her soul. "We're here to get you the fuck out of here before they know what hit them. Where are you now?"

Ari looked up at the large, cracked dent in the metal ceiling of the warehouse. "You just about crushed us with that stunt. We're right under you."

Carbon chirped back into the mix. "Good. We've got enough oxydium, so let's get the hell out of here. They've got control of the rest by now."

"Well, that might prove tricky," Ari started as she smirked to her children, "considering my kids warped it over here a minute ago."

"You've got it!?" Carbon started punching through the ceiling, making sure nothing was below his robot before wrenching all the way through. "Holy shit, you do! Fuck... that's going to save us a load of trouble down the road."

Ari walked over and knocked on the cockpit's main armor. "Well you're the only one that can load it fast enough."

Carbon opened the front of Ex's cockpit and smiled in disbelief. "When we get back, I'll owe you something for this."

"Just help me fix Prisma and that'll be enough."

Iolvin slipped down the hole using a fast rope he threw down. "Lulu! Girls!"

"You're my hero, lil' bro." Ari gave her twin a tight hug, then pointed to the goods. "Whadd'ya' think? Not too shabby, eh?"

"I don't give a shit about that. I'm here for you guys."

Iolvin got a full-service kiss for that comment. "That's exactly why I love you, Yoyo."

The girls watched as the fast rope reeled away, followed by the landing craft to which it was tethered. <Uncle Yoyo, where's the orbiter going?>

Yoyo hugged his nieces and signed out a basic answer. <It's not safe there, so Trick is flying in circles until we're ready for pickup. All part of the plan, munchkins.>

Ari interpreted the signing quite roughly, but it still piqued her interest. "Trick's in a holding pattern? Why don't we just load up and scram?"

"That other ship outside is loaded to the teeth with weapons." Carbon checked through a window and confirmed the enemy ship was now slewing to face their location. "They've probably figured out what's happening by now. If they get an exact location on us, we're screwed."

"So what's the plan then?"

"Well, the next part isn't going to be easy." Carbon shut his cockpit so he could breathe easier, adding an unintentionally intense volume to his now-projected voice. "We're going to cripple that ship so we can clear a pickup window."

Ilaria picked up her bow and hopped onto the side of the exoskeleton, hanging off the side of its leg. "If that's the case, I think we're already halfway there." She pointed out the window towards a horde of rabids that were now attracted to the lab once again. "See that?"

Carbon and Ilaria spoke up at the same time, their minds in sync on the matter. "I've got a plan."