FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Kepler-22b was selected due to how similar it is to Earth. With only its size and therefore its gravity, being slightly higher than Earths. Nonetheless, it was the perfect candidate. In order to even do this experiment, an initially new chamber was constructed. It was a perfectly white room, cubic and tall enough to have two men stand on each other's shoulders and wide enough to have two lay flat on their back. There was a ten-inch glass window on the north end and a metal door on the south. The door is able to be bolted to both sides of the wall and ceiling.

It was accepted that the first tests would end up in empty space, but instead of blindly opening gates in hope of landing in the right spot, satellites would be put in front of them. When the first test began, as expected the room was met with the emptiness of space, sucking everything into it. This was expected and the gate was destroyed, but before that, the satellite was pulled out and after 3 months of nothing the coordinates of where it landed was sent back.

After almost five years of doing this, the first successful gate was opened on Kepler-22b. It was around 30000 feet in the air, but it counted. After some fine tuning the gate opened on the ground. The other side looked like a forest. The trees were the usual brown, and the grass was the usual green. Very underwhelming to say the least. The gate was closed, the room was decontaminated, and a drone was put in the room.

A FSTAR with a camera, recording device, audio, sample collect hand, water proofing… it had everything. The gate was opened, and it went through. It took pictures, took samples, and even marked where the gate opened. The samples were thoroughly studied, the plants were similar to the ones on Earth, but a professional eye could tell you that they were alien. There were also samples of and animals like birds and bugs. They looked similar to what was on Earth. This news rocked the world of science, but it's not really important to the story.

What is important is that the germs that were found were not deadly to humans, well, not as deadly as feared. Their skin wasn’t going to melt off because of these germs. As such it was decided that a team of ten, seven scientists of various studies, two guards and one survival expert were to be handpicked and sent to explore. As a sign of peace, the United Countries of North America opened the registry to the entire world and offered to let half of the team be from other countries. On September 4th, ten explorers of Earth walked through the gate.

“This is fucking boring” Carter bravely claimed.

We all ignored him, but silently agreed. The atmosphere was incredibly similar to Earth and as such everything looked like it was from Earth. We didn't need suits or special gear, although we all dressed in pants and long sleeves. Nothing in five miles was deadly or even poisonous. We’ve even been getting our water from a nearby lake.

“The gate has drifted about two inches from the original spot” Rosie told Dr. Mark.

“A bit shorter than we expected, but that's fine. Next time it should open up directly in the circle”. Dr. Mark explained.

It's been about two weeks since we last saw him. We lived in tents and slowly built infrastructure. We now have showers, sleeping quarters, a warehouse and a minor research lab.

“Don’t ignore me!” Carter said in a low voice.

“I'm not ignoring you. I'm ignoring you!” Dr. Mark said with a smile on his face.

“What do you want him to do about it?” Musa, one of the guards asked, already annoyed with Carter.

“I don’t know! can't we have a tv or something”.

“For someone so smart you sure do ask stupid questions”. I said as monotone as possible.

“Shut up John, but seriously, we are supposed to explore this planet, and yet we can't go five miles from here”.

“That's for your own safety and if you are half as smart as you claim you'll stay within the borders I set up”. Michael, our survival expert said. “But if you want you can go as far as you want, just don't expect anyone to hear your screams for help”. This was said with a bit more seriousness.

“Whatever, the only thing out there is those long-legged deer's and those green birds”. Carter said, tried to save face and not look like the child he's acting like.

“It seems like it's time for me to go, oh how I missed your attitude Cart”. Dr. Mark chided knowing what Carter was about to say.

“Don't call me Ca–” and the gate closed, leaving us stranded on an alien planet once again.

“Gahh, a man his age shouldn't act like that” Carter practically screamed.

“And a man your age shouldn’t act like this”. It was Sara who shot this remark.

Carter would have said something, but even he knew not to piss off the only doctor on the entire planet.

“Alright, enough, everyone knows what to do, we’ll all be back here by 2000 hours for dinner”.Rosie said and walked away, heading to the warehouse to make sure the new supplies were correctly organized.

“It's not like anything is out there”. Carter claimed under his breath.

“Something is out there”. It was a pretty good fence for amateurs. It consisted of segments; each segment was two vertical posts with three horizontal ones running between the two. I looked back at my second black furred face.

“What do you think it is, sir?”. Vektris looked at me with fear in his eyes.

“Nothing to be scared of”.

“Of course, general Astron”. He stood up a bit straighter at that.

“You're a good scout, Vektris, one of the best in the whole Sillatiq army, I'm sure you can handle a Daaxxi or two”. I said as I turned away from the fence and walked back to camp.

“Their Daaxxi!”

“No. The Daaxxi are stupid, but they wouldn’t set up a camp so far into our territory, especially not with a fence that is poorly made”. I retorted; a bit amused at the fear in Vektris’s voice.

“Of course, but I thought the fence was pretty well made, sir.”

“It is a farmer's fence, made to keep out animals like the Sla from getting in.”

“Oh, so there are farmers?”

“No, you don't know this, but the side of the river is unfarmable, we have tried for many generations but none of our crops seem to grow here. Most likely their bandits setting up a new camp”. Our camp was still a bit farther and I was hoping that Vektris would be satisfied with my answer.

“But why here”? Of course, he wasn’t.

“I imagine so they can get water from lake Heflog and get food from the lapep trees and hunt the Sla. And before you ask, they are far enough from the road to hide from passing guards”. I said the last bit with a bit of an edge. It's not that I don't like Vektris, the opposite really, he just asks so many questions. Luckily, he got the hint and kept quite the rest of the way.

“General!” The two guards stood up and addressed me.

“At ease, and then get everyone in the mess hall, there's something important I need to address”, they nodded and went off. As I made my way to the mess hall every bear looked at me. Knowing if I didn't start first, they would never shut up.

“Everyone to the mess hall I have an announcement”, I shouted and kept walking.

Eventually, everyone in the ‘battalion’ was in the mess hall. Every shade of brown and black the Sillatiq empire had to offer. Some talking about whatever crossed their minds, some asking why they are here when they have night watch, all wondering what I was about to say.

“Soldiers”, and with that the mess hall was silent, every head turning to look at me, with nothing but respect, gods I love being me.

“A bandit camp has been located about seven miles from here and we are going to handle this. First, scouts will find out how large their border is, then they will infiltrate and gather intel, you will not engage in any way. After sufficient intel has been gathered, we will plan our attack and make examples out of these bears. Any questions”. A surprising number of paws were raised. Unsurprisingly, Vektris was one.

“Yes, Vektris”

Why can't the scouts engage?”.

“Vektris, what will the scouts be wearing?”.

“They’ll be wearing the scout uniform of the Sillatiq empire”.

“And what is on the scout uniform of the Sillatiq empire”. Vektris face perked in realization, but it was too late to back out.

“The insignia of the Sillatiq empire scout regiment, sir.”. Oh poor, little Vektris.

“And what will the bandit do, once he sees that insignia”. Some of the bears around Vektris began to step away from him.

“They’ll scream and alert the others, ruining the whole plan, sir”.

“They’ll scream and alert the others, ruining the whole plan, what”.

““They’ll scream and alert the others, ruining the whole plan, sir”.

“Good, and since I have to answer stupid questions, the reason we’re scouting them first is because we don't know how many there are. This could be the largest group of bandits the empire has ever seen, any other none stupid question”.

Many paws went down, either because the question had been answered or because they were too scared to receive my ire. Vektris particularly looked defeated. Damn kid, making me feel bad, I’ll have to buy him a drink later.

“I got a question”. I turned and saw Yan. The second biggest bear in the room, this is going to be good.

“No, if any of the bandits are women you can't keep them”. This got a chuckle out of the crowd.

“That wasn’t my question”. A flustered Yan sternly said. “My question is what will we do with any loot they have”.

“We’ll take it, then place it in the royal treasure”. Of course, his question was about money. After some grumbling from the crowd, I got an idea.

“Of course, if any of the treasure happened to end up in the paws of a particularly impressive bear, I'm sure not even the emperor would care”. The crowd perked up at that. This group always wanted two things, money and acknowledgement of their skills. This lets me do both.

“Any more questions” Vektris raised his paw.

“No more questions? Good. Everyone, back to their stations, we’ll set up scouting teams in the morning”.