FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

In an isolated system, any work exerting energy shifts said energy from concentrated to dithered. The amount of energy unavailable to do further work, or entropy, increases. Work is therefore only possible so long as entropy does not equal the total energy in the system. Should this happen, it would mean the passive heat-death of the entire system.

—The Second Law of Thermodynamics

— — — — —

A foreign star barely winks as a lone starship crosses its path. The Starbreeze silently pirouettes through the black, giving the whole of its skin even exposure to the star's warmth. She swims and dances in large arcs as she stretches her arms and legs in her cozy morning light. Then there's an explosion.

"Damnit, girls!" Commander Ilaria Rihzyet ran over to the nearest port-side window and peered through the clear aluminum. "Rhyme, what did they do now?" When no response came at all, she pulled out her tablet terminal and typed out a message for her two deaf daughters. <Girls, what was that? Don't break my ship.>

One of the twins noticed a vibration on her arm, then the two worked out a reply represented in hard light text as they drifted in the vacuum outside. <We don't know, mom. Miss Rhyme just... Well, we don't know.>

<You were supposed to watch her. It's bad enough she's the only one qualified to work out there, but while pregnant?> Ari calmed herself down and moved her head around to harder angles of the window with no luck. <Is she alright? Where is she now?>

<She's near the wing nacelle we were fixing. She's moving, but hunched over.>

<Can she reach her mic?>

<We think she might be in pain, actually. We're bringing her inside.>

Ari tensed up at the mention of pain, but took a few good breaths and guided her whelps. <Pressurize inside the airlock and then go straight to medical. I'll inform the doc and meet you there.>

<Alright, mom.>

Ari waited to see her daughters open a wormhole directly to the airlock and understood their method of operation clearly. "Good girls." She immediately started jogging down the port hallway towards the aft where the medical bay was housed. "Prisma, open a line to Ellie no matter what she's doing."

The ship's AI flickered onto Ari's watch just long enough to confirm, "Emergency? Got it."

It only took two seconds for a video stream to open depicting the gender bending otter pounding away at his girlfriend. "Huh? Oh, shit shit!"

The Arctic wolf taking the pounding sat upright, revealing it was this universe's flavor of Ashe. "I tried to warn you..."

"Well you do have better ears than I do, beautiful." Elliot ceased his copulation and stood, finding a shirt as a makeshift cover for his crotch. "What's up? I had this set to private, so..."

"Something's up with Rhy. The girls are taking her to medical in a minute." Ari slid to a stop, her prosthetic leg actually sparking as it peeled away primer from the metal floor panels. "I'm here too."

"Oh, well don't worry about it if it's an emergency." Ellie cut off the video feed, then about thirty seconds later emerged as he settled the skirt of his dress and applied a lab coat on top. "Lucky for you we're living here more often."

"We?" Ari peeked into the room and found a nude dogpile of the remaining variations of Ashes. "Oh. Whatever, not my business. Just get a bed ready, please."

The twins then opened a portal and plopped themselves and Rhyme in the middle of the floor, prompting a sigh from Ellie. "Or they could take the ~least~ hygienic approach."

"Ellie! Please—!"

"I'm on it, hon. Don't worry." The otter pointed to a large patient bed and then helped the girls carry Rhyme to lay in it. "We need to get this space suit off. Grab something to cut it open."

The girls ran off to find an appropriate tool, but Ari didn't feel like waiting and removed the tanuki's helmet. "Rhyme? Are you hurt?"

"Ah!..." Rhy groaned and clutched the straining belly of her suit. "I think... my water broke..."

"I told you she shouldn't work. She already looked about thirty weeks out with those two." The girls returned with some heavy shears and Ellie prepared to get to work. "Hold still, Rhyme. I need to get you out of this quickly and I don't want to hurt you."

"What!? Not my lucky suit!" Rhyme surprisingly fought past the pain to further fight the doctor, at least until she saw the concern in his eyes. "Just... Gods damnit, just do it."

"Sorry, hon." Elliot carefully cut through the collar band, then found a path between various armored reinforcements. "They don't fucking make 'em like this anymore, do they? I can definitely see the attachment."

"Ellie, not helping." Ilaria took her fiancée's paw, removed the glove, and let her grip as hard as she liked. "It'll be okay, Rhy. Try to calm down and we'll fix this."

"Fix it? Sorry to say it, but I think there's only one solution to two kids in your womb." Ellie finished his work and peeled away the suit, then immediately reached for an ultrasound machine. "Let's hope this still works. I hate these kids of yours breaking my scans."

"They can't help it."

"Your brother's played nice. Then again they also popped out ~clear~." The otter touched the scanner to Rhyme's enormous, glowing tummy, but as expected the image was whited out by conflicting radiation. "It looks the same size as last time. I think they're definitely done growing. It's... just time, probably."

Rhy groaned and cried out, "Probably!?"

"I'm a brain surgeon, not a damn midwife. It looks like you're in full labor. Let's just hope these two want to come out the old-fashioned way like Zoë's kids did." Ellie cut through Rhyme's boxers and spread her legs, the twins getting the hint to hold up the tanuki's ankles. "I'm going to check visually. That means I need to part your cervix a bit and use a probe. It's... not going to be comfortable."

Rhyme cried out as her eyes started tearing up. "Just do it! It's already not comfortable!"

"Alright. Try to hold still for me." The doc grabbed a medical snake camera and eased it in as mentioned, only to double-take at his screen. "You guys have great luck or genes or ~something~. Two heads, pointing down."

"So she can deliver them normally? Fuck, that's a relief."

Rhyme clamped down hard on Ilaria's paw. "Tell me how relieved you feel when you have two footballs in your snatch!"

"I get it! Sorry, honey." Ari shook her paw loose as Ellie moved her aside. "I'll try, but no promises. I might still need to do a cesarean. Happens with most twins."

"Then... you need help, right? Can I—?"

"Professional help, yeah. A steady paw... maybe." Ellie checked Ari's trembling paws and shook his head. "You're a mess. Go ease her into it, please."

THe twins placed Rhyme's ankles on their tall shoulders and used their freed paws to work a nearby terminal. <We'll bring help, mom.>

<Thank you, sweeties.> Ari huffed a breath of pure frustration and then focused on her love. "Rhy, it'll be over in the blink of an eye. We'll have two wonderful baby boys or girls and it'll all be worth it. I promise."

"~Damn straight~ we will." Rhyme's paw latched onto Ari's once more, this time with a bit more enthusiasm. "I don't make anything half-assed. Our kids are gonna rock."

"That's a perfect attitude to have going into this, Rhyme." Ellie moved a lamp into place and started opening Rhyme's vagina with a clamp. "Cervix is dilated nicely. You work fast, hon."

"I want them ~out~."

"Woah, really?" Ilaria's brother awkwardly stumbled through a portal in the next room and brought his own family with him. "Mind if I'm here, Lulu? I never got to watch Zoë do any of this."

"I don't need an audience examining my fucking cunt!"

"Ignore her, Iolvin. She's in pain." Ellie promptly reached for a syringe and held it upright. "Speaking of, I can give you something to ease it. The catch is that it'll make it a bit harder to work the twins out."

"Oh fuck no!" Rhy winced as her cervix contracted briefly. "I want them out as fast as possible!"

"No painkillers, then." Elliot checked his brother and Yoyo, finding both either shaking or unable to control prosthetic paws properly. "Iolvin, DeeDee... take a seat for now. I could at least use someone to hold the kids as they pop out."

"You got it, sis." Adrian pulled his husband and Zoë over to an empty bed and sat them down on the edge. "You look like you need more help, though."

"Someone with good paws..." Another portal opened up and Prisma's android body fell through. "...like her. Perfect. Come assist me, Pris."

The mechanical otter walked over and peered into Rhyme. "How would you like me to help? Bit cramped in there."

"Yeah, it's over occupancy." Ellie chuckled as he nudged his snout towards a surgical tray in the corner of the room. "Gather up all of the stuff we'll need in case I have to surgically extract these kids. Make sure you sterilize everything, too."

"Uh... cesarean? All my records are a few years old for that..."

"It'll do. Pretty much hasn't changed in... decades..." Ellie's eyes squinted, then went wide as he found one of the children starting to move. "Hurry. We're about to find out ~very quickly~ if we'll need that."

"Oh gods! Ahgn!" Rhyme nearly tore Ilaria's arm off as she strained her whole body. "Gods damnit, why'd you do this to me!? Fuck!"

"Is... Is this normal?" Ari looked to Ellie and only received a calm nod in response as he reached inside to aid one baby out first. "Are they coming now?"

"Looks like it. Rhyme, I need you to loosen up for a moment while I help the head through your cervix. Just breathe like we practiced."

"Fuck that! I'll do whatever the hell works!"

"I think... got it. Now push for me! Help push it out safely!" Elliot smiled as he tendered the child out with his one paw and arm, easing it into the open once the whole body cleared the womb. "Good good! Iolvin! Grab a sheet or something and hold this pup! Quickly!"

"Y-Yeah..." Yoyo looked around frantically until Prisma produced a soft blanket. "Just hold it up? Uh, ~him~?"

"A boy! You hear that, Rhy? We have a boy!"

"I'm not fucking done yet!"

Ellie grinned and dove back inside the poor canine. "Almost there, hon. Just one more time. Can you loosen up again just once more for me?"

"Damnit!" Rhyme was so flustered by the return of pain and pressure to her loins that she simply broke down into sobbing rather than pure rage. "I'll try... Gah..."

"Good girl, Rhyme. Just like that." Again Elliot found his mark, nudging her enlarged cervix around the second head. "Ready for the last push? Take a breath and then give it your all for me, hon."

"F-Fuck m-m-me..." Rhyme closed her eyes tightly and clenched the required muscles as tightly as her exhausted body could. "Ahgn!"

"That's it! Keep going!" In mere seconds Ellie held up the next child, passing it to an awaiting Adrian so he could grab something to cut the umbilical cords. "And this one looks like a girl. It's opposed twins like you and your brother, Ari. Want to cut the—?"

"Ah! Ahgn!" Rhyme clenched down another time in pain and the tears really started pouring. "You said it would be over, you bastard!"

"Don't tell me... Shit, I never checked that case." Ellie eased his paw back inside Rhy's vagina and fed the scope camera through her cervix again. "There's another... sideways. Must have been in the back. Rhyme, I can either cut you open or reach inside to flip the kid. Either way, we don't have any time and it'll fucking hurt."

"You're... You're already in there, so...!"

"Alright, I'll try." Elliot pulled back the scope and fed his paw through Rhyme's cervix, ignoring the deathly screams coming from the poor mother. He eased his paw in a swirling motion and started spinning the child, and thankfully it responded well by angling it's head in the right direction. "I... I think I've got it. Yeah, the head's at the cervix with me."

"So our baby is—?"

"Ari, quiet! Rhyme, give me everything you've got. I mean ~everything~, honey. Time is an issue now." As if it was second nature, the mother rocketed the child outward with the help of Ellie's guiding paw. He took no time at all bothering with cords and instead went right to slapping the pup's ass. "Come on... Breathe for me..."

"Gods...!"

Ellie didn't get a response and immediately checked for obstructions, then flipped the child entirely to shake some fluid from it's mouth. "Breathe, damnit!" Another shake and a few taps on the chest and suddenly the whole room filled with the wailing of a baby girl. "Next. Yoyo, the boy."

"This little guy?" Yoyo held the boy up and smiled, the pup already breathing on his own. "He's a fighter like his mother."

"DeeDee..." Ellie reached for the only remaining child and traded with his brother. With a pretty standard rub and tap on the back and ass, the other baby girl soon joined her siblings in breathing her first gasp of air and then wailing it right back out. "Gods... Oh gods... I think I might faint after that..."

"Was it... that close, sis?" Adrian looked down at the very canine pup in his paws and smiled. "Poor little girl..."

"I... I want to see my pups..." Rhyme could barely breathe after what she'd just been through, but somehow she managed to hold out her weakened arms. "Bring them to me... Please..."

"In a moment. They're still, err... ~tethered~ to you." Elliot found his pincers and gave each pup a clean snip at the belly. Then he wrapped the girl in his paws in a blanket and gently passed her to Rhyme before heading back to the her loins. "I'll tidy up down here. You may want to... feed them before I do a checkup."

Without a moment's notice or a care in the world, Rhyme whipped out a heavy breast and snuggled her child against it. "She's so beautiful..."

"Gods... They're so small and helpless..."

"And ~nameless~." Iolvin gave the boy to his twin sister, only then realizing he needed to wipe joyful tears from his eyes. "They don't look too much alike, but it's nice to have so many."

"Gods, three names..." Ari passed over the boy and then took hold of the second girl Adri was cooing. "One's got darker fur... One's white... Two girls and a boy..." She leaned in close and held the third next to the others as they fed on a teat each. "We didn't plan on having three. Gods, what now?"

Rhyme giggled in joy as she pointed to each. "Salt... Pepper..." She came to a pause on the girl in her lover's arms, who possessed a reddish-brown coat just like the otter. "And... Paprika."

"Oh, that's pretty cute." Ari tried to wipe the blood and ooze from the baby girl and held her up. "That's a nice suggestion. Anyone got any—"

"That's not a suggestion." Rhyme flopped her head back into her pillow and started passing out once Ellie was finished down below. "I suffered through that, I name them."

"They're my pups too—"

"Am I forgetting something? When did you fire out three kids while getting fisted without painkillers?"

"Ouch. Hard bargain." Ilaria cringed as she imagined that sensation, sadly recalling the first time she'd had sex. "Salt, Pepper, and Paprika it is."

— — — — —

"Of course I'm getting worse..." Sydney placed her pistol on a crate and walked down a makeshift test firing lane in the fore cargo bay. "I need a damn assignment or something. Only getting rustier sitting around here."

Cait smiled from behind the target. "I could help your aim, mom."

"Defeats the purpose of training. I just need some real action again, something to redeem myself." Cid sighed and pulled a flask from her jacket pocket. "Sorry, Cait—for being selfish and for this. Keep your sister safe for me?"

"Just because I can cordon off your bad habits doesn't mean you should still do them." Cait slumped down on the ground and submitted forcefully as her mother took a large swig of strong-scented alcohol. "...I'll keep her safe."

"Guh... Burns the whole way..."

A series of mechanical clicks sent Cid's head into a frenzy until Yoyo and Dee's twin boys revealed themselves with a camera. "You shouldn't do that. Carbon said she doesn't like it."

"Oh yeah?" Sydney took an even larger swill down her gullet. "And what are you gonna do about it? I can drink if I want."

"Oh, we won't do anything." The one holding the camera, Themis by Cid's intuition, held up the device and shrugged his shoulders. "I do wonder what Carbon might say if she happened upon my photos, though..."

"And I wonder what you might say if I happen upon your camera." Sydney rolled her eyes when she noticed the DSLR actually belonged to the boy's father. "Except I can't break that. I already owe your dad too much. Good hustle."

"It's not a hustle. I saw Carbon crying over you." Phoebe stepped forward and gave Cid a slap on the shoulder. "She's got enough to worry about, right? Think about her."

Sydney hesitated, but gave the flask to the odd kid. "You're surprisingly mature for a six month old brat. You know that?"

"You don't need to put it ~that~ way. Goddess." Themis took a quick picture of Cid's gesture and smiled. "I like that one. Keeper."

"Goddess, Emmi. Can't put that damn thing down, can you?"

"Hey, I like it. It's fun to catch people off guard, in a more... natural state." Themis took a few steps forward and threw an arm around his brother. "I'll lay off for a while if you really want though, Phebes."

Cid nearly spat out a laugh that she muffled to a chuckle. "You know, the way you shorten your names now only makes them sound ~girlier~, right?"

"Says the crossdresser."

"Don't provoke her, Emmi." Phoebe shook his head as he nudged shoulders with his twin. "Anyway, the real reason we're here is because your radio is off and this bay isn't wired up quite right yet. We've apparently got three new cousins and we thought you might want to check them out with us."

"Cousins? You mean... Rhyme gave birth?" Sydney's paws subconsciously slid down to her surprisingly small stomach that barely registered as perhaps a beer gut. "Yeah, I'm definitely down for that. Just let me grab my gun and we'll go."

Phoebe groaned lightly. "Can't you leave it for once? No bad guys in deep space, Cid."

"I've got it." Themis took the pistol from the crate it rested upon and held it towards Sydney. "Here."

"Gods! Don't point it at me!" Cid grabbed the gun and shoved it in her shoulder holster with the safety engaged even though it was empty. "Your dad is good with guns. He never taught you two how to handle them, Emmi?"

"Please don't call me that. I only really tolerate it from Phebes here." The otter held up his camera and shrugged his shoulders. "And no, he sort of can't. He's working up to firing rifles again himself. Only thing I know how to shoot is photos."

"Fair enough. Maybe... I might have a way to partially repay your dad then. Yeah." Cid double-checked her belongings and nodded when nothing dangerous was left in the open. "So, how about those cousins for now? They can't be ~ugly as sin~ like you two, right?"

The twins looked themselves over, with Phoebe speaking up first. "What? I know we look strange, but is it that bad?"

"Nah, it's alright. At least you two wear underwear now. You mom's influence isn't wrong, but it is still sorta ~wrong~. Ya' know?" Cid grinned as she focused on the boys, who now looked about eighteen or so and were clad in naught but tight track shorts that did little to hide their wealthy sexual inheritance. "Actually, I think you two look pretty well built. A good, slim suit would probably fit you both."

Themis looked down at himself, then right back into Sydney's eyes with a bit of concern. "So we aren't too strange?"

"Well the red eyes ~are~ a bit weird." Cid shook her head and started moving for the elevator shaft to keep from staring at the magnificent specimens of maleness before her. "And it's kinda strange that you had dark fur yesterday. What's with the white? How do you even do that?"

"Just a party trick, I guess." Phoebe whipped out one of two fleshy tendrils protruding from his back and lashed it to one of his brother's. "Jeeves says we need to pick something or we'll melt. Takes no effort, so whatever."

"Jeeves, huh?" Cid chuckled as she envisioned a traditional butler, then somehow morphed that into a male version of Fleur. "You guys have some silly names going around. This a new one? Took you a while to name the guy, huh?"

"Well we can only see him when we're like this, when we share him." Themis nudged his camera lens towards the woven tendrils. "Took a while to find that sweet spot. We think he likes it."

"Well whatever works for you." Sydney hopped into the zero-gravity column that housed the elevator and kicked off the ground while she still could. "Can you change your color at will? I mean... It might help if you look like your parents when you're around your cousins."

"You just want to see us do it, don't you?" Themis smirked and nodded to his brother as they agreed on colors. "Fine. Only takes a second."

Phoebe kicked off the floor and dragged his twin with him. "Yeah, no big deal at all. Ready?"

Cid grabbed a bar near the second deck and pulled herself into artificial gravity, using her vantage point to watch the two better. "Go for it. I'm curious."

Phoebe shifted first, a wave of light passing over his whole body and converting his pure white to a creamier variant like Adrian's fur. In only two seconds he was a new color, including his now-hazel eyes. "See? Not much to look at."

"Wow. You look just like Dee. A manlier version, maybe... but that's pretty close."

"Yeah, well check this out:" Themis shook his fur as if he were drying it, a rippling spread of light shifting his fur to a rusty brown and his eyes to cyan-blue. "That was a bit easier to see, right? Do I win?"

Phoebe grabbed the edge of the second deck with a chuckle. "Was it a contest?"

"Well he did put on a better show." Cid smiled as she teased, resuming her walk to medical. "I know you two say that's nothing, but you've got some tactical advantage there. Can you do patterns?"

Themis waved a paw over his chest and added a layer of lighter counter-shaded fur to his chest, belly, and thighs. "Sure can."

Sydney laughed as she walked into the medical bay. "Oh yeah. He wins."

Phoebe pouted a bit and broke his Link with Themis. "Hey..."

"Hey guys! Check ~this~ out!" Lilith, now a much more patient fluff drake, brought out her two adopted children and placed them a meter away. "Look! They both learned to walk on their own!"

The twin foxes each stood and hobbled over to their ecstatic mother, drawing a grin from Ilaria. "Yeah, they're doing great. Ginger looks like she's a bit better at it though."

"She started walking first. I'm pretty proud of her, but Vixen learned from her sister pretty quickly too."

"I can't wait until our new litter can join those two." Rhyme smiled as she offered a teat to her little boy, Salt, while the others peacefully slept. "They're beyond words. I... I never thought having pups would be so..."

"Satisfying?" Ari walked over to the patient bed and gave Rhy a kiss. "I was the same way. There's just something special about it, and I leave it at that."

"Well I think they're adorable." Lilly rounded up her two kids and pulled them to a corner as the new visitors joined the ranks along with Elliot. "Cid! Even ~you~ can't resist this much cuteness."

Ari snickered. "I'm willing to take bets."

Cid chuckled and came to a halt next to the bed. "Clever girl."

"And I'm willing to use your kids as decoys so I can get some real sleep." The drake pulled her kids into her lap and nuzzled them both. "I'm sure they'd enjoy someone to play with when your triplets grow up a bit."

"Well that won't be much longer." Ellie checked over an electronic medical chart before giving three pieces of paper to Ilaria. "Birth certificates, sort of. I put 'void of space' as the location, same as your brother's kids."

"Uh... thanks. So what's this about not being any longer?"

"Well, they're growing quickly. Not as fast as your first two or Yoyo's, but rapidly." Ellie checked his charts and guesstimated a number. "Looks like a slightly slower start, maybe. I'd say about a year's worth of growth every ten days? Mikhaila and Michelle were every six, and these two here were every seven."

Ari quirked her head in confusion, having missed out on months of her first daughters' development. "But... they aren't growing that fast anymore...?"

"It slows down. In a few months the rate will be about half, and after a year or so..." Ellie shook his head with a sigh. "Well, I wish I was like your girls. They'll develop another year worth of growth in about five years then, and after that... maybe fifteen or so? They'll be young forever!"

Ari giggled as she found a nearby seat. "Well now I see why you're looking depressed at least."

"Actually, that's something else. Did you read those certificates?" Ellie sat down next to Ari and pointed at a certain spot. "Read them again, carefully."

"Paprika... Sex: Intersex. What?" Ilaria flipped to the next and tried to prove her eyes wrong. "Salt... Intersex? And... Pepper too? How?"

"I scanned them when I did their checkups. Just got done going through the images a minute ago." Ellie pointed to Pepper's sheet first. "Pepper has outward female parts, but an ovoteste inside as well. Paprika's in the same boat, being a bit more female-bodied but with one ovoteste herself. They likely share the same pair." He moved to the next, trying to be brief. "Salt though has outward genitalia matching your own. She has a vagina and a composite phallus clitoris. She's got two ovotestes inside her as well."

"So... What, they'll all be like me?"

"Salt certainly will. The other two I'm not sure about." Ellie stood up and threw his paws upward. "All I can guess is they'll be more like... Well..."

Ari noticed Ellie spying Lilith from the corner of his vision. "Ah, yeah. No names." She stood and headed right for her children, inspecting Salt in particular to verify the findings. "Uh, Ellie? There's a vagina alright, but Salt's got something extra too."

"Hmm? Maybe something I couldn't see well in the scans?" The otter leaned in closely and made a peculiarly ponderous expression. "That's... a sheath? I stand mistaken; Salt has a phallic clit ~and~ a penis."

Rhyme was nearly in tears at the unusual news. "But I don't... understand...?"

"The best I can guess is that there were five embryos in you at one point that developed fairly far. Then the others absorbed two of them and became intersex. It's what happened with Ari here, and coincidentally it's why you even have these children. No ovoteste, no sperm for the lady."

"Then I won't complain. I'd rather have these cuties than not." Rhyme pulled all three close to her face and softly nuzzled the lot. "They're perfect as they are, no matter what."

"Exactly." Ari joined in on the snuggles, giving each child a light lick between the ears. "They're just adorable right now. It'll be interesting raising them though. Promise we'll let them choose how they represent themselves? I wasn't exactly given that luxury myself and it sucks."

Rhy gave her fiancée a lick on her broad, anvil-shaped nose. "Oh, definitely. They can be whatever they want to be and I'll still love them to death."

"Heeee..."

Click. Themis popped his head up from his viewfinder slathered in a large grin. "Sorry. It was just too good to ~not~ take that one."

Ari grinned back. "Send me a copy and I'll forgive you... ~And~ I won't tell your father about stealing his camera, Pho."

"It's Em, actually. And deal, Aunt Ari."

— — — — —

"Hello? You in here, Yoyo?"

Adrian picked his eyes up from a stack of digital tablets and quickly waved to Ilaria. "Yeah, he's over that way. He's got his headphones on while he trains."

Ari looked over to the corner of the small gym and found not only her brother on a treadmill, but her two nephews joining him as well. "Good, I was running out of places to look. It's great he's taking the initiative with his rehab."

"Yeah, well the boys really like it too. They share a love for this gym." Dee groaned as he checked his tablets again, then gave up on what he was doing in favor of a distraction. "So what's up?"

"I've got a package for my bro. Like, a real package. I figured I'd get his approval before Liv worked on it any further."

"My man's gonna have a dick again? Damn, you're my new favorite fur right now." Dee sat up straight and waved the otter over. "Can I take a peek?"

"It's... different, but sure." Ari rolled her eyes as she pulled out what appeared to be a translucent white dildo cast in the very image of her own cock. "It's a bit lifeless, and there's more... sheath than you remember..."

"I get it—you couldn't copy his since it's been vaporized or whatever, so you used yours." Dee gave the prosthetic dong a playful tap. "It's in the family ballpark. Besides, yours is a bit bigger so I'll let it slide."

"Heh. Well we've tested what we could and Liv says it should function more-orLess like the real thing." Dee was starting to actively fondle the soft appendage and Ari reeled it away before claws were involved. "It can take some abuse too, but it won't heal. Take it easy on the little guy unless you want to replace it."

"Little girl, technically." Dee chuckled as he sent his husband a wireless jolt to the brain to grab his attention. «Honey, come take a look at this.»

"Huh?" Iolvin pulled some earbuds out of his ears and slipped off the rear of the treadmill. "Take a look at what? Oh... Gods, Lulu. Don't show off your collection like that."

"This is ~your~ collection, lil' bro." Ari placed the floppy cock in her brother's paw and smirked. "Olivia cooked this up special for you, with some ~minor~ discomfort to myself in the process. Six months and four nanite samples in the making, Yoyo."

"I'm glad I was right in thinking the part you missed most was my dick. This doesn't look like mine though..." Yoyo grinned just before he raised the drapes of his sister's sirat, exposing the model's inspiration. "Damn, it's a close match. I'm ~impressed~."

"Yoyo!" Ari threw down her arms and forced her drapes to fall flush again. "Don't just do that!"

"Sorry. I just didn't know if you still went commando in that thing. I'm pleasantly correct in that assumption, too." Yoyo tossed his twin the prosthesis along with a hint of remorse. "I'll ask to get in your pants from here out, Lulu. I didn't mean to upset you."

"I know... It's fine..." Ari placed the portable cock in the case from whence it came and took a breath. "So, do you think that'll do? Liv wants to try it on you later."

"I'm sure she ~does~." Yoyo sat down next to his husband and gave a quick kiss, then called Zoë over to sit in his lap. "I've been owing Adri and Zoë here a good fuck for months."

"And you don't care at all that our boys are just over there, hearing everything out your muzzle?" Dee sighed in resignation. "Well, they're taking after you a lot already. I guess the cursing only helps that."

"What? They're way more like you." Yoyo took a moment to ogle his own sons' rears as they jogged along. "I'm pretty sure they got your 'dat ass' gene."

"Never mind that they're part female. That's all you, again."

"Yeah, I forget about that sometimes. They act so much like typical guys." Iolvin forced himself to look away, finding the mess Adrian laid out on the table. "So what's all this, babe? You said you were just gonna read something."

"Read over something. Some of us have a lot more to do than exercise and sleep all day." Dee closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Sorry, hon. I'm just exhausted over this."

Yoyo picked up a data pad and skimmed over the contents. "Whatever it is, it's too complex for me."

"Astronomic telemetry data." Dee took the tablet and placed it back, fixing his odd ordering of the stack. "I had Trick and Buck record everything for our last few dives. Something isn't adding up and... Gods, I just can't figure it out."

Ari perused the tablets, making sure she didn't touch anything this time. "So what's the problem? This related to not meeting our target deadlines?"

"Deadlines? What do you mean, Lulu?"

"Yeah, it's about that." Adrian took one of the data pads and held it up for Iolvin. "We've been using the oxydium reactor to open wormholes and dive back home. Right? After each dive, we have to let the oxydium recharge. We guessed it would take between five and six months to make it home based on the usual rate of that cycle."

"And it's been six months. Got it."

"But that's what gets me." Dee pulled out the most recent set of data and pointed at the Starbreeze's position in space. "Based on the stars around us, we're not even halfway home. We've made ten percent more dives than we ever guessed and we're... actually , we might be closer to a third of the way. The data just doesn't match up."

"So you've been recording the last few dives. I'm tracking now." Ari took the tablet Dee was holding and skimmed over each datum. "Yeah, that's way worse than I thought. It's like something's holding us back though."

Dee's ears perked up. "Holding us back? Huh?"

"Well in Newtonian space, going a certain speed over a certain span of time equals distance. Right?" Ari drew a few circles over some key points and gave back the tablet. "So what if we stop thinking our engines are the problem and assume some other force is acting upon us as well?"

"Well we're sort of beyond Newton at this point. Hell, we're even past... Einstein..."

"Adri?" Yoyo watched as his husband scrambled to write something down on the tablet. "Babe, what's wrong?"

"Hawking. We've entered Stephen Hawking territory." Dee desperately finished scrawling down an equation and practically shoved the data pad down Ari's throat. "We're under the influence of a black hole."

Ari furled her eyebrows and scrutinized the new math. "What? No way."

"Yes way. That barge we've got tethered to us? When it was in meltdown, I noticed our stabilizer gyros went out of calibration. I know this because it took me four gods damned days to fix. A surge of gravity was the determined cause." Dee stood up and tapped hard enough on the tablet to make the hologram flicker. "Ever since, we've been forced to schedule weekly calibrations because it keeps getting off center and the ship drifts."

"...And the only thing that can screw them up is conflicting gravity. Fuck ~me~."

"Precisely. I mean, not the fucking part... You know what I mean."

Yoyo raised a paw. "Excuse me, but could you explain it like I'm five?"

Ari shook herself from focusing too hard on this problem and answered. "Black holes make crazy amounts of gravity, enough to crush this whole ship into a speck of dust. We're far away, but because there's so much gravity we're being pulled backwards. We seem to be making progress though, so... it might take a year, but we'll get home."

Dee brought up a cautionary paw himself. "Not... exactly..." He quickly worked out the basic direction of the gravitational pull and filled in some derived details. "You're thinking linearly, but inside a black hole is... exponential at the very least. If you look at all the individual recordings... the time and light dilation..."

"We're inside the event horizon? But..." Ari squinted her eyes and created a set of glasses from her own nanites just to be sure she was reading Dee's calculations correctly. "Wait, this says Earth is inside the horizon too. Dee?"

"The point of no return. But from our perspective, everything looks relatively normal."

Yoyo gave Zoë a comforting hug as she fidgeted in his lap. "So we're fucked? We're stuck out here?"

Dee sat back down in defeat. "If we have to stop to charge our fuel like this, then yeah. It's like using a paddle against the tide. You get tired and the sea takes back more than you gained."

"No, it's worse. If Earth is stuck inside, it'll eventually be crushed. Could be a million years, could be a hundred..."

"We need to find your girls, Fibre, Trick..." Yoyo set Zoë on her feet and rose out of his seat. "We'll find a solution. Our boys and your babies aren't growing up without a planet to call home."

"You're right. This family fights as a pack." Ilaria slammed a wall terminal and brought up the internal communications for the Starbreeze. "Anyone that understands black holes, emergency meeting in the ready room. This is ~not~ optional."