FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Steel All Around

If you are captured by the Regulian Imperial Army, talk. Tell them everything they want to know and nothing more.

This might seem counterproductive to our cause. Indeed it is, it will likely result in deaths or imprisonments, but it is far better than the alternative.

The Army has a duty to escalate uncooperative prisoners to the Imperial Claw during matters of state safety. In such a case, you will suffer unduly and they will either get you to tell them far more than the Army would ask for or they will extract it from your brain, which, our sources indicate, leaves you in a vegetative state.

In matters of war and rebellion, sometimes you have to choose between two wrong options. We need as many bodies as possible for the resistance and even a lifetime interned at a prisoner camp leaves the possibility of freedom.

_-_Leaflet recovered during riot in New York City.

My mind awoke but the world was still black. I was afraid to open my eyes for fear of what I might discover. I couldn’t move and there was steel below me, atop me, in front, everywhere; keeping me in place. Just about the only thing that wasn’t held down was my face and for a moment, I was worried that I was still stuck underneath the ruins of the Hauler, but the air was warm and a heater hummed gently to my left.

I didn’t have a plan. I was a little surprised the Regulians took the Pathos bait so readily that I wasn’t really sure how to use it to my advantage. Part of me felt that by any rational measure, I should be dead now.

There was no telling how long I’d be able to remain like this so I began to devise a plan in my head, but I must have somehow projected my thoughts because a voice suddenly spoke.

“Don’t embarrass us both with your sleeping act.”

The voice was strong and conveyed an unspoken order, one that I could not refuse. My eyes opened automatically and I found myself staring at the Regulian from before, still wearing those spectacles across the wide bridge of his muzzle. He was wearing a brown officer’s jacket with matching trousers, a dull ensemble compared to his striking snow fur with jet stripes.

Drab outfit aside, he stood out like a work of art compared to the rest of the room. I had always assumed that Planet was a fairly recent project, or experiment, or whatever the Regulians considered it; but if this room was any indication of what the project was, it was either older than I expected or made on a cheaper budget than I could possibly imagine. We were surrounded by drab, gray concrete, of which a crumbling hole was located behind the Officer, exposing some plasteel rebar within the walls. The floors had plain, white tiles, several of which were shattered or missing. All in all, it felt less like a state of the art military base and more of a backwater outpost.

“Very good,” he crossed his arms behind his back, “we’ll train you yet.”

“Where am I…?” I played dumb, hoping it would buy some time.

“Hm, yes, I suppose the medical treatments have done a number on you...”

There was a sharp rattle of metal as the Regulian pulled a large, round jar out from below my field of vision. Inside, countless misshapen chunks of metal bounced around as the Regulian’s massive paws shook it.

“What we pulled from your body,” his pink nostrils flared as he exhaled sharply, “you were just about crushed by your own vehicle after that stunt you pulled. An inch to the left or the right on your landing and you would have been dead in an instant.”

“Really?”

“Yes, human. We saved you from the wreckage and treated you, all in a day’s work as your noble protectors,” his tail twitched, “but perhaps you can help us out. If you tell us what you know of Pathos, you can do the Empire a favor and perhaps we can see about making your life a little easier.”

I laughed, “Noble protectors!? If I recall you were about to kill us in cold blood when you found us!”

“And if I recall, you were playing dumb mere seconds ago. An attempt at buying time, no doubt.”

My mouth opened but no words came out. I tried to think of something to fire back with, but I ended up looking like a fool.

“So, let’s establish one rule,” he calmly spoke as he pulled a short, black cylinder from a nearby counter. He gave it a flick, extending it to about an arm’s length, and the air crackled with electricity. Without a warning, he snapped the baton against the metal frame of my confines and for one brief moment it felt like my entire body was on fire. The pain was immense, but it vanished almost immediately afterwards, save for the crackle of static on the short hairs atop my head.

“If I catch you thinking, you’re going to experience pain,” he slapped the shaft of the baton against his gloved paw. “When you’re telling the truth, you don’t have to think, you just speak. Understand?”

Without hesitating, I nodded.

“Good. Things can still end up well for you, but only if you cooperate.”

“I’ll tell the truth...”

The coarse, synthetic leather of his glove rubbed against my cheek, “Where is Pathos?”

“I’m not going to tell you yet.”

I winced, expecting to get a jolt of electricity or for that glove to slap me across the face. Surprisingly, he gently slid his paw off and I heard him step slowly away.

When I looked back, I saw him facing away from me, the tip of his tail slowly curling back and forth.

“The Claw is coming, you know that?”

A different kind of shock shot through my spine, “What!?”

“Won’t take long either. One of their agents, a real sicko, takes his vacation on this planet and he’s already said he’s going to cut it short just so he can pay you a visit,” the Regulian’s eyes peered towards an ominous, jet-black box that I could barely notice in the dim lighting of the room until he marked it, “that’s their ‘toy-box’ right there. You don’t want to imagine what’s in there.”

This was bad. The Claw, His Majesty’s intelligence organization, were the most ruthless sons of bitches in the Empire. Once they had you in their clutches, they’d break you either mentally or physically, and get what they want. They have full authority to arrest, interrogate, or torture anyone, regardless of their stature or the nature of their alleged crime.

“Let me tell you what to expect from him: if you don’t talk, you will suffer greatly and then you will talk. If you do talk, he will be angered at having his vacation interrupted for a quick confession, and then you will suffer greatly.”

“What if I don’t talk?” I asked, futilely injecting some confidence into my speech.

The Regulian turned around and pushed up his glasses, “That’s a hypothetical scenario, if I ever heard one. But should it come to that, we have ways of getting information out of you, even if you’re comatose; which is what the procedure would do to you, at best. At worst, you would end up a shell-shocked semi-vegetable that will be donated to a lab for experimentation.”

“You’re not exactly giving me a lot of good options.”

“I’ll give you the best one: tell me where Pathos is.”

“Why do you care so much?”

“I’ll be patient with you, on account of us, well...” he made a strange motion with his paw that looked like he was injecting something into his skull, “...but Pathos is dangerous. One of the greatest dangers in the galaxy. Him and his siblings-”

“There’s more of him!?”

His fur puffed up on the back of his neck and he gave his paw a quick lick before gently slicking it back down, “There’s a reward from the Emperor himself. A landed title that would grant me my very own moon, complete with a palace, fully paid for, and with a very generous pension.

“Now think carefully, Pawel Lis, this information is worth that much to the Emperor. As an Officer and a Regulian of honor, I would be obligated to grant you a boon.”

“Get me and my friends off Planet.”

“Oh, ho ho ho,” he laughed, pinching his spectacles between his claws just before they slipped off his muzzle, “that I cannot do. You are disappointed, I can tell, but take heart in that I have a sense of honesty and that I intend to fulfill your boon. A lesser being would merely lie, the Claw certainly will and more.”

“Then what the fuck do you have to offer!?”

“We can make things easier for you, hm?” he waved his paw in front of a projector, which rattled noisily and began venting steam as it hummed to life. A rectangular hologram of blue and green irregular shapes painted the wall. “A new life on Planet, far from that lizard and any other worries you might have. Fully supplied and fed by us, of course.”

He tapped a tiny little dot in an ocean of blue. A picture of a small field on the shore of the ocean, bordering a lush forest, came up on the screen and began panning the area in a circle, “A nice two-story house here would be quite idyllic, hm? I have studied human dwellings and their architecture, perhaps a nice colonial home? Or a secluded plantation manor? This sounds appealing, no?”

“No.”

“Really, Pawel Lis, I can spend all day showing off the most beautiful parts of Planet if it means you’ll accept my deal. But perhaps that’s not what you’re concerned about?” he cleared his throat. “No matter where you go, Dondrae will be with you.”

Tears ached at the corner of my eyes. I tried so hard not to let them show themselves, but it was futile. The Officer’s tail twitched with glee at seeing this.

“You can have the Vulpeculan if you like, Talos I believe. We can mindwipe him again if you wish, he can be your slave.”

When I made my gambit, I expected to either die or get off Planet. This was unexpected. If I did make it off Planet, where would we even go? I could get our memories back but would we even be able to go back home?

That island was looking a lot like home now. Maybe it was the best I could hope for.

“Pawel Lis, I will tell you one more piece of information,” he paused, swishing away the projector image, “if you do not talk and the Claw is unsuccessful for whatever reason, the Emperor will order an orbital bombardment of Planet until no life, synthetic or organic, remains. Everyone you know here will die.”

My throat began to ache.

“I will give you some time to think about this,” a door slid open and he stepped out, “but not for long.”

The door slid shut with a thud.

Alone in this steel room constrained by my steel cage, I had nothing but time to think. It felt like an eternity, but I finally came to a decision after thinking very hard.

The door hissed and slid open, revealing the white, Regulian Officer. He stepped proudly in, boots clicking against the floor cheerfully.

“So, have we made a decision, Pawel Lis?” he crossed his arms and peered down at me through his spectacles. The electric baton hung from a loop tied to his belt.

Sighing, I answered, “I’ll talk.”

The Officer clapped his palms together, “Wonderful. This is the right choice, Pawel Lis, the best choice for everyone.”

“Only...” I tightened my eyelids, thinking, “...I know a rough location. I was given a map but...”

I heard the sound of paper crinkling in my head and the image of Neilan’s map fluttering in the arm, tightly held by claws attached to a hand covered in blue scales.

I never took the map back from Lazsh.

My heart began to race and I tried to keep my face frozen. I needed to think of something quick.

“Yaleen, she has a datapad. If we go through the logs, it’ll have a record of the exact coordinates.”

“Excellent, I shall return shortly!”

The Officer nearly hopped out the door. No doubt he could envision the palace that the Emperor had planned out for him.

In contrast to his first absence, it seemed like he returned almost immediately. At least, he reached the door, which made a pained whirring noise, followed by a slight rattle and then nothing more. Muffled Regulian curses could be heard through the door along with furious pounding on a keyboard. Eventually, the door slid open and the Officer marched in, muzzle tilted upward proudly and with Yaleen’s datapad in one paw.

“She was more than willing to hand it over. Poor vixen is exhausted, she’ll be glad to be going home,” he tapped the screen firmly and his expression grew still, “what the hell is this?”

“What?”

The Officer thrust the datapad at me and I was presented with a splash-screen covered in numerous, strange, thin, scratchy characters.

“Looks like Vulpeculan, I think?” I said. I’d have shrugged my shoulders if I hadn’t been in what might as well have been an ironlung.

“I know that! But this operating system, it’s not the ImperialStandardOS! It’s not even that Sirian piece of shit, WhiteStar! What is this!?”

The screen blinked and a series of bright, flashing stars shot across the screen in an arc before exploding by the lower right corner. A little cartoon Vulpeculan wearing only a loincloth and a collar appeared, a text-bubble shooting out from his muzzle filled with about a million indecipherable characters.

“Here, can I have a look?” I asked.

“Go ahead.”

There was a sharp click as the Officer tapped a button on a remote and a piece of metal broke away from my cage, allowing my right arm to worm out. I had just enough room to reach the screen.

There was an icon that looked like a book on the left side so I tapped it, which prompted the cartoon Vulpy slave to teleport over there and cross his paws before bowing politely.

“What the hell?”

Another dialogue bubble popped up while the cartoon was groveling, once again, I had no idea what it meant.

I reached for another icon and the cartoon teleported once again, doing the same act and blocking me from tapping the icon.

“Kurwa! Get out of the way!”

The cartoon winced, covering his face with his paws. He recoiled as if expecting to be struck and I almost felt obliged to put my fist through the screen.

“We need to get one of the Vulpeculans,” the Officer muttered.

He folded out a stand from the back of the datapad and put in on a table, facing the screen towards me. As he stepped out of the door, the cartoon slave pulled a broom out from nowhere and began sweeping away imaginary dust from the desktop.

At one point, another dialogue bubble popped up on screen and the cartoon tilted his head expectantly. I told him to “Go fuck yourself,” which unfortunately must have parsed into, “Sing for me,” in Vulpeculan, because a horrifically shrill Vulpeculan opera began playing that managed to make my eardrums shriek in an instant. The only mercy came when the pitch of the vocals went so high that they were past human hearing range.

Finally, the Officer returned, pushing a metal container similar to the one I was trapped in, only Aldor’s head was popping out from the top. Both of them were biting their lips from pain and had their ears folded back.

“What the hell did you do, human!?” the Officer yelled over the Vulpeculan shrieking.

“I don’t know!”

The Officer wheeled the container to a halt by the table. He picked up the datapad and shoved it in Aldor’s face, “Make it shut up!”

Aldor muttered something in Vulpeculan and the singing came to an immediate halt. The cartoon Vulpy bowed politely to an imaginary crowd.

The Officer unfolded his ears and sighed with relief.

“Why’d you bring him? It’s Yaleen’s datapad,” I asked.

“Another Officer is interrogating her, had some questions,” he waved his paw before turning back to Aldor. “Now then, Talos, what is this thing saying?”

Aldor wearily raised his muzzle and looked at the screen with his green eyes. One of his ears twitched with irritation and he sighed.

“This is Principality, the first and only commercial Vulpeculan operating system,” he snorted towards the Officer, “bet you guys are glad you didn’t rip that out of my brain, huh?”

“And this-this thing?” the Officer pointed accusingly towards the cartoon character on the screen.

“That’s just Servy, the digital slave assistant. He answers questions, tells jokes, and helps you browse your computer.”

The Officer sharply tapped the book on the screen. Sure enough, Servy teleported over the icon, winced, and began bowing profusely while a dialogue window appeared.

“Oh shit,” Aldor’s lips drooped and his eyes widened with shock.

“What’s it saying!?”

Aldor gulped, “You have been infected by CryptoSlave. I now own your computer and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. If you donate ten thousand Crowns to my address at, “Gofuckyourselfyouarentgettingshit@fuckyou.fuck” I will consider returning control.”

A pit welled up in my stomach and sweat began to pour down my forehead. The white Regulian opened his mouth and let loose a fierce roar that just about made me piss myself. He flung the datapad against the wall and stormed towards me, slamming his paw on the container and leaning forward inches away from my face, peeling his lips back in a snarl. His fangs were massive, slightly yellowed, and his breath reeked of raw meat.

“I’ve had enough of this! Tell me where Pathos is, now!”

“L-look, he’s in the Catacombs-”

“I don’t know what the fuck that is!” his teeth gnashed together. “Give me coordinates, point at the fucking map, I don’t care!”

He began swishing his paw in the air furiously, creating ripples in the holograph and revealing a series of unfamiliar landscapes. A vast desert, possibly the one I met that strange creature in the shack, appeared, “Is it here!?” the Officer shouted, not waiting for a moment for me to respond before waving his paw again, revealing a frozen tundra, “Here!?”

This was it. I could lie, but he would find out sooner or later. There was no way I’d get lucky and pinpoint the exact location of the tunnel we entered.

But then, that was never the plan.

“Hey!” I craned my head away from the monstrous jaws and got the fringe of Aldor’s head peeking out from his cage. “Hey, Aldor! Aren’t you looking forward to going home with your sister?”

The room went silent, save for a low, whining noise escaping from Aldor’s throat.

“W-what?”

The Officer pulled away from me and stepped over to Aldor. He didn’t even notice my hand reaching towards his hip and snagging the baton from the loop around his belt. Blood was seeping from Aldor’s black nose, staining the cream fur around his muzzle as red as the rest of his fur.

“No! Nerrrrrrrrrrrgh!” Aldor screamed, his head shaking violently.

Pressing a button on a device attached to his wrist, the Regulian began barking orders, “Get the doctors down here! Memory dissonance, code three! And bring all three of the prisoner’s memory serums, I won’t have any accidents like this again!”

The Regulian bent over, stroking the side of Aldor’s face, occasionally wiping away the blood gushing from his nose, “It’s okay, it’s okay, just breathe.”

A syringe appeared in the Officer’s paw and he quickly jabbed it into Aldor’s neck, shooting something inside that seemed to calm him down. Shortly after, the door slide open and two Regulians with thin, brown manes and wearing white lab-coats, stormed in pushing a table with several instruments and jars, including three tiny vials.

The Officer stepped aside and let the doctors examine him. One of them, who was as skinny as a Vulpeculan, asked, “What memories have been compromised?”

The Officer slammed his paw on my container, “This human said his name and his relation with the Princess!”

The skinny doctor pointed at his companion, who was as thickly built as a Regulian marine, “Ten percent restoration dosage with matching stabilizer! Quickly!”

There was a pop as one of the tiny vials was opened and the muscular doctor filled up a large, nasty looking syringe with a small fraction of red liquid. He then dipped it into one of the larger vials until a clear liquid mixed in there, filling it up until it was full. He wasted no time in marching up to Aldor and slamming the needle into the back of Aldor’s skull and pushing the plunger until the liquid was gone.

Aldor screamed when the needle was pulled out, but much to my surprise, he seemed completely fine seconds later.

“Alright,” the skinny Regulian whispered, shining a tiny flashlight in Aldor’s eyes, “what’s your name?”

“Aldor,” the Vulpeculan replied, “I’m...I’m a prisoner?”

“Good, good.”

Aldor closed his eyelids, “Gods, my head is killing me. Yaleen...Yaleen...where…?”

“Now then, human,” the Officer’s throat rumbled as he stomped back towards my cage. He bared his fangs as his snout scrunched back in a snarl and he leaned over me, “you’re going to tell me everything now or else...”

His paw patted at this his and his expression softened from his fierce snarl before transforming into panic as he realized he was missing his baton.

I returned it to him politely, unfolding it from my palm and slapping him in the side. There was an intense flash of electricity and the Officer stumbled over, falling limp atop my container. His nose was now pressed up against my eye and his hot breath was suffocating me.

I got lucky and managed to locate the remote in his trouser pocket before the doctors had a chance to realize what was going on. By the time they had figured things out, I had pressed the right button and my container opened up, releasing my bindings and knocking the Officer’s unconscious body onto the floor.

“You’re fucking de-” I stepped forward without realizing my legs might as well have been made of rubber after all the medical work and fell towards the ground. I had a split-second decision of either using my arms to protect me from slamming into the floor or lash out like a cornered animal. I chose the latter and managed to clip the skinny doctor in in the leg with a jolt and he joined me when I smashed my nose against the floor.

“GUARDS! GUARDS!” the muscular doctor screamed.

I reached up and grabbed hold of Aldor’s container, using it for support as I attempted to right myself. The remaining doctor was wielding a laser scalpel, its blade shimmering bright blue.

We were at an impasse. I couldn’t reach him with the baton and even if I could drag myself with only one hand along the smooth floor, I wouldn’t be able to climb over the two bodies effectively. At the same time, the doctor was clearly afraid to actually harm me, word had clearly spread about the importance of what I knew. Occasionally he would try to inch forward and I’d respond with a lash of the baton which was enough to make him shy away.

There was a sharp hiss as the door slid open. My heart sank as two Regulians dressed head to toe in burly combat armor stepped in, gas-masks obscuring their faces.

“Prisoner tran-” one of them spoke in a tinny voice, as if from a speaker, before pointing his rifle at me, “-what the hell!?”

“Thank the Emperor!” the doctor gasped, shutting off the laser scalpel and dropping it onto the ground. “The prisoner has gone berserk! Do something!”

“Roger that,” the second Regulian chimed in. His plated-covered tail twitched suddenly, the only warning I got before he pressed the barrel of a pistol up against his comrade’s skull and pulled the trigger. The sound of his body hitting the floor was louder than the sound of the suppressed weapon firing.

“Wha-!?” the doctor was cut off by another hushed clap from the pistol and he slowly sank to the floor after a red dot emerged in the center of his forehead.

I tightened my grip on the baton. I didn’t think this marine was a savior in the slightest and was preparing myself for anything.

“Can’t say it feels good to kill a comrade and a doctor...” the marine grumbled. With a free paw, he reached out the door and dragged in a bundle of a red fur. With her fur being far from its usual pristine and dressed in a simple, white prisoner’s uniform, I didn’t recognize Yaleen until I saw her green eyes. Her wrists were bound with a plasteel handcuff.

The marine forced the door closed behind him and then fiddled with the control panel to lock it. He lifted a gloved paw to his mask and with a hiss, its seals came off along with the mask.

“...even if it is for love,” Rashar said, flashing Yaleen a toothy, predatory smile.