FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

2593-12

"I know I said it before," Eric told the fennec next to him, "But I don't do relationships. I'm perfectly happy being unattached, and that isn't going to change."

The fox nodded. "I understand, Sir. You don't have to worry about that on my account. I'm happily married." Gerald was Eric's new structural engineer.

"The application didn't mention that." Eric sent the unlock code to the hatch, and reviewed who had accessed the ship. The work crew had come and gone, having finished modifying the rooms the day before. William and Robert had entered the ship and left it. Jeff was still there. Erick wasn't surprised.

Gerald shrugged. "I've noticed that I kept being passed over for long trips when I mentioned that. A lot of people seem to think that just because I have a wife, I need to stay close to Earth."

Eric nodded. He would have done that, himself. What he knew of married people, from the employees he interacted with before he went to space, they tended to want to be together often.

The entered the ship and Eric gave Gerald the tour on the way to the medical bay. They stopped by the lounge, where Jeff was exercising. Gerald nodded in appreciation at the naked jackal.

The fox picked the room opposite Eric's new room, and the tiger looked at the work done while Gerald put his things away.

The door was on the right side of the room. He'd asked for that one to be used so he would enter on the side where his space was. His bed, work desk and bathroom. In the center was a play area, the floor covered with a thick mat. The left had the six cribs and changing station. He'd read up on how to raise infants, and while the amount of information had been overwhelming, he was looking forward to it.

As they grew, the cribs would be removed and Eric would get a larger bed. Teaching desks would go in their place.

"So this is what the captain gets?" Gerald asked, from the doorway. "I'm impressed."

"I'm picking up my sons from Titan's fertility clinic when we get there."

"Congratulation."

Eric looked over his shoulder. "Does the thought that sex will happen around children bother you?"

"I did some research on Orr Corp when I applied for the position. I know you're more sexually at ease than the rest of us. And you're part of the Corporate Family, so I figure you're even more so. Just don't ask me to do anything with them."

"They're going to be infants, if anyone tries something with them, I'm going to space him. But you might find them crawling around in the middle of sex, once they become mobile."

Gerald nodded. "That'll be fine. Are you going to want help with them? Six babies is a lot of work."

Eric tilted an ear in Gerald's direction.

"I raised a son and daughter, so I know what to do."

"Shouldn't you be with them?"

The fox chuckled. "They're in their twenties. They haven't wanted me to hang around since their teens."

Eric checked Gerald's file, he was sixty-eight, still young enough to have more kids. "Only two?"

"Yeah, me and Sarah gave ourselves thirty years to raise a family. I don't know how familiar with Soromis you are, but the corporation pays our living expenses for up to forty years while we have a family. We knew two kids would be enough, we're both from small families. Now, we'd have to manage work and family if we wanted more, and I'm a spacer, twenty years on the ground was plenty for me. Sarah's an Animal geneticist, she easily spends months in her lab without realizing it."

"We should have her meet my brother, he has a passion for animal breeding."

"So he does the breeding himself? Or does he let the animals breed each other?"

Eric paused, then laughed. He'd never expected someone outside the family to do such a joke. Even within Orr Corp, sex with animals made people uncomfortable.

"He lets them breed. He just picks who the lucky pairs are going to be."

Gerald nodded. "I told you, I did my research. I can deal with almost anything, so long as I'm not blindsided by it."

"You shouldn't get anything unexpected here. I've already told you I have sex with everyone on my crew, and you've demonstrated you're okay with that. No one has any extreme kinks."

"Really? I thought the Orrs were known for their kinks?"

Eric laughed. "We might have unusual tastes, but no kinks."

He led Gerald to the medbay, where he gave the fox his initial checkup and had his DNA adjusted to Eric's liking. Then Eric gave the fox his belt, demonstrated how it worked and they had sex again.

* * * * *

Eric moaned. He was bent over the back of the couch and Brack was entering him slowly. Eric preferred to be fucked harder, but the mule wouldn't listen, and it was driving the tiger crazy.

He wasn't the only one groaning in the lounge. Brick was being double teamed by Gerald, and Mark. The mule was silent, but the other two were being vocal.

Eric reached under himself to stoke his cock, using his precum as lubricant. He thought about calling William to suck him when a communication request came in from Robert, tagged as urgent.

"Yes Robert?" Eric motioned for Brack to pull out.

"Captain, I found something you need to look at." A corridor appeared in his vision. The image moved and now he was looking at a junction of metal poles on the side of the hull. Among them was a case of some sort that clearly didn't belonged there.

"What is that?" Eric asked.

"I have no idea. I can tell you it wasn't there two month ago when I did my initial walk through of this array."

"Maybe you missed it?"

"No, sir. I wouldn't miss something like this. And I can see scoff marks where it was wedged in. Someone put this there after we left."

Eric glanced at the Fennec fox still pounding Brick's muzzle. He'd brought up two bags of clothing, one small box with a variety of cutting tools. Gerald liked making sculptures out of plastic pieces. And another with decorations. None of them would fit something the size of what he was looking at. One-meter wide, one and a half tall and point eight deep.

"Guys," he told the room, "I need you to look at something." Instead of sending the feed to each of them individually he sent it through the room's system, to go to everyone there, only one feed on his side to manage. "Anyone knows what this is?"

The three on the floor stopped fucking.

"Looks like a transport case," Gerald said.

"Did the station crew leave that there?" Brack asked.

"No," Robert replied.

"Can you give me a different view?" The fennec asked. Robert moved around, getting within a foot of it, but no closer. "It isn't welded or attached to anything. I don't see any controls. Could something have fallen out of a pod and got jammed there?"

"No, each pod is sealed before being attached to the array." Robert answered.

"Except for the food," Brick said.

"Yes, but that's not here." The image moves as Robert looked down the corridor. "It's way back there, by the ship. Nothing here's mobile."

"Then I don't know what to say." Gerald said.

"None of you put it there?" Eric asked. "I don't mind, but I need to know." Shakes of the heads all around. "Robert, no one here knows anything about it."

"Okay, I'm going to remove it," Robert said, moving closer to it. "We can figure out who's it is and why it's there afterward."

"Okay," Eric replied, watching Robert's hand reach for the case as William entered the lounge.

The wolf frowned as the image appeared for him. "What's going on?" A look of shock appeared on his face. "Robert, don't touch-"

There was a flash of light, the ship shook, then Robert's feed went dark. Almost at the same time Eric received an alert from Robert's implant. He was gravely hurt.

He was out of the lounge and to the lock leading to the array instantly.

"Captain," Jeff's voice came. "There's been an explosion on the array. Six pods are disconnected and the main corridor is exposed to hard vacuum."

"Where's Robert?"

"I don't know. The electricals in the array's aren't working. I can't see anything."

Eric sent a command to Robert's implant for a location ping. He was almost a kilometer away. And drifting away from them. The explosion had given him momentum perpendicular to the ship. If he didn't hurry, he would be drifting into space.

Eric ran to the airlock, and had it open before what he was contemplating doing hit him. He couldn't be thinking of going outside the ship. There was no gravity there. If he missed a step, he'd be the one floating in space for all time.

Before he could force himself to move and go rescue his crewman he was shoved aside by Brick and Brack entering the airlock. They didn't say anything as they closed the inner door, and put their helmets on. their clothing becoming thicker as protection against the vacuum, and extended to cover their hands and feet. Then they voided the room, grabbed a propulsion harness each, and opened the outer door.

Eric shook himself out ran for the medbay. He'd need to be ready for when They brought Robert in.

"Captain," Jeff said. "I've tagged the drifting pods. Do you want me to inform one of the local companies or are we counting on one of our ships to pick them up?"

Eric thought it over as he started the medical table. "Let all our allied companies know. We're too close to the asteroid belt for any of our ships to get here on time."

"On it."

"We have him captain, but there isn't any oxy connector."

"His belt is in emergency protection mode. Don't worry about getting him oxy, he got an extra doze with nanites to optimize the efficiency of his system."

As he said that Robert's implant turned yellow in his vision. Eric requested a medical update. Oxy was becoming low in his system, CO2 going way up. How could that be? The nanites should be breaking the CO2 apart to reuse the Oxy. He checked the belt. The nanites and extra Oxy hadn't released. He sent the manual command. Nothing happened.

"Mark!"

"Captain."

"I'm giving you access to Robert's belt, the emergency procedure didn't engage, and it won't respond to my commands. You need to find a way to activate it."

"Doing it now."

"Captain," Gerald said, "I'm tracking Brick and Brack, do you want visuals on them?"

"No." The idea of looking outside, and possibly seeing the void of space made his stomach turn. "I'm not going to be able to do anything for them. Just let me know when they're in the ship.

"Captain, the belt was damage in the explosion. The processor's fried I can't tell it to do anything."

Robert's implant turned orange.

"Can you control individual parts? There's a nanite and oxy compartment in the belt."

"Not until he's in the ship. I'm going to need tools to go around the processor."

"Gerald, where are they?" he didn't want to ask for a location ping, he was terrified of seeing they were too far. Orange meant there was now more Co2 than oxy in Robert's blood. It was only a question of minutes before he suffocated, then a few minutes more before brain damage.

"Gerald!"

"They're getting in the airlock now."

Eric breathed a little easier.

"Brick, Brack, bring him to the medtable!"

"On our way. Boss, we can't get his suit off."

"Mark!"

"I'm with them. The suit hardened when-"

"Don't tell me what happened, get him Oxy!"

"Right."

Eric heard their steps a moment before he saw them. Brick had a stiff form in his arms. He deposited it on the table, and immediately Eric got the bad news.

"Mark, Robert barely has minutes left."

"Stressing me isn't helping my concentration." The spider monkey had two small boxes attacked the Robert's belt.

A moment later Robert's implant went red, then back to orange, and yellow.

Mark rested his head on Robert's form.

Eric sighed in relief. "Good job. The extra oxy and nanites bought Robert about thirty minutes. That should be enough for you to get around the belt's damage to turn off the emergency setting, right?"

Mark looked at him, horrified. "Eric, there's aren't any commands to get around to. The belt's fried. I got the nanites out because the compartment was only waiting for a command to open. There's no way I can deactivate the suit."

"What does that mean?" Gerald asked.

"It means that if we don't get the suit off him under thirty minutes he's going to be suffocating again." Eric said.

"Look, I'm sorry if I should know this stuff," the fennec said, "but what happened to his clothing?"

"The belt has an emergency setting. If you're exposed to harmful condition it seals itself, releases oxy and nanites so you'll last until you can be retrieved, and then I'd turn it off and fix you up. But Robert's belt is stuck."

"Okay, then cut the it off."

"It's can't be cut."

"Okay, med tables have nanites too, right? Get them to dissolve it."

"Those are medical grades nanites, they can't go through this material without knowing the composition."

"It's an Orr product, don't you know it?"

Eric laughed. "I'm a freight hauler, not an engineer. I couldn't tell you what the top of this table is made of."

"Okay, then who knows?"

"The head office. And it'd take more than an hour to get the information. Robert doesn't have that time."

"Doesn't it seem stupid for you not to have that?"

"Do I look like military ship to you? The worse that's my crew's expected to deal with is exposure to a caustic steam due to a blown conduit, not something exploding in their face!"

"So military ships know it?"

"Of course they do."

"Wouldn't those be closer than earth?"

Eric almost contradicted Gerald. "Jeff! Find the closest Orr patrol ship, and get me their contact info."

A moment later Jeff replied. "The Mechanic is twenty two light minutes away."

The contact information appeared in Eric's field of vision. It was too far, but it was all he had. He'd have to find a way to extend Robert's life that extra fifteen to twenty minutes."

"Gerald, get the strongest cutting tools you have."

"You said I couldn't cut through that."

"You're going to try anyway. Robert has maybe a little more than twenty five minutes before he runs out of oxy again, but it's going to take forty five before the Mechanic sends me the formula to dissolve this suit. We need to get oxy in there somehow."

Gerald ran off.

"Guys, unless you have something to contribute, please leave."

In the silence of the medbay Eric closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them he looked at the display over Robert's form and studied it. The most serious injury was his right leg, which had been sheered off at the knee before the belt engaged. That would take months to regrow. The rest was some internal damage, broken bones, easy stuff to fix. So long as Robert lived.

Eric slapped the table and stepped away. There had to be something he could do. This was his domain, he was a healer, but everything he knew how to do depended on being able to get his tools into his patient and talk to them. He couldn't get anything past the suit, and the nanites which were already there he couldn't talk to. They were programed to respond only to a belt.

He stopped pacing. A belt, not the belt, just a belt.

"Mark," he called, as Gerald returned with a handful of tools. "I'm going to need your help again, bring all your hacking tools." He took a belt out of the locker.

A few minutes later the spider monkey ran in the medbay holding a bag.

Eric handed him one of the belt form the locker. "I need you to get this belt to talk to the nanites inside Robert."

Mark looked from the belt he was holding to the tiger. "Can that be done?"

"Yes. The emergency nanites can receive commands, but they have to go through the belt. Something about safety issues, making sure they don't get random commands. I can communicate with that belt, so once you get communication going I'll be able to give the nanites new orders, I should be able to get them to break apart some of his fatty tissue to add oxy to his system."

Mark laid the belt over Robert's form. "Those safety concerns probably means each belt has its own frequency. I don't know how long it'll take me to be able to find the right one."

"The faster the better. Robert has about nineteen minutes left."

Sound of something being rolled reached them. Gerald entered, pushing a machine on wheel. "This is the most powerful drill I have, but I have to warn you, if the material covering Robert is as hard as you implied it is, then if the laser manages to drill through it, it'll probably vaporise some of him too."

"Can't be helped. If he doesn't get oxy soon, he's going to die. All I need you to do is a small hole to let some in the suit. Aim it where his leg's already cut off. I'm going to have to deal with necrotic tissue there so if you burn some of that off it's not big deal."

"How come only the leg got blown off?" the fox asked, pushing the tool then locking it in place. "The rest of him was protected by the suit." He set about adjusting the height of the drill.

"The hardening process isn't instantaneous. By the time the belt registered the heat and shock wave his leg was probably already gone. Considering the belt was damaged we're lucky the hardening command went out in time."

"If I get a hole, won't the suit just cover it back up?"

"No. Even if the belt wasn't' fried, it's a onetime command, cover anything exposed and harden. If the belt still worked then it would react to what is happening to it, but if it did, we wouldn't be in this situation."

Fourteen minutes left. Eric wanted to ask Mark for a progress report, but the monkey was focusing on his work. If he disturbed him it would delay him.

The drill tip flashed and then a white beam appeared. It slowly shifted color, yellow, green, blue, purple, then red. It was so bright that after a moment Eric had to look away.

Eric looked at the hologram over Robert's body. Sections of his skin was blackening. Carbon being deposited there by the nanites. Once he had control of them, would there be enough to do more than get oxy? One billion nanites weren't many, and the emergency ones couldn't reproduce, too much danger of running out of control if anything went wrong.

He glanced at the drill. If he could get fully functioning medical nanites in, then he wouldn't have to worry. He could even start repairing the damage while he waited for the reply form the Mechanic.

Eleven minutes.

Why was it taking Mark so long? It couldn't be that hard to find the right frequency. He looked at Gerald, who had his gaze fixed on where the drill's beam hit Robert's leg. How could he stare at it like that?

"Do you have mechanical augmented eyes?" He asked.

"No," the fox replied, "Just polarizing cornea. I worked for six years in a shipyard, around industrial welders. I got tired of having to carry goggles around."

"How is it going?"

"I have this cranked up as high is it'll safely go. I'm not seeing any progress, but you'll be able to tell if it gets through by the smell of cooking flesh."

"Crank it higher."

"No."

"Gerald, if it's got more power, you need to give it. Robert's dying."

The fox looked at him, his eyes were now black instead of gray. "No. Putting our lives in danger isn't going to help him. Overheating one of these things could blow us up, as well as what's on the other side of those walls."

"Why can it go higher if it can blow it up," Eric grumbled, bringing up the time. Eight minutes.

"Because the maker had no way of knowing this ship could provide it so much more power than it needs."

Seven minutes. Eric put his back to the table. Looking at Robert's dying body wasn't helping. He couldn't believe he might lose one of his crew. Even the pirate attack had only resulted in a few scrape and bruises.

Six minutes.

Mark cursed.

Eric spun. "What?"

Mark didn't replied.

"What happened?"

Silence.

Eric almost grabbed him by the shoulder, but forced himself to step away. He grabbed a glass of water. His hand shook. Quite the captain he was.

Four minutes. He closed his eyes. If Robert died, he'd be the first Orr to have lost an employee since the war. What would his family think? They'd understand, wouldn't they? Eric couldn't be held responsible for a damaged belt.

"Got it!"

How was he going to live this down if Robert died?

"Eric!"

Eric turned. Mark was looking at him expectantly. Why wasn't he focusing on his work? What Mark had exclaimed finally registered.

"They're talking?" Eric asked, making contact with the belt. Before Mark said anything, Eric saw the nanites querying the belt. His heart leaped in his chest and he sent them commands to cannibalize Robert's fatty tissue. The hyena didn't have that much fat, but hopefully that would buy them enough time. If not, he'd have them go after something else.

"Do you want me to stop drilling?" Gerald asked.

"No. If you manage to pierce the suit I'll be able to get more nanites in."

He checked the display. He couldn't leave the leftover floating about so he had that sent to the colon.

Two minutes past terminal point.

Robert's oxy levels were still extremely low, with diverting some of the nanites to break up the fat the rest was just barely keeping up. Once this was done he was sending a request for the belts to be modified. He needed to be able to have them reproduce to deal with situations like this.

Five minutes past terminal point.

The oxy levels barely fluctuated. Not ideal, but it could be worse. Unfortunately, Robert was running out of fat, he really needed that suit breached.

"Captain, I need to shut down the drill."

Seven minutes past terminal point.

"Why? I really need the oxy."

"It wasn't designed to run for this long, specially not at this power. It's starting to overheat."

"Can it explode?"

"No, but when it fails, you're going to have to buy a new one."

"How sure are you it'll fail?"

"Certain. It's been going for over twenty minutes and I'm not seeing any damage to the suit. I can let it go until it fails, but it isn't going to make any difference."

Eric nodded. "Shut it down." He was going to have to go for the muscles now.

Eric worked carefully, keeping the nanites away from the heart. Why couldn't they come equipped with anything more advanced. Wouldn't it have been too much for the engineers to put in some sensors and recognition programs. It had to be possible to automate what he was doing now. A hierarchical ladder of needs to make sure they went after the least needed part of the body and worked up, ensuring the victim would live as long as possible.

He received a file from the Mechanic. He really hoped they hadn't replied with some bullshit about not being allowed to give out the information.

He opened it, and sighed in relief. He fed the file to the med table and instructed it to send nanites to execute it. A moment later the suit covering Robert disintegrated, leaving a burnt belt buckle as well as an intact one on his stomach.

Eric chuckled. The nanites had eaten the other belt too. He was going to have to make sure to keep that program under lock, he didn't want it to eat up the rest of the belts.