FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Alrighty, here we go. This is one of two things I have been working on during my long absence from submitting. I do apologize to all my readers out there, but I have been very busy lately. Anyway, the next two chapter sof the odds against are now finished.

As always, comments are appreciated and requested.

Edit: You ever notice a formatting mistake while reading and it just gets under your skin until you can't think of anything else? Yeah, same thing happened here. Fixed now.

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11-05-3015

Time Index; 1150 hours GST

Visiting officer's quarters

Asgard system, Terran space

"Knight, what the hell are you doing!?" Pride exclaimed as I tore the service hatch off the Hypercom terminal. I ignored him, shifting aside components and looking for the specific slot in the transmitter circuits where I could put in the Hyperlink chip. Just as I located the right place, Pride seized my arm, pulling me out of the terminal and pushing me up against the wall of the comm. suite. "Knight!! What has gotten into you!?"

"Get off me!" I ordered, my eyes narrowing in anger as I tried to yank my arm from his grasp. His grip on my flight suit's sleeve tightened and he pushed me back once more.

"No. Not until you tell me what is going on." He said, his iron hard grip not slackening in the slightest. And, as he glared, emerald eyes boring into me, I realized what it must have looked like from his perspective. I had run off in the middle of our conversation, hurrying as fast as I could to the comm. suite and then had ordered everyone who was in it to get out. Then I had secured the door, and begun tearing apart the equipment, ignoring all questions as to what was going on. Cast in that light, I must have looked quite insane.

"Alright." I said, and he released me, stepping back a little. I straightened my flight suit's sleeve and took a deep breath, trying to decide on a way to tell him what I needed to say without giving away too much. "Pride, you know how powerful psychic connections can be between people who are very close, right?" He nodded in confirmation and I forged on. "Well, when we were talking, I got a powerful psychic warning. I hope that it is a false alarm, I really do. But I have to check, and that means modifying the equipment. Is that enough for you?"

Pride's look instantly changed, becoming suddenly withdrawn, the suspicion leaving his gaze as he looked me up and down. Then, to my surprise, he nodded, stepping aside so I could go back to tinkering with the comm. system. Quickly, I slipped the chip into the receiver and then walked around to the control board of the terminal, the hyperlink chip already activating. The chips had been designed with a special program on them that initiated the moment the chip was inserted. It was a program that not only routed the sent signal through the chip's encryption program on command, but it also disabled the monitoring program that secure hypercoms had on them, leaving no trace that the system had been accessed.

Standing at the controls, I quickly brought up a base command prompt and accessed the chip. Without giving it a moment's more thought, I set the system to send an all-text message. Though the Hyperlink chip had the ability to encrypt something as complex as a holographic message, text would go through much faster, since it took up less space. There was also the fact that this increased the chance that the message would get to its intended target in one piece. Big files had a tendency to lose parts on their way through the buffer. My fingers a blur on the keyboard, I began to compose a message to my mate, taking care to shield the screen from Pride's view. The less he knew about what I was doing and why, the better. But in my haste to make contact, I wrote so quickly that my intent outpaced my fingers and they got tangled up halfway through, writing half a sentence of complete gibberish before I noticed. Lifting my hands from the keyboard, I closed my eyes, drawing in a deep, calming breath to steady my nerves. Opening my eyes again, I continued to type, more slowly this time, making sure I got it right. But, as I finished writing the message, I looked at the text spread out over the screen and paused, my finger poised above the 'send' key. A sudden thought came to me as I looked at it, worming its way steadily through the haze of panic that had filled my brain, an insidious doubt of the kind I had long ago learned to trust. The message, as it stood right now, was very personal, almost an impassioned plea for a quick response from the woman with whom I was bound and, now that I had stopped to think about it, that was a problem, a big problem.

If someone had found a way to inhibit my mate's psychic abilities, then it followed that they must have known how powerful she was, and how dangerous, even bound and restrained. While it was certainly no secret she was a psychic, it stood to reason that few knew that much detail about her powers. But... What if the Conclave knew we were working against them? And if they knew that, how hard would it be for them, with their vast resources, to capture one of us? The answer was obvious.

And if they had indeed captured her, would they know what the hyperlink chip was? I would probably have given two to one odds that they did. And if they did, and they found it on her, then they would read this message when it came. If that was the case, then I couldn't risk letting them know what Katy meant to me; that would only make things worse for us. Narrowing my eyes, I set to work editing the message, changing its tone so it would seem to be a message from a friend, or an intelligence contact, not from a loved one. Nodding to myself, I left it unsigned, knowing that only the chip's brother could read it. Satisfied, I sent the message and waited until the hyperlink program confirmed that it was through the outgoing message buffer.

Then, my racing thoughts slowing somewhat now that I had done something to contact Katy, I deftly collected the chip from the terminal's inner workings and replaced the service panel on the com unit. Turning back, I saw my friend watching me with an unreadable expression on his face.

It was a look I had learned to recognize from our days in black ops. Though not a psychic, Pride had an uncanny ability to pick out details that no one else, not even me, caught. On more than one occasion, it had allowed us to avoid trouble, and once, it had been the only way we had to get to one of our targets, who had been inside a seemingly impregnable fortress. But that look he was wearing was one he only got when he had found a detail he couldn't quite figure out. And if he was wearing that look now, who knew what he had figured out...

I knew that the only thing I would be able to do to allay his suspicions was to bring Pride in on the plan Katy and I had cooked up as soon as I could. Toward that end, I motioned for him to follow me and walked from the comm. suite, heading back down the hall towards my office. We walked in silence through the cluster of other officers who had been waiting to use the comm. system, ignoring the bewildered and irritated looks that they were giving me for my rudeness despite my high rank, but, the moment we were out of earshot from them, Pride spoke up again, his voice quiet.

"So, who is she Knight?" he asked and I looked at him, startled. I hadn't counted on him figuring that part out so quickly. He smiled at my surprised look and continued. "Oh come on, give me a little credit old friend. At least tell me her name."

"Her name is Katy." I replied, absently returning the salute of a passing naval lieutenant.

"Ah, would it, by chance, be an irish lass you fell for?" He asked, lapsing into the distinctive accent of his people as he spoke. I shook my head, a smile finding its way onto my lips.

"Not quite." I replied, at last thinking carefully about what I was saying. Pride smiled at my words and punched my shoulder.

"What is she like?" He asked, but when I didn't reply, he prompted me again. "She must truly be extraordinary to catch your eye, so tell me."

"Well, she is the most beautiful woman I have ever met," I began, turning the corner into the hallway where my office was located. Then I smiled as her face jumped into my thoughts once more. "Bright red hair, gorgeous green eyes, and a smile that would melt the coldest heart." At this, Pride raised an eyebrow at me, and interrupted.

"Are you sure she isn't Irish?" He asked and I smiled wider.

"Very." I replied, and he laughed, my mood picking up despite the foreboding that was still washing through me with every thump of my heart...

***

11-06-3015

Time index; 0131 hours GST

Colyon Prime station

Colyon system, Merxian space

Katy groaned quietly, pain drawing her from the haze that had descended over her thoughts. Every muscle felt like it was sore, and every motion hurt; even breathing hurt. But the sharpest pain was about her wrists, her muzzle, and when she shifted her head, in the back of her neck, though she was currently lying with her head hanging forward. The all encompassing soreness she remembered from somewhere in her past, a most unpleasant memory, she knew, but when she tried to bring it into her slowly stirring mind, it vanished, a faint blur on the edge of perception, just out of reach.

She heard what sounded like voices coming from far away, and their presence sent a shiver through her, though she could not remember for the life of her why. She suddenly felt a sharp jab in the back of her neck, and the extremely odd sensation of liquid flowing someplace it shouldn't. The liquid felt warm, but not a soothing sort of warmth that might have eased her pain. It was an odd, unnatural heat and it spread swiftly up and down her spine, and the moment it reached her head, she suddenly felt that she was floating away, lying on a cloud in an utterly dark void, her mind unwilling or unable to focus. But gradually, though her mind floated, her awareness increased, as if whatever had caused her to fall unconscious was fading away and then, instead of floating in a dark void, she was floating in twilight, her head still swimming, unable to make sense of anything around her.

And then, what felt like an eternity later, the memory that floated just beyond her reach began to come into focus, showing up seemingly at random. She had been lying in a field hospital's recovery ward then, having just gotten out of surgery, and her whole body had been sore beyond measure. It had been during a planetary assault, way back when she had been in the infantry. She barely remembered the disc-like image of a Terran fragmentation mine leaping from the ground right in front of her squad, the weapon Merxian soldiers had nicknamed a 'shredder plate' for what it did to people, a red light on its top blinking rapidly and then there had been a flash, and then painful darkness. And that image brought to mind the other times she had been injured during her career, all of them flashing before her mind's eye like an endless parade of nightmares.

Trying to force her mind to work properly once more, she focused on the sore feeling in her muscles, trying to get her wandering memories back on track. None of the scattered images her mind was dredging up were the least bit helpful right then. Finally, her mind came back to the memory of the hospital. She had awoken in the post op ward, feeling sore all over, and she remembered a nurse telling her that it was a side effect of the anesthesia they had had to use. Because of the volume of casualties that had come in, they had been forced to turn to an older drug to keep up with demand when supplies of the better anesthetics had grown short, and that drug had a tendency to get picked up by myoglobin, a component of every cell that made up muscles. But, since she was feeling that exact feeling once more, it could only mean that she had been knocked out by the same chemical. Did that mean she was in another hospital? Something in her mind, perhaps some instinct left untainted by the drugs, told her that that couldn't be it.

A moment later, something touched the side of her face, caressing the line of her chin gently, and she shuddered, the unwelcome contact sending a shiver down her spine. The same instinct came back with greater force this time. Something was dreadfully wrong here, something that, try as she might, she couldn't seem to recognize. Finally, she decided to try and at least shift her head into a more comfortable position, since her neck was starting to ache from being at such an odd angle for so long. She managed it only with great effort, and encountered her arms on either side of her head. Her arms were being held above her head, probably tied together, judging by the pain in her wrists, though the why of the situation still escaped her. And, gradually, details were starting to resolve themselves as her senses came alive. Her eyes still didn't reveal more than a faint haze, but her ears were starting to work again, a ringing in them making her wince.

There was a steady, rumbling hum, as if some machine were working close by. Occasionally, a chime would sound in the darkness, sounding like a computer's acknowledgement of a completed task. And then there were the voices. They still sounded as though they were coming from a great distance, but they seemed to be coming closer. The trouble was, their voices didn't make any sense. They might as well be speaking a foreign language for all the sense it made to her groggy mind. But, gradually, she was able to make out three, or maybe four different voices. That was important, she knew, but she couldn't connect that feeling with the reason why it was, her mind still too hazy.

And then, with the same suddenness of a switch being flicked, her sense of smell returned. It was like being suddenly thrust headfirst into a trash heap. Strong and pungent odors assailed her nostrils and she shook her head despite the pain in her neck, trying to clear them from her nose. And then, she heard laughter, and that made her blood run cold, though she still couldn't think clearly enough to make sense of the feelings. But, as she breathed, she began to instinctually separate the different scents, sifting and cataloging them for further reference, blocking out what she could. The first thing she smelled was the odd, cloying odor of machine lubricants, the scent that permeated every maintenance area that existed in the known galaxy. It was omnipresent, and repulsive, but there were other smells too, smells that began to make her more than a little nervous. The scent of sweat, the distinct tang of alcohol, and the scents of Merxians began to fill every breath, along with a pungent smoke that stung her lungs. There were at least six distinct scents that she recognized as belonging to people, though whether that meant there were six people, or six kinds of people, she couldn't tell, not without her eyes. But far more worrisome than their number was their quality. All of them were musky, distinctly male, and each had an acrid tang to them, the scent of predators on the hunt.

One, near to hand, it seemed, had a distinctive antiseptic bite to his scent, a scent that she had always associated with hospitals and medical wards. Another was familiar, but unpleasantly so. The rest had a strange, almost oily quality to them that made her think of machines and those who worked them. Mechanics or engineers perhaps. That meant something to her as well, but what, she couldn't remember. It was as if there was a vital detail that she was missing, something that she should have remembered. Frustrated, she tried to force her mind to clear, to find solid ground where she could get a hold of herself, but the floating sensation remained. Shaking her head again, Katy tried to make out the voices, tried to focus on their conversation. And finally, sounds began to fall into place, eventually forming words. At first, they were just single words, disjointed and meaningless by themselves. Search...station...she...done... and more, all meaningless without the context of a sentence. But gradually, whole sentences seemed to fall into place, and she was finally able to make sense of what they were saying, though their voices seemed to be slowed down as if she were hearing them from underwater.

"...Don't worry, my friend, I gave her a double dose, just to make sure." A voice was saying. It seemed cultured, almost dignified in tone, though that didn't make much sense in the environment she had scented. "She won't be a danger for at least another hour or more. But I think the sedative is starting to wear off. She should be lucid in a few minutes. Just remember what we agreed to."

"Thanks doc." Another voice replied, a voice that made anger flare briefly within Katy's heart, though she couldn't place the person to whom the voice belonged. "You will get your payment once we have had our fun."

The word 'Doc' seemed wholly out of place, spoken as if it were a title, or a nickname. And then, as other voices, quieter than the first two, started to intrude on her thoughts, she remembered something, a dark tale told among military personnel. There were people in the universe, men and women who had either failed at medical school or had taken to performing whatever service a client wanted, regardless of its legality or the morality of their actions. They thrived on the edge of space, where law was questionable, basically black market doctors, who sold their skills to the highest bidder. And Katy remembered at last what they preferred to be called. 'Cutter' some preferred, 'slicer' she had also heard some called. But law enforcement referred to them as 'chop docs', since some had a reputation for cruelty.

Another shiver ran down her spine, and finally, with a tremendous effort, her mind broke free of the haze that had mired it, and her senses returned anew with magnificent clarity. Something, a rag perhaps, had been bound around her head, blocking her eyes from seeing, and she could tell from the way her mouth felt that something had been buckled tightly around her muzzle, neatly gagging her, the metal clasp pressing hard into her flesh. But, far more disturbing was what she could feel in her body, the soreness of her muscles fading into the background as her mind began working at a fevered pace.

Her hands had been bound together at the wrists with tough cord, and the cord had been tied around something, perhaps a metal pipe from the way it felt. Her head and shoulders lay against the pipe as well, though the rest of her had been strung out as if she was lying down, her legs bound apart to separate pieces of metal. But worst of all possible things she could have felt, she felt the steady breeze of a ventilation unit sweeping through her fur all over her body. She was naked. Quickly, she reached for her psychic powers, intending to use them to snap the cords or tear her blindfold away, but all at once she stopped. She couldn't feel them. The ability was gone. In fact, all her powers were missing. She couldn't feel anything of what was going on around her.

Panic and outrage suddenly blazed to life in her body and she thrashed against the cord that bound her, trying to break it, but it held fast. Her movements must have caught the eye of the speakers, for she heard footsteps coming closer to her, and, when she scented the familiar smell getting stronger, its source drawing nearer, her heart sank. And finally, the rag was untied and she was allowed to see at last. And what she saw filled her with horror, making her want to scream.

She was in a metal-walled room that was only dimly lit with a few barely functioning lights, probably some maintenance space deep within the station. Machines and a few monitoring terminals were scattered throughout the room. From the look of the place, it had been mostly forgotten, neglected by the station's managers. But though it looked unkempt and neglected, it was far from empty. A half-dozen dirty looking civilian mechanics slouched against the walls, or sat nearby, drinking or smoking what smelled like illegal narcotics. But more disturbing to her were almost a dozen Merxians clad in unmarked armor and tactical gear standing around, all of them well armed, though some of their weapons looked old, or in poor repair. The armor was fully enclosed, blocking their scent from reaching her nose. Her first thought was that they were Conclave agents, but something about the way they were standing, and the way their weapons were maintained made her think otherwise.

But all of them, civilian and soldier alike, were watching her with amused interest, more than a few of the mechanic's scents taking on the spicy tang of arousal as they examined her nude body. Turning her head, she caught sight of a male fox who was standing nearby, clothed in something like a black mockery of a surgeon's gown, busily testing a variety of medical devices, including a laser scalpel. Sitting beside him on the floor were devices she recognized as mobile preservation units, devices designed to maintain organs slated for transplantation. All of them were standing empty, but primed and ready. When she saw them, she got a sinking feeling that she knew what he was here for. But the creature that stood nearest her brought a feeling of utmost rage into her heart and mind. Kos was standing before her, clad in coveralls like those the mechanics wore, his face a twisted mask of sadistic pleasure at seeing her bound up like that.

"Welcome back, Kate." He sneered, his smile widening as she glared silently at him. "I am sure you would like nothing more than to strangle me right now with your vaunted psychic powers, but I came prepared." With that, he produced a small, perfectly clear vial of a transparent chemical that looked much like water.

"Do you know what this is?" He asked, holding it out towards her. "This cost me almost a year's pay on the black market. But it was all so worth it to see you like this." Katy tried to snarl at him, but the leather belt strapped around her muzzle killed the effect she was trying to achieve, muffling her voice to a murmur. The watching mechanics laughed and Kos's sneer grew even more hideous. With one hand, he reached out and lifted her lover's Archen necklace from where it lay on her chest, beside her dog tags and brushed his thumb across it. "I never would have thought you would have sunk so low Kate." He commented quietly, dropping the necklace with disgust and leaning in close to her, his breath stinking with the scent of hard alcohol. "When you humiliated me in front of the entire ship, I did some checking with some old friends of mine, some friends who have access to information not usually to be found. I know what that necklace of yours signifies. And I know what it means when you get a different one. I never would have thought you would have sunken low enough to actually mate with a Terran." He spat the last word as if it disgusted him and Katy's heart gave a violent jerk. He knew her secret!!

"Come on Kos, don't hog the fresh meat." One of the mechanics said, slurring his voice, stumbling closer and roughly grabbing one of her breasts. But Kos growled angrily at him and sent him sprawling to the floor with a single punch from one of his powerful arms. The drunken mechanic ended up in a heap, his legs tangled together, completely insensate.

"You will all get your turn when I am done!!" Kos shouted, turning around and looking at the others in the room, made a little unsteady by the sudden movement, then, he turned back to his prey. "So, my little traitor whore, I am going to show you the price for betraying your species. And when I am done, my friends here will have a turn with you. And when you are begging for us to end it, begging to be allowed to die, the Doc here will take whatever parts of you he likes. And when he is done, we will space whatever is left over, and no one will ever find out what happened to you."

A cold terror had begun to fill Katy's heart the moment he had started describing his intent, and now it felt like her insides had turned to ice. She was truly helpless, and she would be long dead before anyone could help her. As if to underscore the point, Kos unzipped his coverall, revealing that he was naked beneath it, his member already standing erect. With a terrible smile of anticipation upon his face, he stepped closer to her, his member pressing against her leg as he moved into position, roughly fondling her. She thrashed against her bonds as she felt him closing with her, but she was bound too tightly to stop him. Terrified, she begged with her mind for someone, anyone, to help her. Kos leaned over her, leering at her with bloodshot eyes, pressing his hard tip against her slit. And then, just when he started to force his way inside her, the world exploded...