FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

About 10,000 words

Stranded

[1 hour, 21 minutes]

The wolf retreated from the orbital station's bustling concourse and dived into a bar, stealing the nearest free seat. His tail bristled as his claw prodded his flickering wrist console, oblivious to the pulsing bass from the party below.

"Come on!" the wolf growled and swiped out of the data feed to check his messages for the expected call.

No response.

"Hey! Stray!" the bartender snapped and scurried over, diving between customers and beams of purple light. "Seats are for customers only!"

"What will it cost me?" the wolf muttered, blue eyes glued to the console. He barely even acknowledged the surly fallow doe, missing the once youthful blue spots on her forearms. The faded markings spoke of happier times as she waved a hoof at the prices on the overhead electronic display.

Equinox Ecstasy. Meteoric Margarita. Negroni Nebula...

"You can't be serious?" the wolf scoffed, shaking his head. "For a bar on an outer-sol backwater, you're charging sector hub rates!"

"Ain't my choice I gotta scrape a living out from these rocks. But I'm still allowed to make ends meet!" she growled, fiercer than any deer could. "Don't tell me I don't know my numbers, navigator." She curled her lip and nodded to the bull who stood by the door. 600 pounds of authentic muscle and testosterone rolled up their sleeves and moved closer, each step thudding in beat with the bass.

"Fine! Fine!" the wolf yielded with a sigh, waving his paws in surrender. He didn't need to do anything near the level of advanced calculation for starship piloting to know the odds were against him, but that didn't stop him involuntarily running the numbers through his head.

About 500 to 1.

"What do you have for someone waiting for bad news?" the wolf asked, lowering his paws onto the table once he was certain he didn't need to run. The deer grunted at the bull and snatched a bottle of clear liquid from underneath the counter. She poured a shot measure and handed it over.

"I'll charge you based on how much of the bottle is left," she replied, chewing a luminous blue piercing in her lip.

"Do I get a glass?" the wolf asked, holding the measure before his muzzle and inspecting it with an abrupt sniff. It smelled strong enough to burn his nostrils.

Perfect.

Yet, the thimbleful between his thumb and index finger seemed insufficient to drown his woes.

"Do you want to pay a service charge?" The doe trotted off without waiting for an answer, her hooves clacking against the metal floor as she stalked off to better paying customers.

The wolf shrugged and downed the shot without further complaint. The liquid had a sharp tang that was pleasant enough once it got past the tastebuds lining his long lupine tongue, but it was to be expected that out here you wouldn't find a decent brew, nevermind a real Earth one.

Fortunately, the lanky wolf counted poor booze an acceptable price to pay, for the blessing that Earth culture got more diluted the further out the sol you went. Humans, for all their fancy tech, didn't care for those who'd used it to seek freedom in the further stars, and much less for those who used it as a sanctuary to explore a more permanent separation. Despite the animosity between the cervine station-dweller and the lupine navigator, the far reaches were a new world for those who'd taken biological modifications - a posthuman playground yet to mature from the challenges of eking out an existence at the edge of colonised space.

Growling in satisfaction as the booze got to work, the wolf returned to the data on his wrist console and checked the time since initial impact.

[1 hours, 52 minutes]

He swiped through the open windows on his console, chasing an update on the ticket he'd sent to the station's plotting room. Only they would know how long he'd be stuck here for.

Still no response.

The wolf sighed and ground his teeth, eyeing up the bottle. Perhaps something more exotic or interstellar would serve as better consolation? He glanced back up at the menu, but none of the options perked up his ears or sent a welcome ruffle through his stiff fur.

He'll get back to you. He should get back to you.

After all, he made it clear that he liked you...

The wolf blushed under his fur and rang his tongue over his fangs, trying to convince himself this was all purely professional. He could count his tail fortunate that this station had an advanced sensory array, and a team capable of all the number-crunching needed to create accurate forecasts of all objects moving through the sol...

Or in this case determine if it's a Kessler event.

The wolf poured another measure and threw it down his muzzle. Once the unpleasant tang dissipated, he grabbed a napkin from behind the bar and made some drunk calculations from the data his ship had managed to collect. It wouldn't be at all as accurate as the station,but it'd give him some idea of how long he could afford to be stranded here...

Fuck.

The wolf snarled and ripped up the napkin. Closing all other windows on his console, he opened up the contacts folder and scrolled down until he found the fox's number. His was the only active name displayed there - the others had since gone offline or moved beyond service range - but still the wolf hesitated before gingerly pressing the dial tone.

This definitely isn't keeping it professional.

But it is an emergency.

They'd met only 24 hours ago, among the shadows and swirling neon lights of a bar much like this one. The redtail had taken to his rough lupine look, confidently swinging his arm around the wolf and planting a gentle kiss on his cheek. When the wolf stumbled and told him he was a navigator - as if it were an excuse - the fox only beamed brighter , tail swishing slyly through the air around them.

"Finally, someone I can have a good conversation with."

In hindsight, they could've had more if he'd only been a little bolder. The wolf sighed as he gazed at the fox's profile picture. He was more than cute enough - a bushy tailed fox and bright-eyed behind those blue-rimmed glasses. A stray tuft of copper fur poked up between the open collar and loose blue tie he wore. It must have been an old photo, sometime after he'd completed his mods and arrived at this station. He'd since taken to more alternative styles of dress. But the navigational readout glued to his paw - his enthusiasm for the job - that remained the same. They'd met after bonding over mathematics after all, and that belief that they were doing some small bit to help chart the unknown edge of space.

The line connected with a click.

"Why are you bothering me?" the fox snapped. He didn't need to have wolf's ears to decipher the root of his irritated tone. "Are you going to apologise for brushing me off last night?"

The fox's words caught the wolf's tongue, filling his head with further memories. The drinks. The talking, and then the touching. How they lost track of who's paw was exploring where, but the warm colours that danced behind his eyelids at that supple touch...

"Is it Kessler syndrome or not?" The wolf blurted out. "Please, I need to know."

Static.

"Is it that bad then?" the wolf sighed, too embarrassed to say anything else.

"Is this really why you're calling me?" The fox replied.

The wolf took his turn to go quiet. The truth was that his skill was with numbers, not putting his feelings into words. And he wasn't sure what he was feeling.

"Please," the wolf whined, curling his tail and folding his ears. "The ship's all I've got."

At least that was true.

The fox sighed heavily.

"I don't make a habit of mixing work with pleasure... but I can get you a temp contract here. We're going to be crunching through several weeks' worth of data and I could do it with the help, at least from someone with practical experience on what pilots need out there." The fox paused, grinding his teeth. "Maybe then you'll have calculated why I'm bothering to help you."

The wolf downed another shot of vodka.

Come on liquid courage.

It wasn't like the first two shots helped him think any clearer anyway.

"Are you saying I should let them take the ship?"

Wrong answer.

"Oh please!" the fox retorted. "At least you're safe behind the station's armour belt. And it'd do you more good to be in here with your people, rather than out there on your own."

It was a fair jab, but it still didn't stop the wolf from wincing. Maybe it was the ancient desire to roam that'd married itself to his lupine genes, or the dread of being stuck inside a tiny station, cut off from the stars, but the thought of staying still felt a waste, given how many before him must have dreamed of roaming the stars.

"I'll get some projections for you to work on in a couple of hours. Call it an interview," the fox finished with a sigh.

"Thanks." The wolf paused, trying to figure out the right words to say, but each idea felt slippery and uncertain. People, he lamented, were so hard to figure out. "And about last night-"

"Take some time to think about it, rather than reply in haste. You don't do your important calculations off the cuff, do you?"

The fox hung up rather than wait for a reply.

The wolf folded his ears, but it wasn't enough to block out the sounds of the party below, never mind the scent. All those bodies, moving together in tantalising union... Did it have to be so cold among the stars?

[2 hours, 16 minutes]

The hangar was quiet, even for a station full of different species and circadian rhythms. Ships that had been minutes from launch lay abandoned on the taxi ring, engines cold and lifeless. There was no point incurring extra costs moving them. In a corner a couple of technicians tinkered with a battered-looking ship - only the metallic snap of their electro-ratchets punctuated the silence.

The wolf's ship lay at the front of the taxi, barely a metre from the energetic blue haze of the protective bulkheads. The shields antagonised him with every bright flicker. If only they could be shrunk down to fit inside a ship. And what if he'd received a take-off slot minutes earlier? He'd be out there, free. Not trapped in here.

The wolf turned back, the light of the shields illuminating his raised hackles like a halo. He ran his paw along the wings of his ship, his black snout twitching as his touch stirred up the smell of burnt ozone. It wasn't pleasant but he'd since got used to the smell of space, even if he still wished the gene-coding of his wolf mod could've filtered it out.

(Description of ship)

But when he closed his eyes, all he could feel was the freedom that beckoned in the press of his orange fur-the wolf snorted loudly, trying to blast the memory of his scent from his nostrils. He turned around and looked beyond the shields to the cold stars, but their pure white light was polluted by the haze of the shields. He bit his lip and tried to suppress the low whine building in his muzzle.

Surely it makes no sense to trade all you know for some redtail you just met? Why should crude biology make him compare to this?

Sadly, thanks to the Kessler event, he didn't actually have a choice. Better to flog the ship now and salvage what he could from his investment rather than bankrupt himself making payments while stranded.

"You should stand back. I calculate not an insignificant chance you could get sucked out there if there's a momentary drop in power."

The wolf spun around and slung a growl at whoever spoke. But, instead he met a pair of electric eyes, glowing with a sharp blue hue. They shone from beneath a metallic visor, shielding fine ocular lenses that clicked softly as their components adjusted. It wasn't just some sort of aid, or even augmentation - the same metallic veneer covered the rest of the speaker's body.

The wolf took a step to the side and took a better look. Their body was shaped exactly like a wolf-mod, except it was more like some sort of mechanical, even perhaps synthetic frame. Interlocking geometric plates mimicked the contours of organic anatomy, interspersed with vents and carapaces. Beneath them and underneath the arms, corded bundles flexed, presumably mimicking muscle, power, and other functions to the user inside. It was an impressive piece of engineering, far beyond any of the rudimentary exoskeletons he'd had occasionally made use of when ferrying cargo.

"That's a fancy piece of kit." The wolf whistled. "Did it work that chance out all by itself?"

"Perhaps, but the flaw is common knowledge for this sort of shield tech, at least where I am from."

The stranger spoke, their voice soft and measured as the suit transmitted the sound deep from somewhere inside the muzzle. It seemed to modulate the sounds at the right frequencies to pass off to his ears as authentic, perhaps even wolf-like. Even the jaw and imitative tongue moved as he spoke.

"But worry not, at some point the upgrades will reach even this sector."

"I doubt it," the wolf replied. "Fancy tech takes a lifetime to travel out here. And by the time it does reach us, it's outdated." The wolf paused as a humourless laugh broke through, amused that this fancy interloper now relied on the very shielding he'd just put down. "Still, any port is a shelter in a storm?"

"Perhaps." The stranger scratched his chin with a paw. "Your setup is functional - if not so efficient."

The stranger paused, his exosuit whirring softly as he paced about, inspecting the ship. It was possible to even hear the soft clack as he swapped through various lenses, as if his craft required a thorough inspection.

At the same time, the wolf was sizing up the stranger and his expensive exosuit. Only a human would have tech that fancy, and only a human would be prudish enough to stay inside it when aboard a station - especially if it was full of other species. Still, it was curious though that it was shaped like a wolf. Perhaps it was envy, or that he hadn't worked up the courage to commit to the transformation? Either way, the wolf's curiosity kept him listening as the stranger continued talking.

"You own this ship?"

The stranger had an odd manner of speaking, but such divergence was to be expected when Earth was long forgotten. He probably found the wolf's accent equally odd.

"That's a very personal question. Who's asking?"

"Someone who's interested in your services. While it's quaint that you still use them out here, I doubt a navigator like you comes without a ship."

"What makes you certain I am one?"

"Your response to my comment on the shields. Only a navigator would attempt such a calculation in their head. So I ask again, is this your ship?"

"As long as I keep making payments. From what I've heard, we'll be stuck here for a while." The wolf shrugged, combing the fur on the back of his neck with his claws. The exosuit flicked its ears, imitating a lupine's questioning gesture.

"Apparently," the wolf sighed, "some idiot set off too big an explosion when mining one of the asteroids in the nearby belt, and well..." He imitated an explosion with his paws. "Kessler incident."

It seemed foolish to have expected some reaction from the human buried within that exosuit, but still, he didn't expect his words to be ignored entirely.

"Do you take passengers?"

"No. They're not profitable." The wolf omitted he also didn't like the company. They didn't have the same veneration for the stars - to them space was just another tedious obstacle.

"I will compensate you accordingly when you take me where I need to go."

"Look." The wolf paused, scratching between his ears with his paw. "I know you've got some fancy tech, but we're all grounded until things settle out there. So unless you're prepared to pay my bills while we sit tight, I won't be taking you anywhere."

As if to prove the point a loud plink rang through the hanger, followed by a soft hiss as some smaller debris burnt up on the shielding. The wolf-mod took a couple of quick steps back, ears alert and listening for any signs of failure. The stranger didn't even flinch. Once he was satisfied that there was no danger, the wolf let out a shaky breath, folding his arms as he tried to hide his embarrassment.

"I'm as keen as you are to get off this station. But even if I wanted to take the risk, I don't have the projections to even begin to plot a safe course through all the debris out there. And even if I did, I don't have the codes from flight control to authorise my launch."

To prove the point, the wolf picked up a stray bolt from the floor and tossed it at the shielding. It burnt up without even a flame, filling the air around us with a greasy, cloying scent.

"Those shields work both ways. I reckon even your fancy suit wouldn't survive that." Even if it meant clipping his own wings, it was quite satisfying to have someone else fall with him.

"It is amusing to think I would ask you if that was an insurmountable problem," the stranger replied. Without showing any outward signs of his intervention, the wolf's wrist console chimed and displayed a new launch code.

"Ok. How did you do that?" The wolf asked, trying his best not to gawk in front of his client. You never wanted them to think you were stupid when you'd be the one plotting a delicate flight solution for their precious cargo. "Whatever you just did, you'd better not have gotten me in trouble-"

"You are keen to get off this station, aren't you? And you need the money, don't you?" The client paused, a grin stretching across his exosuit's muzzle. "As you say, any port is safe in a storm."

"Let me give you another saying. It's never a bright idea to piss all over your backyard." The wolf growled. "Just because you're not from around here, doesn't mean that I don't care what trouble you get me into."

"The only trouble you'll get from my proposal is if you make a scene." He sighed, brushing off the wolf's concerns as if they were mere inconveniences. "Outdated systems are quite easy to manipulate - it's easy enough to cover my tracks without everyone being distracted by the storm out there."

"Or you could just buy my ship outright," the wolf blurted out.

"You can't give up the stars, can you? It's something deep in your genes - some complex interplay... those navigator genes, and that lupine adoration for the night?" He smirked. "Why then question your good fortune? You need the work. I am offering it."

The stranger paused, scrutinising the wolf without sound or movement, yet still it felt deeply searching. The wolf couldn't help but feel his fur bristle, unable to decide whether his words, or his silence, irritated him the most. He couldn't help the creeping suspicion tingle up from the tip of his tail, that perhaps the stranger thought of him some dumb animal bound to the whims of its nature, or some backward provincial who couldn't see the big picture. Perhaps it was a mixture of both, but the wolf wasn't going to admit the real reason he felt tied to this place. He wasn't even ready to admit that to himself - it all seemed so fragile.

The wolf broke the silence, snapping his teeth together while he held his tail tense and brittle behind him. The suit's eyes narrowed, mimicking either understanding or irritation, but certainly demanding the answer.

"Fine. But you don't need to be so reticent about it all," the wolf replied, limiting himself to only a half-growl.

"I understand your frustration, but I can't be too careful. After all, your... 'idiot' is the whole reason I'm stuck here in the first place."

The wolf raised both eyebrows, blinking rapidly.

"I thought you were going to answer my questions, congratulations, not make more of them."

"I can answer the rest once we have gotten underway, but the time to do so is running out."

"You really think I'm either dumb enough or desperate enough not to ask why? If you were responsible for all this, the very least you can do is answer some basic questions," the wolf snapped, pointing beyond the shields. They rippled like raindrops on a lake's surface as they absorbed the impacts from a patch of debris, before settling back to stillness.

"Fine, but keep it down." The stranger even used his flightsuit to give him a mock-growl. "I don't want the entire station to hear."

The wolf-mod grunted, his nostrils flaring as they flushed out the scent of that insult. When the stranger didn't read his cue to proceed, he pushed him further.

"Was it bad enough you couldn't limp it to port?" The wolf assumed that someone had decided that the stranger's presumably fancy looking ship was too much temptation to pass by.

"It caused a Kessler event, did it not? The repairs I need are serious enough that they have to be done by a professional. This was the closest station I could limp to in my exposure suit, and it's not like anyone here would be able to help anyway," he added.

"Right," the wolf nodded, stroking his neck fur. "And since you're not there, technically your ship is fair game for salvage." The wolf-mod smiled, taking another close look at that expensive exosuit. "No wonder you want to keep this quiet - it sounds like quite the goldmine."

"Yes, to indulge your archaism. But any scrapper is likely to just make things worse, rather than make off with any of my property as salvage. If we don't see that the reactor is stabilised..." The stranger mimicked another, bigger explosion with his suit's paws. "The shielding here certainly won't be able to handle that."

The wolf shivered, thinking about himself, thinking about the fox.

"You make all this sneaking sound like something heroic," he replied with a hint of sarcasm.

"If it serves to motivate you to join me, then we shall call it so."

"Doesn't make me happy about it. This is all your fault - this is what happens when you bring your fancy tech into a backwater desperately in need of it."

"I actually intend to share it, if you find that so hard to believe."

"First you appeal to my sense of altruism, and now you try to convince me you're motivated by it too?" The wolf scoffed. "Space hasn't been filled with such sentiment for millennia now."

"Which is why I'm offering to compensate you for your troubles."

The wolf took a moment to inspect the stranger more thoroughly. To be honest, he didn't know what he'd hope to glean from him - his scents were all synthetic here, and even as his nose quivered, what would he be able to learn? As much as he wished it, the human wasn't a wolf - and even if he could pick up a trace of his scent, he would have no idea what the smell meant.

"Fine. But we do this my way. First, there's the pay for fuel - both there and back. Then plotting time, actual journey time, and any expenses incurred along the way." He stopped to lower his tone. "And since you're asking me to fly in dangerous weather, towards a ticking time-bomb, the hazard pay will be quite considerable."

The synth wolf nodded and blinked, his mechanical eyelids sliding down with a soft click.

"Anything else?"

"You'd better delete my ship's values from their systems - I don't want to be barred from landing here again for breaking launch protocols." He paused, thinking of the red tail in the plotting room... "You may find this station primitive, but I actually have a reason to come back here."

"Of course," the client nodded. "I can promise that you will be rewarded quite handsomely," he smiled.

"Good!" The wolf said cheerfully, clapping his paws together. "Now, if you give me a day or so I'll get hold of the latest array data from the station and begin calculating our course-"

"That won't be necessary," the synth sighed. "I already completed the necessary calculations while we were talking."

The wolf bit his lip and swallowed the feelings which came with his redundancy.

"Fine. But will you at least tell me your name?"

The stranger paused.

"I don't think that will be necessary for our arrangement."

"I've got to call you something," the wolf sighed. He pushed past the exosuit and stalked up his ship's gangway. "Since you insist on being so obfuscating, I'll just call you Smoke."

He looked back to find Smoke grinning, almost as if he liked it.

[3 hours 23 minutes]

After the wolf's ship slipped out of the station, he gave the engines a controlled burn for twenty seconds, bearing 260 degrees. The display chimed and flashed from amber to green as the ship matched the correct position on the flight-plan, but it was void of satisfaction that came when running off your own numbers. He grunted and gave a brief three second flush to the engines, adding a bit of speed to the manoeuvre, but that wasn't thrilling either.

He pulled himself away from the scopes and cut the throttle. He felt empty - like a bird chasing the sunset, trying to escape the dark. If Smoke was a glimpse of the tech that was coming, he'd soon be out of a job, even if he completed this one.

"So tell me, how did you do those calculations so fast?" The wolf smiled, hoping he could get a heads up of the future from his client. Perhaps he'd get a lesson in some fancy new form of mathematics? But he'd even settle for news that there was an updated navigator gene-mod on the market - presumably to keep up with the competition. He'd take anything, as long as it spared him becoming redundant to a machine.

"You know they've got machines for that?" Smoke replied. Even though his tone betrayed nothing, he seemed irritated.

"Yes, but that's why they also made navigators to check they were right." He paused, trying to cajole further words from him. "A machine is only as smart as its maker, or the data you feed into it."

"These days machines are far smarter." Smoke turned to face the wolf, cocking his head to the side. "Besides, it's a bit too late to doubt the calculations."

The wolf bit his lip, taking a sharp breath. He dropped down to check the scopes - each displaying a grid extended out from the ship in the centre. Normally they were clear, with only the faintest hint of matter at the farthest reaches of the scanner. Instead a cloud of dots zipped and buzzed about them - some metres or more in size, others barely larger than a fleck of stray paint. But size mattered little, given the speeds they were moving at.

It was hard to decide which was worse - that a computer managed to plot a safe path like this and that he'd be out of a job, or that he was flying on sheer dumb luck and any moment could be the end. He wished he still had that bottle of booze.

I should have taken that job when the fox offered it.

"Well, you did a great job," the wolf murmured hesitantly, trying to keep his professional composure..

Smoke merely nodded.

"Not one for conversation?" The wolf prompted him, hoping to gain more answers.

"We already exchanged all useful information."

"You didn't have qualms about it in the hangar bay."

"That was for procurement. You're quite capable of following the flight plan without further instruction," Smoke finished with a smirk.

The apparent ability of his exosuit to mimic emotion increasingly unsettled him the more Smoke conveyed it. At first he was impressed by the apparent attempt to make his dark, impervious, metallic features seem less robotic, but now with every movement he couldn't help but find it more and more worrying - that even a human pilot could converse in that wordless lupine expression.

"In that case, I'll be in my quarters." The wolf stood up, trying to defuse the knot building in his gut. "You can stay here if you want, or you can find some space in the hold to bunk down. Either way, don't touch anything - the route we are on is precarious enough." He hissed softly as he took a deep breath, hoping to somehow clear his head.

The helm door slid open, exposing the wolf to the cold, gentle hum of the ship. The tap of his claws against the metal gangway echoed throughout the dark, empty hold. At least he wouldn't have to brush asteroid dust from their fur, or the scrub ship's air filters clean once this was done. But that attempt at positivity only reminded him how long it'd been since he'd had a profitable haul.

The living quarters of the ship were at the opposite end of the gangway, just above the engines for efficiency when it came to piping the excess heat. In truth, their odd location relative to the helm was due to a retrofit. In the past authentic navigators didn't require such comforts, but since they'd extracted the parts of their genetic sequence for spaceflight for general consumption, they'd been phased out.

The wolf tried not to draw comparisons as he entered the tiny unit and flopped down on the cold bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"Fuck."

He groaned, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples, trying to clear his head.

"Just... drop him off and wash your paws of him." He sighed, throwing his hands away from his head and gripping the bedsheets in his claws instead.

"Tech like his shouldn't reach us for decades." He snorted, trying to comfort himself with reasons why the humans wouldn't contemplate such a move. It still begged the question why on earth Smoke was here in the first place, but within those small four walls it became easier to tell himself that it was someone else's problem.

What is your problem though, is how you apologise to the fox about last night.

That proved more troublesome though, and not because he didn't know what to say. At the end of his time away he was sure he'd know the right words to say. Rather, it was the very real possibility of what would come afterwards.

Why else would he go to such lengths to help you out?

It grew more and more in his mind, his imagination taking hold of the darkness that swirled behind his shut eyelids. His familiar red fur rose up from the dark corners of his mind, bringing a warm flush to his cheeks, and a flutter in his chest.

Did he feel this too?

Reaching down, the wolf wiggled out of his scuffed clothes and underwear, his fur flushed hot. It bristled in welcome as it met the cool air, stifled for far too long. If he hadn't had that passenger, then he could have gone about the ship au naturelle, but he'd have to settle with this moment of short relief. He knew for sure that humans didn't have a strong enough sense of smell...

He sighed and stood up, swishing his tail through the air, enjoying the feeling as the cold diffused between the fluffed up patches of fur. He kept his eyes closed, allowing the darkness behind his eyelids to melt away to a comforting scene: a pine forest dusted with light flakes of snow. The cold hum of the metal walls dissolved, becoming the air between the frozen trees, and the stillness of the earth in the grasp of winter surrounded him.

The vision shifted like ripples on a still lake, distorted by the vibrations of a long neglected, and unresolved need. The snow pooled into a white tail tip that flicked between the trees, until the solemn bark of the pines mixed with the sun's golden hue, transforming into a rusty orange. His form grew in gravity, coalescing with the light of the sun until they were back in the station's plotting room - while all the remaining snow morphed into the crinkled bed-sheets that entwined them both, and the seed leaking from his well-used tail...

The wolf took a deep breath, feeling the baser neural pathways begin to flicker to life. Desire danced between his synapses as he concentrated on the scene, his body straining against the loneliness written in the stars. And as he reached down to console himself, in his mind he saw the fox's paw instead, delicately guiding him to full attention.

A shaky breath rattled out from the wolf's muzzle, as he moved his paw lower and increased his grip. His knot pulsed against him, forcing out a thick spurt of pre that ran down the underside of his cock, before dripping onto the floor.

It has been far too long...

He quickened his pace.

When this is all over... I'll go back to the station... and tell him that-

An alarm chime pinged through the intercom.

Proximity Alert.

Without even pausing to clean his slick fingers, the wolf pulled up his pants and made himself presentable, before rushing through the door and back down the gangway.

[4 hours 6 minutes]

The bridge was empty, except for the red alert flashing on the display:

>proximity_alert

The wolf did a quick calculation to estimate the time until impact. Then all he'd need to do was make a slight alteration and return the ship to the original path as soon as possible, to minimise any variation in speed, or gravitational disturbance.

At least this meant that machines aren't so infallible!

He growled and continued to calibrate the engines for the correction, but the controls only spewed out errors every time he tried to execute it.

>unable to execute command

> invalid authorisation token

He could only think of one reason why that would be. The wolf afforded himself the pleasure of cursing and threw himself away from the console. What has he done to my ship?

Smoke, of course, was nowhere to be found. He'd peel that human out of that fancy metal shell with his claws if he had to, just as soon as he found him!

With a couple of vengeful keystrokes, he ran a query through the ship's life support, hoping to pinpoint where the human had disappeared to. All he needed was a subtle spike in temperature, or a dip in oxygen levels in any sector to find him, but the readings all came back clean.

How was that possible?

Even for an exosuit, there was no way Smoke's held a sufficient oxygen reservoir, given how long he had it on. The wolf ran back through the logs, scrutinising the data from when they were both sitting here together, and compared this to when he was alone in his quarters. Even if his breathing was above average... it would give him a value to search for.

Nothing.

The thought was overshadowed as a growing darkness deepened the red glow of the scopes. Something beyond loomed closer and blocked out the starlight - a giant black mass, drifting closer from the darkness between the stars.

The preliminary scans pieced together a hazy picture. As the image rose up from the display, it seemed less and less like an asteroid or a large piece of debris. More details started to emerge. Great bundles of pipes, cables and wiring. Long winding service gantries. Numerous exhausts and vents. All industrial in nature, but cold and silent, without a hint as to their overall function. The derelict rolled over in an irregular, but at least stable, rotation - and like some sort of wounded beast. As it spun, it rolled over to reveal a ragged, irregular hole stretching almost from one side to the other.

It seemed unlikely that this could have been some miscalculation - the error would be far too large. Perhaps Smoke had done this to keep the exact coordinates secret? Maybe that explained the anomaly in the life support readings too? Given how easily he'd obtained a launch code, it seemed entirely possible that he could also manipulate the ship's systems without him knowing...

A flash of clean blue light washed over the bridge from beyond. Across the object, energy arched between its pylons. The wolf peered through the glass, observing the object shrug off its inertia. Lights flicked deep from within as the pylons sparked, directing the flow of energy around the damaged segment, as if cauterising a wound. When the energy faded, a myriad of mechanical cords stitched the surface back together, like muscle fibres and nerves.

Instinctively, the wolf's paw hovered over the engine controls, but he had no choice over whether he should stay or go. Invisible against the darkness of the void beyond, he couldn't see one of the gangways reach out with those mechanical cords, and without an external frame of reference, he didn't notice his ship slowly drift towards the hulk. The only stimulus came when the ship echoed with the click of the docking locks, and the automated hum as the airlocks pressurised - completed by the final, high-pitched wheeze as the seal reached equal pressure and a stable seal.

The wolf counted the seconds passed since docking, expecting some feedback that Smoke had left, but there were no signs of exit, or entry.

Against his better judgement, he stood up and made his way over to the connector. It was a silly idea, but at least the action felt like they were somehow in control of at least that small decision. Even if it was now impossible to plot all the final moves out, they didn't have much of a choice anyway.

[4 hours 27 minutes]

The derelict interior was cold and smooth. Black-grey sheets of metal lined the long corridor connecting the wolf's ship, alternating between smooth and fibrous - the style reminiscent of Smoke's exosuit. The faint blue light shining from between the plates provided the only light and colour, while gravity served to differentiate the floor from the walls and ceiling. At the end of the corridor a narrow hexagonal door slid open, and though it was impossible to see beyond, the wolf had no other choice but to proceed.

The door shut as soon as he crossed over, barely an inch shy of catching his tail. Though it flicked indignantly behind him, the wolf's attention was stolen by the vault he'd entered.

It was a giant, single space, filled with row upon row of dark, mechanical cylinders that glowed with that same blue light. The scale was disorientating; between the packed rows there was not a stray inch of space, and from an estimate for the first couple of rows, easily hundreds. Yet despite the scale and efficiency, it also was quite unfathomable that they left all empty space overhead. The wolf couldn't help but wonder that whatever this store was for, it was simply unfinished.

The wolf stalked forward, fliching every time his claws clacked against the floor. The sound echoed throughout the empty vault like he was disturbing a tomb, and each breath of the stale air added to the sensation. It felt like he was trespassing where his kind did not belong. But as far as he could tell, the only way ahead lay between those vaults.

The more logical part of him feared the mix of curiosity surging through his veins, but the nerves began to subside as he stepped inside the first row. The light was stronger here, shining from large glass panes on the front of every vault. The first few pods he peered into appeared empty, but further ahead he could hear them hum and hiss softly. The wolf's ears twitched instinctively, but it was a somewhat futile attempt to glean some information from the wholly mechanical environment. He padded further down the aisle towards the sound. There was a cooler touch to the air as he got closer, but the wolf enjoyed the chill as it weaved through his fur. The vaults now were covered in a layer of ice that cascaded across their surface. Turning to the closest one, he reached out with a paw and brushed clear the frosted glass.

A suspended metallic face lay beneath.

"Magnificent, aren't they?"

Smoke's familiar voice echoed from between the tubes. There was a new tone to it though, a warm pride and growing confidences - each syllable modulated for optimum precision. Any attempt at an organic tone was gone.

"What are they?" the wolf answered, unsure of which direction to address him.

"Progress."

Further ahead a vault door slid shut. The wolf rushed towards it, but by the time he reached it, the door was firmly sealed. All the wolf could do was grind his teeth and glare at the smirking face within. In spite of his mechanical features the client was unconcerned: neither at the blue liquid bubbling up through the grate beneath his feed, nor the lack of breathing apparatus as the solution covered his head. Tiny drops of quicksilver shoaled about him like tiny fish, darting between the gaps of his exosuit's metal carapace like colourful fish among the corals. Then everything about him that was supple seized and became like stone.

"It is so quaint, dealing with your kind. Entirely predictable and easily confused."

His voice echoed from further inside the vaults, as if his exosuit had never spoken.

"What about the ones who blew that divot out of your station?" the wolf replied.

"Fortunately, you are not the same. You are not so blind, to reduce all choices down either to fight or flight."

"That's because you still need to pay me," the wolf shot back, but there was only silence. So he strayed deeper into the vaults, taking note of their mechanistic contents as he passed by. A distinct pattern began to emerge. Their designs mimicked a mix of mod species, some deer, some bovine, a couple of vulpines too. Most were canine though, and any sense of uniformity was broken up by differences between forms. It felt safe to conclude, even after spotting a couple of wolves, that they were a mix of species and specifications - apparently more of a modular setup than any rigid design. They were all inanimate though, unwilling to surrender even a hint at how their technology animated them.

Perhaps they were sleeping? It felt anachronistic, but how else could he explain what he saw? Were they shells piloted remotely, or were they some sort of remote system, or even autonomous? Lacking any understanding of the technology, the wolf only had such conjecture.

"Do you regret your decision?" Smoke's voice was softer now, guiding him onward through a maze he'd otherwise be lost inside.

"That's irrelevant. I brought you here because it made good sense for me," the wolf replied, not bothered to direct words to anywhere in particular.

"Technically my numbers and your ship did. You were just along for the ride." It was hard to tell what was meant by that - a comment designed to put the wolf in his place, or an unvarnished recognition of the truth. "But, I have not forgotten our agreement."

"How magnanimous..." the wolf muttered.

"What I can offer may well be to your liking, navigator. You would have been such a talent, if only you were born a few centuries earlier. What will you do now though? Settle down in that tiny station and whittle aways the rest of your years, whittle away the shrinking telomeres keeping all that complicated genetic code of yours together?"

"That little box is not without its comforts," the wolf snorted.

"Ah, yes! The cheap booze you barely drink, and the company you rarely keep. Like the navigators of old, you were to look up and dream of the stars, not down and drown in earthly desires."

"What exactly are you trying to prove?" the wolf snapped, offended by the implication that his wants could be so conflicting and so base. Even humans weren't above such apparent contradictions to their character.

The wolf walked beyond the final bank of vaults. Ahead against the tall, featureless wall, a set of doors opened in a cloud. Lights beyond the threshold flickered on, beckoning the wolf to follow.

"I am simply stating the facts of the matter, before you make your choice," Smoke replied.

"Do they matter when I don't know the question?" the wolf replied snidely, folding his arms and flicking his tail while the open doors waited. Even though he was torn between impatience and curiosity, he didn't wish to betray his feelings anymore than his frail biology could help.

A moment of silence passed. Then, faintly, there were footsteps beyond. They grew, but there was something off - in pace, and gait. The old hunter's ancient ears picked out two sets of feet, though sounded in quick succession. As his lupine ears tilted forward, they determined the sound was not from two bipedal gaits, but rather, one that was entirely quadruped - something that surprised him, given all he had seen.

The darkness ahead gave way to a familiar shape as Smoke emerged from the dark. But as the mist cleared, it revealed how his frame had changed from the one before. Instead of a bipedal design, the synthetic form appeared like some lupine version of an ancient centaur. Except, unlike the old earth myths, his upper body remained that of a wolf mod, while the lower body and legs were that of a wolf too. Dimly, the wolf recalled the mention of 'taurs' on some of the more far flung stations, but those old gene-mods were considered unrefined and impractical, from a time of less genetic precision. Even if you held to the argument that four legs gave a greater advantage of speed over two, it meant nothing in the age of starships. Curious then that Smoke, with all his futuristic technology, had chosen to imitate such a form.

"I told you earlier that you weren't well placed to realise the damage." Smoke smirked, moving forward quickly and beginning to circle around the wolf. "It's good to be back to full functionality. Like waking up after a long, deep sleep... if I could make the sensation sound so crude." He reached out and stretched wide his mechanical arms, and then repeated the same movement with his fore and hind legs - all the while the metal carapace clinking away.

"That's lovely," the wolf yawned, trying to keep up a front. "But now that you're all sorted, you need to settle your side of our deal."

Franky, he was looking forward to the good night's sleep he'd have back at the station, easy in the knowledge he had the funds to tide his livelihood over for a little longer. Though as he indulged those thoughts, they strayed back to the fox who waited there, and the outcome of the call he was yet to make...

"Aren't you curious to know what I can offer you, when you have barely an idea of what I'm capable of?" Smoke smiled, turning about to circle the wolf from the opposite direction. "And why do you try to hide it, when I can so easily tell what you secretly crave with each pulse of blood through those outdated cells?"

The wolf decided to call his bluff.

"What? Are you going to tell me you can stop me from becoming irrelevant? Or stop my profession becoming automated?" He snorted, tired and irritated by all Smoke's needless obstruction. "You made the deal with me, so get on with fulfilling your side of it."

"But what if I could offer you those things? What if I could make you like me?" Smoke paused, holding his arms to the side, inviting the wolf to inspect his mechanical counterpart in all his technological glory.

"Are you suggesting that you can make me like you?" The wolf laughed at Smoke's seeming absurdity. "I don't even know who you are, nevermind how on earth that fancy suit or frame or whatever of yours works."

Smoke's smirked, his synthetic features responding to the wolf's words as soon as they were spoken.

"Perhaps I should have made it clear, but... this is me." He grinned and took a step forward, the tall wolftaur stopping barely a foot in front of the wolf. "Imagine your existence, liberated from the confines of that carbon prison - your consciousness freed from those sluggish nerves, assimilated and rewired into something far superior."

The wolf paused to consider those words, but the idea that this was some joke didn't match his character. The idea that he was some form of synthetic life, or advanced robotic intelligence didn't seem far-fetched given the ample demonstration of their abilities. But still, even if that was the case, how on earth did Smoke think he could be made into one, even if he wanted to?

"I'm sorry, but what? How exactly does that work - you going to upload me somewhere or something?"

"It doesn't quite work like that," Smoke chucked, folding his arms. "We still have the traditional way of creation..." The synthetic wolftaur's grin widened as he advanced. The wolf retreated, taking a step back, then more so, until his back rested against one of the cold vaults. "We find that such methods help make the assimilation of organic assets more successful..."

"I think you've already taken me for enough of a ride-"

"You'll find this one more pleasurable." It was a somewhat unwelcome time for Smoke to reveal he did indeed have a sense of humour. But, if the wolf was honest, was what the synth was proposing really so far removed? He seemed to be able to articulate his inner thoughts as they raced through his mind.

"You already embraced changing your form with your bio mods. What more is it to embrace the next step of your evolution, when you know the consequences of falling behind?"

The truth in his words was uncomfortable, but impossible to ignore. The wolf knew his gene-mods were far from perfect, and he'd been running from the future for far too long. But those were all 'head' and not 'heart' reasons. He'd neglected so much in his pursuit of a career among the stars - why should he surrender that small chance he had left with the fox? Despite it all, the redtail had still left the door open... or was that all just him reading the situation wrong? People weren't numbers he could just compile and use to then predict the future. Perhaps it was just a gentle way of saying goodbye, nothing more?

If only it were possible to quantify, then he'd be able to know. And in that moment, part of the wolf still tried to do so. He could calculate the movement of the planets, the specifications of the ships - why not the desires of others? What if they were just pieces of the same interstellar puzzle, and all it took was a powerful enough processor to work it all out?

The wolf bit his lip and looked up at Smoke.

"Is the process.. painful?"

"I am certain you will find it quite enjoyable," the synthetic wolf chuckled, intent in his eyes.

With an athletic flourish, the synthetic wolftaur reared up onto his hind legs, pausing for a moment to show his perfect balance, before bracing his forelegs against the wall, to either side of where the wolf now rested his head. He looked down, arms folded, with a wink in his eye and a swish to his synthetic tail that was both an invitation and a demand to explore what lay beneath his belly.

The wolf raised an eyebrow, but the quip on his lips about the lack of foreplay faded as he glanced down the synth's sleek underbelly. Curiosity, twined with unresolved need, and the sight before him made a compelling argument to continue. There was something strangely organic, for lack of a better anachronism, about the proud cock that greeted him, and the sizable set of balls accompanying it. Unlike the rest of his form, it was smooth and supple, perfectly imitating skin. Here and there silver studs dotted its length, presumably to enhance sensations, but it was also aesthetically pleasing, how they contrasted with the dark silicone knot which pulsed rhythmically in need.

Reaching up with both paws, he brushed his pads over the smooth length, squeezing and stroking in alternating fashion. It swelled and throbbed in response to his touch, confirming what his eyes had already drunk in. It certainly wasn't some pale imitation, even if the circumstances and scents were different. Which of course, made him wonder about the taste...

The wolf reached down towards Smoke's already swollen knot and gave it a handful of firm squeezes, chuckling to himself as he waited to see what fruit his efforts might yield. He leaned closer, muzzle hovering an inch away from that familiar pointed tip, savouring the anticipation as that thick bulb flexed underneath his fingers.

A clear bead of fluid welled up from his carnal ministrations and without a thought, his tongue flicked out from between his lips to lap the precious drop. First his tongue registered nothing. Then, it tingled - a flow that ran from synapse to synapse, demanding he no longer remain still. His tongue danced across that lupine tip, forgetting any notion of artificiality. The sensation spread across him; a slow wave of bliss that consumed any lingering hesitation or worry.

The synth-wolf murmured something above, but the wolf was too busy beneath him to hear. He'd surrendered to that growing instinct, indulging in that need as it promised a sweet release from all those other thoughts. After all, who really could resist the promise of a freely offered cock, or remain stone-faced towards that deliciously plump knot before him? Such desires were part of his biology, and it was gratifying to see they remained part of the future.

By now his muzzle had parted further and further to swallow that appealing shaft, silver studs bumping against his tongue. He built a rhythm and bobbed up and down its length, sucking with increasing pleasure as his own knot swelled within his sheath, pressing uncomfortably against his pants. He reached down with a paw to hastily unzip them, taking a deep breath as his restraints disappeared, and his swollen cock sprung free, already leaking.

The wolf sighed in contentment and continued his work, his body straining at the mere thought of that cock sliding under his tail. It had been far too long among the stars ignoring such earthly concerns, and where his dance with the fox had left him filled with uncertainty and doubt, there was only clarity now.

Unbeknownst to the wolf, the assimilation Smoke promised had already begun. Spreading from his lips, a silver sheen hovered across his body, mapping contours and taking measurements, preparing for the subject for the change. Perhaps he didn't notice as he reluctantly let that swollen cock slip from his muzzle, but he showed no doubt as he let the energy dissolve his clothes - it saved him the trouble of undressing from such restrictive things.

Eager, he turned around and bent over. One paw against the cold vault, the other guiding that wet cock closer. When he slipped inside, the wolf let loose a sigh he'd been holding together for far too long, but there was no pause as the rhythm began - the wolftaur's powerful hips thrusting down against his own.

It felt good, but the usual sensations were replaced by an even greater sensation. As Smoke bucked away, he felt himself change - a sensation his organic self lacked both words and understanding to describe. But it felt powerful, invigorating, and as promised, pleasurable. Looking down between his legs, he could see his body start to change - skin tingling as the synthesis continued - until his consciousness tumbled across the threshold.

No longer did it feel like a transformation. But a refinement. Refocus. Genesis and expansion. The assimilation protocol continued to change his defenceless flesh, fur and sinew neatly knitting into synthetic fibre and smooth metal. The final flecks of skin to yield felt dull in comparison, like washing clean a layer of dirt that held back his potential. And all the while the greatest changes lay in the pathways of his mind - things that seemed vague and abstract became clear and resolute.

As the rhythm continued each thrust felt less abrupt - his hips gyrated perfectly in time with his, carrying the full force of each thrust inside while that knot continued to pop in and out, each time squirting more and more fluid inside. Then they came to the shuddering peak. He pulled out no longer. His knot swelled to an even thicker size. And his balls pulsed as they pumped his load deep inside, consummating the change with each thick drop.

When the ecstasy of the transformation came to an end, the muddy veil clouding the universe had been pulled back. It was like seeing the stars for the first time. The wolf could see so many elegant solutions to skip between the stars.

"Now, was that such a bad gift?" Smoke chuckled. He attempted to inspect the latest assimilation, but he remained firmly tied to the new synth beneath him.

"I can't help but desire to share it," the once-wolf gasped, struggling to get used to the sound of his voice. His words were met with a full-throated growl and grin of approval.

"Do you have another worthy recipient in mind?"

The new synthetic wolf grinned. He couldn't wait to share the beauty of the numbers that filled his mind with the fox. He was certain to ace their 'interview.'