FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Lexington reclined inside his room on board the Star of Io, grabbing more of his puffed cheese curls from the bag and shoving them into his mouth. They were the "natural" ones from "Krafty Foods", but Lexington knew they were actually owned by the Pulse Megacorporation, playing off of the name of a successful cheap and artificial human food's company. It was a pain to try to get someone from Applied Robots to talk to someone from Pulse without an argument, much less buy each other's products. He knew, like many Megacorporations, there would be hundreds of smaller individual companies, but follow the money and the bureaucracy, it would eventually lead back to a Megacorp.

Figuring things out always helped him feel smarter than others. Even if he wasn't, he at least would have some knowledge and experience they lacked. It made him feel necessary and valuable, even in situations where he was exactly the opposite.

The luxury star liner had many secrets, and here he could view almost all of them. Monitors all around him, audio switch board programmed onto a nearby PADD to let him listen to whatever his microphones were picking up, and he had a view of both inside and outside of the ship that no one else would ever be able to see. Dozens of hard-drives all working with an almost silent electrical buzzing as they documented every little detail. He was a contractor for Spyglass after all, the best in information warfare and security.

A vessel like this could house up to one thousand individuals along with the crew of one-hundred and eighty in absolute luxury. Even the lowest gallery dishwasher's crew's quarters were large and impressive. A ticket on such a star liner would cost easily a thousand credits, for many that was two years' rent for their apartments. Yet, you still had to bring spending money, gambling money, and money for "necessities". Lexington was a registered passenger who had brought on board several suitcases, full of surveillance equipment smuggled on board in various states of disassembly and attachment to other devices to disguise it.

While they were normally the company to keep all of your secrets from others, that did not mean Spyglass did not acquire the secrets of everyone else. Lexington was what you called, on-site tech support for such information gathering activities. He wasn't supposed to interfere or interact with any of the passengers. They did not even know he existed. He would monitor the ship under the guise of monitoring in case of an emergency for The Star of Io. But he was really here to get any political backroom deals, dirt on Spyglass competition, or other corporate competition that could be leveraged in negotiations to gain an advantage that could be sold.

He was not here to relax, he was here to act for a company called "Information Solutions". He knew he was really working for Spyglass, the megacorporation responsible for more security systems and most security breaches.

He had been briefed on each of the passengers and learned to memorize faces, voice samplings, and their mannerisms to make sure he was spying on the right vectors. Especially at the right times as well.

Whether it be politicians for mud slinging, corporate negotiation leverage for profits, or just to sell ad companies to bombard them with things they probably didn't need or want but would sound like they did, Lexington didn't care, he wasn't paid to care. He was paid to sit here, watch the operation, people watch everything going on, everything. He was told specifically to not interfere in anything unless it was life threatening. He scrolled through each screen, finding interactions going on.

Bar goers trying to not be lonely for the night. People using the observatory to drink and look into the deep black, picking out starships, planets, and star constellations away from Earth and Mars. The indoor pool on the bottom of the ship rotated back up to the top of the vessel, the dome between the stars and pool nearly three meters thick, composed of various composite protection against micrometeors and anything else that might damage the glass. This ship was made for maximum luxury, something that Lexington would never afford on his salary, save for once in his life. He sighed, looking at all the vectors in various swimsuits designed for their form.

Something he was sure they took for granted. The ability to have fashion made into some piece of clothing, then print it to be exactly the specifications of each vector's type and shape, modifying it slightly to keep certain aesthetics. You paid for material and the person doing the design work, instead of the talent to sow or labor time to create it. Strangely, in Lexington's experience, this made clerks at the shop much more expensive to pay for. At least when he was a clerk in a shop, he found that every time he got a new certification, he could ask for a pay raise and they might have to give it to him.

Now however, that was long behind him. No more dealing with these fashionistas and rich vectors, or having to find discounts and fee waivers for those who were not as fortunate and couldn't afford to pay for his fees, or having to come in and take a standard sizing, something he got fired for. At least he made sure he left with a small fortune for himself, and it would take months to get someone with all his qualifications and certifications. He smiled as he scrolled to the next surveillance camera.

He did get to come out as a ship crew member with a blue shirt instead of a white or red, meaning he was strictly maintenance personnel to the passengers and not be interacted with. It was the kind of designation that let him enjoy some parts of the ship, even if he could not socialize. He moved to the next camera as a little resentment built up from seeing how those with wealth acted and treated both each other and the ship crew.

A male vector groping a female server as she walked past. Being part of the crew, she was unable to really retaliate or protest; she could only walk faster away from the drunkard's table. Another showing a female vector in swimwear fake seducing a man, even going so far as to straddle him before another female vector in a swimsuit sporting a suggestive bulge on her crotch walked up and tapped on her shoulder, the two of them walking off giggling to each other as they left their now frustrated victim, and turning him into the source of their conversation.

The next thing he was listening to was someone horrifically trash talking their wife. He was clearly unhappy in his marriage, and the way he talked about her made him uncomfortable. What was worse was when his wife approached-which Lexington knew it was his wife at this point, as it was the third time he had observed Mr. Kilmar, and this was a regular occurance-and the topic of conversation suddenly changed and he acted as if nothing was wrong.

"Just divorce her and go date a male already. I have better things to do than constantly listen to your dribble. It's infuriating," Lexington commented to himself as he moved to the next hidden camera.

Lexington paused, something finally caught his attention. He raised an eyebrow as he spotted a large reptile vector, an anthropomorphic snake of some sort if he had to guess. What she was carrying was what caught his attention, a delphinidae. If he had to guess, the species was some sort of porpoise with a shorter mouth and bulkier body. The point was, the delphinidae was clearly unconscious and he was in a shorter kilt skirt and a suggestive top, while the serpent woman was in another dress. He did a zoom in and could see the twitching of the eyes under the delphinidae's eyelids as well as the light white foamy spit.

"Drugged... and you're, oh..." He opened his document concerning his interference protocols. Apparently rape and date drugging were not on that list. He took a moment to think about it. Could he find an excuse? Probably. Was it worth it? Did he know either of them particularly well?

He ran the facial data through the computer as the serpent began to undress the unconscious delphinidae. The delphinidae was K3ith.!, from Pulse. He was one of the ship's crew, not a passenger or anyone Spyglass would want information about. He took a moment to consider it as the person in question came up.

This was Commissioner Miranda L. The L didn't stand for anything, that was her last name. Lexington took a moment to consider this. Spyglass hated the IRPF, and there was a commissioner for them right here. Someone who commanded hundreds of officers, and she was abusing her position of power to do something unspeakable. He thought about it as he flicked the radio on and off, debating on using it.

What if he recorded this instead? Spyglass would use it to blackmail an internal affairs investigation when Commissioner Miranda L. finally did something to piss them off enough to get rid of her. They were nude, and he could make out that Miranda had a similar modification to the female from earlier, well hidden inside a sheath pouch and now coming out.

"Oh come on, I did not want... ya know what, fine. I'm calling it in." He turned the radio on and spoke out. "This is operator 77-172. Security to room 416, I repeat security to room 416. We have reports of screaming." He knew the voice modulation program would make him sound like the ship's operator and therefore make it seem like he was official.

"Roger that, patrol 3 heading to 416 now will be there in three." Lexington shook his head at the security response and rolled his eyes. Three minutes might be a little too late to stop the initial problems.

"Security, the screaming intensified and was suddenly cut off, can you hurry please?" Lexington spoke into the radio, trying to match the same calm tones that the operator often gave.

"Affirmative! Moving!" Lexington grinned. He would get there in less than a minute now, and on top of that, he wouldn't knock first. Lexington watched on his camera as the door to room 416 suddenly burst open and the snake was left standing there nude with a firearm pointed at her as the security officer yelled for her to get on the floor.

"You better be thankful there, K3ith.! I just lost a couple of thousand credit bonus." Lexington watched the drama play out as the officer called for backup, and it arrived shortly thereafter. They checked K3ith.! as a medic team arrived and did the vitals check before taking him away, while Commissioner Miranda L. was carted off in handcuffs to the ship's brig. The captain would decide their fate in the morning and probably call the IRPF to come pick them up. Lexington figured there would be an investigation, and she probably would be demoted. He had done his job as far as he was concerned.

He carefully went into his hard drives and deleted the recording of his radio broadcast so he could wash his hands completely of this. Their operator on the ship would just be attributed to helping stop something awful, maybe even given a blurb in the extranet that a few vectors on social media would see. Who knows, she might get a promotion or raise for something she never did. Either way, he would just enjoy being the one who acted as the puppetmaster in this case.

He scrolled to the next camera and onward, looking at each situation and not interfering with anything else going on, until he hit the lower decks, where escape pods and cargo was. His camera was blank. He stared at it perplexed. He checked the microphone, also dead. Something had knocked them out.

"What? My cameras are sterner stuff than that..." He muttered to himself as he checked everything, but there was just no signal from the camera.

Lexington groaned as he looked up at his room. It had dozens of monitors in it, as well as pinups of anime, VR celebrities, and other girls. He sighed to himself and stood up, "Sorry girls, I can't have one of those not working." He went to his closet and pulled out the blue uniform he had been issued, dusting it off and half-heartedly straightening out the wrinkles. Not that it mattered, no one would question him, save for the security sometimes asking to check his ID because they had not seen him before, which would check out without issue.

Lexington finished getting dressed and grabbed his kit to change the camera and microphone out. He was heading down to the shuttle bay number three, where the camera was situated. The shuttle bay also acted as a cargo bay to store anything that wouldn't fit somewhere else during their voyage. Unlike a normal transport ship, the Star of Io wasn't made for rapid transit, it was made for a long, slow cruise to put the passengers out of reach of anyone else and act as a vacation haven.

That meant all the requirements of survival in space; food, water, spare parts, oxygen, damage control equipment, all of it had to be taken on to double what was expected. So, they often filled the shuttle bays with extra cargo that would be consumed throughout the voyage. It wasn't like they were expecting that much trouble. These vessels had complex damage control systems, large security contingent, and lots of PDCs to keep everyone at bay long enough for the calvary to show up.

He made his way towards the shuttle bay when he was stopped from going in. There were two security personnel blocking each of the three doors that led into the shuttle bay. Lexington figured he could just walk up and they would let him through, but they held out a hand and the other security officer raised his shotgun. Shotguns were the weapon of choice here, but Lexington did not know if it was loaded with stick and shock, or lethal slugs. All he knew was he was not prepared for looking down the barrel of a gun.

"Hey, what gives? I'm just here because someone put in a maintenance report, no need for the bang bang and gruff hostilities." The avialae stepped in front of the canine, holding the weapon towards him as he spoke.

"That may be the case, but it will have to wait, this area is off limits. No one in or out, without express authorization from the captain." Lexington heard this and sighed; he didn't get upset or protest. He just sat down in the hallway and pulled out his tool box, which made the canine retrain the gun on him.

"Hey what are you doing?" The canine male snarled at him and stepped forward. Lexington calmly pulled a premade lunch box from his toolbox. He pulled off the labeling and wrapper before opening his mouth and chomping his snout like a crocodile as he tossed a piece of meat into it.

With his mouth partially full he started talking out of the corner of it, "Look, you want to hold up me doing repairs. I don't have anything better to do, so I'm gonna sit here and take an extra long break until you let me get to work."

The avialae stepped forward, "You little runt! Get out of here before I escort you to brig for loitering in a crime scene." She demanded and reached down to pick him up.

"Crime scene? What crime am I intruding on exactly?" Lexington finished another bite and stood up without having to be wrestled out of his seated position. "I'm moving, I'm--" He stopped talking when the lights to the ship went completely dark and the sound of gunfire from the shuttle hold echoed back towards them.

"What the hell? Our helmets are rebooting. What happened to the lights?" The avialae turned and the canine was already down the stairs into the cargo hold, firing his weapon something.

"Owl! I repeat! Owl on board the ship! Shoot to kill! All--" The radio went out as whoever was talking turned to screaming in agony along with the sound of gunfire, armor and flesh being ripped apart, and others screaming for fire support.

"Owl? What!? An incursion? H--" Before Lexington could finish his sentence the ship shook with the ferocity of an earthquake, sending the avialae spiraling onto the floor and a bulkhead crashed down, smashing against her neck and back, sending her sprawling into a wall as her helmet faceplate cracked.

Lexington was hyperventilating when his PADD went off, three words scrolling across it: "Abandon Ship Critical!"

He stared and realized what that meant. The ship was crippled, something had gone horribly wrong and he had to recover those drives. He started to run down the halls back to his room as the ship shook again, violently this time. Emergency lights turned on and then started flickering as if their batteries were all being drained.

"All guests go to muster stations. I repeat, all guests go to muster stations. We are abandoning ship." Lexington looked at the hallway, blocked by debris and felt a breeze that was quickly accelerating. A breeze only meant one thing in a space vessel, a hull breach. Lexington felt his blood run cold. He may have been a reptile, but even he could feel fear. This was a kind of primordial fear that all sentient life experienced. That of certain death.

His mind raced with what to do. If he tried to go back to his room, without an airtight suit, he would drift into the void and die. If he showed up without those hard drives, he would be demoted, unpaid, and likely relegated to the worst assignments. If someone found those drives in the wreck, he would likely disappear the Spyglass way, never to be heard from or seen again. He twitched as the ship rocked a third time and emergency horns tried to flare to life only to fail as the emergency lighting started to flicker and die. Something had drained the individual batteries without warning, leaving them in total darkness.

Lexington turned on the flashlight on his PADD and examined the avialae. She was bleeding from a hole in her armor. He started to walk towards the shuttlebay, but before he gained any ground the avialae groaned. His conscience tugged at his heartstrings, and he turned to read the nametag, L. Starfeather. If he left her here, he wouldn't forgive himself. Hard drives or random security girl he didn't know. Both possibilities weighed on his head.

"You owe me!" He declared as he gripped under her arms and tugged her into the shuttlebay.

"Elsa! Start downloading my hard drives as fast as you can." The PADD beeped once. A few seconds later it gave a heavy negative beep at him. He picked it up, something was interfering with the download, it was moving at barely 54 Kb/s. He wouldn't even get any files before he launched the shuttle.

With grunts of effort he dragged the heavy trooper into the shuttlebay. He felt like someone, and yet no one was watching him be a someone. He couldn't think about that now, 'abandon ship' meant get out as fast as possible. The ship breeze got worse and the air was getting thinner. He had no suit here for the void. His skin crawled as he drug the unknown vector towards a shuttle, pushing her in and taking one last look around.

Something large and white moved towards him in the darkness, before it suddenly lit up. A large creature with extended claws, pitch black eyes, and the vague shape of a bird. "OWL!" He cried out and stepped onto the shuttle, slamming the door closed as it banged against the door. He could hear the metal rending on the other side.

Lexington was now frozen in fear. Did he leave everyone else on the ship to their fate? Did he wait to see if someone else could get to the shuttle? If the owl would just go away? His thoughts were broken up as screaming started coming through the door. Other passengers made it to the shuttle bay only for him to look out the window into the dim bay, lit by their PADD flashlights to see blood flying and vectors being rendered apart. Gunshots rang out, but they had little effect.

Other guests screamed and the lights of their PADDs dropped to their feet pointing up at them as their screams turned to a gurgle and her skin ripped open for another one of the incredibly tall solid white bird creatures to emerge. Black eyes opened and joined its comrade in shredding those that made it to the shuttle bay. The incursion was getting worse. He pressed a button and pressured the hull inside the shuttle. The screams outside died. He knew they were still there, but the pressure difference of a vacuum between them; made him unable to hear them.

He ran to the front of the shuttle and slammed on the controls. It turned on, lights flickering and struggling to stay on as if the power were being drained. Hand stretching across the controls, he slammed the big red button labeled 'release' and the shuttle shuddered as it was sent out of its parking place, and with it, the damaged door on the other side. This depressurized the bay and ripped the atmosphere open to the void. Everyone within a hundred meters was now being sucked into the void at extreme pressure.

Lexington could only watch, but he did not see the owls coming out into the void. They had to be made of something heavier, or maybe they did not care about the lack of atmosphere. Owls were not exactly something one could study-at least not without triggering further owl incursions or them getting loose.

"Those... those were owls... they are supposed to be legends, myths... this doesn't make any sense." Lexington sat down, trying to run his thoughts. His PADD continued to download what it could while still in range of the ship. He had run through the darkest deepest parts of the extranet. He felt his hands shaking, he was crying, his mouth was dry, and his body was starting to convulse for a moment. "What... happened?"

His PADD beeped and brought him back to reality. He shook away the initial shock and looked at the PADD. It had moved out of range of his hard drives, and he only had around thirty percent of his data. The connection must have sped up at some point, but still, he had lost most of his work. There were several unviewed files coming into his notifications. He scrolled hastily to the one about Shuttle Bay 3. He had to know what happened before his camera lost signal.

He kept the shuttle powered down. Whatever had ripped a hole in the Star of Io had to be bigger than that Owl. He looked out of the back of his shuttle through the viewing point to the airlock. The Star of Io had several large holes in the hull. Lexington had never seen a weapon damage in ship to ship combat in person. But he had seen several combat vids on the extranet, as well as been required to do analytical work for Spyglass, the kind that corporations did not acknowledge existed to the public. Corporate warfare was not exactly something you wanted to tell the citizens of Mars. Lexington shuddered as he gazed at the vessel.

She was shattered clean in two, rippled asunder just in front of the bridge. Several other holes were clearly blown into her dorsal side. The attack had definitely come from above. He walked back over to the shuttle console and turned on the retro thrusters to slow down, then hit a few more buttons to turn the shuttle completely off. Whoever had fired at them, their sensors would detect the shuttle as a chunk of the ship that just lost power after a few moments. He looked around the shuttle.

It had seating for twelve, luxury seating at that. Each seat had an entertainment center and the ability to completely lay flat for sleeping, while every two seats shared a minifridge. This, in addition to the numerous first aid kits on the walls that were red with white crosses over them, led to a simple conclusion: even in an emergency, the passengers would be kept in utmost luxury. Lexington sighed as he watched out the window, seeing the floating chunks of the space liner in the wreckage. He would finally get to live the high life, once he was certain whoever came to kill them all was gone. Taking out his PADD-it did not emit enough EM radiation or heat to look like anything more than a residual signature, making it safe-He had videos to watch, to figure what happened inside and outside the ship in those final moments.

*****

The figure on screen was holding his head. His feline fur was ragged and full of mange. "Even the worst off do not allow themselves to get this bad," Lexington said to himself as he continued to view the recording. The feline was holding a large heavy metal case to his chest. He looked confused, and even the microphone could pick up the panicked breathing as he scrambled around the shuttle bay for several minutes.

Lexington tried to get a read on him, but his face seemed to elude any resolution the camera could generate. "Who are you?" He kept trying to get past the pixelation, but nothing. There was a groan and he looked up, trying to figure out if the avialae was coming to. He moved to her as the noise pulled his attention.

He turned her wrist over to check the vital signs inside the suit. There were none. "You're dead? After all that I'm stuck on a transport shuttle with only a portion of my data and a dead body." He dropped her wrist and it clanged off the armrest of her chair. He would feel worse if the vector was someone he knew.

"Dammit! I'm gonna get fired for you! I mean, you look lovely-at least your armor says you do. But I risked everything to save you, and you just had to go off and die anyway." He slumped against the wall and stared at the deceased guard.

"I wish I could have at least met you. I suck at talking to everyone, much less vectors I find hot. I saw you on my cameras three or four times." He growled and smacked himself on the forehead. "Yes I know it was creepy and wrong! Look, do you know how much money they paid me? Well I suppose you don't; it was a lot, okay?"

He looked out into the dark pod. He could turn it on, but whatever or whoever had destroyed them might detect the power source turning on. "Look, I'm sorry I couldn't save you and I'm sorry I was even there. I know it means nothing to you now, but trust me, if I had a better job I would take it."

He calmly folded her arms over the armored chest, seeing the damage to her side and shoulder, then laid her peacefully onto the floor. He pulled out one of the emergency blankets from the wall and started to cover her, then stopped himself. "No, something doesn't feel right about this... look, is it okay if I leave you uncovered? I know you can't answer me, but it would be nice if you could."

He waited for a few moments, then pulled the blanket with him. He felt something else, not just the anger or sorrow over making the wrong decision, but nothingness. That feeling scared him, it frightened him that someone could die in front of him and he did not care enough to feel anything. Lexington shuddered and moved to the opposite end of the shuttle, as far as he could be away from the body physically. Lexington sat down and resumed watching the video on his PADD.

He turned up its volume, even if the sounds were mostly creaking of the ship and hesitant shaky footsteps with some ragged breathing. At least it would give him something besides the dead vector in the corner of the room to focus on.

The person kept dashing back and forth in the cargo bay. For several minutes he would run to the exit, see the light outside, let out a hiss like a large feline predator feeling threatened. He would then turn around and flee back into the darkness. He was mumbling while in the darkness, the microphone could not make it out but could hear some murmur going on. The felidae continued to dash back and forth several more times, mumbling with guttering teeth. This person clearly had something wrong with them while they clutched a case to their chest.

The sound of heavy boots, a window inside of his video window opened to show the camera in the hallway. The security personnel, fully armed and armored, stormed towards the cargo hold. Flashlights on and long arms pointed out. They were working to clear the cargo bay quickly.

The felidae snapped and held up his hand in a motion for them to stop, "Please stop! Don't come any closer!" He shouted, desperation and fear dripping with his words.

"On the ground now! How did you get on board?"

"Please get away! For your safety, get away!" He begged as Lexington heard a scream of pain from him. He fell to his knees while the security troopers surrounded him, a pair of wires in his back from the second team hitting him with a taser. The group slowly approached, keeping their weapons pointed at the felidae who did not fall down or collapse.

His scream turned into heavy breathing, starting out ragged like an exhausted creature and turned more and more as if something else had awakened within him. He stood up fully, turning and tearing the taser wires from his body. The breathing turned into ragged growls.

"Oh the floor now! Get on the floor!" The lead security officer shouted. Lexington stared as his camera recording filled with static. That was what had made him come down to fix it, the camera going on the fritz.

Finally, the picture and sound were lost to static and fuzz. He scrolled through the footage to see if anything came through at all. He got another seven minutes in and the picture had restored itself. He stopped himself. He started to process exactly what he was seeing.

The camera came back online, as a great white bird without legs that floated above the floor seemed to emerge from the felidae that was now on the ground, with multiple gunshot wounds in him. It rose higher and higher, nearly four meters in height. Bits of blood, flesh, hair, and matter from the felidae pulled apart through the air, the poor creature slowly rendering itself apart as the great bird creature absorbed more and more of his essence.

There was stunned silence within the room, the security personnel lowering their weapons and looking on in shock or awe or terror. The great bird, however, did not hesitate. As soon as its white mostly uniform body had come together, a long thin arm with vicious looking claws pulled from the body. Somehow, despite being in a clearly 3D space and taking up space within 3 dimensions, the great creature appeared flat, almost 2D no matter what angle it was showing.

Two soft gray-brown spots appeared on what would have been a head, with a black beak. A long spindly arm emerged from its side with a wicked talon clawed hand that held several void black tipped claws. In a movement too fast for even the camera to catch, the claw slammed into the chest of the nearest person. Armor did not matter, distance did not seem to matter.

The owl was completely silent. There was no scream or shriek, there was nothing but eerie silence. Immediately the security personnel reacted, spraying round after round into the great sheer white body. The rounds tore apart flecks of white that fell off to look like feathers. Over and over again, yet the deceased bodies appeared to drag fragments of themselves towards the great bird creature and regenerate the bullet wounds as fast as they could be made. The creature went still, just standing there, unmoving. In a flash, a movement that Lexington could barely follow, its arm extended to an unbelievable length and it sheared the entirety of the second squad in half. It was as if a farmer's scythe had mowed through a field of wheat.

Lexington caught the look of the dead guard with him. The wound to her side, up through to her shoulder and held up his PADD. He could see where she was standing and the ending of the claw swipe having hit her. She had died from a glancing blow from this creature. The radio chatter screamed the same lines he remembered before the alarms to get to muster stations and then the explosion that ripped the ship apart.

He took a breath in the coolness of the ship as he looked around the dark interior, his PADD the only source of light now. Lexington put the PADD down and let out a long sigh. He had much to think about now, and it turns out, owls were not myths. He pulled out the survival blanket, covering himself in it and reaching over to the firearm that his companion had carried. He slowly brought it under the blanket with him.

He looked over at Officer Starfeather's body. "I'm really sorry, okay? I wish I could have done something more to prevent it or acted. Ya know, if I wasn't here to spy on everyone, I might have at least asked you for a drink." He looked over at her, and felt the bitter cold of space slowly pulling away at the heat they had inside their pod.

"I hope you did at least have happiness in your life, and thank you for saving mine. I'm just sorry I couldn't say yours. I'm scum." He looked down at the floor. "I know I'm scum, I got into this line of work and knew the way they were asking me to spy on others was just wrong." Lexington took a moment and stared at the floor. "If I get out of this, I'll be a better person and at least someone will remember you, Miss Starfeather."

He didn't have experience to really ever use the firearm, but it made him feel better to keep it close. He nodded off, waiting. He would have to wait for whatever ship had destroyed the liner to leave before he sent out a distress call.

*****

Hoary rubbed at her eye with her wing, the buzz from her PADD making her get up. The Adrift Sphere was coasting, waiting for Orashen to work out whatever new work they could while they delivered cargo towards Europa. It was a boring thing, especially for her. Nothing to really stimulate her need for new and unknown endeavors. She pulled the pushframe from the nearby table to her head. She imagined that those that wore glasses rather than do corrective surgery or genetic treatment had the same experience waking up.

Her pushframe lit up with the golden aura and brought the PADD over to her. It was flashing with the words, "Detonation Detected" across the screen. Hoary tilted her head, thinking to herself, Detonation? How? What? She took in a breath and rolled from the cushion she leaned against to sleep. Being an avialae,, and a lateral, she slept upright, unlike the mostly bipedal population. Her bed on the ship had been designed to support her lower half, while giving her something to lean against at a right angle.

She slowly made her way out of the crew quarters and up the stairs to the upper floor central hallway. A few more steps, and she was at her station on the bridge. The various sensors and communications equipment showed various signals and reception of everything from radar to radio signal to heat variations.

She pulled the log up to look at what occurred in the last hour. Her longer range LADAR, a form of laser detection system, had detected a sudden refraction variation. The various sensors pointed in that direction showed a spike in heat and then a sudden rush in radar contacts that were smaller and less coherent in their motion than the single contact that had been there, replaced by a field of contacts.

Hoary frowned. "Even a first year sensor office would recognize that as something that exploded." She reached up and flicked a few buttons to get a command interface up. "Check for radio signals in the area."

A few seconds passed before the radio playback had picked something out of the static. The transmission was barely understandable and garbled. Hoary took a few moments to clean it up, muttering to herself about how annoyed she got when Riptide turned the power to her transceivers. She made a power adjustment to try to get something from the signal before it passed their ship. She held the headphone close to her horned ear, trying to find the-

"All passengers to muster stations! Abandon Ship, I re--" Hoary had to snap the headphones off her head from the shriek that rippled through the signal. She recognized it immediately and slammed a talon onto the nearby control panel to hit a red alert button.

A klaxon sounded through the vessel, rippling with urgency. The ship started to flash with bright red lights while going to a dark-light mode as the main lights cut off and emergency lighting remained. Hoary quickly started flicking switches to cut off unnecessary systems, including their radar. She moved in a rush, while her mind might be wanting to panic she suppressed it, turning to pure intellectualization of the situation as she moved with mechanical precision and an expression of determination, though if one stared into her eyes, they would see her fear.

Jackson was the first to reach the bridge, galloping in and looking at her. He was holding his big heavy machine gun like it was a toy, but did not have his armor on.

"Hoary? What is it? Who!? When!? How!?" Hoary rolled her eyes and calmed herself down, trying to suppress the initial panic.

"Jackson, pilot station, prepare the ship to move but do not engage anything yet." Hoary nodded to him as she finished working the ship into going dark, before the klaxon stopped, though the red lighting remained.

Orashen walked in casually, yawning heavily as she looked at the two of them. "Well, we aren't doing some High-G maneuvers or exploding yet. What's all the rush at..." She looked down at her PADD to see it was roughly 3:11am Mars time. She took a moment and looked up, "Hoary, why are we running dark?"

"Owl attack." Hoary replied coolly as she moved back to her station and Orashen immediately stood upright, adrenaline and fear impulses hitting her.

"Owl? Are you sure? Those are supposed to be a myth."

Hoary flicked her station over to broadcast across the bridge intercom and played the message, holding the stop button as the shriek came across the intercom, forcing everyone present to flinch if not outright cover their ears. "Do you know of another species that broadcasts its speech in the radio and microwave spectrums?"

Orashen shook her head. "Not on our ship I assume?"

Hoary nodded. "No, but within sensor range."

Orashen nodded and looked at the sensor log as well, recognizing they had been hit with a distress call. She reviewed the data presented and made note of a heat trail that quickly dissipated into the void. "The ship in question exploded. Shortly after; the radar shows signs of an ion trail from a missile or a torpedo. However, no idea where the actual missile came from."

Jackson turned his head, "Another white ship maybe?"

Orashen flinched at the idea. The first white ship had to be confirmed visually, because even their heavily augmented and tuned sensors hadn't detected the ship until they were nearly on top of it. She did, however, understand the tactic that was needed now. It had worked the first time, and they had destroyed the ship in question. Now they had to do it again.

"Jackson, thrusters only, adjust our course to head for the explosion, keep us running dark." She flicked on a visor across her face, the HUD displaying current systems on her ship as well as various other information on the crew, including vital signs.

"Riptide, we need minimal power. Anything that doesn't need to be turned on, turn it off." She tapped the button next to her ear to turn off the microphone in the headgear. "I suggest you two get suited up-if we get a hull breach, I don't want the decompression killing you both," Orashen spoke with a worried expression on her face.

The same signs of the white ships, them getting the unlucky situation of having received a distress call, and now an owl attack? We could just ignore it and pretend... You know that will raise too many questions in a month when we turn in our logs. Especially if there is a gap. No, by the law we are required to render assistance to any distress call. This is a very clear distress call. Orashen's internal debate slowly pulled aside as she took in a breath before bringing her rebreather up to her mouth and putting it in.

"Riptide, prepare for decompression. We may be going into battle," Orashen said as she waited for each of her crew to prepare themselves and get into their armors. The hard cases would protect them from vacuum.

Riptide, on his end, struggled with getting his suit on but began to make notes of his process for this. He would have to leave this compartment pressurized to keep the coolant inside the pool around the reactor. Therefore, he would be stuck in this compartment. He was steeling himself for that possibility as his denticles felt as if they were standing on edge at the notion. This is my pack now, gotta do my best for them, he thought to himself as his suit pressurized. The lemon shark checked the articulation to make sure there would be no errors or issues with him swimming or walking.

The Adrift Sphere continued to correct its course, letting the momentum it already had propel it through the black void, towards what they hoped would not be another battle. It would be three

days before they arrived. The ship could hard burn to the explosion in a couple of hours if they needed, but that would surely get them detected. Any engine thrust would light up on everyone's sensors instantly. It was like firing a flare into the night on a particularly calm but dark planet. Everyone would know exactly where you were. Now they had to just endure in their suits for the next few days and keep everything quiet. So costing on inertia and gentle gas thrusters just expelling tiny ions to propel them.

*****

Lexington sat up. He felt the ice that was sticking to his scales along his brow and around the lengths of his mouth. His tongue ached as it came out to lick them away. His hands moved slowly and shivered in the cold dark. His PADD had long since lost power from the cold, and he had been too scared to turn on the pod's systems. Any electronic transmission, even just the heat of the generator might be detected by the ship that had destroyed the Star of Io.

"Starfeather, I don't think I can wait any longer. I hope someone who cares is listening and not whoever destroyed the Star of Io." He looked at his hands and felt so numb. He had to turn the pod on, or he'd freeze to death at this point. With rapidly onsetting hypothermia from the vacuum of space creeping in, he was scared that if he fell asleep again, he might not wake up. He approached the controls and reached for the series of buttons on the right side. The directions printed on how to boot the small generator and power up the pod.

He felt a twinge of guilt at that moment, You've been talking to a dead body for several hours? Days? Who knows, but you know you're going to be completely insane after this, right?

"Thank you for giving me motivation to make it this far, Miss Starfeather." He did not have his gear. He could not actually change the pod's programming to prevent things like the distress signal from starting to broadcast. His hand moved with great pains and a feeling of numbness at the same time. Following the directions, he moved the charge handle with several heavy pumps, using his whole body to slam the charging handle several times until it locked in place. Then, he flicked the main breaker button, slowly reaching down to the power button. With a press, the generator started to sputter to life, the lights turned on, and the feeling of warm air blowing over his face started to breathe life back into him.

He saw the red flashing light at the top of the control flashing, indicating that the distress signal was now going out. His sudden rise in morale was now shattered by the thought his would-be killers would know he was alive now and come back to finish the job.

*****

Back on the Adrift Sphere, the sensors lit up with the distress call, and shortly thereafter a small heat burst that disappeared quickly. Hoary pointed at it on everyone else's console, "There! That's the same heat pulse from last time. We are dealing with one of those white ships. The distress signal is from a lifepod. They must have had some issues with getting the signal working after the attack."

Jackson nodded and started to calculate an interception course. "But that is a lifepod, and that sudden flash that disappeared is this white ship giving full thrust. They are likely on their way back." Jackson kept calculating his course. "If I can't use the engines and thrusters only, we are going to cut it really close."

Orashen nodded. "Calculate the course so the railgun is in range. Hoary, calculate a follow up torpedo shot. We can't use active sensors or anything that could scan until it is too late. We need the railgun to disable and the torpedoes to kill before they can react." The ship was starting to get warm.

With the radiators closed, any form of electronics or heat generation was going to make the inside of the ship heat up. But so long as they contained all forms of heat inside their ship, it would not appear in the void as anything but a piece of metal floating through space. Their suits contained atmosphere and support systems to keep them cool, but even Orashen was starting to get uncomfortable after hours upon hours of burn. They had to take a cold pre-made meal in their suits, a paste that could be sipped from the suit's backpack. It tasted awful, but that allowed them to operate normally for the time.

Jackson flicked a few more buttons on his console, his HUD showing things like the flight paths, velocity, and other abilities of the vessel to move without using the engines. "Two routes, but only one of them will put us in range before they can get around the wreckage and shoot at the pod. Looks like the pod did not get very far from the shipwreck." He sent the transmission to everyone else's screens.

Orashen nodded and they waited. A few more hours would pass, and they would have to fire the weapons almost entirely visually, with little aid from the computers to keep themselves as dark as possible.

Currently the ship is at nearly sixty percent heat capacity. We normally kept the ship at barely twenty percent. Can we actually contain the railgun heat without frying anything? Orashen began to mentally run the calculations of this conundrum..

Hoary, on the other hand, let out a sigh as she realized her lab experiment was destroyed at this point by the heat. Even in the self contained and sealed room, as well as their sealed containers, it was nearly 70°C inside. While nothing would catch fire, the organisms and DNA without protected suits would expire. At least she had samples to use in the freezer unit.

At least I can just start over, not like I had expected this experiment to be successful. So far, all the ones I've done have been failures. She continued to do math and genetic repositioning in her head as they progressed towards their interception.

It got her mind off the tension and allowed her to stay calm and disciplined. The equations sharpened her senses and made it easier to process the many different passive sensor panels in front of her. The remaining hours would pass quietly for them.

Lexington looked out of the windows of the pod. He could see the stark shite ship in the distance approaching. He gulped and gripped onto Starfeather's firearm. He wasn't sure if they were going to try to board the pod, or simply use a ship borne weapon to finish them off. He hoped for the former, at least then he would have a chance or could take one of them with him.

They were maneuvering in slowly and avoiding the debris. Maybe they are coming in close. At least I can avenge Miss Starfeather if they pop that hatch. He watched as they closed in, and then something caught his eye, a star appearing for a brief moment.

*****

The Adrift Sphere closed with the target. Riptide was feeling the heat through his skin implants in engineering. Any hotter, and they might have an issue with the core containment. He had rigged the railgun to fire and socketed the heat throughout the ship in every way he could. Just to make sure the distribution wouldn't fry anything, hoping that immediately after firing they could expose the radiators and vent.

Jackson lined up the shot, agonizingly slowly. Time was against them, any mistake with his thrusters, and they would be too late to save whoever was in the pod. Too late to be heroes and too late to get paid. Hoary monitored the sensors, the torpedoes had been given their course and trajectory. They wouldn't maneuver to dodge or evade on the way in, they had to get there as close to the railgun hit as possible before they could recover.

Orashen saw the precise course coming into line. She wouldn't have to do much more than give the order. They were aiming for the engines, hoping to tear one of the thruster lengths off and send the vessel into a tailspin from the sudden off-balance engines. If it worked, the g-force would keep the crew inside stunned long enough for the torpedoes to arrive. If it failed, they would be in for the fight of their life. Either way, as soon as they fired, the ship would have to go hot and loud. Any computer worth a single credit would know exactly where the railgun shot came from, much less the ion trails, invisible to the eye, of the missiles they would lead to.

The only saving grace was it would take nearly half the distance of the torpedoes to be detected since their guidance systems would be off. Until the heat of their engines became apparent, they would just register as more magnetic space debris.

Jackson nodded to Orashen to silently signal he was ready to fire and raised his hand over the console, then slowly down to it. He wrapped his hand around the firing mechanism, and remained silent; not wanting to transmit their intercoms this close to their target. The railgun was a fixed weapon, so the ship had to be aimed to fire it.

Orashen turned in her harness to Hoary, who had taken her perch and harness herself to it as well, holding her in place. They were ready for the sudden rush of G-force when the ship went to full burn. The torpedoes lined up the likely trajectory after impact of the stark white ship and the explosion radius contained to not damage the pod. Hoary's talon hovered directly over the button to fire the weapon.

Orashen sighed. "Fire. Riptide, full power and full hot!" With those words all the lights in the ship cut back on. Jackson pressed the button and the vessel gave a light shudder as a 100 kilogram ball of tungsten alloy flew from the barrel of the railgun at a fraction of lightspeed, sending the ship off course. Two small balls of fiery light trailed after the ball, burning towards their target. The ship fired up the engines and started to maneuver.

Space battles were often over before they began in Vector experience. An ambush usually was completely over in moments. But if a heated fight broke out, it would be the better pilot's ability to avoid getting a railgun on target while the point defense systems would need to be overwhelmed with volume of missiles, damage, or running out of ammunition. Any way they looked at it, this opening moment would almost certainly decide everything.

*****

The stark white ship loomed in Lexington's porthole, and then suddenly it slammed off to the right, as if the hand of a vengeful god had slapped the vessel aside. Debris flew out of the back of it as it spun off course. He was close enough to see the PDSs deploy, the guns spinning up and starting to fire a burst, an explosion of blue and green fire in the distance but they were too slow. The second torpedo slammed into the central hull of the ship, rippling her with detonations.

The torpedo had missed the core it was aimed at, but instead had impacted into a crew quarter, the edges of the explosion rippling through to a missile pod. A pod that had received the signal to arm and fire, having only completed the first part of that order, all six missiles exploded in a bright orange ball of death that made Lexington shield his eyes. The interior of his pod became bright as a noon day on Mars. The shining light extended on for minutes. The stark white vessel detonated over and over again, giving in to prolonged catastrophic death throes.

Lexington was soon left in the cold dark, wondering what had happened. Minutes passed. He saw nothing outside. his pod sounded with the bouncing of particles and debris off the hull and he winced, ducking for cover and praying one of the large pieces did not impact or something didn't breach the fragile hull. Minutes became an hour, then the pod suddenly jerked and began to move upward, towards the ceiling. He was pinned to the floor as the void and debris outside were replaced with artificial lighting.

The sound of pressurization echoed through his ears as the hull creaked and groaned against an atmosphere spilling in around it. He heard a voice, "Confirmed Hoary, atmosphere is at 100%. You and Jackson see who we have in there." The voice was feminine, higher pitched, definitely a canidae or a felidae to his ears.

The door to his airlock came to life and he pointed the rifle at it. A shadow appeared in the door, darkened by the light shield outside. A shape that made Lexington's blood run cold, that of the very owl he had seen upon the security feed. He opened fire, there was a loud squawk and the bird creature scrambled for cover.

"Jackson! Disarm them please," Hoary yelled at him, trying to remain professional, but under her breath she was cursing the gargoyle. Her wing had been penetrated along the bone by the rifle rounds. She was scrambling to fix the bleeding and analyze the break. This was not the first time she had been shot, but that did not make it any less painful.

Jackson bolted into the pod full speed in his heavy armor. Lexington pointed the rifle at him and froze up as the giant taur leaped from the door to him in a single bound, delivering a devastating punch to Lexington's jaw and knocking out three teeth. He sent Lexington to the floor and yanked the weapon away. "We are here to save you, don't shoot my bird."

Hoary groaned at how Jackson treated her as she yelled out, "I'm your friend, not your bird." She made her way in, placing a temporary quick plaster on her wound with her pushframe as she made her way over to the body of Starfeather. "How bad is that one hurt?"

Jackson picked Lexington up by the shoulders, keeping his wings pinned under his fingertips. Jackson's raw strength allowed him to lift Lexington like a sack of potatoes and pull him around to be placed in front of Hoary. "I think I broke his jaw, maybe scrambled his head."

Lexington looked nervously at the bird and she turned her head, in a way that only an owl could, to look over her shoulder. "He will live then. Yes I look like an owl, and no I'm not those owls. I'm a doctor, don't insult my profession by accusing me otherwise. Now, are you wounded at all?"

Lexington shook his head with a very nervous look upon his face while cringing with every muscle in his body. He wasn't sure what they were going to do with him.

"This one is alive, her suit has her in suspended stasis. It will take many hours of work to revive her, but I believe I can save her. Jackson, take him up to one of the empty rooms and lock the door until Orashen is ready to speak with him."

Her eyes narrowed at him. "We could have done this more peacefully, but you had to shoot me." Her words were more venomous than anything else as Lexington scrambled to move out of Jackson's grasp now.

"Unhand me! You won't take us alive!"

Hoary rolled her eyes and swatted him with her good wing, "We are here to rescue you, resisting us is a terrible idea. Now go with Jackson or I will give you a sedative!"

Jackson walked towards the door as Lexington struggled against Jackson's grip, "Hey! What are you going to do with her? Stop it!"

Hoary growled at him, "I'm a doctor! I have no intention of violating my oath, she will live and be fine. Now get out before I decide to repay the gunshot!" Hoary stared at him, her pushframe keeping the instruments she was using to stabilize Starfeather for transport perfectly still, her face narrowing those predatory eyes she had to stare Lexington into submission.

Lexington snapped to and deflated. He completely faltered under that stare. There was something about it indicating Hoary was more than capable of finishing on that threat, the kind of eyes he recognized from spying on others that said they had killed before. He nodded to signal Jackson to carry him out. Jackson wordlessly took him up to the crew quarters and locked him inside to await his fate.