FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Gravity slammed Yukiomaru back against his seat. The quiet purr of the engines could almost be distinguished from the roar of the air resisting against the shuttle craft. Below the blue lakes and seas merged with the green and brown continents of the planet. All to be covered up by the misty clouds that floated lazily across the merciless sky.

While the shuttle escaped the planet's gravity field, the gravity nearly dispersed completely. The kit felt a sense of floating before the shuttle accelerated to cruising speed, no longer hindered by atmosphere or gravity. Yukiomaru wasn't new to the harsh acceleration of these cheap shuttles; he's been on them nearly all his life since he's been adopted by the UDAS.

In his seat behind the pilot, the young Admiral could distinguish the distant industrial planet called Fellorian, his homeplanet. The planet was not familiar to him at all however, because he hasn't set foot on there since he was younger than three. In the distance it appeared as foreign as it felt to Yukiomaru.

After the planet was out of view, the gravity forces stopped pressing Yukiomaru into his seat. The shuttle was at cruising speed, and there was no gravity in the shuttle.

"Your free to move about the cabin if you wish, Admiral," reported the pilot, glancing back over his shoulder. Yukiomaru nodded at him in acknowledgement. Only the pilot's muzzle could be seen, his head encased in a helmet and his eyes covered by a darkened visor.

Yukiomaru looked ahead but could only see the stars for now. The pilot didn't know where they were heading, he was only following the direction given to him. A dozen other pilots had to make this flight blind too, but this pilot was the last unfortunate soul that had to make the flight.

Ironic that the Admiral would be the last one to board his own ship. Yukiomaru reached into his robes and pulled out a small translucent computer chip. Holding it between his fingers, the young Admiral stared at the tiny object that delayed him the past couple days. He wondered if the it would be worth the amount of resources that went into this chip; more than time and money was invested in it.

Hardly noticeable, the gravity shifted as the pilot adjusted course. Yukiomaru concealed the computer chip within his robes once again and glanced out the window to gaze upon the stars. The one things Yukiomaru remembered from before his adoption was the clear nights looking up at the stars. The memory brought the longing to explore them but now he couldn't be more indifferent. He knew he had been trained to explore uncharted stars for over six years, and now that the moment has come the young fox could not feel either excitement or fulfillment.

Approximately twenty minutes went by before Yukiumaru noticed an unnatural glimmer out of the starboard window. Looking up, it disappeared but the star formation was wrong.

"We have Immunities escorting us," he said out loud without taking his eyes off of the single fighter ship. The reflective surface of the ships made them almost invisible against the stars because all they would reflect is more stars. No visible exhaust port was on them.

"Confirmed," said the pilot after checking different systems. "Reading tempature fluctuations from four sources surrounding our ship."

While the Immunity-class single fighter floated directly above, Yukiomaru saw the shuttle in the reflection. Dozens of the single fighters could be launched from a carrier at once, and although they weren't exactly hidden the numbers of the fighters would not be distinguished easily. The first time a carrier armed with the fighters encountered a pirate capital ship, the pirates were paralyzed with confusion to be rerouted without their fighters even being launched.

"We're approaching the asteroid belt," announced the pilot. "Coordinates are directing me to stay on course. Prepare for asteroid maneuvering."

As warned the gravity on the shuttle began to shift around while the pilot nimbly maneuvered around asteroids sizing from small to very large. Glancing out to see the Immunities, the fox kit caught glimpses of them dodging the asteroids easily and yet staying close to the shuttle. It was not something that could be easily done; the pilots must have had been very skilled.

Although used to the shifts in gravity forces, Yukiomaru found the constant moving was disturbing to him. Eventually the asteroids thinned out and soon were "above" the shuttle. They were nearly there.

Even though their escort wasn't always visible, the Admiral knew that they never left their side. They would have redirected any other vessel without the proper authorization. No pilot clould make any contact with them so how the pilots knew Yukiomaru had authorization, he didn't know.

"-t? Admiral, I think our destination is out the port window," announced the pilot almost as if dazed.

Glancing out the window, Yukiomaru saw a strange structure far in the distance. It didn't appear to be orbiting anything, but drifting with the asteroids several thousand kilometers "above" it. The shuttle drew closer, the Admiral noticed the ribcage-shape of a shipyard and the ship within looked more beast like than any other ship in the fleet. The ship roughly took the shape of a full-body glass dragon, complete with the head, tail and even skeletal wings.

"Drach'n Fury," muttered Yukiomaru to himself. He knew to expect his ship to be unique but not for it to actually appear like a beast. The shipyard and it's sole occupant grew larger in the window, but one thing that perplexed the admiral was that he could not see any exhaust ports, missile pods or any type of external engine or weapon system.

While the shuttle drew closer the lights from the shipyard shined brightly through the windows. The ribs of the shipyard that contained the massive wings of the ship soon filled the entire view screen. Their escort could no longer be seen. The shuttle was too close to the shipyard for an escort.

The metallic walls of the shipyard towered over the shuttle while it slowly docked. A muffled thud followed a hissing sound, and the shuttle's engines were deactivated. The pilot was chatting with someone over his radio headset but Yukiomaru couldn't hear what the conversation was about. Probably just regular checklist routines.

"We're here, Admiral," announced the pilot after a while. "We're pressurized so you're clear to exit the stern hatch."

"Thank you pilot," replied Yukiomaru. He unfastened his safety harnesses, stood and opened the exit. Bright lights flooded inside the shuttle, making it difficult for the young kit to see anything beyond the exit hatchway. Stepping through, he found himself in a polygon-shaped corridor with support beams dividing massive windows that overlooked the starboard hull of the Drach'n Fury.

Commander Yelena was standing there in front of him, saluting with an obnoxious grin. Yukiomaru sometimes wondered if she was mocking him instead of saluting her superior officer.

"Admiral!" she exclaimed before Yukiomaru could greet her. "It's about time you decided to join us. Don't you think it's a bit improper for the commanding officer of this vessel to arrive last? Why did the Intelligence hold you up so long?"

"That's classified Yelena," he answered, stepping pass her toward the large windows to gaze out upon the ship. Small drones hovered over the almost translucent ship, inspecting every centimeter of it. "It really looks alive."

"Probably as close as any ship is going to get," Yelena responded, standing next to Yukiomaru surveying the ship as well. "The entire ship is built with some type of flexible material that has some type of organic property to it on the molecular level. However they did it, I'm told that the result is that we can move this thing as if it really is alive."

"What kind of material is it then?" asked the admiral with a heavy curious tone.

"I don't know," replied Yelena. "When I asked, all I got was 'Classified, Classified, Classified.'"

"What isn't classified about this project," mumbled Yukiomaru, turning away from the ship. Yelena gestured for Yukiomaru to follow her, and led the kit down the parallel to the windows down the corridor.

"Whatever the ship is constructed from is supposed to act the same way as muscle, and the corridors act as veins," Yelena informed still leading the admiral. "But the corridors won't collapse completely but I assume that it can get very cramped very quickly. The corridors must look like they're really alive and breathing at times. Anyway, I've overheard some of the engineers nickname the material 'organic mythril.'"

"Almost sounds appropriate," muttered Yukiomaru. Yelena opened one of the many hatches in the corridor that opened up a soft tunnel leading into the ship itself. Once inside, Yukiomaru was somewhat surprised that the corridors didn't look at all transparent. This hallway in fact appeared to be very similar to a normal battleship corridor.

Maintaince crews were in the corridors with the commanders, many of them busy pressing different commands on their PawPads checking hundreds of systems. Yukiomaru knew that most of them were here for close to ten years without leave, almost longer than he has been alive. The secrecy for this project was paramount.

"Direct me toward the bridge please Yelena," asked the admiral.

"Yes sir!" she mocking said and saluted before marching down the corridor.

While traversing through the corridors, Yukiomaru did not expect them all to look so similar. Even though he had the corridors they briefly walked through memorized already, it would almost seem like they were walking in circles. Few ships had this type of defense because it was often very confusing to rotating personnel but this ship wouldn't receive very many new recruits.

Several minutes later, the young fox overheard one of his own crewmembers talking with a construction crew member.

"Excuse me," he said to the constructer worker who was busy with her PawPad. "I'm a little lost. Can you point me toward Damage Control?"

"Yes, right this way," replied the original crewmember. She sounded almost depressed at the request. No doubt this wasn't the first time her work has been interrupted by the admiral's crew. It was no surprise because there weren't even any signs indicating where the different compartments were located.

After walking over a kilometer through the maze of corridors, Yelena led the admiral into another set of doors that were no different from the others. Except this was a dead end, the bridge.

The bridge was dark, save for only a couple lights on currently. The ceiling and walls of the room was shaped roughly like a dome, it's shape only stopping when it met the floor. Toward the bow of the ship, the walls were dark but once the ship was operational, the walls would reveal the stars surrounding them in almost every direction. In the middle of the room, further toward the bow of the ship as well, was a large half-sphere shape indentation. A chair for the commanding officer was back away from the indentation and walls. Only two other chairs were present in the room on opposite sides of the room.

"It's large," commented Yukiomaru, examining the room. The bridge did extend to about fifteen meters wide and twenty meters long. "When will it be operational?"

"Construction Chief tells me in about six hours," answered Yelena. "We'll only have about an hour to become aquatinted with the systems, if the schedule isn't delayed anymore. We really need more like two days to study the systems." She scoffed.

"It won't be a problem," said Yukiomaru, turning toward Yelena. "I'd like to inspect the bridge, alone, for a moment if you would."

"The classified missions never end," mumbled Yelena while she turned to leave. "I'll see you in the office. Your captain will be arriving shortly so don't delay."

"Thank you Yelena," Yukiomaru said before she left the room. Once alone, the admiral walked over to the commanding officer's chair and sat in it. He placed his paw on the armrest and the computer instantly turned on, despite the bridge supposedly being without power. The computer wouldn't accept the palm print if the admiral was agitated or reluctant as if he were being forced to, or if his paw had no pulse meaning he'd be dead. But this young fox was neither.

"Open Terminal Port," commanded Yukiomaru, glancing around the room as if he'd been in it before. "Bridge port access authorization code YGA-1334-1990. Voice command: Open." Very tight security was placed over something as simple as a computer port.

A small hatch on the floor slid open. The Admiral walked over to it and knelt down next to it before pulling out the small translucent computer chip from inside his robes. He examined it before he inserted it into the terminal port. "Close Computer Access Port."

Without primary power, the chip would remain dormant but Yukiomaru was sure that it was already making itself acquainted with the ship systems. He already knew that the system would go undetected for as long as it desired.

"Computer, lock previously opened terminal port under authorization YGA-1334-1990," commanded Yukiomaru. "No one without that authorization is to enter that terminal port. Confirm.

"Confirmed," replied the computer.

"Deactivate," Yukiomaru said. The computer that was activated by the kit's palm now turned itself off again. The young admiral looked around the bridge one more time, content that it looked no different than when he first entered, and then walked back into the complex corridor system.

Even though he's been on the ship for less than an hour, and now without an escort guide, Yukiomaru knew exactly where he was going. It was time to reveal the true reason why Captain Redding was now a member of his crew.