FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Hello."

Everyone stopped in their tracks.

That wasn't one of us. It seemed to come from the air. Asuka glanced around at everyone else and found a sea of half confused, half startled expressions that, she expected, matched the look on her own face. Okay, they heard it, too. Good. At least I'm not glitching.

She shrugged und mumbled, "Uh, hi?"

"Welcome aboard." The voice was female but had a slight flanging quality and the tone was unnaturally mellow. Synthetic, Asuka guessed.

"Thanks." Asuka waited, but the voice said nothing else. She glanced around at the rest of the group and shrugged again.

"You're the one who led us to the bridge," Hitomi said. "Or command deck, or CIC, or whatever you call it."

"Correct."

Hitomi raised an eyebrow at Seth and Marissa. "You're the ship's computer."

"Correct."

"Huh," Lopez said. "Not very talkative, is she?"

"I apologize. My systems are still coming back online, therefore much of my attention is diverted at the moment. After I lost contact with the construction yard, I powered everything down, as there was no point in remaining operational."

"Lost contact?" Asuka turned and leaned back against the central console, taking on a casual pose while glancing around, trying to see if there were any visible cameras. "Was that when the ship ended up here?"

"Correct. My sensors detected a massive energy spike. The cameras mounted on the hull recorded a flash of light followed by a change in the space around the ship. The energy spike faded, and the construction yard was gone. The stars in the area were unfamiliar, and I couldn't locate any of the jumpgate beacons in my database. I was also unable to find any power sources, life signs, or transmissions close enough to render assistance. I sent out a distress signal and waited for a response. After three days, I set the sensors to bring me back online if anyone attempted to contact or board the ship, and powered down."

"Three days," Hitomi muttered. "You must have gotten lonely."

"It did become more difficult as the minutes passed, but I'm relieved that the unexpected transport happened during a shift change. According to my chronometer, two hundred seventy-one years have passed since the incident. Any members of the construction crew onboard at that time would likely have died during the intervening years."

Likely? Hmm. Asuka turned to look at the controls and displays on the central console. "And when did this happen? I mean, what was the date?"

"January 19, 2258."

Oh, boy. "Well, my friends and I are from 2070, and we've been here less than a day. We think we were shot through a space-time rift. Or a wormhole. Or something."

"As unlikely as that seems, it would explain a lot."

"Yeah. We're not sure if we were zapped into the future, or the past. Among the debris we saw in the area, there was what looked like part of an old Spanish galleon, and the ship we found before this one was from 2147."

"Very odd. I've been analyzing the debris, and have found pieces of several ships that were listed as missing long ago, as well as oceangoing vessels from centuries before my first boot-up. And, interestingly, numerous ships and pieces of ships that I don't recognize at all. The debris must have passed close enough to trigger the cameras; they have been recording for a very long time. Also, we appear to be alarmingly close to a black hole."

"Are your engines working? Can you get us away from here?"

"Yes, standard thrusters and jump engines have been completed and tested. Most of the systems are functioning; only a few parts of the hull have been left incomplete."

Seth and Marissa both slumped forward and braced their hands on the console.

"Well, at least that's one thing we don't have to worry about anymore." He slipped his arm around her waist. She let out a long sigh and leaned on his shoulder.

Hmm. Asuka rubbed a finger over her bottom lip. "You said your cameras have been recording for a long time. We have some friends who were scouting around in a pair of shuttles and were abducted by another ship; could your cameras have caught this?"

"Possibly. I will run a search for images of ships from 2147."

"The ship was named the Challenger, if that helps you narrow it down."

"It does. Thank you. Match found."

A holographic projection appeared in the air above the console. Asuka glanced at the schematics and nodded.

"Yep, that's the Challenger and its shuttles."

The projection shifted to an image of a shuttle being drawn inside a much larger ship. It looked disturbingly like a mouth swallowing the tiny shuttle.

"Bingo." Asuka grinned. "Now we're gettin' somewhere."

#

"Hey, Otto!" Kamala propelled herself toward the kid and the woman beside him. He looked over his shoulder at her and she waved while grasping another handhold so she wouldn't shoot past him.

"Huh." He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow at the woman. "That's different."

"You know her?" The woman brushed her dreadlocks away from her face.

"Don't think so." Otto looked Kamala over and grinned. "I really think I'd remember meeting a snake-woman with four arms and four boobs."

"But we have met." Kamala flicked a worried glance at Roger as he floated up beside her and clasped her lower-right hand. "We've known each other for several months."

"Sorry, I'm pretty sure I've never seen you before. Maybe I just look like someone you know?"

"Your name's Otto, right?"

"Yeah. Well, it's what I go by, at least."

Oh, crap. The realization hit suddenly, and Kamala slapped a hand to her forehead. She turned to Roger and said, "Looks like they weren't taken from the same point we were."

Otto and his companion glanced at each other again. He turned back to Kamala and said, "I'm guessing that means Shakira and I met you at some point in our future, but your past?"

"Yeah. Guess that's why you don't recognize us." Kamala looked at the woman. "Wait, you're Shakira?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Oh, uh, well, when we met you, you...looked different." Kamala shrugged. "I'm not sure if it'd be a good idea to mention any details. In movies and TV shows, whenever something like this happens, the 'rule' is that you should keep your mouth shut. But since this is the first time I've ever heard of it actually happening, I have no idea what the actual rules should be."

"Probably better not say anything, since knowing what's coming might suck the fun out of everything." Otto chuckled and slipped his arm around Shakira's ample waist. "Unless something horrible happens to us in the future. Or we have kids and they turn out to be total assholes when they grow up. It'd be kind of nice to have enough advance warning to figure out how to avoid it."

"Assuming our future even remotely resembles their future," Shakira said, nodding at Kamala and Roger. "Judging by the confusion over whether we know each other, it's possible that our being here, now, didn't happen in their timeline. So who knows if finding out what happened to our alternate selves even matters?"

"I'm not even gonna try to figure it out," Morrison said as he drifted up behind Kamala, keeping his right arm firmly around the still unconscious Luana. "It's already starting to give me a headache."

Roger chuckled. "Yeah, maybe it's best if we just move on from here."

"Which brings us to something we should've asked at the beginning," Shakira said. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Oh! Right. Sorry. My name's Kamala, this is Roger, and that's Henry and Luana." Kamala looked around at the rest of the people floating in the center of the huge chamber. "How'd you get here? Were you all in that alien ship?"

"A few of us were." Otto motioned at a dozen people hovering nearby. "I'm not sure how long, though. A day or two, I think. I kind of lost track after a while. Just trying to find a control room or a crew member so we could find out what the hell was going on. Then the whole ship started malfunctioning."

"Doors appearing and disappearing randomly, corridors changing around, that kind of thing?"

"Yeah."

"Same thing happened to us. Didn't occur to me that it was a malfunction. Seemed more like the ship was just screwing with us."

"Huh. Yeah, that could've been it." Otto shrugged. "Then it sounded like something hit the ship, and it started breaking apart. Something burned through a wall near us, and then a bunch of metal tentacles pulled us through the hole."

Kamala nodded. "Then you were examined, and if any of you were injured, your wounds were treated?"

"Yep." Shakira brushed at her dreadlocks again. "They gave us some injections, and after a while, we weren't hungry anymore. Whatever they put in us, it must've been exactly what we needed. Now, all we need is a shower. After being cooped up there for however long, we're getting pretty ripe."

"Heh. I hadn't even thought of that. For us, it's been only a few hours," Roger said. "How'd you end up on that ship?"

"We were on another, but it was disabled and pulled into this one's docking bay. And before that, we spent a few months hitchhiking on various ships, trying to find our way back home. And before that, we were stranded on a planet for a while." Otto nodded at Shakira. "Just the two of us, in a goddamned desert. Luckily, we found an abandoned city, so at least we had shelter. Some of the technology still worked, and we managed to figure it out, so then we had food and water covered."

"It was a while before we figured out the long-range communications equipment and sent out a call for help." Shakira sighed. "We were there something like seven or eight months before a ship picked up our signal and came to investigate."

"And before all that," Otto said, "we were home. On Earth."

"What year was it, by the way?" Kamala cocked her head.

"2046."

"Whoa." Kamala waved a hand around at her companions. "For us, it was 2070. And before we ended up here, we found the remains of a Spanish galleon and a ship from 2147."

"Holy shit." Otto turned to Shakira. "That means--"

"We have no idea where or when we are. Depending on how far we were taken in either direction, Earth could be long gone by now, or the solar system could still be a disc of gas and dust that hasn't even started to clump together yet."

Kamala shivered and Roger put both arms around her and rubbed her back. She clung to him for a moment before giving him a shaky smile and turning back to the others.

"We were in the maintenance bay on the space station--we lived there, orbiting Io, with a construction crew that was building a jumpgate and a spacecraft. Then a...I don't know, a rift or a portal opened right on top of the station. Took the entire repair bay. Cut it off the station and zapped it to who knows where."

"We ended up falling toward a black hole," Roger said, "with tons of debris around us. Pieces of other ships, mostly. We found one that was intact and boarded it. It was empty, but we found some shuttles that still worked, and a few of us started scouting around. Kamala and I in one shuttle, Henry and Luana in another. Both shuttles were captured by the same ship that got you. Then this ship appeared, and I think it attacked. Don't know why, unless there was someone onboard who meant something to the crew here."

Shakira shook her head. "I'm not sure there's a crew. We haven't seen anyone except the people we were with and the others already waiting here when we were brought onboard."

"We're thinking the whole ship's automated, or maybe crewed by synthetics. If that other ship made a habit of abducting people, there's probably quite a few planets that are holding a grudge." Otto shrugged. "This ship might've been programmed to attack it, rescue captives, and then blow it to hell."

"Hmm. Maybe." Kamala sighed. "All I know is, it's damned good to finally be off that ship."

"Sure is." Shakira smiled shakily. "We were starting to think we'd starve to death."

"Yeah, we were wondering if we'd ever find any food, and if we did, would it be safe for us to eat?" Kamala suddenly remembered the ultratool in her belt pouch and winced. Why the hell didn't I think of this before? She pulled it out, scanned the chamber, and kept talking while the device transmitted its data into her brain. "So, you were on Earth before everything went whacko?"

"Yeah. Otto and I were sharing this huge house with several friends. It was for a reality show." Shakira shook her head and laughed. "Long story. Anyway, one day I was taking a basket of laundry into the utility room and just fell through the floor."

"Some kind of portal," Otto said. "Probably a lot like the one you described. Opened up right in front of her. Just big enough for her to plunge right through."

"Yeesh." Kamala shuddered. "Hope you weren't hurt badly."

"Sprained my ankle. The drop was about ten feet." Shakira shrugged. "There was nothing but sand in every direction, so it was better than landing on pavement. And above me was a hole in the middle of the air, and through it I could see the wall of the room I just fell out of. I called for help, and a minute later Otto appeared. He told everyone else, and Jack ran to the store to buy a rope long enough to reach me. Then the fucking portal started closing."

"Oh, hell." Kamala shivered again, imagining what it must have been like to realize she was moments away from dying alone on some distant planet. Data from her scans continued flowing through her implanted cybernetic interface--the layout of the rooms around her, the heat signatures and mass and other specs of the people floating in this chamber, composition of the walls, nearby power sources.

"Otto saw the hole closing, so he jumped through. Didn't even give it a second thought." Shakira shook her head and poked his shoulder. "Teenage hormones make you do the stupidest things."

"I couldn't just leave you trapped there alone. Couldn't live with myself if I let that happen." Otto blushed. "And I couldn't stand the thought of never seeing you again."

Kamala smiled--but before she could say anything, her ultratool detected movement all around.

"Uh-oh, what's wrong?" Roger said. "I know that look. What've you found?"

"Not sure yet. Suddenly, there's a lot of activity outside this room. Like...I don't know, like machinery moving around."

"I wonder if that's good or bad?"

Otto glanced around and muttered, "Well, I don't think they'd treat our wounds just to do something nasty to us immediately afterward."

The sound of a door opening on the far end of the chamber drew everyone's attention.

"Well," Kamala said, trying to keep her voice steady, "I guess we're about to find out."

#

"Can you identify that ship?" Asuka leaned on the console and stared intently at the holo-projection.

"It has been witnessed capturing smaller vessels many times over the past few centuries," the AI--Astra, she'd said her name was--replied softly. "They are called the Vorak. No one has been able to determine their motivation for the abductions, at least not before I powered down. My records are somewhat out of date."

"Any hypotheses?"

"They may be taking samples for study or experimentation, or performing endurance tests to determine suitable candidates for invasion. None of those taken were ever recovered alive, though partial remains have been found among the wreckage of Vorak ships after their destruction. Every combat-capable ship has been given orders to open fire on the Vorak on sight, board their ships, detain the crew, and rescue any abductees. So far, every ship engaged was destroyed in battle or self-destructed to prevent capture, though it's possible that changed during the time I was offline."

Marissa opened her mouth, then stopped herself abruptly. "Damn. I was about to ask if there were any known locations where the Vorak took the people they captured, but we're probably nowhere near any place they usually hang around."

"Correct. As we are in unknown space, it's likely that the Vorak are also new to this sector. However, I've been monitoring all communications frequencies on the off chance that this particular vessel passed through a rift a long time ago, or the Vorak have expanded into this area. If it transmits anything, or if another ship reports a sighting or an engagement, we'll pick it up."

"That's good to know." Marissa sighed. "I just wish we could do more than wait."

Hitomi stared at the holo-display for a second longer and raised an eyebrow. "Can you detect nearby star systems from here?"

"Yes. There are several within reach, though I don't recognize any of them."

"Can we jump to the nearest of those and take a look around? Then, if we don't find that ship, we move on to the next system?"

Asuka smiled. "Sounds good to me. At least it'd get us away from the black hole." She looked around at everyone else. "Whaddaya think?"

The others nodded or voiced their agreement.

"Better than hanging around here," Lopez said.

"Very well," Astra said. "I'm setting course for the nearest star system. ETA: eighty-one minutes."

"Outstanding." Asuka grinned, relieved that things seemed to finally be turning around. "Let's find our friends."

#

"Huh, the wall's vibrating," one of the humans floating above Roger and the others muttered. Roger glanced up and found a half-dozen people had drifted over to the wall and grasped handholds. They looked around nervously.

Kamala did the same, then turned back to Otto and Shakira. "You said you've been on several different ships. Is anything about this familiar?"

"I remember a couple of them vibrating every now and then," Shakira said. "When certain systems powered up, like the engines. And there was one ship that shook fairly often, but that's probably because it was a piece of shit."

Otto chuckled and floated over to the wall. Roger watched him, noticing something a little off but taking a few seconds to put his finger on it.

He moved without pushing off from anything. Like, moving under his own power. What the hell?

Otto placed his palm on the wall and closed his eyes for a few seconds. "Maybe an autorepair system, maybe a processing plant. Something like that."

"Uh," Morrison said, his eyes going wide, "processing what?"

"Ore." A look of alarm flickered over Otto's face before he could cover it up. "I hope."

"Me, too," Roger and Kamala said at the same time. They glanced at each other and chuckled.

Kamala aimed her ultratool at the wall Otto had just checked out, and scanned it again.

"Hey," Shakira said, "that looks like a sonic screwdriver."

"It's called an ultratool. You might describe it as a combination of a sonic screwdriver, tricorder, smartphone, personal computer, and a multipurpose pocket-laboratory, among other things. The manufacturer worked out a licensing deal that lets 'em make these look like the actual prop." Kamala grinned. "I recently had a cybernetic interface implanted that links to the 'tool and sends info directly to my brain. It also enables me to send commands to the ultratool straight from my brain."

"Nerd," Morrison said while coughing into his fist. He grinned at Kamala and she chuckled and whapped him on the shoulder with her upper-left hand.

Roger grinned and said, "I was planning to get the same implant, but then the rift thing happened and, well, here we are."

"That is so fucking cool," Otto said, staring at the device in Kamala's hand. He winced and shook his head. "The gadget, I mean, not the rift stuff."

"Oh, boy." Shakira rolled her eyes, even though she'd had a similar expression a second ago. "Snap out of it, Otto. You're drooling."

"It's not my fault technology is sexy." He grinned and floated back to her--again, without pushing away from the wall.

Roger and Kamala looked at each other.

"Did you see that?" she whispered.

"I sure did. I assumed he was human, but..."

"I am," Otto said. "At least, mostly. I've just barely begun to figure out what's going on with me." He looked ready to say something else, but then a door a few yards away slid open.

Roger tugged on a handhold to turn himself around for a better look at the door. It was wide enough for three people to pass through side by side, and beyond it was a hexagonal corridor lit with glowing strips embedded in each corner.

Everyone waited, but nothing happened after about ten seconds. Kamala glanced at Roger, shrugged, and used a handhold to turn herself over. She coiled her body up like a spring, backed up to the wall, and launched herself at the door. Roger kicked off and followed her. Otto took Shakira's hand and flitted up to the door with her.

A few others pulled themselves along the wall toward them.

"Uh," one of the people hanging in the center of the room muttered, "there's nothing for us to grab onto here."

"Oh, hold on." Kamala caught the edge of the doorway, steadied herself, and then extended her body to its full length, reaching into the center of the chamber. "Can any of you reach me?"

"I think so." A woman with cybernetic limbs twisted around and managed to grasp the tip of Kamala's tail. Others nearby took hold of the woman's ankles, and several more father away held onto them. Finally, everyone had formed a chain except nine people who were out of reach. Otto zipped across the room to give them a lift.

"Okay, here we go." Kamala pulled herself forward a few inches, giving everyone else enough of a tug to send them floating toward the doorway.

"I don't know if we should go in there," someone said with a quavering voice.

Kamala shrugged her lower shoulders. "Looks like it's either that or just keep hanging around here indefinitely. It's up to you, of course, but I can't help being curious enough to take a look around."

"Works for me." Roger clasped her hand and smiled.

The group floated through the long corridor and emerged into a rectangular chamber filled with vast machinery connected by what appeared to be thick tubes. Windows in the metal tubes allowed glimpses of irregularly-shaped pieces of metal tumbling from one end to the other.

"Hmm." Shakira grabbed onto a pipe running along the wall. "Looks like debris. Maybe the ship we were on before."

Morrison grimaced. "Think I just saw part of a body."

"Glad I missed it." Kamala shuddered. She took a slow look around the chamber, waved her ultratool around, and locked her eyes onto the nearest cylindrical structure. "Found an opening on the far side." She pointed.

"I'm with you." Roger pulled on the rail and propelled himself through the air. Kamala sailed past him, reached the cylinder, and waited for him to catch up. He glanced over his shoulder and found Morrison, Otto and Shakira, and four other survivors following them.

Kamala stopped at the opening in the cylinder's side, easily big enough to fly a shuttle through, and peeked inside. She cocked her head and pulled herself through. Roger followed a split-second later, grabbed the edge of the opening to halt his forward motion, and found himself staring into a room filled with manipulator arms picking apart the debris as it emerged from the pipes.

"Sorting through the pieces," Kamala muttered as she drifted closer. "Salvaging whatever they can, maybe?"

"Looks like it." Roger glanced over his shoulder at the others. "I don't suppose any of you have ever seen anything like this before?"

They shook their heads. One of them, a kid in his mid-teens dressed in a leather tunic that hadn't been in fashion since medieval times, crossed his arms tightly over his chest and trembled.

"I...I don't even know where I am," he mumbled in a thick British accent. "Is this a dream?"

"Nope." Roger sighed. Oh, the poor kid. He must feel like he's in a nightmare that never ends. "Where--"

Kamala grabbed his arm and whispered, "Roger! Look!" She pointed and he turned his head in that direction.

An all too familiar metal ovoid had just popped out of the loading tube. It was dented all over and cracked open in two places, but looked intact enough to be dangerous.

"Oh, no," he moaned. "Oh, shit!"

"What is it?" A woman's voice directly behind him, barely above a whisper. "What's wrong?"

"Maybe it's not functional." Kamala scanned it. "Oh, hell. I'm picking up an active power source and--"

"Everyone out!" Morrison hooked his left hoof on the wall and spun himself around. He waved his hand toward the rest of the group. "Hurry! Get--"

"Fuck!" Kamala pushed Roger toward the opening and hurled herself after him.

He glanced over his shoulder and found the ovoid floating out of the rest of the debris, pivoting and locating them, and extending its weapons.

A beam flared out from one of its guns and missed him by only a few inches. It struck the man in front of him, dead-center through his chest. He writhed and let loose a shriek that left Roger's ears ringing. He grabbed Kamala pulled her aside, putting the cylinder's wall between them and the robot. He flicked one last glance at the poor guy who'd just been hit, and recoiled at the sight of the body--face frozen in a rictus of agony, skin turned into a charred husk, black smoke curling out of his mouth and nose.

Roger looked away before he could take in any more details. His stomach churned and his heart pounded.

Everyone else stared at the body, eyes wide and mouths hanging open and color draining from their faces.

"Get the hell out of here!" Kamala grabbed Roger's hand, coiled herself up, sprang from the wall, and sucked in a deep breath. "Now, goddamn it! Go!"