FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"For the last time, you're staying at the damn pipe."

Johnny forced his way past the other soldiers and defiantly blocked access to the intake pipe with his arms outstretched. "The hell you are. I can override your orders if you're unfit for battle, Carbon, and you're missing a damn kneecap."

Carbon told Ex to stop, the machine's 'head' barely sticking out of the lake's surface. "I fucking mean it, Johnny. It's too dangerous for you here, and I don't know exactly what this robot's guns can do. Besides, I'm not in any particular danger in this walking tank."

"And what if the air system leaks? Or an explosion gets you stuck in there?" The fox walked backwards slowly, inching inside the building. "You might regret not having a medic in there with you."

"And you might regret getting shot."

"Then I'll just shoot them first." Johnny held up an old C96 Mauser pistol and turned around to properly enter the pipeline. "Sofija showed me how to use this thing, you know. It's pretty easy."

"Yeah, and she gave that to you so you'd have a snowball's chance in hell of coming back." The hybrid piloted his mech into the pipe as well, having to hunch it forward a bit to even fit inside. "You can't go on the front line. I'm barely sure ~this~ thing can survive that."

"Then don't do this. You're too emotional right now and you need rest."

Carbon sighed as he relaxed in his robot as it followed some simple orders. "Fine. Point taken into consideration."

"You are acting rashly, though." Evelyn appeared in the path of the machine with her arms outstretched pleadingly. "I know what Adrian meant to you, but this isn't a safe way to vent, Carbon. This is serious. I'm serious."

"You too?" Carbon groaned and told Ex to hold still, just below the small gap in the pipe that led inside. "Johnny... You don't owe me anything. In fact, I owe you more than I can repay. But it's that same respect that makes me watch out for you. I won't tell you what to do, but I trust you'll at least listen."

"That's... mature of you." The fox clambered into the building, then backed far away when he realized Carbon was going to follow. "I'll stay behind you, but I really do think you'll need me present in case things go bad."

"That's all I need to hear. Now stand back a minute and get your pistol ready. This is going to alert the guards." After a few seconds Carbon made Ex stand tall, busting a huge tear in the inch-thick pipe while clearing a path for the robot to maneuver. "Is everyone alright?"

The men called out one at a time, but it was really Johnny's voice Carbon listened for in the ruckus. "Just about. My ears are ringing a bit."

"Yeah, it was ~loud~."

The door to the lab flew open and Chleek soon slid through the gap. "Think you could be any less subtle!?"

"Sorry, father." The exoskeleton stepped out of the gap it'd just made and knelt down, soon opening to reveal the hybrid inside. "I'm not exactly in the mood to sneak around in the shadows. I'll just bust my way inside."

"Son, you're hurt..." Chleek leaned into the cockpit and gave his son a quick inspection. "At least you weren't kidding about the fir. I remember this one. A Golem class, we call these. I specially created it for a field commander."

"And he's not around to use it. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a building to search..."

Chleek leaned into the cockpit even further and reached out with a vine to touch his son. "Not yet. I sealed the doors so we have a few minutes. We need to Link, now."

Eve sighed as she eyed the tendril in Carbon's face. "I don't like it much, but if he's trying to say something while we're in danger it might be important enough."

"How do I...?"

"Just grab it, son. Hurry."

Carbon took a deep breath and grabbed his father's tendril with his paw. At first it seemed like nothing happened, but Eve figured things out and said, "Just think about telling him something."

«Father?»

«Son. Is this hurting you at all?»

Carbon shook his head but regretted it a moment later. «Just a bit dizzy. What is this about?»

«Your symbiont...» Chleek found the flower girl and traded smiles with her. «She's beautiful. Evelyn, was it? My other half will send you some material to review.»

«Sure...» A few seconds later, Evelyn held her head as she tried to make heads or tails of a packet of memories. «That's... a lot.»

«Take your time, dear. You're much nicer than the normal vapid husks like my symbiont.» Chleek turned back to his son and tried manually explaining things while they waited. «My captors... I've been amassing evidence as to their mission here on Earth.»

«How... ugh... How did you...?»

«The Link is tough for someone your age. Just relax.» Chleek looked over to Eve as she flickered in and out of view, apparently experiencing the same troubles as his son. «I came here myself to help the Terrans, back even when they were still pure human. The True Sect of Xor, as they call themselves, have secretly been undermining my work.»

«Sect... of Xor...?»

«Yes. Evelyn will provide much more about them later. What's important is their history on this planet. They've been trying to get you Terrans to kill each other for centuries now. I fear that this time however, they may actually succeed.»

«What's... different...?»

«They had me look at various samples of minerals they've brought into this facility. The Terrans call them 'radioactive'. We use these materials for power generation in our ships, but through some mishap they've introduced their science to Terran scholars. Then those scientists took them far further than our own technology can understand, creating a weapon of unlimited potential.»

«Atomic... b-bombs...»

«I believe that's the name for them, yes.» Chleek physically groaned as he thought about the next part, revealing that time was passing at a much slower pace during the Link. "What they made me inspect last evening appeared to deal with this 'nuclear fission' those bombs utilize. It's crude, but I believe they intend to make a bomb and test it here. We cannot let this happen.»

«S-Soviet-ts!...»

«This Cold War of yours, yes. I fear this may trigger a response of magnitudes more explosions by the way your planet is holding each other hostage.»

«Carbon...» Evelyn pulled up a snippet of a memory as she regained her senses. «He's right. They've taken the fuel rods of this facility and seeded them with neutron-rich additives.»

«Th-Threat?»

«There's not enough energy to make a fission reaction with conventional explosives, but they may have something more powerful we don't know about. This could be serious, Carbon.» The plant girl pointed over to the barricaded doors and ended the Link so her host would understand her better. "We need to stop them before they can sneak it away. If this research reaches back to their leaders and they mass produce these weapons, it would mean the end of this world."

"Goddess..." Carbon shoved his father away from the cockpit's seals and locked himself inside. "I'm finding that device and ripping it apart. Everyone else, protect this room and get that foundry out of here. Time is an issue. Radio me when it's outside and I'll get Cheat to pick it up. We clear here?"

"Yes sir!"

Carbon walked Ex right through the next wall as if it didn't even exist. "Then I'll keep them busy for you. Everyone, get in position before I hit the next wall."

The men scattered about the large room and tried to cover the metal doors as best as possible. Mycroft found the foundry in question and confirmed, "This the right machine here, mate?"

"Yeah, that's it. Use as many men as you need to keep it intact." Carbon hunched the exoskeleton so it would ram the doors head-on. "I'll make up the difference."

"Make 'em hurt, lad. Far as I see it, Adri only died 'cause they dragged him out here in the first place."

"Finally! My thoughts exactly!" The walker smashed down the metal doors, crushing two Soviet furs behind it before they knew what hit them. "Rock and roll, boys."

"Left, Carbon!"

The hybrid took his companion's words to heart and turned Ex left, accidentally throwing another three furs onto their backs. "Good call, Eve. Watch the other cameras to my sides for me."

"Will do. Oh, that looks explosive." Evelyn pointed down the other side of the doors. "Far right!"

"Got it." Two furs started pulling the pins on their hand grenades and Carbon decided not to let them release the weapons. The machine was commanded to hold out its arm and fire what appeared to be a smaller weapon, yet turned out to be some sort of miniature rocket launcher. "Oh... yeah, they're down."

"Let me see if your father knew anything about the layout..." Carbon bore down the hallway ahead while he waited on the pixie, simply crushing anyone that got in his path. "Oh, maybe. His memory of the place isn't solid but... Here, maybe?."

Carbon checked an area that Evelyn highlighted in his vision, apparently through the solid walls. "That's not too far. Maybe we can do this without much fuss after all."

Chleek ran up behind his son's walker and shouted, "There's a particle beam emitter on the left arm. Use it on the doors ahead."

"That sounds dangerous. Johnny? Where are you?"

"Right behind your dad. We're clear."

Carbon nodded and the metallic beast shrouding him did so as well. "Here goes nothing."

Ex's left arm raised and searched for the mentioned door, settling upon a hardened, sliding security door. A small attachment on the inner 'wrist' extended forward and shot out a strong beam of light, followed soon by a loud hissing noise. In seconds the metal door shown a dot of yellow-white that melted away. Carbon got the idea of how the cutter worked and started dragging it over the surface, eventually cutting a large hole in the center.

Carbon shoved the foot-thick plug of metal out of the hole before the steel re-solidified, then rolled it out of the way so he could maneuver the robot past. "Bingo. They can't stop us if they tried."

"I wouldn't say that quite yet, hybrid." Inside the large room ahead sat a large device of some kind, with another walking mech standing directly in front of it. "You're not the only one with a golem."

"Well then I guess it's all in how you use it." Carbon raised the rocket launcher again and shot a salvo of three small warheads, the resulting explosion bringing a smile to his muzzle. "Bet that one hurt."

"You Terrans always act with your brawn and never your brains, don't you?" The dust cleared and revealed some sort of ablative armor on the exterior of the other mech had absorbed the damage. Then in another language not of this world the pilot ordered, "<Arm the weapon. We'll do our test here after all. Ambushers, move up and attack at will.>"

"What!?" Evelyn highlighted about two dozen silhouettes both in front and behind Carbon's exoskeleton. "Somehow they're invisible! Carbon, quick...!"

"Fuck!" Carbon crouched his tank and dropped the arms to the sides, hoping to block any weapons fire from hitting his father and Johnny. "Pull back! It's not safe here anymore!"

"What?" Johnny started to back away, but a shimmering outline of a person blocked his path. "What the hell?"

"No!"

The cloaking effect broke for a second or so as the Yangurran shock trooper fired his weapon into the fox's chest. "Gruh! 'arbon...!"

"Johnny!" The hybrid immediately slapped the Yangurran hard enough that he oozed glowing blood on a nearby wall. "Talk to me, Johnny! Are you okay!?"

"No... 'an' 'reathe..."

"Carbon... he was hit in the chest..." Eve pulled up a camera feed and nearly cried at the sight of the fox coughing up blood. "It hit his lung. We need to pull him out of here."

Chleek was already on it, dragging Johnny back into the hallway while the fox took pot shots at the invisible troopers with his pistol. "Son, keep them off us while I check your friend."

"You got it."

The exoskeleton's armor opened various jointed compartments and shot out some sort of fine particulate powder. "Found this in the armory listing. Now take them out, Carbon."

Sure enough, the fuzzy silhouettes started flickering until they were just Yangurran soldiers wearing black bodysuits, and perhaps more importantly no armor. "Maybe the stealth gear was a ~bad~ choice today." Ex swung his arms around and liberally crushed as many of the soldiers as were in reach, then snapped out an energy weapon of some kind and started pelting the rest with what amounted to a widespread plasma shotgun. "Ha! Who's next? Is that you, big guy?"

"...Impressive, for a half-breed." The enemy leader raised up his mech's arm and an energy vortex started charging up. "But I don't have time to play with toys like you. Say goodbye..."

Evelyn took direct control of their mech's legs and forced the whole unit to fall to its right, just in time for a large blast of energy to fly past and sizzle the exterior armor. "Goddess, that was close. Wait..." The exoskeleton's legs tried to move, but didn't translate as expected. "He's done something to our control circuits. Carbon..."

The cockpit suddenly opened, leaving Carbon completely exposed and holding his breath as the leader walked his own mech over. "So much easier without that annoying fir in the way. Maybe I'll take it for my own after this is over." He opened his own cockpit and pulled out some sort of glass knife. "But I suppose I'll need to carve your corpse from it first."

There was the leader's mistake. Carbon was exposed, but he wasn't exactly helpless. "Better make sure there's a corpse first, asshole!" The hybrid pulled up his shotgun from between his legs and gave it a cock. "Nice not knowing ya', fucker." He pulled the trigger and sent a packet of metallic death directly into the leader's chest, filling his cockpit with fluorescent green. "That was for hurting Johnny."

"Air, Carbon." Evelyn pointed to the gas mask in the corner of the hybrid's cockpit as a reminder. "I'll try to get the hatch sealed again. Keep me in contact with the fir's controls."

"Crap." Carbon threw on the mask hastily and tried to get an eye on Johnny, but couldn't leave the cockpit without disrupting Eve's work. "Seriously? Not the best time to be tethered to this thing, Eve."

"I'm working as fast as I can!"

Chleek cautiously crept over to the exoskeleton and checked in with his son. "Your friend... isn't looking very good."

"Well I can't exactly go help him."

Chleek touched the controls and flipped some kind of internal switch. "The main power was discharged. Backup power should get us where we need for now."

"Oh, thanks." Carbon told the mech to stand back up and go towards Johnny, but Chleek had different ideas and headed for the bomb. "Father? Why don't you help me with--?"

"He's not long for this world, son. This device however could force us to join him." Carbon's dad settled over the bomb's interface panel and fiddled around with it, eventually finding a Link-sensitive spot. "Okay... there's definitely explosive fiir inside..."

Carbon's radio spat out something about the foundry being ready, but he ignored it for now. "Johnny..." The fox was laying propped against the hallway wall, blood liberally soaking his uniform. "Oh fuck, Johnny! Is... Is this fixable? How can I help?"

"Jus'..." Johnny spat out some more blood as he pulled up his borrowed pistol inside its wooden holster. "Jus' ge' this 'o..."

"Get this to... Sofi?" Carbon took the weapon as the fox nodded. "You've got it. Now how can I help with... this?"

"'an't..." Johnny started crying slowly as he realized the extents of his wounds. "No way 'o pa'ch me up. And no mor'ine either..."

"Carbon..." Evelyn pulled up one of the hybrid's small tendrils for him. "We have something to... ease his passing."

"Johnny, I can help with that. I can make it stop hurting."

The fox struggled with his dog tags and gave them to Carbon. "Do i'..." He reached for the tendril himself and brought it to his neck. "Jus' promise... you tak' 'are of 'ofi... an'... pups..."

Carbon looked to Eve for a moment with a nod, then let her stick his friend with a spine hidden in the end of the tendril. "I promise, Johnny. I'll make sure she's happy, and her kids too."

"Than'..." Johnny paused to collect what air his leaking lungs would allow, pain aside, and tried his best to say his final words well. Thank you... friend..."

"No, thank ~you~." The hybrid stared into the second set of friendly eyes as they lost their life in less than a day. "I'll... Fuck. I'll always remember you, friend."

"Son!" Chleek stood with all three of his tendrils still firmly attached to the contraption in the center of the room. "Goddess... Son, Link with me! We don't have time!"

Carbon sat back inside his cockpit and piloted the mech over to his father. "How do I--?"

Chleek grabbed his son's queo and brought it to a patch of finer queii on his side, forcing the Link between them. «Son, we don't have much time. We need to... Oh, wow.»

Chleek stared as Evelyn cried for a moment until she spat out, «What?»

«I just... never thought you'd be able to feel emotions when I started designing you.» A rush of information sent Evelyn into convulsions for a few seconds. «You deserve to know where you come from, and I don't think we'll have the time to cover it in real-time.»

«We don't have the... the time?»

«You're already getting better at this. You make a father proud, son.» Chleek looked down to the bomb and then back to his son. «However I'm afraid the goddess destined us to remain forever apart. It's all I can manage just to slow the progress on this.»

«Carbon... Oh goddess, he's holding a dead-man's switch...» Eve glanced at the data coming off the device and shook her head. «It only has about two minutes left until the detonators fire. He's delaying them, but they're redundantly re-activating each other.»

«So it'll blow either way?»

«No, not necessarily.» Chleek sighed as he fiddled with the various detonation cycles. «I can cause a critical failure if I reprogram the timings, but the pattern is evolving as I modify it...»

«And you don't know... if you can actually stop it.» Carbon threw himself forward in slow motion, giving his father a hug. «Father, either we both get out of here or... we both die together. I'm alone now anyway...»

«No, son. You have to live on. You're my greatest accomplishment and I won't have you or Evelyn lost to the aether.» Chleek gave his son a firm pat on the back, then shoved him back into his fir's cockpit. "Live well for the both of us, and honor the family. You are Chleek now, my dear son. Evelyn, please...»

«What!?--» Carbon tried to lunge back but couldn't move once the Link was broken. " Eve!

Eve forced Carbon's limbs to clear the way as she closed the cockpit, then stood Ex so he'd face the way they'd come. "He gave me all of his memories since we were conceived, Carbon. Trust me, we can't die here."

"Eve, stop it! We need to at least grab him and try escaping!"

"I'm holding your father's last will and testament and it says we've got a mission to complete. This is all just a big stepping stone on a larger path." The mech walked out of the large reactor room on it's own, freeing Evelyn to appear visually for her host. "Until we reach the end, I don't think your father's sacrifices will hold their honor."

"But he's not dead yet!"

"But he is, Carbon. The difference is that he's gifting you with time to escape this way."

"But--!"

"You may not like giving up your father, as selfish as that is, but what about your squad? Or the world?" Eve pulled up the images of everyone in the squad. "They have family too. If we don't warn them and get out of here now, you'll only lose your humanity ~along~ with your father. Call the chopper, Carbon."

"But my..." Carbon drooped his head as he found his radio switch and flipped it. "My... My father is staying behind. Everyone get ready for a fast extraction. Cheat?"

"Sir?"

"Get your ass to the landing zone pronto. I'm talking break the landing gear if you have to. You got me?"

"Break the--!" A slight span of silence allowed the pilot time to calm down. "Roger that, sir. Will do."

"I don't mean to be rough with you," Carbon clarified as he looked back to his father in the distance, "but we've got one hell of a bomb set here and I think we pissed it off."

"Oh, well just say so! I'll be there in less than a minute."

"Thanks, Cheat." Carbon snapped off the radio and gave his ethereal partner a statement. "Just get us out of here already. I'm... fuck..."

The golem slowed down and spun around, backpedaling for a bit as the cockpit opened. "Say it, Carbon. You'll never forgive yourself, or me, if you don't."

Carbon nodded to the fairy and then threw off his mask so he'd be better heard. "Father!"

"Son? Don't fight us on this. Just go!"

"Father..." The hybrid pulled himself out of the machine as far as he could manage and threw out an arm. "I love you!"

"Son... No, my new Chleek. You'll restore the Ors name to even greater honor, I'm sure." The former head of the house name donned his head and made a bowing gesture with his arm. "I'll always love you, even as I watch you from the other plane."

"Goodbye!"

Evelyn forced her host back into his seat and then shut the hatch. "We... have to go now. Sorry, Carbon."

"I think I can live with that." Carbon forcibly took control back from Eve and told Ex to head for the opening in the pipeline. "Just how bad is that thing, anyway? Didn't father send you information about it?"

"It'll take time to make sense of it, but nothing like that dead pilot's memories." Eve faded away for a moment and then came back more sure of herself. "Oh, it's already sorted and parsed."

"Focus, Eve."

"Oh..." Evelyn brought up a simplified model of the area surrounding the power station, then visually explained her understanding of the weapon. "It's not quite a fission-fusion reaction, so I don't have any exact models on this. However..." The model was slowly engulfed by a sphere of light. "When this thing explodes, it'll still ruin the surrounding area for decades. It won't be as devastating as an atomic weapon, but it'll sure as hell look the part."

"But that's not all." The golem stomped out of the pipe and hopped into the water below. "This isn't about just one bomb. When this thing goes off... Eve, we need to get into the middle of nowhere, now!"

"What? The chopper's just over there and we can easily outrun this blast."

Carbon didn't waste any time and just focused on the Chinook. "That equipment loaded up? What's the situation?"

"We're good, sir." One of the soldiers hopped off the tailgate holding the sling cables for Carbon's mech. "Need a paw getting hooked up?"

"Yeah, just snap me in. I'll ride in here."

"But that's unsafe, sir. Let's get you in the cabin bef--"

"Hook me up and do it _ now _, private!" Carbon watched the soldier work as he clicked his radio on again. "Is everyone loaded up?"

"Yeah, all of our team."

"No, everyone, Cheat. Do we have the Ukrainians?"

A bit of silence prefaced a baffled response from the frog. "We're just getting back out to camp, right? Why would I grab them?"

The soldier outside banged on the cockpit before heading back into the chopper. "Cheat, we're all hooked up. Head back there as fast as you can and just get them close enough to grab me. You understand me?"

"S-Sure..."

Evelyn shot her host a stern glance. "What the hell is this all about?"

"This bomb was never the point, Eve." Carbon huffed as he switched off his microphone, then again as his robot was lifted skyward. "You know how the US and the Soviets have all those other bombs pointed at each other? Well we're in the heart of Soviet territory, at an important asset no less. One watched by both sides."

"And... Oh goddess..."

"Yeah, you get it now? I give us five minutes tops to find a ~deep~ hole and hide in it, Eve. And even then... I don't know what's we'll do, or what the world will do."

The radio fired up, taking Carbon out of his dreadful trance. "Major? Only ten seconds out. Whatever you're planning..."

"Just get me close and patch me into the external speakers, Cheat." A slight whine of feedback signaled that the pilot followed those orders. "There they are. <Sofi! There's no time to explain. Just climb on and hold tight!>"

The helicopter drowned out all lighter noises, but Evelyn made out the words as best she could. "She's complaining about her gear... Oh, and she mentioned Johnny. Poor thing."

"<Later! Just grab on if you want to live!>"

The two canines threw their rifles around their backs and clambered onto the golem's outer shell. "Eve, give us a location."

"Maybe... I don't..."

"West! Cheat, go west as fast as possible. Punch it!"

The Chinook started moving with a jerky unsteadiness due to the weight it was carrying. They made it maybe another mile from the plant when suddenly the main building exploded, hurling flaming debris nearly as far as the chopper. A moment later a secondary blast ruptured the concrete's foundation, imploding it into a coffin of steel and rock. The second blast shoved the helicopter forward enough to give them a close call with some trees, but the sturdy craft somehow made it out of the blast radius in one piece.

Cheat immediately inquired, "The fuck kind of bomb was that?"

"The lesser of many to come." Carbon popped open the cockpit and allowed the two Ukrainians hanging outside to sit inside the lip of the seals. "Sofi..."

The husky nearly fell out of the cockpit and to her own demise when she spotted her pistol next to the mustelid. "<No... Gods, no...>"

"<He died a hero's death, Sofi.>" Carbon relinquished the weapon back to its original owner as well as one of the dog tags, then focused on holding her inside the mech. "<And if it means anything, he spent his last minutes only thinking about you and your child.>"

Sofija politely refused the metal tag, but held onto the pistol for dear life. "<What... What am I going to do now? I was going to give up this horrible life and be with John, but now...>"

"<He's all the family I had left too, Sofi.>" Carbon spun the robot's arms until the cockpit faced the tail of the chopper and the wind wouldn't bother them. "<And I'm sure he'd want us to think about what's important. You're having a child, right? Well we need to keep her safe. We need to help her survive.>"

"<Survive? We're getting out of here, aren't we?>"

"<Those aliens were planning more evil deeds than any of us could think possible.>" Carbon spotted something with his superb range of vision, then pulled Sofi's face close to his to shield her eyes. "<We're only getting started.>"

Within a span of only a few seconds, the entirety of the horizon flooded a glaring white with fire. The only sounds the bombs made were whooshes of air as it was displaced by atomic fire. Cheat handled himself admirably as he rode out the concussive waves, but sadly everyone else on the ground didn't have the ability to fly above the carnage. Then after a mere ten minutes of the world exploding there was nothing but silence, save for the sounds of a helicopter engine and the sobbing of two new comrades.

I have always fancied that the end of the world will be when some enormous boiler, heated to three thousand millions of atmospheric pressure, shall explode and blow up the globe. ... They [the Americans] are great boilermakers.

-- Jules Verne