FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The briefing was good, meaning short and to the point. Gorgonea Tertia was not exactly one of the top stars in everyone's constellation list, but there were some reports from that general region that might indicate some trouble for travelers going within a short distance of the place. A contingent of Starhawks was to check out the area and report back; orders were strictly recon, no contact and no engagement unless exclusively defensive. Preferred result of hostile contact was called Plan Killdeer, named after the Earthly bird that feigns being injured in order to lure a predator far away from the nest, then escapes at the last moment. The slight variation here was to lure the predator back to the predetermined rendezvous point, where the rest of the fleet would seem quietly to appear from nothingness, to give the predator cause for second thoughts, and quite likely cause for a change of underwear.

Kovach was to be part of this team of six, designation Snake Lady, with the call code Medusa, in honor of the most famous of the gorgons. He was to be Medusa Six, covering everyone's tail - a job he knew how to do very well indeed. He met up with his contingent at the SimCenter shortly after the briefing. It made sense to warm up a bit before going out in the deep cold of space.

Outside of the simulation complex, a grizzled bulldog chomped on a conspicuously unlit cigar and stared at the half-dozen furs in front of him. "Line up, you pups; it's not like you've never done this before."

The others grinned, making themselves stand more to attention, tails still, eyes and ears forward, showing the discipline of trained pilots who were ready to calm down and show more respect to Sgt. Sumner, the old "top dog" of the Starhawks. No one knew what his real rank was; he had been "the Sarge" for so many years now, training and honing squad after never-ending squad of pilots, that he was occasionally referred to as Drill Instructor Emeritus. He had been, still was, and would always be called "Sarge." His command of respect didn't rely on mere rank. As the six Medusans gathered themselves, Kovach snapped into position with the rest of them, knowing that he'd done this many times before, some part of him knowing that he hadn't.

"Sound off, Snake Lady. Medusa One."

"Lentz," a sleek black panther answered crisply. He'd worked hard to get where he was, and no team had a better squad leader, even if he was by-the-book more than the job warranted. He made up for it in loyalty to his team.

"Medusa Two."

"Tolliver." A tall, muscled white German shepherd who looked as if he might not even fit into the small main cabin of a Starhawk. Standing nearly two full meters in height, the gentle giant was more likely to stop a fight by simply catching a flying fist rather than throwing one of his own.

"Medusa Three."

"Perryman." A lean, hard-looking lop-eared rabbit who sometimes sported an eye patch, and carried with him something of a reputation. The eye patch concealed an extremely advanced cybernetic scanner/sensor and micro-computer that presumably connected directly into the hare's brain, providing more information than any ordinary eye could, and doubling as an expression of bad-ass-ness.

"Medusa Four."

"Rains." Another tiger, like Kovach, about the same general build, perhaps several centimeters shorter, and white instead of orange tawny. A Brit of sensitivity, cordiality, and an unrepentant fondness for the raw violence of a rugby match with a drunken referee, or its pub-crawling equivalent. It was, in a way, ironic that he was a key part of a force designed to be merely disabling rather than crippling. He preferred to think of it as a means of making new friends who he could later meet on the field - preferably head-first.

"Medusa Five."

"Baptiste." A Husky with traditional markings, including the heterochromic eyes (one golden brown, one clear blue) of the purebred; strong, feisty, a good dozen centimeters shorter than Kovach... and female. No one could say that she slept her way to the top. No one dared, after what happened in that one incident with the formerly-male bovine. Contrary to rumor, there was no dull spoon, although that might have been less painful.

"Medusa Six."

"Kovach."

"Well damn if they didn't get themselves in the right order," the bulldog grumbled, cocking his chin toward a door in the bulkhead that sighed open as he spoke. "Designation's on each chamber. Pick the right door, set up, jack in, you know the routine. SimRun designation Phibriglex-62. We'll boot you up. Get moving before I boot yer tails."

The chambers were in designation order; Kovach took up the one nearest the bulkhead door. The pilot's chair faced him as he entered. He spun, sat in the chair, found the primary controls and entered the required initial sequences as he settled his tail into position and pivoted the chair back toward the main console and viewport. Detaching the red personal pin drive from the lanyard around his neck, he jacked into the primary data 'corder, ready to record his every move. His fore and hind paws moved automatically, checking sensors, touch-plates, joysticks, keypads, and other controllers. Lights and screens came up at his command; the boards hummed with power, pinging and chiming with soft positive acknowledgements as the full power of the control systems came online.

"Voice command," Kovach spoke clearly.

The automated system responded softly, in a precise BRP that always made Night wonder if Rains had something to do with the programming. "Designation."

"Medusa Six."

"Identification."

"Kovach, Delta-Echo-Bravo niner seven niner Omega."

"Initializing voice command. Please speak."

"My hovercraft is full of eels."

The systems hummed for a moment. The voice, upon its return, sounded almost disappointed. "Insufficient phonemes; please continue."

"Drop your panties, Sir William, I cannot wait until lunchtime."

Another pause. "Phonemes accepted. Voice command ready."

"Kovach," drawled Sumner in the tiger's headset, "you have a strange taste in comedy."

"Yet you recognized it, Sarge."

"Call the Church Police." A click in Kovach's ear told him that the Sergeant had switched to the general channel. "Okay, pups, kits, and others, get ready for synch. Systems up."

A squeal in the headset made Kovach cringe. When it finally had diminished, he heard Perryman pipe up, "All this money spent on these sim systems, and you can't figure out what makes that horrible noise?"

"We can figure it out, Medusa Three; we just love yankin' yer chain. Cut the chatter. We've got a nice set of chain-yankin' ready for you, starting with simulated launch. Hope you didn't have anything slimy for breakfast, or you're likely to see it again." Sumner continued in official voice, for the simulated black boxes and anyone else who might be listening; Starhawk simulations were a good source of entertainment on the Heartwielder."Snake Lady Simulation, Phibriglex-62, launch in three, two, one..."

The word "simulation" was an understatement. Even though he knew that he really wasn't going anywhere, Kovach's stomach lurched as the screens imitated movement and the entire chamber itself rumbled and pulsed as if he really were being launched at full ignition speed - something that pulled a couple of gees out of him, or as some of the male pilots sometimes said, turned their sheaths into "innies."

The tiger let his breath out as the simulation settled into the feel of normal space travel. In a lot of ways, the launch was the worst; after that initial acceleration, the rest was easily handled by inertial dampeners. The chatter in Kovach's ears was normal, each ship checking in. He said his piece when required, all very routine. "Keep it by the numbers, folks." The bulldog's grumbling voice kept things in order. "Follow the bouncing ball."

An artificial target appeared on screen. Lentz, Medusa One, took the lead as the others held formation. The panther talked his way through the routine - intercept, identify, contact, respond. In this case, the target identified itself, satisfied Lentz of his creds, and was escorted quite peacefully for a short distance before he disengaged and returned to formation. "Not much fun in that, Sarge," he said playfully.

"Careful what you ask for."

Another target appeared onscreen, and Tolliver went after it. Shortly after contact, the target vessel made a quick change in course. Lentz ordered Perryman into position (despite Tolliver's insistence that he could handle it), and the two of them executed some very nice pincer ploys to get the target to submit. Although the target showed weapons power-up, it backed down after the two Medusans erected shields and readied their defensive weapons - just enough firepower to disable. The target vessel bolted for the borderlands; Lentz ordered the ships back. "This is only simulation, guys; let's leave the chase for when we need it."

"Medusa One, this is Five," Baptiste piped up. "Target ship has a strange radiation signature in its engines. Something is off about this..."

"Nice catch, puppy," Sumner grumbled into his headset. Kovach made adjustments of his own, in case he would be needed.

"Medusa One confirming. Tolliver, Perryman, continue on back like nothing is happening. Medusa Six, what've you got?"

Kovach checked several readouts and made some calculations. "Target has some sort of jump capability."

"No freakin' way," Tolliver barked. "Engine configuration shows--"

"--that we've been suckered," Baptiste announced, speaking quickly. "Guys, I think we've found where at least one of those stolen Bradbury engines we heard about last month."

Lentz's voice positively crackled. "Snake Lady, break to full intercept, start with Alpha pattern, we'll wing it from there."

Kovach reacted instantly, falling out of position at a speed of point-five and assuming a space-stitch pattern that kept him available to the squad but far enough back to make him a secondary target. "Move out, Baptiste, I've got your tail."

"Not what I heard," Perryman quipped.

"Offering yours?" Kovach shot back.

"Kill the chatter, furs," Lentz growled. "Target is accelerating. Baptiste, give me a reading, has he got the four-five-one charging?"

"Affirmative, Medusa One." The Husky's voice was clipped and all business. "Six, can you confirm?"

"That would be a yes," the tiger's voice radiated calm despite the tingling nerves and rapid movements of his forepaws across the complicated console.

"Medusa Four, where'd you go?" Lentz asked the air.

"Time for elevenses, people," came the white tiger's British accent. Kovach looked up from his tactical screens to the viewport, just in time to see that Rains' Starhawk had accelerated to point-seven or better and swooped in front of the target vessel from its eleven-o'clock position and cut downward toward the five, then away again as the target fired feebly at the place where the Medusan had been.

"What the hell...!" Lentz exclaimed.

"My wake should help disrupt the field build-up for several seconds. Bought some time."

"Snake Lady," Lentz growled, using the short form for the squad collectively, "arm disabling weapons. Let's bring this idiot down."

"Medusa Five," Baptiste cried out, "Snake Lady, disengage weapons! Repeat, disengage!"

Kovach caught the mistake even as Lentz tried to sputter his instructions to the team. "Confirmed!" the tiger shouted. "Jump field forming, and it's... I don't know what to call it, the damned thing is..."

Baptiste cut in. "Break off, repeat, break off - the field is causing local spatial disruption, we can't get caught in it or..."

"I've got his shield generators," Perryman shouted, "we can take them down, we can..."

"No time! The jump field is..."

Kovach saw a bright flare from some corner of the screens, as if someone had fired on the target ship, but that was impossible, who could be stupid enough... The flare struck the target ship and everything seemed suddenly to slow down, images jigging on the screen as if something wasn't entirely right, as if space had decided not to work correctly, pixel-corrections in splats and edges as if the program were glitching in the simulation (this was a simulation, wasn't it, not a real mission?), and as if to prove that a simulation could be just as real as anything else, the tiger felt himself smacked in the head by a volleyball, and he fell down into hot sand, his eyes shutting instinctively against the burning bright sun in the sky. Voices, laughing, smell of sea air, and someone's paws carefully checking his head, a voice saying, "You okay, buddy? You looked about a million klicks away when that ball hit you!"

The tiger opened his eyes and saw a hyena, a sweetly smiling hyena, gazing at him with deep concern.

"...Donovan?"