FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Two weeks after the phenomenal trip to the metamorphic creatures, and after Giancarlo had settled in on Central, we were advised of a new planet. Salbar had gone for a rest on his planet, so the metamorphic creature was invited to see how we worked. Furthermore it was a charted planet, and was reasonably advanced along the technology ladder, one of our scan ships had shown it had asphalt roads and cities. This was the perfect opportunity to test our cars on a new planet, something which I had only done once and not for very long.

Giancarlo did not have a car or any method of transportation, but he was a metamorpher, he could be one if he wanted to. Nevertheless I invited him to be a passenger in my car, something the shifter was not quick to refuse. Because of his shifting abilities he was always constantly darting in and out of forms, but the one we regularly saw him as was the tall white avian that I had come across for the first time, that was his favourite.

Silverine gave us the details of our landing area and guidelines.

"We are going to teleport you here, a valley about thirty kilometres from town, which is fairly secluded. This scan was taking two months ago, and shows clearly this B-road is very rarely in use, handy for our purposes. So you'll go along this zigzag following the river, cross the bridge here," he pointed at a two lane bridge on the projector, and get into town that way."

"What are the lifeforms like?"

"We did not get a scan of what they are, so the answer is we don't know." the Lupogriff shrugged.

"So are our cars ready?" Draco asked.

"Abigail has attached material teleporters to each of them, they will await your scanner planting, just remember to make enough room for them."

"Will do."Draco nodded, and we squadded up. Giancarlo took my arm and held it very tightly, he was still not used to the uncomfortable teleportation.Javid and Draco took Simba's arm, and the lion nodded at me.

We teleported.My hand felt as though it was going to drop off through lack of circulation, Giancarlo was gripping it that hard. We fell for a little over a count of 37, and landed rather tidily on a grass verge.

The road was right next to us, we were standing in a ten by fifty clearing that gave a car more than enough room to pull to the side of the road if it decided to expire. Draco placed his scanner and then moved back with all the rest of us. After another minute, our cars arrived.

Giancarlo was yet to see our cars. There was my Ariel Atom, Draco's Ferrari 430 Scuderia, Simba's old school Dodge Charger (in black, it really had to be), and Javid's silver Countach. After removing the teleport buttons and pocketing them, we got in, into a problem. Giancarlo wouldn't fit in the cockpit of my Atom, his seven foot tall avian form just wasn't small enough to fit in the passenger seat. But before Giancarlo changed form, Draco solved that one by offering the avian a ride in the Ferrari, it had seats made for Draco and his size.

So, once this had been remedied, we started up. I will argue to the hills that the Charger sounded the best, followed by the Countach.The Scud was revving up to 8 and a half thousand revs, it's V8 roaring, but it was still out shouted by the Charger's block. My own engine might develop 520 kW per tonne, pre Centralite messing around, and it might only weigh less than 450 kg (there wasn't much that could be taken off it when it was lightened, there isn't much car full stop), but it's engine note wasn't a comparison to the roar of the Charger.

So as the Charger took to the road, the Scud on it's tail pipe, I followed the Countach. To quote a famous magazine, to have a pie at lunchtime would hurt the nought to one hundred time in the Atom, but bloody hell I can not get over the astonishing acceleration in this thing, now the Centralite techs had messed around with it. I got onto the tarmac, and pointed my noise past the Countach, and floored it.

We were on a reasonably short straight, and Javid must have gotten a fright as I suddenly blasted past him. I caught a glimpse of both dragon and avian in the Ferrari, and then I was flying past them, a flash of the black Charger, and I was flying away from them.

"Is this a race?" Draco managed to suggest.

"Central, what the hell is that thing?" Giancarlo asked, as I changed down to get around the next corner.

"It's a fuel tank connected to a huge engine, and a really hard seat. That's it." Simba replied.

"Sounds about it, this thing is almost three times lighter than Draco's Scuderia. On a windy day I have to chain it to a fence, otherwise it would float away."

"Me and Silverine could lift that thing, if we strained." Draco added. As they followed my passage, my distance grew like I was racing a push pram. This thing just stuck to the corners, and it was only then I paid attention to the surrounding scenery.

"Has anyone thought on this, Simba?"I asked," If this road is so unused, why is it kept in such good condition? A deserted B-road on Earth would have cracks, may only be gravel. This thing looks perfect for a race track."

"Yeah, it is odd there's no one here yet. On a road like this I expected a car at least every kilometres, maybe two.And this links this town and a motorway, it doesn't make sense." the lion replied in my headset.

"Alduin, look to your right!" Draco shouted, and I turned, looking across the valley. Hovering over a hill was a helicopter.It looked narrow, powerful, and heavily armed, and this was confirmed as the road behind me burst into chunks as the machine cannon ripped up the asphalt.

"Not good!" I shouted, flooring it. The river to my right was narrow, although it looked like it could be quite wide when it was wet. It must have been drought or very dry, because ninety percent of the valley was dry gravel.

And then I saw the other problem.I had come to the bridge, and blocked across it was a very large tank.

"We're not welcome!" I shouted, exiting the road. The drop to the valley from the road at this point was only five metres, and even that fall was broken by a large amount of undergrowth. The Atom flattened eight bushes or so, bounced wildly on the gravel, and came to a halt in a cloud of dust. The engine didn't stall, and I drove it underneath the bridge, so the tank couldn't fire at me, and neither could the helicopter without risking the tank.

Due to fact Gi was travelling in Draco's car, the seat next to me had my backpack and rocket launcher, in the four point seatbelt.Speaking of nought to one hundred, I probably added a couple of tenths with the weight of my kit bag, what with the solinium nuke and twelves rounds of RPG ammo, not to mention the rocket launcher itself.The helicopter came down from it's lofty position, it's aim to destroy me with machine gun fire. Where is a blasted shield when you need it?

I thought on this, and then turned the steering wheel hard to the left, flooring the accelerator. The car revved massively, and began to spin around, just as I moderated the steering. It begins to spin around again, and again, into a huge donut on the gravel. Clouds of dust and wheel smoke rose into the air, until I couldn't see anything. I continued the donuts, the revving noise of the Atom ear splittingly loud. I felt myself going around and round in circles. Holding the donut for a full minute was enough.

After fifty five seconds, the throbbing of the helicopter was even louder than the high engine note, and I realised I had engulfed the chopper with dust and smoke, they were blind as well. They were heading directly towards me, unsure of where I was, and my nerve broke, coming to a complete halt, and then burning out my tires on the gravel as I surged away from the bridge. My GPS sent me directly upstream towards the town, and as I looked in my rear view mirror I saw a huge cloud of dust.The tank was still on the bridge, it's barrel fixed on the road where I had come from.

Then the helicopter solved all my problems. There was a huge flash, and the entire bridge disintegrated in a fireball. The tank was blown to pieces, and bits of metal and stone rained down haphazardly on the terrain around me. The dust cloud had caused the chopper to fly directly into the bridge. I came to a halt, and got out of the car, as a wayward rotor embedded itself in the ground ten metres away. The dust cloud was briefly darkened by smoke, and then it slowly cleared.

The bridge was missing it's middle span, but either side was alright. Underneath the bridge, next to the stream was the blackened out hulk of the remains of the tank, it had survived mostly in one piece. Then I got the dulcet sounds of Draco in my headset.

"Fluke." the dragon said simply, and there was a laugh from Javid.

"That was not my fault." I said.

"Of course it wasn't, no one except an idiot would have tried that, to fly into a smoke screen under a bridge." the colonel wolf replied.

"Which only leaves one problem." Draco replied,"How are we supposed to get across now?"

The river was about five metres wide, and rather swift. I guessed it was reasonably deep.It was more to the far bank they were on, which was why I had been happy doing donuts under the middle span, the river didn't go under the middle span.

"Well, the gap is about twenty metres, I certainly wouldn't try and jump it.Alduin, could you continue upstream and see if you can't see a way to get across?"

"Way ahead of you, Draco." I replied, walking back towards the bridge. I stood directly under the far side of the bridge, took a couple of steps backwards, and then hurled my scanner like a javelin onto the bridge. It didn't come back down, and Simba checked his computers.

"You clever bastard. Just give me a moment to calibrate it so we don't drive directly off the bridge on arrival." I ran back to my car, and fitted the material teleporter back on. I got in the car, and spun it around, awaiting Simba's signal.

After two minutes he announced it was clear, and I saw Javid's Countach drive from nowhere on the bridge. Simba's Charger appeared ten seconds after, and then I saw Draco's Ferrari driving along the road towards the busted bridge, surely he wasn't going to try and jump it? He came screaming onto the bridge, and then vanished just as he got to the edge, appearing on the other edge going at full tilt. I teleported while stationary, and landed right next to the scanner. I bent down, thrust my hand through the chassis and picked it up, pocketing it.

"Well, THAT was an interesting diversion." Giancarlo said in his headset,"How far are we from the town?"

"Six kilometres." Draco replied, as he came to a halt beside the idling 80's and 70's cars. I caught up, and got out of the car. Javid got out of his Lambo, and looked at my Atom as I did.

The machine cannon had not punctured the Atom, that was thanks to a special metallic alloy on the Atom not unlike my own in bionic form. Instead the rising engine cover and fuel tank directly behind my head rest was scored in silver lines where the occasional round and bounced off.

I didn't stop to count, but I guessed there was at least thirty scratches like this. I scowled.

"I like this car."

"So?" Draco replied," it's not well armed, you have only one choice, run like hell."

"Something I will have to change when I get back to Earth."

"Like what are you going to do?"

"Have you ever heard of a movie called Death Race?"

"I've got a bad feeling about this." Simba put his paw in front of his face.

I wasn't entirely serious about turning my Atom into something like the Porsche 911 in Death Race, it had Hellfire missiles on the back and machine guns everywhere, but I was a bit annoyed some idiot had scarred the paintwork on this thing. I wonder if I could attach something like my ion drives to this thing, maybe give it one or two weapons modifications. The weapons would make it heavier, but the ion engine would give it more power to counter that. I resolved to ask Abby about it.

"Alduin," Silverine said in my headset," I know you love that car, but don't go spare on us. We're investigating the place, not blowing it up."

"Although it looks like someone's already been trying." Simba replied."The lack of cars would go well with the conclusion this is a war zone."

"Just as well we did put that metallic alloy in, otherwise Alduin's car would have burst into flame." Abigail said in my headset.

"I'm about to ask for more things to be put in." I replied, and Javid whistled and turned around innocently.

"What did you have in mind?" the lioness replied.

"Like twin ion drives, like my own prototypes."

"You remind me so much of me, I wanted someone to volunteer adding ion rockets onto their car." the lioness sounded genuinely delighted,"Anything else?"

"I'll talk to you later about that." I replied, getting back into my car, and igniting the engine again. Javid leapt back into his Countach, and we all gunned towards the town.

As we did, we all noticed the four sleek fighter aircraft flying above us. They flew in tight formation, heading towards where we had arrived and further. We still hadn't seen what these people looked like, but we were getting a fair idea on their technology.

Then we got to the town, or rather what had been the town.

It had been fought over, each street gained at hard expense and consequently the entire town was a mass of rubble. Half standing buildings leaned at uncompromising angles. The road had potholes and mortar craters everywhere, and once or twice we came across a block that had been bombed, it was completely levelled.

This place was a ghost town, there was no one living here. We came to a halt at a four way intersection, in a circle leaning out the windows for those that had them to talk to one another. Draco raised his glasses.

"Well, it's kind of pointless being here, we'll have to look for other towns."

"Silverine,"Simba asked," is there any other towns in the vicinity? This must have happened fairly recently."

"There are two motorways and two lesser roads out of this town, you came along one of the lesser roads."

"I'll take the other lesser road if we're to split up and search." I volunteered.

"Agreed, you have the best handling car here, and this road looks a bit technical." Silverine replied.There was some urgent whispering, and the Lupogriff spoke again.

"Kodey wants to come down, speed is essential and he will be your navigator, Alduin. As for you Draco, the North highway is very straight and fast to a city about one hundred kilometres away, I give you full permission to speed run."

"I'm keen." the dragon replied. Simba would go the other way with Javid, another town 150 kilometres away that direction. I would head up a hill and down the other side to a small village, in the hope it had missed all the fighting.

Then we saw yet another tank. This one came around from behind a building, turret looking the other way. then it stopped, and began swivelling around to look at us.

"Kodey, don't teleport!" I shouted, driving straight at the tank, I was the one facing it. Everyone drove straight in front of them, which meant Draco was driving directly down the road with me and the tank in his rear view mirror. The tank's barrel came around, and I wheeled sharply, into a building.

The glass shop front was obliterated by the car, and I drove immediately down a sharp set of steps, going underground.The passage narrowed and I switched my lights on. The beams illuminated many posters and signs, but it wasn't until I came to the bottom of the steps that I realised what I had driven down into.

It was a subway. I had driven into a subway station. Talk about the Italian Job style of doing things.I came to a complete halt, shut down the engine, and spoke to everyone.

"We all in the clear?"

There were quick affirmations from all four of my comrades. The tank had apparently gone after Draco, but hey, he was in a Ferrari.They were all beginning to drive off to their respective highways. I got out of the car, and switched on the torch on my glasses. The beams illuminated a very simple subway station, completely deserted. It was dead silent, and I spoke.

"I found a subway, but still no life. Kodey, I'm planting a scanner now." there was a bang in my headset as I placed the scanner, and the reindeer emerged smiling after slightly more than half a minute.

"Nice driving, Alduin." he smiled, and as I shifted my kit into various storage spaces in the Atom, he picked up the rocket launcher, a round, and strapped himself into the seat with both on his lap. His glasses had the entire route to the village, but he also had a piece of paper with his directions and he would tell me what was coming before I got to it.

As I began to get strapped back in, I heard a noise. It was the noise of someone knocking something, and I got back out, grabbing my C.E.O blaster.

I began scanning the place with my X-ray function, and found someone hiding behind a ticket desk.It was thin and six legged, or at least six limbs, and was hiding directly underneath the desk.It could not possibly see me, but it knew we were here.

I skirted the desk, making as little noise as possible, and hid behind a pillar.Then on a mental count of three, levelled my phaser at the desk.

Wow.The creature was exquisite. It was very insect like, it was a two legged, six armed variant of a mantis, and it's antennae were almost fifty centimetres long each. It's legs and arms were hard, like it had an armour of it's own, and it's mandibles clicked nervously. It hadn't spotted me, it was still keeping it's head down, and I lowered the pistol. I had no idea what language it spoke, but gave a go in a language that was very pitched and chattering, an insect language that Arachno spoke.

This caused the creature to look up, alarmed. He saw my weapon, and all four three fingered arms went up in panic.

"Don't shoot me,I'm unarmed!"

He's got two more arms than I do,I thought randomly, and then modified my language to match his.

"I'm not going to shoot, I just want to ask something."

"What?"

"What the hell is going on here?" the mantis looked at me as if seeing me for the first time.

"Who and what are you?" it clicked inquisitively.

"The code of war states the person with the weapon asks first." I replied, the answer to his question would take too long to explain. He shivered, and stuttered.

"I am one of this town, which is being fought over by two countries on this world.It is currently held by the Viara'a,"it gave a special click mid word to give it the proper pronunciation, "And anyone here is to be taken for questioning or executed if they don't obey orders precisely."

"I see,"I looked thoughtful," and it sounds sort of stupid to raze the city you're fighting over to the ground."

The insect shrugged."I am yet to see a sensible or rational politician."

"My feelings exactly."I said in English, and then switched back," What's your name?"

"Nalazes." the mantis clicked, a little worried.

"Well, my friend, thank you for telling me what's happening. My answer to your question is long winded, but what it boils down to is I am an alien, exploring planets."

"Can I come?" the insect almost pleaded,"I have nothing for me here."

"I might be coming back here, if you stay here I will probably return." This wasn't quite true, our plans for what we would do after seeking our individual towns weren't formed,although we would discuss things,"But right now I have things to do. Kodey!"

"Yes, Alduin?" the reindeer called.

"Toss me a locator could you?" I called, and the reindeer lobbed one of the necklaces at me. I caught it deftly, and then handed it to the mantis, who held it with one of his four arms, looking intently at the glittering jewellery.

"Wear that, it will make you easier to find for me." I said, and after parting ways jumped into the car, started the engine and drove straight back up. There was a slight screech from the front as I hit the steps, but I gained sufficient traction to drive straight back up and into daylight. Kodey began directing me through the ruined town, and after ten minutes we came to a single road heading towards a low hill by the mountain range.

"There's a pass above that hill through the range." Kodey pointed, and I gunned the throttle.

We got to the hill in very little time, although we hadn't kicked into the ion drive's second stage to do so, and before long Kodey began speaking instructions.

"Silverine said there is a need to hurry, the quicker this is done the more likely we can all go home in one piece." he said.

"I hope so."

"O.K., Rally special stage one."I grinned, and the reindeer laughed at his own joke," 90 degree right, 45 degree left."

The next several minutes were a blur. I knew the capabilities of the car, and Kodey had enough faith in my driving, although there was one point heading towards a hair pin with a wall of stone in front, he literally covered his eyes just as I hammered the braking pedal. The Atom surged up the road, flung sideways through hair pins, drifting ever so gently through the others, all the time in the power band and surging forwards when I feathered the accelerator pedal. Both me and Kodey were recording this, and while I was blocking out comments from Silverine, my recorder was picking up what the Lupogriff was saying.

After eight minutes, and a speed that would blistered Pike's Peak, I came to the top of the hill, and found myself in a valley between two simply enormous mountains. There was a lake in the middle, and the road casually wove it's way between one mountain and the water. Kodey continued reading like a navigator, as the car danced from bend to bend.

"And a one two three, two two three, three two three step." I stepped on the braking pedal and drifted harmlessly around a small inlet, even though I was looking directly into the bay, the car was still going around the corner as it should.

We flashed through the pass, but then hurriedly came to a halt. Coming this way were three jets, and I swung off the road, braking gently underneath some trees on a verge. I switched the engine off and leapt out of the car, pushing it into a denser section of tree line, and then lay down under a bush looking up at the sky. The jets were only just approaching in my hearing. Kodey covered himself with his arms, keeping low. We had to assume all jets would be unfriendly to our cause, mainly because they didn't know it.

The sound got louder, and with a flash of metal and a roar of noise all three black darts swooped overhead. I could see armament on them, they were a cross between a F-15 Eagle and an Su-47 Sukhoi, the wings were backwards, but the two vertical tail wings were unmistakably F-15 like. These were not stealth fighters, this was search, destroy, and do it well. One plane broke formation and began running passes over the lake for a minute, and I kept low. But after four passes it had decided there was nothing there, and it continued after the other two. I counted to sixty, and then came out from the bush.

They had gone, and we had better do so too. They were looking for something and bets were that it was us. I spoke into my headset.

"Draco, the local air force is up in arms, but whether at us I don't know."

"Really, thanks to be last with the news." the dragon sounded sarcastic," I almost got bombed, you know that?"

"Yeah, we've had a helicopter chasing us, but the second stage on the ion drive pulled us away." Javid added.

"We just had a formation flying over head towards the ruined town." Kodey reported.

"Right,I'll check in when I arrive at the village.Where is it in relation to this pass?" I looked at Kodey.

"Right underneath, the pass does a sharp drop, more hairpins, and then there's a small river, and straight on that is the town."

"Oh good. Well, buckle up tightly, because this thing is most likely going to be spending more time going sideways than going in a straight line." I smiled, drifting through corners was such a pleasure in a car like the Atom.

I got back in, buckled up, and started the engine, backing out of the tree line and onto the road again. The lake flowed to the far side and dipped away, although Kodey informed me that it actually came back and was part of the river that the town was situated on. I nodded at this, and then came to the end of the pass.

Man, Kodey wasn't kidding when it dropped away. I couldn't see the road over the edge, there was a bit of run off area, but if you went over the edge at a great enough speed you'd be able to phone your local undertaker before you hit bottom.And either side of the road was a long, steep unbroken hill, which would have been great fun to slide down, had it been snowing.

It wasn't snowing, thank gods, otherwise I would have gone down those sloping banks either side of the zigzag as soon as I entered the complex. It was just two hundred metres, hairpin, two hundred metres, hairpin the other way, and so on so forth until I lost count just how many I had got to, and how fast we were descending. It was only when we were getting to see the outskirts of the town, maybe fifty metres above them that we ran into deep, deep trouble.

As I came towards the next hairpin, I had the briefest impression of a mantis standing by the road side. He saw us, turned, and shouted something. As he did, a very large pair of tanks came into view, blocking the way, and the one closest to us opened fire with a machine gun.

This was bad. I veered towards the wall, missed the opening fusillade, and as we came to the hairpin, another clatter took quite neatly any chance I had of stopping the thing.

Two rounds hit my front left, which disintegrated. One hit the front right, and disintegrated. Eight or so bounced off the armoured flanks of the Atom, and bounced haphazardly off, one nailed the area between mine and Kodey's head, the radiator grille, and three more rounds hit us.

Kodey jerked in his seat as his shoulder and chest spouted blood, and as I turned in shock another round smashed into the side of my neck. It didn't cut anything vital, but it felt like agony to the touch.

It started off small, and I began thinking numbedly,"change into bionic form, you stupid idiot," which I did. Then as I did, the pain doubled, and I cried in pain. Kodey's eyes were closed, and I realised that if anyone was going to stop us from crashing, it was going to have to be me. I slammed on the anchors far too late for the corner, dashed straight in front of both tanks with both front wheels on their rims and throwing up plumes of sparks, and both rear wheels locked, grabbed air as we slid onto the grass, and flew down hill.

I just remember at that point I had to keep the car pointing downhill. If I tried to turn it, the car would roll and that would be that. So as we bounced hectically down the hill, brakes on and suspension taking a terrible beating, the pain got worse, and worse, but it just kept being blotted out by the mind numbing dread of a possible accident if I didn't pass out. I could hear someone in my headset, I couldn't remember what they were saying, it was just a babble of noise. The car bounced wildly, it's nose rising into the air, and then hammered back down again. I was almost thrust into the steering wheel.

Then. most suddenly, the hill stopped, and instead of careening down a steep hill I was now careening along a small field, with a large amount of trees in front of me.And still no way of stopping, the grass kept my momentum at full tilt. The car rocked side by side over every dip and verge, and, doing about 210 kph, plunged deep into a thicket. I was flung forwards in my four point belt as the car's wild ride was halted by the firm branches and vines, thank the lord I didn't hit a tree. Then all was silence, blessed silence.

I looked blurrily at the branches around me, and then at Kodey. Kodey, my mind thought, he's badly injured, you've got to heal him, you're the only one who can. I bodily ripped the remains of his shirt, and undoing my seat belt, saw there was a chest wound directly in the side, right next to the heart. If I hadn't veered, that round would have gone straight through the reindeer's vital organs, and not even Arachno could save one that far gone. I clumsily found my medical pack on my belt, and shakily poured half of a familiar vial over the wound. Kodey moaned, and as he did I tossed the remaining half down his throat. He spluttered and choked, but swallowed it, and I saw to my relief the wound was rapidly fading. Well, that's one thing sorted, now what?

I undid the reindeer's seat belt, and picked him up, pulling him out of the mostly undamaged car. It had survived the impact with little damage at all, or so I thought, really, although it had been deeply scored by everything. I sat down against a tree, the reindeer in my arms with his head against my neck and his bottom on my legs, and passed out.