FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Best as they could tell, there was very little, if any, power running in the ship. The wreckage appeared to be ancient, but in space such things were hard to tell. It wasn’t a make or model of ship that she or any of her crewmates recognized, and the scant amount of language printed on its hull was as foreign to her as any star chart. They’d compared it to everything on the computer, and it didn’t come back as any known language, and it certainly wasn’t Erassian,

Athaleen, or just Athy for short, was just a technician, and right now her job wasn’t to fix loose handrails or replace fuses, but to get a pair of very ancient metals doors open by any means necessary. No one had any idea what they’d just found, but their Captain was excited!

They were all excited.

If this ship was something they could report to the Union, then they’d all be given such a huge reward they could all quit running freight and go home! Being in the middle of a cold war with the Erassi made freighter life dangerous. The last time the fighting was hot, the Erassi targeted all the major shipping routes and ransacked and scuttled civilian ships no different than they did military vessels.

And Athy didn’t want to play any part of that. This weird ship could be their meal ticket out of a lot of worry.

And they’d found it by complete accident! Wendle, their navigator, had detected a weird anomaly on his sensors. It was far off the normal shipping lanes, but he justified it to the Captain that the anomaly had a signature similar to a ship, a large metallic mass that couldn’t possibly be an asteroid. If it was an old war wreckage the Union would pay them a salvage fee, since anything from the war would still have value in it, especially if it was Erassian.

But no, what they found wasn’t any sort of obvious warship.

It wasn’t anything like they’d see in the history vids or on the news today. The ship they’d found was shaped like a large diamond, but very flat like it only had one or two decks. You couldn’t see it clearly with the naked eye either, since the hull had this weird coating of paint that acted like a mirror. You looked at it and just saw a black void with twinkling stars. All of their ship sensors had trouble maintaining a steady lock onto it, too. The only reason Wendle found it was because he was a mental case that couldn’t stop himself from checking every little thing on his computer. His sleepless nights of staring his eyes raw were finally paying off, since that weird anomaly that kept appearing and disappearing in front of him turned out to be something!

They, meaning she and Teri, now had to cut their way through the only access hatch they could find. A full quarter of the ship had been destroyed. It looked like something had crashed into it at high speed and punched a hole clear through from one side to the other. The rest of the ship seemed fine, if you ignored the gaping hole in its starboard side.

They’d first thought to enter through the damaged portion of the ship, but it was just too dangerous to try to enter the ship through the damaged section. Their space suits weren’t meant for exploring salvage and wreckage. The material of their suits was only about as thick as Athy’s pinky finger and was intended to preserve body heat more than anything else. Her helmet did all the breathing for her with a compact air tank strapped to her back.

Athy held her plasma cutter steady, carefully torching the metal surface of the hatch. That weird paint was on the hatch, too, and the heat from the cutter was making it bubble and pop silently in the vacuum of space. Judging by the shape of the hatch, and the apparent controls for it, she should be cutting through a lock of some kind. They’d find out soon enough.

Teri had his hands on a handle, weird letters etched in white around it. Probably instructions for how to open the door without a plasma cutter, but too bad they couldn’t read it. She finished cutting her way through the area they felt was a locking mechanism, and Teri gave the handle a tug.

The hatch wiggled for the first time since they’d found it, not even a single hiss of atmosphere escaping through the crack in the seal.

“Easy.” Teri told her before nudging her aside.

He took hold of the handle with both hands and planted his boot on the ship’s hull. He tugged, and the now loose hatch began to swing out. The cuts she’d just made were already growing cold and she hooked the plasma cutter on her belt so she could grab the hatch and help him shove it open the rest of the way.

It was open now.

Teri unhooked two magnetic tethers from his belt, along with a short length of cable. Normally these were for safety harness when they were doing space walks on the hull of their own ship, a tether that could keep them from floating away and off into space. Today, they were being used to hold the hatch open, just in case.

“Didn’t leave the lights on.” Athy said out loud as she shined her flashlight into the opening.

“Captain, we just gained entry.” Teri said after touching the radio on his shoulder.

The ray of light from her flashlight revealed an empty airlock of foreign design, which was then verbally relayed to the Captain.

“You can go in, but be careful. We’ve finished packaging the scan data and external video log of the ship. Just waiting on you.” Their Captain replied, Athy hearing it through the earpiece in her own helmet, same as Teri.

He touched her shoulder, and she took it as a signal to start easing herself through the opening. More of that weird foreign language was printed everywhere inside the airlock. She couldn’t read it, but the gist of it seemed to dawn on her, considering there were narrow seats built into the walls with little handrails and seatbelts. There appeared to be lockers with foreign equipment stored inside them, some of them left open and others shut.

“This definitely isn’t Erassian.” Teri muttered after he opened up one of the lockers. A spacesuit was folded into a rectangle inside of it. The helmet above it was of a strange design. It was almost completely round with a glass faceplate that wouldn’t have fit a muzzle. It was too short. Even an Erassian would have to smash their noses up against the glass to fit inside it, and they were notoriously short-muzzled creatures.

“What’s that?” Their Captain voice came over the radio.

“I said it wasn’t Erassian, Sir.” Teri spoke up.

“Alien, you think?” Athy looked over at him. Athy caught his eyes through the glass of his own helmet, and he looked excited! She was anxious but seeing him smile was making the excitement infectious.

“I think we’re going to retire early, Athy.” He grinned.

“Don’t get your hopes up. What else is there?” Their Captain ruined the moment.

They pushed ahead, Teri relaying verbally what they we seeing, describing the airlock in as much detail as he could while Athy moved to the opposite end of the airlock where there was another hatch.

This side was much easier to open, too.

Even with the ship being out of power, and despite that fact they had to force their way through the outer door with a plasma cutter, the interior door of the airlock was just a simple locking mechanism, some kind of handle in the shape of a wheel. Neither of them could read any of the language printed on the metal, but a wheel was a wheel, so Athy grabbed it and began to turn it to the right.

It didn’t go very far, so she started twisting it to the left and that was the trick. Both of them heard the bolt slide. For an airlock this seemed like a very crude method of sealing a ship, but it did have a gaping hole punched through it with no power supply. Maybe this was a failsafe to make sure crew could go in and out during an emergency?

The hatch popped open with the smallest of hisses, venting what little atmosphere was on the other side out into space. Athy gave it a tug, but it was no good. She swapped places with Teri and he had to plant his boot to the wall again, heaving the hatch open enough for Athy to shine her light through the opening. Beyond the airlock was barren gray hallway. Tiny amounts of debris floated in the air, but it didn’t look like anything important. Trash debris.

Teri touched his radio, describing to the Captain what they were seeing. His description all but confirmed that what they’d found was alien in origin. In the background noise of the radio, the ship’s doctor, Creet, could be heard stressing caution, but the Captain was eager for them to get inside and take some video footage.

They needed to send as much proof to the Union as they could. The more they sent, the faster they’d send a ship out to verify it.

Teri couldn’t hide the excitement in his voice, and honestly she was, too! This was a once in a lifetime opportunity! They were going to go down in history as being the second crew of Rankalans to ever discover alien life, and they’d actually get to survive! The first sentient life Rankalans met in space had been the Erassi, and then they were all promptly blown up, triggering the start of a very long and bloody war that had only just recently grown cold.

The two of them pushed ahead, moving slowly through the hallway.

Teri pulled out his own flashlight, and together they scanned their surroundings until they both noticed that there must be a power source still active in the ship. Their flashlights were reflecting light off these small glass orbs mounted into the ceiling, like tiny camera lens. Athy clicked hers off, then pushed off the floor with her foot to float up to one of the orbs.

“It’s on!” She gasped, seeing that inside the black glass of the orb was a tiny red light.

“Are you sure?” Teri asked.

“Yeah! There’s a little light bulb in here, it’s red. Turn off your light.” She told him.

He clicked off his flashlight and now they were bathed in total darkness, except for what was inside their helmets. She looked down the hallway and saw the tiniest evidence of more little red lights mounted into the ceiling.

“Think they’re cameras?” Teri asked, clicking his light back on.

“Probably, but I don’t think the security guard is still around to watch us though.” She pointed out.

“Ter** *an y** *pea* **at?” Teri’s radio was starting to have static.

“Captain, that was mostly static, copy?” Teri thumbed the radio.

“Dam**t, interf****ce. C** ***k and g* * *ignal boo****.” The Captain tried to tell them through the static.

“We can barely read you.” He replied, Athy clicking her own flashlight back on.

“I think he wants us to get a signal booster.” She told him, and Teri nodded while waiting for a reply.

“We should head back. Grab a booster and mount it in the airlock like he says.” Athy suggested.

Teri agreed, telling her that that’d be a good idea. If something happened to either of them, they wouldn’t be able to radio back to their ship for help.

“Captain, if you can hear us, we are returning to the ship to get a signal booster.” Teri told the radio, not knowing how much of his message went through. They could try again once they were back at the airlock, they hadn’t gone too far into the ship yet.

Teri began to move first, but Athy gave the hallway one more pass with her light. The emptiness of the ship was eerie, but apart from the little red eyes in the ceiling there wasn’t much to see. Her excitement to explore had been dashed by their need to go back for more equipment.

“Athy.” Teri whispered to her.

She turned back around and found Teri was waiting on her. She touched off the floor and floated to him, but he grabbed her by the arm as soon as she was beside him. He stopped her from going any further, and she turned to him confused. His helmet was set ahead, staring forward.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

He hastily shook his flashlight up and down, the ray of light aimed at something in front of them. She turned, looked.

A small glossy black disc was now sitting in the middle of the hallway in front of them. It was about a foot wide and half that tall in its center and set right in the middle of it was a fist sized glass orb with a red light in the middle, like the ones in the ceiling but bigger. Athy’s heart was suddenly racing, and Teri tugged her by the arm to draw her backwards.

“Let’s go back.” She told him.

“Where to? It’s in our way!” He hissed back in a whisper.

The disc had somehow appeared behind them, and now blocked the only way back to the airlock.

“Captain? Captain!” Teri tried his radio.

Static was all that returned, not even a scrap of a word!

The black disc began to move towards them, a low buzzing sound echoing through the hall as the small machine slid across the floor. Teri grabbed her and hauled her backwards, yanking her roughly down the hallway and away from the little machine.

“Teri! Where do we go!” She shouted at him with panic.

“I don’t know!” He replied, his voice shaking.

The buzzing got louder, and they both stepped backwards into a junction. With her flashlight she threw light down one of the other hallways, and a second small black disc was there, sliding across the floor in their direction.

“I don’t know what to do!” Teri shouted, and she grabbed him by his arm, the pair clutching at each other as they each spun their flashlights around and checked every corridor that led away from the junction.

Athy spotted a third disc, and she cried out in fear, then felt Teri yank her again. He dragged her down the last hallway, their flashlights dancing across the metal surfaces as he quickly pulled her away from the frightening devices, the red eyes in the ceiling following them everywhere they went. Athy reached out her hand and grabbed the radio box on Teri’s shoulder.

“Captain, please!” She screamed.

There was no reply.

“Let’s just keep going, Athy!” Teri kept his hand on her arm, his grip tight with fear, as they came to a stop at a sealed door.

Teri started groping at it, searching for a wheel or a handle, anything. She joined him, clawing her fingertips at the smooth metal, searching for any kind of seam that might have revealed a panel, anything!

“Captain! This ship has these things inside it! Captain!” Teri shouted into the radio.

Athy was crying now, turning her back to the door and shining her light back down the hallway. It felt to her like all those little lights in the ceiling were staring at her, and below them in the distance was a single black disc with its own red eyes watching them as it slowly slid across the floor.

“Teri!” She screamed, her tears flowing hot down her cheek.

“Captain Troyler!” Teri shouted at the radio.

There was a loud thump, it echoed through the entire ship like someone had beat a large metal drum with an even bigger hammer. Another thump and the entire ship began to shudder.

“What’s happening!” She cried, and Teri spun around and put his back to the door.

“Ok, Athy, we need to stay calm! H-hand me the cutter.” He told her, and she fumbled with her belt until she finally unhooked the plasma cutter and shoved it at him. She saw his face through the glass of his helmet, and he looked as frightened as she did.

“Captain? Can you hear us, please!” He tried the radio again, his voice pleading, but there was no reply forthcoming.

Suddenly, something collided with the hull of the ship, shaking them both off their feet, leaving them spinning in the hallway until they both landed against the wall with a harsh clap. Athy’s ears were ringing, and she felt a sharp pain shoot up her arm.

She screamed.

Teri groped to find her through the darkness, both of their flashlights drifting, spinning wildly in the air and throwing light in every direction. Spinning, spinning, Athy felt Teri grab her, making her scream as the pain in her arm shot up to her shoulder again.

Little red lights staring at them from down the corridor, the buzzing sound of a small black disc growing louder as it approached.

There was another loud thump, but it didn’t stop. It kept happening, a deep bellowing echo that shook the ship so violently that they both collided with the ceiling, Athy screaming in pain again right before her faceplate smacked against the metal wall. She heard it crack.

A large white star was now spreading out across the glass in front of her nose, and she started screaming with terror as the cracks overtook most of her vision.

“Teri!” She cried his name and felt him grab her.

The thumping wasn’t stopping, the ship shook again, but they were now floating in the middle of the corridor where the violence couldn’t reach them.

“Calm down, Athy! Calm down, it’s going to be ok!” He pulled her into a hug, kicking his legs in the air like he was trying to swim them to the sealed door.

Their flashlights were still spinning, her plasma cutter lost now to the darkness.

“Captain! We’ve got an emergency! Captain! Wendle, anybody!” Teri was shouting at the radio, his voice wild with panic.

The door behind them opened, the spinning light of their flashlights showing the metal spin in a circle before sliding out of sight. Teri let go of her, groping at the open doorway to stop himself from spinning, and then grabbed her by her injured arm.

She screamed, but he pulled her to him, dragging them both through the open doorway as she wept from behind the spiderwebs etched across her faceplate.

There was then another collision with the hull, like something was trying to break it apart from the outside. The entire ship lurched violently, slamming Athy against the ceiling. She could feel her left arm hanging broken at her side. The door they just passed through slid shut, and in doing so bathed them both in darkness, as their flashlights were now on the other side of the door.

“Athy! Athy!” Teri was calling for her from somewhere in the room.

There was an audible pop as the cracks in the glass finally gave, and she felt the air leave her lungs as oxygen vented out from the hole in her faceplate.

Athy died in darkness, while a little red eye watched.

---

Captain Kylene woke up in a strange place. She was supposed to have been in a stasis pod, but it looked like she was presently strapped into a medical pod. Not only that but those pods all had clear glass covers and it looked to her like the outside of her pod was iced over thick. There were only two of these types of pods on board her ship, the FSS Trajan, and both of them were in the medical bay. So why was she in the medbay?

She made an effort to move, but her limbs and torso were all strapped down securely, even her head. There was a brace fixed around her neck that kept her from doing much more than wiggle, and her arms and legs were presently bound tight by security straps, which were usually only used for combatant patients or cadavers.

“Good afternoon, Captain Kylene.” BOA, the ship’s AI, greeted her with its cold monotone, but from where she couldn’t tell.

“BOA, why am I in the medbay? What’s happened?” She asked it.

“Captain, during your scheduled shift in the stasis pods the FSS Trajan was struck mid-warp by an unknown object, presumably an asteroid. We sustained catastrophic damage and fell from warp in an unknown quadrant of space. Under Federal Protocol I maintained stasis on all non-essential crew and only woke those with the relevant skills needed to stabilize the ship’s condition.” BOA replied calmly.

Kylene was very suddenly not calm!

“BOA! Get me out of this pod! I want a status on my crew!” She shouted, jerking her body at her restraints but failing to do anything more than make her arms and legs sting from where the straps dug into her flesh.

“I’m sorry, Captain, but I cannot open the pod without killing you. You are no longer inside the FSS Trajan.” BOA replied, and Kylene sucked in a breath and forced herself to count backwards slowly from ten to calm herself. She was going to need her meds for this. Her heart was too old to put up with this shit.

This was a non-combat exploration mission with zero chance for anything to go FUBAR, so how the flying fuck does something hit them while they’re in warp!

“Give me a status report, please.” She asked the AI, trying to calm herself and her heart rate down.

BOA was a highly advanced artificial intelligence that was only used within certain makes of Federal warships. It was a ‘military’ grade AI. Civilian AI were legally required to be several orders of magnitude dumber than BOA.

“After the Trajan was knocked from warp, I instructed select members of the surviving crew to begin emergency repairs. The asteroid made contact between the stern and starboard sides. The ship’s engines were irreparably damaged as a result, but the reactor was unharmed.” Kylene continued to count numbers to calm herself as she listened. BOA had mentioned, “surviving crew”. She had 54 people on her ship when they’d left Ganymede! How many did she have now? And why wasn’t she “inside the Trajan”?

“Chief Engineer Daniels was able to secure the Trajan, but without the engines we were stranded. I failed to estimate an exact location for the Trajan with our star charts. When we fell out of warp, I can only surmise that we were propelled dramatically off our intended course.” BOA said.

“Casualties, BOA.” She commanded.

“You are the only survivor, Captain.” And she felt herself grow still with shock.

“What? How?” She asked. Her fists were clenching so hard she felt her fingernails bite into her palms, the straps holding her arms down biting hard into her skin.

“After the repairs were made, I instructed all crew to return to stasis. I cut all non-essential systems and routed everything to life support for all functioning stasis pods. I compiled a data packet containing our situation and best-known location and loaded it into all available cloaked beacons. I launched them all in a staggered array to optimize the chances that one of them would reach friendly space so the FSA could detect their signal.” BOA explained, and Kylene was still struggling to accept that she was somehow the only survivor.

“You and the remaining crew were then kept in stasis for 5 years, 7 months, and 13 days. Several stasis pods suffered malfunctions from the initial damage and those crew members perished. I was able to maintain the rest of the crew’s life signs until first contact was made with a pair of unknown vessels.”

“First contact?” She asked, heart racing and still in shock.

“Two vessels of unknown origin approached the Trajan. The first arrived and was non hostile. Two humanoids forced entry through airlock A5 and explored our interior while the second vessel approached. I was able to determine that the first vessel was likely a trade vessel, but the second vessel was using primitive stealth technology. The second vessel fired on the first and destroyed it with kinetic weaponry.”

“Jesus, fuck me.” Kylene exhaled hard and started to feel her body get the shakes. “You’re lying to me, BOA. This is all a fucking joke!”

“No, Captain. I cannot lie to you.” BOA replied, and Kylene wanted to punch the glass, and she would have if she could move her damn arms!

“I know that! You just fucking told me my entire crew is dead! What happened to the Trajan? My crew!” She shouted.

Her voice, now that she had heard herself a few times, sounded funny. Being strapped tight in a medical pod, and having been silent for nearly 6 years, had messed with her voice. She was damn certain it’d messed with her head, too, because all of this couldn’t be happening!

“With the destruction of the first vessel I rerouted power and activated all combat systems before opening fire on the hostile vessel. Despite the damage from the asteroid collision I was able to operate the ship at 46% combat effectiveness. The hostile was destroyed after thirty minutes of engagement.” BOA said.

“Jesus Christ. Thirty minutes?” She asked, incredulous that anything could last that long against the Trajan.

“The enemy vessel was armored with hull plating that appeared resilient to direct laser fire, but their targeting systems struggled to maintain a lock on the Trajan. After exhausting their ammunition, they attempted a retreat. I was able to destroy it shortly after they were no longer capable of returning fire. The prolonged engagement drained much of the Trajan’s remaining power, and half of the surviving pods had gone offline or were compromised as a result. Seventeen pods, including yours, were all that I could safely maintain.”

“Per Federal Protocol, and per our Mission Directive, I had to ascertain the likelihood of rescue. I determined that it was not possible to save the Trajan if we were to be attacked again. I launched a standard distress beacon in a deactivated state with a timer set to 48 hours, including an update to our status. I cannot provide an ETA on when, or if, it will reach allied territory.”

“And my crew? Me?” She asked, her body sagging limp into the pod.

“Hull damage prevented me from prepping the launch of escape pods. I revived Chief Daniels and two other crew to attempt a repair. During their attempt several new ship signatures appeared on my sensors. I was forced to scuttle the ship to prevent its capture by hostile forces. Chief Daniels, Ensign Walters, and Yeoman Carlisle chose to reenter their stasis pods to go down with the ship alongside the remaining crew.”

To scuttle the ship meant to overload the reactor and blow up the whole thing. The Trajan was a new model of warship. They were entering a new age of combat with an improved ‘stealth battleship’. So, of course, protocol had BOA nuke it to keep anyone from getting their hands on it!

“So why am I alive?” Kylene asked. She was alive in a medical pod, and she wasn’t inside the Trajan. “Did you detonate the Trajan?”

“3 days ago, the FSS Trajan self-destructed taking all crew, included her Captain, with her.” BOA answered her coldly.

Kylene was honestly too numb from everything she’d been told to immediately question what the AI had just told her. It took a few moments for it to click.

“I’m alive, BOA.” She replied.

“Yes, Captain, you are alive, but you are not as you were. Protocol dictated that in the event that we lose the ship, that I prioritize Core Crew, yourself being the most critical asset, and then all other crew if I am able. Since Chief Daniels and his team were unable to repair the escape pod’s launching mechanism, I had no conventional means of saving you or the remaining crew.” It began to explain.

“During the destruction of the first vessel I sealed both airlock A5 and the surrounding bulkheads, then proceeded to use Mini-Rovers to corral the two humanoids into a sealed room so that I could safely revive members of the crew. One of the humanoids died from exposure after their helmet was compromised.”

“Afterwards, the crew returned to their stasis pods, and I used a Mini-Rover to direct the surviving humanoid to bring the deceased to the medical bay.” BOA finished.

“Direct them how?” She asked. They were aliens, weren’t they? How could the AI tell an alien what to do.

“I spoke to them in what I approximated was their native language. We were within range of their communications as soon as we exited warp. I used the time the crew was kept in stasis to analyze their language and compile it into a translator for future use. May I continue, Captain?”

“Yes.” Her mouth was dry as bone.

“After I directed the humanoid to the medical bay, I instructed it to place the deceased into your medical pod. I determined that the initial cause of death was asphyxiation and exposure to the vacuum of space, while all other injuries sustained to the corpse were due to combat turbulence. I began administering medical treatment, which included setting and fixing a broken humerus, several minor lacerations on the torso and right thigh, and sealing minor cuts to the face. The deceased was revived after four attempts, and I determined that they were effectively brain dead with no possibility of recovery. I then began the installation procedure for an EBB.” BOA replied.

An EBB? An Executive Black Box was only issued by high-ranking officers to store everything that’s in their head to be recovered later if they were killed in action. Heavily encrypted and secure. It was a fine example of technology intended for one purpose being used for a completely unintended one. The civilian use EBB was mostly meant to help people live normally after suffering extreme brain damage. With a civilian EBB you could be missing half your brain and still be your normal self with the EBB filling in the gaps.

“BOA, why did you install an EBB in the alien?” She asked.

“Protocol demanded I preserve as many of the Core Crew as possible, so I installed a copy of your EBB, as well as a copy of my OS, into the deceased’s brain. Your original body and EBB were left on the Trajan when I triggered the self-destruct. Ethical constraints prevented me from installing an EBB into the second humanoid, as they were not brain dead. The hull over the medical bay was undamaged, and so after I completed the procedure, I sealed both pods and ejected them from the medical bay using the quarantine protocol.”

“BOA, let me move my arms.” Kylene demanded, the strange sound of her own voice was suddenly terrifying as her heart pounded in her chest.

“The pod will respond to your voice, Captain. I am not capable of speaking for you.” BOA replied.

“You’re speaking right now!” She shouted, her voice squeaking in a way she’d not heard since she was a teenager.

“I’m speaking to your internally, Captain. Say out loud ‘release safety constraints.” Kylene was in full panic now.

What had BOA done! There was no possible way this was real! No possible way!

“Pod, release the safety constraints now!” She shouted in a voice that had to be her own, it had to be!

The straps that had held her in place relaxed and popped loose. Both her hands were shaking wildly as she pulled them up in front of her face.

They were young, smooth, and youthful looking, not a single spider vein or liver spot to be seen. As she counted five fingers on both her hands, a painful knot grew in her throat as tears welled up in her eyes. Instead of seeing her own pale complexion, she saw tanned skin like coffee with creamer. She began to hyperventilate.

“Captain, please remain calm, the medical pod has a limited amount of oxygen available.” BOA told her.

She touched her face and found a wet nose at the end of a long smooth snout, and then she screamed, locked inside a small pod, adrift in space, and trapped in a body that was not her own.