FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 3 of my book Star Hopper (out of 17). Again, once all of the chapters are uploaded here it will be in hardcopy form on Lulu.com and you can buy it if you want. (around 7 or 8 usd) This book has taken my 2 years to write off and on and I've had to edit it myself so please don't pay much attention to the typos I missed. Hope you enjoy chapter 3!

The format is not what I would like it to be, in reality it has no spacing.

3

King Raidon sat at his morning breakfast ready to guzzle down the food that was given to him by his servants. He picked up his silverware and jabbed at whatever it was. He brought it to his mouth and was about to eat it but a lower captain barged into the dining room.

"Sir, we have a problem!"

The king looked up from his meal in annoyance,

"What could it possibly be now?"

"Sir, we received multiple escape pods from the dreadnaught, apparently they said that the entire bridge crew was killed and somebody locked to controls to fly directly into the sun. I hate to say it but we lost Black Son and Princess Colleen. I'm sorry."

The king dropped his silverware and was frozen in place

"Are you saying that one guy in a tiny ship somehow destroyed four battleships and a Dreadnaught!"

He nodded, "Yes sir."

Raidon stood up from his table and took his time walking to the general, "Why did you have to tell me this."

He stood up with as best posture he could and saluted, "Uh, drawing straws, Sir!" His voice quaked.

King Raidon padded his shoulder with his own paw, "Well, nice job. You are now in charge of brining my daughter back, and I expect it to happen!"

The general almost fainted "T...Thank you Sir!"

The king returned to his meal, "Oh, one more thing."

"Yes sir?"

"What's your name?"

"Captain Daysus, sir!"

He sighed, "Ok Capitan Daysus, get to it."

He saluted turned around and exited the room, the king went back to eating his meal. His queen then walked in and sat in the chair next to him.

"Guess what?"

His mouth was stuffed with food, "vhat?" She leaned in closer, "I went to our doctor this morning."

She snuggled against his muzzle, "Were going to have another kit."

The king smiled and kissed back his smile indicating his feelings, warm and full of happiness.

"Fantastic."

Captain Daysus eagerly walked among the halls to his hanger U-785 and to his ship, a Cruiser. Big enough for large guns but small enough for a crew of 100 or less, he dubbed it Apex. The large cabin door extended down from the bottom of the ship and he jogged on. Captain Daysus was known for being a little strict to all of his crew although some other captions looked down upon it because they think that you shouldn't be to controlling. Daysus paid no attention to the criticisms though his crew would follow him to the end of the universe if they had to, and they almost have a couple times. He opened the door to his bridge and casually walked in, his chair was ready for its captain, he walked to it and sat in the comfortable cloth.

"Ahhh, good to be back."

His first mate stepped up to the chair, stood at attention and saluted his captain.

"Sir, engines are warmed and ready, crew at launch positions we are ready to launch!"

Daysus leaned to one side of his chair and rested his head on his paw.

"Elidon you may take off when ready."

The first mate turned and spoke to the Helmsman,

"Takes us out!"

The person at the 'wheel' of the ship placed his paw on the throttle and slowly pushed it away from him, red indicators lit up with it as they lifted out and exited the hanger. Daysus shifted to the other side of the chair.

"Navigator, call up the station."

"Yes Sir!"

The navigator dialed in the frequency and put the transmission on the screen that was implanted into their captains chair arm.

"What do you need Apex?"

"I need the coordinates of the last transmission of Dreadnaught 1"

The man behind the screen typed on the computer, "I'm sorry captain but you don't have access to that information. Wait" He paused, the sound of typing came through the speakers. "Never mind you've just been cleared, sending them now."

The coordinates popped up on his screen,

"Thanks station."

He moved some things around on his screen and sent it to the Helmsman's computer. "Helmsman take us to these coordinates and then alert me when we get there."

His first mate nodded his head, "I will sir!"

"Good, Mr. Elidon you're in charge, I'll be in the back doing some research."

He lifted himself out of the captains chair and headed to the door to exit the bridge. He weaved though all the people who were quickly getting to their stations. Daysus flew through the hall and found himself in the back of the cruiser at a small insignificant door. He opened it and sat at the computer console and typed it "Black son." It rendered few results it also tried to correct his spelling to "dark sun." He clicked on the first link to the restricted file that he was now able to access with his newfound clearance, it brought him to a page that had top secret labeled at the top, he scrolled through it. It had information about Black son nobody had ever seen, for example his name, Ian Ashtin. He almost choked because he had actually known the Flagship Commander and his name was Commander Ashtin, he was the son of the Commander. He read further and found that he was half fox, with his mom being a fox and dad a wolf; he also found that the two were not actually mates, not even friends. In cultural references Ian was already unacceptable, anybody who wasn't purebred was looked down upon as unwanted and improper.

His father had actually gotten drunk at a bar right out of cadet school and found the fox in the bar and one thing lead to another, and about 4 months later, the gestation period of their species, Ian was born. Reading more of it he found that from the beginning Ian always stayed with his mother because his father was busily climbing through the ranks in the Navy and his mother was always kind to him. Every time his father came to visit he beat him almost trying to knock the fox out of him. The difference between the wolf and fox personality is great, a wolf is fiercer and battle hardened almost at birth while a fox is more feminine and smarter, to put it lightly wolves are brawn and foxes are brain. His guess was that Commander Ashtin wanted his son to be in the Navy whether half breed or not. It had a picture of Ian after one of the beatings, it was horrible.

His muzzle was all bloodied and one of his eyes was swollen shut and it looked like part of his right ear was bitten off. The file wrote if off as an accident saying that Ashtin didn't get in any trouble for it, basically, he was higher than the law.

"Later after a general education," Daysus read, "Ian's mother was killed." Apparently Ian's mother was killed by Commander Ashtin after trying to defend her son from an attack. Daysus almost felt sorry for the pirate, his life must have been really hard. He went on to read that Ian had stabbed Ashtin in the arm after the murder and ran off to a life of piracy. Ashtin never officially killed her; it was regarded as defense after she attacked Ashtin for attacking her son. Their system was messed up and he knew it.

He sat back and sighed, there were something's in this file that nobody knew. He didn't even think that the king had any idea about this.

The intercom buzzed with the voice of his first mate.

"Captain we've arrived at the coordinates, there are actually space docks here do you want to dock?"

"Yeah, go ahead. Reports said Black son was reported to be in a station when the battleships attacked. I'll be in the bridge in a second"

The comm ended and Daysus locked the computer then he moved back through the ships interior to the bridge, once there he saw the galaxy first hand. There was a huge sun that were orbited by two terrestrial planets, there was also an asteroid belt an some gas giants behind them. They were moving toward the closest planet's first station. The helmsman nimbly maneuvered Apex close to what the computer thought was the docking station for large ships and then he let computer finish the job. Arms reached out from the station and grabbed them, loud clunking echoed through the ship. When the Apex was firmly secured it the stations docking tube extended and connected itself with the ship. The helmsman turned in his chair,

"We are attached to the station, the computers read that the atmosphere is breathable."

"Thanks Dallas."

Captain Daysus went to the lock and armed himself with a plasma pistol that were stationed at every airlock. He unlocked the door, it hissed with the air pressure and continued through the tube, a team of others following him, they were handpicked by himself. When they reached the other end Daysus looked over his shoulder,

"We don't know what's behind this door but it could be anything. Be ready."

All of them primed their pistols and the captain unlocked the door. Stepping onto the station, the first thing he thought, "It's so clean!" along with everybody else in the team. The lights flickered on the length of the entire hall that they had entered. At the end of the long hallway he could see a large room what looked to be the size of a ballroom. He made hand signals to the faction behind him and slowly they moved towards it and once they made it the group found that it was completely barren except for an escape pod and strange writing on the wall. A wolf in the group ran up to the pod and examined it.

"Sir, this pod came from the Ragnorak, the flagship. That means the princess!"

The rest of the team followed the captain over and stared at the pod. It's door was blown out and laying on the floor a couple of feet away. Without needing an order one of the peoples got down to work on the on-board computer of the pod, but it yielded nothing.

"Captain, the memory has been tampered with, somebody erased it!"

Daysus paced "ok, fan out and search the immediate area, stay in groups of two we don't want any surprise attacks. I don't want you going any further then say four rooms out. Are we clear?"

All at once they saluted, "Yes Sir!" and they ran off to different halls and rooms leaving one to the captain. He sighed and chuckled to himself, "well they would give me the biggest one."

On his way through the hall though, he was perplexed there were no windows or doors, until he got to the end and there was one massive door. It didn't automatically open and he almost walked straight into it and scanned for a button. He found and pressed a red one that was to the left of the door. It opened. Inside was a completely dark room he couldn't see a thing. Daysus waved his arms out in mid-air trying to find some type of leaver, luckily he found one. A green hue overtook the room and he finally got to see it. The room was filled with computers and gadgets with a broken glass tank at the far left of the room, there was also a dress in a pile on a computer monitor.

"What is that?"

He investigated it by picking it up and holding it up by what he thought were the shoulders and his breath left his body. Dark splotches of thick red littered it but he could still recognize who it belonged too. Princess Colleen. Rage built up inside of the wolf.

He couldn't even think of anything to say, much less think.

Ian navigated his star hopper into the atmosphere of Aleendro, a deep cloud cover always covered the planet making dust rage all day and every day. He dropped under the clouds and let his computer scan the ground for the city he was looking for, after a minute of searching it made a lock and activated the autopilot on Ian's command.

"Bot, oversee the landing. I'll see if our princess is awake it has been a while."

He scooted behind the chair and entered the body of the ship, Colleen was sitting up on the edge of the bed rubbing her head

"Hey Colleen, were about to land so get ready." It surprised her a bit,

"What! Land? Land where?"

Ian turned to pack a cloth bag with several plasma cores and other small bits of useless equipment.

"I already told you, Aleendro."

The vixen slowly got up trying to keep her balance from such a long sleep and before she fully got on level ground Ian tossed her the bag making her fall back onto the bed.

"Carry this."

She gave pouty face and crossed her arms.

"Why can't you carry it?"

Ian chuckled, "Usually the lower ranking one has to carry the baggage, plus I'll carry the weapons."

"But what about me? I need a weapon!"

Ian loaded a plasma core into an empty flare gun, unbeknownst to her, and tossed it at her, "I trust you know how to use it, because you actually might have to. This place is pretty dangerous, it's more like a tavern except around the whole planet and for foxes it's hard. Luckily, I've been around here multiple times so just follow me and it'll be fine."

Ian let the hydraulic ramp down and motioned for Colleen to follow. She mumbled to herself and picked up the bag. Then she followed Ian down the ramp onto the planet. As soon as she stepped of the ship and into the city she knew it was a pirate's hangout. It was a rundown city with building's that seemed like they were going to fall apart if the slightest wind hit them. The people who walked along the streets were ruffed up and had baggy clothes, it in fact reminded her of the stories she used to hear about the pirates world and other things like that. This city was basically right out of one of those stories. As they walked through people began to take notice of Colleen, she moved up closer behind Ian,

"People are looking at me weirdly, why?"

"This place is sin city, hookers are at every corner. It doesn't take much to put two and two together. Just keep close to me."

She clasped the foxes arm and held him close to her.

"That's not exactly what I meant!"

The two walked very close together with Bot on Ian's shoulder. Colleen tried to be as observant as possible, but it made her feel even more uncomfortable because she noticed more people looking at her.

"Ian, where are we going?"

He looked over his shoulder, "Just around the corner, I need to go sell those cores that you have in that bag."

She eyed inside the bag and saw that if was filled with small cores that would go into pistols and rifles, even personal computers. There was also some other parts and junk. Both of them walked around the corner building and entered the one next to it, the sign above the door was too smudged to read.

The door brought them to a dimly lit room, almost as clichéd as the world around it. The predictable shady clerk sat behind the single desk who was smiling a very toothy smile.

"Black Son, welcome back and oh, you've brought a friend! May I be the first to welcome her to Aleendro. Anyway, what do you have for me this time, plasma I bet!"

Ian motioned for Colleen to give him the bag, he dumped the contents on the counter.

"Mostly, but I also have some spare parts, I need to clean my ship."

Immediately the clerk started sifting through the pile of junk.

"To make room for the lady?" Colleen backed up in disgust, "No!"

Again he made a creepy smile, "I joke, I joke."

After several more seconds of searching the clerk placed both paws on the table,

"I'm sorry, I can take them but not at the normal rate. You see, some of these are partly used and it costs me money to charge them so I can only offer you four hundred and fifty credits."

"That's fine, it'll last for a while."

He reached under the counter to grab his money. In his paw were several crumpled bills. He dropped them on the counter in front of him. Ian took each one, straightened and folded them. Then he placed them in his pocket.

"Thanks for doing business."

He slid the stuff off the counter into a net type bag and headed into the back room to start charging them, as he did so Ian and Colleen exited the shop.

"Colleen, you hungry?"

She placed her paw on her stomach and nodded her head,

"Yeah, it's been bothering me ever since I've woken up, but where could we possibly eat in a rat hole like this?"

Ian smiled, "As I told you before, I've been here before. It's almost like a hideout for me and it's out of the jurisdiction of the supremacy and actually there are a bunch of bars and taverns that have adequate food."

The pause between "have" and "adequate" worried Colleen more than the word, "I hope so."

As both the foxes walked, Colleen began to feel a bit more comfortable, it seemed that Ian had been here multiple times and was actually pretty well respected. She let her guard down. Suddenly Ian's ear twitched and he stopped in his tracks.

"Ian, what is it? What's going on?"

He pushed Colleen away and told her to stay back. Just as she hit the ground a mysterious person jumped down from one of the rooftops and confronted Ian, he was fully clad in a cloak that covered all the way down to his feet, a hood on top made only the tip of his muzzle visible. But inside both could see two evil looking golden eyes staring them down. Ian spoke first.

"What do you want?"

Only silence came from the cloak and after a couple seconds of that the fur took a stance, Colleen watched in wonder. He flicked his wrist and a dagger popped out, he grasped the hilt and dashed at Ian with it, Ian quickly dodged the attack and flipped around expecting a rebound. But there wasn't one, he turned around to see him holding Colleen in front of him, knife at her neck.

"Find me."

Then he ran off with the princess leaving Ian and Bot in the dust, he watched closely as the ghost left. As he was running the hood that covered the face of the captor flipped open revealing a dark furred wolf with a scar running the length of his face, from the forehead down to the neck. He couldn't see much but a dark smile with wicked teeth. Colleen muffled something under the captors paw but was ultimately unheard. Ian raced after the wolf with pistol drawn and started gaining on the wolf. Ian took a stance and aimed down his sights; he aimed for the wolf's feet and squeezed the trigger. The bolt flew through the air and almost hit him but right as it reached him the wolf made a sharp right into a building. Ian followed the building flowed into dozens of passageways, he could not track the wolf. Colleen was gone. He stood there in complete frozen state, and Colleen had only been with him for a day.