FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

This is my first story, so I very much welcome help and assistance. This is only the first part, but there will be more to come. Not much to put a disclaimer on, just some launguage.

Departure and Arrival

"Yet another long day in the life of me" was all Bane could think as the wolf wondered though the dark interior of the starship he was assigned to. He had joined the Terrain Space Command as soon as he was considered old enough to be on his own. He had never regretted it, but he did sometimes find himself board. Bane was the chief tactical officer of the Terrain flagship Titan. It was a new ship designed for peaceful exploration. Meaning it was only lightly armed, although its antimatter cannons could deliver quite a punch if necessary. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to do on peaceful exploration trips, as his only job was to operate the weapons systems during battle. After the last intergalactic war, peace was spread throughout the known universe. A terrain alliance had been formed between the Wolves, Fox, and Humans to ensure that the death and destruction brought by this war was never again seen, although the exact details of how this agreement came to be was somewhat of a mystery. Bane didn't want another war, but he would appreciate something to shoot at once and a while. There was not an exact destination of this particular walk, and he wasn't in any hurry as his shift on the bridge had just ended. As the lone wolf neared the cafeteria, the sound of his name snapped him out of the many thoughts running though his head.

"Hay Bane, you wanna join me for some late night food?"

Bane turned to see who belonged to the voice as Ron ran upto him. It was Ron a friend of his who was a Fox. Although most individuals belonging to the Fox species were thin, he was actually quite muscular. He always liked Ron's company. He and Ron had gone through space camp together, which had practically made them brothers. Ron, unlike Bane, worked in the engineering department of the Titan. Although there was nothing but routine maintance going on at the moment, Ron was the team leader of one of the Titans many Catastrophic Event teams, though they were called CETs for short. It was his job to deal with emergencies during battle, such as a crucial power junction being severed. It was the job of the CETs to keep the ship running under extreme conditions.

"Sure, why not. I just got off of my shift and was hungry anyway" Bane replied as he felt his stomach inform him of the lack of food it had received that day.

As the two walked through the door of the cafeteria, they saw another mutual friend named Scott sitting alone at a back table by one of the large rooms many windows. Bane and Ron went upto the order counter, grabbed a sandwich and bottle of water each, and then headed to Scotts table. Scott was a human CET leader; in fact, his team was one of the top rated teams in the entire fleet. Although humans had played a pivotal role in the Terrain alliance, finding them on exploration ships was rare. In fact, of a thousand crewmembers he was one of only twelve humans on board the Titan. The reason being that the population number of the human race was somewhat low compared to Fox and Wolf species. The crew was primarily made up of Fox and Wolves. Both of these species had evolved in separate parts of the universe and were hated enemies before the war.

"Mind if we join you Scott?"

"Bane, Ron, please have a seat. I was actually wondering when you two would show up."

As they sat and ate together, Scott had gotten his food when he entered five minutes earlier, Ron and Scott discussed various technical aspects of the ships systems and the many tests that had been ran on them that day. Bane attempted to keep up with the conversation, but his specialty was destroying those systems on other ships, not fixing them on his ship. Although Bane did in fact know a great deal about the ships internal workings, mostly from Scott and Ron's discussions, he still got left behind more times than not. Then the discussion shifted to the current mission at hand. The Titan had been dispatched to examine an anomaly in space. It appeared to be a black hole, but had none of the usual characteristics of a black hole. A science vessel had been dispatched a month earlier to examine it. The last transmission received by space command was a weak distress call from the ship. The Titans mission was to find and attempt a rescue of the ship and its crew as well as to complete scans of the area. Bane had seen all relevant data on the mission, as he was a senior officer aboard the ship. Ron and Scott, however, had not and only knew very general details as the Capitan did not want it known that the science vessel was thought to be destroyed. It was not that unusual for information to be controlled on a starship. It was the job of the crew to keep it operational, not to be aware of what it was doing.

"So, Bane...are there any juicy details about this mission that is not general knowledge?"

This pointed question snapped Bane out of the blank stare he had fallen into.

"Scott, you know I cannot discuss classified information with you."

"Pleaseeeeeeeeeeee" Ron said as he put on his best innocent look.

Damn that fox, he knows I cannot resist that look thought Bane as he opened his maw to tell them some more generic facts about the mission. Just as Bane was about to talk, the captains voice came over the ships intercom.

"Attention crew, please give me your attention for a moment." There was a brief pause and then he continued. "As you all know, fleet command has dispatched us to investigate an abnormality in space. What you are not aware of is that there was another wolf ship dispatched a month ago to investigate this same abnormality. That ship was not equipped with slipstream drive and arrived at the location approximately four days ago. Three hours after confirmation of arrival, fleet command received a distress call from the ship. That ship has not been heard from since that time. We are to assess the condition of that ship and attempt a rescue if possible. However, regardless of the condition of the ship and crew we are to complete the examination of this abnormality."

Bane could tell that this sent chills down his friends. Ron and Scott didn't like being sent into a situation that had possibly already claimed one ship. Although Bane couldn't blame them. He wasn't exactly thrilled at the thought of running in without more information, which had to be gathered at the source which was where they came in.

"I won't lie to you, the captain continued; we are going into an unknown and potentially hostile situation. At this time I am going to yellow alert and I want everyone on standby. We will be arriving at the location in fifteen minutes."

A little over ten minutes later the trio felt the ship shutter as it exited slip stream and the sub-light's kicked in. Suddenly the windows were filled with something none of them could believe. The disturbance, whatever the hell it was, larger than anything any of them had seen before. It resembled the surface of a pond. The event horizon was silver with ripples flowing from the center outward. Suddenly the Titan shook violently followed by a temporary ship wide power outage. Bane suddenly became aware that his friends tablets were beeping and flashing red. Scott and Ron simply stared at them in disbelief. They then sprang into action and the three discussed the situation as they ran out of the room and towards one of the ships many turbolifts.

"What's happening" Bane asked

"Whatever the hell that thing is, its sending out gravitational waves. The waves contain some sort of exotic particles that I've never seen before. These particles are building up in the ships crystal reactor. If it continues the crystals will explode," Reported Scott.

Bane tapped the communicator that was attached to the jacket of his uniform only to find it wasn't operational.

Scott then reported, "communication is down as is all turbo lifts."

They came to a halt, Bane was about to groan about having to climb a latter to the bridge when suddenly the ships internal alarms went off and the ships main computer blared out an evacuation order. Bane knew things were bad, but Scotts face confirmed his suspicions. Just as Scott opened his mouth to say something the ship was rocked by yet another violent shockwave.

Ron consulted his tablet then said "guys if we head toward the shuttle bay now we can make it off this ship."

Bane didn't like the idea of running when his shipmates were in danger, but Ron continued despite his objections.

"Our shields are about to fail and the core is minutes from going critical. Once the shields fail the core will be flooded by these particles. The small amount has almost pushed it critical, flooding it will cause an overload. If we go to our stations we will only die at them. In order to stop this we need to escape the gravity waves, but the slipstream was knocked offline by that last wave and we'll never get far enough on sub lights to make any difference. "

Bane still didn't like the idea of leaving while his shipmates were still trying to save the doomed ship, but he liked the idea of blowing up even less and agreed with the plan. Internal sensors and communication were down so they could easily make it to the shuttle bay without much trouble. Assuming the ships Jeffery tubes hadn't been crushed by the many internal explosions currently rocking the ship as a result of the power grid becoming unstable. As they were making their trek to their source of salvation Scott and Ron were discussing the current situation.

Bane: "why can't we just eject the crystal core?"

Scott: "Because this is an exploration ship, it was not designed for heavy combat. As a result a core ejection system was not built into the design because this is the first time we have ever had a crystal power core go critical."

At this point Ron and Scott started talking in techno speak, meaning they lost Bane in the conversation. After finally reaching the shuttle bay, Ron announced that the core was five minutes from going critical. The bay had only one shuttle left as the occupants of the deck had already taken the others. It was only a short range shuttle, but it would have to do. They climbed inside and Bane took the pilots seat as he was the only one with any flight training. Ron took the copilots station and Scott sat at the engineer's station. Not asking for authorization, Bane used his codes to open the space doors and began undocking procedures.

"I hate to rush this, Scott said, but if we want to make minimum safe distance we need to leave now. The shields just failed and the core is seconds from going critical."

As Bane overrode the safety protocol he pushed the ships small engines to maximum thrust and exited the ship facing the anomaly, but what they saw sent shivers down their spines. The ship itself was under great stress from the almost constant gravity wave that was now flowing from the anomaly. The hull had begun cracking in several places due to the shockwaves direct contact with the now exposed hull. Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light as the ships fusion reactor went critical. This was a backup power system that the Titan had been equipped with. It was far less powerful than the crystal reactor, and was intended to run the ships critical systems if there was a problem with the primary reactor. Obviously they crew had been attempting to shut down the crystal reactor and overloaded the secondary reactor in the process. The resulting explosion ripped though the underside of the Titan exposing most of the engineering deck directly to space. The shockwave, and the resulting EMP blast, sent the shuttle close to the event horizon. The EMP blast sent a fury of sparks and small explosions though the small craft. It took the primary reactor offline and rendered the navigation system powerless. Bane struggled to gain control of the now almost powerless shuttle. Ron was attempting to reroute the available power from the ships small internal backup reactor to the shields in preparation for the blast that they knew was coming. Scott was trying to get the ships primary generator back online as it had been shut down by the EMP blast. Suddenly there was a flash of light that completely blinded Bane as the crystal power core of the Titan blew. Bane braced himself for the shockwave that was quickly approaching the small shuttle. As it made contact with the shields of the tiny craft, it was pushed into the surface of the anomaly. Bane still hadn't regained his sight, but he could hear Ron and Scott talking to each other trying to save the craft. Then, everything went from bright white to dark as he and the others lost consciousness. The small craft shook as though it was about to come apart. The last words Bane heard was Scott saying "OH MY...."

To Be Continued...