Lost And Found

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

07/15/98:

"This is a beautiful world," Oria said as she looked over
the large grass plane that covered all the land in sight.
The grass was a soft green and came up about knee high.

Naomi was a few feet away, wadding through the grass, moving
slowly, still unsure of her footing. Each step though seemed
to bring her some new confidence.

Sora was a few feet to the side Oria and I, and she had a
worried look on her face. Behind us was my ship _The
Falcon_, we had used to to come down to the surface from my
other ship _The Golden Phoenix_ which was twenty-seven
thousand feet above us. A geosyncronous orbit for this
world.

"I think it looks familiar," Sora commented, crossing her
arms against her chest and flexing her wings. She was right
too, she and I had both been here before.

At the start of last year I had come to a different part of
this world to try and workout my life. This was after I had
lost Earth and Oriana left when she found that I didn't love
her. I had taken her gift though at this point, and was, at
the time, a fox morph.

Sora and another of her race had been on some kind of survey
of this system for there boss, who actually owned the
system. Something went wrong and there ship crashed landed
into the ocean. Sora got away but her companion was killed.

A few days later, her rescue had arrived, and I found out
the fold I had used to come to this world was a long term
intermittent. It had shut down for two years. So I got a
lift back to her world as well, and got a chance to meet her
boss.

I've only been explained the least of the details of what
happened, but he apparently felt Sora was hiding the truth
of what happened from him. To persuade her to tell him he
called in her Clan's debts to his. She was unable to pay, so
by law her Clan was to become a slave to his to work of the
debt. She was the only member of her clan and the debt was
three hundred years old, so she returned to Prid with me.

One thing though that I never told her much about. I did
return to talk to her boss, she knows that, but not what
happened. He threatened me, and I threatened him right back.
You see, in Sora's world a demon is someone who is wingless.
So at the time I was a perfect demon for him, my fur being
red and not gray only added to the effect.

It was time to start making good on my promise to him and my
later promise to Sora to find a way to get her back home.

"So, Fox," Oria said, "What are the plans for today?"

"You and Naomi set up camp, Sora and I have some things to
take care of."

Sora frowned at me.

Oria nodded, kissing my cheek before she went back into the
_Falcon_ for some of the supplies.

Sora walked over to me, her red eyes seeming to burn. "What
are you talking about Fox?"

I smiled. "It's time we start trying to find out what
happened."

She shook her head, some of the details not falling into
place. "Where are we Fox? I know this place, but I can't
seem to remember why."

"Back were we started from." I answered.

Her ears twitched as she thought that over, the small studs
at the base of each one catching the light as they moved.

I patted her on the shoulder. "You'll see soon enough." I
said as Oria came back out of the ship. Over one arm was
slung the tents and sleeping bags for everyone. The other
carried are supplies of food for the next three or four
days.

"That it?" I asked her.

She nodded. "That's all we brought, even a surprise for
you." She said it with a sly smile.

I nodded. "All right, I hate to drop the two of you off like
this and then rush away but I want to get the work part of
this trip done as soon as I can."

Then I turned to Sora. "Go on inside, I'll be right there."

She nodded, still trying to place this world as she walked
up the ramp and inside the ship.

"I'll be back soon." I said, turing to face Oriana.

"I know," she said, wrapping her arms over my shoulders.
"Still, please be careful," she continued, then kissed me
with some force. I kissed her back just as strongly, holding
her close, my arms under hers, wrapping over her back.

She smiled as we broke the kiss. "I need some kind of
nickname for you," she said, her tail swishing through the
grass behind her.

I taped her nose. "I trust you to come up with one."

"Only if you do," she answered back with a smirk.

I shook my head as I smiled. "I can do that. I'll see you
soon."

She nodded, walking away from the ship as I climbed up the
boarding ramp. Once inside I keyed for the ramp to be raised
as the airlock to close. Sora was waiting for me just
inside.

"So, what exactly are we going to be doing?" She asked as I
stepped past her in the small hallway, walking towards the
cockpits.

"We're going to investigate what happened." I answered her
as I slipped into the upper cockpit, the one for the pilot.
This was mainly Milgrove's job, but I could fly it if I had
to. My real job was in the lower cockpit, I was the gunner.
_The Falcon_ was a lot more then just a shuttle ship.

I strapped myself into the seat, Sora rolled her eyes and
sat down at the secondary controls just behind me. "That
doesn't make any sense," she said.

With a smile I triggered the lift systems. "Very simple,
when I had this ship built I had it made to do something
more then just attack things."

"Oh?" She asked as the ship lurched upwards.

I nodded. "Yes, the ship is equipped with a pair of large
ballast tanks with internal gravity systems."

I heard her shift behind me, adjusting the seat for her
wings. "Wait," she said, "ballast tanks are used for
submersibles, not space ships."

"Exactly why this ship is of the 'Red October' class." I
answered, adjusting a few controls and moving us forward at
just under the local speed of sound.

"I don't understand," She said.

"The 'Red October' is the name of a fictional submersible."
I answered slowly dialing up the speed as we moved out over
the ocean. "This ship has been built directly for the
reasons of being submerged."

She didn't say anything for a few seconds, then started to
give off a low hum. "I see, this is the world I crashed on.
We're going after the ship?"

I nodded in answer to her question. "Yes, your former
boss--"

"Graven," she interrupted, "of the Kadrin clan."

"Right, well he was so hell bent on finding out what you
didn't tell him I want to see if we kind find out if you
missed something."

She let out a snort. "Fox--" she started.

I lifted an hand. "No, hear me out right now. This system is
only a few light years from your home."

"Seven point five," she answered, "it's our closet
neighbor."

I nodded. "Right, a five day trip with your hyperdrive
systems. It should have been colonized."

"Yes, but Graven stopped it by his ownership of this
system." She answered.

"How many exploitation ships have been sent here?"

She paused. "Two, the first one was thirty years before
mine. That is odd in itself, there should have been at least
one more."

I nodded. "So, what was new about your ship, or improved on
from the other ships?"

"Easy, we could recorded more then anyone else. That's why
Tranisken and I was sent here to begin with. Once we entered
the system we keep a running record from a series of cameras
that were a part of a hull. The whole electromagnetic
spectrum was covered." She seemed proud of it as she
answered.

"Your design?" I asked as I started to slow the ship down.

"My idea, Tranisken's design. We were one hell of a team he
and I. He ran the ship though the mission and I took care of
the science."

That would explain why she and Jadith worked together while
Jadith was being trained. Though I never knew she was that
intelligent. Don't get me wrong, I always knew she was
smart, but never how much.

I paused for a second as I considered my next question. "I
never asked this, but was he your husband?"

"We were bonded," she answered, her voice falling, "and to
be married once we returned home."

I nodded slowly as the ship came to a complete stop,
hovering over the water. I knew how it felt to lose someone
you loved. Though with Becky I didn't realize I loved her
until she had been killed.

Sora was suddenly leaning over my shoulder. "Is this it?"
She asked.

"Yes," I said, opening a small side panel and pressing three
of the buttons under it. This changed some of the ships
power systems. Increasing the strength of the hall, powering
up the pumps for the tanks, closing the main engines and
opening smaller secondary ones as the ship lowered onto the
water.

"How do you know?"

I smiled. "I tracked this place down a bit after the start
of the year," I answered, "littered the ocean with some
seeker probes, took a couple months but they found the
debris field."

She nodded, "How deep is it?"

I took the altitude control and dialed it downwards. There
came a slight thrum from around the ship as the pumps
activated and we descended into the water. "Almost a mile,"
I said, leaning back, watching the light from above fade
into darkness.

"We're descending pretty fast." she commented.

I turned the chair around to look at her, "Yes, we'll be
there in fifteen minutes."

She nodded, sitting back into her own seat. Looking around
she examined the different controls around her.

"Do you think we can recover enough information to try and
find something?" I asked.

"Easily, the major data systems all have multiple backups.
Fifty of them should be enough to rebuild any data." She was
still looking over the controls.

"Anything I can help you with?" I asked.

She looked up, twitching her ears. "Yes, do you have a map
of the debris field?" She asked.

I nodded. "It's not much, mostly just the shapes and some
metal content. Once the probes found it I shut them down. I
doesn't even have the complete field."

She smiled, "Right, can your bring those up on these
screens?"

Undoing my harness I leaned forward and punched a few
buttons on the controls. A map of debris field appeared on
the screen in front of Sora. She smiled wider as she looked
over it.

"Do you have any systems that can detect the objects and
give me information on them?" She asked tapping a few of the
black objects on the screen.

I nodded. "The sensor net is running already. We should be
getting some feed back in a few minutes."

She flex her wings a bit. "Good, I want this map updated
with all the new information."

I smiled. "Planing to find some of the data systems before
we get there?"

She laughed tapping one small black block in the corner. "I
think I found one already. Actually I'm more interested in
finding where the highest concentration of them would be at.
Then we can ping them."

I raised an eyebrow. "Ping?"

"We've had the occasional survey ship be destroy. Most of
the data systems have small radio receivers. We send out a
pulse at the right frequency and we get one back. It only
works with in a thousand feet though."

I nodded, "and the debris field is at least a half a mile
wide."

She smiled. "Right," as the screen updated, more definition
appearing on some of the objects.

I left her to that, turning back around to watch are decent,
we had only a few more minutes to go before we reached our
destination. Outside of the window was almost pure black,
the only light was what came through the window.

Reaching for one of the other controls I turned on some
exterior lights. The ocean before us blazed to life, but
only for a short distance. In the light I could see no sighs
of anything but the smallest animals. It was quite possible
that the dominant form of life in this world was the grass
that covered the land.

This was an almost perfect colony world.

As are decent slowed the sea floor was starting to become
visible in the light. Craning my head I looked down over it,
the sediment was littered with thousands of parts, some
large others only showing as glimmers of light.

Are decent stopped with a soft shake, the water around us
shifting as are momentum was canceled out. _The Falcon_ was
maybe the only ship in the Counsel that could submerge like
this. Most could land in water, but couldn't go very deep,
there hulls not made to hold back pressure but to hold it
in.

I patted the side of the console, this was a very special
ship.

"Turn ten degrees to the right," Sora said, "then forward
seven hundred feet."

I compiled, taking the controls and quickly tuning the ship,
the moving us forward the proper distance. I shut it down
almost exactly after seven hundred feet.

"This is perfect." Sora said, I could her hear fingers
tapping over the controls. "Sending out a ping now," she
paused for a few seconds then let out a small cheer. "There
are fifty-seven data systems with in eight hundred feet of
us."

I smiled. "Very good placement Sora. Send me the closest
location and we'll go hunting. Drop the spider as well, you
can use it to get them up and load them into the ship." The
spiders was a remotely operable underwater robot, so I can
do exactly what I told Sora to do.

"Right, the first target is two degrees to the left and
thirty feet forward."

So it went for the next four hours, moving, digging and
loading. Only a few of the data systems were unobstructed,
the rest had to be dug out of the sediment and pulled free
of the components they were attached to. A few we gave up
on, they would have required one of us to go out in a suit
and help the other as it used the spider.

But in the end though we got the fifty that was needed.

-----

This story is (c) 1998 by Fox Cutter, hardcopy reprints
limited to one a person, all other rights reserved. This
story may not be distributed for a fee except by permission
of the author, and this copyright notice may not be removed.