The F.O.X. Project

Chapter 4: Escape

Trent's eyes flickered open. He was alone in a small box with no lights and no window. Yet he could see. He didn't know how thick the walls were but he could hear people talking from outside them.

He stood up. He felt taller and more stable.

He looked down and let out an involuntary gasp. He was furry all over!

He looked around and saw a mirror behind him.

He questioned if he was in a dream as he was not looking at the courageous urban explorer he was used to seeing.

Staring back at him was a slender fox anthropomorphic, complete with snout, ears and tail.

He felt a wave of weird calmness wash over him. At least he wasn't a complete monster.

It felt like he had been in that grey box forever so Trent decided to start to discover what he could do in this new body.

After a while he gave up trying to tire himself out and he sat against a wall and fell asleep.

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Trent woke up to the door in what he determined was the south wall opening. A scientist walked in.

"Come with me." He ordered.

Who was this guy to tell him what he could and couldn't do? But he was intrigued so he followed the scientist out the door and into a narrow, white-washed corridor.

The lights blinded him as they flickered on one by one. He didn't want to be here. He was thinking of a couple ideas to escape when he spotted a vent in the ceiling.

Quietly, he jumped up into the vent and chuckled to himself; the scientist hadn't even noticed! He continued to crawl through the dusty vent.

He came to another and checked if the coast was clear before jumping down. The corridors here were grey and in a hexagonal shape stretching on and on into the gloom.

He kept walking until he reached a window. He looked out of it and completely paused as he registered what he was looking at; The border world of Krenn from its atmosphere. His plan will never work now. There has to be some way to escape.

He ran down an empty hallway to a large intersection. Which way now?

A big diagram of the ship lay on the wall. There was a hanger towards the front and the ship was big enough to have its own built in Lylapse Gate.*

He turned left and ran down a long hallway.

He felt like the corridor was racing by a lot faster than usual. He guessed it was one of his new abilities.

His feet (paws?) pounded the floor but there was no sound from his foot steps nor was there much sound from his breathing as he shot like a ghost down the corridors.

The hanger was a large, roughly square warehouse-like structure in the centre of the ship. Several small starships were scattered around near the huge hangar doors. The strange thing was that there was nobody around. No guards. No troops. Or scientists. No alarm even sounded.

He walked towards a large-ish black ship with neon blue outlines. It had the rough shape of a fighter jet.

He climbed into it and, almost instantly, his pilot training kicked in and he flicked the necessary switches for the ship's startup sequence. It lifted slowly up into the air. The hanger door was open but the alarm had started and it was slowly closing. He flew out with plenty of room to spare and into the black void of space.

A thud. A gunshot. Alarms. He was barrelling suddenly towards the planet's surface. Red engulfed his cockpit as he plunged through the upper atmosphere of the planet, the thin air making it fall faster and faster.

He ploughed through the clouds and the ground came up to meet him. A crash and he was through a thin part the planet's crust and into the gravitational well of the inner air pocket. He continued to fall until he came into contact with a colossal chain-like support structure. The cockpit window shattered and he flung out and into a large lake. Gasping for air, he watched as his ship thundered into the planet's inner crust and exploded, throwing shards of Endocryte everywhere.

He floated in a silent shock in the middle of the lake. Well that happened.

He crawled out of the lake and walked towards the wreck of his ship. It's mangled remains sat smoking in a pile at the bottom of a small, elongated crater.

He sifted through what was left and found nothing but charred remains.

The dark and dusty ceiling could just be seen far above him as he walked towards one of the Colossal chain structures. He intended to put his new abilities to use in an attempt to climb up to the outer crust and find some sort of settlement.

The chains were even bigger from one of the many land bridges spanning a bottomless abyss. The Chains were built in an attempt to stabilise the planets ever-moving outer crust, floating on the air stored beneath in the air pockets between the inner and outer crust.

Trent gripped the chain and heaved himself up. To his surprise he flew into the air a couple meters up the chain. He panicked and frantically grabbed hold of the new section of the chain.

More slowly this time, he made his way up the chain. It was slightly slippery and the air pocket acted like a wind tunnel, blowing his back and forcing him close to the chain. He climbed. Up and up. Pausing occasionally. The wreck of his ship was a mere plume of smoke far below him. He fought off the vertigo and kept climbing, the ceiling was so close now. Rays of light could be seen bursting out of gaps just above his head.

He crawled out from one of the gaps and was met with an endless desert in every direction. The Blue Sun blasted his fur with heat and his ears were assaulted with the sound of harsh gales originating from the east.

He decided the best thing to do was to spin around in a circle and pick a random direction to walk in a straight line. He ended up pointing away from the wind and headed in that direction.

Since he had no fatigue and was barely out of breath he started to test his limits and ran as fast as he could across the desert. The sand raced under him and he couldn't feel the wind against his back anymore. A small dust cloud followed him as he streamed across the desert. He slowed to a walk, happy with the result and sat down as the sun began to set along the brown horizon.

*A Lylapse Gate is a built in star gate that allows a medium sized ship without a Dark Drive to travel long distances through space. These are usually installed in capital-ships as they are the only ships strong enough to power one.