Furry Dragons / FURRYD

In the early days of human expansion into space things were often fast, loose and a little lawless, not unlike current times. Yong Xiaoan, the head of the Yong Conglomerate, a medium sized, and growing, freight corporation, was personally overseeing the delivery of a very high value shipment. Despite taking precautions, the small convoy of ships were attacked. The escort ships tried to hold the raiders long enough to allow the freighters to escape. The freighters scattered, but so did the victorious raiders hunting down the unprotected ships. Xiaoan was a smart woman who took her ship into an uncharted asteroid field and tried to hide…

Alex Carpenter, the head of the Dragon Hunters, a small loose association of explorers, was not having a good day. He’d found a new jump point, and successfully piloted the Dragon Stalker through it only to be shot at on arrival at its destination, Discovering a new system and potentially a new alien race would have been a significant achievement, and frankly he and the rest of the Dragons Hunters really needed the money. However, when a much bigger ship seems intent on vaporising you, rapid retreat is usually the smart move. Unfortunately he wasn’t fast enough and his ship took a pounding before he managed to get back to the jump point, once back in familiar space he discovered that his navigation computer was fried. He needed supplies if he was going to get home and headed for a nearby asteroid field hoping that a captured comet might at least supply water…

The game of hide and seek had been going on for a while, but the Yongs were never cowards or fools and Xiaoan knew that given time the pirate would find them, she devised a plan to lure the pirate into narrow passage between a group of large asteroids where it would have limited manoeuvrability. A good plan, but the pirate was equally cunning…

With limited computing power and sensors Alex sat watching the raw sensor feeds, looking for tell tail signs of water ice, but instead he saw a strange game of cat and mouse being played out in ghostly sensor images. Clever that freighter captain, he thought, but the pursuing ship had obviously played this game before, and from the sensor images it looked like it was more than a match for the freighter. Well perhaps he could help even the odds…

The little bursts of power she used should lure the pirate right into the passage and allow her to slide around the edge and open fire, Xiaoan hoped the manoeuvre would even the odds. The sudden power signature to aft left Xiaoan’s pulse racing and a string of desperate orders directed to the terrified crew. The shields were up a little late, main engine damage was not going to be helpful. She was wondering if they could bargain, but the previous actions of the pirates suggested they wanted no witnesses, the freighter still had a few tricks and two missiles streaked towards the pirate. The missiles would not have the desired effect, but they did distract the pirate long enough for Dragon Stalker to get into position behind it. What followed wasn’t pretty nor would it be something anyone would use to teach tactics, in the end the Dragon Stalker rammed the pirate crashing them both into an asteroid…

When he came to, Alex was looking at an angel, which given his lack of religious beliefs was something of a shock. When his angel spoke in a beautiful melodious voice, it took him a moment to understand that he wasn’t dead and she was talking gibberish. The Yong Conglomerate, was a Chinese based company and at that time spoke only Mandrin. Alex was a child of the patchy English education system, and spoke only English. Anyway mutual difficulty and the struggle to survive brought Xiaoan and Alex together despite the language barrier. Their mutual rescue turned into a growing relationship which grew to the point that in the three months it took them to get back to Earth they were formally merged and with considerable haste so were the Yong Conglomerate and the Dragon Hunters. Unfortunately while they had worked out a common language between them, it turned out that the translation was far from infallible. So, the new legal entity that was the merged company had many difficulties to overcome including the name Furry Dragons, which was supposed to be something to do with the ubiquitous cat collecting money image and the dragons name. The company has continued and while not yet regaining the corporate success of its Yong ancestor, it has been a solid performer in freight and transportation in addition to keeping the explorer spirit alive. Those who know of it trust its services, which is something both of its founders would appreciate.