And Beyond
	Story by Kandrel

A distorted reflection of Hudson stared back at him in the lens of camera C-3.  It lay embedded in the cockpit console, staring up at him conjoined with the piercing glare of a blue LED informing him that the camera was indeed functional and recording.  He was annoyed by the camera, but he reserved true hated for that little light.  Especially now, when what he wanted most was to go back to sleep.

“Hud?  Hud, don’t fall asleep on me.  I think it’s leaking.”

His head felt heavy.  He could worry about it all tomorrow.  Lay back.  Let his muscles relax.  It would all be better when he’d had a little kip.  He expected gravity to pull his head down as he snoozed, but it didn’t.  Oh, right.  Freefall.  Instead, he let it float.  Yeah, just a few hours.  The cockpit faded.

A bark brought him back.  He jumped, and restraints bit into his chest.  Pitch and yaw slowly rolling.  Altimeter read NAN for Not A Number.  The false horizon was upside-down.  Mayday!  Mayday!  Eject!  His training spoke for him before his brain had actually engaged.

“Hud, I need your help.  I can’t get out of my restraints, and it’s leaking.”

In the moment between wakefulness and alertness, Hudson did what he did every morning.  He found the closest camera, yawned into its myopic gaze, and stuck his tongue out at it.  What a fucking headache.  He tried to scratch his face, but found his arms were restrained too far away to reach.

Restrained.  Freefall.  Readouts all screwed up.  Oh shit.  He was awake.  He was alive!  They’d made it.  He looked out the port just above the meters and dials.  Stars as far as the eye could see.  He started shivering—whether with excitement or fear he couldn’t immediately tell.

“We made it.”  He croaked.  His throat was scratchy, and it emerged as an undignified squeak.

“Hud, come on, buddy.  It’s leaking, and I can’t fix it.”

“What’s leaking?”  It took him half a minute to disengage his restraints.  His short front paws could only reach so far, and the buckle was difficult to flip with the way he was shivering.

Mitzi’s response was slow in coming.  “Everything, I think.”

“Come on, puppy.  Don’t be daft.  Remember your training.  Analyze.  Process.  Report accurately.”

“Don’t call me puppy.  But okay.”  It was going to take a little longer for his co-pilot to respond, so Hudson took the time to wiggle free of his restraints.  He wouldn’t be able to do anything while still strapped to the seat, so he could give Mitzi the time necessary to figure whatever it was out.  Luckily, they hadn’t built restraints yet that could keep Hudson down.  Your general weasel was difficult to pin down, and a fisher like Hudson was particularly sleek.  When the buckle stubbornly refused to open to his shaking front paws, he simply wriggled upwards, and his tube-like body followed without resistance.

He was freeing his last hind leg from the entangling straps when Mitzi’s mental process finally caught up.  “The air.  That’s what’s leaking.  The air’s leaking, Hud.”

A sharp glance at the rarely-used O₂ readout told him in a single two-digit number why his head was pounding and he was feeling sleepy.  Shit.  As he watched, the number slowly ticked down.

“Can you hear it?”

Without waiting for a response, Hudson pushed off his chair and dove for the command module’s tool box.  He pulled a small foam applicator that looked like a gun from where it was firmly affixed.  He hugged it to his chest as legs pushed off towards Mitzi’s chair.

His co-pilot was restrained in a position that must have been uncomfortable.  A lot of thought had gone into how to keep a jackal safe for the rigors of high-gee spaceflight.  All four legs were strapped, and another pair of cords crossed his chest.  Ostensibly there was a clasp near his head that should have begun the process of freeing him, but it had shifted around out of reach.  Hudson caught the jackal’s long fur and used it to climb around to the side, using slightly more clever front paws to hunt for the clasp.  He found it after a few seconds, and a quick tug freed his co-pilot.

Mitzi’s big ears radar dished around.  The jackal pushed himself away from the flight chair and floated towards the back of the capsule.  As soon as they approached the rear docking link, Hudson’s sensitive whiskers went to work.  In moments, he’d identified the source of the leak and filled it with quickly expanding foam.  They rested there as the foam hardened and crusted over.  Within five minutes, the air had recirculated and pressure had been restored.  At some point, the headache had gone away, and Hudson was finally starting to appreciate the grander scheme of where they were.

“Mitzi, my dear.  My lovely.  My precious puppy.  Look at us.  We made it.”

“Stop calling me a puppy.”  The jackal pushed off of the nearby bulkhead and floated to the capsule controls, carrying the fisher with him.  Hudson looked down at the display, but this was Mitzi’s area of expertise.  Joystick and buttons had been modified for use by paws rather than fingers.  Almost everything was run automatically, but there were a few important jobs still left to the intrepid astronauts.  There’d been four unmanned scouts sent already, but someone had to go through eventually.  And now here they were.  Someone.

“Please tell me we made it.”  Hudson vibrated, paws digging into the jackal’s pelt.

“Stars are right.”  He pushed over to the nearby porthole.  One paw on the reinforced glass, and his muzzle pointed.  “That’s not our sun.”

Hudson gazed out in wonder.  He let go of Mitzi’s fur and put both of his forepaws on the window.  A bright dot stood forefront in the window.  “Alpha Centauri.”

“Actually, that one’s Beta Centauri.”  A paw pushed his head to the glass and tilted to the side, where a brighter dot stood out to the left and above.  “That one’s Alpha Centauri.  And if you look down there to the right, below about five degrees, that one there is Proxima.”

Hudson soaked it in.  Then he closed his eyes, and let himself float back away from the window, free in the capsule.  The room spun pleasantly.  He could hear Mitzi back at the console, taking readings.  Dutiful and diligent, that was his co-pilot.  Not that he needed to be.  He wanted to send readings.  He wanted to take pictures and fire them back at home, but the ship was already doing that.  Readings had been taken, documented, bundled, compressed, and sent back at Earth before they’d even woken up.  Pictures were constantly being taken by over a hundred little cameras, both inside and out, and being streamed back as quickly as they recorded.

He reached up to the spot on his temple where he’d been shaved and a sticky little pad had been affixed to his skin.  From that and nine other matching pads dotted across his pelt he was providing a whole new data point to the scientists back home.  The effect of subspace travel on living tissue.  Heart rate.  Blood O₂ and glucose levels.  Respiration rates must have been a mess, but he was leveling out now.

He looked down at Mitzi.  What a good boy.  Paws worked on the data, drawing awkward triangles between stars on the display.  He was smart.  Blindingly smart.  Hudson knew that underneath those cute ears, that brain was doing math on the fly to accurately place their location.  So smart.  Not fast.  Hell no, not fast.  Just smart.  Mitzi’s brain was like an old train.  You could get it going by pushing hard enough, but it took an age and a half to get it going, and no matter how you pushed, it would stay on rails.  That’s probably why Hudson was the second companion.  No one’s mind was as off-rails as his.

“Hey Mitzi.  Could you bring up the medical readouts?”

“I haven’t got that far yet, Hud.”  The jackal continued his processing for a few moments.  Then he stopped.  Nope, definitely not fast.  “Um, is something wrong?”

“I just want to check on heart rate.”  Hudson let his outstretched legs touch the ceiling and pushed off back towards his co-pilot.  Mitzi didn’t even flinch when clever paws buried themselves in his back fur and held on to arrest momentum.

Tap-taptap-tap.

“Yours seem fine.  Are you feeling okay?”

“Not mine I’m worried about, Mitzi.”  The weasel’s outstretched paws dug around behind the jackal’s tail.   Hudson’s paws brushed Mitzi’s balls as he wrapped around the fuzzy tube of his co-pilot’s sheath.  The jackal let out a yip that bounced strangely off the angled panels that made up the inside of their control module.  Hind legs swung free and kicked in zero-gee.  Front paws tugged at the console to pull the jackal back to where he’d been stood.  “How’s that heart rate there, puppy?”

Mitzi ignored the puppy jab, and instead stared up at the nearest camera.  “Hud!  Stop!  They’ll see!  I thought we agreed-”

“Ah, but they won’t see, you see?”

The jackal was silent for half a minute as Hudson’s forelegs gripped his sheath.  The long weaselish head laid against his thigh as paws reached between his hinds.  “No, I don’t see.”

“Where are we, my lovely dog?”

“Alpha—oh.”  Mitzi stopped momentarily as the leathery pads of Hudson’s forepaws rubbed over the pink tip that was now peeking free.  “Alpha Centauri.”

“And that’s how far from earth?”

“Four point four light years.  Oh.  I see.  But we’ll be back before then!”

“Sure.”  Hudson nipped at the tail that was wagging in his face.  He rubbed his left paw over the lewd tip poking out.  It came away wet.  “And when we go back, what will we be?”

“Caught!”  One hind leg kicked in protest, but Hudson hung on tight.

“Famous!  We’ll be famous!  And no one will care what we did, because we’ll be the guys that went all the way out and came all the way back.”  He curled his paw carefully, keeping claws from dragging against sensitive parts as he began to rub pads over the rubbery flesh that was quickly lengthening under his caress.

The argument stopped the complaints, at least for now.  “Famous?  Like Laika?”  The flesh under his fingers throbbed.  Hudson wished he’d never told his co-pilot that story.  Mitzi had grown such a hard-on for that historic bitch.  Well, at least that hard-on could go to good use.  There was the sound of wet something hitting metal.  Hudson looked down in time to catch the second involuntary jet of pre hit the bulkhead beneath Mitzi’s favorite display.  The liquid beaded into wobbling spheres as it bounced off the wall.  They drifted up and off into the cockpit.

“Come on, Mitzi.  We’re the first explorers ever to be even one light year away from Earth, let alone four point four.  Don’t you want to be the first sentient creature to blow his load all over the living compartment outside our own solar system?”  A soft whine reached his ears.  The jackal gave an involuntary hump against his paws.  Hudson let go of the thick pelt and just let the rest of his body float as he hugged himself his co-pilot’s sheath and exposed length.

“It’ll be hell on the air filter.”

“I’m not hearing a no.”

With careful paws, he tugged Mitzi’s sheath up until he could feel the still-slim bulbs of the jackal’s knot against his pads.  Heavy breathing was the only response from above as he pulled and tugged to spin himself around.  With half of his body pushing down between the jackal’s hind legs, he started to place soft little licks along his co-pilot’s cock.

“A hundred beats per minute.  Abnormally high at rest.”

Hudson stopped for a moment.  “What?”

“Heart rate.  You asked about it.”

He laughed.  He squeezed.  Over the year of intense training and co-habitation, he and his co-pilot had gotten to know each other well.  When they’d figured out all the little spots the cameras couldn’t see, they’d gotten to know each other even better.  Stupid human prudishness.  Even with their artificially “ascended” intelligence, both he and Mitzi were still animals.  Hudson didn’t feel ashamed for it like Mitzi did.  He reveled in it.  He’d gotten to know his co-pilot’s body so well—usually with the jackal’s embarrassed complaints following him the whole way—that he knew exactly how to pull the trigger.

Mitzi let out a yelp as Hudson hugged skinny forelegs behind the knot.  It wasn’t fair, but the jackal cared a lot more about fair than the fisher did.  The result was almost instantaneous.  Hudson pulled back on the mobile shaft and aimed it back as the anticipated rush hit.  A hot spray of runny cum jetted out into the compartment.  It formed an arc that glittered merrily in the bright LED lights that lit the interior.  A second later, it splattered against the far wall, where lazy fans pulled air in through a vent to be reoxygenated and recirculated.  Before it hit, a second was already in the intervening air.  Mitzi tried to hump, but Hudson’s paws held him still.  The second hit the “beds”, and the third finally hit on target.  A wide jet of jackal cum splashed across camera L-1.  Bullseye.

Hudson slowly stroked the sensitive flesh as Mitzi settled into one of his long canid orgasms.  Almost off-handedly, he bit a bungee cord from the wall.  With it in mouth, he let himself float away from the console.  Hudson held on as the room spun lazily around him, still jetting increasingly smaller sprays of Mitzi’s peak across the room.  After a few minutes, he let the wet cock between his paws slip free.  Like normal, Mitzi was lazy and cuddly after he came.  When Hudson climbed up paw-over-paw to hug around the jackal’s back, Mitzi just leaned his head back and nuzzled him.

“We’re going to be famous, aren’t we?”

Letting the dog relax, Hudson stroked one fore paw over Mitzi’s ears.  “We already are.  Everyone back on Earth just doesn’t know it yet.”

“You know I won’t be known for this.”

“For what?”

“All this.”  The jackal’s snout reached out and caught some of the globules of seminal fluid that was now floating haphazardly across the room.

“Yeah.”  He wouldn’t, at least not widely.  It wouldn’t be broadcast, of course.  Someone would probably write it down, and maybe ten years later, the original recordings might escape, and it’ll be the worst-kept secret in NASA history.  “But who cares?  Let’s keep making records, and maybe one of our firsts will stick.”

“What other firsts?”

Hudson didn’t respond verbally.  Instead, he just hugged tighter to the jackal’s back and let himself be felt between Mitzi’s hinds.

“Oh.”  The jackal’s dozy mood added even more inertia to his already sluggish mental processes.  “Um, they won’t show that on TV either.”

“What a shame.  Does that mean I should stop?”

As if to answer, the jackal’s hind legs spread, and the tail wagging against his belly twitched up.

“I thought not.”

He had done this a handful of times, and yet it still felt just as electric as his first when Mitzi’s pucker clenched down against his tip.  It was dry with the first prod, but it was slick by the time he rolled his hips and pushed just his spooned head inside.  When the natural world around them is lacking in lubrication, weasels provide their own.  Mitzi let out a soft little whine, but Hudson knew him too well to stop.  The jackal was too embarrassed to say aloud how much he loved the feeling of being spread open like this, but after the first few times, he’d started seeking Hudson out for their little play-sessions rather than having to be coerced.

And it felt just so lovely the way that little ring of muscles squeezed around him as he slid inside.  Every few moments, he pulled back to spread the natural lubrication a bit further back on his shaft, then pushed back inside to utilize that extra length.  In just six careful thrusts he felt that lovely sensation of Mitzi’s pucker kissing his sheath.

There were times for the careful consideration and measured intellect the humans had gifted him with.  This was not one of those times.  When his fore legs curled down around Mitzi’s haunches, the “ascended” sentience sloughed away and left two horny beasts grinding against each other.  Mitzi let go of the bungee cord and let himself float free as Hudson’s hips started to slap against his rump.  Lewd slapping sounds filled the capsule, just beneath the feral growling the both of them were providing in unison.  The cord caught around Mitzi’s leg as the pair rotated by.

Just seconds later, Hudson buried his muzzle in Mitzi’s pelt.  Holding himself hilted, he let his balls bounce weightless against the jackal’s as they emptied themselves into his rump.  His whole body shivered in release, then as quickly as it began, it was over.

He didn’t move for nearly a minute, except for the slow circling of the room around him as they floated.  They approached a wall, and one of Mitzi’s paws reached out to steady themselves against it and kick off just enough to send them back towards the center of the compartment.

Two minutes passed.  Still mounted, Hudson gave a renewed throb, and Mitzi gave him a soft yip.  Paws clung, and the staccato sound of humping began again.  Thin dribbles of fisher cum joined the drizzle of jackal spunk floating around with them as Hudson’s thrusting freed some of the remains of his first peak from his co-pilot’s rump and let them drip haphazardly from his jostling balls.  Mitzi clenched around him, and Hudson lost himself again as the sublime heat of orgasm claimed him again.

It was later when Hudson started to regain his mental footing again.  He was used to this.  It seemed that the little human consciousness they’d given him went out for a walk when he was balls-deep in Mitzi.  It was only later when he came back to himself, spent and sore, that he could remember in fits and spurts all the pleasure.  How many times had he clasped himself to that luscious canid rump and gone spinning across the room?  He thought maybe it was four.  Five.  Eight.  Ten.  He felt good.  Great.  Who knows how many times he’d cum?

Actually, the cameras would.  They would have documented the entire thing.  Right.  He looked off and found L-3, complete with hateful blue LED glaring.  Hudson lifted one leg and showed off his cum-stained balls.  Then the view got even more explicit as he started to pull out of Mitzi.  Oh, that felt good.  He gave the camera an angry glare, then stopped pulling free.  Okay, maybe once or twice more he stopped.

The camera caught the next few minutes in startling detail.  Mitzi’s well-used rump dribbling fisher cum each time the slim mustelid cock slid back and displayed itself to the camera.  Then the thump of balls against balls as Hudson thrust home.  Carelessly recorded, compressed, and sent on its four-point-four year trip back to Earth.  Earth’s first interstellar travelers gave the folks back home a show to welcome them to the wider galactic community.

Half an hour later the air filter had managed to clear most of the stray fluids from the air.  Hudson cuddled against Mitzi’s back.

“Hud?”

His head lifted from the jackal’s soft pelt.  Clever fisher paws rubbed against his co-pilots ribs.

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to be known for this?”

It was Hudson’s turn to think.  Meanwhile, Mitzi caught the bungee cord and kept it nearby—an escape from the cruel trap of weightlessness.

“I don’t think I care.”

“But we’re going to be famous, aren’t we?”

Hudson yawned.  “Of course.  I just don’t care.”

“Why not?”

He rubbed paws over Mitzi’s back, then reached around to rub the dog’s belly.  It was the magic button that made his co-pilot forget any and all awkward questions.

Mitzi tried to roll to show his belly up, but the move was somewhat hampered by the lack of any specific direction for “up” to be.  He settled with spreading hind legs around his weasely compatriot.  If they’d been back home, this position would have been considered too lewd, even for lazy belly-rubs.  Hudson was long past caring about back home.  About four-point-four light years past caring.  Paws strayed, and Mitzi gave him a few reflexive humps.  Even though the jackal’s pink tip was showing again, Hudson chose to focus more on belly rubs.  There’d be time later for more, but now he was spent.

“Hud?”

“Yes puppy?”

“You never finish the story.”

Hudson paused.  “What story?”

“You know the story.  The one about Laika.  The one the researcher told you.”

“That’s because she never finished it.”  Hudson lied.

“Oh.”

Hudson watched the window slowly roll past.  The bright dot of Alpha Centauri filled the viewport.  Or was it Beta?

“You know she has a statue?”

“Yup.”

“I hope they gave her a party when she came back home.”

Hudson could feel Mitzi’s tail wagging between his legs.  He renewed the belly rub.

“We’re going to be just like Laika, aren’t we?”

“I think we will be, Mitzi.”  He buried his paws in his beloved co-pilot’s belly fur.  “Statue and all.”