Howling From The Moon is a continuing story following the lives of furries on the Moon.

They were colonists, wealthy enough to behave as if they were creating their own private Utopia up there, predominantly furries as that had been a rapidly growing trend especially among those who could afford such radical genetic engineering and lunar sightseeing. They were largely given to hedonism and idealistic virtue, as furries are wont to do. Much excitement accompanied the discovery that anthro silver foxes were able to breed with anthro eagles, producing winged foxes who, with practice, were able to fly in the low Lunar gravity.

The Moon Colonies constituted more than ninety settlements connected by different sizes of tunnel, typically as straight as possible to aid rapid transport in low gravity. Tunnels were cut by four sizes of boring machinery descended from the seminal work of Elon Musk’s former companies, and filled with air to serve as air reservoirs for the colonies. All this was powered by highly efficient solar combined with giant flywheel inertial rotors, out on the surface where no air friction would impede their relentless turning, and these easily retained power through the long lunar nights. The colonists (mostly furries, plus human corporate and military leaders) had limitless power, nearly limitless ice deposits at the lunar poles, limitless air synthesis filling their giant connecting tunnels: they seemed to have everything.

Then, they had War.

On July 3rd, 2113, as heat waves ravaged the Earth, a solar flare leapt forth to disrupt the communications networks of three separate Earth nation-states. Exactly which ones those were, ceased to matter over the course of seven and three-quarter minutes, during which every nuclear-capable nation on the planet came to the following conclusions:

• Nuclear war was already underway
• Knocking out enemy missile bases might be the only chance at survival
• If survival was already impossible, the enemy would not be allowed a gloating victory.

At the eight minute mark, every missile that would be launched had been launched, and Earth’s fate was sealed. There would be no survivors.

Furries, wealthy, privileged and considering themselves a class beyond crude old nation-states, watched through telescopes in horror as Earth died, shocked beyond the ability to react.

More than one military leader residing on the Moon remembered that other military leaders retained a presence on the Moon, and were consumed with that third conclusion: the enemy would not be allowed a gloating victory.

And so, in a succession of devastating attacks, missiles that few even knew were on the Moon struck the tunnels at Copernicus, at Archimedes, at Theophilius and the Sea of Tranquility: venting giant air reservoirs in attempts to cut off enemy colonists.

And as the furries learned that the humans who’d nuked the Earth were also on the moon, among them, pursuing the same blind hostilities… the furries, in their rage and grief, killed those remaining humans.

All of them.

The military base at Reinhold was the last stronghold of the humans, who blew up their own connecting tunnel in an attempt to seal themselves off, but they miscalculated and cracked their inner airlock wall. A large anthropomorphic dragon with a pickaxe and air tanks came through the depressurized zone and charged the wall, attacking it with his pickaxe and shattering it, perishing in the resulting explosive decompression. Three surviving humans, all high-ranking military officers, made a last stand at Bullialdus in near-vacuum—firing at anything that approached from any direction, using radar and small guided smart missiles to destroy any vehicles or large weapon systems being brought along the tunnels.

What they didn’t expect was the last flight of the silver fox/eagle hybrids… racing on the wind of the continuing depressurization, wearing nothing metal that would show on the radar, keeping a sparse formation as they flew, and each carrying a bomb just small enough to get through the defenses.

They struck together, converging in a final doomed embrace even as they burst through the collapsing airlock walls, and the fox/eagles and five remaining humans died together, destroying the Bullialdus junction.

So ended the war, and that isn’t the story of Howling From The Moon.

No, what happened then was: the furries sealed off the destroyed areas. They repressurized, finding that most of their technology remained intact: the military strikes were targeted at the largest connecting tunnels, fit for transporting spaceships, and the intent had been to fragment the Lunar colonies for military advantage. Indeed, the colonies were somewhat fragmented, but still functional. The Earth was dead, but the Moon was alive, with a brave and diverse population of furries, no humans, and no Earth civilization left at all.

And they asked—now what shall we do?

And the wolf furries howled all the more mournfully, from the Moon, to the ruined Earth that they could see so clearly in their airless sky…