FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Her apartment was spacious and free, with a virtual window looking to the void outside. There was no shortage of space in the core, even near the perimeter. In the distance stood a gate, lit up in blue and red lights with a sleek, Earth built security frigate parked in a close orbit. Every hour or two it would flash, either bringing in a ship or sending one out to the 'uncivilised' systems. It had been a week since they were shipped out of Freedom's Reach and Sherra was already growing restless. The simulators offered some amusement and a handful of station residents for Sherra to get in a 'fight' with, but the virtual world had always been a hollow thing for her. She had stopped bothering with it after five days. Alcohol was banned, so she was forced to satisfy herself with synthetics designed to create a mellow, docile mood. Unlike the world she had been on, the people here were too polite to flirt with her in anything more than the most subtle possible manner. This had been the longest she had ever spent inside the core and Sherra hated it. Sure, her life in Freedom's Reach had been similarly mundane until she rescued Naska, but it had a sense of purpose to it. Here, Sherra was just alive. Comfortable, but sedated.

A soft chime rang through the room as she sat on the edge of her massive bed, followed by a brief flash of Naska's name on the window. He was fine, now. The core could cure almost anything short of death itself. It took a while for Sherra to make a vague gesture in front of the screen, the movement lazy enough that the computer barely regognised it.

" Oh, so you are there." Naska's voice rang through her bedroom.

" I'm here."

They shared a moment of uncomfortable silence. " Thanks, Sherra, for doing that. Michael told me all about what happened."

" It was a bad idea from the start."

" I know."

" I'm glad you're still alive, Naska." Sherra said, quietly.

" Well, me too."

" Take care of yourself. Don't go taking a shuttle to Freedom's Reach, please."

" I won't be, at least for a while. I'll tell you if I do."

The call ended and Sherra was left staring at the stars. He'd go back eventually. Sherra was fairly sure of it. Not that she would be one to talk, considering how much she had been itching to head back out into the real parts of the galaxy. She thought about all the times she had spent floating about in her barely functioning ship, going wherever she pleased. When she had been alone in that dump, listening to the hum of the engines as she drove slowly between planets... those had been the moments when she was truly happy. It was just a dream, now. A ship would cost more money than she could possibly throw together working down at Freedom's Reach, and Sherra had no intention of going back to the thieving she used to know. She pressed her hand to the window. It reacted as if it were real, the glass cool against her palm.

" Fuck it." Sherra said, before wandering out of her apartment.

The public floors of the station were immaculate and beautiful, decked out with marble and decorative glass, constantly attended to by a pair of service robots that floated about and occasionally tended to the plants and furnishings. There were only a few figures wandering about, one of them an unarmed security guard who probably never had - and never would - have to attend to anything more than a minor argument. They all wore the same plain black and white suits, the emblem of the Earth Ces alliance emblazoned on the shoulder, as if it were anything to be proud of when they were the only two intelligent species around. A station this far away from Earth and Ces wasn't exactly a popular destination. Sherra wandered to the bar, ignoring the looks she got for wearing an outfit that was considered primitive. There was someone else dressed like her; Naska, sitting right there by the bar, a drink in hand. He was staring intensely at the agile little machine that tended the bar. The machine, in turn, ignored him. Taking a seat beside him, Sherra offered a smile. Naska returned it, looking as if he were relieved to see her, if a little bit embarrassed.

" I really do appreciate it." He said.

" I'm just glad you're okay. You lost a lot of blood."

" I head from Michael that you shot - "

" It's not something I'd like to talk about." She cut in.

" No, that's understandable. It's a strange feeling, knowing I could have died. In the core we all live so long that death seems somehow, I don't know, irrelevant? Very far away, in any case. I actually feel thrilled about it. As if it makes me want to go back there and try again."

" I'd prefer you didn't die, Naska. I'm fairly short on friends as it is."

" I won't." He replied, his features taking on a stubborn determination.

" Let me go with you, at least. I'm afraid of what you and your idiot friend will get up to."

" Michael wants to head back to the core after all of that. It would just be me. I'm sure he misses all the fun he likes to have with our type, anyway." The joke was half-hearted, Naska's eyes slightly pained. " I should thank you for that, too. Michael appreciates it, so he said over and over. He was disappointed that you never responded to his messages."

" He left?"

" Yesterday. Or twenty hours ago. I hate non-planetary time."

" I'd still like to help out, when you go." Sherra reminded him.

Naska didn't reply, his jaw set and eyes drilling a hole in the wall. Sherra motioned for the robot to bring up the list of drinks. All of them were so mild that she gave up and opted for iced water. It hummed after the order was made and bounced over to make it for her, the ice clattering into a glass engraved with the symbol of the Alliance. He didn't move at all as she took a sip. Sherra started to make a hesitant move towards leaving her seat.

" You'll go after me." Naska said.

" I might."

" Don't."

He turned to look at her, eyes barely meeting hers, right before he started to stare at the wall again, his hand curled around his glass so tight that she thought it might shatter at any moment. There was little point in staying. Sherra placed her half empty glass on the counter and slipped off her chair, wandering towards the elevator. Naska never said a word. Two days later he was gone. The core wasn't corrupt enough to take a bribe in exchange for his location, but Sherra could take a wild guess about where he went.

The fact that he was there plagued the back of her mind as Sherra spent another fortnight on the station. It started to become normal for her, being here. She collected a few of those suits they wore and began to dress differently, putting away her long boots and dusty jacket. Her trips to the bar became more frequent, the orders for iced water dwindling as she started to favour the mellow, mindless feeling that came with synthetic drinks. In her apartment, Sherra would exercise, indulge in the virtual reality machines and started to make small talk with some of the residents here. They were nothing if not dull, full of unimportant gossip and endless talking about the inane bullshit they filled their unnecessarily large amounts of spare time with. It did, at least, give Sherra some practice with talking in a manner that suited her new body. She had a handle on it now, her voice feeling perfectly natural, the swearing cut down to just an occasional outburst in private. As much as she tried, Sherra never quite felt as if she fitted in with the pretty and preened men and women that lived here. They did seem to like her, at least outwardly. It was unusual, being liked. In her old life nobody would have given Sherra the time of day and she couldn't exactly blame them for that. She started to imagine herself wearing the emblem of Earth and Ces, a Citizen of the Core. Was that really a life that Sherra wanted? Naska probably needed her, regardless.

She waited another week, unsure of why she was so hesitant to go back. The bar was as lonely as it usually was, with Sherra being the only customer this early in what was supposed to be the just after one in the morning, according to the station's internal clock. A figure wearing the uniform of the core's military sat next to her. She recognised him and the black stripes that ran down the sides of his muzzle, contrasting strongly with his dusty yellow fur. How could she forget. The yellow eyed male was the one who saved her back on Freedom's Reach.

" Nice to see you again." He said, sitting beside her.

" You too. I never did catch your name."

" Captain Se'shar."

She showed a smile. " Your first name, captain."

" Jek."

" I appreciate what you did for us, really, I do. I don't think we'd still be alive." That wasn't true, perhaps, but he saved her a lot of trouble. Besides, it seemed like a good idea to puff up his ego. " I'm sorry about not contacting you earlier. It has been a lot to deal with."

" No need to thank me for doing my job."

She almost rolled her eyes at that. " Still, thank you."

" I heard that the other two left here."

" Oh, right. Michael went back to the Core. I'm not sure about Naska. He just dissapeared a few weeks ago, I'm not really sure where." That was the truth and both of them knew it. Sherra saw little point in drawing suspicion towards herself through lying. The Core were a nosy fucking bunch. Except when it came to the outer systems, in which case they barely gave a shit.

" And you decided to stay?"

" For the moment. I'm really not sure what to do with myself. It was fun at Freedom's Reach until all of that happened, I think I might have gotten in over my head." Sherra broke up the words at the end, making it seem as if she were more upset than she really was.

" Sorry, I didn't mean..."

" No, no, it's fine." She said, regaining her composure.

" I was just making sure things were okay. I'm shipping out back home next week, so I thought I'd at least drop by and see that things are okay." He replied. Jek was a poor liar.

" Thanks again." Sherra said.

Jek nodded. " Take care of yourself."

Sherra watched him go to the elevator, eyes lingering longer than needed. She quite liked how he looked, fit looking and handsome in that uniform. Lately she had been thinking like that more often than she would have preferred, especially when she was on her own at night, her mind drifting towards thoughts of athletic Ces men until she forced the images away with a slight sense of embarrassment.

Another week passed before Sherra started to get truly restless. She started to run simulators of various ships, a hollow pretense of doing the real thing, just in order to keep herself sane. It reminded her of her childhood. From time to time she would look out the windows and just watch the occasional ship docking or leaving port. Sherra knew most of the models by heart, including many of the tiny shuttles designed for two or four people in stasis. Most of the ones that came here were the blocky, dull transports that formed the bulk of the Core's civilian fleet. A frigate came after that long week. It was a beautiful, sleek thing, the engines curved at the back and the nose tapered into four spikes at the front. Sherra had always wanted to fly one of those things, although it was likely she never would. Core military ships required a joining with an AI after decades of experience flying smaller craft, which was something Sherra would never do, even if she had a hope of being accepted for it. She had spent hundreds of hours pretending to fly one in VR, knew the interior intimately. At least she got to see it as it turned around and floated away, vanishing in a speck of light as it popped through the gate, probably carrying Jek with it. After it went, the dock was empty. This couldn't keep going on. A part of her was still the man named Rechin and that part was starting to scream to get out of this place.

Sherra scrounged together some gear from what the Core offered on the station, including a few pieces of electronics that would fetch enough for a weapon and several weeks worth of rent at Freedom's Reach. That was as much as she could take without starting to raise suspicions. The Core might have offered anything for free, but by the same token they strongly discouraged unnecessary greed. Hoarding was considered unhelpful, to the point that nobody was allowed to be rich in the same way as humans and felines had been in their unpleasant past. Sherra could understand why it was that way, but for her it was just one more reason to get away from the Core.

A transport came three days later. Unlike the station, the ship's interior was worn out and slightly dirty. Nobody else was on the voyage with her, so Sherra just placed her pack at her feet and stared out the window, watching as the gate came closer and closer. Time stretched as the ship jumped, her stomach lurching and head feeling dizzy as the violent roar filled Sherra's ears. Everything blinked out for a second, her body feeling as if it were floating, before the stars slowly came back into focus. A light quesiness sat in her body as the ship decelerrated after the jump, the deceptively beautiful planet Rian coming into view as the craft banked over it. Down there, on the east coast of the planet's single continent was Freedom's Reach. Hopefully Naska hadn't managed to kill himself. Sherra started to feel guilt creep up inside her mind. Maybe she should have come here earlier. No, not maybe. Sherra should have, and she knew it. Didn't she? She started to wonder what the fuck she was trying to achieve here. Making sure Naska didn't die was the first thing. She could worry about everything else after that. The craft lacked the energy fields the more modern ships had, vibrating and shaking as the it entered the atmosphere, heatshield scorched red, the bouncing around doing little to help Sherra's post-jump sickness. It came closer to the clouds, the movements settling into a gentle rumble, the craft slowly making its way to the spaceport. She breathed a sigh of relief and watched the spaceport come into view. Freedom's Reach looked just the same as it had over a month ago, dirty, crowded and unpleasant.

Sherra felt different as she stepped off the ship, now that she had a reason to be here. A reason other than thieving... or a reason to steal, if it came to that. It was more of a purpose than Sherra had ever enjoyed in her life.