FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

~ The fox leaned heavily into the lever-arm, mashing the tractor back into gear as he came about to plow another row of his field. This year, he was going to make it work. He had just the recipe: a delicate blend of fertilizer, a custom script for the watering system, and a proper scarecrow hanging at the far end of his field. Truely, this was going to be a year of corn. Mr. Glentwall thought of all his peers cowering in awe at his mighty field of bountiful corn; proving wrong all of their claims and explanations that the colony soil simply couldn't have the gumption for such a befuddling crop. His daydreams of interviews with the local news were interrupted partway across the field with the arrival of flashing to one of the indicators mounted atop the tractor's control panel.

~ A grin spread across his muzzle as he suppressed the alert. One flash yellow, two flashes green. He had a vidmessage waiting for him, and a good guess as to who which student the message was from. Partway through turning about for another pass, he let the tractor rumble to a calm rest and pulled up the message. A shaky monochromatic hologram flickered into view above the controls as the tractor's comm-node buffered more and more of the message. A young fox lady somewhat danced in place impatiently, and her initially silent tune gradually transitioned from monophonic tones into actual humming.

~ "...and... yeah... that should be enough lead time... ", she paused for just a bit more buffering time, "Hi Dad!", the hologram declared, "You won't believe what's going on at school! Seven ships of Admiral Pier's fleet are on their way in for repairs. Their radios are busted or something, since they've not sent updates since before breaking off from the fleet, but everyone's a buzz to get to put to use what we've been learning on an actual fleet ship. Top of the line!", she took a moment to collect her thoughts of the task, "They're going to let us shadow the crews and do most of the work, since doing that lets everyone do what they want to be..." The message cut out, momentarily forming into the image of an apologetic rabbit with the caption, "MESSAGE ERROR 96T, BUFFER" in large font while "NO REFUNDS" shamefully lingered beneath in much smaller font, before the holovid resumed, "... says I'm doing pretty well for the course load I've got, so you were right about getting all the math out of the way up front."

~ Mr. Glentwall leaned back into his seat and let out a chuckle. His daughter couldn't be stopped when she put her mind to anything, and his advice had likely done nothing to improve nor hinder her studies. But her humility was always welcome, and would serve her well on visits back home to the colony. He was doing the math in his head to count the weeks to his next visit to her orbital shipyard of a school a couple systems over, when she apparently came upon the same reckonings. "Oh, right!", her tone perking back to that of sharing surprises, discoveries, and secrets, "So, you'll never believe how many people in that gaming club I joined that haven't ever eaten anything that wasn't synthfood! They act like I'm out of the old legends, speaking of things like apples and peanuts and fresh herbs. But get this: They are obsessed with potatoes.", she gave out a hearty laugh, "I told them about the time Aunt Barbra did that thing with the hot stones and potatoes", her hands forming the gesture of wrapping a thing with something, "And now they are all badgering me to get them some. Could you bring a sack of potatoes with you next time you visit?"

~ Amanda Glentwall leaned in towards the holocorder, striking the mischevious grin her family was known for, "Oh, and bring some of the peppers." As it faded away the hologram cackled, Mr. Glentwall cackled, and the tractor was shuddered back into motion to address the more local vulpine machinations of corn. Educational usage of potatoes and mischief of peppers had at least a couple weeks to spare for preparation before requiring transport and fruition.