FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Right, now here's your ship," the kitsune engineer says while some of the other engineers go about helping him put his jump suit on. "Ideally we would just feed you all the information on how to fly these things but that creates a huge security issue. Believe us, we've spent more time than you'd want to know on just considering how to go about it and not have that way of information transfer be abused in ways that are very not good. So you get to learn the old fashioned way. We tell you to do things, light the buttons up for you when we want you to do things and eventually you just do them without us needing to light things up for you. First run, however, we won't actually be having you touch the controls at all."

"Why not?" Richard asks as they're strapping some sort of extra device to his helmet. It is somewhat nice to not have as much of a delay with the helmet translating for him.

"Rather simple, really," Zera says, "We're given free reign to tweak the ships under our care as much as we want provided some conditions. As a result, all of these fighters are specked to a degree far beyond the biology of any of the races can handle. So one of our conditions is that we need to place limiters on all of our ships. But different people are different and we do want to get the most of our ships and not just set a default value. So your first flight will be us trying to figure out how much your body and mind can currently handle and then we'll set your limiters a bit under those values. Then you can just push your ship as hard as you want and not have to worry about it all as the limiters will prevent you from exceeding your body's natural limits."

With nothing to really say about it, Richard shrugs and climbs into his ship. In many regards it mainly looks like what he'd imagine a fighter jet would look like, but with a lot more displays all over the place. He climbs in and sits down in the chair they have designed for him and immediately he finds himself being strapped in by a ground crew as well as them grabbing his arms and moving them around and then disassembling the panels around and moving them around. Once they are apparently satisfied they secure things as they are. And then they all clear out and leave him all by his own. He looks around for a moment or two, wondering what the purpose of some of the displays are. Some seem more holographic than physical and one is practically just one big ball. But there's also a few devices that look to be temporary, probably either devices to record him or control his ship as they were talking about. After a moment there's a blinking yellow light over one of the buttons.

"There's a blinking light on one of the buttons," Richard says over the comms. "Am I supposed to do anything about it?"

"It's fine. We've just turned on the input system. When you see something like that go ahead and push the button if it's yellow or green. If it's ever red then come and talk to us immediately as that is usually an alarm of one of the systems. That button tells the station to go ahead and send you out."

Richard shrugs and pushes the button and finds that the ship is still being secured to the deck. And even more strangely in that even though there is an opening at the end of the deck, Richard can instead feel mechanisms starting to lower the ship beneath the deck.

"The opening you're looking at is for emergency use only. A ship passing through the main port would cause the entire deck to depressurize and air is kind of a valuable commodity on a space station. So we avoid using it as much as possible. It's something that catches most people off-guard at first. The tunnel you're going through right now is much smaller, easier to vacuum all the air out of a small enclosed area rather than out of a much larger area. Then you'll be launched out of the station safely. You'll also come back in the same way and if possible we'll have your re-entry automated. Don't think too much on it as everyone is subject to this rule. It is the safest way to get you into and out of the station."

Richard doesn't really have much to say about it as it does make a bit of sense. But that does certainly not entirely live up to his expectations. But he rationalizes that given how long they have been theoretically doing things like this that they've probably put a lot more thought into designing things in a practical standpoint rather than based on writers doing thought experiments based partly on aesthetic value. His ship stops moving and then without any input from him he can hear his ship emit a beeping sound a few times and then his ship starts launching out of the station. It is a novel experience, in many ways similar to feeling like when an airplane takes off, but with a lot smoother than the plane would ever go and a lot quieter. And he can already tell why it is that they would want to set limiters to his ship. From all the television he had seen back in his former present, it was always presented with the notion that the ability to neutralize momentum was commonplace. And though based on how fast the ship seems to be moving there is some mechanisms suppressing a bit of the g-forces, he can definitely still feel them. And he strongly suspects that the limits of biology still apply.

The moment his is spat out of the station his entire console goes dark, leading him to wonder if perhaps something went wrong, but then the ship starts taking off on its own and moving around. Apparently they sent off the little drone things that they sent after that other person, though these aren't shooting at him. And as much as he would like to truly appreciate the fact that he's now in space, it is made more difficult by everything else that is currently demanding his attention. Apparently one of the main drawbacks to being a space-faring civilization for so long is that being in space is so trivial. The main screen in front of him has some sort of message on it, though he hasn't quite learned that one yet. Though he fully understands the need to be able to read the language that everything in the station is written in, he still wonders if it might be doable to try and talk Zera into getting a translation of the text in his fighter to the one he can actually read fluently. After all, training or not, if he has to think about what a particular button or display is telling him, that can't be good to have to deal with in a dangerous situation. His fighter begins to fly around in a somewhat chaotic manner, turning and spinning this way and that for no discernable reason. It also begins accelerating more and more. All the while there are little yellow lights flashing all around the cockpit. Zera informs him to go ahead and push them as he sees them, yet when he does so absolutely nothing happens. Apparently, they must be testing his reaction speed while under the effects of a higher acceleration.

But Richard can tell that they are definitely making things harder and harder for him. The button sequence is fairly consistent, but the fact remained that he could feel the ship jostle around more and more, throwing tighter and tighter turns at him and really banging him around inside the fighter. It is starting to get closer and closer to the point that the G forces are so strong and he's having to spend so much effort on just trying to compensate for being bumped And then abruptly, seemingly out of nowhere he finds himself with his craft having been successfully stopped. The sudden change in how the craft is behaving is so jarring for him that it actually takes Richard a few moments before he even realizes that something has changed. There is a green text flashing on his screen, the other text having been removed completely. And then one of the buttons begin to light up and blink at him. He moves over and touches it and finds that this time all the buttons do seem to be responsive. It seems that despite being told he wouldn't be touching the controls, now that they know what his body is capable of they are actually giving him some control over his craft and at least attempting to teach him how to fly.

He really isn't given all that much to do. For the most part they seem to be giving him a very small tour of the station as he moves away from where the stress test ended up taking him to the spot of the station he came out from. Since it is a lot slower going, them not having him go all that fast in his motion so as to have more fine tuned motions he's able to actually have a moment of looking at everything. With the sun off in the distance being filtered automatically by the display. To the arid, rocky planet the station seems to be orbiting. He stares and wonders why they would choose to build a space station around a planet that doesn't look all that readily inhabitable. When he gets close to where he came in there is a prompt to push a button that he had never seen light up in all of the instructions and is also hidden by a glass box. He pushes it and then the entire display turns off completely. At first he wonders if perhaps he had done something wrong and screwed things up but then he sees that his ship is starting to turn despite not having been in a rotation previously.

It takes him a moment to realize that that button has completely turned over all control of his ship to the station so that they could dock the ship for him. And it makes sense for a button to remove ones control over their own craft in the middle of battle. The ship slowly makes its way back into the station and his first flight has been completed. Once his ship comes to an end he's quickly ushered out and practically ignored by the rest of the staff beyond helping him out of the gear they had set up. Instead they seemed more interested in looking over all the data that had been gathered. Having been cleared from duty for the rest of the day so that they can fine-tune his limiters Richard decides to go head to the outer ring in order to just find a window to stare out into space and truly enjoy it for once.

Elsewhere in the station Anon is going about making her usual rounds with Mia busying herself by going up one arm, down the other, extending as far as she can go and then turn around. This time, she's at least not worked up enough to do that all over Anon's body, which she has done when she gets enough sugar into her system. Mia doesn't like being on the ground when she can help it and at least knows that she's not allowed to just jump onto other people without their permission. But she's still fairly young and rather energetic at times and has no qualms about going everywhere around Anon or even jumping onto inanimate objects for something to do. At first it was distracting, but eventually Anon learned to just ignore it so as to stay vigilant to anything she may need to react to. As such she sees right away when a very well-dressed human starts trying to wave her down. Anon looks to see who it is and sighs.

Mister Carver Doreslo is one of the council members to what might as well just be called the Family. The Family represents a sort of alliance between who knew how many criminal syndicates across all the empires with the sole exception of the Jhereshii. Though they still did a fair bit of business with the Jhereshii, the Jhereshii had no representation within the Family, nor had they seemed inclined to try. And as much as she knows that Carver manages countless illegal activities through their portion of the galaxy there is simply one detail that she cannot at all omit. In regards to their activities on the station, the Family do not ever break the law. Occasionally one member may get into a fight and get detained and charged. But as a whole the Family obeys every single law of the station without complaint. Outside the station they smuggle illegal drugs and weapons; they help fund terrorist cells and raids. There's even a few known trafficking rings that they oversee. But none of that ever shows up on the station. They use the station as a staging area. What better place to coordinate their business over countless systems than a place marked as neutral territory. So long as they never broke any station laws and no other system could conclusively prove they committed a crime severe enough to be deported the station would take no actions against them. So every one of them are among the most law abiding members of the station. They don't even try using the station to move their smuggled goods or launder money, that would risk their status with the station. Not to mention it would mean they tend to avoid or otherwise help with informing them about any criminal activities on the station or anything else that interferes with their business.

"Guardian," he says and the orb at his waist immediately translates for her.

Anon frowns slightly at that as it means that he had his orb preset to her. There are admittedly a few of the other Guardians that also speak the same dialect she does, but there'd be no reason to key an orb to one of them. Meaning that they specifically went to hunt her down specifically. This also means that whatever issue they have is not something that can be simply left to any ordinary Guardian.

"Hello, mister Doreslo, how can I help you," She replies simply.

"Guardian, I have some information I would like to give. It has come to the attention of one of my associates that there is a deal in the works for someone to buy Consortium tech on the station. Unfortunately, I am unable to disclose the identity of my associate at this time and don't know who the deal is with or when it's coming. But knowing full well how the Consortium treats those who sell their tech, I felt it best to inform you so that you all can take care of the problem and stop it from getting onto the station."

"Very well, mister Doreslo. I'll pass along your information. Have a nice day," Anon nods and then continues walking down the corridor.

If there was anything else he wanted from her he'd speak up again, but instead he looks down and starts typing things down in his data plate while half watching her leave. Having been made aware of the change she begrudgingly accepts that it may in fact be confirmation of the events. Though in all reality it doesn't really tell her anything she didn't already know. She's not allowed to get directly involved but there is that report of a Coreward on its way that has yet to be disproven by any of the other Gates in the network. Meaning Consortium Tech is on its way. It's definitely worth reporting so she taps a button on her communicator and dials in Riu's. She doesn't really need to bother telling him who she is as her own communicator often has its own signal, letting anyone know immediately if a message were coming from her. Riu also has a special tone on his as well.

"I just had the Family chase me down. Their sources indicate that there is a deal in the works to sell Tech on the station. Didn't tell me from who or when, though."

"Hmm," Riu responds. "Well all the evidence then imply that it is coming. But if it's a deal is incoming then that thankfully means that it isn't on the station yet. So with luck we should be able to avoid any major confrontation. Be sure to have all the guardians stay vigilant," he says before terminating the connection.

Anon frowns at his statement. Of course she'd be having her people remain vigilant. The Consortium are no laughing matter, especially when it comes to their own technology. Most Consortium colony ships have already passed their region of the galaxy to start colonizing further out. But that is how they are, they send a colony ship, eventually that colony declares its independence from the Consortium and the Consortium just lets them. Even lets them keep all of the technology that was put in place back when they were a part of the Consortium. But they are extremely possessive regarding that technology. Any attempt to try and uncover the secrets of the Consortium's technology is met with lethal force. They don't care about collateral damage, though they will use a precise strike when they feel like it. Doesn't change the fact that anyone knowing anything about Consortium technology or even worse, possessing some of it draws the ire of an empire that has no equal in the galaxy as far as she is aware.

As being a part of the Guardians there is a lot more scrutiny in what they do as far as the Consortium is concerned. They are considered part of the main staff, but with them out and amongst the people there is far greater risk of them doing something that will put the station at risk. Find out any credible evidence as to who is involved, they might be seen as trying to hide information from the Consortium. Find the culprit and execute them first and the Consortium may decide to punish the station for taking matters into their own hands and preventing them from figuring out how they got the technology. Lock the culprit away and even have one word spoken to them and the Consortium may decide that they've tried to learn Consortium secrets and destroy the place. The Corewards are just an extremely big pain in the tail when it comes to actually doing her job. By being vigilant it means that all of the Guardians have to not only do their ordinary job, but also almost go out of their way to try and not learn anything about the transaction that may be taking place and if they do find anything, immediately report it and don't follow up unless absolutely needed.

Anon stops for a moment and turns to the direction she assumes the Coreward is coming from and bows slightly, "May one of the Sisters show you favor," she says before continuing on her rounds, Mia still oblivious to everything and deciding to go and sit on top of her head for the time being now instead.