FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The first thing that occurred to Jacoby as he woke up was to wonder how he'd fallen asleep sitting. The second was 'where was he?' there were none of the usual noises of people outside his office, which is where he had to be if--

He opened his eyes to the gray of a ship.

"Right," he grumbled, running a hand over his face. This was Alex's ship, Katherine's folly. They'd rescued Tech; now they were on their way to his home planet because Alex thought there was a cure there for him.

Jacoby sighed. His second cryo under a day, third since this started and he'd woken up disoriented again. He was out of practice. He stood and stretched, at least his body had taken to it again, even if his mind was taking its time.

He glanced at the medical bed; it was empty. Alex was in the cockpit. "Where's Tech?"

"Tristan," he answered, entering information.

"What?" the screen showed a space station. Something old by the marks on it, but well build, as far as Jacoby could tell.

"His name is Tristan. Tech was just a mask he wore to fool the lot of you."

He looked at the back of Alex's head. There had been something in his voice. A coldness that hadn't been there before Cryo. He looked at the empty medical bed. "Where is Tristan, then?"

"Sleeping, in the cabin."

"Which station is that?"

"Carmina."

"Is Tristan okay? I thought you were taking him to Samalia."

"Carmina is the Samalian space station."

"That doesn't sound much like a Samalian name."

"It isn't." With a few taps Alex brought up information on the station. What jumped at Jacoby was the owners. 'LeisureTek.' They were one of the largest leisure corporations in the universe. What were they doing financing a space station at a place like this?

"Why didn't you wake me before? I could have taken us in."

"I can handle docking us. It's mainly automated. I just have to keep an eye on the system. They keep trying to infiltrate it."

"Fine. Since I don't have anything to do. I'm going to contact the folks back home. Let them know what's going on, why we're not back yet." He sat and tried to call up the comm screen. Nothing happened. "Alex, I have to let them--"

"I'm setting up a secure line of communication."

"I know how to do that."

Alex didn't reply.

The screen became active and was already connecting. "Diny's" a man said, his face appearing a moment later as he stepped into view. His eyes went wide. "Jack!" he looked over the screen. "Everyone, Jacoby's calling in!" There was a cacophony of sounds and Jacoby smiled. The sounds of home.

"Alright, quiet down everyone." The man looked back down at the screen. "How are you Jack? How's Tech and Alex? Were you able to find him? Are you on your way home?"

Jacoby saw the look Alex gave him. 'Watch what you say,' that look said very loudly. "I'm good Kline. Alex is fine. Tech...." He trailed off, trying to work out how to formulate an answer.

"Tell me he's okay, Jack. Tell me you were able to rescue him." The urgency in the man's voice was echoed by the murmurs he could hear from the crowd. "Jack, tell me you're bringing our boy home."

The look Alex gave the screen would have made Jacoby laugh, if he wasn't dead certain it promised murder on the man who'd called Tech 'his boy.' Jacoby had to remind himself that Alex hadn't spent that much time socializing with the others.

"We rescued him." Relief showed on the man's face. "But they hurt him badly."

The man nodded. "They'd have to, Tech wouldn't give up his secrets to anyone."

Jacoby nodded. "And he didn't."

"Tell him I'm proud of him." The man looked over the screen, searching the crowd. "Cornelius isn't here. I'll call her to let her know Tech's been hurt. When should I tell her you'll be here?"

"It won't be soon. A couple of years probably, Objective time. The Med bed on the ship took care of his physical injuries, but they also hurt him mentally. That's where most of the damage is, so we're taking him to an expert." He wasn't going to mention that Alex didn't seem to even know what he was doing. Let the folks back home think this was something serious. "But we'll come right home after that."

The crowd had grown quiet. "You're going to take care of our boy, right?"

"You don't have to worry about that. If I let Tech get one scratch, I think Alex will kill me." The crowd laughed, but Alex nodded, his face serious. Jacoby had trouble keeping his attention on the screen. Alex was way too intense for his liking.

"Did you kill a lot of bad people!" someone yelled, she sounded young.

"Was there a space battle!" That sounded suspiciously like Gregory. He should be old enough to know better than encourage the talk of violence around the younger folks. As he'd expected those two question opened the floodgate for everyone to ask something.

"Be quiet everyone, let Jack talk." The man shook his head in amusement. "So, Jack. How about you regale everyone with what happened?"

"Let me figure out how to tell it so none of the parents will want to strangle me afterward." Of course, if he told them just what he'd done it would be boring. Sitting in a ship for hours while letting everyone else do the work wasn't what they wanted to hear about.

"Tech was held on a ship. Alex found it using the net thing he does. I'm not going to tell you who's ship it was. It doesn't matter and I don't want any of you getting it into their head to make them pay. Alex brought in some of his friends. One was a bounty hunter, one a lawman, one was a Locksmith and his girlfriend--"

"Did she get hurt?" someone asked, and he thought it was the young girl again.

"No, she didn't. She's a powerfully built woman. We also had a medic and a bunch of muscle."

"Are they still with you?" the man asked.

"No, they had their own ships."

"Did you kill all the bad people?" another young voice asked.

"Now Martin," the man said, "even if he did Jack won't be talking about that."

Jacoby smiled. If it was the Martin he thought, he'd been barely walking the last time he saw him. "There was a lot of fighting. They didn't want to give him up, and no we didn't blow up the ship. We just left once we had Tech on board."

"That's it?" someone asked.

"Yes, that's it." Jacoby forced a chuckle. "I mean I did have to fight off five mercs on my own when they tried to take control of our ship. But yes, that's about it. This isn't a vid. We went in, rescued Tech and left." There had been the implication that one of Alex's friends had taken control of the ship, but Jacoby still hadn't gotten details about that and didn't expect to get them.

"Alright," the man called to the crowd. "You've gotten the news. This particular show's over. Go back to your tables and eat your dinners." He waited, looking around as the voices moved to the distance, then looked at Jacoby. "Okay, Jack, you've entertained them. Now, about the straight story? How bad is it?"

Jacoby sighed and rubbed his face. "Tech is in bad shape. They pumped him full of drugs. Those have been cleared from his system, but on top of losing his job, you knew about that, right?"

"Yeah, the story circulated after you left."

"Well this didn't help. He's something of a wreck."

"You take care of him, Jack, and you bring both of them home where they belong."

"Don't worry. No matter what happens here, we're going home afterward."

The man nodded and ended the connection.

Alex was looking at him, his face neutral. Jacoby tried to read something in it of how he felt, but Alex had closed himself off completely. The station was closer. Taking so much of the screen it wasn't possible to tell what it was anymore.

Without saying anything, Alex went back to his work.

"Do you need me to contact the station? Make the arrangements for our stay?"

Alex shook his head. "Dealt with that already."

Jacoby leaned back in the seat. With nothing to do all he could do was think and Alex hadn't exactly given him anything to-- "Care to let me in on exactly what they can do for Te--Tristan here?"

"Fix him," Alex replied.

"So you said before, but how? Samalia isn't exactly the tech center of the universe. Do they have special psychologists I never heard about?"

"No."

"Alex, give me something here, I want to help but--"

"It's a Samalian thing." The tone made those words final. The clang of the ship docking reinforced them. He didn't like this. This was taking a job blind, nothing good ever happened of not knowing all the details.

He was ready to insist on more details when Tech came down the ladder. His fur was damp and he had pants on. Alex had to have brought clothes for him. He stood at the base of the ladder, looking at the screens. His gaze was level. His eyes clear

"What's the status?" he asked, his voice firm.

Maybe he was better than either of them thought, but then Alex looked at him over his shoulder and Tech flinched. Jacoby couldn't recall ever seeing Tech uncomfortable. He'd always been self-assured. Now, in that moment the authority had shifted and he wasn't certain what to do.

"We're docked," Alex replied, focusing on the screen. "I registered the ship under your 'Parmalien' ID. It's a nice and unobtrusive one. No one's going to look at it twice."

Anger flashed in Tech's eyes, but he didn't do anything. The anger surprised Jacoby more than the indecision. He hadn't thought Tech capable of anger. He'd seen him pestered by kids to the point where he himself would have set them scamming, but Tech had answered all their questions. And when he'd sent them away it was with a smile. He reminded himself that He'd been through a lot recently and he had to make allowances.

"We're going to have to arrange to get planetside." Tech's voice was firm again. "Since you used Parmalien, that means mass transport, he can't afford a private shuttle."

"Why is that important?" Jacoby asked, standing. "It isn't like anyone is looking for you right now."

Tech looked at him as if he'd just noticed he was there. The indecision was back, he tried to say something, but couldn't seem to find the words. His face when from hard, to friendly, hard again and then confused. He looked at Alex, how was still studying the screen.

"He knows about you," Alex said. "He was part of the rescue." He ran a finger along the screen, tracing a line of code. "Actually, he's known who you really are for years now. Since you started living there actually." He typed something.

Tech looked at him, fear in his eyes and then they hardened with anger.

"Don't kill him," Alex said. And Jacoby thought there had been an unsaid 'yet' there. He decided he'd imagined it. Alex was dealing with his boyfriend being unstable, that had to affect him, affect the three of them.

Jacoby headed down into the storage compartment to grab his bag, as well as Alex's and he grabbed one left over from the mercs for Tristan. He dumped that one's contents on the floor, taking only the gun, medkit and protein bars from among the spare clothing and data chips to put back. Then he considered the gun, that had been a reflex. Always carry a weapon, but this wasn't a job, so did he need it? He took it out, looked through the clothing, too small for Tech. There had been one large guy in the group, so Jacoby searched through the packs until he found clothing that would fit him.

He came back up to Tech and Alex glaring at each other. He handed the packs without commenting. Alex took off his knife harness and put it in there. Tech looked through the cabinets until he found a gun. He looked it over and shoved it in his pack.

Tech turned and looked at both of them. "We're heading out. Alex will get us passage on the earliest shuttle going ground side. We're not stopping for anything. We're not here to sightsee. We're going to the temple, then we're leaving. Understood?"

Jacoby nodded. A reflex, responding more to the tone of command than the words. Another side of Tech he'd never seen before. Alex didn't react.

Tech turned and entered the command to open the hatch in the middle of the ramp. It unsealed with a whine of protest that told Jacoby this ship hadn't often docked. The hatch opened to a short corridor with another hatch, which they crossed.

When they reached the other end text appeared before them, in a few languages, only two of which Jacoby knew. It was a notice they were carrying weapons, that it open carry was illegal, and a bunch of other things about the safety of the station and the people on it.

Tech reached through it to open the hatch and took a step through it and then froze.