FSE

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" That's ambitious." Sherra said. It was the only way she could think of responding, after Naska made his long explanation.

" It can happen."

" Hm."

She looked at him. Naska gripped the fence and stared out at the port, looking utterly determined.

" It can."

She wondered if she could have changed his mind. There were a hundred ways of insulting him, of telling Naska that it was impossible. Sherra never said a word. Naive as it was, there was something admirable about what he wanted.

" Maybe I shouldn't be hassling you with all this." He said.

" No. It's okay."

Naska looked at her.

" Really, it is." Sherra said. " I never knew anyone who believed in much, with how the core worlds are. We already have a utopia. I always felt like there wasn't much left to struggle for." No, that wasn't quite true. She never really cared one way or another.

" I'm not sure if I want to drag you into it." Naska said, looking surprised at her.

" You wouldn't be dragging me."

" Sherra..."

She gave a flick of her tail and paused. " You'll end up dead if I don't help you out."

Naska looked lost for words, working his jaw under the shade of the ridiculous hat he liked to wear. " I'll talk to you tomorrow."

With that, he was gone, wandering down the road and behind the row of Earth-like pine trees that forested the area around the spaceport. Maybe she shouldn't have said that. Sherra spent some time lost in thought. She imagined a normal future for herself. One of the felines for a husband, on one of the more quiet inner colonies, where she could live out a very long and relatively normal life. The idea of having children seemed strange to her. Strange, but not offputting. Or there was this place. Sherra doubted that she would survive much longer than a few years. It was, quite simply, that dangerous.

The gun at her hip was heavy. She reached for it, sliding her thumb over the top. Memories came flooding back, from a time not so long ago, when she was Rechin. That man had been a thief and a thug, and a miserable one at that. Sherra wondered if she really was any different now. Her feline face began to feel like a mask.

She walked home.

For a long while, she stared at the image the console reflected back at her. Sherra, the Ces, stared back. At any moment she expected the illusion to fade away, revealing who she really was. Guilt and regret started to build up in the back of her head, memories flooding in after weeks of being repressed inside her mind. The cat stayed, no matter how much Sherra imagined herself as who she used to be. She didn't need to be that person. Not anymore. Sherra wrapped her arms around herself and dipped her head down, tail curled around her waist, almost desperate to feel like she belonged in this body. It wasn't going anywhere, she reminded herself. She would wake up like this tomorrow.

After dinner and a shower, she slept. She woke up early, in a panic, breathing a sigh of relief as soon as she felt for the soft fur on her belly. As she did that, she started to imagine what Rechin would have said. He would have found it fairly amusing.

" Losing my fucking mind." She said, in a familiar voice. As the words came out, she almost despised them.

" I'm losing my mind." This time, it sounded like Sherra. She preferred it that way.

It took a while for her body to feel normal again. Sherra wanted it to feel normal all the time. She desperately wanted to put her past self behind her. Despite her admiration for Naska's hopelessly optimistic ideas, she knew she couldn't stay here.

He never came that afternoon. Or the one after.

Sherra began to worry.

After one more day, she started to ask around about where Naska lived. A few of the people at her work seemed to know him. They said he lived on the east side of the inner city, just outside the core controlled area. Sherra knew the place. Naska was a moron for deciding to live there.

She decided to pay him a visit. It was unsafe and Sherra knew it, but she stayed out past dark that evening, making her way beyond the streets controlled by the Matron. Old instincts came back as she quietly wandered the back roads, ears out for the sound of any danger. She had a jammer, one of the old stock ones from the military. It had cost one hundred credits - about fifty more than what it was worth, but it would stop most people from detecting her electronically. With her smaller body and soft feet it was much easier to sneak around than it used to be. Her ears were as sensitive as the old enhanced ones were, but without the slight irritation that came with trying to use cybernetics effectively.

A coil rifle thundered off in the distance, followed by the crackling of old fashioned gunfire. It wouldn't be Freedom's Reach without those noises. At least it came from a different direction to where Sherra was headed.

She crept along the second floor of hollowed out buildings where she had to, hearing the passing footsteps and quiet murmurings of the truly hopeless figures that were the city's poor. If they were here, they had reasons to be. The core would take in anyone who wanted to be absorbed into it. Naska was supposed to be close. A six story, solid concrete block matched up with the map she had downloaded. The stains and bullet holes told her that it probably hadn't been cleaned or repaired since it was constructed. Sherra had thought her place was a dump. What the hell had he been doing here? Gun in hand, she waited until a lonely figure strode past and quickly made her way across the road, before she climbed up the railing and squeezed herself into the second floor window, right where the staircase was. It was a nervous trip up to the top floor. Just before she made it, Sherra heard gunshots. She ran. Sherra ran, in the opposite direction from what Rechin would have.

Her footsteps barely made a noise as she rushed up the concrete stairs. A young man looked afraid, an older man pointing a pistol at him. In the corner was Naska, lying on his side with blood pooling around him. Sherra didn't wait. She strode in and held the gun up, blowing a clear hole in the back of the gunman's head before slamming and locking the door behind her.

" If you come close I'll kill you." Sherra said, striding over to Naska.

He was breathing. A long breath escaped her mouth and she felt her eyes become wet. Not now, Sherra told herself. Sliding her hand down, she inspected the wound. Two shots had torn through his stomach. The wound wasn't as bad as it ought to have been. Nanobots must have been trying to fix as much as they could, judging by the way one of the wounds seemed to be half sealed. They'd keep him alive a while, but it wouldn't be enough.

" You're that girl... He wanted to see you."

" Do you know anywhere safe?"

" He..." The young man blinked, blue eyes dazed, blood on his black jacket.

" Listen to me." Sherra said, firmly. " Do you know anywhere safe?"

" We had a hideout, on the basement level. I don't think they - they..."

" Will someone see us on the way?"

" The building is almost empty. That's why, we, why we came."

" Fine. Help me carry him."

Fit as she was, it was a stuggle holding Naska, her concern growing as the blood dripped from his body to the stairs below. By the time they made it, she was nearly panting, simply glad that nobody else had come. Such a needless risk. Rechin never would have... No, she wasn't that man. After placing him down, he kneeled in front of a well-hidden scanner. They both wandered into the small room, carrying Naska. It closed behind them. The room itself wasn't much more than a cupboard, a steel bench in the middle with a safe on the wall.

" There's a kit in here."

" Sure."

She watched as he opened the safe. Four coil rifles were stocked on the bottom shelf, six pistols on the second, with various supplies and medical kits on the upper shelf.

" The fuck were you planning to do?"

" Naska wanted to change things."

" Right."

Sherra snatched the kit off him and placed it by Naska's side, calibrating the small robot and letting it float up above his wounds. A few whistles and beeps came from the machine, before it started to go to work on the bloody holes, sticking a sterile tube inside of them and repairing the damage with slick, gurgling noises. Sherra turned away, feeling sick. She had always hated medbots.

The male's blood was all over her hands, staining the white fur. Sherra spoke in a whisper. " We're going to have to leave the city."

" Naska - "

" With Naska, you fucking moron." Rechin's tone snuck into her voice.

" Y-yeah. Sure."

Sherra slid a wrist over her eye, wiping a tear from it, her new voice coming back. " What's your name?"

" Michael." He spoke, just as quietly as her.

She gave a nod. " That's old fashioned."

" My parents are from Earth."

" I've never seen it. I'd like to, one day."

" I've heard Ces' is pretty spectacular."

Sherra looked down at her fuzzy hands. She supposed most people would have assumed that she would have seen Ces' once or twice, being a cat. " It's nice. Well, nicer than here in any case. Most places are."

Sherra was going to need to spend some virtual time on their homeworld now, in order to keep up the fiction. It needed to stay consistent. Neither of them spoke for a while. The machine blinked orange, then turned green. Naska would stabilise. For a little while she stared at him, arms folded across her chest. Sherra had never really given a shit before. Now...

" Do you have any credits?" She asked.

" I have a few thousand."

" You're doing better than me." She tried to smile. " We can call in a taxi in the morning. An unmanned one, and we'll take the rifles with us. If we need to, those can be sold. Is there anything stopping either of you from using a core station?"

" N-no. We don't have any infringement records."

" Alright then. That'd be the safest thing to do."

She took a coil rifle from the cupboard and switched it on, a quiet hum coming from inside it as it energised. It was going to be a long night. Silently, she stood in the corner, holding the rifle and straining to hear if anyone was coming. As the hours whittled by, nobody came. Michael sat in silence, rocking on the floor and staring at the wall, while Naska lay unconscious. His breathing, at least, had become steady.

Once morning came, they managed to get Naska into the back of the shuttle, the fur on his torso covered in dry blood. The male looked a mess. Sherra didn't know much about first aid. She just hoped the kit had been enough to get him to the spaceport.

They screamed out of the building just before it became light, Sherra holding the coil rifle up to her eye, frantically looking for anyone who might feel like shooting at them. If they had a coil of their own, it would easily be enough to bring the taxi down. Michael sat with his head between his hands, seemingly oblivious to all of it. A few stray bullets shot up from a building nearby, cracking into the wall nex to the vehicle, dust spraying as it zoomed past. Sherra lifted up her rifle and gave a couple of shots back, the recoil thumping hard against her shoulder as the blue streaks shattered into the road below. It was a short exchange. They were out of the more dangerous districts in a flash, passing by the top floors of crumbling buildings. The spaceport came into view. Sherra could see a few of the Core's guards watching her taxi, weapons drawn. They wouldn't shoot if she didn't come too close. But if she stayed too far... Clenching her jaw, Sherra landed the thing as close as she could, desperately hoping that none of them fired. Nobody did. Landing the taxi nearby, she hopped out and stood no more than fifty feet from the guards.

" Weapon down." One of the guards called, his face masked by a black helmet.

Sherra obeyed. " Please, let us up."

" Sherra?"

She looked at Naska, his breathing shallow. Michael had lost it completely, rocking back and forth in his seat.

" Please? He needs help."

The guard paused, looked at them, then lowered his gun. " Get them out of here."