FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

February 06, Earth Year 2224 AD

There they were again, flying through the gaps between the stars, the endless void of space out the cockpit window, when the silence was broken by a notification blip. Shade's ears perked toward the sound and he looked to the central dashboard screen to see an incoming message on a very familiar encrypted channel.

He tapped it to respond and the face of an old friend appeared; the grey fur and stormy blue eyes he had known for years. Rayne was wearing his work uniform, the sleek dark vest of the United Galactic Defense Force, with the emblem of the interstellar organization emblazoned on the shoulders.

"Hey," he said. "are you nearby?"

"... That would depend entirely on where you are," Shade said with a smirk. "Which you'd need to tell me before—"

"We're less than an hour out," Ami sighed, cutting him off. "What's up?"

"We've got a problem," Rayne said. Shade's smile dropped and he sat forward. "Loose criminal in the south side of SD-57."

"Ah," Shade said. Lots of criminals liked to hide out on Earth, particularly in the android-free zones. Not that that had ever stopped Ami.

"I hear he's an old friend of yours."

"Oh?" Shade said, raising an eyebrow.

"We couldn't get a warrant to bust his door down. Damn red tape." Rayne sighed. "So I'm sending you the coordinates for his place. You up for some good old vigilantism?"

Shade scoffed.

"Always."

He felt Ami turning the ship around, flying back toward Earth.

***

Shade peered out the window as the ship honed in on the coordinates, revealing a red holographic sign displaying the words Red River; the name of a lup?n drink, a rather alcoholic one, at that.

"This guy's hiding out in a bar?" Shade scoffed. "My kinda criminal."

"Rayne said he was an old acquaintance," Ami said. "and it makes sense they couldn't just barge in. If they don't have proof he's hiding out there, they can't just search the back without pissing off the bartender."

Ami powered up the ship's cloaking, letting it disappear from view with a ripple of holographic light before landing it on the roof of the building. They walked into the back of the ship and stepped down the cargo ramp, out onto the roof of the bar. It was rather odd to look back and see the door close into nothing as it retracted back into the invisible ship.

"You think I'd do well running my own bar?" Shade asked idly as he and Ami dropped into the alley on the right side.

"No," Ami laughed. "You'd go broke as soon as the clientele figured out you were giving away drinks to cute girls."

Shade laughed.

"Yeah, fair enough," he said. He started examining the back windows for a way in.

"Put your hands where I can see them!"

He froze and looked down the alley to see an officer in full body armor, aiming a gun at him, the blue glow of the thing illuminating the alley. Shade glanced at Ami, wondering why she hadn't moved to apprehend the cop yet—when it hit him, and he broke into a broad grin.

"Oh, you SON OF A—"

The smooth helmet of the cop's armor retracted with a burst of laughter from the grey-furred half-lup?n, a laugh he and Ami shared, and it echoed down the alley. Rayne pulled him into a tight hug and ruffled the fur on his head as he laughed, then hugged Ami. There never was any hidden criminal to catch—Rayne only wanted to lure him here to "catch" him breaking into the back of the bar.

"You knew it was him the whole time, didn't you?" Shade laughed to Ami.

"Of course," she laughed. "I knew what he was planning from the moment he called; I can analyze facial expressions, remember?"

"C'mere you son of a bitch," Shade chuckled, pulling Rayne into another quick hug before playfully punching his shoulder.

'Bitch' was a human curse, of course—one which Shade didn't usually care for, and one that carried a heavier insult when used against a lup?n, due to its meaning—but his calling Rayne a 'son of a bitch' was a long-standing inside joke between them, since Rayne was a half-human hybrid, and of his two parents, Rayne's mother was the only one who wasn't, well, canine.

"You owe me a drink after scaring the life outta me like that," Shade said as they walked toward the bar.

"Fair enough," Rayne chuckled.

***

The bartender of the Red River was a human man with a thin frame and silvery hair, identified as "Collam" by the name tag on his collar, the lettering of which shifted between the written languages of various races and cultures.

Shade had figured the bar would be crawling with the usual back-alley scum that congregated at joints like this. This assumption, it seemed, was correct. There was a muscled silen dosing hyper steroids in the corner, green scales rippling and bulging as he flexed his muscles. Shade grimaced and looked away.

The bartender snorted and glance off to the left of Rayne and he knew he must have checked Rayne's ID.

"'Officer Storm?' Your… last name is Storm?" the man chuckled. "So it's—"

"Yes," Rayne said flatly. "My parents had a stupid sense of humor."

The bartender suppressed another chuckle, but didn't press. Shade and Rayne both ordered their chosen liquor wordlessly, using the touchscreen that illuminated on the surface of the counter.

"So, what's the deal between you two?" the human said as he grabbed the drinks, gesturing from Rayne to Shade. "He gets you out of legal trouble and you pay him for it?"

At this suggestion, Rayne glanced to Shade with a smirk.

"You could pay me..." he said.

"Oh, gods, look what you've done, you've given him ideas..." Shade groaned. Ami laughed.

"He absolutely could pay you, but I feel like the unexplained credits in your account would raise some eyebrows among your employers," she said.

"Yeah, probably," Rayne muttered. Though the bartender had meant the crack as a joke, it held a grain of truth. Rayne had in fact helped Shade escape the interstellar law enforcement agency he worked for on a number of occasions.

They each took a swig of their drinks, then both glanced around the bar for anyone interesting. Finding nothing, they turned back to each other for idle chatter.

"So, how's Tirra?" Rayne asked. Shade laughed.

"Well, you know. It's Tirra," he said, taking a pull of his chosen drink, an exotic amber alcohol. "If she's not at a bar like this one, she's already in someone's bed."

"Is that jealousy I hear?" Rayne chuckled. "You'd rather be with her than me?"

"Which would you rather be with right now, me or her?" Shade scoffed. Ami and Rayne laughed with him.

"Honestly, I think I'd rather hang out with Ami, given the choice," Rayne said. Then, under his breath, "Can't believe you get to fly back and forth across the damn galaxy with an android for a goddamned bodyguard."

"True friendship," Ami laughed. "Not that I don't appreciate it, Rayne," she flirted, brushing her tail up under his chin and eliciting a low groan from him as he caught her scent. "… but you do know Shade and I don't spend all of our trips back and forth having sex, right?"

"No, I mean you have to recharge sometime, right?" Rayne chuckled, turning back to his drink. Ami smirked and Shade snickered.

There was a lull before Rayne grew bored and inevitably pried into the gritty detail of Shade and Ami's sex life.

"Hey, have you guys ever done that thing where you're flying and you jump to hyperspace right as you, ya know, push in?" Rayne asked.

"Mm-hm," Ami said idly.

"Which time?" Shade asked.

Rayne scoffed and went back to his drink.

Shade glanced down as a message appeared in the corner of his vision. It was from Ami.

"Bounty hunter- behind, right corner; lup?n girl, white fur. Already made us."

Shade turned his head, pretending to be scanning the bar again while he tried to swallow the rising lump in his throat. He kept his gaze moving, sweeping the crowd of colorful bodies, and then he saw her; right where Ami said she'd be, over in the right corner. They locked eyes for a brief moment—hers were red and full of cold, calculating menace. She was watching, waiting to see what he'd do. So, he gave her a smirk, and was a bit surprised when he saw her flash one back at him. But plenty of bounty hunters could flirt, he knew.

He turned back to the bar. Rayne may not have had as sharp a nose as he would have had he been a full-blooded lup?n, but he'd known Shade and Ami long enough to know when something was up. He raised an eyebrow, his hand instinctually moving for his holstered sidearm. Shade struggled to remember that system of quickly conveying direction they used on Earth. Ami saw what he was going for and beat him to it.

"Hey, when'd you say this place clears out?" she asked Rayne. "4:00?"

To anyone else, this sounded like nothing more than a casual and perfectly relevant conversation between two people at a bar. But to Rayne, the message was clear: "Hostile at your 4:00; Clear the place out, now."

"You seen the white-fur chick in the corner?" Rayne said to Shade, keeping up the ruse with a smirk.

"Yeah," Shade said. "Seems kinda aggressive. Not my type."

Rayne snorted a "since when?" snort, but said nothing. He took a swill of his drink and silently tapped at his communicator. Moments later, Shade got an automated message on his HUD, courtesy of the United Galactic Defense Force:

"ALERT: For your own safety, please leave the premises immediately!"

The message flashed annoyingly in the bottom of his vision a few times, then disappeared. A confused murmur passed through the bar's patrons, but none of them made a move for the exit.

"You better not make a mess of my bar," the bartender growled, moving for something under the counter; possibly a silent alarm.

"My friend here will be happy to cover any damages," Rayne said, nodding toward Shade, who rolled his eyes. The bartender gave him a suspicious glance.

"Yeah?" he said.

Shade nodded. "I'll cover you enough for a few vacation days, too."

"Fine," the man sighed.

"You didn't expect that automated message to actually work, did you?" Ami said, nudging Rayne.

He sighed and stood up. "UGDF, everybody out! Now!" He fired off his pistol into the ceiling to make the point. There were a few screams and shouts before the crowd stampeded for the exit.

Before the bar had even cleared, the bounty hunter had moved for them. But there was a blast from over Shade's shoulder and a bolt of blue energy hit the lup?n girl in the shoulder, the hunter hitting the floor soon after. He glanced back to see the bartender lowering a pistol of android design, silvery white and glowing blue. It wasn't uncommon for people in districts like this one to have concealed carry permits—especially bartenders.

"Pretty cocky to think she could take all of us," Shade chuckled, looking down at the unconscious lup?n.

"Yeah, 'cause you've never taken on anything you can't handle," Rayne chuckled back.

"We've got more incoming. She called her friends," Ami said quickly.

"They increased the bounty?" Shade asked.

"On me, yeah," Ami said with a smirk.

Shade raised his eyebrows and Rayne laughed.

"She was hunting you?" he chortled.

"Yeah, we may have had a brush with Azrak recently," she smirked as Rayne's jaw dropped. "I left something of an impression."

"She's being literal," Shade laughed. "Actually managed to graze the big lizard. Apparently, he took it personally."

Someone tossed an EMP grenade through the window, blacking out the place, but Ami didn't flinch. She chuckled, her glowing blue eyes among the only things still visible in the now dark bar.

"It always amuses me people still think you can kill an android with a little electromagnetic pulse. We've been EMP proof for decades!"

A massive laser blast streaked through the window, burning a large hole in the back wall. Ami returned fire with her forearm-mounted stun canon, a much smaller and more precise shot. There was the sound of a body hitting the ground outside.

"This is normal for you?" Rayne laughed. "Fending off bounty hunters, fighting literal mother-fucking Azrak??"

"That part was unexpected," Shade admitted. "Definitely something we try to avoid."

"Get. Out. Of my. Bar."

They turned to see the bartender now aiming the pistol toward them. They didn't need to be told twice, filing out through the still smoldering hole in the back wall, Shade taking down a bounty hunter who tried to get the drop on them. He made sure his handgun was on the stun setting. No sense hurting people who were just doing their job. Hell, he'd considered becoming a bounty hunter once or twice.

"We're on the roof," Shade said, gesturing toward where the cloaked ship was parked.

"Of course you are," Rayne chuckled. "God forbid you ever do anything legally."

Shade laughed and moved for the ladder leading up the back of the building, but paused as he saw Ami beaming.

"What's that face for?" he laughed.

"I've got a bigger bounty than yoooou! And got us kicked out of a bar!" she giggled while a mounted turret casually appeared from her left shoulder and shot a bounty hunter as he appeared around a corner. Shade and Rayne laughed.

"Hey, don't drink 'n' drive, alright?" Rayne called out as he watched the two of them board their ship.

"Yes, thank you, Officer," Shade sighed, rolling his eyes at the jab about his poor piloting skill, and about the fact that due to that lack of skill, Ami was the pilot—who, as an android, couldn't even get drunk.

"He already drives like he's intoxicated, it might actually cancel out!" Ami called back to Rayne, who laughed boisterously.

"Hey, call me next time you've got another 'criminal' to catch!" Shade shouted over the sound of the cargo door closing.

"How 'bout you call me when hanging with you doesn't get me shot at!" Rayne shouted.

"He's just saying that," Ami said, once the doors had closed. "This was the most fun he's had all week."

"Yeah, you don't need to be able to read microexpressions to figure that out," Shade laughed.