FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"It's all done, gents!" Darin exclaimed. Carlos looked over to Taylor, who had fallen asleep a couple of hours in. Their time wasn't entirely spent doing nothing; they had managed quite a bit of conversation. Carlos learned a few interesting things about establishing a business in the deep areas of space, and also about a few of the more active areas of space where even restaurants were established due to the fact that there was plenty of traffic passing through the area.

"Well, that was quick," said Taylor, covering his mouth as he yawned so as to not seem rude. "How long has it been?"

"About six hours, Taylor," said Carlos. "Give or take a few minutes, but compared to all the service stations I've been to, this has by far been the quickest and best of all of them. I don't say that lightly either!"

Darin blushed slightly, but maintained eye contact. "Well, if you're ever in need of a mechanic to service your ship, I'd be glad to see more customers."

"Gladly," smiled Carlos. "How much will all this cost?"

"Oh, considering all that I've done, about 285 credits," answered Darin. "100 for the reinforcement of all systems and wiring, the 185 for fixing up the rest of your shell. I also installed a limiter on the hypercharger, that'll ensure it won't go to emergency measures because you leapt way too fast. You don't need to pay me for that."

Carlos nodded to Taylor. "Okay. Taylor, would you...?"

"Sure thing." He opened up his computer and pushed a few keys. "350 credits being transferred now."

"Oh no! You don't have to!" exclaimed Darin. "My services aren't worth that much, surely?"

"It's an inflating economy out there, Darin," said Taylor. "Not to mention that Carlos would probably kill me if I didn't."

Darin's face beamed, and Taylor couldn't help smiling over the little joke he made. Of course Carlos hadn't made any sort of threat, and he would eventually have a punch to the shoulder for it, but he knew that such services were at least that much.

"Well, thanks for stopping by!" said Darin. "Come back soon if you need anything!"

"We will!" responded Carlos.

* * *

Carla Wallis and her crew were once again on the move. There was still a few hours before the hypercharge drive could be used again, but it felt much more reassuring to Taylor now that Darin had taken a look at it. As much as he didn't like the snarkiness of the automated voice messages, he knew now it was all in good humour, and he found himself much more relaxed.

"Well, you look like you're back to your old self," said Carlos, pulling a couple of pastries out of their microwave oven. "I dare say you've surpassed your old self, and it's barely even been a day!"

At being offered it, Taylor took it and smiled. "Maybe so, but I'm not going to say that was as a result of being at some old mechanic business in space."

"Well, it certainly got you thinking though, didn't it? As much as I've seen you blow up when it came to bad and broken technology, it's the first I've seen you actually get into a good mood over it. I mean, sure *I* had to intervene first, but still..."

Taylor began eating up his share of the food, not wanting to admit as such that it was mostly on the part of his friend that he had tried to make himself a better person. The Shiba wasn't that great at doing so, letting his aggressive side handle most situations.

He turned on the long range receiver, to see if anything was going about through space. There wasn't much, save for a couple of independent stations, one of which was running a music station. The other was a discussion board, which seemed much more intriguing.

"...our guest today is General Sion from the Independence Alliance. We'd like to welcome you on *The Deck*."

"Glad to be here, Karen."

They began a talk on a growing tension between the IPF and rebel forces. There were most of the obvious points, including the belief that the IPF wasn't entirely independent from the many governments and mega corporations that existed in the day and age. But discussion then moved on, and brought on a rather interesting discussion.

"Okay General Sion, let's just get to that last point you made. It's clear that with the amount of support that you have, and with recent IPF rulings, that inevitably, a war could begin upon the drop of a feather. Do you believe that such a conflict could possibly liberate intergalactic civilisation?"

There was a moment as the General breathed in, obviously to prepare an answer. "I believe that we can. The Interplanetary Forces cannot entirely be formulated of corruption. There are many which I know will see truth in our work, and will side with us when the time comes. The involvement runs so deep that they have not yet seen past it. Many will suffer, I know that much. But we must rebuild the frameworks that have gotten us here, and it's through that, that we can find a better future for everyone."

"Thank you General Sion for your time, we appreciate you coming out here to talk to us in what can only be described as trying times for everyone."

The receiver station then went to an ad, which Carlos decided to switch off. "Well, that certainly beats the stuff that Earth has."

"Heh, I agree." responded Taylor. "Talk about both sides of the story..."

* * *

The two had managed a few hours of sleep before they were due to jump again. Carlos was the first to wake, and had noticed that Taylor was still snoozing away peacefully. The smile crept on his face before he realised it. He had worked with Taylor for plenty of years, he did that much. But he never saw it before.

That notion of having a personal relationship never really had felt right to Carlos, so he had never questioned it, having most of his time occupied by jobs and deliveries. Sure, he had once a relationship back in high school, but those days were long over, not to mention it was way too casual for him. He longed for a more substantial one, but he hadn't ever the time.

Looking at the Shiba before him, he wondered if he could handle being around Taylor for more than the days and weeks that they had a client. Could attitudes change if they were to be together? Yes, no doubt such a relationship would definitely have an effect on Carrier Wolves as a whole. But to what extent? Untested waters, uncharted areas of the map, they only bothered him minorly. But that was only because he hadn't fully considered it.

The time for thought soon ran out when the monitor blinked, indicating to Carlos that the hypercharge drive was ready for use again. He placed a paw on Taylor's shoulder, gently nudging him awake. "Hey Taylor, wake up."

A short grunt, and he was soon up in his awakened state, though still slightly tired. "Yeah? We good to go?" Taylor knew it wasn't worth the time to try and catch a bit more rest. He could save that for later.

"Yeah, the drive's fully ready," answered Carlos. "Shall we?"

Taylor nodded weakly, the sleep soon out of his way. "Yeah, let's not keep the guys waiting."

Carlos set course on the navigation monitor. The plan in getting to Arcturus was reasonably simple, though it seemed that they were headed slightly off the standard pathway, moving a number of light years off target. The engine whirred and spun into action as the ship began to accelerate.

The impulse drives cut out as the hypercharge drive began to flare up. "Drive spinning up, confirmation of co-ordinates, Taylor." Looking over at the monitors, he locked in the point of travel, and the settings. "Yup, this is definitely an improvement over what you pulled the first time."

Ignoring Taylor's remark, he pushed the acceleration to maximum. "Here we go. Hang tight, this should be plenty more pleasant than last time!"

With no nearby star, the system gradually pulled in power, with the dark matter converter whirring into action. "Ready up, we'll be jumping in about 60 seconds now."

"Righto, pilot." Taylor checked his restraints and looked over Carlos who was doing the same. "Looks like we're all set."

* * *

"We're set. Ready?"

"Ready, Captain."

Their ship was armed well. With both cloaking and shielding systems, they laid in wait as an unsuspecting civilian ship entered the sector. It was a small one, with basic systems. They generally took to official IPF established routes, but this one seemed to have gone off the path, making it an ideal point to shake spare change from loose pockets.

"Remember, we're not destroying them if we can help it," the captain whispered to his crew. "This should be easy."

"Hailing their ship now," said the communications officer, opening up a comm link to the civilian ship. "Hello there! You seem to be on an odd path! You lost?"

"Please, just leave us be," came the response. "We've spent so much just to go on this trip..." pleaded the voice.

"That's not happening," said the comms officer. "You're trespassing on our space, and we can't have that. You don't leave us with many options out here. Arm the weapons."

The civilian began to panick. "Please, I'll give you everything! I know I'm poor and barely earn anything, but please! Don't hurt my family!"

Captain Harris smirked. An easy job, and it was going to go smoothly. "Very well then. You will initiate a physical transfer unconditionally of all the money you have. If you do so, neither you, nor your family will be harmed."

He could hear sniffling in the background, and he couldn't help but feel slightly guilty over robbing a person below living standards. Still, he had to make a living for himself and his crew, and this was really the only way that he could do so. His thoughts were interrupted as a blazing light suddenly hit, the solar filters barely covering the viewport in time. "What the hell was that!?" he yelled.

"I don't know!" responded the navigator. "It's travelling really fast!"

The Captain barked at a couple of the crew. "Man those weapon stations! I'm not taking chances with something like this!"

"Yes sir!"

"They're slowing down Captain!" spoke the navigator. "It's a ship alright. They're registered as CW-167."

"CW?" asked Captain Harris. "Is that not a Carrier Wolves vessel? What's it doing here?"

"I don't know," answered the navigator. "I don't like it that they're here, Captain."

"Agreed. We continue the transfer, it's unlikely that they know of our intent. If they do, we blow them out of sky, so to speak."

* * *

The ship managed to travel significantly more consistently, something that relieved Taylor greatly. That first jump had left him rather shaken, and as much as Carlos had apologised for it, there was only so much that an apology can do.

The limiter certainly had an effect, as there wasn't the haphazard spraying of sparks in their jump, and he had remained conscious despite being pinned down to his seat as they had blasted into another section of space. 12 light years out of the 36 they had to travel, so they were pretty well on their way.

"Another section of space. That's good," Taylor said. "Glad it doesn't feel like I had the life blasted out of me."

Carlos was in the middle of trying to form a response when they caught sight of a couple of ships on their navigation computer. "Interesting. We seem to have come across a couple of ships."

"One seems to be civilian, but the computer can't seem to find a registration code for the other one," Taylor spoke after querying the computer. "Odd. Seems like the other ship isn't broadcasting though they should be."

"I'll ask what's up." Carlos opened up his communicator to speak. "This is Carla Willis hailing unknown space craft. Do you copy?" A part of him was hoping that it was just a minor technical fault and not something he wasn't really at all prepared for.

No response came, which was worrying to the wolf. He closed the link quietly. "I don't like how this is going. We're not really armed for something like this."

"I don't like it either. We certainly can't call for assistance from the IPF, we're too far from any patrols to get here in time." He shook his head when he recalled the only option possible left as a distress signal began to blink on their monitor, coming from the civilian ship. "We have to engage them."

"This is the delivery ship Carla Willis hailing the unregistered space craft. Please respond, or we will be required to make a citizen's arrest under Acts Upon The Universe Laws of 2489."

There was no response once more from the unknown ship. But Taylor was quick to point out at the blinking indicators of the ship. "Three red flashes. They're pirates, and our sensors indicate they've got weapons and charging!"

"Well, we certainly have to fight now!" yelled Carlos as he armed weapons, cannon and lasers sliding out the sides of the ship. "Do we have a lock on the layout?"

Taylor quickly ran the scanner through the database of ship plans that was available. "Doesn't match any known plans! Computer's generated an estimated room plan however."

"Thanks, Taylor. You see to it we receive fire as little as possible. I'll try to get them to yield!"

The ship blasted forwards as they entered into combat with the pirate vessel. The guidelines for all trained pilots was to avoid any combat if possible, using the distress beacon to get the attention of IPF units. In the case where IPF units were unable to arrive, ships were directed to only attack direct threats to life, including weapon systems.

* * *

What was thought of a simple robbery had turned sour with the arrival of the courier ship. Captain Harris had issued efficient orders and with precise targetting, yet they had not been able to damage the ship. His own ship was barely able to keep up, with multiple hits to their weapon bays and engines. His crew were terrified, and he knew that surrender though it was considered dishonourable was certainly much better than dying, and he knew that was certainly an option compared to if he had been set upon by IPF ships. They would be utterly destroyed, even if they had pleaded for their lives.

"Open up a channel to their ship," he barked. No one questioned him.

"This is Captain Harris of the Lion's Rage, hailing Carla Wallis." He struggled to retain his composition. "We would like to offer our surrender."

"About time too!" An aggressive voice on the other side, but it was shushed by presumably the captain who then spoke up. "Your actions have shown you and your crew in the harshest of manners. You will move to our holding cells until you are brought to Interplanetary Force officers and are formally held under arrest."

"I... I understand."

The Lion's Rage and her crew were eventually teleported aboard and were held until their captors had them delivered to an IPF station many hours later. Captain Harris knew that it was most likely they would be charged harshly when their previous victims came to make statements. He knew little else of his future otherwise. They would be out of money by the time they would be released, and with nowhere to go, he suspected that they would be hired, separated in the years to come.