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"Hey, I realize it's a bit late to ask this, but are there any negative health effects of being in hyperspace for days at a time?" he asked.

"Not any you'd be worried about." she said. "You probably damage your health more being in this place than back in the void."

He chuckled as they stepped down the cargo ramp of the ship. The Earth-made Silver Comet was a sleek, shiny cargo vessel, one which didn't look at all out of place in the little landing bay Ami had parked in.

Scrap District 57 was one of the few places left on the human homeworld not run mostly or entirely by androids, and as such the law enforcement was lax and the beer was cheap. It certainly earned the name, and while the scent of rust and synthetic oil had been acrid at first, Shade had come to relish it over the years. After flying back and forth across the galaxy, he was always glad for the chance to stretch his legs.

"Where are you headed?" he asked as he watched his brown-furred lup?n companion stroll off toward the streets. Her ears twitched and her tail swished in an idle way that could have easily fooled anyone into thinking she was an organic.

"Getting more parts, where else?" she said, glancing back over her shoulder with those sky blue eyes and a knowing smirk. "And yes, I can pick up the shipment."

"Thank you, Ami," he called after her. She rolled her eyes.

"It's coming out of your paycheck, though."

He turned at the sound of her voice and saw her standing there behind him at the top of the cargo ramp. The fact that she could be in multiple places at once had been weird at first, and did take some getting used to, but by now this was far from the wildest thing he'd seen her do. Uploading her mind into multiple bodies at once and controlling them simultaneously was just one of the many things Ami was capable of. So, while one such body wandered off to run errands, another could stay behind and watch the ship.

"Sometimes I don't even know why you keep me around," he laughed.

She chuckled, but in that laugh she met his eyes for a fraction of a second--a small eternity, with her processing speed--and gave him a look that said You know why. At the edge of his snout, his mouth curled into a small smirk that said Of course I do.

"Long space flights aside, you do keep things interesting," she said with a shrug.

"Alright," he sighed, turning toward the street himself now.

"I'll just guard the ship and run the errands then," she said. He knew she was only pretending to complain to get on his nerves. As close as they were, the countless long flights with no one else to talk to tended to drive both of them crazy.

"Oh, and Shade," she called before he'd gotten ten steps off the ship.

He turned and looked at her, but she waved her hand in a "never mind" gesture.

"I'd say don't lose too much of your inhibition, but we both know you don't have any, so..." She shrugged.

"Very funny, Ami," he sighed, turning around.

"I mean, I'm basically your self-preservation instinct!" she called after him. He sped up to get out of earshot.

***

Monolith was a bar like any other, but Shade had been stopping by between runs for years now, ever since he was barely legal drinking age. The place was nearly empty, dark and drab as usual, but it was still early.

The bartender was a lup?n himself, with light brown fur and green eyes, by the name of V?rr, short for V?rrik. He was snappy as ever, in a dark blue collared shirt. Shade had been drinking there for years now and figured the bartender probably knew him nearly as well as Ami. Well, no, that wasn't possible, but he definitely knew a lot about him by now.

"Hey, V?rr," Shade greeted as the lup?n looked up, rolling his eyes.

"Oh great, look who's here to steal my clientele," V?rr sighed.

"One at a time!" Shade laughed. "It's not like I take the whole bar home with me."

V?rr raised his eyebrows.

"Okay, sometimes two at a time," Shade sighed.

"I'll get your usual," V?rr said. Shade chuckled as V?rr passed him the cool blue bottle and the corner of his vision blinked, showing a total of 1,200 credits drawn from his account. He knew the bar's automated systems had already scanned his DNA to determine his age, or it wouldn't have allowed this transaction.

His ears perked as the door opened and a new scent blew in behind him, a cloud of chemical pheromones unique to his species. Each lup?n had a scent, of course, but that scent increased when they were looking for a partner, and she definitely was. If he could smell her, he knew she could smell him.

He looked over his shoulder and saw a lup?n girl, dressed in a grey shirt and light grey pants. Her fur was thick and dark, but while his was entirely black, hers was two-tone black and dark grey. They locked eyes--hers yellow and his deep brown--and she rolled hers.

She took a stool at the opposite end of the bar in clear "I'm not interested" fashion. In case that wasn't enough, the scent of her arousal dropped off, replaced quickly by the sharp smell of alarm pheromones, warning him away. So, he went back to his drink, taking a glance around the bar for any other prospects.

Not great, at the first sweep. Humans weren't usually his type and the silen girl in the corner was eyeing him in a way that made the back of his neck prickle. He had to consciously suppress the instinctive urge to believe the lizard woman was out to get him; she was probably thinking the same about him. With their species at war, a bit of racial tension was only natural.

"What, you're not gonna chase me?"

He looked down the bar to see the lup?n girl giving him a sidelong glance. There was no mirth in her tone, but there was a hint of genuine curiosity.

"No," he said. "Do you want me to?"

In his experience, lup?ns who played hard to get usually signaled they were still available through their scent--voluntarily or otherwise, but maybe she just had better control of her pheromones and was trying to mess with him. He considered she might have cybernetic scent glands. Or maybe she was an android, with an artificial chemical scent, like Ami.

"No," she said. "I'm just surprised you gave up so easy. Men tend to get offended when I say I'm not interested."

"Hey, just 'cause you're my type doesn't mean the feeling is mutual," he said with a shrug. He took a swig from his drink.

"Would it offend you if I said men aren't my type?" she asked.

He raised his eyebrows.

"You've got a preference, nothing wrong with that," he said. "Anatomy shouldn't matter. I know our people tend to be traditionalists, but I've been around a lot."

"Yeah well, hopefully the new Alpha will change things," she mused.

"New?" Shade said. "It's been over a decade since she came into power."

"Shit, really?" she laughed. "Sometimes it feels like yesterday."

"Mm," he murmured. "First female, white-furred, gay Alpha to rule the planet? It was a big deal."

"Gods, she's cute, too," the lup?n muttered.

"Hey, that we can agree on," Shade chuckled. She laughed with him.

"Hate to interrupt your not-flirting," V?rr said to her. "but you do need to order something."

"Right, sure," she said. She glanced at Shade. "What's he having?"

"Ah..." the bartender said, a smile on his face.

"Oh, gods, please don't--" Shade started.

"Well this here..." V?rr said, "This is the Blue Winter, a drink not unlike Shade himself:" The lup?n gestured toward him. "Cool, smooth, but also strong enough to be intoxicating, and with a hint of genuine sweetness when you get to know it enough."

Shade groaned and buried his face in his hands, ears flat against his head with shame.

"This guy used to use those exact words as a pick up line," V?rr said.

"Really?" the lup?n girl chortled. "Did that ever work?"

"No, but he still tried it on every girl who passed through here."

"It was before I knew how dumb pick up lines were, alright?" Shade groaned. "I stopped doing that years ago."

The girl and the bartender shared a laugh. Shade took a swig of his drink, but it didn't taste as good now. He sighed.

"It did work once..." he murmured into the bottle.

"Yeah, but that was only because you didn't directly imply it was about you," V?rr chuckled. "And because she thought you were cute anyway and took pity on you."

"Didn't think you heard that part," Shade muttered under his breath. The lup?n girl laughed again.

"I'm surprised you two are getting along so well," V?rr admitted, glancing between them. "Considering she's not only not into you, but now also competition."

"I do have straight male friends too, V?rr." Shade chuckled. "I'm capable of having platonic relationships with people."

"Could've fooled me..." the bartender muttered.

"Well, no offense, but what you've seen of me isn't exactly indicative of my daily life," Shade responded.

"No?" V?rr said. "You don't fly around the galaxy seducing lup?n women and getting into fights?"

"I-- Well..." Shade stammered.

"Fights?" the girl asked. "You get yourself in trouble a lot?"

"Oh, things tend to blow up when he's around." V?rr said.

"I wouldn't say 'blow up!'" Shade protested. "Okay, I mean, maybe when Ami's around."

"Which is how often?" V?rr said. "Only 90% of the time? So, things only blow up around you 90% of the time, that's a great ratio."

"If you thought I was that dangerous, you wouldn't've let me into the bar." Shade said. "And for the record, Ami would be able to put an exact percentage to the amount of time she spends around me."

"Oh, I'm sure," V?rr said. "To the nearest hundredth decimal."

Shade laughed.

"So, you a soldier?" the lup?n girl asked him. The question caught him off guard and he almost choked on his drink. He reached for the energy pistol at his back, worried it had slipped from its concealed position, but it was still tucked up under his shirt.

"Why do you ask?" he said.

"You carry yourself like one, talk about getting into fights," she said, glancing him over. "But no imperial insignia or uniform, so I figured maybe you were off duty?"

He chuckled at this.

"I'm not a soldier, no," he said. He lifted the bottle to his lips, bothered by how empty it was.

"So, what, you failed the exam then?" she asked.

"You could say that..." he murmured, glancing to the countertop and fixing his eyes on it.

"Hey, I'm not judging," she said quickly. "I mean I heard the academies train recruits rough."

"Well, they also tend to frown on drug use," he said. It just slipped out. He could almost hear her ears perk in the quiet bar.

"Drug--" she stammered. "Wait, you mean you used hyper-steroids to... to get a leg up?"

He looked up.

"Gods, no," he said. "Narcotics. You know... musk..."

"Oh..." she said. "That inhalant stuff?"

He nodded. V?rr placed another bottle in front of him before he'd even had a chance to order it. He took a mouthful of the brown liquid and gulped.

"I tried to be a soldier like my father," Shade sighed. "Always looked up to him, you know? He was the best."

"Is he...?" she trailed off, but V?rr nodded.

"Shot down over Silos," Shade said. "His whole squad went with him. Didn't even have a body to bury."

He took another swill from the bottle. His hands were shaking.

"I'm sorry," she said finally. Like almost everyone else, she said the words like she didn't know what else to say. He nodded.

"I got deep into musk after that, things were rough for awhile, but then I got out," he said. "Been clean for five years now."

"Me too," she said. He turned his head to look at her, meeting her eyes.

"When I assumed you had used body-mods to get a leg up in the academy?" she said. "It's because that's what I did."

He nodded in understanding.

"Well, you're not wrong about the academies being rigorous," he said.

"We are in the middle of a war, so we can't really blame them for that," she said. "Still, I just... I wanted to be the soldier they saw in me."

Shade didn't have to ask who "they" were.

"Your family was on your ass too, huh?" he chuckled.

"I'm a gay woman in the midst of a planet-wide social revolution, what do you think?" she huffed. She tilted her own bottle back, gulped a few times, and here Shade realized she had actually gone ahead and ordered a Blue Winter.

"If one gay lady lup?n can get herself elected Alpha, why not me?" she laughed derisively. She took another swig, then peered into the bottle. "Damn, what's in this stuff? One bottle down and I'm spilling my whole life story."

"Hey, so am I," Shade snorted.

"Great, so we're both lightweights," she laughed. He laughed with her.

"Name's Shade, by the way," he said.

"'Shade?'" she repeated.

"Yeah?" he said, raising an eyebrow. She raised her own, then chuckled and reached out, gripping the middle of his forearm as he did the same to her, a formal lup?n greeting.

"Nirra," she said. "Nice to meet you, Shade."

***

He strolled back onto the ship to see the new shipment already waiting in the cargo bay, four crates of unmarked weapons ready for delivery to the Red Claw. He might not have been an official part of the Lup?n Empire, but this little silen rebel group was the next best thing.

"Hey, you picked up the weapons," he said to Ami as he strolled into the cockpit, taking his chair on the left.

"Of course," she said. She was using the most realistic body in her arsenal. While others had more weapons hidden in compartments beneath the fur, everything from energy barrage cannons to auto-turrets, this one was built to be as organic as possible, with silky fur, soft flesh, and the most realistic scent emitters she could construct, built to perfectly mimic an organic lup?n's scent. If nothing else, he knew she was happy to see him.

"Yet I notice you've come back empty-handed." she said. "No luck?"

"Nah, not tonight," he said. "Did meet this one nice girl, but she wasn't into me."

"Really?" Ami said with mock surprise. Shade rolled his eyes.

"She was gay," he said.

"Oh, well, I guess the universe isn't ending, then," Ami laughed. Shade pulled open the storage compartment under the ship's control panel and grabbed one of the K?rris Pouches, before deciding he wasn't in the mood for self-heating synthetic meat and cramming it back into the compartment again.

He pulled up his Galexicon 783--the latest version of the classic Galexicon Universal Translator--and used it to order food from a restaurant in the next district over.

"You want anything?" he asked, glancing at Ami. "Assuming this is the body that can actually digest things?"

"Yeah, sure," she said. "Haven't used the old biofuel generator in a while."

The food showed up in mere moments, customary of a planet where everything was automatic and optimized for total efficiency.

"I did meet an aran girl who made a point of informing me she wasn't gay, she just wasn't interested in me," he continued.

"Well, you know how arans hate it when people stereotype them," Ami said. He laughed, knowing she was fully aware of the irony of this statement.

"You get yourself any fancy new upgrades?" he asked.

"Yeah, I got one that lets me get pregnant!"

Shade coughed and sprayed his drink across the dashboard. Ami burst out laughing.

"Oh, I've been wanting to use that one forever!" she cackled.

"Very funny," he sighed, wiping down the controls. "Gods, I'm so excited to spend the next two days traveling across the galaxy with you."

***

Shade woke up in the dark. His pillow was wet, as was the fur on his face. His breath was shaking, and only then did it occur to him that he had been dreaming about his father. He couldn't even remember the dream.

The door to his bedroom opened and he saw her standing there.

She had likely noted his distress before he did, monitoring his vitals. She must have waited until he was conscious to enter, not wanting to startle him awake. She moved into the room quickly, walking to the bed and lying down behind him, putting her arms around him, caressing his shoulder.

"I've got you," she whispered. "I'm right here. It's okay."

Her words were conveyed perfectly in the way she said them; not that it was okay, not that things would be fine, but that it was okay to not be okay.

Their relationship may not have been platonic, nor was it romantic, but in moments like these he knew beyond anything else Ami was his greatest friend.