The morning that followed Angelo’s return to Amandine saw most of the crew gathered in the cafeteria around the Captain just after breakfast. They were only missing the two sailors guarding the checkpoint at the entrance of the terminal, and Bart who was still in the infirmary (if the unicorn was to be counted as part of the crew that is).

Dilip checked one last time that his presentation was ready on the laptop he had plugged to the room’s ceiling projector before turning his gaze to the crowd sitting around the room.

“Good morning to you all, I hope the breakfast this morning was good, all thanks to the return of Nguyen to the kitchen.” Dilip started, addressing a polite smile in the direction of the counters from which both the cooks were observing the presentation.

“But there are matters that need to be attended now. First off, let’s not ignore the elephant in the room. I must congratulate all members of this crew for a job well done with those power plants, in particular the engineering department for their excellent work with the shutdown.”

A few polite claps resounded around the room before the Captain resumed his speech.

“A detailed analysis of what happened will have to wait some more, but certain conclusions can already be drawn before the complete reports come in. Nothing to worry about for the ratings, the department heads will communicate the detailed conclusions to you once it’s done. Now for the obvious stuff…” He trailed off pressing a key on the laptop in front of him.

A PowerPoint appeared on the white screen on the wall of the cafeteria showing Dilip’s presentation. It started off immediately with pictures of the monsters they had encountered and a casualty count. In bold letters, the Captain had highlighted ‘9 days’ and ‘5 casualties’.

“Our biggest problem as of now is that we are getting injured way too frequently. I won’t delve into Farkas’ case since that was just a fall. On the other hand, encounters with monsters have systematically resulted in injuries. The electric mites Nguyen faced may not have hurt him much in the long run, but he was still hit and can only thank his PPE for not getting fried. It’s been barely more than a week since the Event happened, we can’t keep it up at this rate or everyone will be agonizing in the infirmary within a month. We can thank the skies for Zinoviya’s medical competence but that can only get us so far. Solutions need to be taken in order to counter that, which I already have discussed with the department heads.”

Another press on the keyboard made a new slide appear on the screen.

“First off, on the prevention side. We need to improve weapon training to a point that you all will be able to engage most threats without injuries on our side. Artyom has been designated responsible for this training.” Dilip said, waving a paw in the boatswain’s direction. The Russian dragon acknowledged the Captain with a curt nod.

“Before we leave this city, I want every uninjured sailor to have undergone at least six hours of active handling training, shooting with live rounds and one live fire exercise to get used to moving in a combat situation. I do realize we are just merchants, not the navy, but we need to train better in order to avoid further injuries down the line. I hope the pacifists among you understand.” He paused to take a breath.

“Next up is first aid training. I have reviewed most of your training files and a great many of you have fallen behind on medical capabilities, officers included.” Dilip said, directing a pointed stare towards the table where his Deck Officers were seated.

“That one includes the guys on light duty. Before we leave, all of you will undergo two hours of theory and one hour of practical training on first aid courtesy of our Third Officer. Planning is up to you Vadim, but there is one more thing: in order to alleviate pressure on our resident ‘doctor’, I need one volunteer to undertake extensive medical training to support Vadim as a… nurse, so to speak. I don’t care if the volunteer is an officer or a rating as long as the place is filled, but I need a name by tomorrow or I will designate someone myself, understood?”

There was a murmur of assent among the crowd before Dilip continued his speech, taking note of who showed interest in the position.

“That’s it for the conclusions so far. I will add that any group that leaves the safety of the terminal for a venture of any sort must have at least three members, communication equipment, a machinegun in addition to the rifles and a vehicle. Now…” He said, going to the next slide on the presentation. “I will pass the reigns to the Chief Officer who will explain what shall be done while we’re in Antwerp.”

Alejandro stood up and marched forward to Dilip’s side. The hyacinth macaw had managed to get enough free time to complete the ‘foot-gloves’ idea that Geert had come up with earlier that week, so now he finally had something to wear on his feet. The Kevlar and leather gloves wrapped nicely around his clawed feet; creating a fair balance between protection and freedom of movement.

“Thank you Captain. I will begin with the high priority stuff to get it out of the way. Our fuel reserves are still in the green but we need to top off the tanks whenever we can. That one is mostly for the engineering department but us deck guys will have to help too with a fuel barge. Port reports indicate they can be found on the opposite bank of the river in the refineries. Filling up on heavy fuel oil will only take one trip and the diesel is a daily task but…” The parrot turned in Schmitt’s direction. “Think we can fill up the diesel via trucks? Five tons a day seems feasible and it’s less work than moving a whole barge for that little fuel.”

“Diesel is possible, but not the heavy fuel, for that you’ll still need a barge.” The orange dragon said.

“Will do. Now beside the usual task of looking around the terminal for useful things –of which you can find a list of requested items on the ship’s server-, there are two more tasks that need to be done. Highest priority goes to adapting the ship’s breathing apparatus and gas masks for use on muzzles. We got some equipment to modify them from Zeebrugge and I think someone’s already started it in the engineering department if I’m not mistaken?”

A female hippogriff stood up in the back of the room, Aleksei, the Third Engineer. The Latvian had light green fur and wing feathers, with a white crest and tail feathers. He was wearing an oil stained set of coveralls and had gloves on his claws for the sake of hygiene, not unlike Vadim’s.

“I’ve gotten started on making prototypes for the masks but I need to fine tune my models so it can fit anyone before I make the molds. I need a dog and a cat to come by and try the models before I decide which fits best. I won’t need much help until I start making the molds.”

“Good, then that leaves two things. One, for those who have yet to do that, go to the infirmary to get your blood sampled. Two, we need some ideas for a new light vehicle smaller than a truck. Ideas can be submitted to your superiors. I believe that’s all?” The parrot said, turning to the Captain.

“Besides finishing building the workshop that’s it, you’re all dismissed.” The dog nodded. “Get going, there’s a lot of things we have to do.”

Nothing else of particular interest happened that day. The tasks they were given kept the crew busy, and those that didn’t participate in them were either busy with their own projects or resting.

In his cabin later in the afternoon, Dilip scratched his ear as he observed the various CCTV recordings the crew had managed to retrieve whenever possible. He was interested by the moment at which the Event occurred in particular.

So far, he didn’t have much material to go by but there was one thing he was certain of: the Event had progressed like a wave. It was difficult to see on the recordings but there was a very fast wave that swept every area and removed humans and… active vehicles apparently, wherever it passed through from what he had seen.

Videos taken from the harbor terminal had shown several forklifts that had been in the process of moving around containers suddenly disappearing when the wave swept the area. That had led him to the conclusion that an occupied vehicle would disappear, just like any human bar those protected by one of the HPI’s thaumic shields. This would explain how the anchorage of West Hinder had become so deserted all of a sudden.

Now the Indian dog was trying to figure out where the wave came from. Time stamps on the recordings allowed him to draw certain conclusions and estimate the origin of the wave but…

Dilip pulled out a map of Europe from a cabinet and set it down on the table. Glancing back and forth between the screen showing the recordings and the map, he carefully jotted down each position and time at which the wave was detected. That was only three locations so far they had managed to acquire but…

The anchoring in West Hinder came first, it being the earliest to have been hit. Dilip added an arrow pointing in the general direction the wave had seemed to come from.

Repeating the process with Zeebrugge and Antwerp gave him a more accurate estimation of the origin but these three locations were still too close to triangulate the origin, much less considering the bearings he was following were estimations themselves. Cameras don’t come with integrated compasses as far as he knew.

They would need more recordings to find out the origin of the wave… and from what Eko had told him the day before; they were pretty much on their own trying to figure that out.

A knock on his door interrupted Dilip’s reflection.

“It’s open.” The dog said, tearing his eyes away from his desk.

In came Angelo. The minotaur was holding a sheaf of paper in his hand which he immediately presented to the Captain.

“The After Action Reports sir, all members of the team included.”

“Thank you Molnàr. By any chance, have you reached any early conclusion yet?”

“Yes Captain.” The minotaur nodded. “The team and I had a talk about it at lunch; I added what we concluded at the end of the document. If you want I can also send you the digital version…” Angelo offered.

“No need for that. How are the injured?”

“Getting better. Nikola can’t do much in engineering with his ribs so I got him monitoring the diesel generators and Roberto’s alright managing the server. Just had to find him some crutches to get him hobbling around just fine.”

“And Nguyen? I heard he didn’t go to the infirmary for his electric shock.”

“Beyond some mild tingling he doesn’t report anything so I didn’t bother him with it. I’m honestly more worried about his reaction to what we saw in the facility.”

“And why is that?” Dilip inquired.

“He wasn’t too enthusiastic about entering the facility in the first place; and then… Roberto and Nikola were shaken granted, Roberto even threw up, but they pushed on fine. Nguyen on the other hand; he mostly stood at the back on the brink of outright panic the whole time. I swear if we didn’t have guns with us he would have been running for the hills the moment I opened the facility’s door.” Angelo explained.

“I can’t say I’m an expert on psychology Angelo but if you could keep an eye on him. The situation is pretty hard for all of us and I don’t know how much worse that kind of exposure to death and violence could make things. Try to make sure he doesn’t isolate himself, but don’t be intrusive. If he doesn’t feel like speaking up about it don’t press okay?”

“Will do sir. Anything else?” The minotaur asked, his bulky arms crossed behind his back.

“Negative. You may go, how is the workshop coming along?”

“Still two or three days of work to finish the bulk of it give or take, then we can move on to the firefighting installations.”

“Excellent. Have a nice day.”

The moment the minotaur’s frame passed the door, the Captain pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote down a note about the Vietnamese cook before shoving it in his dossier.

The following day saw hardly more activity for Amandine’s crew. Practically nobody bothered to leave the ship save for the team that guarded the checkpoint and the one group charged with getting them diesel for the generators that had also stopped to explore the container stacks for a bit before coming back empty handed. Not because they didn’t find anything, quite the contrary, but because they didn’t find anything worth loading on the ship. The atmosphere on board was rather dull for all after the chaos that had followed their arrival in Zeebrugge.

The only thing they had to look forward to beyond working on building the workshop was the impending training in first-aid and weapon handling.

Vadim walked down the hallway to get to the gym after a long day spent redacting PowerPoint’s for his first-aid lessons and helping Artyom prepare the live-fire training. He hadn’t gotten many chances to do some sport since the Event and frankly at the moment he needed something to relax that didn’t involve alcohol or tobacco.

The gym was situated on the same deck as the ratings’ rooms and the cafeteria, it being the largest deck of the accommodation on Amandine. As he passed their rooms, Vadim noted that the Filipinos had managed to find a Playstation 4 on which they were hosting a Fifa tournament with the Ukrainians. With most of them having turned into clawed species they could still reliably play video games… though the lack of one digit made for some poor performances if what he spied through the open door was any indication. He silently wished the Ukrainian player using the Dynamo Kiev success before walking away without being noticed.

The Third Officer continued on his way through the hallway before making a sharp turn after the garbage room into the gym.

Roomy as it was, the gym was nothing impressive. When they were building the ship, the yard had wound up with one useless room they couldn’t turn into a cabin because of its proximity to the funnel and all the piping that passed through, thus they had decided to make it the barebones gym it now was.

The room was illuminated by two rows of white neon lights and had its floor covered in blue weight mats. One wall had had its cover panels removed to access the piping that went through the room, which the guys from engineering had yet to put back in place.

On one side of the room were some racks of weights and benches for power training, and on the other were a fitness bike and a treadmill for cardio. Not much, but enough considering they usually were too busy to even think about using the gym. There was only one window, currently left open to vent the heat that tended to build up in the room as well as the unpleasant stench of sweat that was practically impregnated in the walls by now.

Hispanic music resonated around the room, coming from a small Bluetooth loudspeaker set on one of the benches on the side courtesy of the single blue parrot who was having an energetic workout when Vadim walked in.

Alejandro was too entirely focused on the punching bag hanging from the ceiling in front of him to notice the grey griffon by the door. The Spaniard was delivering a flurry of punches and kicks to the bag in front of him, quickly switching sides and hopping this way and that as if the bag was fighting back. Vadim didn’t miss the frown that marked the Chief Officer’s feathered face whenever he went for a kick on the bag or how the blue crest on top of his head was extended like his tail feathers.

Just as the music on the radio wound down, Alejandro relented his assault on the bag and dropped his arms before letting out a long sigh, eyes closed.

“Something bothering you Alej’?” Vadim asked.

“Just getting used to the changes is all.” The Chief Officer answered, grabbing a bottle of water on the bench by the speaker.

“Really looked like something was getting on your nerves right there.”

“I do. I practice martial arts in my free time. I even got a black belt in BJJ. Shame I don’t have a partner to train with. It’s really annoying having to relearn your limits because of this change.”

“Can’t be that bad. I mean, look at us all, we seem to be doing fine.”

“Fine ain’t enough. When you spend hundreds of hours training to the point where you know your body to perfection, it takes time to get back to that level. I’m still getting used to some of the finer details, and that’s probably just the tip of the iceberg.”

“What kind of details exactly? Because pardon me if I consider myself to be worse off than you are.” Vadim said waving a claw over his own quadruped body.

“Small things that are actually rather important in martial arts. Reach for one, and speed too. I’m shorter than before but the change brought on some kind of speed boost so I have to relearn how to pace myself and manage my hits. Lost quite a bit in raw strength too. What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you need to work on your first-aid lessons?”

“They’re as ready as they will ever get so I think I deserve some leisure time for myself.”

Vadim then proceeded to take off his shoes and gloves before making his way over to the treadmill. He shrugged off the front half of his coveralls, tying it around his midsection before propping himself up against the handrail to select a mode on the control menu.

“Plus I believe if I can get enough time running on the treadmill I can finally get used to that quadruped shtick.” He added.

“Not used to that either are you?” Alejandro asked with a smile.

“As you said, fine ain’t enough. If I could get enough motor control on my own body to outdo a five-year old that would be great.” Vadim said before hitting the ‘start’ button. “I catch myself fumbling with which leg to put down whenever I think about it too hard. Lemme tell you, falling over like that gets old real quick.”

The treadmill began rolling at a mild pace, pushing the griffon to let go of the railing and start running. Vadim had to concentrate for a minute before he got the hang of it. Front left, rear right then front right, rear left. Easy… He eyed the speed display, only to groan in dismay upon seeing he was barely doing six kilometers per hour despite already having difficulties keeping up.

Alejandro had turned away from Vadim and started up another song of the radio before resuming his training with the punching bag, rhythmically throwing jabs to the beat of the music.

“Say Vadim, you look quite… stiff when you run.” Alejandro threw after taking a quick look at the griffon.

Vadim stumbled and caught himself just before falling, then reduced the pace on the treadmill by a small margin.

“What do you mean?” He asked after catching his footing.

“Your legs and uh… arms I guess are the only things moving. I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure your tail is there for balance, and you’re not compensating with your back either. That and you won’t get anywhere by alternating sides I’m afraid.”

Vadim quirked an eyebrow at the Spaniard.

“For someone who’s not stuck on four-leg drive you seem to know a lot about running on all four.”

“Eh what can I say?” Alejandro momentarily interrupted his assault on the punching bag to give a shrug. “Plenty of my exes had cats, and don’t get me started on my abuela. Never liked the furballs much but at least I got my sense of observation right.”

“Ever the Don Juan aren’t ya, Alej’?” Vadim chuckled, adjusting his running and finally relinquishing control of his tail which started to move in tandem with his legs. “Can’t keep yourself dedicated to one lady?”

“I’d never dear colleague. The ladies like the Mendoza touch way too much, I would never be so selfish as to keep them all from appreciating my skills.” The blue parrot chuckled. “Contrarily to you I don’t need a woman waiting for me when I go back ashore.”

“Well I for one don’t contribute to the ill reputation of the entire profession by impregnating a woman in every port!” Vadim countered.

“Please, that was just one port and I haven’t set foot in Ceuta ever since. I learn my lessons.”

“More like you can’t afford much more in the way of child support.”

“Nope, I got my ass covered with lawyers. Bitch never got to nail me with the payments, not like she could have afforded to fight it in court, so that’s a win for me.”

“That’s low.” Vadim said, hitting the button to speed up the treadmill.

“I’d rather go low than lose over thirty grand because of a drunken one night stand. Anyway, how’s Micha?”

The griffon stumbled before throwing a glare at the laughing Spaniard.

“The hell? You’re in on it too now?” He growled.

“I wasn’t speaking about romance but your reaction tells it all.” Alejandro laughed.

“No it fucking doesn’t!” Vadim said, glaring at the wall in front of the treadmill. “You guys really should get your mind out of the gutter sometime.”

“Chill, I’m just enjoying watching you squirm. No way I’d play matchmaker with colleagues, that’s just asking for trouble. Can’t say the same for the rest of the crew however.”

“I noticed.” Vadim drawled. “Niko and Rob were all about it the other day in the infirmary.”

“They and others too.” Alejandro said. “If I may offer my own point of view on the matter?”

“Shoot.”

“Ignore it and they will let it go after a while. I’d suggest avoiding Micha in the meantime but…”

“As if that was even possible!”

“Yeah, that. But I hope I don’t need to tell you how bad an idea it’d be to flirt with another officer. Fraternization may not be a thing in the merchant navy but…”

“’cause we all know you want Geert for yourself.” Vadim fired back.

“W-what?!” Alejandro stuttered, missing a strike against the punching bag and falling over. “The hell did you get that from?”

“Caught you stuttering. Didn’t know you had a thing for scarlet macaws, but I guess the colors are pleasant to look at.” Vadim said with a twinkle in his eyes.

The hyacinth macaw gaped at the griffon for a whole ten seconds before he shook his head with a smile on his beak. His feather crest rose up slightly as he smiled.

“Fair enough I deserved that one. You’re not going to speed it up a bit?”

“Baby steps chief, baby steps. I ain’t gonna start sprinting ‘til I got the tail motion down at least.” Vadim said.

The griffon preferred to keep going with his particular style of running before he even tried to sprint like a cheetah or something. Managing all the extra limbs was already hard enough as is, and it wasn’t helped by the fact he didn’t really have proper sport clothing that allowed the right range of movement (at least that was the excuse he came up with).

Alejandro just dropped the subject and left Vadim to his own training, not having anything else to add to the conversation.

Later that day after dinner, a bald eagle female griffon was seen making her way down to the engine room with a laptop awkwardly held in one claw. Micha slowly hopped down the last set of steep stairs to the engine room, mindful of the computer in his claws.

There wasn’t much activity inside the control room: the office was empty and the only light came from the lower part of the control room where a light green furred hippogriff was fiddling with one of the control stations, Aleksei. The Latvian was pretty much in the same boat as Micha when it came to the change since both of them used to be male before the Event.

Despite not having had a lot of interaction with the guy prior to the Event, Micha found himself developing a sort of friendship with Aleksei once they got to talk about how they felt regarding the changes they had undergone.

Micha let out a polite cough to let the hippogriff know he was there.

“Ah.” Aleksei said in slightly accented English. “Didn’t see you there, anything I can do for you?”

“Maybe.” Micha said, plopping down in a seat beside him. “Remember the radio recorder on the bridge?” He asked, setting down his laptop on the console in front of him.

“I think I do. It’s hooked to the voyage data recorder right?”

“Yep. Little bit of a problem with it tho’: we can’t read the files it records and I’m trying to figure out how to convert the files. I heard you were skilled in coding?”

Aleksei shook his head and gave Micha an uneasy smile.

“Skilled is a generous term for what I can do. Can’t you really code it yourself?”

“Tried everything I could and the usual sites I would refer to are down. You’re all I have before calling it quits.” Micha admitted after running his claw through his feathers.

Aleksei leaned back in his seat, giving the screens of the laptop and the console in front of him a critical glance. He scrolled down for a bit on the laptop’s screen before crossing his arms with a huff.

“Think you can help me?” Micha asked in a tentative voice.

“I might have an idea.” The Latvian frowned. “But hold on.” He said, raising his claw when he saw the griffon’s brightening features. “This is gonna be a two-way street.”

“Anything I can do to help.”

Aleksei tapped the console with a claw.

“So here’s the thing. You remember how we changed the pumps recently? As in, all of them?”

“Vaguely. We got them delivered last time we went to Rotterdam I think? What’s wrong with them?”

“The pumps are fine, that’s the controls that are bugging us. We have yet to set up the bloody things correctly for remote control from here so they can manage themselves without our input.”

He brought up a tab on the console showing the diesel generator system, before pointing a claw at some symbols on the screen.

“See this here? That’s all the feed pumps in the system. Because the throttle controls are not inputted in the command computer yet, we have to keep someone down here at all times to manage it otherwise the generator will starve itself out of fuel, or worse. Now what I was doing was programming all that data from the pumps’ information sheets into the computer so we get rid of the problem. But I just don’t have time, what with the gas masks I need to finish.”

“Can’t Angelo or Schmitt help?”

“Both busy with the workshop and all. Schmitt is touching up the schematics and Angelo is harassing the welders up top.” He shrugged. “The programming takes low priority, but getting that done should free us some manpower. At least when we’re in port. Plus there’s the deal that I’m stuck with the task ‘cause I kinda bragged about my programming skills so they said I could manage it on my own.”

“Alright fine. I’ll do that for you if you help me with the radio recordings.” He held up one claw towards the hippogriffs. “Deal?”

Aleksei grabbed the proffered claw in his own and gave him a firm handshake.

“Deal. Now hand over the laptop and let’s take a look at it in detail to see what can be done for now, ‘kay?”

For the better part of two hours, the two gender bent sailors looked in detail at what Micha had already done with the conversion process of the files, Aleksei giving the griffon some tips here and there on how to proceed. The process itself wasn’t really complicated, but the fact they couldn’t acquire the code from the internet to shorten their work made for some rather lengthy process which forced them to retool another file converter for the specific task they wanted to do. Aleksei eventually decided to call it quits when the clock hit midnight.

The white hippogriff downed the cup of coffee he had set down on the console before turning to the griffon at his side.

“That should do it for today.” Aleksei concluded. “Not that I think we can’t go further but I’d rather avoid pulling an all-nighter if I can help it.”

“Fine by me.” Micha nodded, standing up.

“You know there’s that funny thing…” Aleksei added in passing.

“Uh?”

“I was just thinking about your name. With the way it’s spelled it can be any gender you want depending on whether you pronounce it with a ‘ch’ or a hard ‘c’. Just an idle thought.”

Micha raised an eyebrow at that.

“As innocent as that thought may be; I’d rather you keep calling me with the male version of my name. I do not intend to resign myself to being stuck as a gal for the rest of my life, thank you very much.”

“I’m not saying that, just pointing out the coincidence.” Aleksei said, raising his claws in defense. “I want my dick back too. Hell, I could even settle for being a hippogriff as long as I’m male again, but I don’t really see any solution lying around.”

“And we’ve got monsters, dragons, telekinesis-using sphinxes, time travel and more. I’m convinced I can find a solution, even if that’s not going to be easy. It never is, doesn’t mean I’m gonna give up.”

“If you say so, pal.” The hippogriff shrugged. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, see ya.” Micha said, walking away with his laptop under his arm.

While the two officers were discussing coding in the engine room, other discussions were taking place in the cafeteria. At such an hour, the lights had been dimmed down; making it so that most of the lighting in the room was coming from the kitchen after the curtains had been drawn. The smell of baking bread floated in the room, courtesy of Nguyen who was making a fresh batch for next day’s breakfast.

Two creatures were seated at a table in the dark, sharing beers over some idle talking. One was a blue dragon, Artyom, the ship’s boatswain; while the other was a ginger furred gargoyle with a black mane going by the name of Nikola.

The gargoyle still had part of his face covered in bandages thanks to the wound he had received two days earlier in the HPI facility, but the injury was in no way hampering his ability to drink from several bottles of beer in quick succession.

The meeting was nothing out of the ordinary for the two sailors. With both of them being former military and significantly older than most of the crew, they had quickly found a sense of kinship that was only rivaled by their own friendship with Sri, the Indonesian hippogriff that was also in the age range and former military as well. After hours meeting had long ago become the norm for them before the Event threw them in for a loop… and increased their daily alcohol intake as a coping mechanism. The only bad thing was that Sri had seemed more distant recently due to his enforced sex change.

Nikola set down his fourth beer of the evening with a clatter.

“Man I tell you, these Belgian beers, they may not be the best but they sure come close.” He said.

“If anything you pretty much earned your alcohol ration for the rest of the month with what happened in Chooz.” Artyom commented, setting down his own bottle.

“Meh, honestly that also revealed I’m way rustier than I thought I was with guns. What I did against the eels was pretty sloppy I must confess. Got me fumbling with my mags and all. Don’t let it know to others but I might need the training just as bad as they do. How is the planning going?”

“I found a place that ought to do the trick for a firing range within the boundaries of the terminal. All these dikes they built around the place to protect it from floods make for a good impact berm, and then we can use the forklifts of the terminal to move containers around and create a firing box. I even found plenty of plywood in a shed this morning, so I got plans to train them how to properly shoot on the move.”

Nikola raised his eyebrows.

“Lots of planning you got there.”

“What can I say? I’m just that good.” The dragon joked. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask ‘cause I assumed you were fine with it but in my planning I wrote you and Sri down as shooting instructors to help me.”

“Can’t say I’m entirely comfortable doing that… yet. Live firing and dry runs like we’ve already done are different things, plus there is the whole light duty deal. I can give it a try but I don’t think my ribs will agree.” He gave a gentle tap on his ribcage, barely concealing a wince. “You want to start tomorrow?”

Artyom took another sip of his beer before nodding.

“At least that was the plan. I got a detailed plan of the training program in my office I drafted this afternoon.” The dragon paused. “You know what? I got an idea. What if I did the program once with only you and Sri so you shave off some of that rust, and then we do it with the rest of the crew, sounds better to ya? You even get to test it out and see if you can manage with your injuries.”

“Much better. Where is Sri anyway? We need him to train the quadrupeds.”

“Guard duty at the checkpoint. He switches out at four in the morning so we won’t see him ‘til tomorrow I’m afraid.”

Nikola shook his head dejectedly.

“Shame, I really wanted to share a beer with him tonight. Think he will agree ‘bout being a shooting instructor?”

“Can’t picture him refusing. Though he’s been worrying me recently…” Artyom said.

“I don’t know what’s worrying you. If anything, seeing him smoke so many cigarettes a day to keep his voice somewhat masculine sounding is rather funny.”

“Not the most sympathetic guy, are you?”

“Nah, I understand his reaction.” Nikola waved him off. “Doesn’t mean I can’t make light of it. God knows if I was always about doom and gloom I wouldn’t have made it past thirty. Sri will make it; you just gotta give him some space to get around his situation. Funny thing though.”

“What?” Artyom tilted his head.

“With all that transformation thing, you would think the crew wouldn’t get so fixated on something as trivial as losing a dick when they sprouted wings and claws and all… Really shows you what matters to people, uh?”

The dragon snorted out a small puff of smoke in annoyance.

“Yeah, ain’t completely false. Say… speaking of dicks. I know this may come across as strange, but have you been feeling… energized lately?” Artyom asked.

Nikola quirked an eyebrow at the dragon.

“Energized you say?” He said with an amused smile on his muzzle. “Dragon dick got you your libido back?”

“Among other things, but yes, I haven’t felt this lively in years. It’s like the change removed all the kinks I had acquired over the years. I haven’t had a single problem with my bad knee since the cataclysm. What about you?”

The gargoyle took the time to down his beer before answering.

“I’d say it’s about the same for me. I may not have been as banged up by time as you were but I do feel rather good since I underwent the change. Libido wise… well…” He hesitated.

“Come one just spit it out, I won’t judge.”

“I’ve jacked off at least twice a day since the cataclysm, and not out of boredom. Before that I hardly felt the need to do it more than once a week; yet now…” Nikola blushed. “Feels like I’m a teenager again to be honest.”

“Worse off than me then, but not by a large margin I assure you.” The dragon let out another puff of smoke. “Frankly at this point it just feels annoying. Though I’m honestly impressed by the ‘collection’ our younger colleagues have amassed on the ship’s server.” He chuckled.

“You and me both pal. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the size of the folder, these fuckers even categorized the bloody thing.” He laughed. “Bloody ship is running a miniature Pornhub.”

“Damn right it is.” Nikola said with a shake of his head. “Want another?” He asked, pointing a thumb back towards the beer fridge.

“Hell yeah. Next one’s on my tab.”

“Who gives a shit ‘bout tabs anymore? We ain’t getting paid.”

“Make that two then!”

Author's Notes:

The story is now entering a quieter phase with less action before I start the next arc. Expect smaller chapters with more slice of life than action as long as they're in Antwerp.

I still have to finish drafting the passage planning for their next port of call, but all waypoints are already set so that shouldn't take too much time.