“I’m sorry what?”

“I said get your ass to the bridge! Something big is happening and I need all my Deck Officers right now.” Alejandro yelled in the interphone before hanging up.

Micha stared at the interphone held in his talons for a few seconds before shrugging and putting it back in place on the wall. He was inside the armory doing some cleaning on his hunting rifle after having spent most of the day on the range to set up its scope; but apparently his superior had more pressing matters for him at the moment.

The griffon put the rifle back in its case before stowing it in its specified place inside the armory. On a clipboard attached to the cage in which his gun was stored, he wrote down the time at which he put back the rifle, signing with his name and specifying the gun still needed to be cleaned before closing down the armory. No one else beside him had been there at the time, what with him having been the only one on the range that day. Everyone else had other things to do.

The Pole quickly crossed the entire length of the ship back to the bridge. As he walked through the passageways along the car decks, he noticed the Captain’s expedition was finally back… as well as the guys from the guard post at the terminal entrance who immediately proceeded to raise the ramp once they were in. Micha didn’t stop to ask them what was going on, accelerating his pace towards the bridge.

Geert and Angelo’s group had returned earlier in the afternoon from their trip to the military base, and they had already stowed and lashed their vehicles at their designed parking spaces in the lower decks.

The decks inside the accommodation were a hive of activity with sailors from both the deck and engineering departments running this way and that, carrying gear and sometimes stopping to secure a loose piece of equipment as if they were about to leave port.

Micha already had an inkling of an idea as to what was going on.

On the bridge, he found Alejandro and Dilip in heated debate by the radio station while Geert and Vadim were in the back next to the chart table looking over documents. All four Officers raised their heads when the female griffon came in.

“Ah finally Micha. We’ve got some great news. Guess what happened just before the Captain came back?” Alejandro asked.

“Dunno.” The Pole tilted his head. “Judging by the amount of activity down below it seems we’re about to depart.”

“Exactly!” The Spaniard cried out. “I was keeping watch as planned when the radio finally picked up something on the MF waves.”

“Distress call?”

“Standardized pattern using DSC calls to transmit. Few details in the message but we got a MMSI number out of it.” Dilip continued in Alejandro’s stead. “It’s a coast radio station, which we have identified as that of Lyngby.”

“I don’t know them by heart but if it’s MF it can’t possibly be that far…”

“Denmark. In a municipality close to Copenhagen apparently.” Alejandro explained. “Vadim and Geert over here are already drafting a passage plan to get us there.” He added, pointing to their two youngest Officers next to the chart table.

“That’s nice and all but has the radio station had any activity in the meantime?”

“Nope.” The parrot shook his head. “But I wouldn’t get caught up on that. It’s highly likely whoever sent the message had difficulties doing it. If it’s a case like Bart or Farkas where they don’t have hands I wouldn’t expect them to master the controls that well.”

“So?”

“I acknowledged the message.” Dilip stated. “The operator on the other side should receive a notice of acknowledgment with our own MMSI. Since it’s a coast station they should have a register of Inmarsat numbers to send us a written message via satellite if they can’t manage an audio call by radio. We have a constant watch over our own station so I don’t expect we will miss any call from Lyngby.”

“Then I suppose we’re going as soon as we can get the ship ready. Which port are we aiming for exactly?” Micha asked.

“Copenhagen.” Vadim piped in from the back of the room. “I already got a container terminal in sight. Nice depth and it’s L shaped so we can use our stern ramp to discharge lorries and long trailers.” The griffon said, tapping a talon against a waypoint on his charts.

“How far does it put us from the station?” Dilip asked.

The Ukrainian looked down at his chart and compared it to a road map. A cross on the map next to a pond marked the radio station in a town on the outskirts of the Danish capital city. He picked up some brass dividers and measured the distance.

“’bout 10 kilometers, give or take.” Vadim said, waggling his claw in a so-so gesture. “Reaching the port itself might take time though: it’s the whole way around the Danish peninsula, halfway through the Öresund strait. I’m still doing an estimation of the total steaming time but at worst it should take us two days if we stick to economic speed.”

The Captain stared off in the distance deep in thought. They did receive a distress call, with the usual implied urgency. The radio operator could be in danger because of monsters… or it could be that he simply panicked because of the Event and resorted to the simplest method in order to contact anyone in the vicinity. Making a quick distress call like that only involved pressing The Big Red Button™ after all.

“How far is Lyngby by road?”

“About 900km sir.” Geert answered.

Too far. Way too far to send a ground team. With the nuclear plants at stake he might have been willing to send a small team on a trip, but back then they had just been two to three hours away. Sending out a team three times as far? With monsters roaming about? They had canvas covered trucks, not tanks. That settled it then…

“Zinoviya?” The dog asked.

“Yes sir?” Vadim answered.

“You prepare the port entry into Copenhagen. Usual procedures and safety margins except for sandbanks. Keep a distance of at least three cables from the 10 meters depth line around them.” The Indian then turned to Micha. “Prezmo, you did the entry into Antwerp, care to make us an exit plan?”

“Deep draught channels or regulars?”

“Deep draught. Alejandro, remind me to modify that in my standing orders, I’d rather we stay on the safe side all the time.” He told his Chief Officer over his shoulder. “Now, De Vries, you do the passage planning from the exit point in Antwerp to wherever Vadim chooses to begin his entry procedure into Copenhagen, got it?” The parrot nodded. “Beyond the usual remarks, we’re passing the Dutch coast so I expect a lot of small sized sandbanks. Keep a safety distance of six cables from them while we’re in transit. Also…” The dog tapped the side of his muzzle with a paw in thought. “Try to make us pass in VHF range of as many platforms as possible if that doesn’t delay us too much, they might have survivors on board for all we know. Now…” The dog clapped his paws. “I need to talk to Schmitt about getting the engine ready for departure. Alej’, I trust you can manage checking if everything in the holds is secure for sea? “

“Aye, will do.”

With that the Captain left the bridge, leaving his deck Officers to the task of charting their new route to the next port. Alejandro pulled out his notebook and jotted down a few things in it.

“Geert?” He asked.

“Yes?” The other parrot perked up; looking up from the chart catalog he was checking out.

“I know the ocean passage shouldn’t take as much time as the port entries. Try and help the others by inputting the parallel indexes into the radar’s computer.” The hyacinth macaw looked up to the ceiling for a second. “No need to use any for the ocean passage obviously.”

Geert nodded once to acknowledge the order before going back to writing down which charts he would need to prepare for the passage. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the shorter parrot put his notebook back in his pocket before walking down the stairs back towards the car decks. Technically, he didn’t need to start off with the paper charts and he would do just as well by planning a passage on the electronic charts using the ECDIS; but he was always more comfortable choosing his waypoints on paper. It mostly came down to the ease with which he could adjust each segment of a passage; which wasn’t as quick on the computer due to the somewhat clunky UI.

The scarlet macaw brushed a talon through his multicolored crest of feathers, following the path he had traced on the catalogue with another.

Starting off in the Scheldt estuary, he could take the northbound passage of Oostgat just by Vlissingen but… Nope, too close to sandbanks, and too narrow. He sure would have wished to pass closer to the town he used to live in, but it wasn’t a decision he could justify in front of the Captain. With a sigh, he erased that path and instead traced one that sent them West through the Scheur’s deep draught channel in front of Zeebrugge. That one had been made for intercontinental container carriers and ought to be much safer.

The path deviated a bit but it sent them in radio range of the Thames forts (which, if he remembered correctly, housed radio relays back to the Thames’ and London’s port control) and offshore wind turbines and had them follow the traffic lanes out of the English Channel towards the Rotterdam-Hamburg axis.

They would pass a couple gas platforms near Rotterdam and off the isle of Texel in the Netherlands but that was about it when it came to offshore installations. There were some wind turbines in the German EEZ further North but those were much less likely to have been manned at the time of the Event. No use to pass in range of those then, so he had their route sail a course directly from Texel to the tip of the Danish peninsula via one of the traffic lanes which ended just short of the fjord that lead into the port of Oslo.

A nudge on his hip stopped him for a moment. It was Vadim; the griffon was looking up expectantly at the tall parrot.

“You going to print the new charts yet?” He asked.

Geert threw a glance at his notes. He already had an idea of which charts he would use up to the point where they passed the Swedish port of Gothenburg. And the next one… was probably the exact same one Vadim would use for his port entry.

“Still need to check out if we don’t have copies already printed in the chart room.”

“Well while you’re at it can you print those for me?” The Ukrainian said, giving him a sheet of paper with his requested charts’ ID numbers on it. “I’m going to start off with the electronics charts. You can have the chartroom to yourself to work on your passage.”

Geert raised an eyebrow at Vadim. The guy was throwing some not too subtle glances towards Micha.

Oh, alright then.

“Ok, come get your charts in half an hour. I should have them out and ready by then.” The parrot said, slipping away on his crutches, the chart catalog held under one arm.

Vadim followed the departing parrot with his piercing yellow-green eyes. Once Geert had left the bridge, the grey falcon griffon allowed himself to sag a bit.

By then, Micha had sat down in the navigator’s chair and was checking out a tide table to calculate how he would go about his maneuver to get Amandine out of the Scheldt. The table he was looking at showed hourly drawings of the river with current vectors all over.

“Hey Micha. Barely saw you today, how was your day?”

“Good I guess? I spent most of the time I wasn’t on watch on the range.” The bald eagle griffon answered, not looking up from the drawings.

Vadim caught himself staring at the other griffon’s rump, the way Micha was sitting on his haunches in the chair made it make a nice smooth curve with the small of his back, the nomex clad wildcat tail of his feline half only serving to enhance the effect… The Ukrainian shook his head. Bad brain! No hitting on your best friend! He’s a dude for fuck sake!

Then again, that rump wasn’t exactly screaming ‘dude’ at him.

“Got some good shooting done then?” Vadim hastily asked.

“More or less. The backup iron sights under the scope are set so most of that time was spent ranging the scope and writing it down for each distance. It’s a bit tedious to be honest, but I like shooting so no big deal.” The Pole shrugged. “How was yours?”

“Gave some medical lessons to Boris. He seems to take it in pretty easily, and I also discovered something about griffons with him. Surprised I didn’t notice earlier actually.”

The other griffon looked up from the drawings at that.

“Oh really? Is it important?”

“I’d say. Did you notice we actually have two hearts?”

“Come again?”

“Yeah I was pretty surprised too. It’s Boris that pointed out the oddity and we spent half the afternoon verifying it. They don’t necessarily beat at the same rate; we have one in the middle of the chest just behind the sternum…” The griffon said, tapping a talon against his chest. “…And another just between our wings in the middle of our back.” He added, stretching his claw to point between his wings.

“That’s… unique I guess?” The Pole said, brushing a claw between his wings to check it out. He did feel a strong beat right there, the area being one of the warmest on griffons.

“Best guess I can give you is that the second heart is for flying… probably.” Vadim shrugged. “Probably makes us resistant to cardiac arrests too, but I’m no expert on the matter.”

Micha nodded absentmindedly. Quickly turning back to take a look at his drawings and jot down some notes. The ship was moored bow first in the terminal, which meant he would have to back out and turn Amandine around against the current or be forced to go down the Scheldt backwards. As enticing as that prospect sounded, he doubted Dilip would be too pleased if he tried it.

“You know. I can’t help but think back to the two silhouettes I saw jumping off the container stacks. I don’t suppose Boris and you would know anything about them, uh?” Micha said quietly.

The Ukrainian gave an awkward laugh and sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.

“We err… we might have gone around the Captain’s back to try and figure out how to fly too. Nothing bad happened I swear! We aimed for a patch of sandy ground to try out landing, and only once we were sure we wouldn’t miss our target.”

“Well, I didn’t see any griffon flying around so I don’t suppose you got to the actual flying.” The Pole stated with a small smile on his beak.

“Maybe we didn’t.” Vadim conceded. “But we very much did get the ‘gliding’ part down. Landing uh…” He hesitated. “I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘classy’ but at least the ‘paws first, claws second’ technique works. Mostly. It’s still a bit rough on the edges.”

Micha finished writing down what he wanted on his notes and closed the tide tables. He was pretty sure he could adapt at least part of the upstream passage plan he had used on the way to Antwerp, unless he had already erased that route on the charts… He stood up and turned around to face Vadim.

“Well, flying does sound interesting. I don’t expect we could sneak around to train while at sea but once we’re in Copenhagen I’d be very interested in some private lessons, przyjacielu.” He said.

“I’d be happy to.” Vadim said, nodding eagerly.

“Glad to know. Now, it’s not that I want to be rude but if we’re going to leave ASAP, and by this I mean tomorrow morning, I’d rather be done quickly with my part of the work so I can get some shut-eye.” The Pole said. “The bridge’s yours, see you for dinner.”

And within a minute the Ukrainian was the last one on the bridge. Once again, he caught himself staring longingly at the departing form of his colleague and the way his tail snaked around the door gracefully when he left.

Vadim shook his head.

“Damn it.” he muttered in Ukrainian. “A month ago I was looking forward to proposing to Lyudmila and now I’m flashing on my male best friend?” A little voice in the back of his head wanted to correct him on the male part, he ignored it. “The fuck’s wrong with me?”

The fact that he was having any attraction at all for a creature that wasn’t even human worried him as well, but not as much as the fact that his brain (and his dick) were telling him to go for it when it came to Amandine’s Second Officer. Admittedly he hadn’t always been faithful to Lyudmila, what with his frequent use of hookers in foreign ports; but at least back then they were human.

Also it wasn’t like he was pursuing relationships with hookers, he wasn’t that dumb. He only made use of that service as easy sexual relief when he didn’t have much time in port, and usually it involved a lot of alcohol before he even started to drift towards a red light district.

Micha’s case was different. It was more than just lust: the griffon had caught himself numerous times daydreaming about an actual relationship… with the very same colleague he had gone to brothels with.

Vadim pinched his beak in frustration before pulling out a flask out of his pocket. In it was some of the most potent distillate the guys in engineering had managed to get out of their alembic. He took one long swig of it before moving to sit down in the navigator’s seat and bringing up Denmark on screen.

It was now late in the afternoon and he had work to do. Might as well get on with it; that would get a certain bald eagle griffon out of his mind.

Two decks below, a certain orange dragon was scouring the Officers’ cabins in search of his Second Engineer. Schmitt easily found the minotaur in his cabin where the Greek was chugging cans of energy drink whilst fiddling with a computer that had a distasteful amount of LED’s fitted to it (so much so that it cast a greenish glow inside the dark cabin).

Angelo finished his can and crushed it in his large hand, tossing the crumpled piece of aluminum in the trash without sparing it a look. With a hum, he put the finishing touches on his newest PC build, hooking up the computer to a dual monitor setup which immediately lit up with a hum.

“Busy as ever I see.” Schmitt commented, more to let the Greek be aware of his presence than as an actual reprimand. Unless it threatened the daily workings of the ship, the guy was free to do whatever he wanted in his free time for all he cared.

The minotaur startled, almost toppling his setup before turning towards his superior.

“Ah Chief. Anything that needs to be done?” He asked, fiddling with the tip of one horn with his thumb.

“Not yet, but soon.” Schmitt said. “Farkas and the Captain came back earlier, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“I did. Poor Chief Steward looked thoroughly creeped out, any idea what happened?”

“None so far, though Artyom burst out laughing when I asked.” Schmitt shrugged. “Anyway, we got a distress call recently. Sounds like we’re headed for Copenhagen ASAP from what I was told…”

“…And the engine needs to be ready for departure on time. Got it.” Angelo cut him off. “You divided the tasks yet?”

“Eeyup.” The Luxembourgian nodded. “Aleksei’s prepping the bow thrusters; I’ll run the checklist on the main engine, so if you could do the fuel lines?”

“No problem with that.” Angelo answered. He stood up from the desk and grabbed an alarm clock by his bed. “Any time you need it done?”

“I need them ready by seven so we can do the starting procedure without having to hurry too much.”

The minotaur gave his superior the thumbs up and set his alarm to 04:30. Not that he needed all that extra time to prepare the fuel system, but he wasn’t exactly what you’d call an early bird. At such an hour? He was pretty sure he’d need half an hour to reach a sufficient level of consciousness with some coffee to help him along.

“Was that all?” He asked as he put down the alarm clock.

“I could offer you to make the list for engine watches.” Schmitt offered but the minotaur instantly waved him off.

“Sorry, but I don’t feel like doing it. Let Aleksei draft the list, I know his pick will sync with mine anyway.”

“Your call.” The dragon shrugged before walking off down the hallway, headed for the engine room.

Eyes trailing the form of his superior, the minotaur closed his door once the dragon had disappeared behind a corner and focused his attention back on the computer. The idea of making the gaming rigs had come from Carlos. The electrician was just as big videogame fan as he was and now that they had the opportunity to get the parts for free…

Sure, playing FIFA on a Playstation was nice, but they could do better. Angelo had snuck a list of computer parts on a salvage list one day, and he had been very pleased when Vadim and Micha had come back from Antwerp with the components a few days earlier. Carlos had been ecstatic and had drafted a plan for the best possible build before the minotaur even had time to take a look at the parts that had been retrieved.

The perk of being on a ship was that they only had to connect to the main grid to get the ability to do LAN games and share data. Now, they very much suffered from the loss of the Steam servers (May they rest in peace), but between the two of them they already had a fair amount of games in their respective libraries (some of which Angelo had stored on a hard drive waiting to get a proper PC to run them). Once it was added to the respectable amount of games they had found in containers all over the place (as well as one admittedly poorly furnished store in Zeebrugge), they were pretty much set with a couple thousand hours of game time ahead of them.

And his fellow Filipino geek still had gone off on a tangent about the possibility of adding a dedicated server for multiplayer games on which he had sworn he could program some AI players. Angelo was pretty sure that the parrot had crossed over into wishful thinking by then, but if he could achieve it… might as well let him make his attempt.

The minotaur set a few games to download, as well as the bare essentials for what he would consider useful on a gaming rig. That would take a few hours, but then again neither he nor Carlos expected to achieve anything quickly. A quick glance at the time told him he had an hour to go before dinner, so he picked out an anime on his hard drive to watch in the meantime.

The intro music for Fullmetal Alchemist reverberated through his headset as he pulled out a new can of energy drink from a drawer.

Later in the evening after dinner, well after most sailors had left the cafeteria to finish their evening duties, the trio of veterans was sitting at their usual table sharing beers. It seemed the shooting range experience had managed to rouse their spirits somewhat; and so Nikola found himself telling tales of his time as an army mechanic to Sri and Artyom. The gargoyle was still injured, but the cast on his sprained wing had come off and his bruised ribs didn’t hurt nearly as much.

His muzzle was still heavily bandaged from the quarry eel incident though.

“…So I had left the new guy to finish reassembling the transmission on the CO’s UAZ since I was short on time with other stuff.” The gargoyle told. “Pretty simple stuff actually, so even the new guy could work on it while I cleared up the rest of my backlog.”

“Classic mistake.” Artyom commented with a shake of his head.

“You don’t fucking say.” Nikola said, taking a sip of his beer. “Imbetsil somehow put the gearbox on backwards. No clue how he even managed it, but then the CO turned up asking for his jeep. Usual fluff: ‘I need to see my troops on the field and all’. For all I knew he would have just hung around somewhere on a hill with a LT for half an hour and then gone back to his office ‘cause he was bored. That kind of CO.”

“So what happened?” Sri asked, leaning in slightly.

“Hear this.” He told the female hippogriff. “When this happened I didn’t bother checking what the village idiot had done. I just saw the UAZ, said ‘Looks fine to me’ and handed the keys over to the CO. Next thing I know the car lurches forward with what I swear is the most sickening crunch I ever heard, half the undercarriage fucking drops to the floor and the CO gives me the ‘You done fucked up’ look.”

“Ouch.” Artyom winced in sympathy.

“You don’t say. I must say I’m not exactly what you’d call violent but I threw a wrench at the fucking idiot who did that and booted him out of my shop and straight to an infantry unit.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised.” Sri said, the hippogriff brushing a claw through his wing in thought. “Hey, did I ever tell you guys ‘bout…”

Right then, the trio was interrupted by the cafeteria’s doors opening to let in one small blue-furred unicorn. Bart surveyed the room briefly before spotting the veterans and making a beeline for their table. He was carrying his brown beret tucked under his sweater’s epaulettes and had a bulge in one of his coveralls’ pockets.

He stopped a few steps short of their table, greeting the three veterans with a short nod each.

“Good evening.” He said in a clearly rehearsed manner. “I went to regimental museum. Took items from collection.” His horn lit up with a green glow and two berets, one blue, one red, flew out of one of his pockets, landing softly on the table. “For you. Sorry about not having Indonesian navy.” He apologized to Sri before walking off.

Artyom followed the departing unicorn with a bemused look before staring down at the VDV beret in front of him. The beret wasn’t even one from the soviet era: it was actually identical to the one he had worn during his service in the nineties.

“So what do you guys make of this?” He asked, picking up the beret and staring at it thoughtfully.

“Guy may not be able to talk much but looks like he’s willing to make allies. Heard he was going to run the armory, maybe do some guard duty too. Sounds like the kind of guy I can get along with.” Sri said.

“Once the Fourth Officer gets him talking maybe.” Niko added, putting the red beret in one of his hip pockets. “You alright Artyom?”

The Russian kept staring at his beret for a couple seconds before allowing a smile to creep on his muzzle, revealing the sharp fangs in his maw.

“Yeah, I’m with you on that, guys. It’s just something I recalled.” He said.

“And what would that be?”

“’Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’ the saying goes.”

Sri groaned and slapped a claw against his forehead while Niko cuffed the snorting dragon on the back of his skull. So much for Artyom’s reputation of stoicism…

Morning didn’t come too soon for some on Amandine. Vadim was kind of glad he only had to manage the unmooring of the ship because charting their port entry in Copenhagen lasted him well into the night. The Ukrainian griffon let out a tired yawn as he walked out of the accommodation to his designated station for their departure.

The weather that day was rather mild despite the large grey cloud cover that blocked out the sun. Rain was expected latter in the afternoon if the HPI weather satellites were to be trusted, but not much wind thankfully. A ship with as much freeboard as Amandine tended to drift from her predicted course a lot in high winds.

Vadim did a quick check of his equipment before heading to his position by the aft winches. Life jacket? Check, and he had replaced its CO2 cartridge recently. He turned on his walkie-talkie and tuned it to their usual channel for mooring operations, the little plastic box immediately erupting with Micha’s voice. The Pole could be seen making his last checks on the bridge wings with Geert by his side, the wounded parrot reading points off of a checklist on a clipboard.

“Vadim to bridge, reporting in from aft winch station. Over.” He said on the radio while doing a quick head count of the sailors assembled on his post.

One purple furred sphinx (Mohammed) was propped up against the rail and looking out towards the container stacks while Ajit (the Himalayan sheepdog) was observing the seal colonies on the river banks. Two reliable sailors, both were looking ready for their departure.

“Morning Vadim. We’re going to do this one line at a time, no hurry, all focus on safety. Is your station ready? Over.” Micha asked.

“Roger on the safety. We’re ready. Out.” The grey falcon griffon answered as he checked out the winch drums before they put a line on it.

All sailors waited a couple minutes more before a plume of smoke rose from the funnel, accompanied by the telltale rumble from the engine indicating the guys down in engine room had turned it on successfully.

Up on the starboard bridge wing, Micha gave a satisfied nod. Everything was in place just as he desired it, checklists done. Now to get the maneuver approved. He turned towards the Captain who was sitting in his chair inside the bridge, sipping from a fresh cup of tea. Boris was at the helm a short distance away, ready to take his orders and get them out of their berthing.

“Captain, all checks done and ready for departure. Cargo is secure for sea and all mooring stations are manned. Permission to proceed?”

“Granted.” The Indian said. “And take it easy, no need to take any risk.”

They started off by releasing tension on the mooring lines amidships, the sphinx on that station quickly pulling them aboard using his telekinesis. Micha had reviewed his plan several times before deeming it ready: they were moored bow first in a terminal perpendicular to the river. On the plus side the terminal was dug in a bend of the river which gave him more room to work with.

Still, if he fucked up the maneuver they would be stuck drifting downstream backwards for a couple hours before they hit the open seas.

His plan was to let go on the stern first and use a bit of transverse thrust with the propellers to line them up with the bend before he let go on the bow. That way he could limit the effect of the current and have his maneuver halfway done without even releasing the ship from her mooring completely. A well controlled burst on the bow thruster would then be enough to bring them in line with the course of the Scheldt.

But before he had time to order Vadim to release tension on the stern lines, a cluster of tan shapes emerged from the container stacks on the quays and approached the vessel quickly. With his sharp eyesight he could make out the shapes to be… Lions?! What the hell?

They heard a chuckle coming from the Captain, the pariah dog glancing alternatively from Farkas by the fore winches to the pride of lions on the quays.

The sailors who hadn’t been on the team that raided the museums the day before looked in confusion as the male of the pride ran as close to the ship as it could and dropped a bloody bayonet on the concrete of the quays before calling out to a very much blushing Farkas with a roar.

“I’m sorry Captain, but did I miss something?” Micha asked.

“Our good Chief Steward found it funny to joke about jacking off to Simba from the Lion King yesterday.” Dilip chuckled. “Well, what would you know: when we came close to the zoo it appeared that lions do not mind the difference between them and sphinxes.”

“Hold on sir. You can’t possibly say that this lion is… Did it flirt with Farkas?!”

“Looked a lot like it did from my point of view, and by the looks of it seems very attracted to Farkas.” The Captain said, nodding with his muzzle towards the lion.

It was now sitting on its haunches and crooning at the embarrassed sphinx lioness (might as well call her that) high up on Amandine’s deck.

“So Farkas, seems like Simba’s got a crush on you. Should we start calling you Nala? Over.” The Captain teased over the radio.

The lioness threw a glare towards the bridge before trying to shoo the amorous lion away. That kind of stuff was outright bestiality, no way in hell would she even think about responding to a lion’s advances. Despite her protests, the lion still kept crooning at her, not moving an inch.

And she was under no illusion that the group of lionesses behind it was glaring at her despite her show of force against the chimera one day earlier.

Right behind her, Artyom was laughing his ass off at the lioness’ plight, muttering gibberish in Russian and letting out small puffs of smoke from between his jaws. Farkas looked at him in annoyance before remembering something she had discovered thanks to the chimera and the lions.

A second later the dragon was on the ground, completely paralyzed from the sphinx’s breathing out a cloud of gas at him. Sure, the Russian would eventually find a way to get back at her, but it felt good to teach him a lesson.

And the lion still wasn’t leaving.

The sphinx in charge with the winches amidships came to check out what was going on. The guy was called Thanasis, a Greek guy from engineering who now sported a tan fur with a dark blue mane.

“Hey guys what’s the hassle?” He asked before looking over the rail and down at the pride of lions. “Uh, visitors?”

“More like zoo escapees.” Farkas drawled. “They’re not ‘human’ intelligent, just rather clever for wild animals.”

Right then the amorous lion took a look at Thanasis and immediately recognized the other sphinx as a male who was very close to the subject of its attentions, a concurrent to the heart of its beloved. It stood up on its hind legs and let out a roar of challenge at the confused Greek.

Farkas shook her head. They needed to cut this short before it got even sillier than it already was; they had a voyage and rescue operation to accomplish. She glanced thoughtfully between the angry lion and Thanasis next to her before coming to a resigned conclusion.

“I’m sorry Thanasis, this is nothing personal but we need to get this lion off our collective back.” She said, quietly approaching the blue maned sphinx.

“Hold on, what are you getting at?” The other sphinx asked in confusion.

Mindful to make it happen in sight of the lion on the quays, she came up within reach of the other Greek and made a point of glancing down at the wild lion before rubbing her mane against Thanasis’ ,licking him on the muzzle and walking out of sight.

The lion’s reaction was instantaneous as it roared in sheer fury before pushing Farkas’ bayonet in the water and running off with the rest of its pride in tow.

“Aww, nice move Farkas, I think you broke its heart. Over.” Dilip joked over the radio.

Artyom might have still been paralyzed by Farkas’ gas attack at the moment, but the gleam in the dragon’s eyes was enough to tell the Chief Steward about the incoming jokes she was going to be the butt of. With a snort, she shook her head and made her way towards the accommodation.

“Thanasis, you deal with the fore mooring lines for me. I’ve had quite enough of this shit.” She told over her shoulder.

The male sphinx stayed put as the lioness walked away, utterly confused.

“What the fuck just happened?” He asked to no one in particular.

But the sailor’s question went ignored, everyone around instead resuming their work except for the still paralyzed Artyom who got propped up against a bulkhead while he recovered from his paralysis.

He was tempted to complain about sphinxes getting that kind of trick, but the dragon had figured out how to breathe fire by then (or rather: stop himself from doing it unwittingly and avoid setting the ship on fire).

Back on the bridge, Micha filed that particular incident for later and resumed the unmooring process when everyone was once again focused on the task at hand… or paw… or claw, whatever. He had Vadim release all tension on the stern lines before turning both rudders to starboard and giving a short burst ahead with the propellers.

That technique had the effect of making water reflect off of the rudders, thus creating transverse thrust that pushed the stern away from the quay. Keeping the thrust to short bursts ensured the ship would not build any forward momentum and tear off the fore mooring lines.

When Amandine’s stern was at enough of an angle that he judged he could turn the ship around easily, he switched the pitch on the propellers backwards before having the bow team let go on their mooring lines, finally freeing the ship from her berthing.

The bald eagle griffon went over to the controls of the bow thrusters before ordering his helmsman to give backwards thrust. Amandine slowly started to build some speed, moving upstream while Micha corrected the effects of the current with the bow thrusters. He couldn’t push the ship too fast; otherwise the admittedly feeble thrusters would lose any effect on the ship’s course, so it took them a couple minutes to back away from the quays and on the river proper.

Eventually, the Pole managed to line up the ship with the river on his first try and switched the propellers back to forward motion. Micha brushed a talon through his head feathers, satisfied with a well executed maneuver, a subtle smirk on his beak before turning to his colleagues on the bridge.

“To be noted on the logbook: 09:35, we are now underway towards Copenhagen. That’s gotta be a record considering that was without tugs or line handlers.” He stated. “Geert, can you get on the radio and tell the guys on deck to stow the mooring lines?”

The scarlet macaw nodded before hobbling out of the bridge, walkie-talkie in hand. The griffon then turned to the Captain after giving Boris a course to follow.

“It’s gonna take us some time to reach open waters. My intentions are to keep a speed of about 5 knots since we don’t have tugs to help us maneuver if anything goes awry. That way I can do quick course corrections with the bow thrusters. We will only shut them down once we’re out of the estuary and able to speed up.”

“Agreed.” The dog said as he got up from his chair. “Say, can you tell me if Artyom’s still paralyzed? Your eagle eyes are better than mine.”

Micha threw a quick look down towards the forecastle where the Russian was still against a bulkhead, though he seemed able to move his neck and arms now.

“Give him a minute or two I’d say.”

“Thanks. I’ll be in my office if anything happens. Have a good watch.” The Captain said before heading for the stairs.

And on that note Amandine was once again sailing.

The call had been acknowledged! Someone was coming!

Granted, she didn’t know who or when they were coming, but the display on her radio station clearly showed one of her messages as having been acknowledged by another station. She even had a MMSI number to go with and look up in the station’s directory… if she could manage to get enough control on her wings to manipulate the keyboard.

Yeah, there is a bit of a difference between pressing the big red button with ‘distress’ written on it and actually using her wings to type on the keyboard. She wasn’t too far from that point, but some… unfortunate events had forced her to leave her desk.

The wood hounds were encroaching on the building. Their paths in the last few days had been bringing them ever closer to her position, probably because they had managed to track down her scent, if only partially.

She had hurriedly rushed outside to quickly close the gates by the entrance and made sure all accesses in the fence were closed. She didn’t think it would stop the hounds, but delaying them would have to suffice. She also accidentally scratched her hoof when she went past her car, stepping on shards of broken glass with her unprotected leg.

Luckily she knew where to find the first aid kits inside the radio station. Putting on a bandage around the wound proved rather hard with only her poorly controlled wings and mouth (how sanitary…) to do it, but she managed to hold it in place with a generous amount of medical tape.

The batpony spent the rest of her day securing the ground level of the radio station as best as she could despite her small frame. She didn’t know when the hounds would breach the outer fence, just that they eventually would. Doing so took her well into the night before she was able to return to her desk inside the control room.

Then, the screen showed her someone had made a few attempts at reaching her while she had been occupied. Searching through the station’s directory of MMSI numbers revealed the call to have come from the same vessel that had acknowledged her call, unsurprisingly.

She stared at her extended wings through yellow slitted eyes in frustration. The simple task of typing nine digits on her keyboard took her more than three minutes. Way too slow to be considered convenient. She needed practice.

The vessel that had attempted to call her was apparently a Ro/Ro flagged in Malta (though, with flags of convenience, that didn’t actually tell her much) by the name of Amandine. That was a new bit of hope…

The little purple mare doubted she could manage an audio call just yet, but maybe she could send Amandine a written message via satellite. She did have their Inmarsat number in the directory, but typing it would take time.

She shook her head, making her messy mane bob up and down a bit. It’s not like she had anything else to do anyway: the hounds had her cornered inside the station; she couldn’t go out for more supplies.

A trip to the rec room later, she was slowly typing on her keyboard with an open can of tuna on her desk. It seemed like she was able to process fish at least (which wasn’t too surprising with the small fangs poking out of her mouth).

Lyngby Coast Radio Station,

GOC Operator Sandra Jensen,

Greetings Amandine…

Author's Notes:

And herewith begins what I shall call the Copenhagen arc...

Naturally at economic speed they won't get there overnight but at least they're actually on the move now.

On a more meta level, and I'm asking this because I don't want to chase anyone away from this story: do you guys want a notice of warning preceding sex scenes? I know I put the sex tag on the story so that was to be expected in the first place, but if any of you guys want me to put up a double line with something like: 'Beware thy who treads the realm of clop'; then don't hesitate. I know some don't like such scenes and I'd rather avoid you the dose of eye bleach.