In the morning of the 11^th of June, the Captain was working in his office while having breakfast. He had managed to progress further along his research on things pertaining the Event and monsters, though a lot of work remained to be done on it. He was still lacking a lot of data, which made drawing hypothesizes particularly hard.

In front of him was a chart of Europe with some positions scribbled down on it: known points where survivors had been located, others where they had found demonic circles as well as the other type of circle Angelo had found in Belgium. He had pictures of both types, each having a completely different design compared to the other. If the blood stains found during the expedition to Tihange were to be believed, then the owners of each circle type weren’t allies at all…

That didn’t answer who or what was responsible for them however. Just that one type spawned monsters, and the other type spawned, well... an enemy of those monsters. But what kind of enemy?

Some lines of bearing drawn on the chart indicated known and proven directions they knew the wave that preceded the Event had come from. They didn’t have much to go with that particular source considering they had spent most of their time in a single country and few towns so that made them rather inaccurate… but they had the first hints of several origin points: some (from cameras at sea and near Zeebrugge) seemed to point towards somewhere near Southampton in Britain; others found in Antwerp and its vicinity, towards Brittany in France; and finally, a few cameras had captured a wave originating from the North, in Scandinavia, though that one was less accurate.

Now, what these locations had in common completely escaped the Indian Captain. He would need more lines of bearing and more origin points to figure it out… probably some more data they could get while in Copenhagen and maybe once they delivered the prototypes to the HPI wherever they asked them to in the USA. Yanks loved their CCTV, right?

Next to Dilip’s platter of English breakfast was a stack of files in which they had summed up what data they had gathered on the monsters they had encountered. The Captain hoped he could pawn these off to the HPI for some extra credits when he completed them but… data was unfortunately scarce, thanks in no small part to the rarity of such encounters.

Which he was thankful of, really: the less encounters, the less risk of injury on their part. He just wished he could have an actual picture of creatures like the wood hounds instead of a crude drawing by Artyom (the Russian really was no artist). He had a few notes on the capabilities of each type of monster and all… but there was one thing that puzzled him.

They had a picture of the chimera, taken from one of their trucks during the encounter but… There was one blurry mark next to the tiger head of the creature. A drawing by Farkas next to the picture showed a more detailed version of the sigil that had apparently been branded on the creature’s head.

That and the fact it was apparently smart enough to talk (well… two out of three heads were… and they weren’t too bright either if he remembered correctly) threw a wrench in their gears. They had noted how the tiger had a reaction that made it shake its head in pain every time it spoke and how the sigil matched pattern with some symbols found on the demonic circles. The snake head’s speech pattern’s had also been oddly crude.

They were tied, unsurprisingly. In which way now, that’s what he needed to figure out.

So many questions to be answered, and yet so little material to work it out. That was exceedingly frustrating to the pariah dog, yet there was nothing he could do about it except hope they found more answers in their next port of call. He doubted that even if the HPI had answers to those questions they would have parted with that particular knowledge.

The dog huffed in annoyance as he typed one last line of text about his hypothesizes. So much he could do without additional data, and Roberto was still busy looking up what intel they had on Copenhagen. At times he wished he still had the same humongous amount of paperwork he used to have to work his way through before the Event.

At times only. The project ideas and logistical concerns that came with an apocalyptic situation were still enough to keep him busy most of the time; only less so than before the Event. He should probably look into taking a more active part in navigational duties now that he had time for it.

The Captain’s musings were brought to a halt by a rasp on his door. He called out for whoever was on the other side to enter, to be greeted by his Fourth Officer. Geert hopped into view on his crutches, saluting his superior with a polite nod.

“Good morning sir, may I have a moment of your time?” The parrot asked politely.

“Of course, if you don’t mind me eating my breakfast while you talk that is.” Dilip said, beckoning Geert towards a seat in front of his desk, which he accepted with a relieved smile.

Mobile as he was, the female parrot was still very much injured. Hips take time to heal.

“How was your watch? I take it you just came down from the bridge.” Dilip said with a quick glance towards the clock in the office. Barely past eight in the morning.

“Quiet as they get sir. Absolutely nothing to report besides the weather. Wind seems to be increasing by one Beaufort, but we cleared the rain clouds an hour ago.”

“So no signs of survivors in the Netherlands?”

The parrot gave a disappointed shake of his head. He had wanted the radio to pick up a signal from his countrymen… but nothing came up during his watch.

“Negative. Nothing popped up in the four hours I was on the bridge. But there’s a thing… some ideas that have been discussed among the crew, about survivors.” Geert said.

He went on to relate the theory Ivan had shared earlier in the morning, hoping it would be taken seriously by his superior. The dog stayed silent for a few seconds, muzzle pointed off to the side, towards his map. That theory did line up with the few pieces of data they had.

Then again they only had three groups to go with, so it could just as easily swing the other way.

On the other paw… the idea of more survivors spawning out of thin air as time went on would leave the crew hopes of humanity not being reduced to a handful of transformed sailors and an unknown but limited amount of spooks confined to a bunker.

“I will add this to my research documents, thank you.” Dilip said with a short nod. “Do you have any tasks today?” He asked.

“Not really.” The parrot honestly admitted. “I usually give Corporal De Mesmaeker some English lessons but beside that…” He shrugged. “Nothing but my own free time. Not much else I can do with my hip.”

“Good, can I ask you to complete some data sheets on some new vehicles? I noticed we loaded three tanker trucks and I don’t think we have the parts for them yet since they weren’t planned.”

“Uh? Where did we get them then?”

“Guys from engineering loaded up the trucks they were using to refuel our diesel supply in Antwerp when we left. I need their brand, power plant type, general specifications and all, you catch my drift?” Dilip said.

“I can do that yeah. Do we have a template file for the data sheet?”

“On the server, ask Roberto.” The Captain said before returning to his breakfast. “No hurry though, I just want to know what parts we need to look for once we hit port. I advise you head to the cafeteria now otherwise you might miss breakfast.”

The scarlet macaw nodded and stood up, his tall svelte stature giving him an elegant appearance despite the unsightly cast around his hip. Dilip noted how the female parrot seemed to have spent a great deal of time adjusting the sewing on his coveralls so that the utilitarian clothing hugged his frame tightly, as well as the multicolored threads he had used doing so. The modifications were a subtle but distinct sign of the parrots’ apparent attraction to ‘flashy’ designs.

He idly wondered whether the young Dutchman had had his sexual leanings swapped around like Farkas or if he was more like Schmitt. Whatever the case was, he was surprisingly good at hiding it contrarily to some.

Rumors had it around the ship that Carlos and Danny, two of their parrots and both Filipinos, had been seen getting steadily closer and hanging around each other’s cabin. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together: Danny just happened to have turned into a shapely female golden parakeet (thanks to Schmitt for pointing out the species using his ornithology books, turns out bird spotting amateurs could be useful sometimes). Female parrots may not have breasts, but they more than made up for it in the curve departments, as witnessed by the departing scarlet macaw in his office.

Dilip waited until Geert was gone to pull out a sheet of paper and write down a note to order Vadim to give a health and safety brief on sexual relationships just to be on the safe side.

Up on the bridge, Alejandro had long relieved Geert from his watch and carried on with their passage as planned. The cloud cover was slowly clearing up as they sailed further north, now allowing the Chief Officer to occasionally peek at the blue sky beyond. If this kept on they would have some nice summer weather the whole time they were in Copenhagen. They had cleared the last part of the Dutch coastline and were now moving across open waters. That left them some three hundred nautical miles to go before they reached the north of the Danish peninsula.

Sri was the one taking the role of helmsman alongside the hyacinth macaw. The Indonesian veteran was pretty reliable when it came to steering the ship, and he had a sharp eye for detail to boot, which made him even better as a lookout.

Alejandro was sitting beside the hippogriff in the navigator’s seat, the logbook held open in his lap while he checked what had happened during the night and what had been reported by his fellow Officers. Seeing nothing out of order, he filled in the line for ten o’clock before closing it delicately and placing it back in its designated spot. Next to the paper charts, that little book might hold the spot for the most important non-digital publication on board.

“Another boring watch of sailing with nothing happening eh, boss?” Sri said.

“Hopefully. I think we got enough on our plate as it is, no need to have our rescue op’ delayed by something like a propulsion failure.”

“Like that would ever happen. The engine had its overhaul just before the Event; we got a while to go before that happens. At least I hope so.” The female hippogriff said.

“Let’s not jinx it shall we?”

“Superstitious now? You of all people?” Sri teased.

“With monsters roaming about and a unicorn on our crew? Better now than never.” Alejandro said, discreetly running a talon against the rosary he had started wearing around his neck. Religion was a pretty taboo subject on board, if you had a God you usually kept it to your cabin and it stayed at that. Nobody would bother asking if they avoided bacon or beef for breakfast as long as they didn’t make an ass of themselves… and honestly Alejandro suspected some of the Muslims and Hindus didn’t completely stick to their supposed code, Dilip included.

“Suit yourself Chief. Personally I won’t worry about such things ‘til I get a tangible proof they’re real. What’s next uh? Sirens picking on sailors?” The ivory white hippogriff chuckled. “At this rate we’re gonna start worrying the Little Mermaid of Copenhagen is out for our blood.”

“Sirens? Honestly after the other monsters they sound almost… mild in comparison. No, with the kind of shit we’ve faced I wouldn’t be surprised if whatever made those demonic portals dumped something like a kaiju on us.” The Chief Officer said.

“Kaiju?”

“You know, Godzilla, leviathans and stuff…” The Spaniard explained. “Actual sea monsters. I mean… I’d rather it didn’t happen, ‘cause Amandine isn’t suited to face that. That’d spell our doom faster than you can say ‘mayday’.”

“Damn right it would.” Sri nodded, giving a small nudge on the helm to adjust their heading by half a degree. The wind was starting to push them off course ever so slightly, no real trouble as long as he was aware of it.

Their discussion about the type of monsters they might face in the future kept going as their watch progressed, going from reasonable guesses to some more outlandish creatures they came up with on the spot. At that point Alejandro was pretty confident they would make it in time to Copenhagen and be able to rescue that Miss Jensen quickly.

Two hours earlier,

Some hundred and twenty nautical miles East of Amandine was the estuary of the river Elbe, a part of the German Bight. The place used to play an important role in the German shipping industry, as it was the part of the country’s coastline that had direct access to the North Sea. A couple fairly important ports had been built in the area such as the one of Hamburg or the city of Bremerhaven; and while they may not have been as influent as Dutch ports, they did boast a fair amount of activity before the Event brought any activity to a grinding halt.

Normally, there would have been a traffic separation scheme creating sea lanes that safely lead ships out of the estuary and between the several islets that dotted the area. Now, that effort of establishing radar surveillance and radio monitoring on the area turned out to be for naught. The sensor towers built on some sandy islets were now slowly sinking in the soft soil, burdened by colonies of seabirds that found them to be a comfortable resting ground.

With no fleet of trawlers to compete with them for fish, the birds were enjoying a literal cornucopia of food. The winds only required of them to spread their wings to be carried effortlessly to their nesting grounds on the mainland. Survivors might have been horrified at the collapse of civilization, but the birds? They just enjoyed a large, uncontested supply of food at sea with skyscrapers waiting for them to nest ashore. They loved it. They didn’t even need to go to the mainland: the red cliffs and the former tourist resort on the island of Helgoland provided them with a safe haven devoid of any predators and now free of the loud, bothersome tourists that had plagued it before. The only other animals there were a colony of seals that had discovered how comfortable the island’s small, well sheltered fishing haven actually was.

Amidst that spectacle, a ripple went through the air a bit further out to sea, right where the outbound lane used to be. A high quality camera might have caught a small pinkish wave spreading outwards from a given point, followed by air starting to flow away from the position.

A second later, with a surprisingly quiet ‘pop’, a ship appeared out of thin air. The sudden displacement of tens of thousands tons of water caused a wave to rise away from the ship, though that particular detail went unnoticed by her crew.

The ship in question had a long, black painted hull with very few rust stains, testimony of having received a fresh coat of paint before the setting out to sea. By comparison with Amandine, she was about sixty meters longer, and her beam was just as wide. Her superstructure was built on the fore part of the hull, with only a set of derrick cranes ahead of the bridge, built there to help load the ship’s stores. On her bow stood two words in sharp white paint: ‘Rhine Forest’.

Everything behind the white painted superstructure was dedicated to the cargo sections of the ship: large yellow barges that were held in place by cell guides. A pair of rails on either side of the ship allowed a tall grey gantry crane to move along the length of the vessel to lift and transport the loaded barges.

Further aft were the ship’s two funnels on either side of the vessel, both painted white with three green stripes. A barely visible smoke column emanating from the top of the structures showed the ship’s propulsion was still active.

Sheltered between the two funnels were some small sized tugboats the ship kept to handle their fleet of barges whenever they unloaded them. The six boats were soundly secured in place for the long voyage the ship was supposed to leave on before the Event.

If Amandine had benefitted from being at anchor when they disappeared, meaning their situation was rather stable and allowed them to assess what was going on before resuming their voyage; such was not the case for the large black ship. Their Captain had them leave the port of Hamburg late in the evening, meaning it was well into the night when the Event wave reached them. Having just left port also implied that many sailors were still up and as such didn’t get to (relatively) gently wake up to a new body.

No, the situation that occurred was quite the opposite of that: sailors that had been busy stowing the mooring lines and securing items suddenly found themselves stumbling because their body abruptly changed shape. Up on the bridge, the Watch Officer suddenly fell down on the ground in a badly fitted set of coveralls, starring in dismay at the pair of brown hooves that had just replaced his hands while his helmsman; now a large centaur, struggled to extricate himself (or rather: herself) from the now much too small chair he had been sitting in just five minutes ago.

Cries of fear and confusion came from the engine room astern, where a batpony, some sort of black and white anthropomorphic hedgehog and a griffon were looking back and forth between their own new body and what had been their colleagues a mere moment ago. Amidst that confusion, one transformed engineer accidentally hit the emergency stop on a few machines as he stumbled around and fell, stalling the engine and sending the vessel off course, at the mercy of the currents.

In an office inside the accommodation, a young looking pink unicorn watched the pen she had been holding clatter on the desk, freed from the grip of digits that no longer existed. Through soft baby blue eyes, she stared in fascination at the small furry hoof in her sight for a couple seconds before uttering a small:

“Was?”

And then, upon noticing the pitch of her voice, she reached reflexively for her throat. Something was definitely not right there. A glance down at her own body revealed a loose pilot shirt with Captain ranks on the shoulders, as well as a now much too big pair of slacks that failed to hide the inside of her thighs.

And she very much noticed that one thing that had been there for the past sixty years just happened to have disappeared.

The young teenaged unicorn mare erupted in a stream of curses, the choice of words in angry German making for a peculiar sight coming from such a creature.

Dilip walked up the stairs to the bridge with a frown. He had just received a call from an alarmed Alejandro on the interphone, the Spaniard urging him to come to the bridge quickly. Apparently they had just received a distress call.

Which was odd, they very much did expect to receive a call from Miss Jensen’s station, and he would have expected his Chief Officer could just patch her through to his office. Nothing that would require his presence on the bridge, right? Despite that, it appeared the ship had slowed down.

The Captain found Alejandro leaning over the radio station with the handset held in his talons. Even though the parrot’s yellow feathers around his eyes tended to make him appear cheerful, the frown he saw right then concerned the Captain somewhat. With his free claw, the parrot was busily writing down data in his notebook. A voice with a rather thick German accent was coming from the speaker in the handset.

Dilip threw a glance towards the helmsman, only for the hippogriff to nod towards the Chief Officer who finished writing down what he wanted and told the operator on the other side of the radio to stand by.

“May I know what’s going on?” Dilip finally asked.

“Another distress call, from a ship that one.” Alejandro said without turning. “I was just asking them for some info on their situation. Looking at the coordinates they just gave me, they’re about 120 miles east of us.”

Dilip approached the radio station and crossed his arms, glancing down at Alejandro’s notebook.

“Alright, sing your song so I can come to a decision whether or not we’re altering course to help them. I take it they just reappeared?”

“Eeyup, disappeared just as they were leaving Hamburg, came back around eight in the morning. Call came from a barge carrier going by the name of ‘Rhine Forest’, some 260 meters in length. The crew was still busy from their departure, and from what I was told it’s rampant panic on board: guys turned gals that go catatonic, others that refuse to come out of their cabins... They got 50 heads on that ship but only a few have enough wits about themselves to try and keep the ship safe. Bad thing is: they all have something like two hours of experience with their bodies so it’s not really successful. They stalled their engines and are stuck adrift at the moment.”

“Casualties on board?”

“Nobody died, thankfully, but their Third Officer just reported to me they had half a dozen injured crewmembers. They did have an actual doctor on board, as well as a nurse, but the former fell down the stairs and broke her arm while the latter got injured by a centaur falling down on her.” Alejandro explained.

This went on for a few minutes where the Chief Officer reported what he had for information about the distressed ship. Several significant crewmembers on that ship had turned into handless species like unicorns and sphinxes, others had apparently turned into centaurs (of all things); and nobody could get anything done. The two Officers plotted the predicted course of the drifting ship on their charts to determine whether it was headed for a dangerous area. The barge carrier had cleared the islets of the estuary and was predicted to drift further out to sea, but there was a risk with that:

Previous weather records on their logbook showed the wind was slowly but steadily turning. Rhine Forest may not be at risk of colliding with anything in the next few hours if the winds stayed as they were, but if they veered on a more easterly course then they might just push the barge carrier towards an offshore wind farm.

To Dilip it was not a decision about whether or not they would alter course to meet the other vessel: of course they were going to assist them, with as few survivors as they had met. No, what was going through the dog’s mind were estimations on how long this whole thing would delay their journey towards Copenhagen.

“If we increase our speed to full ahead then it probably will only delay us by half a day, more if we need a lot of time to get Rhine Forest going again.” Alejandro said after inputting the potential deviation on their ECDIS computer.

Dilip clicked his tongue and stared off in the distance. Considering their original passage plan put them at two days, that was a pretty big difference. A difference that could spell Jensen’s doom if they took too long.

He needed to talk to her.

“Alej’, start altering course towards the Rhine Forest, heading zero-eight-eight. Set speed to full ahead, I will have to make some calls.”

“Right away sir.” The blue parrot nodded; his blue feather crest rising at the prospect of some activity on his watch.

With his Chief Officer busy, the Indian turned back to their radio station. A quick flip through the menus on their satellite communication system brought up their contact list, with the most recent addition being labeled ‘Lyngbyradio’.

Dilip called the number, hoping to finally get to talk to their Danish contact. As usual, the system took time to connect to the satellite network in orbit, but he preferred using it to radio based systems. When you got past the dial up delay, calls via satellite tended to be more stable. He let the line beep for a minute, almost ready to give up and hang up before finally getting the sound of someone on the other hand of the line.

“Hallo? Is this the Amandine?” Came a quiet feminine voice with a hint of hesitation.

“That is correct.” Dilip stated.

“Vidunderlig!” The young mare exclaimed, cutting off the Captain. “I really thought I was all alone for a few days, and then there were the monsters and I didn’t have any food but then I had to go out to find some…” The excited mare was talking a mile a minute, not letting the Indian dog get a word in and forcing him to listen until her happy rant was over. Not that he could understand anything of what she was saying: in her excitement she was mixing Danish words in her sentences which, given the lack of clarity on the line and her accent, made it utterly impossible to get what she saying.

“…Men nu I have you to come help, which er great! Du wouldn’t believe how lonely it was this last few days in there. I can only go on the roof but now jeg can hear the radio waves og the antennas are reeeally loud so I just hide inside…”

Good Heavens she was speeding up. Was she even the same person that had written the message one day earlier?

“Miss?” Dilip tried.

“… So I blocked the indgang with what I could but I’m just a lille hest with bat wings so it’s not easy…”

“Miss?!” Dilip tried again, a bit of barking accidentally seeping into his words. That seemed to bring the girl’s talking to a halt.

“I’m sorry. I get a bit carried away sometimes; usually jeg got my friends to stop me when that happens but now…”

“It’s nothing.” Dilip interrupted her before she had the chance to start another rant.

Bit of a lie there, but he was trying to be diplomatic. With the amount of survivors around he wasn’t going to dismiss any because of their character.

“Miss Jensen, I am Captain Prateek of Amandine, to which you have already sent a message I believe.” He started calmly.

“Ja, that was I. Are you coming like du said on your own message?”

“We are. I must know however: you said there were monsters near your building, wood hounds that is. How many are there, and how good are your fortifications? Understand that our ship is a cargo vessel, not a race car. It might take some time to get there.”

“I… I’m not sure of how many.” She said softly. “I was confronted by a small group before I managed to escape from them men there were more around so… at least a dozen, I think?”

“And they’re trying to get in? How long do you think you have until they breach the perimeter?”

“Uh… they spent the night attempting to pass the outer hegn, and then I have the inner fortifications I made… I think I can barricade some doors on the first floor too sa… At the speed they’re going that should take those things… maybe tre days to reach me if I barricade myself inside the control room? I don’t know. If I look outside I can see some lurking around and the fence is already pretty damaged so I could be wrong.”

Three days should be more than enough to alter their course and help the Rhine Forest if things didn’t go wrong. As for Jensen… well… Dilip didn’t need to alarm her by admitting they would be delayed from their initial ETA, with her attitude she wouldn’t have taken it well. Doing a quick estimation of the longest it could take them with the barge carrier, Dilip told the batpony mare they would get to her in about two days. Hopefully her own estimations were accurate otherwise the results would be pretty grim.

If she picked up on his bullshit she didn’t tell him, probably just glad someone was coming to her in the first place. They both bade each other good luck before hanging up, the dog feeling a small pang of guilt about not telling her about the actual delay.

On the edge of his sight, the Captain caught a somewhat accusatory stare from Alejandro. The dog shrugged and returned his Chief Officer a look that told: ‘Well, what would you have told her?’ That seemed to calm the parrot.

In a matter of hours, Amandine altered her course to meet with Rhine Forest, throwing all care about fuel consumption out of the proverbial window to get as much speed as she could out of her power plant and reach the out-of-control vessel that had just reappeared.

To Sri, who was behind the helm, it seemed as if their ship was eager to finally meet another after all that time spent in deserted ports and empty sea lanes. They usually didn’t make use of the engine’s full power, considering it tended to make their fuel consumption jump from a daily twenty tons to a whopping seventy. Nevertheless, the white and grey hulled ship sailed on towards the German Bight, with her Officers keeping frequent contact with those on Rhine Forest’s bridge. Above them, the skies finally cleared of the last clouds as the sun reached its highest above them, shining brightly. It was almost as if the Skies themselves rejoiced at the news of more survivors reappearing (which further supported the earlier theory of people reappearing as time went on).

By the time they came within sight of the barge carrier’s long black hull, a group of sailors had gathered close to the boat davit on the poop deck, all picked by the Captain to lend assistance to the other vessel.

Vadim and Boris had been the first two to be selected, the two griffons being a logical choice considering their medical role, plus their ability to assist Rhine Forest’s crew in getting back on course once the injured were treated. The Third Officer had a satchel of medical supplies between his wings in the event of the barge carrier’s stash being insufficient.

Next came Angelo and Aleksei, the two engineers being tasked with restarting the other vessel’s propulsion so she wouldn’t drift further towards the offshore wind farm –which was now an actual risk since the wind had turned exactly as they had predicted-.

That brought the team they sent to four guys, plus the usual three crewmembers needed to ferry them to their objective using Amandine’s Fast Rescue Boat. A bit much for the small craft, but manageable as long as one big burly minotaur didn’t move around too much.

While Amandine held position at a safe distance some five cables away from the drifting ship, the boat team was carefully lowered using the davit’s crane. They ran a quick check of their systems, with the Captain making sure both the boat’s VHF radio and the walkie-talkies of the team were functional before he allowed them to release the hooks and sail away.

Down on the water level, Ajit was the one steering the boat. The Indian dog slowly increased the throttle, mindful of not tipping them over with the many passengers the boat had. It was rather cramped on board, making the engine struggle a bit before finally picking up some speed. Such a boat had in no way been designed to carry that many people and it showed: whenever Ajit took a wave a bit too roughly, the boat started to pitch dangerously before righting itself after a few seconds.

He was all too relieved when they finally reached Rhine Forest. One of her crewmembers, a gargoyle, deployed the pilot ladder for the sailors to climb. Ajit throttled down as he approached it, the approach hazardous because of the waves despite the ladder having been deployed on the leeside of the vessel. He brought the bow of his boat against the bottom of the ladder and maintained a constant push on the gas to keep the little craft against the much larger cargo vessel.

“Boat team to Amandine, starting crew transfer now, over.” Ajit told through the boat’s radio before motioning for Angelo to climb first.

The minotaur was easily the heaviest of them all, and it took the rest of them counterbalancing his motion to avoid capsizing the little boat. For an instant, there was some fear the ropes of the ladder might snap when Angelo rested his weight on it, a strained groan coming from the material when he put his hooves on it, but the ladder held together until the Greek engineer reached the railing.

The other three on the team didn’t have that problem, and two minutes later Ajit put the engine in reverse and backed away from the imposing black hull of Rhine Forest.

“Boat team to Amandine, crew transferred successfully, going back to mother ship now, over.” The Himalayan sheepdog concluded before gunning the throttle and heading back to his own vessel.

On board of the barge carrier, the team of four was greeted by a black furred gargoyle with a grey mane that presented himself as Pavlos, one of the ship’s two boatswains. As the highest ranked member of the group, Angelo shook the tired looking gargoyle’s hand, all too glad to meet a fellow Greek.

What he did notice however, was that Pavlos was the only one present despite Rhine Forest’s supposed crew of fifty.

“I’m Second Engineer Molnàr.” The minotaur presented himself. “Let’s not beat around the bush and get straight to the point: what’s the situation?”

The gargoyle nodded in comprehension and immediately got to the point.

“We have six injured in the infirmary, all stable from what we think but they need treatment, including the doctor and her nurse.” The gargoyle stopped to tug at his poorly fitted set of white and green coveralls, a wiggling in his pants showing his tail was uncomfortably tucked inside. “Worst case is the engine team: none of the engineers were in the control room at the time of the event and they’re all quadrupeds now. The Chief Engineer tried to get there but he fell down a flight of stairs trying to do it and I had to drag him to the infirmary. We have some guys inside but they can’t manage to restart the engine and can barely move around as is. The nurse was with them but she got injured by a centaur when she tried to get back to the infirmary.”

“What about the deck department?” Vadim butted in. “Third Officer Zinoviya by the way.” He added as an afterthought.

“Better, but not by much. The Captain’s on the bridge with the Third Officer but they’re both unicorns. The Chief and the Second can’t even walk up the stairs to the bridge… We did have plenty of barge pilots and crew but they’re not trained to handle ships of that size. Plus there are at best two barge pilots that are bipedal and in any shape to be of any assistance at the moment.” The gargoyle explained. “I mean, even the other boatswain straight up refuses to leave his cabin! Never saw the guy like that, and there was something weird in his voice when I knocked on his cabin’s door earlier.”

Both Vadim and Angelo shared a knowing look when they heard that. It sounded like someone getting a sex swap wasn’t exclusive to their ship.

“Alright, I’ll skip going to the bridge and head straight for the engine room to get those engines started.” Angelo said. “Vadim, I trust you can go report to their Captain and do your best to fix the situation on the bridge?”

“Yeah, but what about the injured?” The Ukrainian countered; only for the minotaur to point a thumb towards Boris.

“Eh! Need I remind you my training ain’t complete yet?” The Russian protested.

“I’m not asking you to perform heart surgery pal.” Angelo said. “Just keep it together until Vadim’s done, plus their doctor can probably give you verbal assistance…” He glanced back towards Pavlos. “Can she?”

“I mean, yeah, once you get past the French accent.” The gargoyle shrugged.

“Good enough, let’s get going folks.” The minotaur said with an enthusiastic clap of his hands.

Their group then split up, Vadim and Boris going on their own towards the bow of the ship and the superstructure. The two griffons didn’t need to be shown around to figure out where the bridge actually was, whereas Angelo had Pavlos lead him and Aleksei towards the access to the engine room further aft by the funnels.

Up on the bridge, the two griffons were met with a pair of unicorns and a hippogriff. Both unicorns appeared to be Officers and were ordering the frazzled looking hippogriff around, him being the only one with functioning digits around. Had they taken a sphinx along they might have been able to tell them how to use their telekinesis, but handless quadrupeds wouldn’t have been able to scale the pilot ladder and reach them.

One of the unicorns, a brown furred stallion with a green mane and the picture of a radar screen on his rear; was stark naked, a discarded set of partly torn coveralls lying in a corner of the bridge. Vadim understood the guy’s reasoning of not wanting to be burdened by poorly fitted clothing, but he could at least have tried to be half decent. At least his genitals were partially hidden by his thick fur and tail…

The other unicorn was actually a small mare. A young looking one at that: probably a teenager if Vadim was to hazard a guess. She had a pink coat of fur, a white poofy mane and baby blue eyes to go with the looks. On her hindquarters was the symbol of a sextant. The Third Officer had to thank his grey feathers for hiding his blush when he realized the mare was half naked: she was only wearing a large white pilot shirt, with nothing to hide her marehood beside her tail.

The fact that the ranks on her pilot shirt described her as the Captain would have been odd if not for the way she was carrying herself and how she was giving orders to the hippogriff at the helm, the German accent and angry tone conflicting badly with her own high-pitched voice.

“Excuse me; may I speak to the Captain?” Vadim asked to gather their attention, all three sailors immediately turning towards him, with the hippogriff gaining a relieved look in his eyes.

“Yes, are you the rescue team from M/V Amandine?” The pink mare asked, earning a nod from both griffons. “Excellent, I am Kapitän Gerig of M/V Rhine Forest. To whom am I speaking?”

“Pleased to meet you Captain, I am Third Officer Zinoviya from M/V Amandine…” He said before pointing a talon at Boris. “…and this is Able Bodied Sailor Ratatzcek from the same vessel, who also happens to be my medical assistant. If I may, is it possible to immediately have my colleague go tend to the wounded in your infirmary?”

“Of course, of course.” The mare nodded before motioning towards a door in the back of the bridge with one pink hoof, the simple motion almost toppling her (him?). “If you take these stairs it’s three decks below directly on your left, the place is marked with a red cross. Our doctor is injured inside, but she’s conscious so she can probably assist you a bit.”

Boris threw Vadim a questioning look, the goshawk mutely asking for permission to move on. His superior quickly passed him his medical satchel before sending him on his way with a wave of his talons. Vadim didn’t exactly need him to stabilize the situation on the bridge. Quite the contrary: he would have to go help the Russian once he got Rhine Forest on a safe course.

“Alright, now that’s settled I can tell you we came with two of our engineers. Your boatswain is probably leading them to the engine room as we speak so let’s get to the point. How much have we drifted from your intended course?” Vadim asked.

Captain Gerig started explaining the situation to the Ukrainian. Apparently the barge carrier was supposed to head down the Channel and sail towards the Nigerian city of Lagos (needless to say, that plan flew out the window the moment they reappeared), but now their charts showed they were drifting on a North-East course towards the offshore wind farm. On the bright side, the turbines were still a ways out, giving Angelo and Aleksei a reasonable amount of time to restart the engine. The other unicorn, a Frenchman by the name of Josselin, told Vadim the ship ran on a diesel-electric system powering a pair of azipod thrusters. That made the large ship very maneuverable, but also meant it didn’t have a rudder and was unable to change its heading without power running through the propulsion.

Hence, as long as the power was out, there was nothing they could do.

“How bad is the situation for the crew?” Vadim asked after getting a call from Angelo saying he needed an hour or two to get the engines running.

“Bad as you probably guessed.” Josselin told Vadim. “I mean, look at me! I can’t even push a button with those hooves and the bridge’s consoles are as tall as I am! I can’t even wear my clothes properly for Christ’s sake!” The stallion complained loudly.

“You get used to it. We’ve been at it for a while, though our ship reappeared at anchor so we had time to get acquainted with the changes before heading out.” Vadim said. “As for the sex change…” He glanced towards the Captain, the small unicorn giving him an odd stare. “…I’m afraid we have yet to find a solution to that. Our own Captain is slowly trying to figure out what’s going on exactly and the whole mechanics of this phenomenon. What I can tell is, everyone disappeared at once on the entire planet…”

No need to mention the HPI just yet.

“…And people reappear slowly as time progresses. And by slowly I mean really. You’re the third batch of survivors we’ve come across in three weeks.”

“But why the change?” Gerig asked the griffon.

“Beats me. What I know is: there is that weird ‘thaumic’ radiation that kills humans if they’re exposed to it. But creatures like us? Nah, we’re fine. And boy is there variety. We’ve got bipedal parrots, cats and dogs, sphinxes, gargoyles and more. Can’t say we know much about it.” He said, giving a small shrug with his wings.

The Ukrainian’s eyes then came to rest on one of the unicorns’ horns.

“Uh, I should tell you though: that horn on top of your head, you can do… magic with it, I guess? Our unicorn and sphinxes, they can somehow do telekinesis. Makes up for not having hands.”

“Telekinesis?” Gerig said incredulously. “Zinoviya, I don’t know if you find jokes like that funny but I don’t. What’s next, honest to God monsters roaming the seas?”

“No ideas about monsters at sea but on land you will find some. Injured a couple of our crewmembers too, I saw the wounds myself when I had to patch them up.”

That had both the unicorns widening their eyes.

“Shit, you’re serious?” The stallion said.

“Wish I wasn’t really, but we’ve had encounters in Antwerp, Zeebrugge, and even with a team we sent in France. Hell, even the person we are going to rescue in Copenhagen is barricaded in a building because she’s surrounded by monsters.” Vadim told with a shake of his head. “Good thing we’re armed now… Anyway, you guys have an idea on the species your crew turned into? Just curious, and we got time ‘til my colleagues fix up your engine.” He asked casually.

Captain Gerig addressed the griffon with a mild glare.

“I just jumped three weeks ahead in time, got turned into a pink female unicorn that would make most little girls want to pet me, and you’re just casually asking that?” The German said angrily.

“Look, I know you’re pissed about the change-I would be too if my case was as bad as yours- but there’s nothing I can do to help with that.” The grey falcon griffon defended himself, one claw raised defensively. “We altered our course from a due rescue operation to come assist, because we’re just that eager to finally meet other survivors. Now I’m just trying to defuse the tension is all…” He said before turning to the helmsman who was observing them, unable to do much until the engine got restarted. “Anyway, I didn’t catch your name?”

“The name’s Carla, deck cadet.” The male hippogriff said in a Flemish accent.

Off to a great start was what the Ukrainian thought right then.

Further from that place than humanity could ever travel at its best, there was an office. The place was nothing particular, if anything it was even rather antiquated. The three-meters-by-four room had a floor made out of old tarred planks, with a large dusty carpet covering them. Covered in cheap plaster, the walls were almost completely hidden behind several shelves and cabinets, all of them bending under the weight of stacks upon stacks of papers, books and office supplies. Next to all that highly flammable paperwork, a cast iron stove had been installed, dangerous but necessary when winter hit and temperatures dropped. The room was dimly lit, light streaming out of a small window which had its blinds almost completely shut by the office’s occupant. He didn’t need the light, and frankly the bright afternoon sun just gave him a headache in addition to making the room unbearably hot. He always hated summer, and in the coming months the heat problem promised to only get worse. Frankly he’d rather only work night shifts, Luna's cool darkness being much more comfortable to beings of his species; but his superior always met the request with a flat ‘no’.

Why did he accept that assignment already? Oh wait, he didn’t, some motherbucking clerk had put him here because of a filing accident and now he was stuck with this job for the next year or so. So what if they needed more work done in offices or that it was more fitting of someone his rank? He had enlisted to protect his countrymen from enemies of the nation, not to die of paper cuts for buck’s sake!

In the back of the room was a wooden desk, rather cheaply made, with a sorting shelf behind it. Two unoccupied stools were present in front of the desk, with a rather grumpy thestral behind it. The nocturnal equine was clad in a purple dress uniform, the mark of the Night Guard when they weren’t assigned to active roles. A plaque on the stallion’s desk read: ‘Lt. Midnight Sentinel’.

Busy as he was sorting through literal mountains of paperwork piled on his desk, the stallion’s sharp ears didn’t miss the knock on his door.

“Come in.” The stallion said, putting aside a dossier about off world relief teams and mustering his courage. Keep it together Midnight, be professional Midnight, you’re gonna get through this farce sometime soon.

In came a unicorn mare followed by an earth pony stallion. The thestral mutely motioned towards the stools in front of his desk, inviting the two obvious civilians to take a seat. Midnight noted the enthusiastic nature of the mare, her cheerful eyes looking this way and that with rapt curiosity while the stallion had a more cautious, alert approach. It was so typical that the cynical thestral almost let out a snort.

“Good morning Mr, Miss...” He trailed off.

“…Cake. Cheese Cake.” The lanky unicorn mare presented herself. “And this is my companion, Pulp Orange.” She added, waving a hoof toward the large earth pony by her side. “We’re here to enlist as volunteers for the relief missions.”

“Relief uh…” The thestral said, one webbed wing grabbing hold of two template files. “Been getting a lot of that lately. Which is good, we need a lot of folks too for those missions. Did they give you the standard forms in the lobby?”

“Yes!” The mare cheerfully said, a warm yellow glow appearing around her horn as she lifted a pair of documents from her companion’s saddlebags. “We already completed them.”

The procedure was quick; some offices higher up the chain of command having already done most of the work by drafting premade files, and the likely couple (he didn’t ask) in front of him had done their paperwork diligently.

“Alright, I just received a personnel request from a relief team.” Midnight said, pulling a file from his ‘In’ box. “A certain… Doctor Sidereal Venture. She’s scheduled to run the Stockholm-Berlin route, wherever that is.”

“We’re in!” Cheese immediately said before the thestral could explain further, Pulp nodding as well to show his assent.

Midnight was quick to give the papers to the duo in front of his desk while giving them a simple explanation as to what they should expect. Report there at that time to that pony who needs this file then move on there and there… The usual works for the relief teams the Princesses had been sending out as of recently. Two minutes later, the two volunteers were leaving his office and the thestral slouched in his chair.

Back to the bore of paperwork.

The next file in his ‘In’ box was an After-Action-Report signalling an encounter with monsters. The writer must have mislabeled the thing because it read as coming from the Off World Relief Team Centre. Midnight put it aside to be filed in the ‘Guard’ folders later, disregarding the mistake as a secretary having to sort through too much work. Luna knew he did that sometimes as well.

After all, there were no monsters on Earth, much less cave trolls as the report listed.

Author's Notes:

A new ship joins the fray! That one is a lot more rugged than young Amandine, but I feel there is a lot to be said on LASH carriers despite them having been neutered by legislations. Much like Amandine, Rhine Forest is based on an actual vessel, though the real one was scrapped years ago. She will be different from the actual one, but general specifications like overall dimensions and gross tonnage remain unchanged.

I am looking into posting blogs about both ships, just some small spreadsheets with picture galleries, data sheets, crew lists and some explainations. Nothing big, but as my sheets contain some spoilers the blogs will have to wait a few chapters.