While Vadim was (unsuccessfully) attempting to soothe the nerves of an angry Captain up on the bridge, Angelo and Aleksei had made their way down to the engine room. Along the way, they passed the stacked barges and tugboats the ship was loaded with, each secured soundly by large steel cell guides. Except for them and the gargoyle guiding them, the red painted decks of the vessel were completely deserted.

“I’m curious Pavlos, I thought barge carriers like that had been driven out of the industry by legislation. How come it looks so…”

“New?” The black furred gargoyle said. “It’s not. The hull dates back to the seventies, but a Nigerian operator bought it in 2012 before it was scrapped. The ship got a complete makeover with modern tech and equipment. Barge carriers still aren’t viable in Europe…”

“… But in Africa they are. Got it.” The minotaur nodded. “Gotta give it to the yard that modernized it though: that’s some flawless work for a ship that old.”

“Believe me: she very much is an old lady.” Pavlos told them. “The hull may have been strengthened to compensate for metal fatigue and the equipment and all modernized, but the age still seeps through.” The gargoyle stopped by the funnels and opened a watertight door in the structure. “For one I keep hearing the engineering guys complain about capricious transmission, which I hope isn’t the problem right now otherwise we’re toast.”

Angelo took one last look at the stacked barges in their holding bays, with some tugboats towering high above them, ready to be lifted and deployed by the ship’s gantry crane… Had they had the crew to man them. Sadly, most of their crews were sulking inside their cabins at the moment. Aleksei took the lead and headed down into the engine room.

Going down into the depths of the vessel, they followed the large pipes of the ship’s exhaust on a narrow steel staircase. The funnel itself was hollow, with a cluster of pipes running down its center and the staircase wrapping around the pipes, a thin layer of insulation being the only thing that protected passing sailors from burning themselves on the hot pipes. About halfway down, they passed the scrubber unit on that side of the vessel. The large exhaust gas cleaning system was currently inactive, but vibrations coming from deeper in the vessel told the two engineers from Amandine that at least one generator must have been active, otherwise the vessel would have had her systems run silently on emergency batteries (if she had any). What they didn’t miss either was how disturbingly quiet the place was for an engine room.

At the height of the scrubbers, the staircase finally leveled into a catwalk passing over some subsystems. The water purification and sewage systems, if this crew utilized the same color code as the engineering department on Amandine did. The exhaust pipes curved at that point to disappear deeper into the vessel, cutting through a couple bulkheads.

Pavlos lead them further along the catwalk and through a couple watertight doors before they finally reached the control room, the noise and vibrations of the power plant increasing every time they passed through a bulkhead and got closer to the core of the vessel. Much like that of Amandine, the control room benefitted from modern systems and a glass panel overlooking the propulsion unit. Unlike on Amandine however, the place was much more cramped, thanks in no small part to having to fit inside of an engineering compartment that had been built decades earlier.

Two creatures were present when they entered: a batpony stallion and a female griffon. The batpony, like the unicorns on the bridge, was naked after having shrunk so much from the change his coveralls fell off. This made the copper wire symbol on his hindquarters very visible above his black fur. The guy had a blue mane tied behind his head by a rubber band, as well as a pair of ear defenders on his ears to protect them from the noise of the engine room.

At least that’s what Angelo assumed. If bats had sensitive hearing, then so would have batponies, right?

As for the female griffon, she was covered in a partially torn set of white and green coveralls (apparently the norm on that ship) that let out her wings and tail; and she had also discarded her badly fitted steel-toed boots. She was a mix of peregrine falcon and snow leopard, with three violet stripes on each side of her head.

The batpony was using his nose to flip the pages of a manual laid out in front of him, apparently trying to work out how to fix the propulsion issues while his colleague was using the control computers to take a look at the systems. The noise from the door opening made them turn away from the task, easily noticing the newcomers. The batpony was the first to react, eagerly jumping to his hooves and unsteadily stumbling over to Aleksei and Angelo.

“Are you guys the engineers that were sent to help?” He asked hopefully. “I’m Johann, and this is Anton.” He said, pointing to the female griffon.

Great, another sailor that had won a free sex change. The list of victims was starting to get quite long; maybe they should look into rescuing a shrink at some point?

“We’re here to help. What’s the situation?” Aleksei took the lead and immediately asked the batpony while Angelo walked closer to the glass panel to take a look at the propulsion systems.

A short explanation by Johann –who was apparently the ship’s resident electrician- told them Rhine Forest was propelled by a diesel electric drive. The ship’s original steam turbine from the seventies had been stripped and replaced by a couple diesel generators of varying sizes. They had half a dozen large generators totaling twenty-four megawatts of power, as well as six smaller one megawatt generators for general appliances and subsystems they used while in port. The large generators sent their power through a central switchboard that played the role of a transmission before connecting to the motors that drove the ship’s two azimuth thrusters.

Turns out, there had been a whole lot of panic in there shortly after they reappeared. In the confusion they accidentally struck a couple buttons and sent some systems in the red, one of which just happened to be the central switchboard which immediately activated its emergency shutdown. A handful other systems had been affected as well, including the hydraulic power pack which led to a decrease in internal pressure for most pump systems.

They were lucky the automation processes activated one of the smaller diesel generators that had been prepped before departure in case the bigger ones let them down; otherwise they would have had a complete blackout right then. One of the engineering guys had turned into some sort of black and white hedgehog creature and left to get help, but a call on the interphone had later told them the guy had been roped into helping other victims.

A quick discussion with Aleksei brought them to the conclusion they would have to inspect the switchboard for damage before reconnecting it due to not knowing exactly what had been done to cause the ESD in the first place. The hydraulics would need a restart as well, but since no alarm had sprung up they assumed it would be easy to achieve. They communicated an estimation of how long it would take to Vadim on the bridge – about two hours- before telling Pavlos they were ready to proceed.

“I wanna start with the hydraulics; we’ll need them to run the fuel pumps on the main generators before they can be restarted. How much power does that system need?” Aleksei asked the electrician.

“One more generator should do the trick if we don’t want to cause a blackout. We had another backup ready, want me to start it?”

“Yes please. I doubt the guys up on the bridge would be too happy if we cut their power right now.” The hippogriff said before moving to head down into the deeper parts of the engine room, only to be momentarily stopped by Anton. The female griffon had been silent up until then, only responding to instructions from Johann with short nods or grunts.

“Can I ask you…” The former guy still wasn’t very comfortable with his new tone of voice obviously. “… Were you?”

“Male before the change? I was, yes.” Aleksei nodded. “It’s… hard to get used to I’m afraid.” She said in sympathy. “But remember you’re not alone in this. Some on your crew are in the same situation as you are and believe me; it’s worth it to rely on each other to get through that.” She told the falcon headed griffon before patting her on the shoulder.

“And there’s nothing you can do about it?”

“Nothing so far despite our best attempts at looking for a solution.” That was a bit of a white lie, they didn’t exactly look for a solution. Not that they had any actual lead on that to begin with…

“But I had a girlfriend back home.” Anton complained. “What is she gonna think when she sees me uh… like that? I can’t even please her anymore. In fact am I even…”

“…Still attracted to girls?” Aleksei completed the sentence. Anton just nodded. “It… varies actually. Some got to keep their sexual orientations intact, I didn’t.” The light green feathers on her face barely concealed her blush. “That was… weird to discover, and I’m not even the only one. In fact I’d say I’m not even that attracted to humans anymore. It’s up to you to find out really. As for your girlfriend… this cataclysm made almost everyone disappear. In three weeks you’re the third group we meet, and we’ve been looking.”

“B-but… my family? My friends?” The griffon stuttered, falling down on his haunches.

“I’m sorry.” Aleksei said with a shake of her head. “You’ve got to look on the bright side: if you hadn’t been sailing at the time of the Event you’d probably have reappeared alone in a deserted town with monsters roaming about.” A movement on the edge of her sight made her stop for a moment; Angelo was by the airlock to the generator room motioning for her to move on. “So yeah, I don’t know how well you and your shipmates get along but do try to stick together. Best make friends with them if you want any advice.” She concluded before moving to follow the waiting minotaur.

Elsewhere on the ship, one goshawk griffon made his way down a couple flights of stairs, following the instructions given to him to locate the infirmary. Rhine Forest’s accommodation was significantly roomier than that of Amandine, but it was also less… richly decorated: the floors were covered in cheap checkered vinyl flooring and the walls painted white with a green line at shoulder height (for a biped that is, for Boris the line was way above him). Despite the length of passageways he traversed, the Russian didn’t encounter a single soul despite sounds of activity coming from adjacent rooms.

Boris understood they may have been under shock from the change but they had a ship to take care of for Christ’s sake! Did they really expect their vessel to stop dead in the water just because they couldn’t get used to the change quick enough?

Just as expected, a door with a red cross on it was in the place they had indicated. The griffon made his way inside without knocking, for all the difference that would make. Much like he had witnessed in the passageways, there was more room than on Amandine. In fact that particular infirmary was a lot bigger than theirs with three times as many beds and much more equipment than them; even if he counted the upgrades they had made using equipment from the military clinic.

And here Boris thought theirs was a good one. Rhine Forest’s was even unusually large for a merchant vessel, much less for one her age. The amount of equipment around was far more extensive than what was legally required. It was clear from how the place looked that this particular modification didn’t date back to the vessel’s first days: the room had the characteristic appearance of a retrofitted compartment despite the brand new equipment inside. Boris was even pretty sure one machine he spotted in a corner of the room was a portable X-ray machine, and from the looks of it they might even have a single hyperbaric chamber for divers.

There were ten beds in the long room: nine hidden behind curtains, and one close by the entrance that was equipped for advanced care, maybe even surgery. Many shelves and cabinets cluttered the walls, as well as some machines that had been secured with bungee cords. Each of the beds had some monitoring equipment fitted to it, the data feeding back into a computer inside the doctor’s office, which was separated from the rest at the end of the miniature clinic. Despite the sheer size of the infirmary, all this gear managed to make the place somewhat cramped, with just enough room between the shelves and the beds to let a single gurney pass.

There was also a door just by the entrance labeled ‘quarantine’ as well as a locker with biohazard and rad hazard symbols on it.

Guessing as to where he would find the apparently injured doctor, the griffon headed for the office, making his way past closed curtains hiding injured crewmembers, of which he counted five occupied beds. As he walked, wafts of disinfectant and chemicals hit the nostrils at the base of his beak, almost making him sneeze. Gee, someone in here must really like his workspace disinfected.

The doctor’s office was connected to the rest of the infirmary by an observation window with its blinds shut tight and a thin door that had been left ajar. Knocking on the door with a gloved claw, Boris made his way inside without waiting for an answer. The office held the expected desk, computer and filing cabinets as well as a refrigerated safe which must have held the riskier drugs the vessel carried. A transparent refrigerator next to it held some of their less secure medicine, as well as some blood bags. There was also a dental chair crammed in there, as if that medical wing didn’t already have enough gear. Were they planning to run an entire hospital in Lagos or what?

On a second thought, were he to sail to Nigeria he wouldn’t want to rely on local hospitals either.

Amidst all that gear, a tall, thin orange hippogriff with a blue mane of feathers on her head was sitting behind the desk, her position showing she had yet to familiarize herself with how to sit in that new body. The female, much like Pavlos when he came to greet them, was clad in a set of poorly fitted and partially torn white and green coveralls. On each of her shoulders were patches representing a caduceus over a red cross that designated her as the doctor he was supposed to meet. She had one forearm cradled against her chest with a pained look on her beak.

The moment the Russian stepped in, the doctor turned her head toward him, feathery ears raised in slight surprise.

“Greetings doc, I’m Boris from M/V Amandine, here to offer medical assistance. The Officers on the bridge told me you had injured crewmembers.”

The hippogriff stared at him through purple eyes for a few seconds, head subtly cocked to one side.

“You’re no actual medic.” She said calmly in a French accent. That wasn’t even a question.

“No, we have our Third Officer along; he’s got some actual training and a measure of experience with creatures like us but right now he’s busy up on the bridge.”

“And what’s more important than treating the wounded?” She asked.

“Keeping us from sailing into wind turbines that’s what. I’m his assistant. I can’t say I’m the best at this and in fact I’m pretty new to the job but until our situation is secure on a navigational level then I’m all you have.” The Russian said.

The doctor’s eyes met those of the griffon, both of the avian chimeras holding a sort of staring contest for a few tense seconds before a small smile appeared on the creases of the hippogriff’s beak.

“You, I like you.” She said. “I’d shake your hand… err, claw rather, but my good arm isn’t in any shape to do that at the moment.” She shrugged on her injured side to show off the injury, only to stop the motion halfway with a pained hiss. “I’m Doctor Delacroix, Medical Officer, but you can just call me Camille. Delacroix makes me sound like an old lady.”

“Well met then. Now what can a barely qualified sailor do to help you?”

“Your colleague, he can do stitches and plasters, right?” Boris nodded. “That’s a relief then. We’re gonna need to do a few radios, including on me.”

“Just that?”

“Of course not. Then I need you to clean the patients’ wounds, disinfect and all, then prep the terrain for your colleague, make sure they’re all stable ‘cause I don’t have a single clue what parameters I should expect from them…”

“…Ok fine, got it. Lotsa work.” Boris cut her off. “Do I need to bring the machine here for your radio?”

Camille gave him a flat look, to which the griffon responded by sheepishly slipping away to get the machine he had already identified on his way in.

Helping the Frenchwoman scan her own injured limb and put together a temporary cast so she could hop around her ward on three limbs was done in a matter of minutes. She would need a better, more permanent plaster to hold her broken limb once Vadim was free but the temporary measure was sufficient in the meantime.

Addressing the matter of the other injured in the infirmary took much longer. Most of the casualties suffered after their return were gender bent sailors that had panicked more than others after the change and injured themselves in the process. Boris could understand the logic: Vadim may not have been present to witness it when they woke up but many of his own shipmates had almost broken before helpful sailors like Ajit had gotten to them.

And here was an example of what would have happened had the Indian dog not helped his fellow sailors. Maybe he ought to offer the guy some excuses after having called him ‘naively friendly’. Maybe.

Camille told Boris they still had to run a head count to identify exactly who was who on this ship, but she was at least certain of who had been brought inside her infirmary. One of their priority patients was the ship’s Chief Engineer, a guy by the name of Erik Jakobs. Contrarily to some of the patients there, the guy hadn’t panicked and actually did his best to reach the engine room. Unfortunately, he had turned into a centaur (of all things), and having to manage all those limbs at once made him loose his footing and fall down a flight of stairs.

The guy- or actually, Boris should say mare once he got a closer look at the patient- was unconscious from the fall. Tattered coveralls covered his upper humanoid body leaving the other half, that of a bay pony, bare. The creature was in no way as big as an actual horse. In fact, even the humanoid half was noticeably smaller than the equivalent on a human, though he was still significant in size (if Boris were to hazard a guess, he should be about as heavy as Angelo).

Weirder even, was the fact that the humanoid half, if similar to a human, was still very much unique. The centaur boasted a bright tomato red skin tone. The skin color came with some large mobile ears on top of the centaur’s head and a mane of jet black hair that not only grew out of the guy’s head but the back of his neck as well.

Even more bizarre was the fact that the Chief Engineer, despite having definitely turned into a mare (and Boris wished he hadn’t looked), didn’t have breasts. Sure, the humanoid half had all the curves you would come to expect from a female human, but not even a nipple. Instead, the pony half had teats in the usual place.

“Ah doc, I’m afraid that kind of transformation’s new to me. Don’t have centaurs like him on our ship.” Boris apologized after making sure the unconscious patient was properly settled on the bed, which was no easy task with such a body shape and weight.

“Really? Guess we’re both learning something new then.” She looked at the parameters screen above the bed. “Breathing is stable, heartbeat is… slow-ish but then again he’s unconscious.”

“He lost consciousness from the fall? As in, brain damage?”

“No, shock. He fainted after the bosun brought him in and the adrenaline wore off. Panic attack you see, poor fella hadn’t fully realized what happened yet.” Camille explained.

“Rough. What’s he got?”

“Wrist injury, most likely a fracture but we need a radio to tell that. I see two nasty bruises both on his humanoid and equine flank so that may be some cracked ribs and that gash on his shoulder under the bandages.”

Turns out, the ribs were more than just cracked. The centaur mare had suffered from several broken ribs in his fall. The wrist was also broken, which was added to the growing list of plasters Vadim would need to make. Once he had done everything he could on the Chief Engineer, Boris turned to the doctor, awaiting further instructions. The mare hadn’t awoken in the process… or plainly chose to ignore the strange griffon taking care of his injuries.

“Next one?” Boris asked, earning a nod from the doctor.

The griffon left the side of the centaur, pulling the curtain behind him to allow the patient privacy.

Technology can achieve wonders sometimes. In this case it wasn’t really much of a wonder though, just extremely convenient. Thanks to satellite communications, Vadim was able to request the passage plan to Copenhagen from Amandine and copy it onto Rhine Forest’s ECDIS once their Captain agreed to follow them to the Danish capital city. That decision required a bit of a push on the radio from Dilip but it was still remarkably easy to convince the German Captain to do such a drastic change in his plans.

Vadim doubted there would have been any point for the barge carrier to keep sailing towards Lagos in such circumstances anyway.

“So you were after a survivor in Copenhagen?” Captain Gerig asked, the pink teenaged mare was now awkwardly sitting in the Captain’s chair.

“Lyngby to be precise. Apparently she’s a radio operator at that coast station. Problem is… we gotta hurry there because she’s surrounded by monsters. Helping you was necessary and I certainly wouldn’t call it a mistake, but it may come at a risk to her life.” Vadim explained while reviewing the altered passage on the computer.

“Then we’d better get this ship back on track soon.” Gerig said. “Josselin!” He barked. “What’s the status in the engine room?” He asked the brown unicorn stallion.

Rhine Forest’s Third Officer was busy at the back of the bridge using the interphone to make calls around the vessel. Or rather, Carla was. The female cadet turned male hippogriff was being used as an extra set of hands by her superior.

“Hydraulics rebooted and pressure in the green sir. They’re checking out the main switchboard for damage before attempting a restart. Time to restart… about an hour.”

“More than enough to finish adapting the passage plan then.” Vadim commented. “Does this berth suit you Captain?” He proposed to the pink unicorn, tapping a talon against a waypoint on the electronic chart screen.

“Looks satisfactory. We will have to be careful with our draft in the entrance channel but it should be doable.” Gerig said gruffly. “Next to your own I presume?”

“Aye. I think your crew is going to require a fair bit of assistance to get accustomed to the change, adapt ergonomics, and get gear. We can help with that.” Vadim said as he finished charting the passage on the computer, hitting the ‘confirm’ button with a satisfied trill.

“You guys been hard at work doing that?”

“I’d say. Of course the simpler parts like adapting our clothes, shoes and gloves were done rather quickly but you can finish it even faster if we pass you the templates. Then you’ve got modifications to equipment like the SCBA’s which require some pretty advanced mods to be applied to the gas masks, or even simpler advice from the cooks on diet. Hygiene even. We can help, even if we’re still discovering stuff ourselves. Did you know you were vegetarian for one?”

“Doesn’t take a genius to guess that Zinoviya.” The little mare said with a raised brow.

“But do you know how repulsed vegetarian species tend to be by the smell of meat?” Vadim added, earning a confused look from the Captain. “Yes, there are specificities to the whole thing, like how fish affects vegetarians less, but we also had to modify our cooking system. Spices in the food circumvent the smell problem and allow both types of creatures to eat in the same place at the same time. Of course there is also the problem that some species have a more sensitive palate, others less. Takes time getting used to, but it’s necessary.”

“Are you implying that spicy food is necessary for wildly different species to cohabit in the same mess hall?”

“Ridiculous I know? But eh, even the dumbest solutions can work sometimes. In this case, eye watering curry just happened to be the best we could think of.” Vadim shrugged.

The griffon and the unicorn lapsed into silence for a moment, Vadim looking out of the bridge towards the silhouette of Amandine off in the distance. They had picked the boat back up a while ago and were now holding at a respectable distance on the starboard side of the drifting barge carrier. With his sharp eyes, the Ukrainian could spot Geert on one of the bridge wings, the parrot accompanying a unicorn with an olive green sweater. Other sailors were present on the main deck, including the easily recognizable silhouette of Artyom. The blue dragon was preparing the lines for an emergency towing in case Angelo and Aleksei failed to restart the engine.

In the back of the bridge, Josselin and Carla were busily calling each cabin to run a headcount and make sure they hadn’t lost anyone in the confusion. Irritated voices were coming out of the interphone, but they were progressing in making an updated crew list just like Dilip had done when they had woken up right after the Event.

Eavesdropping on the calls led to hearing some… genuinely odd conversations where Josselin attempted to coax information out of bewildered shipmates that hadn’t left their cabin since the ship had reappeared. Straight up asking them if they were still of the same gender made for some interesting reactions, particularly when the Officer moved on to the Liberian and Congolese crewmembers. In one particular case one crewmember was even using his mouth to manipulate the interphone, having turned into a sphinx.

“You know you’re gonna have to redo the pictures on their files, right?” Vadim asked after a crewmember was done describing what he looked like on the interphone. A guy from Liberia that had turned into a cat apparently.

“Stopgap measure.” Josselin told Amandine’s Third Officer. “You overheard it all. Most of them don’t even want to get out of their cabin for now. That’s the most I can coax out of them besides telling them to adjust their coveralls.”

“They’re gonna have to come out eventually, willingly or not.”

“Much as I appreciate your advice Zinoviya I think my Officer knows this crew more than you do.” Captain Gerig said. “It’s been a mere hours since they changed. We can't expect them to instantly get back on their feet. Give them some time.”

Yeah right, and what would have happened if Amandine wasn’t around to rescue them? One big wreck in the middle of the German Bight that’s what. Vadim thought.

Minutes later, they received a call from Angelo in the engine room telling them the engines were ready, followed by a whining sound coming from the stern. The generators were online, and the controls at the helm lit up once more. The Captain swiftly ordered Carla back behind the helm while Vadim moved towards the radio station.

“Amandine, this is Rhine Forest, propulsion issues are solved, and we are now underway. Over.” He said as he watched the hippogriff slowly increase the throttle to the third ahead mark.

No need to go full ahead just yet, Angelo would have his hide if he asked too much of the generators he had just restarted. With her propulsion back online, Rhine Forest was finally able to change her heading and point her bow straight north as she slowly picked up speed.

The azimuth thruster system may have issues with changing the heading without power, but the mechanism sure delivered when it was online: Vadim had seldom seen ships this long maneuver with such ease.

“Impressed?” Captain Gerig said with a smug smile.

“Never seen that kind of propulsion on ocean going ships before. She must be a dream to bring to quay with maneuverability like that.” The griffon commented honestly. “Thought they only used that on tugs before…”

“There are many things unique with my ship.” The pink mare said with a smile. “And I couldn’t be prouder of having been minted as her Captain.”

Vadim’s eyes followed the wind turbines they were passing off in the distance. The same ones they had been at risk of hitting minutes earlier. He could see a cluster of them having stopped turning, now laden with flocks of seagulls.

“What were you guys going to do in Lagos anyway? The more I look at your ship the more I think it was more than just freight transportation.”

“Because it wasn’t for freight.” Gerig explained. “The Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists or NAPE has been… or rather had been investing in extensive offshore installations. They wanted a vessel like Rhine Forest to become a large scale offshore construction support unit. With her fleet of barges, the tugs and her dynamic positioning system she’s able to set up some extensive floating infrastructure out at sea. Makes the installation of platforms a hell of a lot easier. She’s kind of a… test bed for such tech if you will. You don’t need a fleet of offshore support vessels with her around: she can have the tugs transport barges to and from the nearest harbor for supplies, provide accommodation for the workers during the installation and the barges can be used to link installation units or even be equipped with cranes.”

“A mothership then?” Vadim asked, head tilted slightly.

“In a fashion, yes.” The pink unicorn nodded. “Even I have to admit barge transportation was inefficient compared to containers or roll-on/roll-off, but Rhine Forest could extend her life in a niche industry like that.”

They waited a couple minutes until the generators were sufficiently warmed up before increasing their speed to fifteen knots. To Vadim it was a bit odd to steer a ship from a position so far forward, him being more accustomed to the bridge being aft on the vessel like Amandine’s and most cargo vessels’. Nevertheless, Rhine Forest took position in a convoy of sorts half a mile behind Amandine, both vessels now headed towards the entrance to the Baltic Sea. A quick call on the interphone with Angelo to check if the propulsion was stable later (and it was), Vadim excused himself from the bridge to head towards the infirmary, Angelo and Aleksei now heading there as well.

Leaving the Captain with the cadet and the Third Officer on the bridge would be fine, as long as the hippogriff behind the helm remained calm. Their route wasn’t going to cross any obstacle for the next twelve hours, and by then someone should have bothered to leave their cabin and relieve them.

If not, they had the bosun to drag someone by their tail to the bridge. Navigational duties took priorities over wallowing in self-pity.

Vadim walked inside the infirmary to the sight of Boris and an orange hippogriff consoling a grief stricken… hedgehog? The creature lying in the infirmary bed was clad in the same coveralls as the rest of the crew of Rhine Forest, with the addition of Red Cross patches on her shoulders. Both her legs were splinted and she had a bandage wrapped around her head, but that didn’t change the uniqueness of the creature.

In a way you could have said she was similar to the other anthropomorphic bipeds they had on their own crew, except based on another species altogether. But that would have done a disservice to the creature lying on the bed: what Vadim was looking at was a being covered in coarse charcoal grey colored fur. Like the cats and dogs on Amandine she had digitigrade feet, balanced by a long tail that ended in a tuft of white quills that poked through a hole in the back of her coveralls. Her arms were rather thick, but nowhere near as much as those of dogs like Dilip, Ajit and Rahul, though Vadim bet she could still deliver impressive punches if backed into a corner. She still had hands, each equipped with four stubby digits that ended in black blunt claws. Not exactly ideal, but Vadim would reliably bet she could manage manipulating objects once she got some experience with those hands.

The part that had made the griffon think hedgehog was the white quills that grew on her head and the upper half of her back like a mane of sorts. Her head was very much changed from that of a human, with a more elongated skull that ended in a stubby snout with a black wet canine nose. Her talking to Boris in an agitated manner allowed Vadim to peek at some small but sharp teeth inside her mouth. On the sides of her head were two large black ears, mobile like those found on many species after the change.

But the most unsettling part of the… hedgehog-esque creature (hedgefolk maybe?) was her eyes: while many of the species had had their eyes changes, they still had somewhat normal eyes (as in: that could be found naturally on animals). What the griffon saw however was that the sclera of the creature’s eyes was electric blue instead of white. That didn’t mean they were monstrous or inexpressive, just… odd.

Vadim let out a polite cough to grab their attention, making the hippogriff immediately turn around to face him, purple eyes drifting to the ranks on his orange coveralls.

“You’re the Third Officer?” Camille asked.

“Aye that would be me. Just call me Vadim.” He said before motioning towards the bedridden hedgehog with his beak. “What’s with her?”

“Marta is my assistant and also a certified nurse, contrarily to yours.” She said, eliciting a cry of protest from Boris. “I’m sorry but that’s true.” She told the Russian. “Good as you are you’re still no professional.”

“And neither am I.” Vadim said. “Unfortunately in these times there aren’t that many medics to pick from. Back to Marta then, what happened to her, transformation notwithstanding?”

“A centaur fell on her.” Camille answered immediately. “One broken leg and a sprained ankle, plus a nasty concussion to go with it.” She explained. “Your assistant can do a lot but we still need you for plasters, stitches, and any procedure I can’t do myself.”

And that took a lot of time. Vadim may have improved in the last few weeks, what with the increasing frequency at which people were getting hurt on Amandine, but he still was a Deck Officer first and Medic second despite his colleagues’ growing tendency to call him Doc (to which he always protested). Stitches took him a lot of time to make, particularly when he had an actual doctor breathing over his neck. On the bright side, Doc Delacroix could remain polite when she gave criticism and he actually learned a few tips as he worked through the patients inside the infirmary.

Among said patients was the Chief Engineer who woke up when he treated him, as well as the sailor that had been at the helm when the ship reappeared. The latter had been in the helmsman’s seat and had turned into a centaur upon reappearing, which was an extremely ill fit for such a position. Much like the Chief Engineer, he injured himself by falling down some stairs and on the hedgehog nurse that had come out of her cabin at the wrong time.

The particularity with that sailor was that unlike the Chief Engineer, who had an equine lower half, his was more in line with that of a red-tailed doe.

Yes, a doe, with the other implication that followed considered he was called Lars. The guy hadn’t been too pleased to be told that, not having fully realized the extent of the change until he opened his mouth.

Another patient was a deck cadet by the name of Sebastien that had been stowing gear on deck before the Event struck. Poor guy injured himself badly when the winch he had been using snapped on him because he lost control of the brake. His case was concerning, the cadet having lost a lot of blood from his injury before a colleague found him unconscious by the fore mooring station. In a way, him being unconscious was fortunate because he wouldn’t get as much of a rough awakening as the others.

Oh, and of course the unicorn he had turned into just had to be a mare, as Vadim discovered when he inserted a catheter in the unconscious patient’s marehood. All patients inside the infirmary were either naturally born female or guys-turned-gals. For an instant Vadim would have thought Rhine Forest had suffered from more crewmembers swapping gender than Amandine, but when the stats were calculated it was actually the contrary: a higher percentage on board of Amandine had swapped gender.

The last patient Vadim went through was a very grumpy Greek barge pilot called Nikolaos. The reason he was so grumpy? He had turned into a white furred minotaur with black spots here and there; except it happened to be a female minotaur, the sight of which had made the Ukrainian griffon release an impressed whistle. This only served to earn him a nasty glare from the minotaur but damn if it wasn’t justified.

As it appeared, females minotaurs were almost as muscular as their male brethren, in a taller package. The… cow probably, had a mop of curly black hair on top of her head from which poked a pair of small horns pointing downwards next to her large white ears. A more rounded, narrower muzzle and less sharp angles allowed to immediately identify that particular individual as female.

But the part that made the Ukrainian whistle… Well, let it be said that Vadim was very much a fan of Matt Groening’s work, and what laid before his eyes immediately made him think of the ‘death by snu-snu’ line. That minotaur had the curves of an Amazon and the rippling muscles just beneath the skin to back it up. Chiseled abs lay just below what was honestly a massive pair of tits (eh, turns out female minotaurs don’t have udders, Angelo owed him a bottle of rum) framed by tight pectoral muscles. A thin waist was followed by wide hips that connected to muscular thighs the likes of which couldn’t have been found on the best bodybuilder before the Event.

Honestly it was a shame that body was that of a former male, not that Vadim minded since he was more into griffons (which had taken him long enough to realize in the first place, thanks subconscious mind).

Apparently the Greek had been working on electrical equipment in his tugboat when the Event hit, which resulted in him almost getting stuck inside a cramped compartment from the drastic change in size. Extracting himself from the space had resulted in a cracked horn that was bleeding rather profusely, as well as several long scrapes and gashes along his flank and one nasty looking burn on his forearm caused by the soldering iron he had been using.

“Holy cow!” Aleksei said, coming up just behind Vadim, her remark only serving to further sour the minotaur’s mood.

Wait, if the hippogriff was there then her superior couldn’t be far behind and he would rather not try the female minotaur’s reaction to seeing another Greek not get fucked over by the transformation lottery. The griffon quickly made a ‘wait a minute’ gesture to the barge pilot before pulling the curtain around his bed and casually walking over to the Second Engineer who was having some idle talk with Boris by now.

“Eh Angelo you gotta see th-“ Aleksei tried only for Vadim to stop her sentence halfway by grabbing both mandibles of her beak in one claw.

“He’s not gonna see anything.” Vadim said in a quiet voice, not wanting to be overheard by the female minotaur. “This place isn’t a freak zoo and that patient is under enough stress as is.” He told both engineers before releasing Aleksei’s beak, the Latvian hippogriff giving him a mild glare.

“Look Angelo, I’m on my last patient here.” He said, pointing a talon back towards the bed the barge pilot was in. “It’s gonna take a couple minutes but if you could go ahead and radio Amandine to send a boat to pick us up that would be great.” He then lowered his voice back down. “And I’m aware of that female minotaur jig but if you both could avoid talking about him out loud while he’s in the same room; that could avoid me getting deservedly punched in the face by a very angry and very muscular cow girl. Got it?”

Aleksei glare only lessened slightly while that phrase got a confused look out of Angelo. The minotaur made to ask a question but Vadim interrupted him with a quick ‘talk to you later’ before slipping away to take care of the last patient. He wanted to follow the griffon to see what the fuss was all about but an orange hippogriff shooed him out of the infirmary, telling him her patients ‘needed the quiet’ in a French accent.

It took a while for the guys on Amandine to gather the boat team to come get them. In that span of time, some more crewmembers finally emerged from their cabins to resume their duties. It wasn’t the whole crew somehow snapping out of it, but enough sailors that got their shit together as to keep their ship running until they hit port. Griffons and centaurs tentatively crept out of their cabins, all barefoot and clad in hastily refitted coveralls, but ready for work.

Some of the barge crews even pitched in to help the deck team (since apparently the barge crews and deck guys were two separate departments instead of one) prepare their future mooring operation, for which the boatswain looked visibly relieved. Most of the sailors working under Pavlos had either turned into quadrupeds or were injured in the infirmary, even when he counted the cadets. Fortunately, the barge department had a few healthy bipeds in store to assist, those being quicker to adapt to the changes.

The sailors of Amandine were soon back on their own vessel, the white and grey roll-on/roll-off taking the lead of their little two-ship convoy but keeping a sedate pace so as not to overwork the recently reappeared vessel that followed in their wake. Copenhagen was still quite far but they could see their goal approaching on their charts.

Within hours the ships had cleared the end of the Danish western shore, veering east before they got within sight of the Norse town of Kristiansand and thus entering the sea known as the Skagerrak. They kept to the center of the channel in hopes of receiving any kind of radio activity coming from Scandinavian shores… but the waves were once more silent after the reappearance of Rhine Forest.

Night came as they sailed on, with a clear weather and a mild breeze to accompany them as they went. They passed the Danish town of Skagen under clear skies that revealed the whole expanse of stars above them, unhindered by light pollution or any kind of cloud cover.

In yet another effort to locate survivors, the two ships continued east for a few miles before turning south so that they could get a look at the harbor of Gothenburg by early morning the next day. What they saw of the formerly important Swedish seaport had some of them worried as to what they may find in the future: Gothenburg benefitted from having a handful of automated lighthouses marking its entry channel, and they were barely visible through the murky yellow haze that seemed to cover the entire city. Had it not been for their navigational radar they would have missed it. Upon seeing this with the help of some sharp-eyed crewmembers, both ships made sure to steer clear of the city.

The chemical cloud coming from the town was in fact so thick they could spot it on their radars if they tuned them right. Gothenburg may not have been their objective but the sight still made their morale drop. If a European city like that fell to its own chemical industry, then what would become of other such industries around the world? Forget the petrochemical industry which had systems to vent and burn evaporated gas safely, the chemical sector just threw a wrench in their gears. They didn’t know if the catastrophe was caused by the chemical terminal or, more likely, a reactor inside one of the city’s factories, each possibility needing to be studied carefully for the implications they might bring.

It was with that attitude that they spent their morning and early afternoon crossing the Kattegat, the small sea being littered with small reefs and sandbanks that forced them to keep to its easternmost channels, the preferred choice for passing ocean-going vessels such as theirs.

By early evening the convoy finally reached the last stretch of their passage: the Öresund strait, with its entrance marked by the two facing cities of Helsingør on the Danish side and Helsingborg on the Swedish side. The first part of the strait was rather narrow: a mere two miles across, which allowed them to look at both cities in the fading light of the evening. On the Danish side was the Kronborg, an old castle and its surrounding fortifications built centuries ago by the Danish crown to keep watch over the strait and monitor any traffic that entered or left the Baltic Sea. An elaborate copper tower culminated over the fortified but richly decorated structure, its artfully constructed curves now only serving to house flocks of passing birds as its hollow windows gazed out towards the Kattegat.

On the Swedish side, they could spy the red bricks of the waterfront buildings of Helsingborg, the structures protected from the sea by the breakwater that wrapped in front of its beach, providing a safe haven from rough weather to any small ship that passed by, be she used for leisure or fishing.

To the sailors in the convoy, it was more than a nice view to go with the setting sun: them passing through that part of the strait meant they had an hour or two to go before they hit port. Activity rose on both ships as the crews prepared their mooring lines to secure their ship to the quays. On Amandine, their three sphinxes assembled with the rest of the sailors to go over their mooring plan while a boat team was being prepared on Rhine Forest, ready to go ashore and handle the large vessel’s mooring lines.

And while all that activity was taking place on deck, another group was preparing a rescue inside of Amandine’s holds. In the armory, a blue dragon with a VDV beret idly wondered if they would make it in time as he loaded rounds in his mags.

Sandra may have underestimated those monsters’ speed.

A window shattered downstairs as she struggled to push a desk against the door, closing off a staircase and blocking them from accessing the first floor. The desk wasn’t even that heavy, but that small equine body she found herself stuck with wasn’t exactly the strongest. Misjudging the speed at which they would breach the ground floor almost came at the cost of her life. The rec room she was using to store and cook her food as well as getting water from the tap was on the ground floor, and she had wanted to wait as long as possible before falling back to the first floor.

Seeing one of the dogs’ gleaming green eyes quickly made her rush up the stairs and accelerate her plans. With a buck from her rear hooves, she kicked another office chair on the pile of furniture before moving on. Crashing noises downstairs told her the monsters were making a mess looking for her and sorting through her supplies. Had she not retrieved a pair of noise cancelling headphones the little thestral would have been whimpering on the floor from the noise, such was the disadvantage of having ears so sensible they could perceive radio chatter. In addition to the headphones she had found a pair of aviator sunglasses she used at dawn and sunset because her night vision capable eyes were as good as blind during that time of the day. They were a poor fit for her head shape but it was better than using the echolocation that still eluded her.

Oh she was pretty sure she could do it. She had tried. It just so happened to be extremely confusing to use when coming from a species that usually relied on visual means.

She hadn’t had the time to retrieve her backpack from the rec room, and clad as she was in her birthday suit (so what? The fur kept her warm enough and it was almost summer anyway) she didn’t have anything on her except for her aviators and headphones. She would have to rely on the one can of tuna and bottle of water she had left in the control room.

More crashing was heard downstairs, as well as the sound of breaking glass. More monsters inside, but they were still looking for her. Noticing the creatures seemed heavily reliant on their sense of smell, she had made a point of leaving her scent all over the place by rubbing her flank against furniture here and there.

A pained yelp erupted above the barks and growls.

She had also left cans of surströmming around. Surely the monsters would appreciate her gift of canned Swedish herring.

The mare headed for one of the windows to take a look at what was going on outside. A writhing mass of living wood had invaded the parking lot, sadly trashing her poor Toyota as they passed. Her slitted eyes came to rest on one particularly large shape which soon rose above the others, almost as big as a forty-foot shipping container.

The giant wooden dog spotted her with its enormous eyes, letting out a furious roar which sent her scurrying inside the control room.

Author's Notes:

I've been working on making a blog post based on the ships of this story, a sort of ship presentation in which I can include the spreadsheets I use to keep track of crews, vessels and related pictures. The file's almost ready, but I need to wait 'til the next chapter so that I don't spoil anything.