Dilip slowly walked through the backdoor of the bridge, getting a fresh breath of sea air in passing. The drizzle that had plagued the skies for the past two days had finally stopped, but the air was still heavy in humidity and pressure, indicating that more rain awaited them sooner or later. The deck’s dark anti-slip flooring was littered with small puddles glistening in the light of the morning sun. A reassuring rumble could be felt coming from the generators, a sign that the ship was still very much alive despite being at anchor.

A small breeze from the North-East rustled Dilip’s fur but he didn’t feel cold, his newly acquired fur making a good job of protecting him from the elements. Far off in the distance, he could see the offshore wind farms, barely visible due to a thin bank of mist above the surface. He walked over to the edge of the deck, where there was an orange post with a sign saying “muster station” and a tube in which they stored the fire plan. He leaned over and rested his weight on the barrier, overlooking all lower decks behind the castle from where he was. He would be able to spot the crewmembers as they came from this position.

With a wince he began to massage his foot with a hand. Walking barefooted was a bad idea on a ship and coming from him it set a bad precedent as the captain, but he couldn’t fit any of his shoes over the now deformed appendages, they were too different from a human’s feet. Sure they seemed sort of tough, but that wouldn’t be sufficient in an industrial environment where there were many things that could crush or slice them; hence why he would have to spare some time later to jury-rig a pair of safety shoes, that and enlarge the collar on his shirts too among other things. He suddenly got an idea and turned around in the direction of the bridge.

“Vadim, if you find the time and you’ve got a satellite connection, try to compile a list of sewing shops along the coast, with locations and directions from the closest sea port. We might, pardon, we will need those later on, got it?”

He heard a muted “Roger captain” coming from inside the wheel house. That was enough for him and he turned around again. Bringing out the crew list from his pocket, he quickly perused the thing. 25 crewmen and 16 different nationalities on board. Everyone had a good knowledge of English but still, Dilip wondered what HR had been thinking when they gave out assignments at the company office. Probably some twat got some ideas about diversity in his head, he mused.

With a pen, he wrote down two entries in the column Vadim had added, “Species”. Next to his name, he wrote “bipedal dog” and next to Vadim’s, he wrote “quadruped bird man”. Not the most imaginative name, but now was not the time for penmanship.

As he finished writing that, he heard a door open two decks below him, on the side of the officer’s berthing. He peered down curiously but reeled back when out of the door came a giant parrot.

The creature had a humanoid stance, not unlike his own new form, but the similarities stopped there. It stood slightly shorter than a human if you didn’t count the large crest of feather on the top of its head. It looked a bit burly and had a tail of feathers extending half its height behind him. Its beak was quite large, in the typical shape of those found on macaw species but its eyes were facing forward instead of on the sides of its head (they were distinctly human, much like his own). On the sides of its head were two large ears covered in down, unlike what you’d expect on a bird.

Also uncharacteristic of birds were that it had arms instead of wings. Both handing in claw-like hands similar to those Vadim found himself saddled with, and also identical in shape to its feet, which were bare for this particular individual. It had a deep blue plumage with hints of yellow around its eyes and beak. The scales on its hands and feet were a dark shade of grey, reaching up to its elbows and knees respectively.

The creature was wearing the standard orange high-vis coveralls the company provided the crew, with its sleeves rolled up. It was also wearing a pair of aviator glasses, which were resting on its forehead. More interesting for Vadim were the epaulettes on the coveralls, indicating that the being was in fact Chief Officer Mendoza, or Alejandro as the other officers called him.

The aforementioned person looked up and spotted his superior peering down at him. Looking up as he did made him more aware of the sun’s current status. He looked around him this way and that for a moment, and then stared again at the captain for a few seconds, this time with a very bewildered look upon his features.

Dilip didn’t bother addressing him just yet, not particularly willing to hold a discussion with someone two decks below him. He took out his list and wrote down ‘Giant parrot’ next to Alejandro’s name.

Said Spaniard conveniently reached the top of the stairs as he was pocketing his list. Dilip elected to speak up before the parrot (who was currently levelling a fierce glare at him for no apparent reason) could bombard him in question.

“Alejandro I presume?” The bird guy just nodded and Dilip continued. “Brief explanation before the rest of the crew arrives. One, we apparently travelled through time, so you didn’t miss your watch, it’s 01.30 ship time, 09.00 in local time, Vadim’s keeping watch right now. Two, yes, there is the transformation thing, couldn’t figure out the reason yet but looks like everyone is affected, Vadim has become some kind of quadruped bird and I’m a dog. I’m making a list right now to see who is what. Three, for some reason, we’re alone on the sea. All ships around us disappeared for some reason and we can’t get in contact with the shore either. Any question?” He finished, resting his back against the railing, arms crossed in front of him.

The parrot scratched the side of his head with a claw, they weren’t as sharp looking as Vadim’s Dilip noted.

“Actually I was gonna ask if you were indeed the captain but the accent is enough of an answer. Am I the first one here?”

“That you are, no disbelief about the time travel thing, really?”

“Disbelief flew out the window the moment I saw a parrot looking back at me in the mirror. Didn’t see anyone when I was coming here, but from what I heard coming from the cabins, we’re in for some trouble. Unprecedented changes, really? Talk about the understatement of the year captain.”

“Don’t you start with that. You go and try to improvise a reassuring speech when you just discovered that your entire ship is affected by some unknown supernatural phenomenon, your third mate is a bird and you a dog.”

“Fair point” Alejandro just shrugged in acceptance “At least it happened at night when no one was working. Wouldn’t want to know what would have happened if we suddenly transformed like that whilst doing work, might have been nasty.”

“Vadim was conscious, said the thing made him black out for a while. I will have a look at what the camera feed shows for when it happened, and the radio log too; Vadim also mentioned he heard some static on the radio before it happened.”

“I can probably look into that later on when I get the time. If the radio picked it up it’s probably saved somewhere on the server, did he say on which wavelength it happened?”

“All of them, though you will have to ask him yourself about the order ‘cause they didn’t ring all at once.”

“Copy that. Did we have an order from the company yet?”

“Nah, it was just ‘standby at anchorage ‘til we get an order’. The supply chain on new cars was running short because of a strike in the railway industry, and trucks usually prefer to pass to England by ferry this time of the year. Why the question anyway? It’s not like we’re in any shape to weigh anchor right now.”

“Just hoping we’d have some shore contact, even if it’s outdated. That would give us a direction to follow from here.”

Dilip made a stop sign with his hand at that.

“Hold your horses there Alejandro, we don’t even know the state of the crew and in my case my clothes barely fit me, meaning most of the PPE is a lousy fit. Heck, I doubt you could fit those feet in any kind of safety shoes.” He said, waving a hand towards Alejandro’s feet in emphasis. “In those conditions I’m not willing to let anyone even attempt to get the ship running just yet.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“For now, let’s stick to figuring out who’s what, fix our PPE so we can work without crippling ourselves and maybe save some time to get used to the transformation. I don’t know about you but my balance is all fucked up and I’m still fumbling with the new shape of those fingers.”

“Fine, to be honest that tail of mine does feel very strange and I could use some slight adjustments with the coveralls. Among other things...” He mumbled towards the end, not willing to go over the fact he had fallen over four times trying to figure out how his prehensile feet-claws worked.

They fell in silence after that, each busy with their own train of thought about the situation. Alejandro went to lean against the funnel to profit from the warmth of the exhaust (which was not as intense as usual due to the ship only running on the electric generators at the moment), probably not the healthiest of choices but he found it more comfortable than being exposed to the elements.

A couple minutes later, they heard a commotion below them and turned around to the sight of the first crewmembers emerging from the accommodation. The door opened anew and out stumbled a bleary eyed parrot dressed in coveralls like Alejandro (though that one appeared to be a cockatoo instead of a macaw). It was followed by a large lizard, an anthropomorphic cat and another dog-like creature similar to Dilip. All were dressed like Alejandro: poorly fitted coveralls and no shoes.

“May I have your attention please?” Dilip intoned. All creatures below them turned their eyes upwards at the sentence. “Good, I’m the captain if you hadn’t noticed. As you can see, we are all victims of an as of yet unknown phenomenon which changed our bodies like you are currently experiencing. No, I don’t have a cure to that; we will have to make do with it for now. At the moment I want to take presences and write down what everyone has become so that we can begin to sort this out in an orderly fashion.” He paused to catch his breath. “Please, come up to me and tell me your name so that I can add you on the list. Copy that?”

With a few murmurs of agreement, the new group made their way up the stairs to their captain.

The first one to reach Dilip was the parrot guy he had identified as a cockatoo. He had spotless white feathers with hints of sulphur yellow at the tips of his tail and a bright yellow crest on the top of his head, which was currently folded. His beak and scales were a matte black. Upon closer inspection, Dilip also spotted countless oil stains on his coveralls, an engine room guy thus, those feathers weren’t going to stay white for long.

The bird man came to a halt two meters in front of him and stood at attention.

“Carlos Alvarez, reporting for duty, sir.” He said, loudly.

Dilip dutifully added a mention next to the name in his list. As an afterthought, he also added a mention of colour next to the species, to avoid confusion.

“At ease Alvarez, we’re not navy no need to stand at attention. How were things downstairs? Not too much chaos?”

“People seem to be doing their best to stay calm captain, but it’s going to be slower for some to get there. I saw a couple guys trying to walk on four legs and heard that some didn’t even have hands.”

“No hands you say?” Dilip raised an eyebrow saying that. This will make getting the ship to port a lot more difficult.

“Yes sir, thankfully I heard Angelo and Ajit were helping them. Didn’t linger myself, the situation is pretty much taken care of and they should be there in a minute.”

“Thank you Alvarez, you may dispose for now. I will give a detailed explanation when everyone gets here.”

Carlos nodded and departed. Immediately, his place was taken by the anthropomorphic cat.

“Nguyen Van Duc, catering department.”

The captain appraised the being with a glance, he was taller than him by a head, but certainly didn’t have the bulk the transformation had given him, being very lean instead, so much so that it would have appeared abnormal were the creature human. His arms were longer than those of a human by a hand’s length and he had a fluffy tail swishing behind him. He bore two large ears upon his head and his eyes were an odd mix between a feline’s and a human’s, with the colour and white being distinctly human while the slitted pupil was definitely feline. His fur, from what Dilip could see, was a greyish brown with white stripes running along his backside.

“Noted for Van Duc, anything to add?” The dog said, adding ‘bipedal cat, brown’ next to the guy’s name.

“Nothing except for the fact we will have to delay kitchen operations due to the change. Might want to figure out if our diet changed too.”

“You believe it has?” The captain asked.

“I presume it has sir.” The cat barred his teeth “See? Mostly canines, no incisive. I’m assuming I’ve become a full carnivore, don’t know ‘bout you. Still gonna try vegetables and starchy food tho’.”

“You do that, the more we know the better. As long as the chief cook approves of course.”

“Roger captain.” And with that finish, he walked off, leaving Dilip face to face with a giant lizard. The reptile was at his shoulder’s height, but reached up to his jaw if you counted the line of backwards swept white spikes on his head. His head, unlike his own head or Nguyen’s, didn’t bear a resemblance to a human’s, instead bearing a much more pronounced muzzle and having the eyes very close to the top of his head. Said eyes were a ruby red with slitted pupils and had a ridgeline of thicker scales hanging over them as a stand-in for eyebrows. Running down the underside of his jaw line and continuing under his coveralls was a length of sky blue leathery skin, the only part that was not covered by the dark cyan scales. The master also noted that, beside two notable bulges on the back of his coveralls and a tail terminated by a translucent fin, the lizard’s torso was very narrow and had the ribs meet at an angle in the middle of it. As for the rest, the limbs were of similar proportions to his own; the lizard was standing on the ball of his feet, and only had four fingers per hand (except those were each ending in a wickedly sharp claw).

“I’m starting to wonder if the Forces that Be have a thing for humanoid animals...” The captain commented “Anyway, who shall receive the honour of being the first labelled as a giant gecko?”

That earned him a glare from the lizard who muttered something in Russian.

“A good morning to you too Artyom.” Dilip said sarcastically “I hope you find the scales comfortable ‘cause you’re gonna be stuck that way for the foreseeable future.”

The Russian’s only answer was to walk off to the opposite side of the deck, muttering angrily as he walked.

“He sounds hung-over” Alejandro commented, coming up behind him.

“He probably is. The bar was open yesterday and it’s technically the middle of the night for us after all. I may not like him but he’s not really in the wrong so I won’t go and pester him for nothing. Talk to him if you want, I know you both get along better than he and I, and I got better things to do right now.”

The Spaniard just shrugged and followed after the Russian, asking him if he felt like sharing a cigarette. More people had come streaming out of the accommodation in the meantime, Dilip observed. There were two more parrots guiding two creatures bearing a high resemblance to Vadim who were having difficulties moving on four legs. Two more quadruped creatures flowed suit after them, one being a living replica of the sphinx he had seen a decade ago when he had visited Egypt, the other being another birdlike creature, except that it had a brightly coloured mane, a bushy tail and its rear legs ended with hooves instead of paws like the other avian creatures beside it. It also had an odd colour, being covered in seafoam feathers, with a yellow beak and claws, and its mane, tail and hooves were pale grey.

For some reason, his gaze kept being drawn towards the parrots; there was something different about them. He filed that for later and turned around to catch the name of the last guy from the first group, a lanky black dog with short fur and light brown eyes, slightly smaller than him but with a longer tail and muzzle.

“Name please?”

“Rahul Goswami, chief cook.” Came the answer.

“Ah Rahul, good to see you. Sorry for the rough awakening, hope you’re coping. Did you hear what Nguyen said?”

“Yeah, and I agree with him. Guy can be start when he wants to; hopefully we don’t start getting along like cats and dogs down in the kitchen, eh?” He joked, earning a soft chuckle from the captain.

“Let’s hope not, and I hope I can still eat your cuisine, wouldn’t want to miss that curry. Now why don’t you go and begin planning this changed diet thing with Van Duc while I sort through the rest of the crew?”

“Aye Cap’ain, will do.” The smaller dog walked off in the direction of his feline colleague.

That was one group accounted for, 18 more people to go through now. But now they were coming at a faster pace, everyone starting to make their way to him all at once. With a sharp cry for order, Dilip had them all in a file at the bottom of the stairs and then he began his work.

The oddness about the parrot was explained shortly after that: they presented themselves as the cadet and one of the welders respectively, but it was very easy to notice upon a closer look that the poor saps had won a free sex change in addition to the transformation, the voice was a dead giveaway, and even if it appeared that the females of this species were taller than males (when compared to Alejandro) the lean and curvaceous appearance left little doubt about the question. The cadet, now a brightly coloured scarlet macaw, was quite clearly very distraught when he heard the captain comment about that, apparently having failed to notice the quirk in his change. With little time to spare, Dilip moved on.

The sphinx, who was sticking with the welder who helped him deal with his lack of hands, was apparently a Greek guy from the engine department. The master found his appearance quite pleasant to the eye, albeit being surprised by his large size from up close. The engineering guy had a face with large feline yellow eyes that mixed both leonine and human features. He had a mane that bore the colour of red wine, from which were poking out two large fluffy ears on the top of his head. His body was radiating hidden power from beneath the sand coloured fur. Under the coveralls, Dilip spotted two large bulges on his back, and there was a tail trailing behind him, ending in a tuft of wine coloured fur. Dilip tasked the welder (who was more composed than the cadet) with helping out his handless colleague and then he was immediately onto the next guy, quadruped bird man with hooves.

The aforementioned guy, called Yuri, was the other welder. Now that he could get a better look, the captain had to correct himself about the tail and mane: those were actually feathers, very large and supple, but still feathers. The welder also reminded him that there was a name for bird/horse creatures: hippogriffs, which the captain found a lot more professional to write on his list than avian/equine pastel monstrosity. Apart from that, he took note that contrarily to Vadim and the other bird guy behind him (which, as he would learn later on, were called griffons, he really had to brush up his mythology), his avian features were those of a seabird (some kind of petrel in this case) instead of those of a raptor.

Afterwards, the next people flew by without him really getting to put a face on the transformed creatures. One of the engineering officers had become a minotaur and two guys had become gargoyles, but there was no other novelty in the type of transformation. Much to his chagrin, Dilip discovered that more crewmembers had suffered from a sex change, including the chief engineer (a dragon, as he corrected his list, not a giant gecko) and the chief steward (now a sphinx lioness). His second officer, now a female griffon (griffoness? Griffess? Whatever) had walked off into the wheelhouse to have a talk with Vadim, both being known as close friends to the rest of the crew.

With a shudder, Dilip realised some crewmates might actually try and get to dip their sausages; they were desperate like that sometimes. He didn’t dare to think of the implications this new variable might have on morale. Back to the topic though for now, the crew was now assembled for some well deserved explanations, all looking at him in expectance. He pocketed the list and straightened up.

“Alright folks, I don’t think I need to call for your attention so I’ll skip straight to the heart of the problem.” He walked through the crowd as he was speaking, making his way to the mast’s ladder. He climbed a few rungs so as to be in sight of everyone and continued his speech, explaining what details they had gathered about the situation with Vadim, mostly going over the time travel part and the disappearance of all maritime activity in the vicinity of their ship. Much to his regret, he had to admit to not having a clue as for the reasons behind their transformation, save for the anomaly experienced by Vadim, who was still busy pulling out the feeds from the data banks.

Dilip asked if anyone beside the third mate had been awake at the time of the event, but as suspected everyone else was sound asleep at that hour, not having any reason to stay up and wanting to catch up on lost sleep.

“Now that I’ve brought you all up to speed, I’m going to give you my orders for the time being. We are not currently in any shape to be leaving anchor, some of us are barely managing to stand up as is.” He gave a pointed glance towards another dog who was threatening to fall over any moment from now. “Hence, I want everybody to start working on getting familiar with his new... proportions. In particular for the quadrupeds, it’s hard, but we have to push on. For the sphinxes, try to figure out any way you can possibly lend assistance without hands, even if it’s not in your department. I noticed some of you now have wings, but now is not the time to learn how to fly. We can’t afford to have an accident. Step two; I know everyone has some degree of proficiency when it comes to sewing and improvised craftsmanship so I want you all to patch up and adapt your gear to your new form. I’m willing to give some leniency when it comes to protective glasses, but come tomorrow I want everyone to have fixed his situation when it comes to coveralls, safety shoes and work gloves, got it?”

The crowd around him voiced their agreement and Dilip waited a few seconds before continuing, assembling the next part of his speech in his mind.

“And before any of you ask, I don’t want to see any tail uncovered when in coveralls; they’re here for protection, so tuck it in or add a sleeve on your ass if you’re feeling creative. Chief Steward Farkas has access to a small amount of spare sewing supplies and fabric, might not be enough but try to make do for now, we’ll try to get more when we reach our next port.”

There were a few inquiries about the next port of call, but the captain ignored them, preferring to continue his speech and answer questions later.

“I will wait for the Chief Steward to come report to me that everyone is ready before we can continue and resume navigation. Now for my orders per department, I want the cooks and officers to stay here. For the rest, dismissed. Farkas, you show them the supply closet.”

Dilip also spotted the cadet beginning to leave, and intervened.

“Cadet De Vries, stay here with us I will have a task for you too. You have all your credentials for officer of the watch right?”

He just got a nod from the cadet as an answer. The newly-made girl was still in shock from her ‘discovery’. Dilip turned away from her to address both cooks.

“Goswami, Van Duc, I want you both to figure out a menu that can fit everyone’s new diet, if it has changed that is. We will change the ship’s clock to match actual local time, so consider it’s nine in the morning. The usual twelve o’clock meal can be delayed, but I want it no later than half past two. That’s all for you two, dismissed.”

The cat and the dog departed without a word, but Dilip had to add a last remark before they left.

“Oh, before I forget. Mind the hair in the food. I won’t make a fuss about it for now but try to find a counter to that and if you need help or gear, don’t hesitate to ask Farkas.”

He turned towards his engineering officers now, a female dragon (his Chief Engineer), a minotaur (the second) and a female hippogriff (the third). The event really had messed up with their previously all-male crew.

“For engineering, priority number one is keeping the generators online. If the electricity goes down we’re toast. If you can, leave someone on watch down in engineering, rating or officer, I don’t care as long as someone’s down there. I also want you to keep the main engine ready. Shut down, but I want it ready to get going under fifteen minutes, copy?”

“Aye cap’ain!” All three said at once, earning a nod of approval from Dilip.

“Good, dismissed.”

Dilip turned away from the engineers and walked away towards the bridge, indicating to Alejandro and De Vries to follow after him with a wave of his hand. Inside, he saw as he strode in, Vadim and Micha were hunched over a laptop hooked to one of the entry points for the ship’s network. Both were next to the helm, at the navigator’s post so they could monitor the electronic chart as they worked. Micha, the captain observed, had turned into a griffon with a bald eagle front and a wildcat rear end. The oddity (in addition to being turned into a female, a fate he was glad not to be a victim of) was that the griffon had some lime coloured highlights around the eyes and a spot of lime feathers on the back of the head in the shape of a diamond.

“How far did you get with the feeds?”

“Got the complete video feed downloaded. That one I already sent to your computer via the internal network so easy enough.” None of them turned away from the screen as Vadim answered.” Problem is the video feed isn’t matched with the proper audio, it’s an old program. We’re sorting through it as we speak but it’s a bit confusing. Give me fifteen minutes and you will have the files on your workstation.” Now they turned around to face the captain. Micha spoke up then, a sliver of hesitation in his voice due to being unfamiliar with how he (or should he use she?) sounded.

“The radio log however, that one’s gonna be a bitch to pull retrieve. For one the program is fucking old, and for second it’s on an outdated OS coded with the arse.”

“Meaning?” Dilip asked, leaning his head to the side.

“It’s gonna take a while sir. If we want to be able to use the radio log, I’m going to have to code a conversion algorithm, create a backup of the log and run it through the program until it works correctly. Might take hours, might take weeks, I can’t really tell. Good thing is, once we have the algorithm that kind of problem won’t pop up in the future.”

Dilip nodded. “Okay, I want you both to put it on the backlog for now. Try to work on it when you have some free time and nothing better to do but it’s not top priority for now.”

He went and seated himself in the captain’s chair, turning it around on its swivel to face the deck officers.

“The orders for your department are as follow : you keep doing the anchor watches as usual as prio’ one, and while you’re at it I want you to monitor all telecomm traffic within the realm of feasibility, even if you wind up listening in on what goes on in Japan. Satcom or radio, I want to hear what goes on on the waves, copy? Also, set the telex to receive all stations no matter the language.” Dilip paused to collect his thoughts.

“We’re switching the watch pattern to match local time. Meaning, it’s your turn Alejandro right now, hope you don’t mind. Cadet, you’re with the chief officer. Vadim and Micha, you’re both free, be diligent if possible but I know Vadim is pushing the 30 hours barrier now so I won’t mind if you get some rest. Beside watchkeeping, I want you to plan an entry in the port of Zeebrugge. Should be about 20 nautical miles from here; use the berthing you see fit. Remember however: if we’re not seeing or hearing anything at the moment, this might mean there isn’t any activity in port. No tugs, no stevedores, so assemble a party to send ashore with the rhib to handle lines and choose an easy berthing which we can leave easily. If you can, prefer one where we can use the rear ramp, but it’s fine if it’s only the side ramps. I needn’t tell you we won’t have a pilot for the manoeuvre, but we’ve all been to that port at least a dozen times so it’s pretty much standard procedure. I want the charts and a briefing in my office within the next 48 hours, and I’m being generous so don’t abuse it.”

With that, Dilip stood up from the chair and began making his way to the stairs leading down into the accommodation.

“By the way cadet” He added in passing “I know that voyage was your last as a cadet with us, but if the shore is as deserted as this anchorage, you might be in for a promotion, just sayin’.”

And then he was off.