“Brace for impact!” One of the lookouts yelled, a cry that was echoed throughout the ship as Micha turned on the general alarm.

Seven short blasts of the alarm, followed by a long, drawn-out blast strong enough to shake a sailor to the core rang out, quickly followed by the hen’s voice over the PA system telling everyone to hunker down. All around, crewmembers were seen rushing underneath tables and grabbing the nearest railing.

In Boris’ cabin, the door burst open as Anton rushed inside and helped the still heavily-injured griffon get to a safe spot, the Russian’s entire body sending lances of pain to his brain in protest at the sudden movement.

A couple meters further down the passageway, Vadim was seen rushing to Andy’s cabin where the griffon hatchling was scared shitless. He quickly wrapped his talons around her small form before ducking underneath a desk, waiting.

Meanwhile on the bridge, Yuri went to work with the helm. The hippogriff yanked the engine telegraph as far back as she could just as the Captain and Micha barked their orders in unison. They wouldn’t be able to stop outright on such a short notice, but at least she could slow Amandine down a bit.

“Starboard full!” The Diamond Dog and griffon ordered at the same time, hoping that, maybe, they could pass just behind the other ship.

It was one of those offshore supply vessels, the type that did any kind of work with platforms ranging from re-tensioning their anchor chains to just ferrying parts and supplies from the mainland. They always seemed to share the same apparent layout:

A superstructure with the bridge and accommodation set on the bow section, sheltering a flat open deck behind it with a couple cranes to handle cargo operations.

The vessel Amandine was speeding towards was no different from that design, if a bit on the large side. Her hull was a bright fire engine red above the waterline, extending high up towards the bow before seamlessly blending in with the accommodation and its white plating that towered above the rest of the ship, with the bridge at its summit. Just above the bow and in full view of the bridge, the shipbuilders had also felt necessary to equip the ship with a helideck, though it wasn’t connected to a hangar.

For some reason, the ship –which, according to the name on her bow, was actually called Fugro Symphony- was blasting Scotland the Brave over her PA system, so loudly in fact they could hear the tune clearly from Amandine’s bridge.

And Amandine started turning. Slowly. Too slowly. Dilip’s eyes flicked towards Fugro’s bridge. If he squinted, he could just make out the bewildered Hedgefog staring at them from behind the helm.

Yeah, that ship just had to reappear at the worst of times, on a collision course with them.

Of course she did.

They didn’t cut it. Amandine managed to avoid hitting the other vessel in the accommodation, if only barely. Instead, her massive white and grey bow plowed into the aft section of the other vessel, her bulbous bow acting like a battering ram.

The grinding of steel against steel matched the earth-shattering impact of the two seagoing titans as they met each other to the sound of metal bending. Anything loose on board was abruptly sent flying: charts, papers, books even, all filled the air around Dilip as he held on to his seat, teeth gritted in a snarl.

Others around the pariah dog were sent sprawling on the ground with much swearing. One of their lookouts almost fell overboard before the hippogriff seemingly remembered he had wings and flew back on board.

He shook his head with a growl before looking out the bridge’s windows. Amandine’s bow must have cleaved inside the other ship’s hull, because the two ships were stuck together. The Ro/Ro’s engines were still going astern before he quickly barked out an order to set the propeller pitch to neutral.

Ahead of them and in full view of Amandine’s bridge, they could see the impact zone, both ships had their hulls perforated, jagged and bent metal plates jutting out with oil leaking out from some perforated tanks on both ships.

“I want a status report, now!” The dog unbuckled himself from his seat before moving over to the radio station. “Someone call engineering; I want a team surveying the damaged area ASAP.”

His eyes flicked to the radar screen, where he could see the little dot showing Rhine Forest’s position just a few miles behind. In this fog, they needed to tell the barge carrier about the impact otherwise Raimund would soon join the seaborne dogpile.

“Sir!” Micha spoke up.

“Przemo?” Dilip paused with one paw hovering over the VHF’s controls.

The bald eagle griffon was still seated, clutching a sheet of paper in her talons, eyes riveted to the ECDIS computer.

“Warning on the currents: we have 90 minutes worth of tide streams pushing us out before they switch around. If we’re not out of the area by then, it will pull us back in the firth.”

And into the many skerries that could tear their hull asunder. Thankfully Amandine still seemed to have her propulsion operational. Fugro on the other paw… they did hit the offshore vessel near the stern.

All the more motivation to hurry up then.

Warning Rhine of the accident was but a trifle. Dilip quickly switched to channel 16 –the general communication channel on VHF- to tell the barge carrier to keep away from them. Raimund tried to press the matter over the radio, but Dilip set that aside for now.

“Unknown vessel, this is M/V Amandine…” The Captain began in as clear a voice as he could manage –he could feel his entire skeleton still shake from the impact-. “Interrogative: what is your status? Over.”

It took a minute before they saw the Hedgefog on the other ship’s bridge stand up and –apparently- move towards their own comms station. At this stage with the two ships stuck to each other, both bridges were a mere hundred meters apart as the vessels slowly drifted away from Scotland, carried by the currents.

“Amandine, this is M/V Fugro Symphony…” The VHF crackled after a minute. The voice sounded feminine (no bet on yet another sailor suffering from genderswap), trembling, and utterly confused. It also had the slightest hint of an Irish accent. “No damage report yet but our engine telegraph and helm do not respond. I repeat: we are Not Under Command.” She paused. “The fuck’s going on here? Over.”

Dilip put aside the last question for now. Of course a ship that had just reappeared would have that question. What mattered at the moment was that Fugro was basically dead in the water. In all likelihood it was Amandine’s bulbous bow that had knocked out her propulsion.

“Rhine this is Amandine.” Dilip immediately carried on. “Interrogative: can you get your tugs in the water? We require emergency tug assistance. Over.”

Raimund was quick to answer with a series of rapid-fire questions. The mare would need about half an hour to get one tug down in the water. Hopefully the lone tug should suffice to get Fugro to a safe spot away from the strong currents.

Hopefully…

Down below, Schmitt was finding herself hard pressed to manage whatever the fuck was going on. She had rushed forward as soon as Dilip sent his orders to the engine control room. The orange-scaled dragon had led a small team of engine ratings –along with their newest hire in the form of Radiant- to the likeliest section to be damaged whilst Angelo and Aleksei ran the system check-ups from inside engine control.

There was smoke around the workshop. Thin, but acrid smoke that had the other sailors around her coughing. Not her though, perks of being a dragon.

“Go get Artyom!” She ordered Thanasis. “And get the firefighting gear!”

She watched the sphinx sprint away, back to the accommodation. Almost by reflex, Schmitt reached for the nearest alarm switch. A second later, the whole ship reverberated with the continuous ringing of the fire alarm.

A minute later, she and Artyom headed deeper inside the workshop, fire extinguishers held in their claws. The smoke wasn’t too bad, yet. As soon as she ordered the ventilation system to be shut down -no need to propagate fires through the vents-, smoke visibly started to build up, thankfully still above head level.

Together, the two dragons swept the area, looking for the source of the fire, before they eventually reached a hatch that was belching smoke.

The same hatch that led to the bow thruster’s room.

“Shit.” Schmitt scowled, already having an inkling of an idea as to what she may find there.

And she was right. The impact had damaged a fuse box near the generator, enough so that it had caught fire and set the entire room ablaze, electric motor included. She stood halfway down the catwalk into the room, eyes locked onto the motor, the one thing that allowed Amandine to so easily maneuver into port.

Guess that wouldn’t be so easy now.

All the rubber used in both insulation and vibration dampeners was now ablaze, releasing thick clouds of black acrid smoke that swirled around the room before escaping through the open hatch and into the workshop.

“Cut the power in the compartment.” The female dragon told Artyom.

Mentally, she was going down their firefighting flowchart. There was nothing they could do to fight this with fire extinguishers at this point. Hell, not even fire hoses would have been enough right then. Still, they weren’t out of ideas yet.

They isolated the bow thruster’s compartment: cut power, secure all hatches and shut off ventilation in the room. And then… choke the fire until it gives out. Using the ‘silver bullets’.

See, the thing with Amandine is that her engine spaces –bow thruster room included- were fitted with fixed firefighting installations. Two of them even: a CO2 system -they even had the means to refill their bottles now-, and a water-mist sprinkler system that fed from the sea chest.

The problem was settled within seconds once they isolated the fire. Going down their flowchart, they first tried solving the fire with water and, when it turned out it wasn’t enough, pulled the pin on the CO2 system and proceeded to drown the entire compartment in carbon dioxide. That worked better, though the Chief Engineer insisted Thanasis stay behind with a thermal scanner to ensure the fire didn’t flare up again.

With the sphinx busy doing that, that left the rest of the firefighting team free to start venting all the smoke that had built up in the car decks and workshops.

Amandine got off lucky. At a glance it seemed that, with the exception of the bow thruster, all damage had been kept forward of the collision bulkhead. Several of her tanks had been punctured in the impact, mostly ballast and freshwater tanks, but their main lube oil reserve in the bulbous bow had also been torn open. She was leaking oil into the sea, leaving a thin, iridescent slick on the surface that shone like a waterborne rainbow under the sunlight.

Unfortunately, pollution control was pretty low on their list of priorities, much less for the fifty tons or so of lube they had on board. By most standards, that was relatively minor. They did record it in the logbook, but they didn’t bother dispatching an auxiliary from Rhine to deal with it. Not with the tide streams threatening to pull them back in.

Of course there was also some minor damage further aft: damaged electrical components, a couple broken appliances, and probably a hundred minor things to non-critical systems. That, however, would have to take a backseat for the moment.

Immediate concerns went to securing any cargo that had been knocked loose by the impact. Under a second, Schmitt’s mind shifted from taking care of the fire to dispatching sailors to secure any crates, containers and vehicles that may have broken out of their lashings and shifted after the collision. Considering how open Amandine’s car decks were, they had to reattach everything as soon as possible, otherwise the rolling of the vessel would quickly cause vehicles to slide around and shift their center of gravity.

Hence, nothing they wished for at the moment. Such a situation could quickly spiral out of control on a Ro/Ro and cause capsizing, as it had many times in the past on other vessels. M/V Tricolor wasn’t considered an example for nothing.

“Status?” She quickly asked Scarface.

“Improving, slowly.” The gargoyle explained. “Angelo’s done with the systems scan, so we got some minotaur muscle helping along. Pair that with telekinesis…” He ignited the foci in his forearms for emphasis. “… and we’re good. Takes quite a bit of effort to put a 30-ton container back in its place, but we’re risk-free.”

“Good.” The orange dragon nodded. “The vehicles?”

“We got a Def that’s going to need some bodywork and replacement windows, maybe one of the ‘mogs too, but that’s about it, except for scratches.”

“Keep them stowed for now; we’ll repair them once we’re in port.” She told him before turning her eyes upwards, towards the bridge.

Dilip was not going to be happy about this.

“In port ma’am? In America?!” Scarface asked warily.

“Of course not.” The orange dragon scoffed. “We’re not in any shape to cross the ocean anymore, and something tells me our ‘patrons’ are not going to be happy about this.”

“Alej’! Stability report!” The Captain loudly asked.

The two ships were no longer stuck together after they pulled Amandine’s bow out of Fugro’s stern. Neither of the two ships was looking too good at the moment, both sitting low in the water near their afflicted areas.

“No heeling angle so far.” The parrot replied as he was hunched over the ballast system’s controls. “But we’ve got some negative trim; the bow’s sitting kinda low.”

Without Dilip even needing to give the order, he got to work on patching that situation as best as he could. Amandine had never been meant to sail trimmed by the head, such a predicament had a bad habit of making the propellers jump out of the water when they pitched. Needless to say, that put some unwanted torque on the shaft and could damage the motors driving the props.

“Moving ballast further aft to correct that trim. Just need to empty tanks through four and fill on five and six.” He said out loud as he calculated the change on their loadmaster computer. “I can make us seaworthy again, but we’re not going to be fast with that kind of damage to the bow.”

“That will have to do for now.” Dilip answered before frowning in the direction of Fugro.

They had already dispatched Vadim to provide medical assistance. The griffon had been found trying to reassure a crying Andy in the kid’s cabin, the little hatchling had refused to let go of the older griffon’s chest until they brought in Rahul to console her.

Five minutes later, their Third Officer had flown over to the stricken vessel, at about the same time Doctor Delacroix did on Rhine by the looks of it.

Once more they found perks to having been transformed by the Event. Months earlier he would never have dreamed of doing a crew transfer that fast, the only bad side to having flyers in the air was that all ships had to temporarily turn off their radars. Better safe than sorry with RF radiation.

They had pulled away some three cables or so from the bright red ship. Just far enough that they wouldn’t collide again but still close enough as to keep the ship within sight. Some blinking lights visible through the fog indicated Rhine Forest was there too, holding her position at a respectable distance from the two ships. The last thing they wanted at the moment was for another ship to join the dogpile.

“All stations, this is Rhine Forest. Be advised: we have one tugboat in the water.” The VHF crackled to life with Raimund’s voice. “Please prepare emergency towing lines now. Warning: time to reversal of the tide is now thirty minutes. Tugboat callsign will be Romeo Foxtrot Alfa. Out.”

Dilip’s eyes flicked towards where he knew the barge carrier was hiding in the fog. A set of lights, dimmer, had indeed joined the barge carrier’s. The radio crackled with the voice of the tug pilot confirming he was joining the channel, before it finally went silent.

So that was it for Fugro’s situation. Now as to what they would have to do next…

The interphone rang, which he immediately picked up. A few seconds later, the features on the dog’s muzzle soured as he put down the phone.

“Who was that?” Alej’ asked.

“Schmitt. No Atlantic crossing for us today.” He clicked his tongue. “We need to fix this damage if we want to cross the open ocean.”

Alejandro raised his head at that, the feathers in his crest raised halfway up.

“The HPI guys won’t like this.”

“They won’t, but if there is anything that deserves to be called an Act of God, this is it.” He shrugged. “I’ll call them once the situation’s stable, in the meantime… any idea where we might find a place to repair?”

“No clue.” The hyacinth macaw shook his head. “I’ll hazard a guess and say we’ll need a drydock to fix this, but I have no idea where to find one this side of the British Isles.”

“Ask Roberto?”

“Ask Roberto.” Alejandro nodded.

A griffon and a hippogriff, both wearing coveralls and carrying medical satchels, were seen landing on Fugro’s helideck. Vadim addressed Camille a nod before he started looking around.

They couldn’t see the damaged stern from there, only the accommodation, the bridge, and the helideck they were standing on. It was a wide circular structure built above Fugro’s bow section and supported by thick girders. Its green-painted anti-slip surface proudly displayed the ship’s name in bold white letters above the obligatory ‘H’. Vadim could also feel the anti-skid net beneath his talons.

“Pretty nice ship don’t you think?” Camille asked him out of the blue.

“That it is.” He nodded.

The entire bow section beneath the deck had a very streamlined design, which culminated in the accommodation which rose with a swept design that further highlighted the ultramodern appearance given by the bright white paint. Above all that, the bridge was a nearly all-glass concept with all-around visibility, in which the griffon could see a female Hedgefog looking at them. Further above were the antennas, including two massive radomes on either side of the funnel.

Judging by the design, Fugro likely didn’t have a blind spot on her radar.

A door opened in the accommodation, revealing a rather short dragon wearing oversized and torn coveralls, their damaged blue fabric revealing the jet-black scales underneath. His eyes were yellow, their pupils gleaming as he strode towards them in a gait that clearly revealed he still wasn’t familiar with his new digitigrade stance: tail dragging, wings limp, and a stumble or two that made him release wafts of smoke out of his nostrils in frustration.

As he got closer, they spotted the ranks on his shoulders. The Chief Officer.

“Greetings.” Vadim immediately began before the short dragon could open his maw. “I’m Third Officer Zinoviya from Amandine and this…” He jerked his head towards Camille. “…is Medical Officer Delacroix, from nearby Rhine Forest that’s helping with the tug. We’re here to provide medical assistance if needed, and to answer the questions you probably have.”

The dragon turned his head this way and that to look at them. He opened his maw once as if to speak, closed it, and shook his head as a puff of smoke escaped his nostrils, before he finally spoke up.

“Chief Officer Quinn, I take it you know why I suddenly sprouted scales and we went from midnight to noon without notice?” The dragon asked with an Irish accent.

“Yes, but it’s not something that can be answered simply. For short: you travelled two months forward in time because the Apocalypse happened, which by sheer bad luck put you right in our path as we were making our crossing towards America.” Vadim quickly explained. “Gotta keep the details for later though, we don’t have much time before the tides turns around and pulls us back in. What’s the situation here? Can you prepare for an emergency towing?”

“No propulsion, and no steering either. Helm’s completely unresponsive…” He turned his head towards the bridge. “I think I can get a few sailors for the towing but… we were running on a skeleton crew, not many of us on board.”

“How many?” Camille prodded him.

“Twenty. Still no idea if we have any wounded, but one of you should check out with our Chief Steward. She’s also our medic. I was getting dressed for my watch in my cabin when it happened, had a word with the bridge on the interphone before I got here. We got a couple flooded rooms down below but our Chief Engineer should be working on making things stable and containing it. I had a word with him on the phone, sounded a bit weird to my ears.”

Camille and Vadim shared a look. Voices didn’t tend to change overly much after the change, except for… well, the genderswap effect was nothing new at this point, and nobody liked it at first.

“I go help their medic, you help with the navigation?” Camille quickly suggested.

“Will do.” Vadim nodded. “Your arm?”

The French hippogriff glanced down at her splinted foreleg. She still had to hop around on three limbs when on the ground, but she was slowly starting to put some weight on it. Surprisingly enough, she didn’t even use a health potion (since they didn’t have any of the healthcare variant yet) and she still recovered far sooner than a human would have.

“I can manage.” She waved off the concern. “Not many of them, and they already have a medic. Go do the towing, otherwise we might lose the whole ship.”

Vadim nodded before he opened his wings once more and took off towards the bridge. No need to ask for directions for that. As for Camille and Quinn, the black dragon led her inside, to the med bay.

Fugro’s interior matched her sleek ultramodern exterior: crisp white walls greeted them as Quinn opened the door. The flooring was made out of yellowish-brown laminate planks, polished to a smooth finish that clicked under their steps.

“That’s a very nice ship.” Camille commented.

Contrarily to Rhine’s utilitarian style, the hallways here were decorated to improve the atmosphere: plastic plants lined the walls at regular intervals, subtly hiding colored LED lights that followed a pattern she couldn’t recognize yet brought more color to the otherwise white walls. There were also numerous framed pictures and paintings depicting old ships and company officials here and there.

“You said you were running on a skeleton crew?”

“Yes.” Quinn replied as they reached a small lift which he opened with his key. “Normally we got enough room for over a hundred people on board, but we were transiting between operation areas. No need to pay a full complement for that.”

The two of them shuffled awkwardly shuffled inside. With a press of a button, the door shut silently and they went down.

“You’re French? I mean… your accent.” The dragon idly asked.

“Not from metropolitan France. I was born on Reunion.” She replied. “Unfortunately I had to leave. Not much to do on a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Now… I fear I won’t ever see my home island again.” The hippogriff sighed in a soft trill.

“It’s that bad?” Quinn pressed on.

“It’s dangerous. There are actual monsters roaming the land, and very few people remain after the Event.”

“How few?”

“Divide the world population by ten thousand and you should have a pretty good estimation of what we’ll have by the end of the year. Ship crews are the biggest groups of survivors to be found, and that’s mostly because vehicles reappear along with their crew instead of people coming back on their lonesome.”

The black dragon opened his maw as if to ask one more question, but he was stopped by the lift reaching its target deck. The door slid aside with a quiet ‘ding’ to reveal Fugro’s ‘lobby’, a wide circular room with a couple tables, seats, and even a -currently unmanned- helpdesk. Several doors lined the walls, one of which Camille immediately recognized as their goal by the green cross displayed on it.

She didn’t wait for Quinn and immediately made a beeline for the med bay. The insides were somewhere between Rhine and Amandine in terms of size, in a more modern fashion: half a dozen beds along with two quarantined cabins, a room she assumed to be an operating theatre of some kind, a small office and… was that a recompression chamber? Not impossible, offshore supply vessels frequently picked up divers, so that wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities.

Of course there was also the smell. A sharp blend of chemicals and disinfectant hit her nostrils the moment she stepped inside. Nothing she wasn’t already accustomed with though.

She couldn’t see any patient in the sick bay, though there were voices coming from the Doctor’s office. Loud voices.

“What do you mean ‘I can’t do anything for you’?!” One angry voice practically squawked.

“Calm down Floyd!” A feminine voice replied, its Irish accent palpable. It was calmer, if only a bit, the discussion was pretty heated. “Of course I can fix your arm… leg… whatever.”

“And the rest?!”

“I’m a Doctor not a witch!”

Camille threw Quinn a side glance before she knocked on the door. Hard. The discussion stopped instantly.

“Who’s there?” The Doctor asked.

“It’s me Lilian.” Quinn said. “I got a visitor.”

The door was abruptly pulled open and, tall as she was for a hippogriff, Camille found herself craning her neck up to stare at a female dragon. Certainly taller than Quinn, but not nearly as much as Artyom or Schmitt.

These two were already rather old when they transformed, meaning that even though dragons aged far slower than humans, they still wound up in their mid-to-late teens. The Doctor though, she fell in the early teens bracket as far dragons went, pretty much like some of the younger ratings that had turned into dragons on Rhine.

The curves of her muzzle certainly didn’t have the… predatory look seen on older dragons. Instead, she sported a more juvenile appearance, as if dragons had baby fat too. She hadn’t ‘filled up’ either. Not yet at least: contrarily to Schmitt, she didn’t have the curved hips, or even the fully-grown tail that subtly forced female dragons to lean forward and bend their lower back.

Her scales were a mate shade of pink that contrasted heavily with the torn blue coveralls she had on her shoulders. Unlike other dragons, she didn’t have any spikes or horns, instead, fins and frills the likes of which the hippogriff would have pictured on Asian dragons adorned her head and back, all of them a slightly darker shade of pink.

Lilian turned her purple eyes downwards to stare at the Camille. For a second, she was tempted to question the presence of the orange and blue hippogriff with a splint in front of her, but then she spotted the medical satchel it was wearing.

“Hello?” Lilian tilted her head in confusion.

“Hi!” Camille greeted the other Doc. “The name’s Doc Delacroix, buy you can call me Camille. I just flew in from my own ship to offer assistance. I think I’m a bit more familiar with the kind of species you and your crew turned into. Do you have any casualties on board?”

“Yeah there’s me!” A griffon piped in from the back.

He was trying to sit in one of the office’s chairs. Human style that is, which explained his unease. The kestrel/lion griffon -a thin one by his species’ standards- was uncomfortably squirming as he held a blood-soaked rag to one of his forearms.

Camille quirked her head at him.

“Morgan Floyd.” He presented himself after a few seconds. “Welder. Cut myself with those dumb talons. Can you do something about-“

“I can’t turn you back into a human, no.” She cut him off. “Even if I could –and I’ll echo your shipmate on that: I’m a Doctor, not a witch-, you definitely shouldn’t try to turn back into a human.”

“Why?!” The griffon squawked, a question that was quickly echoed by both Lillian and Quinn.

“Deadly radiation basically. Think of it like a solar storm that caused those mutations. Those new bodies can withstand it, but humans… it ain’t pretty, that much I can tell.”

She had seen some of the pictures the guys from Amandine had taken at the HPI facility in France. Floyd seemed like he was about to say something to complain but she beat him to the bush.

“If you’re just going to complain, quit it. There are cases far worse than yours. You could have lost all your digits, been turned into a kid, or even have your genitals swapped around, or all three at the same time. Don’t. Complain.” She stated.

“Genitals?” Quinn balked. “Wait… are you a dude?!”

Camille sighed. This was going to take a while.

Meanwhile Vadim had gone ahead to stabilize the situation. He had a brief meeting with the bridge personnel to tell them they need to get a team on deck stat for the towing.

The bridge team… well, at least the meeting established people in the British Isles could turn into Hedgefogs. Both their Third Officer and the Captain –an old Scot called Skinner- had turned into that particular species, with the former having the unfortunate privilege of turning into a rather petite female of the species.

Either that didn’t bother her or she filed it away for later because she didn’t lose her cool. There weren’t really any wrongdoings in both parties involved in the collision anyway, nothing they could have done would have prevented it; so even though she had been at the helm at the time of the accident, no grudges were held.

Speaking of helm…

Fugro didn’t really partake in the traditional practice of having a standing bridge with several stations. No, far from it. Instead, two seats mounted on rails occupied the center of the bridge, both of them nestled in the center of a myriad of control consoles that made the whole thing look like it had been ripped straight out of science-fiction.

No chart table. No separate radio console. Just one seat for the Captain, and another one for the OOW to manage everything related to navigation. They even had a second pair of seats facing backwards that could look at the deck, just for docking maneuvers, and to control the deck cranes from a distance.

And here Vadim thought Amandine was pretty high-tech…

Outside, a small team of whatever ratings they could find at the time had been assembled to do the emergency towing procedure. From the safety of the bridge, Vadim watched a gargoyle he assumed to be the bosun order a trio of ratings around. They were all still reeling from the change, but it was either push through or get pulled back in the Firth and risk sinking.

“Fugro Symphony, this is Amandine. Over.” Vadim heard Dilip speak up over the VHF.

“Fugro here.” Captain Skinner replied. “What’s the situation? Over.”

“We have located a safe haven for docking and repairs. Please verify if Belfast. I repeat: Belfast is a suitable location. Over.”

“Belfast?” Vadim tilted his head, looking off towards Amandine.

“I think your Captain wants to use the Harland and Wolff yards. That might do the trick.” Skinner guessed. “Green! Bring up the ECDIS and give me a quick estimation on the distance.” He ordered the female Hedgefog in the seat next to him.

“Three hundred and eighty miles to Belfast. At towing speed that’s… two days, give or take.” She replied after a minute.

Skinner fired off a quick confirmation on the VHF before Rhine’s tug finally came into range and it was time to start the towing process.

Once more they found perks to being nonhuman, as the presence of sphinxes and unicorns on the tug allowed them to quickly get the thick towing line from one ship to the other. In a matter of minutes, the sailors on deck tied the end of the tow line – with a bit of chain to avoid chafing damage- to a windlass, added a few ropes to secure the entire thing, and then the tugboat was finally free to start pulling.

Slowly that is. The tugs were still fairly small, and even though Fugro was smaller than Rhine or Amandine, she was no small ship at a gross tonnage of 11.500.

They waited until they were at a safe distance from the Pentland Firth before gathering the crew for some long overdue explanations. Sailors emerged from all over the ship, some covered in soot and oil from the engine room, others still in shock from the transformation, but Skinner gathered them all in a meeting room near the lobby.

By that point they were pretty familiar with the species people could turn into. Parrots, ponies, dragons… nothing new really, though this was the first time Camille got to see a reindeer in the flesh.

A bit underwhelming really, reindeer were basically a winterized version of unicorns with thicker fur and antlers instead of a horn. At least in the looks department. She had yet to see one take to the air like they were supposed to.

There were other… interesting cases as well.

The first female Diamond Dog for one, which showed that females among the canines were indeed bigger than the males. It was one of their engine ratings, a Punjabi that was now stuck with the, ahem, voluptuous appearance of a statuesque border collie. She was right next to another Diamond Dog, this one a male German shepherd that had been rejuvenated a bit too much by the transformation to the point where he looked about pre-teen aged. A puppy.

Then there were two female Abyssinians, one an adult, one a kid that looked like she really wasn’t having a good time.

Finally, the last notable transformation in that merry band of sailors was a female minotaur with shaggy ginger fur not unlike Highland cattle. Much like Nikolaos at first on Rhine, she looked thoroughly pissed off by her predicament, clad in clothing that barely fit her enlarged and womanized frame. Quinn quickly presented her as Glenn, their Assistant Cook.

Camille quickly joined Vadim in front of the assembled audience, and together they spouted the usual explanation on the Event, what had happened and how bad the situation was. To say that elicited a clamor of outrage would have been the understatement of the day, but there was nothing they could do besides giving them the introductory briefing on how to live out the fur-pocalypse.

Obviously nobody would be pleased at the prospect of not getting to see their loved ones ever again.

Soon enough though, the briefing was over and the sailors dispersed once again. To tend to the ship, get acquainted with their new forms, to make some proper clothes (nearly all of them wore ripped or torn coveralls)… They would need training, but that could wait until they hit Belfast.

“Normally we should switch out tugs in a couple hours to let them refuel.” Quinn crossed his arms once everybody was gone except for him, Vadim and Camille.

“Yeah, they’re tugs, range is pretty limited.” Vadim shrugged with his wings. “Keep a few ratings on hand to switch the tow line but…”

“Smooth sailing until Ireland.” Quinn completed.

Vadim nodded.

“We’ll be seeing you.” The Ukrainian griffon said before leaving the room.

The muscles in his wings were already twitching at the prospect of taking to the air, back to Amandine.

Like it or not, but griffons were meant for the air. There was this feeling of fulfillment each time he opened his wings to let their magic lift him up.

Fugro’s helideck shrank as the winds carried him towards Amandine. Off in the distance, he could see Camille’s own form before she disappeared in the fog, heading straight back to Rhine. At least the Doctor was completely unhindered by her broken arm when she was in the air.

Vadim himself couldn’t help letting out a happy squawk as he beat his wings. After weeks spent stuck on the ground or just gliding, the sheer freedom of flight felt like a lead blanket had been lifted off his back.

Micha and Andy were waiting for him on the main deck when he landed, his steel-toed boots hitting the ground with a resounding ‘thump’. As soon as he hit the deck, the kid griffon was on him, pouncing to wrap him in a tight hug.

“Hey there Kotka.” He said in Polish, gently stroking Andy’s feathers with his talons. “Missed me, have you?”

“The impact scared her shitless you know. Rahul took care of her while we were busy.” Micha told him, joining the two and wrapping a wing over Vadim’s back.

“So did I miss anything?”

“Plenty of work for all.” She clicked her beak. “The entire engineering department is running around trying to fix the small damage, and we get to steer the ship towards Belfast. Not too surprising, but we’re going at a slow pace so Fugro keeps up.”

“The passage planning?”

“Done already. Geert and Alej’ did it. We just need to do the sailing from now on. By the way, how were things on Fugro?” She inquired.

“It’s a pretty nice ship, I’ll give them that. Very modern, but then again that’s the case for any purpose-built offshore vessel-“

“No I meant, crew-wise.” Micha interrupted.

“Oh, the usual.” He shrugged. “Plenty of genderswaps, a couple kidified crewmembers. First female Diamond Dog I saw though, which is nice I guess? And, they don’t have hippogriffs.”

“Really? I thought usually Filipinos turned either into a parrot or a hippogriff.”

“They don’t have any on board. A couple Portuguese and Serbians, Indians too, but the rest is mostly Brit or Irish.”

“Offshore protectionism?”

“Offshore protectionism.” Vadim nodded before lifting Andy onto his back. “Now I don’t want to sound needy, but I missed lunch with all this shit. Is Rahul cooking anything? ‘cause I’m starving.”

“He is.” She confirmed, already starting to walk back towards the accommodation.

Vadim let her walk in front, happy with just looking at the way the hen’s rump swayed when she moved her paws, the generous curves barely masked by her coveralls. He felt his own member stir at the thought of what was hidden beneath Micha’s leonine tail before shaking his head vigorously.

Later. Right now he had Andy on his back.

“Jadło!” The hatchling squawked.

“Damn right kiddo, food.” Vadim nodded, a small smile creasing his beak.

A few weeks ago he’d have been weirded out at the idea of finding a mythical creature irresistible, particularly considering his former girlfriend was still vivid in his memory at the time. But now? Blame the griffons’ pair bonding mechanism, but he was damn near addicted to Micha, from the sound of her voice, to her smell, to her looks.

As they say: the mind is a slave of the body. In fact he didn’t have any attraction for humans anymore. He had checked: not a single reaction at the sight of even the best looking women anymore. Weirder even was that with the pair bonding, he wasn’t even particularly interested in creatures that were technically compatible. He only had eyes for Micha who in turn –he had asked- could only feel attraction for him.

Be it pheromones or magic, chances were griffons were unable to commit adultery.

Regardless, he should count himself lucky as far as survivors went. A safe and comfortable shelter in the form of Amandine, the ability to fly, a mate and family.

Nothing worth complaining about.

The route to Belfast was rather simple to chart.

The western parts of Scotland were sheltered from the Atlantic by a long archipelago called the Hebrides. All these islands were some dozen miles or so away from the mainland which left a rather safe channel (compared to the North Atlantic) in the middle for ships to pass through on the way south, between the Outer Hebrides and the Inner Hebrides. That strait was called the Minch.

The three ships thus headed that way to avoid rough seas and minimize their exposure to the open ocean. Fugro led the way, pulled at a slow pace by a lone tug courtesy of Rhine Forest.

The Minch turned out to be smooth sailing. The fog finally cleared up, leaving them with an overcast sky and good visibility that let them see all the grass-covered islands of the archipelago, some of the green color marred by blotches of white. Herds of cattle left abandoned, now grazing merrily on the islands next to the hardy stone houses that used to shelter their owners. The Hebrides were that kind of area left behind by industrial development, the one where cattle outnumbered people and most inhabitants were old folks that still only spoke Gaelic.

Dolphins started flicking around their ships in the strait, their mood far better than that of the engineering departments on both Amandine and Fugro. Schmitt was pacing around in her office, the smell of smoke and burned rubber still strong on her scales that were now dulled by a thin layer of soot thanks to the smoke. Her tail was subconsciously lashing behind her in frustration.

She turned on her heels to face Radiant and Angelo.

“Alright… from the start: what’s in need of a fix, from high to low priority.” She asked.

“Hull damage and the bow thruster come first.” Radiant read out, a clipboard held in his wing’s primaries. “The structure ahead of the collision bulkhead will need to be inspected if we want to know the full extent of the warping damage.”

“And?”

“The transducer on the echosounder is out too. Must have been hit by the impact, it’s in the right area.” Angelo added. “Nothing I can do for that while underway, so we’ll need to dispatch our sounding dinghy to get into port.”

“Does the bridge know?”

“I had a word with Alejandro.” Angelo nodded.

“Good.” The female dragon crossed her arms, tail going still for a second. “What about the quick fixes?”

“Even though he’s still on light duty Carlos volunteered to help. We got plenty of damaged electrical components all over, mostly sensors and a couple fuse boxes in the lower deck, forward section.”

“Can he manage? You know, with his arm…”

“Danny’s with him, working as an extra pair of hands.”

“Keep it that way then. How’s the piping?”

“In the green for now. No alarms to indicate any leak.”

“For now.” Schmitt furrowed her brows. “Dispatch John, I want a plumbing check from spans one to thirty. Anything else?”

“Couple vehicles damaged, nothing we can’t fix. Scarface said you told him to wait ‘til Belfast.”

And boy did the Bulgarian bitch and moan at the prospect of fixing some of the vehicles he had just modified and repaired. Bitching and moaning being something a lot of the engineering guys were doing at the moment.

The crossing to America should have been simple, without much work to be done. They would just have worked on building the full-size version of the oil cleaning machine –because the prototype turned out to be successful- and kept the systems running with the usual maintenance.

But now they were free to look forward to several weeks of repair work and dry-docking. Fan-fucking-tastic.

“Hello world, DJ Jensen here with WSU radio. Lots to talk about today, so get yourself a seat and a drink, because today’s rather important.” Sandra spoke up in her mic, idly glancing at her notes. “I have a surprise for you later in this emission, but let’s start off with the usual advice you’re probably expecting.

Today will be about the vehicle clause. ‘But DJ, what’s the vehicle clause?’ some of you might be asking. Well, here’s one for those who reappeared as pedestrians: if a vehicle is manned, it will be whisked along with its pilot, and it will reappear at the same time.

The hazard in this, is that if said vehicle is in motion, like, a car on the highway, it will reappear in motion. So be careful when crossing the road, because nowadays cars will actually appear out of nowhere, and if the driver suddenly loses his or her hands, there will be no avoiding you. And don’t get me started on planes, the flyboys… they’re proper fucked.

That goes for any vehicle too: ships, planes, trains, in fact even the more ambiguous stuff can be taken along. Here we’ve spotted a couple offshore platforms that disappeared, and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me camping cars and caravans were included as well. Or even a space station. Makes me wonder how the ISS is doing…

Now I realize they can be a boon, but you lot should really be careful with reappearing vehicles ‘cause this can turn to shit real quick. You could go from gaining a dozen survivors for your colony to becoming the next maritime catastrophe.

If you can, try to track down where vehicles were at the time of the Event. Trains ought to be easy. Ships... not so much, but at least you should be able to get a list of what ships were in port at the nearest harbormaster’s office if you can access it.

Roads now… any consultant in risk management would tell you to avoid the main roads and highways. The less used they are, the less risks you expose yourself to.

Of course, less risk doesn’t necessarily mean risk free; believe me that’s something we learned the hard way over here…” She trailed off somberly.

“So that’s it for the vehicle rule… as far as we know. If you have any specific advice, feel free to mail me at the usual satcom address and we can share what info we got on the topic. Remember: I work alongside plenty of sailors and engineers, so any technical knowledge they have, they will gladly share with you all.

On that note do tune in next week for our podcast on diesel generators and how to use them. Not all of us have the luxury of using solar and wind power, so we need to make do with some good old fermented dinosaur juice.”

Sandra paused to check her notes. Right, time to bring up the good news now.

“Now I’m glad to tell you, I have our first invitee on the line. That didn’t take long to happen, so please dear listeners, welcome Miss Naomi on this show.” The purple batpony said, quickly using one wing to flick a switch on her station.

There was a small crackle, before a light lit up indicating her guest was on the line. Satellite comms really were a miracle at times…

“Hello Naomi, how are you doing today?” She quickly asked.

“Oh this thing is on now?” A feminine voice replied with the smallest hint of static in the connection. “Hi San- sorry, I meant Hi DJ!”

“So Naomi, care to present yourself to the audience? I’m sure many isolated survivors would love to hear about someone new.”

“Of course. So yeah, I’m called Naomi, and I am… was a veterinarian before it all went to shit. Now I’ve been turned into a sphinx, which I suppose is rather cool with the wings and magic.”

“And the long life.”

“Right, I tend to forget that. For those not in the know, sphinxes are like dragons when it comes to growing up and aging: apparently we can live for more than a thousand years if we’re careful, and just like the fire lizards, we grow up all the time.”

“So what size are you now?”

“Still smaller than a lion, I compared.”

“You… compared? I’m sorry I don’t get it.” Sandra’s confusion was visible in her tone. “You measured yourself?”

“I meant I compared to an actual lion. I guess I didn’t say that outright, but I’m not in Europe or America. I was volunteering at the Serengeti National Park when the Event struck.”

“In Africa?! Damn girl, you sure do like adventuring.”

“Tanzania to be exact. I don’t really mind the heat, I was born in Texas.” Naomi chuckled. “But yeah, lions don’t seem to mind sphinxes. In fact I’m pretty sure these guys believe I’m actually a lion like them. You ever watched the Lion King? That’s basically my new crib.”

“You’re living with lions?! That’s insane!” Sandra cried out.

There was a growling in the background, accompanied by the sound of two large objects moving about.

“Back off Kimba! I’m not hunting today!” Naomi yelled. “Sorry DJ, just a horny male that can’t catch a hint.”

“Can’t you… I don’t know, live the regular way? I’m pretty sure you could manage by sticking to civilization.”

“I could, but I think I’m on to something.” Naomi answered. “These lions are a lot more clever than they should be, and I’ve been taking care of them –as a human- for a while. Plus it’s not completely wild, believe it or not I modified the den to make it more civilized.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, my Hilux is fucked but the engine works well enough to turn a shaft and run an alternator. I got electricity, satellite comms I pilfered from the park’s facilities –they’re an hour’s walk away anyway-, I’m even starting to pump water from an aquifer. No more need for a watering hole.”

“And the lions?”

“I will educate them.” Naomi said. “They’re great for safety, better than staying alone. Plus it only took me a week to teach them not to touch my stuff and to go relieve themselves in a designated spot. Trying to teach them to let me cut my meat to cook it now…”

“So they do learn.”

“Exactly! In fact… all animals are behaving like they’re a lot more clever than they should recently.”

There was a pause before Naomi let out a disgusted yell.

“For fuck’s sake Kimba! Go hunt with the others but don’t sit on my goddamned tail!” She growled. “Christ, I swear this guy only thinks with his dick.”

“Don’t they all?” Sandra laughed.

“Regardless of the species apparently.” Naomi sniffed. “I’ll teach the big brute one day. But yeah, to sum this all up my situation is as such: returned vet in Kenya living out of a refitted pride’s den in the middle of a reserve. I must say the novelty of living as a sphinx among lions… that wears off quickly.”

“Whelp, there it is. Good luck with teaching the lions Naomi, I hope we will be talking in the future?”

“Sure! Just gotta spare the time to find a couple solar cells and I should have a reliable power source. I should have something on animal behavior in the future. Goodbye DJ.”

There was a click on the line when the sphinx disconnected, and Sandra allowed a smile to grace her features.

“That was Miss Naomi the Texan sphinx living in Tanzania.” She rolled her tongue in her mouth. “Gee, talk about a mouthful. Well folks, that will be it for today. Up next, we’re staying in theme with Africa from Toto.”

Author's Notes:

Fugro Symphony enters the fray. Once more, an actual ship you can look up on Marinetraffic if you want. And a pretty gorgeous one at that if I may add.

You know, post-Event is one of there rare cases where saying 'it came out of nowhere' is actually a viable excuse in case of a collision.

I'll also say, unfortunate as it is, you can't expect survivors in a post-apocalyptic world to put ecology at the top of their priority list. Pollution control already takes a lot of ressources, and these guys don't even have that much manpower to spare.

With the addition of Fugro, there's still less than a hundred of them in total.

On another note, the following Belfast arc will likely have shorter chapters. I'm think 6000 to 7000 words per chapter should give it a faster pace and leave me with enough time to map out menial stuff like SoL scenes down the road.