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_ Chapter 1 – Return _

_ <Unnamed UEDF Capital Class ship> _

_ {Deck 14: Main Hanger} _

[August 18, 2088]

As the shuttle gently settled into the cradle that had been waiting for it, the occupants began to stand and shake out the cramps from being in a sitting position for slightly too long, without the opportunity to move and relieve said cramps sooner. Among them, one individual stood out.

Said individual was a moderately tall anthro dragon, of apparent eastern phenotype. They had red fur with a gray underbelly (if the fur at their neck traveled all the way down at least) and on the underside of their tail. On the opposite side of the tail was a shock of white mane that started on top of their head, traveled down their back (again, covered by their clothes) and ended at the tip of their tail in a fluffy tuft, similar to a lion's, only larger.

The individual quickly made their way to the hatch, then paused for a moment as if in contemplation of something. With no apparent warning, there were several loud thunks as the clamps settled into place, then the door hissed open.

Outside the shuttle was a lone anthro wolf with white fur mixed with bits of gray. The arctic wolf smiled slightly, then extended a hand to the dragon. They traded grips, then the wolf spoke. "Welcome back Canith. It's definitely been a while. I hope the apprenticeship went well."

Canith, the red dragon, smiled back, showing just a touch of fang. "Kai wasn't so bad, but Melody? Ugh." He lowered his head a bit and shook it. "She kept insisting I call her either 'Cap', 'Captain', or 'Boss'. I get she doesn't like her name, but honestly- does she really need to hide it that bad?"

This pulled a laugh from the arctic wolf, and the turned towards a nearby lift. "I don't know. I do know that Kai is looking at having a relationship with her though. He had been near obsessed with her the last couple months. By the way, did you get that new capacitor the core crew was yammering for?"

Canith reached toward the shuttle, and a bag came flying out of it, zig-zaging through the two others that were disembarking. It came to rest in his hand, and he passed it to the wolf. "I did Snow, just as they asked. The lab on that moon base is still thankful to us, three years later."

Snow shrugged, and took the bag. "It works out for all of us. The get protection that's a short call away, we get esoteric parts that might not be mainstream yet. Occasionally, we even get some of their human population coming over here to be changed. I wasn't a fan at first of letting them know we have that tech, but you were right- they are isolated enough that word cannot spread, and they know they would loose access to it if they ratted us out."

Canith nodded sagely as they boarded a lift recently vacated, and made their way up towards the top of the ship. As various decks flickered by, he could tell that a lot had changed on the ship since he had headed out just under a year ago. The living decks seemed warmer, more lived in, while the more functional decks had received a finishing pass. All in all, it looked more like a home than an empty husk now.

They arrived at the 3rd floor and the doors opened with a near silent hiss and click, and Snow motioned for Canith to follow. He did, and they made their way down the hall, passing a multitude of stations and meeting rooms, as well as dedicated rooms for managing everything from shields to supplies. Canith shook his head at some of them, recalling that in the original plan their had been extra rooms here for anything logistical in nature that he had overlooked. Apparently, he had over-planned.

They finally made their way to the bridge, and Snow palmed the door open, revealing that this place too had been remodeled slightly. All the consoles were fully finished, the burn marks from the confrontation to take full control had been buffed out, and most of the chairs had been modified to allow for tails and in some cases wings. There was a small mixed crew here, and most of them had faces he did not recognize.

The wolf gave a military style salute to him and called out "Captain on deck!" before finishing the salute and motioning him to the command chair. The dragon shook his head at this, before addressing the crew.

"I know most of you don't personally know me, so for the time being carry on with your assigned tasks. I will set up meetings with you all later, so we can get to know each other better." He looked around, and added, with a wink to the wolf, "On a professional, level, of course."

Several of the individuals on the bridge rolled there eyes at this, and most of these were anthros. One or two others gave nervous chuckles, and of these he vaguely recognized them. But there were a couple, mainly humans, who looked a bit confused. Most of these looks became blushes as their nearby anthro neighbors leaned over and enlightened them to the old freedom of partners on board the Tiamat.

Canith's shields were much more refined than they had been a year prior, and he let some surface thoughts through to test the waters.

'Wow, that was rather unprofessional.'

'Man, I can't believe he did that in front of humans.'

'Maybe he would make an exception for me.'

The last one, a lapin morph anthro in the back near the communications terminal, saw him glance in their- no, definitely a her by what he was picking up from her mind, and sent her a mental image of the wink he sent to Snow, with a whispered thought that the professional meeting could be followed by a more casual meeting if she liked.

This set her off to blushing enough to show through her fur, which was a rich chestnut color, with a slight nod. He walked around the bridge for a couple minutes, shaking hands and exchanging a few words with everyone there. Once done, he motioned for Snow to follow and waved as he walked off the bridge. Once off, he once again listened to the mental atmosphere. This time around, instead of specific comments, he tested the general feelings. And what he found was that, while his initial impression was a bit cavalier, he definitely seemed more professional after. And that made him thankful for both of the captains he had studied under.

"Yeah, I remember that smug smile. You like what you are 'hearing'. I figured you would have no issues." Snow and Canith started walking back down the hall, and they chatted a bit about various systems and individuals.

As they turned the corner toward the grav lifts, Canith had a particularly strong though. 'How is the scientist couple I recruited coming along? I know they had been talking during the heist a year ago about be 100% down for being 'modded, but I have been busy and not keeping up like I should have."

The entered the lift at this point, and Snow pressed the button for the 6th floor- which was only 2 down from where they were on the bridge floor. As they began moving, Snow spoke up again. "They are doing fine. Ironically enough, although they want kids, well, kittens now, they had decided to wait a bit before actually getting one or the other pregnant."

“Wait a sec," Canith said, interrupting Snow as they slowed down at the floor they were getting off at. “You mean to tell me they might flip the roles in the relationship?"

Snow snickered at this. “Yeah. The lady seems to be quite dominate, and want to impregnate him. On the flip side, he wants the standard dynamic of the mother to reside with the one who originally female. It doesn't help that if we simply fixed them, she would not have a choice. But as both can be female AND male, it makes for an interesting argument that they normally take out in the bedroom when the tension hits the high point."

“And how often does that happen?" Canith asked as the headed out of the lift and down the hall. This deck, if he recalled correctly, was dedicated to genetic and scientific research, and was a front on the original blueprints for the E-Deck on the Tiamat- The genetic modification deck. Now, he could see what Snow, who was the one in charge of the old and the new decks, had made of it.

“I think their record so far is 2 days." The pair continued toward the front on the ship, passing actual labs and research centers. There was an atmosphere of professionalism and surety here, and white coated humans and anthros walked down the hall, stood by having conversations, and in general were busy.

They continued on, Canith thinking on this, before noting that Snow had not made a distinction on his previous comment. “Wait, two days without arguing, or two days before it hit the breaking point. If the latter, what is their usual time frame?"

Snow grinned at him when he asked, showing a predatory bit of fang in that grin. “Oh, usually they can make it till the end of the shift. Sometimes they have to take an extended lunch. I think their record was because of a stray comment about how they were acting like horny teenagers, and they made a bet on who could stay in chastity the longest. I recall getting complaints that second night that they were exceptionally loud, overcoming the sound dampening."

This made Canith stop and hold his belly as he laughed long and hard, imagining the two in that situation. They had originally were his first choice for specialists for the special core that this ship, an as-yet unnamed capital sized ship, utilized. That thought, the lack of a name for the ship, had needled him throughout his apprenticeship. He had a though about this, but it would have to wait till he had some quiet time with his AI before he finalized it.

Finally, they reached the massive lab at the front of the ship. It was nearly twice as large as the bridge, and was lined with over a hundred normal sized 'pods' similar to what was on the Tiamat. These, he knew from personal experience, would act as genetic stabilizers for those who had been human and modified into anthros, as well as helping with minor changes and issues that arose. One nice thing they did as well on the Tiamat, was acted as a form of contraceptive. The AI on board there, Sylph, essentially balanced everyone's hormone levels so that they would not conceive, keeping the population on the ship at a set level. It could, of course, be removed or even boosted, as was the case with the Captain's daughter Sylvie, but generally everyone preferred the no children policy.

Here though, was a different story. This ship was a city unto itself, and could carry multiple generations at a time. Even with various trips to stations, seeking out humans and anthros alike who were dissatisfied with the status quo and recruiting them, the roster was still very light. He had enough for a skeleton crew and a decent number of scientist and military alike, but they had room for so many more.

Looking back around, he noticed that unlike the Tiamat, which had one larger pod in the middle for initial modification and major issues, the new lab had dozens. They were not quite as large, but still had plenty of room compared to the old one.

Snow motioned behind them when he saw that Canith had not turned around yet. He did so, and noted that one wall was a shower/locker area, complete with jumpsuits for modesty. However, there was not a wall blocking it from the pods. "We figured that anyone going into a pod would quickly lose any modesty they might have had. This way, if something happens soon after the pod we don't have to run around a wall to help, or not catch it due to lack of vision. Everyone on the project agreed that it was a sound idea, and no one has had a complaint about it."

He looked to the opposite side, and saw that it had a large server system, and several more terminals than the Tiamat's two. "More crew working here I'm guessing?"

"Yeah, most are on lunch or on standby. There was a surprisingly large number of what I call 'natural anthros' that joined the crew, and they don't need to visit us unless they want to. Some do, of course, but not as many as you might think. We do encourage anyone, human or anthro, to visit us before purposefully or accidentally (he winked at this one) starting a family. We can alter the hormone levels of pure humans to prevent or help pregnancy, same as anthros, without altering their pure status. The Martins are a good example of why this practice is a good one. Imagine if they decided that they couldn't decide who would be the 'Mother' and knocked each other up?"

"Would definitely make for an interesting family dynamic, but one of them would still have to answer to 'mommy'." Snow nodded in acknowledgment, and motioned for Canith to approach one of the pods in the middle.

"I know you just got here, and you have had access to the Tiamat's labs for the most part, but I still want to run a physical here. On top of that, I want to see if the updated systems can detect anything extra about you that the older system might have missed."

Canith nodded in agreement, and stepped up to the pod closest to them. As he did so, he did the mental twist he had associated with clothing himself in the hard-light facsimile of clothing through the K-crystals that he wore on his wrists, leaving him nude with the exception of the two bracelets and the torc-like binding on his tail, which held a quantum-entangled k-crystal that was linked to a sister crystal on the Tiamat, as well as his AI's crystalline core installed here on this ship.

Like on the Tiamat, a panel appeared, made of actual hard-light, when he was in proximity to the pod. It also registered the fact that he was already an anthro, and that the pod was empty and in standby. After maneuvering the displays to choose physical mode, and to maintain a clear shell instead of making it opaque, he stepped into it and turned around, curling his tail around the bottom of the tube.

It hissed shut, and with a click, the lid locked into place. A mask, a simple one for oxygen, came down and he let his face push into it. As he did so, the material wrapped around his muzzle, covering it and his eyes while wrapping around the back of his head. The first time he had done this, as a human, there had been a bit between his teeth that had immediately administered a chemical cocktail that had knocked him out to be changed. This time, it simply did an O2 mix to allow him to breath normally.

The tank quickly began filling with a slightly cool liquid which over the course of a couple minutes had him buoyed in the middle of the tank as it was filled. Various scans then ran over his body, while a faint electrical current could be felt running through the liquid itself. 'The liquid is about 70% water, and 20% of the same chemical cocktail we use to modify with. It's programmed at the moment, but should anything need be changed it's there if we need it. The last 10% is essentially a mineral oil cocktail that should help with deficiencies associated with being in space.'

He simply let this mental sending flow through him as he floated there, letting the scans do their thing. After about 20 minutes, his natural body heat had headed the mix to a comfortable level. After 30 min, he as beginning to grow a bit sleepy, and then his AI chimed in. 'I just detected that your O2 levels are dropping. Seeing as you are on the equivalence of an automated ventilator at the moment, and they are not quite to the dangerous levels, I will be manually boosting the levels back up by 5% for you.'

'Also, I like the name. You should tell Snow when you get out of the "bath".' Used to Aura being privy to his thoughts, he mentally thanked her- not through telepathy, but through the neural uplink embedded in his right temple.

After a few more minutes, and the tiredness receding, there was a click and the tank began cycling, removing the mixture he had been floating in for processing. Once nearly done, the mask retracted from his face, giving him a relatively large blast of fresh air in the process. Finally, the last of the fluid finished draining out and the pod's seal popped open, letting him out. As the air hit his fur, he felt the weight of the minerals and chemicals still coating him head to foot. He quickly walked over to the showers, running himself a mildly warm (to him) shower that had a decent bit of steam billowing up from the water. As he meticulously cleaned his fur out, Snow walked up with a hard-light terminal attached to his wrist, going over various scans and readings.

He leaned against the wall, and began talking as Canith started cleaning off his tail. "Well, my wish came true. As expected, the readings were more accurate in there, and gave me some interesting insight as to why you are an outlier in strength. Also, I think you might have given me a lead on how to induce at least minor shifting of levels one and two into non shifting anthros. On the flip side, however, your scans also revealed that one of the O2 filters is faulty, and gave out within the last week. Luckily, no one has used that pod recently except for you, so no harm no foul."

Canith looked over his shoulder at the wolf. "Well, am I health doc?"

Snow merely rolled his eyes at this. "If you wasn't, Aura would tell you. Assuming, of course, they didn't figure out a way to correct it themselves. I didn't detect any of the modification mix being activated, so there IS that. For once." The last the wolf said under their breath, but Canith still heard it and couldn't blame him. It seemed that every time he ended up in a pod Aura would pop in for 'minor' adjustments to his genetic makeup. It had become a running joke between him and Snow that Canith could be considered the most volatile of the modded anthros on a ship simply due to Aura's meddling. But that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, either.

“Anyways . . ." Snow said, flipping through several more graphs and charts. “Everything looks good. Nothing outside of the norm, and the mineral re-balance should have helped you as well." As he was speaking, Canith finished washing the residue out of his fur and turned off the water. Snow pointed him to a corner, where a waterproof fur dryer was set up. He quickly stepped under it, drying out much faster than he would have normally. That done, with a thought he re-clothed himself in the image of a jumpsuit to preserve modesty, and together they made their way to the engineering section to meet the Martin couple.

“If I have told you once, I have told you a thousand times, you silly cat. The readings and our testing have shown that power can and should be brought up by another 5%, else the backup could cause an overload or a surge- it all depends on which system fails first!" The accuser, an attractive female serval, made this announcement to their mate, who stood by a terminal but faced her directly.

“And as I have told YOU, you finicky female feline, raising power by another 5% would potentially short out several resistors due to the increased load. We should only bring it up by, at maximum, 2% and hold steady there. If there is no issues, and we can get the higher rated resistors from the moon base, THEN we can go up an additional 3%." He stood there, making this declaration, while pointing at the terminal between them.

This was the situation Canith walked into, as Snow caught a snippet of the argument, looked at Canith and said simply 'Nope', and promptly walked the other direction. Canith strode in, and looked at both of them, while consulting with Aura. When Aura responded to the safe answer, he suddenly understood why Snow wanted no part of this.

“Really you two? Arguing over a potential situation on the backup shielding like it's the primary and going to tear us apart?. Seriously, you two getting changed must have regressed your age while they were at it."

Both looked at him and reacted similarly. Rushing him, they gave him a hug. “Canith! You are back! For good this time?" He looked at them in confusion for a moment.

After an award moment without him answering, they both backed up a pace, and seemed to collect themselves. “Apologies, we both find that months after our change we are still rather . . . excitable. Snow swears there is nothing wrong mentally with us, but it must be jarring to walk in on that." The male was talking at this point, with the female nodding along.

“Yes, yes, Dewayne, more excitable, but more focused as well. Sometimes too focused." Margret stated, waving her hand in a motion to continue.

It was at this point that Canith had to stop himself, for he almost said they should work it out in the bedroom. But from what Snow had mentioned, it seemed that had not helped either. He looked around, and noticed they were the only three in the area, which made sense with their argument.

“So according to Snow, you cannot seem to decide who gets to be the male and female in your relationship now, is that right? And is this the root cause for all the 'arguments' that you have been having?" Both looked at him blankly, then around them and each other before blushing slightly.

“Yeah, sounds about right. That was another issue that finally came up when we discussed changing to anthros. We knew, from Aura, that gender could be rather fluid. So we worked on loosening the gender roles we were used to. It was fun, and scary at times, but we figured it would help." Margret said, walking over to hold Dewayne's hand.

“What we didn't count on, however, was the possibility that both of us would and could end up as herms, like yourself. When that happened, we continued playing around, and discovered an issue." Dewayne continued the narrative, without skipping a beat. They really seemed more in sync than as humans, and if their work was this good together, he couldn't figure out why they were having issues.

“And that issue," Margret said, once more taking the lead, “ is that both of us love to penetrate, but also love to be penetrated. So now, all that work on relaxing our roles turned on us and bit us on the ass."

Dewayne once more spoke up. “You see, we understand the necessity of having defined family roles, which is why this becomes an issue- much as she was born to the female sex, she feels that she has no motherly instincts, other than wanting a child."

Margret provided the counterpoint. “And he claims that even though he enjoys penetration, he would not naturally have the maternal instincts that I supposedly would have. So as you can see, neither of us would have the instincts for it, but both have the hormones for it. So we have constantly trying to prove who's more dominant, and the submissive one would carry the child."

Canith looked back and forth between them, and placed his hand over his eyes in the best approximation of a facepalm he could. The issue was so simple, yet neither of them wanted to back down. But from that, an idea sparked.

“Fine, neither of you have kids." This of course sparked both of them shouting about the absurdity of that notion, but suddenly they both stopped and listened to themselves and looked at each other.

They distanced themselves for a couple minutes, talking barely above a whisper. All the while, Canith simply stood where he was, arms crossed. Finally, they once more approached, and both were grinning.

“I don't believe such a simple statement could have such a profound effect, but I believe you managed to cut through our argument. I was too focused on the mechanics of the problem and not the notion of it." Margret stated, shaking her head.

“And I," Dewayne said, chuckling to himself, “Was to tied up in traditional roles as opposed to what would be good for the children themselves. So we reached what could be considered a compromise."

“Oh?" Was all Canith said, allowing them to explain.

“I shall still be the mother for the children, but I will not be the one to carry them." Margret stated.

“That, of course, will be my job, I'm not opposed to it, I simply did not feel that I would have the maternal instincts for it." Dewayne blushed at this, as he seemed to be slightly turned on by the concept.

“Good, so is your feud finally over with?" Canith said, hoping that this would be enough.

“Yes." They said as one. Then Dewayne spoke up. “Of course, we will need to let this idea settle over the next few days or months, to ensure both of us are truly good with this. But we both have some . . . private ideas for that."

“Great then. Hopefully all issues are as easy to solve as that, but I know better than to get my hopes up to high on that."

They chatted a bit more about how the core was doing, as aside from them Canith was the most knowledgeable about it, and about their general transition. Eventually though, he begged their leave and walked out, leaving the couple working together quietly.

Canith's next stop was down a few more decks, there the military section trained, practiced, and had their offices. Aura had given him the heads up (quite literally a heads up display in this case) of where the next individual was for his visit. He strolled down the hall, with no one giving him more than a cursory glance. He found this strange at first, as while most of the individuals he saw were anthros, no one seemed to pay him much mind.

Finally though, he made it to the office he was aiming for. After a quick knock on the door, a gruff voice on the other side simply said 'Enter' and he palmed the door open and stepped inside. Sitting at the desk across from him was a wolf anthro with reddish-tawny fur and a grim scowl. After the door clicked shut, he glanced up once before getting back to his paperwork.

“Figured you would be coming by when I heard word that 'A Red-Furred Dragon with eastern looking decent' disembarked a shuttle a couple hours ago, and was accompanied by the distinguished Snow himself." He let out a huff, somewhere between a cough and a laugh, and leaned back in his chair, looking Canith over. “So, boss, what can I do for ya?"

Canith knew, logically, that Davis had pretty well decided on the wolf phenotype when they had performed the heist, but it appeared that the former human had bulked up quite a bit in the time between then and now, in addition to growing a pelt of fur and a rather interesting personality.

“Just checking in with the various crew members. How did the transition go with you and those NCO's?"

This drew a rather feral grin from Davis. “Me and Snow had a bit of a discussion about it, and had a fun though. He did some subliminal tinkering, lightly and easily pushed past of course, and then had me change first. The next time the boys saw me, two weeks later, they knew it was me and was prepped. All in all, out of the twelve of them who survived the heist, eight of them also chose wolf. The four who didn't all had rather interesting choices as well- one went western dragon, one eastern, one went fox, and the last went shark."

The last one caught him off guard. “Shark? That's a rarity in and of itself. I thought they were considered to aggressive for the original anthro hybrid programs?"

Aura clicked through on the small holo-terminal that was positioned on Davis' desk. They were, but after some initial testing, it was found that they would be okay for hybrid programs in fields that called for violence. However, that was initially also frowned upon due to the 'peaceful' nature of the anthro mission. This, of course, is no longer the case."

“So? He any good?" Canith asked, directing the question to Davis, who had his hands behind his head and was grinning.

“Hell yeah he is. He has to be careful though- Snow had to coach him quite a bit more than the others when he turned, and when he fights, you can tell he holds back. But if you push him, and I have, he slips a bit. It ends poorly for the poor fool on the other side, unless we manage to get him to come back to."

Canith pondered this for a second. “What do you mean, 'come back to'?"

Instead of saying, Davis flicked his wrist, and Canith noticed a band, similar to what Snow had been wearing, nestled in his fur. A hard-light terminal sprang from this, and after a few moments and a swipe, a video appeared in front of Canith.

The individuals in question was the western dragon he had mentioned, who was a deep purple, almost blue in color, against the shark. He was huge, almost eight feet tall, and the dragon was only seven, maybe seven-two tops. The circled each other with K-blades out, a spear for the dragon and a massive ax that fit his frame in the case of the shark. They traded blows, but nothing major.

The video sped up, and several minutes go by. They had continued to trade blows, and then finally he saw it. The shark seemed to be taunted by the dragon, and eventually he lets loose. The K-blade forgotten, he rushes the dragon, who tries to fend the shark off, but the shark seems to slide out of the way of the blows easily. He lands a strike, and continues past, circling around and doing it again. Each blow is wicked looking, and the dragon is quickly losing both ground and blood from the hits.

It was only then that Canith saw what was drawing the blood, and the issue therein. As the shark comes in, he aims a fist, but also a bite at the dragon. It was logical to dodge the bite, but if you tried he phased and got you anyways.

Eventually several others had to come in and restrain the shark, who after struggling for a couple minutes seem to come to, as if waking up. He can be seen approaching the dragon, and seems to be apologetic, but the dragon just grins and waves it off.

“And thus why we have issues- holding back in training hurts everyone, and he can't truly let loose because no one hear can keep up with him when he gets into a blood frenzy." He looks at Canith over the video, “And in case you are wondering, once he smells blood that happens anyways. But anyone can trigger it if he gets angry enough."

“Yikes, I might have to go a round or two with him myself, if I'm found challenging enough to help." This drew a laugh from Davis.

“Sure thing boss. But to get to him you gotta get through the gauntlet- at least, that's what the pack is calling it these days." Canith raised an eye ridge at this.

“The pack?"

Davis shrugged. “Get enough wolves together, and instinct kicks in apparently. Wasn't as big a deal on the Tiamat, according to Snow, but here?" He gestures around. “Thanks to some preemptive and creative thinking, I'm the alpha around here. That core group is the reason no one wants to pick a fight with me- the other wolves have to have a turn first, thus the gauntlet started. You want to fight someone, you gotta go through the proper channels, and work up to them. It's pretty much pack hierarchy." Davis gave an easy grin. “Between you and me though, I would appreciate that you go a bit easy on me if you go full tilt with me. I may be alpha here, but I have actually seen you in action, and it's not easy to imagine what would happen if you went for the kill instead of simple disarms."

Canith ducked his head a bit at this. “Yeah, both Kai and Melody insisted that I keep fit, and I can kind of understand why they would insist if this is the case. So you start the paperwork and let me know when the first fight I need to do is scheduled, and I'll see you around, okay?"

“Works for me. Should be a week or so- got a new batch in a couple days ago, so once their shakedown is finished it will be time to slot them in for some fights. I will put your name in the pool as well." Davis made a few notes, then they both said farewell.

Canith stepped out and walked back to the nearest grav lift, intent of going over to his quarters for some sleep. He hadn't gotten any for almost 26 hours and it was starting to tell on him, even though he had stood watch for almost 36 hours straight as a hazing exercise from Melody as revenge for using her name too freely.