And so comes the time to post the first chapter of my first story on ! How exciting!

The only thing that I need to point out at this time is the first character to appear in this fiction, Chance. Chance was originally a character from the S.C. Wolfe series "The X-Generation."

Wolfe has long since erased everything from his profile, and given me permission to use the characters that were of his design and creation.

The point of saying so was: Even though Chance is a foreign character to many of you who will be reading this work of fiction, I will do my best to fill in the gaps. Eventually (with permission), I will be posting an edited and revised version of the late "X-Generation."

Until then…

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The Greenhorn

Stephen89

The Border Collie sat in his wheelchair. With the cold light emitted by twenty computer monitor screens as his only company, the cano-sapien sighed. Rover command center could get to be a lonely place when there were no missions on the board.

Chance amused himself by balancing on the back tires of his chair while he watched a loading bar inch it's way across one of the numerous displays. His ear flicked in annoyance as the loading bar suddenly stopped, and an error message flashed up on screen. "It was a long-shot anyway." He sighed to himself as he opened up the main command screen and closed the error message.

Somewhere in the background, chance could hear the grunting and crashing sound of Muzzle, the Rottweiler, approaching. A sure sign that the Master was awake.

Chance continued his work, uninterrupted as Sheppard and Muzzle walked in. then again, all he could do at the moment was wait patiently as loading bars were replaced with error messages. The Master rubbed the back of his neck and looked meaningfully at the analog clock hanging over the door.

"Chance, its four thirty in the morning. You need your rest." Sheppard said as he scanned the computer screens' data.

Currently the only human in the Road Rover operations, Sheppard was almost as brilliant as Chance was. He worked just as hard as Chance, that was for sure.

"So do you, Sir. You've had only about three hours of sleep this week." Chance lowered the front wheels of his chair back to the ground. "It isn't a thirty-hour work day, you know."

"When you have as many critics as I do, Chance, it's more along the lines of a forty-hour work day." Sheppard replied, making his way over to the corner of the room, where a small pot of coffee sat steaming.

"All due respect, Sheppard, but the United Nations didn't exactly care for my High Altitude Rail Cannon concept." Chance spared a moment to look at the blue prints, cast aside on a drawing table to his left. "Pity. It could have had so many uses. The heat-generating system would have been more than enough to power an aircraft with a quarter of the fuel currently required."

"Chance. Focus." Sheppard interrupted past the rim of his mug.

Chance had a very bad habit of getting carried off-subject like that. The Border Collie nodded, and turned his copper-gold eyes back to the computer screens. "So. What are you working on?" the master asked, looking at the bombardment of error messages.

"It's a bit of a surprise, but at this point that's honestly because I doubt I can get this experiment to work." Chance replied as he closed out five more messages.

"Can I have a hint?" The Master asked his tone rather informal.

Chance knew the master wasn't an idiot, and had probably figured out the point of the experiment just by reading the screens' data windows.

"Yeah." Chance sighed. "It has to do with doubling the strength of certain Road Rover operatives."

"Oh, now that I didn't expect to hear." Sheppard took another sip of his coffee; black, with no sugar, if Chance's nose was as good as breed standard.

"I've also been working on a new design for our blaster energy weapons. It will be more of a laser gun now." Chance pulled up the blueprints. "It's a little more intimidating to look at, for starters, and has more penetration and less surface displacement."

"A kill-weapon?"

"Yes, sir. After the lessons learned by the X-Generation, I fear we may need more powerful weapons." Chance replied.

Chance slapped at his keyboard, pausing the loading bars. Not loading bars, The Master realized. They're programs running some kind of simulated test.

"Do you," Sheppard paused to formulate the question in his mind, "Do you ever think about your team?"

"All the time." Chance moved some papers off of his work space, and exposed a framed picture of six Rovers. Long ago, the Road Rovers had been captured by a man by the name of White, who had planned on brainwashing the Rovers into loyalty to his organization. It had been the job of the X-Generation to recover the Road Rovers before any harm befell them or the world.

"I sure could use their company at times." Chance admitted to himself out loud. The "X-Gen" had taken four casualties, two of which were fatal. Being such, after their main objective had been completed, the X-Gen was disbanded and the dogs were returned to their respective homes.

Chance, having no hope for a normal life as a dog, was allowed to remain on-base as a permanent Rover. His spine had been crushed during a conflict with General Parvo during the early days of the X-Gen. As a result; Chance was now confined to the base, where he used his elevated intelligence in every way possible. He worked as "Mission Control" for Rover missions all over the world, providing technical support, intelligence, and mechanical insight. The rovers had seen a five percent increase in mission successes within the first month.

Chance had the heart of an inventor. If there was ever a clear mission board, as was the case that day, he could always be found with some blueprint or another. "Only one in one hundred of my inventions ever works," he had once explained, "But every hundredth time, I hit gold, and life improves for us all."

"This time," Chance suddenly said, as though he had been reading Sheppard's thoughts, "I'm improving life for Muzzle."

Chance slapped the ENTER key on his keyboard. Formulas and chemical equations suddenly popped up on screen next to six images of muzzle. Three were of the Rottweiler in his canine form, a form not seen since the early failures of the transdogmafier, and three were of the Rottweiler in his never-quite-accomplished cano-sapien form.

"Chance." The Master choked. "What is all of this?"

"I think I can fix him." Chance replied, reinitializing the series of loading bars.