I don't own Chuck

Chapter 3

"This meeting is called to order." General Beckman, as ever, was serious and somewhat stern-looking. Chuck looked around the table at the rest of the small gathering. Devon looked serious and a little disappointed, perhaps taking his cue from the General. It was such an abnormal expression on his brother-in-law's face that Chuck couldn't help but dwell on the man for a short time. His sister looked serious and guarded. Chuck was more used to that expression – he'd seen it across the Monopoly board regularly as they grew up. Unlike Devon, Ellie was very good at keeping what she was thinking off her face.

She'd been surprised and initially angry to find out that Chuck was an AIA agent. But she'd recovered soon enough after Chuck had explained that he wasn't allowed to tell anyone. She hadn't managed to reclaim control of her emotions so quickly after Chuck had told her about their father. He'd honestly been worried that he'd have to tranquilise her! But she'd got over her double surprise eventually, as had Devon, and proved to be a vital part of the team trying to reverse what had happened to the agents. He thought that part of that was probably down to her wish to actually meet Sarah as a human. Chuck was not looking forward to that meeting! He actually thought that both of them would get on very well but, given that they had lots of dirt on him, he wasn't looking forward to the two most important women in his life comparing notes!

Manoosh Deepak, Beckman's chief computer scientist, looked serious, while Jeff Barnes just looked slightly vacant. The man was a world-class engineer but seriously spacey. Morgan sat almost at parade rest. His friend still wasn't comfortable with senior officers, but he was getting there. Morgan really had grown up enormously since Chuck had left the fleet and gone to work with Sarah and Casey, and he'd had to exist on his own in Space Force for the first time. He had, nevertheless, been grateful when Chuck had managed to wangle him a transfer to the AIA support team. But it was fair to say that, since arriving, he'd really grown in the job. He'd occasionally helped Chuck's team in the field and had really stepped up to the plate when Sarah and Casey went missing.

"So, Lieutenant Commander Bartowski," the General continued, "If I read your report correctly, you've pieced together enough of Orion's code to understand what's going on?"

"That's correct General," Chuck replied with no trace of the stutter that had been the bane of his life before he'd started working with Sarah and Casey. He looked at Ellie and Devon. "Drs Woodcomb and I believe that we've restored most of the key code, but there's a problem." He paused, carrying on before Beckman could ask him what it was. "Previously we assumed that the human bodies were transmuted into the canine bodies but that's not actually the case."

"Oh?" Beckman queried.

"Yes General." This time it was Ellie. "We believe that the agents' consciousnesses were actually transferred from one body to another. The body can be lab grown although, in the case of our agents, the canine body was a sort of transmulch that is affected by the personality of the consciousness being transferred."

"A transmulch?" Beckman queried.

"It's kind of like a neural embryo." Devon explained to the clearly clueless general. "It could be any living thing, but in this case had a canine imprint. But it could be a cat, a pig, or even human if so desired."

"So we could grow bodies for our agents?" asked Beckman excitedly. Chuck was impressed she got it so quickly, but no-one ever said she was stupid. Grumpy, yes. Stupid, no.

"Yes and no, General," Ellie replied. "We can grow a human transmulch, or even a clone, with the DNA for the agents that we hold, but the complexities of the human body mean that it would take of the order of a year."

"That long?" The General was clearly disappointed.

"Yes, General." Ellie confirmed.

"Ma'am?" Chuck asked, slightly nervously.

"Yes, Bartowski?" the General replied.

"There may be another way. We haven't been able to get much information out of Volkov in this form, but I understand from what we have got and from Orion's files that Volkov took our agents' bodies with him when he left the planet. Orion certainly kept Graham's and Montgomery's bodies on ice and we believe that Volkov took them and the bodies of the other agents that he changed as well."

He now had all of the General's attention. "So how would you locate the bodies?" the General asked.

"The last place I was able to track them to was on Angos, Ma'am," he replied, before pausing, wondering if he was going to get his head handed to him.

The General rolled her eyes. "Why do I think you're gonna make another one of your insane suggestions that normally end up plucking victory from the jaws of defeat, Lieutenant Commander?!" If he didn't know better, he'd think that there may actually have been a small smile on the General's face.

There were a few titters round the table but Chuck didn't know from whom; he was too focused on explaining his plan. A part of him was happy about the General's tone and demeanour though; he'd heard her use that tone with Sarah and Casey, but never with him before. That she had, meant that she was starting to see him as a valuable contributor. He quirked a smile. "Probably because I am, ma'am," he acknowledged. "I think we should take the dog-agents, or at least some of them, with us. They're all really experienced agents, several of them have had dealings with Volkoff before and they may be able to help. It would be volunteers only but I think they could be helpful."

"Helpful?" the General sat almost stunned, her eyebrows disappearing into her hairline. "Well it's original, even for you Bartowski. I'll give you that." She paused for a moment, thinking.

"How will you be able to communicate with them?" she asked.

She hadn't laughed in his face, so Chuck took that as a win. "Well, they can understand me," he explained, "and I can understand a lot of what Sarah says. Casey communicates mostly through grunts anyway, which are the same in dog or human language, and I guess the others can communicate through Sarah."

This time there were certainly laughs and the General definitely cracked a smile. Many of the others had had experience with Casey's strange language and she certainly did.

The General sat back in her chair. "I cannot believe I'm actually considering this insane plan. But we've lost half of our special operations agents in this sector, some of our most effective as well. If we can get them back in under a year then it's worth it from my point of view." She stood up. "Lieutenant Commander Bartowski – your mission is authorised. Speak to my adjutant for anything you need. And good luck."

Sarah had been unhappy to say the least to have been excluded from the briefing, and she'd let Chuck know beforehand. And afterwards. While Chuck was sorry for his girlfriend's circumstances, he could point to any one of a number of briefings at the beginning of his involvement with the AIA (and since) from which he'd been excluded as well. When he'd made this point to Sarah she'd seemed to grudgingly accept it. She had been cold and aloof for the rest of the day, but she seemed to have forgiven him by the next morning. Which was good, because that was the day when Chuck had to explain what was going on to the agents.

Even knowing what he knew, Chuck felt faintly foolish knelt down in front of a bunch of dogs explaining the intricacies of the mission.

It had taken what seemed like an age for Morgan to corral the agents. Chuck had heard the Old Earth expression which described herding cats and it certainly seemed apt for their canine brethren as well. Finally, Chuck had lost his temper with Morgan's softly softly approach and yelled, "If any of you lot want to get back to work and be useful again, get over here. If you wanta keep smelling each other's arses all day then don't!"

Chuck was a bit proud of himself for channelling Casey and it seemed to have worked because even Graham perked up and wandered towards Chuck. Casey, Sarah and, interestingly, Carina Miller were in the front row, the others spread out behind them. There was a fair amount of doggy eagerness with tongues lolling out of mouths and wagging tails, and it was all Chuck could do not to giggle at the sight of what now constituted the AIA's finest!

"Alright you lot," Chuck growled, still channelling Casey, "We've managed to figure out most of what was done to you, and we think we've worked out a way to reverse it." There was an excited bark from Casey and his partner bounded forward to lick him.

"But!" Chuck shouted in horror, recoiling away from the German Shepherd and holding his hands up to protect himself. The idea of Casey kissing him filled him with horror. "Wait Casey, there's a 'but'!" he cried, narrowly avoiding a fate worse than death.

Luckily all the agent-dogs had controlled themselves on hearing Chuck qualifying himself and the stampede had halted. Thank God, Chuck told himself. "But," he continued, "we need to transfer your consciousnesses into a human body, and that's where we're having an issue."

He took a deep breath, "It will take us nearly a year to grow new bodies for you." He was unsurprised to hear the doggy expressions of disappointment. Most of the dogs collapsed on their bellies and tails were down all over the place. Only Sarah was still perked up, eyes following him hopefully.

He shot her a smile and continued. "But, if we could find your original bodies then we could initiate the transfer earlier." Suddenly he was centre of attention again. "We've tracked your original bodies, which were taken by Volkoff, to his operations on Angos, and we're going to head there to see if we can get them back."

He winked at Sarah, "Now normally I'd simply lead a team of AIA agents there and try to find your bodies, but there's the possibility that, if they know what we're looking for, they could destroy your bodies." He paused, "So it's been decided that we will go in covertly." He looked around the veritable menagerie in front of him. They were all hanging on his every word. "Normally, we would leave you at home, but I convinced General Beckman that, despite your 'condition', you might still be able to contribute. So, any of you that want to volunteer for this mission should let me or Morgan know and we'll select the most suitable candidates." There was an excited yipping and then Sarah leapt on top of him giving him an enthusiastic licking. Carina followed and would also have licked him, if Sarah hadn't swung on her growling. His protector was clearly determined that after nearly letting Casey get the drop on her, she'd be the only one doing the licking of Chuck, which left Carina and the others having to make do with Morgan. He tried ineffectually to push them off but failed. Noticeably, it was mostly the female agents doing the licking, except Bryce. Casey, Roan and Graham seemed able to control themselves!

"Do I assume you're volunteering?" he asked, receiving an enthusiastic yip and a nuzzling with a very cold nose. "Well, we'd better get to work then," he told her.

As it happened, all of the dog-agents wanted to volunteer. Some were weeded out though; Graham wasn't great with following orders, Beckman wanted to keep Roan with her, and Chuck had always hated Forrest and was damned if he was going to have anything to do with her. So the team ended up being himself, Ellie, Devon and Morgan making up the human contingent, with Sarah, Casey, Bryce, Carina and Greta as the canine one. Ellie and Devon were needed to advise on medical aspects of the mission once they (hopefully) liberated the bodies, while Morgan, himself and the agents would handle the liberating of the bodies (hopefully).

Chuck wasn't wild about taking Bryce, given their history, but was conscious of the fact that they had gotten on well at the Academy before the incident with Jill. He knew from Beckman that Bryce was an effective agent, and his breed's keen eyesight may come in handy. Carina Miller was another that he had worries about. They'd worked with Carina before on a number of missions and her penchant for free styling had often landed either her or her colleagues in trouble. But she was also an effective agent, so it was decided to include her. Greta was unknown to him but had a good reputation as a steady all-rounder, so she'd also been included. Some of the other non-SOAs had been considered but, in the end, they'd been rejected. They would need further training before they were considered for fieldwork.

In the next few days Chuck and his team of analysts built up a lot more detail on Volkoff's operations on Angos and had largely narrowed down the possibilities to three separate locations. So, they were pretty much ready to stage. Sarah and the rest of the dog-agents had been through a barrage of tests and fittings. They now had tailored space suits which they could activate themselves, utility belts, subcutaneous homing beacons and limited two way communications ability. Chuck's self-styled Nerd-team had managed to adapt a translator function which enabled the agent-dogs to manage a few key words and phrases such as Danger, Help Needed, Person of Interest and the agents' names. Maybe they'd be able to come up with a full vocoder over time, but this was the best they could do for now. The dogs, of course, could understand all the humans.

Instead of taking Chuck's team's ship, the Glengoyne, they would take an AIA freighter. The freighter would play taxi for them to their destination and then would stay in the system. In addition to them there would be a small squad of Space Marines in case they needed any heavy support.

Their cover would be as an environmental testing team. Beckman's team had built up a cover for them which included previous references and suggested that dog sense of smell and hearing could detect instabilities in pipes and station structures. It was all bollocks as far as Chuck could tell but it should ensure that they would have access to all sections of the station. Am urgent work request had been inserted into Angos station's system.

The station at Angos was a long, sprawling affair and orbited a gas giant of the same name in an otherwise unexciting system which boasted no habitable planets but did boast two jump nexi. It was far enough away from major shipping lanes not to be too busy, but close enough to the double jump points to have access to most major shipping lanes within a couple of jumps. Perfect for Volkov's kind of business, in other words. The station was home to over ten thousand bodies and boasted nearly twenty thousand separate compartments so they would have their work cut out for them. Chuck had managed to develop a list of Volkoff's agents so they would start by investigating them and their regular haunts.

Hopefully they'd find the right one.

"OK, Sarah and Carina – you're with me. Casey and Bryce – you're with Devon and Ellie, and Greta – you're with Morgan. You two will stay on the ship and be our back up in case one of the other teams gets in trouble." He'd thought a lot about the teams and decided that Carina needed someone strong riding shotgun on her, Bryce on him and that Greta and Morgan were the reserve team. Greta was calm and solid and should be able to keep Morgan calm and when his friend was calm, he was good. When he became panicked then all bets were off!

The 12 day trip to Angos had, happily, been trouble free. The dog-agents had cooperated, which had meant they'd managed to get in some good training, particularly on co-ordination, and he'd been able to do some more work on filling in the blanks on Orion's process. He thought he was now pretty close to getting it to work. There were just a few more pieces of missing code that he needed to fill in. He hoped that that wouldn't take too long. He was ready to have his girlfriend back.

He checked his uniform; it was a tech's uniform this time since he was pretending to be Chief Environmental Tech Charles Carmichael. It looked OK. Then he checked Sarah's and Carina's dog coats. They wore fabric coats around their torsos in the same light blue as his, Ellie's and Devon's uniforms. Sarah's had three pips, showing her to be senior to Carina's two. Casey also had three pips, while Bryce and Greta had two. There had been some objections to the rank structure but Sarah seemed to rapidly put down the potential mutiny with a hard glare at Bryce and Carina, and some bared teeth. The other two had backed down quickly, especially once Casey lent his support. Unsurprisingly there had been no objection from Greta. Chuck was rather looking forward to meeting the agent as a human. She seemed eminently reliable as a dog and he thought she was most likely to be the strong and steady type in real life as well.

"Ready?" he asked, receiving human nods from Ellie and Devon and doggy nods from Sarah and Casey. "Take care of them," he told Casey, nodding to his sister and her husband. While he knew from growing up with her that Ellie was a pretty good actress, he wasn't convinced that Devon would be all that great under cover, but Ellie had vouched for him. Chuck guessed that he would have to be the strong and silent type and let Ellie do most of the talking. His sister would be good at that! Casey gave him a doggy nod while Ellie shot him a betrayed look. He gave her a small smile, then turned and proceeded through the airlock.

A small blond-haired man wearing a red and grey uniform with three gold stripes on the sleeves was waiting for him after he'd swum the tube. Regaining his footing with ease he strode over to meet the man as Sarah dropped out of the tube. Unused to travelling in this form, she staggered, four paws skittering on the deck before she regained her footing.

Hiding his smile at her undignified entrance (which he knew wouldn't go down well with her) Chuck turned to the other man, "Commander Fortescue?" he asked.

"Yes," the other man replied, holding his fist out for a bump, which Chuck did. "Chief Carmichael?"

"Yes sir," he replied, as Carina managed no better a landing than Sarah. Not hiding his grin this time he continued, "And this is my squad, Sarah and Carina, and my second squad is just coming through now."

The man's expression was confused as he seemed to try to work out whether to acknowledge the dogs or not. Deciding not, he turned to Chuck again. "Your work comes highly recommended, Chief," he offered, "But how does it work with the dogs? We don't want any little accidents, if you know what I mean?"

Trying to control a grin which he knew wouldn't be well-received by his partners, he intentionally misunderstood, "You don't have to worry about that, Commander. My team is highly trained. We've never had a mission failure."

"Oh, uh that wasn't really what I meant," the other man replied before a quiet growl from Carina suggested to him that this wasn't likely to be a successful line of approach. By this time the second team had arrived and Chuck set about introducing them.

The Commander led the group to the Maintenance operations centre where they received a safety and emergency briefing. in the course of the briefing it was revealed that they'd be the only dogs on the station, which was hardly going to be great for going unnoticed. Chuck, however, had faith in their cover and he honestly didn't think that anyone would be looking for a canine unit.

Again the briefing officer didn't seem to know whether to address just the humans or the dogs too. As it happened it didn't matter because the dog-agents' emergency suits were better than anything available on the station, being the equivalent of Space Marine skinsuits. Still, the station maintenance team didn't need to know that. The dog-agents sat attentively, listening to all the briefings, and finally, after a few more curious looks, they were cut loose to start their survey.

"What is it Sarah?" Many people wouldn't be aware of the almost sub-audible growl but Chuck was pretty attuned to Sarah's behaviour, whether in human or dog form. It was 20h00 station time and they were sat in Dak's Café in the station's blue sector. Chuck had intentionally set up a route to pass the café because it was a common haunt of Frank Chung, one of Volkoff's senior lieutenants that he'd identified. He'd made a big fuss about taking a break, and left Carina to hold a table for them. He was just finishing ordering a latte for himself and two saucers of milk for his partners.

The perky brunette behind the counter peered nervously down at Sarah. "Is she OK?" she asked.

This time the growl was clearly audible although not loud. Chuck frowned down at his companion. "What's up?" he asked, puzzled, looking around surreptitiously. He couldn't see anything amiss. Suddenly realising that the waitress was waiting for an answer, he explained, "She's just a bit tired I think. It's been a long day and it's always difficult for them to acclimatise to a new place." Conscious of her stiff stance he suggested. "Sarah, why don't you go and join Carina. I'll just finish up here."

Flashing him a look that promised he hadn't heard the last of this, although he still had no idea what "this" was, she stalked off in the direction of the table where Carina was sitting on one of the seats, her green top knot just visible above the table. He wouldn't tell Sarah to her face, but it always looked faintly comical when she stalked in this form. She was just much too cute and fluffy to get away with stalking.

"Oh, isn't she cute," cooed the waitress, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Sarah was trying to be cold and aloof. Her nametag said she was called "Lou".

"Yeah, she's a beauty," Chuck confirmed, smiling in her direction. Sarah continued to ignore him but Carina gave him a look which would have been an eye roll if she were human.

"How long did it take you to train them?" Lou asked.

"Oh," Chuck temporised, knowing that with their enhanced dog hearing, they could probably both hear him. He had to tread carefully here. "They're very intelligent, but both quite cheeky. I think they'd rather say it was them that trained me. They like to keep me on my feet!"

"Do you think you'll be around long?" Lou asked, leaning forward.

Chuck might be slow with some things, but even he knew when a girl was coming onto him. The stiffness of Sarah's stance when he glanced over in her direction made it quite clear that she recognised it as well. Chuck was flabbergasted. She was jealous. Sarah was jealous. He couldn't believe it. Sarah Walker was jealous of this woman chatting up Chuck Bartowski. Like he was interested in any other woman! Once you'd been Sarah Walker's partner any other woman was a step down. Didn't she know that he was crazy head over heels in love with her? He resolved to make it clear to her that she had nothing to worry about.

"Oh, I don't know," he told the server, looking away from the cleavage that she was nearly shoving in his face. The brunette was pretty for sure. But he just wasn't interested. "Things change with very little notice in this job. We could get a call and be out of here tomorrow, or we may be here in two weeks. You just don't know."

"Oh, well if you're around for longer, why don't you stop back?" Lou suggested, giving him a grin.

"Sure," Chuck replied, "and maybe I'll bring my girlfriend next time. It's a lovely place you've got here." He saw the look of disappointment flash across the woman's face but she was quickly in control, and handed over the tray with his latte and the dogs' milks.

"You're always welcome." She turned quickly to another customer that was trying to attract her attention and Chuck picked up the tray and set off towards his partners. Sarah was gazing at him lovingly, all traces of jealousy gone and Chuck gave an internal sigh of relief. One issue taken care of.

"You know, you've never had any competition and you never will." They were back in their quarters on the ship. She looked up at him as he sank down on the floor, leaning his back up against the bed. He patted his thigh as an invitation.

"Don't think you can hide it honey," he explained to her. She looked at him quizzically.

"I may be otherwise clueless Sarah, but I saw your reaction to that waitress."

She looked at him then and he could see all of her doubts and fears reflected in those blue eyes, still just as beautiful as when she was human. He knew and understood many of them. He had his own doubts and worries about whether this mission would be successful, whether it was going to be possible to reverse what his father had done. He also didn't know what he would do if the process failed? But one thing he did know was that his future was with Sarah Walker, dog or human. He wouldn't do better than her and she would need his support if they couldn't fix what Orion had done.

He patted his thigh again and this time she sloped over to him and laid her head on his thigh. He buried his fingers in the soft fur around her neck and massaged her head gently, particularly around her ears. She loved it when he did that, and a soft moan escaped her. Then he pushed her head up so she was facing him again. "Dog or human, I love you Sarah Walker," he told her seriously, "And I'm not interested in any other women…or dogs!" He grinned at her and held her eyes, longing her to understand. He could see the deep emotion behind her eyes, so human in that moment. And then she caught him by surprise, jumping up to his face and licking the entire length of his cheek. He jumped back and she landed on top of him, not letting up on the lick assault.

"Oh gross!" he moaned, not really pushing her away. They wrestled for a few minutes and then he pinned her down and rested his well-licked head against hers. "Not…going…anywhere," he reiterated, wrapping her up in a tight hug, as she made a happy sound in the back of her throat. They rested there on the deck after what had been a long day for both, and eventually faded into a short sleep.

Please review!

Sorry for the delayed update; work and travel got in the way. First time I've said that for a while!

A/N: So a few questions about definitions - tendays are the equivalent of weeks (decimal system; literally ten days) and since they have to go to different planets they have h-units (hours) and m-units (minutes) which are different for different planets (which have different rotations). On ships of the Alliance, days, h- and m-units have the same duration as on the planet of Landing, also known as the capital planet of the Alliance (Queensland). It's the same planet which hosts the Fleet Academy and the Fleet Medical Centre where Ellie and Devon were posted. I noted in the first chapter that this area was settled by those who'd originated from Anglan (the UK) and they're a bit big on everything British, although as with all history, lots of things have been lost in translation. In this timeline Old Earth doesn't exist any more so they don't have access to a lot of that history and don't understand that a lot of their understood history is inaccurate.