The red warning lights went off, and the others began unbuckling their seatbelts, while I still hadn’t recovered from the intense forces experienced during the ship's cosmic velocity, leaving me frozen in my seat.

"First time?" A large yellow dog said to me with a grin. He had some features reminiscent of a Labrador.

"Yeah." I replied as I unsteadily stood up, activating the magnetic boots. The sudden pull and the sensation of floating stirred my brain, making me feel nauseous.

"You're lucky, getting to experience the flagship's quadrennial landing. Usually, rookies board the ship via space elevator." He continued talking, but my brain wasn’t functioning well enough to direct my body. "Hey, take it slow." The big dog squatted beside me, adjusting my boots so I could plant my feet on the ground. "It's like a puppy learning to walk, but you'll get used to it." He patted my shoulder encouragingly. "No one forgets their first time; it's like learning to walk all over again." Before I realized I needed it, the yellow dog handed me a ziplock bag with some fabric inside, then turned away to attend to his own tasks.

"Private Luther, report to Alpha Section One, the port side, immediately." The uncompromising voice from the personal terminal on my arm left me momentarily unsure of what to do with the bag of orange liquid in my hand. I quickly glanced at the direction indicator and the map, considering my very limited options.

"I don’t need an orderly!" The gray wolf, dressed in a red uniform coat, paced back and forth in front of the communicator. His pure white fur flickered with a silver glow as he passed through the projection.

"That’s not up to you." The German shepherd said in an emotionless tone, to which the gray wolf responded with a furious roar, slamming his fist onto the touch panel and cutting off the communication. He then shot me a fierce glare.

"Private Luther reporting, Captain!" I recalled the humiliating experience of basic training and quickly saluted, nearly tripping over myself due to the magnetic boots tightly clinging to the floor—something that shouldn’t be possible in a zero-gravity environment.

After what felt like an eternity of tense silence, the gray wolf's bristled fur gradually settled down. He sighed, lowered his head, and closed his eyes as if accepting the arrangement of some unavoidable force. "My orderly doesn’t need to salute me." He adjusted his uniform, returning to a normal stance and locking eyes with me. The pressure from his blue eyes sent a shiver down my spine. "And it's Admiral." He casually waved his hand towards a nearby live feed. "I command the entire fleet, not just a single ship."

In the projection, I could see the enormous flagship bearing the black, red, and yellow crest of the German House, surrounded by ships of various sizes. In the stillness, the fleet exuded a formidable aura, so strong that it seemed I could almost feel the heat and rumbling of the nuclear fusion reactors at work.

"I despise unnecessary formalities, so your job…" The gray wolf's words pulled my attention back, but he was immediately interrupted by a mechanical voice broadcast.

"Exiting Gaia Buffer Zone, initiating artificial gravity."

As the normal white light turned on, I felt my stomach drop. It felt great to be standing on solid ground again.

"…as I was saying, your job…" The gray wolf was interrupted again, and it took us both a moment to realize what had happened.

Orange viscous liquid was dripping down from his head, gathering at the tips of his white fur before falling onto his red coat and black boots. I must not have thought through my decision to leave the vomit bag floating up by the ceiling.

The white wolf’s nose twitched twice, clearly understanding the cause and effect from the smell.

"…Maybe we should start here." Those blue eyes seemed to burn with intensity.

"'Private Luther, where’s your brain?' 'Private Luther, is there any part of you that works besides that mouth?' 'Private Luther, if you utter one more syllable of nonsense, I’ll find some other use for your tongue!'…" I imitated the dumb wolf’s tone, mimicking him in a sarcastic, exaggerated voice, trying to vent some frustration. I was certain that cleaning the deck with a toothbrush was a form of punishment; cleaning robots were much more efficient. But I didn’t want to test if he’d really make me clean the deck with my tongue, so I kept my mouth shut.

"Black Alert, entering Gaia Buffer Zone…"

"'Private Luther, don’t you know that during a Black Alert, you're supposed to be in a shielded cabin, not wandering around outside?'" I grumbled as I passed through the hatch, feeling the floating sensation as the artificial gravity disengaged. I was about to activate my magnetic boots, but the scene before me left me so shocked that I forgot what I was about to do.

The Admiral was standing in front of an observation window that, for some unknown reason, hadn’t been covered with lead panels, gazing intently at something. This was against safety procedures; cosmic rays could kill us in seconds!

But the gray wolf’s expression made me hesitate. That deep gaze led me to follow his line of sight out the window.

In the vastness of deep space, only a few sparse points of light could be seen, and even they were so faint they were barely visible. In the direction we were headed, I could just make out a small, bluish-gray celestial body. So small, so lonely, drifting in the endless void.

"Is that… Gaia?" I heard myself murmur.

"Yes." The gray wolf replied simply, but it explained everything.

For a long time after that, neither of us spoke, just staring out the window.

"I’m surprised to see a young gray wolf joining the navy." He finally broke the silence. "But which faction are you from? I don’t recall seeing such stripes and fur color." The white wolf glanced at me before turning back to the view.

"Strike three. The judge gave me a choice: enlist or face a death sentence carried out over twenty years." I replied. "And I'm a mutt." I couldn’t tear my gaze away from Gaia, floating so isolated in space, watching as the bluish-gray planet slowly grew larger. "I’m just a commoner."

"Oh." The Admiral cleared his throat, quickly adjusting his already perfectly tailored red uniform coat, looking somewhat flustered. "But I think, in essence, we're all the same." His words were rushed, as if he was trying to find a random topic to break the awkward tension after mistaking my species. "The purebred dog families, who’ve overbred to the point of inbreeding, need gray wolves, or mutts who’ve hybridized to the extreme, to 'repair' their bloodlines."

"What?" Hearing this for the first time, I found it hard to believe.

"To preserve the traits that a family takes the most pride in, purebred dogs must intermarry within closely related bloodlines so that their characteristics won’t be diluted." He spoke in a somewhat detached tone, as if his thoughts had drifted far away. "But what remains isn’t just the desired traits, but also the deadly flaws that were overlooked at the start." He pointed to our reflections in the window. "Noses so short they cause suffocation, skulls so malformed they damage the brain, tongues so long they block the airway…" He listed each body part one by one, explaining.

"Most purebred dogs have existed for less than a thousand years. Compared to gray wolves who’ve adapted through two million years of evolution, they’re essentially an unstable young species. So it’s very accurate to view purebred dogs as a neotenous form of gray wolves." He pointed to his own snout and ears.

"The simplest strategy to reverse the curses flowing in their blood is to 'reconnect' with their ancestors—the gray wolves—restoring the defective parts to their original design." He tapped his chest twice, then slowly pointed to my reflection in the glass. "Another option, though less effective, is to hybridize with mutts who have a wide variety of backup components, using other functional structures to replace the faulty ones."

Following the Admiral’s fingertip, I looked at the reflections of the two of us in the window and only then realized how similar we actually were—a pure white gray wolf and a dark-furred mutt with deep brown stripes—both with erect ears, prominent muzzles, and unmistakably sharp wolf eyes.

"I never thought that marrying a mutt could have this effect." Now I understood why I’d been told that during the enlistment examination. "I always thought that was a gray wolf thing." Honestly, I never really understood the problems purebred dogs faced; it was too far removed from my world. All I knew were the rumors going around, saying purebred dogs had inbred themselves into idiots, which was why the Canine Empire had so many issues.

"The Emperor’s system has made purebred gray wolves rarer and rarer." He muttered. "So ironically, my position could easily be yours." He continued to explain, seeing my confused expression. "Strictly speaking, this fleet belongs to my wife; I’m just in charge of commanding it." He chuckled, as if he’d thought of a funny joke. "I only got this position thanks to the title I acquired through marriage."

I didn’t know how to respond to such a candid explanation. As mentioned before, there was almost no interaction between commoners and nobility, so naturally, I wouldn’t know these things.

"Due to an accident, I had to perform a spacewalk within Gaia’s domain to repair the ship's hull." He lightly tapped the spot on the window representing Gaia with his fingernail. "That was the first time I witnessed such a scene—floating alone in the complete silence of the void, fully realizing how limited the space I occupy in this world truly is. The sheer magnitude of it overwhelmed me to the point where I started crying and nearly choked on my own tears." I looked at the planet by his fingertip, pondering how such a tiny sphere could hold all of us. "I think no matter how many years pass, that profound impact will never fade."

I could understand what he meant. It's... an indescribable intensity, something you can’t truly comprehend without seeing it with your own eyes. I also felt something stirring in my chest, lodged in my throat.

"But don't forget about cleaning the deck," the White Wolf turned back to me with a playful smile, pointing to the toothbrush I had forgotten I was still holding. "Otherwise, trying to do it with your tongue would be much harder." After saying that, he gave the deck a gentle push and floated towards the hatch.

As the Admiral left, the lead panel slid shut over the window, pulling me out of that indescribable view. I crouched down and continued scrubbing the deck with the toothbrush. Yet my thoughts remained deeply immersed in the void, resonating with those blue eyes that shone in unison with the silent planet.