CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories by J. Posthumus (read after txt) 📕

of men armed with primitive assault rifles that had suddenly come through the wormhole rather than the expected government dignitaries.

It wasn’t that Zheng He couldn’t deal with the boarders, Fujiwara reflected as a masked man in a brightly colored uniform pushed him to his knees, it was that dealing with the boarding action without worsening the political landscape of Dzamglin was tricky. The room could be flooded with gas, given a wide-dispersal stun pause, or, in a really bad situation, local control of the Transit room overridden and a wormhole opened to space.

Clearly, that last option would remain that, a final option. Used in case of an existential threat to the ship or the Terran Republic. But the others had to remain final options for now, too, as long as Zheng He bore the burden of guilt for—

For what? Theft? Chicken-napping?

Fujiwara watched from the corner of his eye as a soldier forced Father Cahill to his knees. The translation matrix was still iffy when it came to Dzamglin, but the problem appeared to be religious in nature. The white-robed Dominican was the expert there, for obvious reasons, but Fujiwara was feeling a pang of guilt for asking him to join him now—as if he’d known they’d be boarded. He stifled a sigh and settled in for whatever was going to come next.

The encounter with Menendez had left Williams with the hope that he might actually be able to pull this thing off, and after managing to hump the chest all the way through the ship to his quarters without incident, he was feeling pretty good about the next few months. Even Vance’s clear irritation with the enormous chest couldn’t dent his growing good mood. His bunkmate groused predictably about the space it would require, and in response Williams produced his gifts: cakes, knife, and finally, erotic holos. The chicken he kept covered under his jacket, frantically slamming the lid closed and sitting on it to muffle a curious “cluck?”

Vance eyed him skeptically. Williams found himself unwilling to address the elephantine fowl in the room, and that was the first chip in his mood. The second came in the form of a blasted “Security Alert in Transit Three” over the ship’s address.

And that last, fatal blow to his edifice of goodwill was the very special chirping that came from the communicator woven into his sleeve. The chirp that meant that Zheng He Actual, either Ol’ Fujiwara himself, or whoever he’d pass the conn to, was calling you directly. Enlisted men fresh from shore leave rarely got happy voices behind that chirp.

Williams buried his face in his hands and moaned. A muffled and sympathetic cluck answered him.

The minister— or at least a man dressed in identical garb to the minister— approached Fujiwara. He had a bare knife thrust through his belt, with blood dried on the blade and staining the robe. “The fowl,” he said, accentuating the word, “has embarked this ship of wonders. I feel it. It feels me. On Dzamglin, it was— and then was gone. Now, anew, I feel it.”

Fujiwara traded a glance with Cahill. The priest gave as much of a shrug as he could manage with his hands behind his head.

“You do not know our ways,” the man continued. “This I understand. But for one who has consumed the flesh of the of the fowl’s kind, there is kinship with the living fowl. It knows us. We know it.”

“And it is a… sacrifice?” Father Cahill prompted, testing the word. “An act of worship for some deity?”

Half-glimpsed brows furrowed. “O crass superstition! Nothing so vain. In consuming its flesh, communion with the eternal! In reading its entrails, a glance behind heaven’s curtains, the stage-setting of the universal play!”

Fujiwara shot Father Cahill a glance. The priest shook his head a little and managed to work his hands a little closer together to surreptitiously depress the spot in the cuff of his sleeve that would disable the translation matrix as he spoke. “Plenty to study, Al. Doubt it’ll help right now.”

“Last seen, our fowl, with a man tall and tawny. The keeper of his hostel declared him pleasing to the eye, but empty of head,” the minister said, oblivious to the priest’s aside. “Return it posthaste, and no more will we say, but rather, depart immediately for our own earthy globe.”

“Williams,” Father Cahill sighed.

“Williams,” Fujiwara agreed.

Williams unnecessarily pressed his cuff to his ear—he’d seen it done in a holovid at a formative age and never broken the habit. “Go for Williams, Actual.”

“Spacer Williams,” Ramirez’s voice came in an almost resigned sigh, “Do you have this stupid bird?”

“Commander?” Williams asked, as innocently as he could manage while sitting atop an ornate and clucking chest while his bunkmate glared daggers at him.

“Mr. Williams,” the XO began again, “You are an excellent spacer, but why the captain continues to allow you shore leave is beyond me. It’s a disaster every time you go ashore. Fifteen minutes after you returned from shore leave, Dzamglin Central is calling us looking for some sort of sacrifice that disappeared during the shore leave rotation. Ten minutes after that, a dozen men are holding the captain and chaplain hostage in Transit Three, looking for a bird last seen in the company of a man matching your description.

“Now, Mr. Williams, because you’re a good and honorable if somewhat stupid spacer, I am offering you two choices. You can bring whatever animal you brought with you— in defiance of the clearly stated Lister Protocols— to Transit Three, or I can come to your quarters with a security detachment and we will have our own little looksee.”

Williams bit his lip and shot Vance a pleading look.

“Don’t look at me. All I know is that you’ve dragged some box in here and now it’s clucking,” the other man snapped. He raised his voice. “Commander Ramirez, I don’t know anything about any of this. Williams just—”

“I know, Spacer. Williams?”

The bird clucked.

“Alright, Commander. I… I’ll bring the