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

periodically behind them, they got the pulley system working and the nets ascending. Other members of the engineering team helped the packages ascend smoothly while they were coming up the ladder.

The first propulsion pack having come up, Bas swung it onto his shoulders. Helen checked Bas’s gear after he’d strapped in, then stepped back with a snappy thumbs up. Bas headed for the center of the core. Chickens drifted past him, and he realized that they were figuring out how to maneuver when they scattered, flapping, as he pushed the throttle. He was hoping to grab Chamberlain before the man had an episode. Or Bas lost control of his laughter.

Chamberlain was failing his arms and legs madly, swiping at a nearby chicken with the net. He was nearly gibbering with rage.

Bas swooped around him, reluctant to get too close to the net. “Would you like me to take you back to the access, sir?” he asked politely, from a safe distance.

“I’d like to kill all the chickens!” Chamberlain shouted. “Kill them and rip their foul heads off!”

Bas winced. He hoped Gert was out of earshot. “We are going to corral them, sir. But you are currently in the way.”

“Corral them and run them through the mincer!” Chamberlain didn’t seem to notice that he was drifting slightly. Not through his own efforts, which were vigorous, but the slight Coriolis effect of the spinning station. It was more noticeable closer to the shell of the core, which was the physics behind the vortex of chickens. At the moment, disturbed by Bas’s passage through them, it was a loose Brownian motion cloud of chickens.

Bas continued his slow orbit around the older man, considering his options. He wasn’t worried about the damage that butterfly net—or Chamberlain—would do to him. If the man got a solid hit on the propulsion pack, though…

“At least let me take you to the shell,” Bas offered. “Are you wearing magnetics?”

“Magnetics?” Chamberlain echoed with a look of confusion.

This was the first time he had responded coherently. Bas took it as a mixed result. Good, he had his attention. Bad, no way of anchoring the man.

Bas gritted his teeth and forced out the next words through gritted teeth. “We need you to leave the core. So we can catch the chickens.” As he was speaking, Bas triggered the com unit that was clipped to his uniform shirt collar. He thought Chamberlain might respond better to Sam, speaking as the voice of authority.

Afterward, Bas was never able to learn just what went through Chamberlain’s mind. He conceded it was possible Chamberlain himself might not have known. At the time, Bas didn’t have the time to analyze it, though.

With a roar of rage, Chamberlain lost any shred of restraint and began striking out with the net. Bas, startled, squeezed the propulsion controls and shot away from the park manager. He could see that the man was literally foaming at the mouth, his spittle not falling as he ranted incoherently.

Fascinated, Bas halted his retreat as he realized the net was actually propelling Chamberlain directionally. Before, he’d been battling chickens in all directions. Now? The object of his homicidal intention hovered in one place. Bas moved closer. Chamberlain propelled himself, like some bizarre sort of fan-powered boat, backwards. Bas started to herd him in reverse.

Bas tried to make a plan on the fly. He couldn’t force Chamberlain back into the access tube. The raging man was in no shape to climb down the ladder, and the fall would kill him.

The only other option was to point him toward the gaggle of techs gathered at the far end of the core and get help securing the madman before returning him to safety.

Bas clicked the comm on and spoke. “Connect to Gertrude Saar.”

“Connecting,” the mechanical voice droned.

An odd sound blasted in his ear. Bas tilted his head away from the little speaker. “Volume down.”

Gert’s voice came through, gasping. “S-sorry, Bas! We can’t help it!”

Bas realized he heard laughing. He was close enough now to make out Helen and Lindsey clinging to one another, giggling.

“I need you guys to net Chamberlain,” he barked.

Bas didn’t have time to find the situation amusing. He had reverse thrusters for maneuverability and braking. Chamberlain did not. His speed was ever increasing. The only way to safely stop that much momentum was to gently slow him. Which the stretchy cargo net would hopefully do.

“Got it, boss.” He heard from Helen.

Before he could protest he was nobody’s boss, the crew scattered. Helen and Jake, who were wearing propulsion packs but had the sense not to tangle with the still screaming Chamberlain, stayed on the shell with the two husbandry techs and spread out with the net. It didn’t cover the whole cross section of the core, but Bas could aim the park manager. Chamberlain, Bas noted absently as he calculated trajectories in his head, was running out of steam. Chamberlain had grown hoarse, and the swipes of his net were slowing.

Chamberlain hit the net feet first. His look of surprise was comical. He dropped the butterfly catcher as he tangled into the soft mesh of the cargo net, and the shock seemed to give him a second wind. He started kicking and thrashing. But this only made the tangling worse.

Helen yelped. “He’s heavy!”

Jake growled from his side of the core in response. “No shit, Sherlock.”

“Let go of your end, Helen,” Bas ordered. “Let him drift. Jake, anchor. Lindsey’s closest. She can come to you and add her weight.” Bas got around to the loose end of the net a minute later and brought it around.

Chamberlain, tossing and turning against his restraint, making hoarse sounds and panting heavily, only made it easier.

When the long strip of extruded plastic emerged from the access tube a little later, all of them were too worn out from the stress to be surprised. Bas tilted his head back as the thin plastic strip came up and up…

Sam’s voice sounded irritated. “Come give me a hand with this.”