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

“Yes, ma’am.”

Silence stretched until Jeb broke it with a huff. “Well, out with it, Minion! Campfires are made for telling stories.”

LeRoy, who was a lower-enlisted redshirt among officers, looked at the expectant faces with uncharacteristic shyness. “Really?”

Enigo frowned. “Does the captain need to tell you twice?”

His tone was more teasing than serious. He’d been wanting to hear the story behind the mission logs of Pullet VI since LeRoy had come back from shore leave with a headdress of feathers and a three-pound chicken leg in each fist.

Thus encouraged, LeRoy pulled his hand out of his pocket, revealing a necklace of neck bones. He fingered them like prayer beads as he spoke. Everyone leaned forward to listen.

“It was my first away mission. We’d been called to Pullet VI because the colony was in trouble. I was assigned to watch over Captain Choquette…”

Minion Basic LeRoy Jenkins stood at ramrod attention inside the office of what looked like a 20th-century Midwestern farmhouse. Of course, it was made with alien materials using 24th-century technology, but over the centuries human tastes had evolved and devolved, and country chic was back in vogue among colonists.

Governor Farrugia sat at the desk and frowned grimly at LeRoy’s human captain and Logic first officer as he summarized what Choquette would have read in the situation reports, but the readers have not. “The situation is dire, Captain. About three months ago, we opened up a new coop. The area was rich with sorghum beetles, the weather mild… perfect for laying hens.”

The captain nodded. “Yes, we’re aware of that. The first shipments of eggs were heralded as the ambrosia of breakfast. Food critics were going wild.”

“Exactly! The profits over the next year would have allowed us to colonize the northern continent, but disaster struck. First, it was little things. A broken fence, a scratched-out piece of lawn. Then one of our best hens started screaming in the night, then another the next night. Finally, three weeks ago, they all stopped laying. Let’s not even get into the molting!

“We figured something was coming by at night, scaring the hens, though none of them were hurt. Still, we had contracts to fill. So, we put out guards.”

He sighed, then moved aside a ceramic rooster to turn his console so Choquette could see the screen. “This is Calusian Brown, one of my best poultrymen.”

The screen held the image of a dead man with foot-long gashes that tore not just across but into his body, so that his guts hung out. In among the furrows were large, irregular holes.

LeRoy gulped.

Captain Choquette leaned forward, the doily in his chair slipping to the seat. “Sacré poulet! Did anyone see what did this?”

On cue, the door opened, and a man stepped through. “I have. A glimpse, anyway. It was cloudy, and as you know, Pullet VI doesn’t have a moon. It was big and feathery. The creature, I mean. I shot it.”

“You mean you shot at it,” Kun’pau, the Logic first officer, corrected. He was good at that.

But the newcomer only rolled his eyes and held out his phaser. “No, I shot it. With this. Didn’t even slow it down. So, we’ve made our report. Production’s shut down. The rooster is stress-molting. If the Union wants Pullet Grade As, you’re going to have to do something about it.”

The captain smirked. “That’s why we’re here.”

The newcomer sneered back. “You HuFleet types think you’re so tough, don’t you? Starships, phaser banks. You can’t use a starship phaser to kill something in the forest. That’s where the sorghum beetles breed.”

LeRoy was ready to rush forward and deck the colonist for his impertinence.

The captain, however, shrugged and said, “I don’t think it will come to that. I’ll start assigning security teams with heavier weaponry and we’ll scour the woods for your oiseau effrayant.”

“Oh, no,” Governor Farrugia said. “We’re calling it a Calusian Brown. Cal always wanted a new breed named after him.”

As they stood to go, Kun’pau paused to pick up an egg-shaped object from a metal pail on a shelf. “What is this?”

Farrugia shrugged. “A rock. It’s the strangest thing; the beetles move them around. My wife collects them. We have bucketloads all over the house. They’re weirdly uniform. She and some of the ladies are thinking about making them into things. People, bunnies, fat little starships. Want one?”

He set it down. “That won’t be necessary.”

“He didn’t think that was weird?” Ellie asked. Had she been there, she was certain she’d have pinged on the odd coincidence, and she’s right. Her mind was a continuous hive of activity, constantly buzzing, and producing conclusions like bees make honey. Her training on the UFS Mary Sue had made her not only an able apiary of her own mind, but also the youngest ops officer in the fleet.

“He may have, ma’am, but Commander Kun’pau was the methodical sort, so he always kept his thoughts to himself until just after the captain started figuring it out.

“So, anyway, we got to work. The captain ordered the ship’s counselor to help the colonists calm the chickens. Fortunately, she grew up in rural Ohio on Earth. She rounded up a bunch of off-duty crewmen and brought them down. They spent hours cradling chickens and rubbing their beaks while the guys from Engineering who had a string quartet played music. It was kind of surreal. I was glad when the captain asked me to go with him to patrol the woods.”

LeRoy set his chin on his fist. Jeb smiled. He did love it when his people relaxed. The last of the sunlight had faded, and on inspiration, he reached over to switch on the flashlight that was strapped onto LeRoy’s arm for convenience. The light illuminated the young man’s earnest face in the appropriately spooky way as he continued his tale.

“We went out in groups of four. I was with the captain, Commander Kun’pau, and Minion Guy. It was pitch dark, and those sorghum beetles