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

make a slithery sound when they slip out from the sand, but we’d heard scratching in the distance.”

“Steady on, men,” Captain Choquette murmured. “Be careful you don’t step on any exploding rocks, and for the love of space, do not stop to smell any alien flowers.”

LeRoy didn’t know what that was about, but in the dim light of the tricorder, he saw the Logic First Officer shudder, so he knew it was important. He could feel his heart hammering with anxiety and anticipation. A dangerous mission on an alien world with his captain and first officer! This was every low-ranking security crewman’s nightmare, but LeRoy’s dream come true. He had to work to control his breathing, lest he give his excitement — and their position — away.

Kun’pau spoke with his usual emotionless tone. “There’s movement ahead. It appears to be in a small clearing.”

The captain called for everyone to pause where the trees thinned. As the captain gave commands for them to fan out and flood the creature with light then phaser fire, LeRoy squinted, eyes straining to see shadow among the shadow.

It was huge. A roundish body on two thin legs. Thick neck. Sharp beak poking the ground. A leg raised, and he heard the scraping of the dirt. He imagined the screams of Calusian Brown as he met his end at the claws of his namesake.

And he couldn’t take it anymore.

“You screamed your own name and ran after it, didn’t you?” Enigo asked, his arms crossed, his smirk clear in the firelight. Caught up in the story, he’d finished his meal and picked his teeth with one of the tiny bones.

LeRoy wasn’t going to let his boss take away his big moment. “Exactly! With the mighty cry of LeRoy Jenkins, I charged the beast. It looked up, but too late, and it was too dark for it to make an attack. It fled, but I leapt! I caught it by the tailfeathers. It turned, and I swear I saw its eyes glow an evil amber. Then I realized it was the concentrated fire from the phasers. It shrieked, but then it ran. I had to let go in case it tried to drag me over an exploding rock or something. But I came away with a handful of tail feathers.”

“Bueno!”

“Yes, sir! Commander Kun’pau was able to use my trophies to readjust our tricorders to better seek out the creature. It was fast — crazy fast. We moved as quickly as we could, with the other teams converging on our position. The captain and Commander Kun’pau argued as we tracked the beast. The commander was saying that he didn’t find any other similar life forms on the entire continent. He speculated that it was the last of its kind, and we should catch it and put it in a zoo for study. Captain Choquette said it was a wounded animal and a proven killer and had to die. They could study it postmortem.

“We came to a cliff face with narrow tunnels. The ship’s sensors said they all led to a kind of quarry with no other exits. The captain ordered us all to take one tunnel each. If the Brown came at us, he said, we were to shoot the walls and try to bury it alive or at least cut off its escape from that tunnel.”

“Why not just collapse enough tunnels that you could go in teams?” Ellie asked, but was shushed by her friend Misha, who was listening with wide-eyed wonder.

“So?” Misha asked. “What happened? Who found it first?”

“Captain Choquette, of course, followed by Commander Kun’pau. I came in fourth, which was just as well, because it was the craziest thing I’d ever seen.”

LeRoy emerged from a dark tunnel into a dead-end canyon filled with phosphorescent light.

“Hold your fire!” Choquette ordered.

Automatically, LeRoy removed his finger from where it had rested by (but not on) the trigger and paused to take in the surroundings. The beast was indeed chicken-shaped, five-foot at the shoulder, thickly feathered and with desperate hatred in its eyes. Its wings were unfurled; its feathers fluffed. It looked from one person to another, sometimes advancing an aggressive step, but always retreating back to a covering position. Around the boxy enclosure were piles upon piles of the egg-shaped rocks like those the governor had had in his home.

“Kun’pau, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” the captain asked.

“I believe so, but given the circumstances, we must be certain. You are aware of the Logic technique of joining two minds.”

“I can just tell you my theory,” the captain responded, then paused to tell the next security crewman about to barge from his tunnel to stay calm.

Kun’pau said, “No, Captain. I meant I could join minds with the creature.”

“Oh! Commander, I know it’s a terrible personal lowering of mental barriers — but then again, it’s a giant chicken. It’s not like it’s going to care about your innermost thoughts. You don’t have to touch it, do you? Because I don’t think it’ll let us stroke its beak.”

“I’ll do my best.” He holstered his phaser, then reached out empty hands toward the frightening fowl. By a miracle, it did not rush forward to bite his fingers, but watched the Logic intently, its head tilting with abrupt, curious movements.

Kun’pau spoke the joining chant, his voice growing in strain with each phrase. “My mind reaches to yours. Our psyches stretch toward each other. Our minds touch. Our minds… are merging… merging. Our minds are — BWAK!”

Kun’pau broke away, flinging himself back and falling into the security officer behind him. He looked around himself, eyes wide, keen and blank at the same time. His head shifted in sharp movements, taking in each person, the egg-shaped rocks, the chicken, the beetles on the ground.

“Bwak!”

“Kun’pau!” Choquette ran to him, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him gently. “Kun’pau, speak to me. What’s happened? What does it want?”

The Logic looked at him with pleading eyes, “Bwak!”

Suddenly, the Calusian Brown