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

an overloaded dome. My third one that morning. There’s just. So. Much. Of it!

Extra-Orbital Fowl Coop X10 was supposed to have state-of-the-art care and vacuuming systems to deal with the waste from millions of boneless chickens. The chickens could float gravity-free in a free-range air pool within one of ten segments, clucking, eating, growing, and readying for sale to the meat markets of this corner of the universe. Tiny vacuum drones flew among them, sucking in the waste for disposal, compression, and transport back to the farms and gardens of this corner of the universe.

“It’s all exactly as the brochures say,” I grunted. My parents always chose the worst moments to call. “It’s great. Someone must keep the compactors and packaging systems and miles of tubing working.”

“And maintain those tiny drones,” my mother said with forced brightness.

And to whom do these onerous tasks fall?

That’s right. They fall to the lesser sons of glorious space pioneers, who have a good stomach for space even if they flunked out of SES.

Not that I said this aloud. I did say, with as much nobility and determination as I could muster. “It’s my lot in life. My chance at responsibility and leadership!”

“Coordinator of EOFC X10,” my dad said, as if that was an achievement.

“Mostly just a janitor and engineer-executives on Earth are in charge. I have very little say. Except for maintenance schedules and where to keep the ice cream.”

“Well, we’re proud of your achievements and we support you.”

A bleep interrupted.

“Oh! It’s your sister.” Mom’s face brightened so much it was embarrassing. “We should take this. But we’ll talk to you later, Rigs. Love you!”

I sighed, finished up with the drone, and stretched the kinks from my back. Carrying extra weight didn’t make these jobs any easier.

It is inevitable that one puts on a few pounds in low-gravity situations. What of it? It was not as though I had anybody to impress out there, several AU from direct human or alien interaction, except for technicians who rotated in on shifts.

Like Z’layna.

Seven feet of glorious, graceful, curved perfection, her skin a heavenly shade of pale blue, her wide amber eyes gently slanted and always looking down a slim nose (possibly because I’m only five-ten). She gave all the usual credentials. But she seemed anything but just another technician. Far too qualified. She carried herself like… like the poised and powerful captain of fleets that my family always wanted me to be.

And, in keeping with the haughty demeanor, she barely spoke. For weeks on end, I got five words daily from her: “Morning. Yes, sir. No, sir.”

It was the condescending way she said “sir,” that cemented my opinion that she was something more. So infinitely beyond my league that I knew there was no recovering my heart.

Marchant and the other techs received more conversation. At least to the extent that they verified duties, arranged schedules, or asked for the mustard. Beyond that, Z’layna kept to her job and then to her cabin, her nose in whatever holobook engrossed her attention that day.

What, I wondered, was she doing on a space farm for boneless chickens?

And how, I wracked my brains late into featureless nights, could I ever convince her to stay?

It was her last day. Her sixtieth at EOFC X10. The day when the regular transport arrived to collect slaughtered boneless chickens, and carry them to the processing station whereat the feathers and other extraneous matter would be removed. And leave a replacement tech, carrying Z’layna away to her next assignment.

My last chance to make an impression.

To impress the statuesque goddess of my dreams.

My last day to—

“Morning,” she remarked, breezing by me in her usual brusque manner.

“Last,” I choked, “day…”

“I beg your pardon, sir?” Z’layna stayed her stately stride and partly turned.

I pulled myself together to say, “So, it’s your last day, Z’layna.” Gruffly. In exactly the tone my father used when he clumped me on the head in a friendly “good dog” pat and sent me off to boarding school.

“Yes, sir,” she said, exactly as she always did, and resumed her walk.

“I—” Bounding after her a little too quickly in the artificial gravity, I bumped against the metal wall of the corridor and then collided with her. “Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t mention it. Now, if you will excuse me, sir, I have my duties to see to.”

“I just wanted to say, I hope you have a good, um, future and…”

“Thank you, sir.”

I jumped ahead and opened the door into Segment 3, gravity shifting into nothingness as we stepped through and a pervasive cacophony of clucking pushing into us. “So… Are you returning to Earth, or your home world, or… What is your home world, anyway? I don’t think you’ve ever said.”

Stupid Rigby. If you’d stuck it out at SES, you would know that kind of thing!

Z’layna didn’t answer. She didn’t even seem to hear the second question. “No, I’m staying at the processing station for the next shift.”

“Why?!” I blurted, then attempted to formulate it into a more sensible question. “I mean, most techs return planetside whenever they can.”

“What about you, sir? You haven’t been back to Earth in fourteen standard months.”

“You… you know that about me?” I murmured, barely hearing my own voice over the clucks.

“Stop burbling and close your mouth. You’ll get a feather up your trachea.”

Before I could do either of those impossible things, my communicator bleeped.

“Yes?” I choked into it.

“Feathers. Trachea,” Z’layna repeated, drifting off to adjust the feed output valve.

“A ship is incoming, dude,” Marchant drawled.

“The transport must’ve been early.” I cleared my throat. “They usually send an alert or something.”

“You have an incoming message.”

“That would explain it. Late as always. Syd couldn’t care less about his job or anybody else’s.”

Marchant cut me off. “Not that old Mneion weasel this time. It’s a holochat request.”

“Huh…” I looked around at the discolored walls, semi-rusted tubing, and a blobby hen flapping flabby wings past my head. “OK, I’ll head to my office.”

“Cool.”

It really doesn’t do to have an angry fowl drift into the holoprojection during