USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestselling author Margo Bond Collins is a former college English professor who, tired of explaining the difference between “hanged” and “hung,” turned to writing romance novels instead. (Sometimes her heroines kiss the monsters—other times, her heroines kill them.)
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Motherclucker
A Space Traipse: Hold My Beer Story
Karina Fabian
Motherclucker
Karina Fabian
Captain’s Log, Intergalactic Date 677202.81
We’re doing a standard survey of Peridion Axel V, a terrible name, but if the planet turns out to be good for colonization, I’m sure they’ll come up with something better. It looked like a routine mission, so, of course, an unexpected ion storm hit the system just as some unknown aliens showed up to attack my ship. Long story short, we are stuck here until First Officer Smythe and my crew handle the situation and pick us up. Good thing I brought my fishing pole.
Peridion Axel V, which really did have a terrible name, was a typical M class planet with abundant vegetation and a variety of lower life forms. So far, none of the life forms had shown any aggressive tendencies, so the away team of the HMB Impulsive had decided to set up a campfire outside the shuttle. Seven lovely trout-like fish roasted over the merry flames. Captain Jebediah Tiberius was rather proud of his catch, especially since he hadn’t needed a phaser or dynamite.
In the shuttle, their botanist, Lieutenant Misha Rosien, was putting away the last of the samples she’d gathered. Lieutenant Ellie Doall, his ops officer, was a holler away, taking readings of the emerging nighttime life forms. She was accompanied by his security chief, Lieutenant Enigo Guiermo Ricardo Montoya Guiterrez LaFuentes. Really, the both of them would have been more useful had they stayed on the ship, but what’s an away team without some main characters—er, experienced officers?
Security Minion LeRoy Jenkins stood just on the edge of the light, his attention split between watching his tricorder readings and the shadows of the forest. Jeb had told him to relax, but no way would he be less than diligent with the captain’s safety in his hands, and his boss just within stunning range. Having grown up on the UGS Hood, Lt. LaFuentes had no problems using a phaser as a discipline device. But the Impulsive’s redshirts had the highest survival rate in the fleet, and Jeb never argued with results.
Speaking of results… Jeb peeled the foil away from the fish and poked it with a fork. If it helps, the reader is free to imagine a mylar sheeting and space fork. Regardless, the meat was flakey and smelled amazing. Perfect.
“Dinner!” he shouted, making his security minion jump.
“Sir!” he hissed, “what are you doing? You could be announcing our location.”
Jeb raised a brow. “Like the campfire and the biggas shuttle aren’t doing that already?”
The biggas-class shuttle, the HMB Giterdone, rested amid debris of broken evergreens and shattered stones. They hadn’t had the smoothest landing.
“I’m glad we took the largest shuttle,” Lt. Rosien said as she descended the ramp carrying camping plates and silverware. Jeb had programmed the replicators to Boy Scout Pattern 1998 for the trip. “We’ve found so many wonderful samples so far, I could fill it completely.”
She handed him a dish set, then passed one to LeRoy and to the lieutenants who had returned as well. They all sat down, and Jeb gently placed a steaming fish on each plate.
Misha continued, “It certainly helped when that ion storm hit, and we had to make an emergency landing. That and your fancy flying, sir.”
Jeb nodded to acknowledge the compliment, but said, “Still, that thruster took a hard hit when we smacked into that weird rock formation. Tomorrow, Enigo, you and I will fix that up while the ladies continue the survey with Minion Jenkins.”
LeRoy grimaced. “Is that a good idea, sir? Splitting the party, I mean?”
Enigo, who poked at his fish with the suspicion of anyone raised on replicated food, set aside his plate and leaned toward his subordinate intently. “What’s up with you? You having a sixth sense?”
“No, sir,” LeRoy said. He spoke with complete honesty. HuFleet security personnel were trained to note and report anything suspicious—and, when in doubt, stun it for good measure. He paused, and his hand unconsciously fingered the bones in his pocket. “No. It’s just the forest at night and that box canyon we saw earlier brought up memories.”
Enigo grunted. “The mission on Pullet VI.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ellie, who was nibbling at her trout with her usual delicate efficiency, asked, “Was that the mission with the eight-foot chickens? Like the ones you went after on Rest Stop?”
Rest Stop, for those who have not been following Space Traipse: Hold My Beer, is a funzone planet where your imagined fantasies can come true. That resulted in quite a bit of chaos when the crew of the Impulsive landed on the planet, not the least of which was caused by LeRoy’s giant chickens.
“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 steppe
d 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 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 fing
ers, 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 started to peck at the wall with furious industry. When the dust settled, the chicken backed up, and sat, watching them all expectantly.
“Captain!” LeRoy called, and pointed to wall, where etched clearly were the words: NO LAY I.
“No lay I?” Ellie interrupted. “Maybe the letters were clear, but the words sure weren’t. What does that mean? ‘I won’t let them lay eggs’ or ‘I don’t lay eggs’?”
“The captain had a staff meeting to discuss it,” LeRoy answered. “Commander Kun’pau was in Sickbay because the mind meld did something screwy to his language center. He squawked for the next week. Anyway, after some deliberation and after examining the rocks, they realized the rocks were the eggs of this creature. Probably it was some kind of caretaker for its species, and the colonists were putting the babies in danger by picking them up and using them for home décor.”
CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories Page 21
