He is not a giant panda.
Free Range
Abigail Falanga
Free Range
Abigail Falanga
On the plus side, if you fail out of Space Explorer School, you can still go to space.
I attribute it to scoring high enough grades to qualify for SES in the first place. But it’s impossible for any member of my family to not have some kind of cosmos-based employment.
Ever since my Great-Great-Uncle, the redoubtable Admiral Rigby Matthias Jones, accomplished his spectacular feats in the first Astro-Terran war, every generation has also aspired to greatness in space. We’ve piloted exploratory vessels, captained warships into valiant battle, manned medical expeditions, and conquered an entire galaxy through the expedient means of marrying into the royal family.
It would, in fact, have been an embarrassment for even a lesser son of this glorious family to not find his place among the stars. Particularly when he also bears the name Rigby Matthias Jones.
But I still believe I could have made it into SES on purely academic grounds.
Granted, I didn’t exactly graduate valedictorian from high school. Or with any kind of honors from college. But at least I passed.
I am a late bloomer. And, like all Joneses, I have an excellent stomach for space travel.
What I don’t have an excellent stomach for, however, is chicken poop. Can’t stand it. It stinks.
I scraped the gunk from the inside of 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 conferences with Corporate.
I’d never finish my conversation with Z’layna. My heart feeling like a thousand pounds despite my weightlessness, I glanced over at her.
She was staring at me, eyes wide with something I can only describe as horror.
“Um,” I said.
Z’layna jumped and dropped her wrench.
Do you have any idea how much force it takes to drop a wrench in zero gravity?
“Yeah,” I said, and left.
My “office” was a small space used to store welding equipment and spare hull panels. It also had enough room for the control desk, a chair, and (if you stood in the lower right corner with your shoulder wedged against the doorframe) space for a decent and nearly professional holochat. I positioned myself accordingly, sucked in my gut, and hit Receive.
“Greetings,” a voice came from the holomist as a reluctant projection formed. “Is that the commander of the Extra-Orbital Fowl Coop X10?”
Commander. I liked the sound of that.
I turned the title over in my mouth a few times, before realizing that clearly this was not one of my managers from Corporate and I therefore needed to be extra on-the-spot. “Um… Yes, this is Rigby Jones. Commander Rigby Jones.”
“Rigs” everyone always called me. Welp! From now on, it was going to be “Commander Rigby Jones.” I imagined the warm glow of Great-Great-Uncle Rigby Matthias Jones’ approval and squared my shoulders.
The holomist shimmered and the vague figure came fully into view.
Definitely not Corporate.
A tall, graceful woman with the same blue skin and sharp features as Z’layna. Not merely the same race, they must be mother and daughter.
“Commander Jones,” she intoned, and it was as though Z’layna’s haughty delivery had been condensed and magnified tenfold. “We have received news that my daughter Z’layna of the Five Realms is harbored in your space station. Is this true?”
I worked through the parts of her question like an overloaded air filtration turbo. “Five Realms? Harboring…? How’d you receive the news? This isn’t a space station…”
“If you would kindly stop jabbering, Commander Jones,” she said impatiently. “We don’t care what your space-structure is, but merely that the princess is on it—the report of which we discovered buried in communications chatter related to the arrival of new technicians. Prepare for docking procedures.”
The holochat cut out, leaving me actually jabbering.
I jerked my hands through my hair, then shouted into the communicator. “Marchant! Where are you? And where’s that ship?”
“Keep it down, dude!” Marchant answered. “I don’t know where the ship is. I’m in Segment 5 doing cluster maintenance. Like the schedule says.”
Segment 5. The farthest from the docking bay.
I strung together a collection of colorful words and clattered from my office in a ramshackle run.
“Rigby?” Z’layna chirped through the communicator. “What’s going on? Who was that on the holochat?”
“No… time…” I gasped, pounding along the corridor—a ring inside the outer segment coops. “Your mother—”
“Nebula’s teeth!” she swore.
Weird. I’d never heard her use language before—especially not such strong language.
Come to think of it, I’d never known her to use the communicator.
I skidded around the final corner and then into the main section which formed a permanent part of the ring in place of an eleventh segment. Crews’ quarters, dining, recreation, docking bay were all here. There should have been a commander’s office, too, but I wasn’t consulted about the design of these things. In fact, since they were designed when I was about four years old, I wouldn’t have been much good anyway. Though, I may have suggested a weapons turret or two.
Yup. There was a great big, hulking, sleek, beautiful spaceship right outside the docking bay. I tried to get my hands to stop shaking as I punched in orders to get our slow computer system to open the doors.
I resisted the urgent and deep need to sink into a chair and catch my breath.
Maybe I need to run the ring more often.
The hydraulics and airlocks whirred and clunked, as the bay doors reluctantly opened. Of all things in the OEFC X10, the bay doors are possibly the least cooperative. Surly, in fact. I wouldn’t care much about this, it being the kind of problem that falls squarely on Corporate. They ought to have sent over a specialist and a load of new equipment years ago.
“No!” shouted Z’layna, loping into the main room with all the graceful speed I lacked.
The inner door gave up the struggle and flew with an appendage-threatening whoosh.
Z’layna stiffened to attention, her face and hands smeared and her hands shaking.
So, of course, I pulled myself straight too. Yet not as successfully since I was still quivering from my sprint.
For a moment, there was no sign of anything beyond the airlock. Then—
Two towering figures entered, skin midnight blue and clad in shimmering silver tunics. So identical that they might have come out of the same packaging in the toy aisle.
“Announcing,” they said, eerily in unison, “her gracious majesty, Queen Z’chal of the Five Realms.”
They parted and stood to each side of the doorway, bowing slightly.
The woman from the hologram—the older-version-of-Z’layna—strode through and regarded the main room as if it was the throne room of her palace. She acknowledged Z’layna’s presence with a raised eyebrow and turned on me.
What do you do when presented to royalty?
Especially regal royalty from the far reaches of space?
Doubtless with cities made of sparkling spires and winged airships and things.
My second-cousin Emma married the royalty she’d encountered.
I, however, could barely manage my chickens. And marrying Queen Z’chal did not seem to be an option.
Probably, I ought to have bowed or performed something along the lines of a salute.
However, I merely remarked in my best manner, “Auagghh-umm…!” With my mouth unable to close.
The queen nodded to me. “Commander Rigby Jones, I presume?”
“Commander?” echoed her daughter, barely loud enough for me to hear.
“I believe I am within my rights to inquire why you have extended sanctuary to the fugitive princess of the Five Realms,” Queen Z’chal demanded. Her gaze switching between me and her daughter with laser-like accuracy.
“Ahhhh…” I said. “Sanctuary?”
“There was no question of sanctuary, your majesty!” Z’layna spoke clearly and too loudly, putting so much emphasis on the title that it became an insult. “This is my place of work, as a technician employed by the Extra-Orbital Poultry Company, on rotation to provide maintenance and related services to Free-Range Coop X10. I am paid a reasonable salary for decent, honest labor. In no way is this space craft providing me sanctuary—beyond the basic functions of life support.”
I might have quibbled with her opinion of a reasonable salary; but she was a princess, after all, so how was she to know what a decent living wage was? Also, I was astonished at hearing her deliver so many words all in one go. Normally, it would take her a good two weeks to get through that speech.
“And had you any knowledge of this arrangement?” The queen still addressed me. If her eyebrows had gone any more cocked, I’d have thrown her in the roost.
“Ah.” I cleared my throat and made my first attempt at a complete sentence: “Z’layna—Princess Z’layna, I mean, is an excellent technician, ma’am, and came with the highest recommendations.” What was I doing—giving a reference to her next employer? “That’s all I know,” I added, lamely.
At which point, Queen Z’chal leveled her eyebrows and completely forgot about me.
In fact, I am not sure she recalls my existence even now.
She strode past me, covering the entire dining area complete with unwashed dishes and greasy 4D card ga
mes in two steps, until she stood directly in front of her daughter. “Why?”
It was more than a question.
It was an indictment. A declaration of war. A complete summation of a life of many wrongs, wrapped up in one simple syllable.
Only from truly irate chickens have I ever heard the like.
“Can you really ask?” Z’layna curled her lip, meeting the gaze and the question straight on.
“Shirking your royal duties to crew a—a sustenance generator? It is a question well worth the asking.”
“It is more than a sustenance generator,” Z’layna returned with something suspiciously like a snicker. “And it is far superior to the alternative.”
“Are you referring to your impending marriage to the grand general of Ca’slaphrea?”
“Have you seen him? It’s an abomination!”
The queen, a few inches shorter than Z’layna, drew herself up until she seemed to tower over everyone in the room. “Nevertheless,” she said in a voice that was truly terrible to hear. “This alliance by marriage is a good and necessary one to bring about the lasting peace our two peoples have craved for all too long.”
“Then you marry him, mother!” Z’layna planted her hands, including a screwdriver, on her hips.
“That is impossible! A reigning monarch cannot—”
“Then neither can I!”
“Daughter,” Queen Z’chal softened her tone with obvious effort. “Think of our people! We have been locked in war for more than a century with the Ca’slaphreans. Would you condemn us to yet more conflict?”
“Nonsense!” Z’layna tossed her head. “We haven’t been at war in anything but name for years. It could have been outright peace, if anyone had bothered to just sit down and sign a treaty. But, no. It had to take something big, something important, and something truly life-shattering to bring everyone to an alliance.”
CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories Page 29