Chickens. Thousands of chickens. I scrolled through the cargo list on my handheld viewer.

"What the hell? I'm hauling chickens?"

Amie pushed back long auburn hair and put a finger to the screen, scrolling down further. "Not only that, but chicken feed. Tons of it." She wore the brown uniform of a Meridian Space Station dock worker, a far cry from her normal fashionable attire at the Foundation. "But don't worry. The chickens are all in stasis."

"Doesn't matter," I moaned. "I'll never hear the end of this."

When my mates at the Trade Guild find out, it will be non-stop chicken jokes.

A mocking grin grew on her face. "So what? Are you chicken?"

Great. It's already started.

Amie put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't be so glum, Levi. You're doing a good thing. The New Holland Colony really needs the livestock. And it is perfect cover for the most important cargo."

She bent down to pick up a large black duffle bag and unzipped it, revealing a shiny metal cylinder. Tiny blue lights pulsed on a small attached control panel.

"The latest thing in medical nanobots," she said in almost a whisper. "When you arrive at the research station, touch the panel for delivery instructions. This is really high-tech experimental stuff, and maybe the next big thing in the medical advancements. But there are some unsavory organizations who would like to get their hands on them, so be careful out there, okay?"

"Phht, no one would hijack chickens."

"Exactly." She zipped up the bag and handed it to me, but then gripped my wrist and firmed her face. "Whatever you do, don't open it. We don't know what those bots would do."

After looking left and right, Amie raised up on her toes and placed a kiss on my cheek, sending a warm tingle down my spine. "When you get back, there is this new restaurant we should try. I hear they make an excellent chicken cordon bleu."

"Ha ha," I deadpanned, rolling my eyes.

I shouldn't complain. Delivering super-secret stuff for the Sol Foundation saved me from bankruptcy and kept me on the black side of the ledger. I make as much money from them as my normal cargoes.

I stashed the duffle bag in a secret compartment beneath the bridge floor while a robotic mover loaded the gray stasis pods into my ship's pressurized holds. Each pod, shaped roughly like a gigantic capsule, held over a hundred hibernating chickens. Blinking green lights confirmed that the stasis systems functioned properly. Once secured to my satisfaction, I glided weightlessly through the circular connector tunnel to the dock, using the handholds to guide my motion. All that remained until departure was a final customs approval.

While I waited, I gazed out a window at my star-freighter as it waited in the vacuum of space. Shaped like a brick with twin fusion thrusters at one end and a rounded nose at the other. She wasn't much to look at, but she was all mine. The Iris Venture, named after a mythical messenger of the gods, was the fastest freighter around. I specialized in time-sensitive cargoes.

"Levi Baun?" a voice behind me said.

"Yeah." I replied, spinning around to a Customs Agent wearing blue overalls and cap. Magnetic boots secured him to the floor.

"Let's see..." he said, scrolling through a tablet. "Chickens, huh? Everything seems in order." A grin rose on his chubby face. "No harm, no 'fowl', you might say."

I resisted another eye roll. "Right." Everybody's a comedian now.

Once far enough away from the spaceport, I activated the star-drive and settled in for a forty-two-day interstellar journey. One of the nice side-effects of the drive was that it generated an artificial gravity field, a result of space-time distortion, making the trip much more comfortable than if weightless. It was just me, four thousand sleeping chickens, and trillions of microscopic nanobots. Easiest haul ever.

Several days before arrival, I discovered a music file that Amie had attached to the cargo manifest. A catchy old polka tune called 'The Chicken Dance' put a grin on my face. Leaning back in the flight chair on the bridge, I swayed my arms in time with the tuba oompas. I was in such a good mood that I dared think that nothing could possibly go wrong.

I should never test fate like that.

A red light flashed on the panel and the proximity alarm sounded.

"What the hell?" I muttered to no one in particular.

A spherical device laid directly in my path. The ship's automatic collision avoidance system could easily avoid it, but that was not what concerned me. Just as I passed, it exploded in a brilliant white burst. The shock wave only just nudged the Iris Venture.

Oh, crap. An EMP.

Jagged blue-white bolts danced across the bridge, twisting and slashing in electric frenzy, leaving no surface untouched by their jagged fingers. The control panel blanked out, and the lights went off, bathing me in darkness. My nose tingled with ozone. After a moment, a single emergency light flickered on, providing dim illumination.

That was an old raider trick — temporarily disable the target with an electo-magnetic pulse, then swoop in and take the ship before it could recover. But how did they know where to find me, much less where to place the EMP device? The implications were disturbing, but I had more urgent concerns now, such as rebooting my ship before the bad guys got here.

Fortunately, I had installed extra surge protection and Faraday shielding just in case of such an attack. The fusion reactors still hummed along, but several fuses needed to be reset to restore the control system and star-drive, and not much time to do so.

After resetting two fuses within a panel behind me, I flew out the bridge door like a diving falcon, or rather, as fast as possible in the weightless conditions. In the engineering room, I reset the main power coupling and the main lights came back on. Next came the power to the star-drive and its cooling system. It would take several minutes to get the drive back online. The shielded external sensors came up, but the com system was fried. I could not call for help.

A control panel fluttered to life, and I switched it to the sensor array. Damn! Here they come. A dark hulking starship approached from the port side, and no doubt they were readying a boarding party. Not a party I wanted to attend.

The star-drive hummed to life, but navigation and the higher level controls would take much longer to reboot, time I didn't have. The raider came closer, lining itself up to snatch my ship with mechanical grapples.

Time to go. Anywhere, just not here. From the manual control panel, I bootstrapped the star-drive and set it to full output. The ship lurched, nearly toppling me over. On the display, the raider ship disappeared as if by a flip of a switch. Being so close, the space distortion from my sudden star-drive jump-start probably knocked them hard.

Without navigation, I couldn't determine which direction the ship went. Plunging into the thermonuclear furnace of some random star would really ruin my day.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the navigation system restored itself. No hazardous objects laid in my path. Although, come to think of it, the chance of randomly running into anything in interstellar space was exceedingly low. The sensors showed no sign of pursuit. I wasn't going to die, at least not yet.

The Iris Venture had a pulse cannon for close fighting, but her greatest defense was sheer speed. She could outrun almost any other ship.

While I basked in my escape, a rust and brown-colored rooster with a torn comb sauntered into the galley. After turning its head to regard me as if a trespasser, it laid a glob of fresh white-gray manure at my feet.

"Well shit," I muttered, meaning it both literally and figuratively.

I dashed to a pressurized cargo hold. Several chickens clucked as they meandered among the stasis pods, which were lined up and stacked in orderly rows. The transparent lids had swung open and yellow lights blinked on every control panel. The EMP must have scrambled the controllers, and then they defaulted to the reawaken cycles.

Oh, no... Soon, I will be up to my arse in chickens.

Four-thousand chickens stink. Like, really bad. They easily overwhelmed my ship's air purifier. And the noise, all that clucking in enclosed spaces. And when the roosters decided it was morning, the screeches nearly deafened me. I could hardly move without shooing several away. At least I kept them out of my quarters so I could get some peace.

I hate chickens.

But I was not totally inhumane, so I breached two crates containing chicken feed, letting the grain spill out on the floor, and filled several tubs with water.

Soon, the chickens would be someone else's problem. "Surprise!" I shall say to that someone.

Damned EMP!

An icy chill seized me. The nanobots! I hadn't checked on them. Unzipping the duffle bag brought relief. The control panel blinked yellow and flashed an error code, nonetheless the cylinder containment was still intact. At least that didn't go wrong.

I left the cylinder on the bridge pilot's seat to retrieve a well-deserved ale in the galley, shuffling chickens aside as I walked. When I returned, brown bottle in hand, a rooster jumped up on the seat and peered at the cylinder's flickering lights, shifting its head back and forth. It was the same obnoxious bird that crapped at my feet. It pecked at the control panel lights.

I laughed. "Stupid chicken! There is no way you could open that."

It did.

The cylinder panel turned red and emitted a hissing sound. My heart jumped into my throat as a faint gray cloud swirled from one end and dissipated into the air like blown smoke. So, those were the nanobots that they warned me to never release.

This trip just keeps getting better.

I held my breath, but soon realized that was pointless. No way would I avoid exposure. Hopefully, the scientists at the research station would know what to do. But because the coms were toast, I couldn't call ahead.

Chicken for dinner, I seriously considered, one annoying rooster in particular, but it disappeared into the endless flock. I gave it a special name, though: Cluckbait.

Anxious hours turned to days with no apparent effects. By now, there were probably millions of the tiny robots wandering around in my body. I gazed into a mirror, pulling up an eyelid. Everything seemed normal, except for some redness caused by all the dust and chicken dander about.

Huh, maybe nothing will happen.

Then weird things happened. I experienced periodic waking dreams that I was a chicken. I viewed the world from the chickens' perspective, shuffling within the flock, keeping wary of threats, and pecking at whatever looked like food. And it seemed like the chickens now followed me around like I was some sort of chicken deity. One time I shouted in anger, "Get away from me!" Amazingly, they did.

Harmless glitches, like lights flickering on and off, occurred now and then. The Iris Venture control processors showed unusual flurries of activity, but no operation deviations came of it.

Was all this because of nanobot infection?

The tension in my body evaporated, blown out in a huge breath, as the Foundation Research Station came into view. Of classic design, a huge torus ring rotated around a central cylindrical core. The labs and living quarters were located within the ring where the rotation created artificial gravity, while the core held the docks and power systems under weightless conditions.

Since my com system was down, I used my ship's navigation lights to communicate via old Morse Code. They responded by flashing the lights surrounding a docking port.

Safety protocols required that the star-drive be shutdown when approaching any facility, lest the space distortion cause damage. But that also meant losing artificial gravity on the Iris Venture.

I hadn't fully considered the consequences.

If you think thousands of chickens are chaotic, try thousands of chickens in zero-gravity. Sheer pandemonium. You'd think they had never been in a starship before.

The air went thick with poultry, swirling in all orientations. Feathers flew as they flapped in hysteria-driven panic, and the squawking rose to deafening levels. Wings slapped and feet clawed at me in their frenzy. I would have folded over in laughter had this occurred to someone else. But happening to me, it was annoyance at the highest level.

"Calm down!" I yelled out in anger.

To my amazement, they did. They still bounced off the walls like some 3-D pinball game in slow motion, but the furor ended. It was almost like they achieved a chicken zen state, at one with the universe or something. Weird, but I'll take it.

With the docking process completed, I fist-pumped the air. Now I'm home free!

I had the biggest smile on my face when I swung open the heavy door. Three men wearing black uniforms and frowns met me inside. I shook my head. "You guys are not going to believe this--"

One man shoved a stun stick into my gut and activated it. Painful electric spasms overtook my body, as if every muscle seized at once, then darkness overtook my mind.

I woke up with a moan and lifted my bowed head. As the mental fog cleared, I found myself seated within a small white-walled office with hands bound to the chair arms. A black clothed man, who leaned against the wall near the door, stopped twirling the stun stick in his hands long enough to speak into a com device. Probably about me. Other than us and my chair, the room was empty.

My head and neck ached. This was my absolute worst haul ever by an order of magnitude. The whole sequence of events stunk, and not just the chickens. Raiders jumped me in interstellar space, seemingly knowing my route. And when I arrived at the research station, they were waiting for me. There was only one explanation — I was betrayed.

As my mind cleared, strange visions came. I viewed the inside of the Iris Venture through countless eyes, but with more vivid colors, even into the ultraviolet spectrum. Two black uniformed raiders rummaged through my ship, swatting aside chickens as they went. I winced with every swat.

They were probably looking for the nanobots. Won't they be surprised!

Then I sensed the ship as if it was a part of myself. The internal and external sensors, the environmental controls, the power system, flight and navigation, even the high level AI — I accessed it all.

The nanobots! Somehow they networked together, forming a collective with me in charge.

If my ship, then why not the space station? The nanobots would have been introduced when I opened the docking door. I reached out with my mind, probing... There it is! But the connection was weak, with low bandwidth. It was enough, though, that I could determine my location in the rotating ring and link to basic controllers. Scanning further, I found the research station staff cowering in a lab under the watchful eyes of three armed raiders.

I jerked when the metal door swung open, slamming against the wall with a bang, and a woman stomped in. With short gray hair, a black eye patch, and an unfriendly scowl on her scarred face, she had a classic mercenary vibe.

The woman tossed the empty cylinder that once contained the nanobots, letting it clank at my feet. She grabbed my shoulders, coming nose to nose with me, her one good eye blazing with contempt. "Where the hell are they?" she spat.

"What?" I asked.

"Don't play dumb. The nanobots!"

"Oh, yeah. Funny thing about that... It all started when the EMP woke all the chickens, and then this rooster pecked--"

She bared her teeth. "Do I look like I want a story?" Holding a hand out behind, she accepted the stun stick from the other man, then thrust it in front of my face. Jagged electric arcs jumped from the tip.

I gulped. "Right. Nanobots. They are all over my ship, in me, and in the chickens. There's probably a few in you now, too."

"You let them out?" she yelled. "Are you frickin' stupid?"

"Maybe for ever agreeing to this haul," I grumbled.

The man lipped an expletive under his breath. "What do we do now, Reaper?"

"Hell, I don't know," she replied. "Keep searching the ship. And get the client on the com."

"Cool name, Reaper," I said. "So, who is this client?"

"Like I'm gonna tell you," she growled while marching out the door.

My attention turned to the Iris Venture via the bot link. The raiders hovered on the bridge, surrounded by floating chickens. The first griped to the other. "Shit. They want us to keep searching."

"What do we do with these god-damned chickens?" the other asked.

A sly grin rose on the first raider. "Put your helmet on. Let's open 'er up and space 'em."

Not my chickens!

Through the link, I issued a command attack! The chickens converged by the hundreds, flapping, pecking, and clawing at their victims, who writhed and screamed in terror. Feeling merciful, I directed a hen to extract a sidearm from a holster, peck at a yellow button to set it to stun, aim, and then pull the trigger with a foot.

Led by Cluckbait, the chickens assembled at the dock door. I instructed the rooster to peck at a green button to open the door, thus giving them access to the station. Still weightless, my chicken minions fluttered down the central corridor like a roiling tsunami. At a junction, they plunged down an access tube leading to the rotating ring. In the meantime, I opened and closed selected isolation doors via the station controller, giving the chickens an open path to my location while isolating many of the raiders.

Reaper walked back in. "This is your lucky day, chicken man. My client wants you alive." She held up a syringe, pressing the plunger to spew out an air bubble. "But I gotta put ya' out."

I grinned. "If I were you, Reaper, I'd run. This is your last chance to get out."

She turned toward the other man, and they both laughed. "So who's gonna to stop us?"

"Me."

"You and what army?"

As the clucking sounds came nearer, my grin grew wider. "Funny that you mentioned that--"

With Cluckbait in the lead, a flood of chickens surged through the doorway, squawking fervent battle cries. I shall never forget how wide Reaper's eye opened, or the depth of her mouth gape. Overwhelmed, the raiders disappeared under a heaving mountain of poultry. At my mental request, six hens pecked and tugged at the rough rope that bound my hands, making quick work of freeing me.

As the raider man flailed under fowl assault, I retrieved the stun stick from his belt, then applied a liberal dose to his side. I left him unconscious.

Reaper was next. The chickens ceased their attacks, leaving her pinned down under their combined weight. Blood dripped from multiple cuts and scratches on her paled face. Her breaths came quick and shallow. Cluckbait jumped up on her neck, tilted his head back, and let out a victorious crow.

I kneeled over the terror stricken woman. "Now, Reaper, where were we? Ah yes, I asked you who your client was. Hmm?"

"I... I can't," she stammered. "This is not the sort of person you betray."

"Nor am I. But if you wish to keep your one remaining eye, you will tell me." At my bidding, Cluckbait pecked Reaper's forehead just above her eye.

She yelped. "Okay, okay. It's Damon Mitre."

I lifted an eyebrow. "You mean the chairman of the Sol Foundation? That Damon Mitre?"

"Yes."

"Why?" I asked.

"The nanobots have military applications, and they are very valuable. Please," she pleaded. "I've told you all I know."

Picking up the dropped syringe, I injected Reaper's arm with the contents. "Nighty night," I said as she drifted off.

In short order, the chicken minions and I freed the research station staff. The results of my unplanned nanobot experiment fascinated the scientists, particularly the mental networking. I declined their request to study me further, but agreed to leave some chickens under the promise that they would not be killed.

As for me, I had a karma delivery to make. Those that betrayed me shall feel the wrath of the Chicken Collective.