Egg

Commander Chev set down the egg on the scanner. She initiated the scanner's DNA sequencing procedure and left the lab, heading to the medical showers. She turned around a couple of times to glance at the egg as the scanner was spinning around it until the lab door closed, cutting her line of sight. She entered the shower and washed the sludge and debris off her suit. After 30 seconds the computer chimed and she turned off the shower. The water running down the drain reminded her of some runny egg white. A couple seconds later a chime broke Chev out of her thoughts. She had already been dried.

Chev stepped out of the shower and went a couple of steps back towards the lab. She reminded herself of the credits she could get if this was a good egg and turned around. She unscrewed her helmet and took off her suit.

She strolled up to the cockpit and let herself fall down into her chair. She thought about how funny it was that hundreds of years ago this exact design had been pioneered by companies trying to make gaming chairs. Back then they were supposed to look futuristic and somehow they had really gotten it right.

Chev moved the engine from hover into flight mode. She had gotten from this rotten planet what she wanted—or rather, what her client wanted—so there was no point in spending anymore time in its gravitational pull.

As the engine changed its mode of operation the ship began humming. When Chev had bought this piece of junk seventeen years back the dodgy seller had told her it was the sound of electricity travelling through the wires, but through some investigating Chev had found out that it was merely the metal of the hull bending under the stress.

As the ship started accelerating the scanners result flashed up on the bottom left screen. Chev maximized the results onto the main screen.

50g, 97% edible.

That's a good one, Chev thought to herself. Her mouth started watering at the thought of the egg that was sitting just down the hall. No. She had to sell it. An egg of such quality would surely bring in about 12.000 credits. 17.000 even on the black market. 17k, for such a delicious egg. Chev closed her eyes as she pictured the cold egg white running down her throat while the yolk sat on her tongue, slowly unfolding its flavour. Chev snapped back. 17k, that would be enough to get a new ship. Her very own Raptor. Just don't think about that delicious egg until you get to a trading post.

On "Egg" | 2023-11-14

I wanted to write something sci-fi. I played with the idea of some laser pistol battle, but I feel like I've done a lot of violence in the recent stories already. Limiting myself to one character was the obvious choice then.

Originally I did not have Chev's obsession with the egg as a through-line. She had gotten the egg, put it on the scanner and then it would only be mentioned again in the end with the scan results. In my head it was ambiguous what kind of egg it might be.

But when I had to put in some scan results I started out with "97% edible" and thought that wasn't enough of a result so I also added the weight. From that I spun out into Chev maybe also wanting to eat the egg, but to really sell that idea I had to seed it earlier as well.

I get the feeling that all my stories have some humorous (or at least silly) undertones, but with writing every day it's tough to find the time to think about this kind of stuff more deeply. I'll have to make some time after I'm done with the month to reflect on what I can take away from it all.

Thoughts? Reach out via Mastodon @Optional@dice.camp or shoot me an email.