“My name,” the enormous cyborg chicken paced back and forth in front of me with its wing-like arms tucked behind its back, “is Training Master Len Bawkman.”

I was standing in a tight formation with fifty or so other beings from a variety of species. Most I could only guess at—lizard man, snake man, eagle man, rock man—they were really just an assortment of Earth-like species in bipedal form. It was my only frame of reference, so fight me if you don't like it. However, I saw a fair number of emaciated Gallics, and even another one of those dastardly Snootes. Of course, there was also my new pal Donk who was standing in the front row of the formation next to me, and the poor thing was shaking so hard you could hear the chitin on his arms rattling together.

“Will you get a load of this guy?” Dumbass said inside my head. "He thinks he's something special."

“Shush,” I whispered.

Bawkman stopped pacing directly in front of Donk and turned his laser-like cyborg eye to stare right at me. He snapped his beak and began again, “Thanks to a bloody moron that just made the conscious decision to be rude and speak during my beloved introduction, I’m afraid I’m going to have to start from the beginning.”

“Power hungry, much? I mean... talk about the nerve, Flap.”

I ignored Dumbass and tried to maintain my best impression of a freshly enlisted space duck, but it was hard. The guy came across as a royal dick.

“Ba-kawk!” He clucked. “My name is Training Master Len Bawkman. Despite my best efforts to succeed in life, I have had the outstanding bloody misfortune of being placed in charge of this Training Level. My goal here is simple: to keep you chickenshits morons from dying. That’s right. All of you are now officially chickenshits. You are the frothy scum I leave in the latrine after a week of expired rations and whiskey for breakfast.” He drew in a deep breath. “And Lord knows I hate the smell of fresh chickenshit.”

A burst of laughter erupted from the far end of the formation. The remark was funny, but I knew enough about military movies to know it wasn’t meant to be funny to us. My best bet was to bite my tongue with my bill and try to keep it in, so that's what I did.

“Who said that? Who the bloody cluck said that? You think its funny being a chickenshit!” Bawkman stomped down to the end of the line, then snapped around and stopped in front of a Snoote. He leaned down until his face was almost touching the murderrat's, then he punched the creature right in the stomach with a metal fist. “Is facing the Trials funny to you, tum Garbluk? It certainly wasn’t funny to your damn brother. He didn’t even make it far enough to earn the rank of chickenshit. Are you a moron, like your moron brother?”

The Snoote grunted. “Um, no, sir. Sorry for laughing.”

Bawkman turned to look at us. “He says he’s sorry for laughing, chickenshits! Well, I guess my damn job here is done! Go ahead, pack up and head home. Go on.”

I stood statue still. Only a moron would take that invitation and sure enough, a pair of scrawny looking Gallics actually walked towards the gate.

Bawkman let out a sharp crow, then sprinted through the formation, knocking over several others as he half-ran, half-flew. He floated up behind the young Gallics and slapped them both on the back of the head with his metal hand. It sounded like a meat tenderizer hitting steak. One of the Gallics collapsed to the ground, convulsing. The other one used his far too molted to be healthy wings to cover his head as he laid in the dirt.

“Get the cluck back in my formation! Who gave you permission to leave?!”

“Uh, you did. Sir.”

“Did I?! I don’t bloody remember telling you to leave. I remember making a joke. Don't all you chickenshits had a sparkling sense of humor. Didn't you get my joke? No? Then get the cluck back in line!" He looked down at the unconscious form and shook his head. Then he whispered to himself. "Implant, call for a healer. Skull fracture, most likely."

Bawkman spent a few minutes walking through the formation, moving people around as if he felt their spacing wasn’t quite correct, and glaring at people with that glowing red eye. I even heard him say, "Thank you for your service," at one point, which totally caught me off guard. When he eventually came back around so that I could see him in my peripheral vision, I scanned him.

Len Bawkman

Level 45 Gallic Commando

Specialization: Close Combat

The disgraced Len Bawkman was once a Sergeant in the—

The notification just… ended before I could finish reading it. I opened my mouth to ask Dumbass what had happened, and that's when I noticed Len clucking Bawkman standing directly in front of me and giving me his trademark evil eye.

“Well, well, well,” he said with a laugh, making his voice loud enough so the entire group could hear. “Haha! Looks like one of your fellow chickenshits tried to scan me. I wasn’t aware anyone in this group had a bloody implant yet, but since... who are you? Flap Merganser here couldn’t keep his curiosity at bay I suppose I might as well tell you chickenshits a little about me.” He turned to me and tapped the side of his head. “I got my good clucking eye on you, Merganser. I know what you are.”

“What’s he talking about, Dumb—"

Bawkman squawked. “Talk to your lover on your own time, Merganser. Your Earthling ass is mine, now.”

I just shook my head and nodded.

“Where was I? Oh right. I was about to tell you chickenshits about myself. Well, you ain't gonna get a clucking autobiography. I already told you my bloody name, and as far as I’m concerned, the only other thing you need to know is that I survived the Trials. And not as one of those wussy volunteers looking to make a name for themselves, either. I stepped into Judgment Station to defend my bloody honor and came out… mostly whole. Hehe. Now I know I said I was here to keep you chicken shits from dying, but I never said for how long. Truth is, most of you won’t even make it past the first five minutes. Look around. Go ahead.”

We stood there like statues.

He sighed. “For cluck’s sake, take a look around. No joke this time.”

I rolled my eyes and exchanged a glance with Donk. He was shaking so hard from fear he had started to shed his exoskeleton. Little bits of chitin covered the ground him around him likes leaves in the fall.

“Easy pal,” I said. “He's just trying to scare us. That’s it.”

“No, Merganser,” said Bawkman. “I am not just trying to scare you.”

Damn, I thought. This dude has superchicken hearing.

“I’ll thank you to keep your thoughts to yourself, too. The next time I even hear you think, well, let's just say I'm going to find out what you’re bloody made of. Ba-kawk! Now, I asked you chickenshits to look around because once the Trials begin, more than half of you will be dead in the first five minutes. Half again more will be dead after thirty. And half again after an hour. That means only six and a half of you chickenshits will live to see a second hour in the Trials, and that’s why I take my job seriously. Because for every one of you that survives that first hour, they take another year off the time they've sentenced me to train you morons. And if enough of you survive, I get to go home where I'm not surrounded by the smell of chickenshit. Heck, if one of you unlucky bastards wins the damn thing, they might even let me go kill more Dinosaurs.”

He scanned the crowd and settled his gaze on a spot somewhere behind me and to my right. He stared unblinking while he said, “And I really, really like killing Dinosaurs. Now, I'm not your enemy unless you make me your enemy. I'm hard, but I'm bloody fair. You listen to me, and you graduate from chickenshit to namby-pamby. You listen to the other trainers, you go from namby-pamby to scaredy-cat. And if you learn how to use your skill points and pick the right specialization, you just might earn the right to be called fresh meat. And my Training Level always sends the most fresh meat into the grinder.”

Pure silence. Bawkman rambled on about this and that thing he had done, and how many Dinosaurs he had killed for what felt like an hour. I'm sure how long it was exactly because, frankly, my mind drifted a bit. The entire speech sounded like he had ripped out of the script of a cheesy sci-fi movie, and once you've heard one of those, you've heard them all.

“Hey, Flap?” Dumbass said inside my head, not a second later. The implant clearly shared my boredom. “I’ve been thinking about something. You know how this guy is Bawkman? And how he was a Sergeant?”

I did my best to ignore Dumbass. I was in the middle of a sweet daydream about my pond.

“Anyway, I was thinking. Since he’s obviously supposed to be some kind of drill instructor, and he’s clearly insane, do you think he would mind if we called him... Poultry Sergeant Bawkman? Like from full Metal Jacket?”

The joke was so stupid. It wasn’t even even. But something about the combination of the situation, my boredom, and the similarities to the mad drill instructor from Kubrick's anti-war masterpiece made me lose it. I snorted. I snorted and made a stupid raspberry sound while I tried to stifle my laugh.

Bawkman was on me like flies on shit.

“I thought I told you to shut the cluck up, Merganser! Goddammit, you must be the dumbest bloody avian I have ever had the displeasure of meeting! Well, this is outstanding! The rest of these chickenshits better get busy making you a thank-you card, because they’re about to witness an early one on one lesson in close combat.”