Ready for a bit of humor: Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth — In Space, With Cats

The Great Galactic Bun Fight

Proverb: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Meaning: When too many people all try to take charge, the whole thing turns into a disaster with seasoning.

---

On the interstellar supply ship Saint Marigold, breakfast was not a meal. It was a campaign.

The ship carried freight, machinery, mail, spare hull plates, one diplomatic parcel no one was allowed to touch, and a crew of three hundred and twelve people who became less like civilized beings and more like wolves in socks if not fed by 0700.

The galley, naturally, was where hope went to be burned, buttered, and shouted over.

Chief Cook Della Pike ruled it with a wooden spoon she claimed had once knocked sense into a pirate. No one knew if this was true. No one wanted to test it. Della believed in order, timing, sharp knives, and buns that rose properly instead of slumping about like they had bad news from home.

Her assistant, Jori Venn, believed cooking was art, art required risk, and risk was just another word for personality. He put garnish on things that had no business being garnished. He described texture using words like brooding and aspirational. He once arranged mashed potatoes into a swan and called it “an edible critique of empire.”

Della had nearly killed him with a ladle.

Also present that morning were Mags Ollo, pastry specialist and protector of buns; Brenn, protein cook, built like a siege engine in an apron; Tavi Nix, junior galley hand, still young enough to think adults had plans; and Dr. Pell from Med Bay, who came down every morning “for tea” and stayed because the galley was more entertaining than official ship channels.

Then there were the cats.

Officially, Saint Marigold had no cats. Unofficially, it had two.

First was Marmalade, a broad orange tom with half an ear, the face of a retired criminal, and the soul of a union boss. Marmalade belonged to no one and therefore to everyone, which suited him perfectly. He collected admiration, scraps, and warm engine housings.

Second was Professor Biscuit, a long-haired black-and-white menace with magnificent whiskers and the emotional stability of a collapsing monarchy. Professor Biscuit had once been the captain’s cat, but after biting a customs officer and sleeping in the chapel ventilation for six days, had effectively become a freelance entity.

The two cats hated each other with the pure, clarifying hatred only cats can manage. They hated each other’s smell, paws, tail posture, preferred napping spots, and general philosophical outlook.

This had been manageable so long as Marmalade stayed near engineering and Professor Biscuit preferred the upper decks.

Unfortunately, breakfast involved cream.

At 0550 ship-time, Mags laid out the morning batch: breakfast buns, sweet buns for the late shift, tray loaves, and a special set of glossy command buns she had brushed with egg wash so carefully they shone like they had ambitions.

“No one touches these,” she said.

“Obviously,” said Della.

“I mean no one. Not you, not golden-boy garnish over there, not one of the idiot bots, and absolutely not either of those furry little tax evaders.”

Jori, slicing herbs with the tragic elegance of a man who wished to be appreciated more loudly, said, “You wound me by implication.”

“I’d like to wound you directly,” said Mags.

The service board flickered overhead.

BREAKFAST SERVICE

Buns, Sausage, Eggs, Mushrooms, Tea, and possibly very bad coffee. 

Then it flickered again.

ADDITIONAL REQUESTS

Engine Deck requests extra buns

Cargo Deck requests sweet buns

Navigation requests mushrooms “kept emotionally separate”

Security requests fried buns

Command requests light brunch

Unknown sender requests “bun mountain”

 Della looked up. “Who requested bun mountain?”

Tavi checked the panel. “Life Support Maintenance.”

“Animals,” muttered Mags.

“Visionaries,” said Jori.

Della clapped her hands once. “Right. We move. Mags, split batches. Brenn, more sausage. Tavi, tea. Jori, no flourishes. This is breakfast, not a courtship display.”

Jori looked offended. “Food always courts.”

“Not on my watch.”

The galley came alive. Trays clanged. Kettles screamed. Sausage hissed. Steam rose in thick ghostly sheets. Tavi flew from station to station carrying bowls, knives, towels, and at one point three dozen eggs tucked into his apron like a highly nervous hen.

Brenn worked the protein griddle with terrifying calm. He turned vat-sausage patties as if they had personally disappointed him. Mags glazed buns with sniper-like focus. Della marshalled the whole operation with battle-scarred efficiency.

All was loud, hot, and under control. Which is usually the exact moment fate clears its throat.

At 0612, Marmalade entered through the lower service hatch.

He came in low and slow, tail up, with the heavy dignity of a small orange landlord inspecting a property. He paused by the cream jug, gave it a long stare, and hopped onto a crate.

At 0613, Professor Biscuit descended from an overhead pipe.

No one saw where he came from. Cats do not honour the known laws of access. One moment there was ceiling. The next there was cat. He landed beside the cooling racks with a soft thump and the expression of a scholar discovering a rival had been published.

The galley froze.

“Oh no,” whispered Tavi.

Della turned, saw both cats, and shut her eyes for a moment as if trying prayer one final time.

“Don’t,” said Mags, pointing a pastry brush at Marmalade. “Don’t you dare.”

Marmalade ignored her. Professor Biscuit puffed up like a judgmental cushion.

The cats locked eyes.

Now, human beings often assume animals fight for practical reasons—territory, food, dominance. This is because human beings have not properly studied cats.

Cats fight for insult.

For memory.

For something someone did in 2024 involving a windowsill and an expression.

Marmalade let out a low, rusty growl. Professor Biscuit answered with a shriek like a violin being murdered. And then both launched.

They hit the prep table in a spinning blur of claws, fur, and offended screaming. A tray of cooling rolls shot into the air. Tavi yelped and ducked. Jori caught one bun by instinct and looked briefly proud of himself before another hit him in the nose.

“Get them off the buns!” screamed Mags.

“Which one?” shouted Brenn.

“Both!”

The cats tore across the galley like a curse. They bounced off the flour bin, skidded across the counter, launched over the griddle, and vanished beneath a trolley loaded with breakfast rolls. The trolley wobbled. Everyone watched it. It tipped. Buns rolled in all directions like startled planets.

There was a beat of horrified silence.

Then Chief Engineer Rosk stomped in through the hatch. “Where’s my extra—”

A bun hit him in the chest.

No one moved.

Rosk looked down at the bun. Then up at the galley.

Jori pointed, reflexively and unhelpfully, at the cats disappearing under the tea station. “It’s a fluid situation.”

Mags let out a noise somewhere between grief and murder. “My buns!”

Now, there are moments when a kitchen can still be saved. A quick apology. Immediate restraint. Honest labor. One person with authority saying the correct thing in a commanding voice.

This was not one of those moments. Because Jori, instead of helping, picked up one of the fallen buns, looked at Rosk, and said, “In fairness, floor contact has improved its humility.”

Rosk stared at him. “Did you just throw breakfast at engineering?”

“I did not throw it. Gravity and cat violence collaborated.”

“Close enough.”

Rosk grabbed a bun from the trolley wreckage and hurled it at Jori. He missed. It struck Mags in the shoulder. Everyone went still.

Mags turned slowly. Rosk, realizing too late that pastry specialists rank somewhere between saints and warlords in a galley ecosystem, said, “That wasn’t aimed at you.”

“No,” said Mags, very softly. “But life is full of surprises.”

She picked up a sweet bun and whipped it at his face with astonishing force. It burst on impact in a puff of sugar.

From beneath the counter came the sound of cats still fighting like a haunted pillowcase.

Dr. Pell, sipping tea from a safe corner, murmured, “Ah. There it is.”

Rosk lunged for ammunition.

Jori, delighted now that disaster had ripened, flung a bread roll in support of nobody in particular.

Brenn caught one in the apron and joined on principle.

Tavi shouted, “Please don’t escalate!”

No one listened, which was useful practice for adulthood.

The bun fight spread with terrifying speed. Savory buns flew first, because they were nearest. Sweet buns followed, because nobody could reach the tray loaves without crossing active fire. Fried buns from Security’s special order turned out to be unnervingly aerodynamic and should never, under any circumstances, have been weaponized.

Crew at the hatch saw what was happening and reacted like the crew of any hungry freighter trapped for months together with bad coffee and old grievances. They joined in.

A hand from Cargo reached through and stole three buns for ammunition.

Someone from Navigation yelled, “Keep the mushrooms away from us!” and then threw a roll with startling accuracy.

Security arrived to stop the disorder and were immediately pelted by breakfast.

One officer caught a sticky bun in the visor and shouted, “Who threw that?”

Three voices yelled back, “Justice!”

In the middle of this, the cats re-emerged.

Marmalade shot across the galley floor with Professor Biscuit attached to his back in a tangle of claws and self-righteous fury. They hit the lower shelf, rebounded upward, and landed directly in a tray of command buns.

Mags screamed as if stabbed in the soul.

The cats exploded back out of the tray in opposite directions, both powdered with flour, one wearing dough like a wig and the other dragging a ribbon of pastry behind him like battle honours. Professor Biscuit launched onto the serving counter and smacked Marmalade clean across the face. Marmalade responded by knocking over the cream jug. The cream spread across the stainless steel like an omen. Both cats stopped fighting.

Every human in the room stopped too.

Cats can smell cream through steel, vacuum, and original sin. The two combatants turned in eerie slow unison and stared at the pooling white river sliding toward the edge of the counter.

Then they dove. They hit the cream together, slipped instantly, collided headfirst, and shot off in opposite directions. Professor Biscuit skidded through spilled flour and emerged looking like a ghost with bad intentions. Marmalade slid into Brenn’s ankles, causing the giant protein cook to windmill backward into the bun mountain trolley, which someone from Life Support had, with criminal optimism, already begun assembling from spare rolls.

The trolley tipped. The bun mountain rose. For one glorious second it stood there, absurd and majestic—a wobbling pyramid of breakfast buns, sweet rolls, fried rounds, and one decorative knot Jori had hidden under a cloth. Then the whole thing collapsed onto the centre of the galley in a slow, breathtaking avalanche. Buns rolled everywhere. Across boots, under tables, into tea, against bulkheads, down the serving hatch, into the queue outside, where the crew stared in awe as breakfast came to them like divine intervention from a very stupid god.

Someone whispered, “Bun mountain.”

Someone else, with the instant solemnity of a fool committing to history, shouted, “BUN MOUNTAIN!”

And the chant took hold. “BUN MOUNTAIN! BUN MOUNTAIN!”

At that exact moment, Captain Iona Vale arrived. She stepped into the hatchway in a spotless uniform and took in the scene.

The collapsed trolley. The galley full of flying bread. The queue of hysterical crew. Security ducking behind a soup urn. Mags standing atop a crate armed with two iced buns. Jori laughing like a man who had finally found his church. Brenn holding Marmalade under one arm like a furry stolen ham. Professor Biscuit crouched atop the tea station with cream on his whiskers and the expression of an emperor in exile. And one sweet bun, launched from some unknown hand of fate, hitting the captain square in the breastbone.

Silence fell. Captain Vale looked down at the icing slowly sliding down her jacket.

She looked up. “Explain.”

No one did. Because how, honestly, could one start?

Well Captain, the cats resumed their blood feud, then engineering took a bun to the chest, pastry lost faith in civilization, and now we appear to be under siege by breakfast.

Jori, idiotically brave, cleared his throat. “In context, ma’am, morale is excellent.”

Captain Vale stared at him. Then, very deliberately, she bent down, picked up a bun from the floor, and threw it at Chief Engineer Rosk. It struck him in the stomach.

No one breathed.

Rosk blinked. “Captain?”

Captain Vale loosened one cuff. “I have served on seventeen ships,” she said. “I have survived a reactor leak, a boarding action, and one amateur theatrical production of King Lear on Ganymede. I will not be defeated by a bakery.”

Then she picked up another bun. And the war resumed. For eight magnificent minutes, all order aboard Saint Marigold vanished. Crew pelted cooks. Cooks pelted crew. Security surrendered to the inevitable and began throwing strategically. Dr. Pell took cover behind the tea urn and continued drinking with clinical fascination. The service bots circled in alarm, repeating, “UNSCHEDULED MORALE EVENT DETECTED. UNSCHEDULED MORALE EVENT DETECTED.”

The cats, their feud temporarily paused by cream and spectacle, sat side by side atop the dry goods locker and watched like tiny furry aristocrats at the opera.

This, perhaps, was the most insulting part.

Eventually the ammunition ran out. There are only so many buns on a freighter, even a reckless one. The galley fell into panting, sugar-dusted stillness.

It looked catastrophic. Flour on the ceiling. Cream on the walls. mushrooms underfoot. Jam on a light panel. Half a fried bun stuck to the captain’s sleeve. Tavi wearing a colander on his head for reasons lost to history.

Captain Vale stepped onto an overturned crate.

Everyone braced.

“You,” she said to the cooks, the crew, the security team, and perhaps to the whole foolish species, “are all going to clean this galley until I can see my reflection in every surface.”

A groan went up.

“And then,” she said, “you are going to make one decent meal together. One. No embellishments. No fights. No bun weaponry. No feline interference.”

Professor Biscuit sneezed creamily from the locker top. The captain pointed at him. “Especially you.”

So they cleaned. They scraped icing off bulkheads. Swept crumbs from vents. Mopped cream from the deck. Rescued cutlery. Retrieved three buns from a lighting unit and one from inside Dr. Pell’s sleeve. Brenn carried Marmalade out under protest. Tavi lured Professor Biscuit away from the cooling racks with a bit of sausage and the kind of whisper normally used in hostage situations.

Then the cooks began again. Della took command. Mags remade the buns, this time under armed emotional guard. Brenn handled the protein. Tavi ran tea. Jori was placed on mushrooms and told, with unusual unanimity, that if he garnished a single thing he would be launched bodily into storage.

He didn’t test it.

By 0930 the second breakfast went out. And it was magnificent.

Soft hot buns. Proper sausage. Good mushrooms. Sweet buns for Cargo. Fried buns for Security. Separate mushroom allocation for Navigation, whose request had somehow become policy. Command received a plain, excellent brunch with not one artistic curl in sight.

The crew ate in reverent silence.

In the galley, exhausted and sticky, the kitchen staff leaned against counters while the cats prowled the floor for scraps, now ignoring each other with the chilly courtesy of enemies who had exhausted themselves.

Tavi looked at them all and said, “So. The proverb was right.”

Della sipped tea. “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”

Mags snorted. “We didn’t even make broth. We nearly lost a ship to pastry and cat politics.”

Jori nodded thoughtfully. “Then perhaps the deeper wisdom is that too many cooks spoil everything.”

“Especially breakfast,” said Brenn.

From the intercom, Captain Vale’s voice crackled across the ship. “For the official record,” she said, dry as old crust, “there will be no recognized annual celebration of Bun Mountain.”

A pause. “Unofficially, leftovers in the mess at eighteen hundred. The cats are barred.”

A cheer rolled down the corridors.

Marmalade meowed in outrage. Professor Biscuit leapt onto a stool and knocked over a spoon in protest.

Della watched them, then shook her head. “One day,” she said, “I want one quiet breakfast.”

Dr. Pell, finishing his tea, smiled into the wreckage. “Why start chasing impossible dreams now?”

And that was ship life, really. You could chart stars, haul freight across the dark, patch a cracked hull in vacuum, and deliver medicine through pirate lanes. But all it took to humble the lot of you was too many cooks, too many opinions, one tray of buns, and two cats with unfinished business.

Which was, in its own way, comforting. The universe might be vast and strange beyond all measure. But a kitchen disaster?

That was timeless.

With help from AI tools, I refined and shaped parts of this book during the writing process.