Challenge #04094-K076: Act Like a Child...

in #fiction3 months ago

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You know, I always find it so shocking how some people can make such a massive upset over something so small. The way they're screaming you'd think I just told them their world was about to end. All I did was tell them that they cannot come aboard my ship because I've already a full complement of passengers. I refuse to to be unkind by making someone sit uncomfortably simply because this individual is throwing a temper-tantrum. -- DaniAndShali

Pilot Paz stared down at the Human in complete bafflement. According to hir available information, this was the behaviour of their neophytes. The Human was throwing herself on the floor, flailing arms and legs and screaming as if she were being murdered.

Paz double-checked the infonets. This was indeed the behaviour of a Human child. The age range they called 'toddler'. Barely past mastering bipedal motion, possessing debatable bladder and bowel control, and certainly lacking emotional control. This was the classical reaction of a toddler being told 'no'. Yet the person performing it was clearly an adult.

This was beyond Paz's expertise. Clearly, this Human needed some helpful intervention, but Paz only knew how to handle hir ship. There was only one thing to do.

Paz opened comms to the station's central offices. "I believe a medical intervention is necessary at Port J-twenty-seven. There is a Human at my docking gate involved in extreme paroxysms. Opening live cam feed now."

The Emergency Response Team was entering the scene before Paz finished opening the camera feeds, including the previous ten minutes on record. They had their scanners running and eyecams recording as they approached.

"There's nothing medically wrong with her," said one of the team.

"She's still a danger to herself and everyone else," the second readied a stunner. Calibrating it for the right kind of nervous disruption. "We can sort it all out in Medik Central."

The Human heard the ominous hum of the stunner and miraculously recovered. "No don't you dare shoo--"

Zzzak.

She fell limp to the floor. As floppy as a rag doll. The ERT then manhandled her onto a stretcher and took her away. One remained to take Paz's contact details, so ze could be informed regarding the results of the station-side investigation.

Once ze got clearance to depart, Paz did so. Ze also apologised to hir passengers for the delay.

Two weeks later, Paz would be notified that Tourist Q'ren had been detained for causing a disturbance, falsifying a medical emergency, and attempting to endanger a passenger vessel and all passengers aboard. Which amounted to three hundred total counts of attempted murder.

This was the Alliance's first encounter with a Knomira[1].

It would not, unfortunately, be their last.

[1] Onomatopoeically named for their catch-cry "I know my rights" which they say so often that it becomes verbal mash.

[Photo by K F on Unsplash]

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