Challenge #01589-D128: Hazardous Playthings
Yo Yo See what you can do with this prompt. it would have been just yo yo but they wanted a longer sentence. -- Anon Guest
There is a uniquely human term, 'toy'. Though the concept of play is nothing new to many species in the Galactic Alliance, the Terran concept of things designed for play alone is strange to many. The fact that many of these objects used to be used as weapons just goes to show that Deathworlders are creatures to be feared.
It also shows that humans will play with anything.
This human, assigned to the Keflax vessel 239867[1], had a small device in their pocket. It was two discs, cemented together around a cylindrical core, and that core was wound about with string. At any idle moment, the human named Steve would bring it out and start playing with both it and gravity. Sometimes seeming to defy it.
Galactic Society had heard about 'fidgets' before, but this was a form of of entertainment that could take mere seconds to initiate. The human Steve would put the toy away in seconds when requested to perform their duties. And over a passage of weeks, the Keflax aboard grew to ignore all but the most spectacular of human-Steve's tricks.
Until the day that the Vorax attempted to attack. The Vorax, also Deathworlders, are known cogniphagics. They had learned early not to attack human vessels, but had yet to learn why human crewmates were becoming tremendously popular in Galactic society. They were about to.
The Keflax, knowing that humans could beat the Vorax easily, sent human-Steve to intercept at the airlock. Then the crew retreated to their lifepods to watch the ensuing carnage from a safe place.
Human-Steve waited in the hallway for the Vorax chief to come through. Unarmed. And playing with their toy. They seemed largely unconcerned that the Universe's most infamous carnivores were about to enter. The assembled Keflax quaked to see their human playing and seeming unconcerned with their seemingly inevitable fate.
The Vorax chief came through, head and helmet first, and human-Steve absently flicked his toy directly at the glass face-plate. Which shattered.
The Keflax were immunised against human diseases. The Vorax were not. Human-Steve knew this and literally spat the Vorax chief in the eye. The digestive agents in that spit started acting instantly. The viruses were already invading the Vorax Chief's body. Though the Chief retreated, he was already infected. Those of his crew and tribe who rushed to aid him were infected soon after.
Plague hit the whole of the Vorax inside of a Standard Week. All because of human-Steve's toy.
And, because human-Steve had technically defeated the Chief in one blow, the Keflax crew were saved. The Keflax showed their gratitude by finally working to learn the alien name of human-Steve's little toy. And how to use it for potential combat.
It took them quite a long time to learn how to properly say, 'yo-yo'.
[1]: Not every species sees the significance of giving names to vessels.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / mary981]
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