Challenge #02966-H043: Non-crucial Failure State

In the early days, humans had just been allowed into the Alliance, but quite a few were still wary. These were very dangerous deathworlders. Sure they were smallish, depending on the species that worked with them, and somewhat squishy, but damn were they tenacious and dangerous! It was well known they were predators, too, that could, and would, eat pretty much anything, including quite a few things that were poisonous.

However, what the crew wasn't prepared for, was during dinner. The human was a bit of a joker, liked to smile and was easy-going and easy to work with. So the crew's fear and nervousness was fading fast. Then the human got a bad case of the hiccups during dinner. And they had no clue what in the heck was going on -- Anon Guest

Humans have a great love of sharing things. Sharing meals, sharing games, sharing humour, sharing weird little facts about whatever they happened to enjoy. Shared meals, they insisted, were a wonderful bonding experience. Or... it would have been.

Humans, at this stage in things, were the ones who knew the most about Humans. All the rest of the Alliance had were testimony from close encounters, anecdotes, translated documents, and a lot of rumours and myths. Some of which were actively encouraged by mischievous Humans.

This was, officially, the first formal meal that Alliance civilians shared with a Human. Though the conversations were largely in GalSimple, everything was going well. Until the Human - Gef - started having a breathing issue. They started speaking oddly, with peculiar stops in their breath. Even when they weren't talking, there was a peculiar noise accompanying the spasms. Human Gef seemed to treat it as a minor annoyance.

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