Shortly after their receive a shipment of stolen parrots, alien smugglers learn that pet parrots tend to repeat some of the most common phrases they have heard the hard way. There are some things that should never be heard, and can never be unheard. -- Anon Guest
"Captain Fresk is going to panic," said a voice. It sounded a lot like crewmate Jori, but it came, seemingly, from the cage of brightly-coloured exotic Deathworlder avian that they had successfully stolen from Brightwing Station. They assumed that Crewmate Jori was behind the cage.
"Captain Fresk isn't going to panic. It's all under control." This time, since Haak was facing the bird, she got to witness the avian go into an act. The bird repeated the public address chime and an announcement common to Brightwing Station.
"Bingley bingley beep. Attention all Havenworlder visitors," the bird recited, "The scheduled bar fight in the Ruined Drum Drink will begin at precisely Four Seventeen in the afternoon, station time. This is your twenty minute warning. Bingley bingley beep."
"Uh..." said Liish. "Maybe we should try and program these things with new outputs."
Now the bird screamed, "SHUT UP!" at a near deafening volume, and then singsonged, "Hello pretty birdie..." in the sweetest possible voice. The bird scratched itself and announced, "Wanna bikkie."
Liish said, "Good birdie," as she fed it a compressed seed cake. "You go and forget all the names you know. Niiice birdie."
The bird said, "Up yours, Liish."
It was, therefore, no surprise that the Alliance Law caught up with them. The witnesses weren't technically cogniscent, but they did a remarkable impersonation. Almost all the parrots they had smuggled out of Brightwing.
Each and every parrot that had once been kept in the hold of the smuggler's ship, was paraded in front of the court and encouraged to go through their routines.
This included, "Calm down, Jori," and "Up yours, Liish," and, "Oh shut up Haak," and, "Captain Fresk is going to panic." Which Captain Fresk indeed did.
They would be working off their debts to society for a long, long time.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / parrotstarr]
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