Deregger escapees in a stolen ship nearly crash into the station due to lack of power to steer. Once rescued, the Gyiik in the station realize these Dereggers are badly starved, and kick into action to help them. -- Anon Guest
It had come in drifting, leaking, and clearly out of control. The comms were down, the lights were off, and scans recognised the atmosphere content inside it as 'terrible'. In the end of all things, it was a mercy that the station's Hungry Caterpillar devoured it.
One hundred and fifty souls were crammed in the ruin of a ship made for twenty, most of them were children. One hundred and fifty filthy human beings were decanted into emergency quarantine shelters. As soon as familial ties were identified, those families were re-united.
And then the Temple of Plenty sprang into action. Yes, the local Gyiiks argued, these people were in quarantine. Yes, they did have fragile systems that needed careful attention to detail... but they were also poor unfortunate souls who desperately needed something nice in their lives. Flavour. Variety. Choice!
The station gardens had more than enough, after all. The assembled chefs would love to stretch their capabilities by cooking food enough to restore a body to health whilst also not disrupting anything delicate about them.
Of course, these were Dereggers. They'd heard a lot of falsehoods about the aliens they were meeting. Including the usual vile canards.
"I heard your lot bit the heads off of live chickens," complained the latest patient. Well, at least they weren't accusing Mel of outright cogniphagia[1].
"My good cogniscent," said Mel, trying to maintain hir cool, "That is an unsanitary preparation process."
[1] Cogniphagia: The practice of consuming intelligent life forms. Were it just one species, one might call it cannibalism. Many still do.
[Photo by Babs Gorniak on Unsplash]
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