It’s a human

"It's a human?" asked the medic. "We never had one of those before."

"It's ID lists it as Human. Might be more than one kind, I guess." replied the nursing brood.

"Is it broken? I'll have to research this. Is it supposed to look like that? Poor thing is all skin. Did it lose its fur? It only has scraps left."

The nursing brood brought out the ID. " I think that's what it always looked like". The pity was evident in its voices.

The medic wiped the humans face. "There is a lot of liquid. I'll need to analyse it." She inserted the swap into her mouth.

"It's..saline solution, trace minerals. Also some form of plasma. Aftertaste of decaying cell structures. Iron rich.

Oh fuck...it's on drugs! Adrenaline, industrial cleaner.." she vomited up the contents of her third stomach.

The nurse grabbed her equipment, quickly spraying the counteragent to adrenaline on the medic.

"Please hold on, this will reduce the effects. Stay calm. It didn't have time to reach your hearts."

The medic gripped the floor with every appendage. It felt like her carapace was about to burst. Finally she could speak

"I want this room sealed! I want everyone warned to stay away and I want everything we know about humans on my datapad right now. Contact the port, they must have met this species before. Why is it here anyway? What happened? Is it the poisons?"

"I'm sorry, it was delivered by the security team. Apparently there was a serious accident in the night quarter. It was involved, but I don't know more until they report back to us. They thought it was dead."

The nurse turned back to the patient.

The human was on a medical bed that was several inches too short. Its garments were torn apart, covered in the grime of the accident. Or was it always like that? Many addicts looked rough. It shook its heads. You can never tell with aliens, it could be a mating ritual. It often was.

Her musings were interrupted by movement. The human turned itself over, groaned and released poisonous gas throughout the room.

Alerts began screaming, the lights switched to the orange warning pulse and the doors began sealing. The shriek of the machines drove the pair from the room. It sealed tightly behind them.

The now disgruntled medic was watching though the cameras. Bio-decontamination involved a lot of scrubbing. Her datapad had no information about human biology, simply an instruction to inform the human government and the ship it had arrived in.

Her nurse had demanded sick leave and hazard pay. Now the ward was quarantined. The human just lay on the bed, occasionally making unpleasant noises.

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Her new nurse was built like a tank. It had been seconded from the psych ward. She didn't know the species, but from the size of it, it could remove the human easily.

She had authorised the med-bots to approach the human. A medical team was being assembled, gathering the best consultants the planet had. Someone had mentioned bio-warfare and that got things moving.

The monitoring continued. Occasionally the human would release more poison. The med-bots reported that the Human seemed to be in respiratory failure. Its breathing had become intermittent, interrupted by loud exclamations and what may have been speech.

After a serious expense of medical experts, the medic was summoned.

"We think the poison might be a defensive measure. It's obviously injured. The drugs it consumed may be making it worse. From the sounds it's making, it's in distress. We need to examine it closer. But be careful, it may be hostile."

The med-bots approached carefully. They began putting restraints on the visible limbs of the human. All five of them.

The first two passed simply enough, then things went downhill. The human woke up, and on seeing two med-bots rearranging things they probably shouldn't have, it hurled both of the bots into the wall, shouting in rage.

The monitors reported that Adrenaline was now increasing exponentially in the room.

The human began unstrapping its limbs.

The medic had thought it couldn't get worse, now the creature was attacking. She had no idea where it had concealed its drugs, but now it was a monster. The levels of adrenaline in the room would kill a hive mind. She had one option left.

Her nurse had been sealed into the finest bio-warfare equipment the hospital could provide. It walked into the ward and opened fire with the best stunner the psych ward had.

The human, still tangled in the straps and sheets took bolt after bolt. Apparently even more incensed, it seized the monitor beside it and threw it at the nurse. The final shot hit the human directly between the eyes, as did the monitor when it hit the nurse. Both of them collapsed.

Security was mostly paperwork around here, but the night quarter has its moments, thought the Constable. Now he had to retrieve the body of the alien from the hospital. Sad, really, that it had died so far from home, but it would be treated with honour.

He arrived to panic. Security demanded his ID and when he mentioned who he was here to collect, he was hustled into a meeting room. From the sirens and air of panic, something was going on.

The medic was first to reach him

" What did you leave here? Aliens are one thing but this is a monster! We had to close the whole place down!"

The Constable shook his mandibles in confusion. "We left you a corpse, how is that dangerous?"

The medic was screeching now "A corpse? That..thing is alive and on enough drugs to kill everything in this building! It just demolished my nurse and most of the equipment in its room! Not to mention poisoning the place! Where is this creature from?"

The Constable quickly read the report. " It's an engineer, arrived yesterday, waiting for its new ship. He, it's male, was drinking in the night quarter when there was an accident.

A bad one. He recovered the wounded, then the vehicle exploded. We recovered his body. He had been thrown ten metres into a building. Of course he was dead."

"That is not dead out there. Consider that a medical opinion.Find me someone who can sort this out. Otherwise the military will be here next."

Engineer Eells walked through the deserted hospital. It had been quite difficult to keep a straight face when security had explained the problem and showed him the recording. He had refused all the bio-protection gear, to the dismay of the medical staff.

He sat beside the bed. His brand new Engineer was snoring and farting happily. The stunner had, in the end, lost out to a long day on the beer.

"Engineer Schilz, wake up. Now"

The groggy human looked up." Eells, what are you doing here?"

He pushed himself up. "Where is here anyway? Sorry, I seem to have lost track of the night. Weird dreams. Am I due on board already?"

Eells smiled." No, you're fine. Just let me do the talking. Also, sincerely, what the fuck were you eating yesterday?"

Schilz frowned." I dunno. Local version of a kebab, I think."

"Well, don't eat another one. Come on, let's get you to the ship. Apparently you're a hero."