Schematization: Thank you for the helpful review! I hope some of your questions will be answered in this chapter!
Doctor McCoy stepped onto the bridge, followed by Captain Kirk.
Suddenly, the ship came to a sudden stop and took a sharp turn upwards. McCoy stumbled backwards into the Captain, and both of them fell back into the turbolift. The doors closed, and the turbolift started to move back down.
"What was that?" McCoy shouted.
"It had better not be what I think it is," Captain Kirk muttered, stopping the turbolift and sending it back up to the bridge.
When they stepped off the turbolift for the second time, the Captain immediately went to his chair and activated the com system. "Scotty," he demanded. "What happened?"
"It's that thing you brought from the planet, Captain!" Scotty cried. "It's gone mad! It's into the engines and I can't make it stop!"
The ship took a sharp left turn, nearly throwing the Captain from his chair.
"I'll be right there," Captain Kirk said, regaining his balance. He called for a security team to meet him in engineering, then started towards the turbolift. "Bones, you'd better come, too."
McCoy followed him onto the turbolift, muttering something about "that psychotic, stick-weilding thing".
When they arrived in engineering, they were met by chaos. Sid was running around wildly, waving his stick. Several of the engineers were chasing him, but having no success. Sid was much faster, and much more agile than the engineers.
Sid jumped up onto one of the computers, brandishing his stick. "Stay back!" he shouted at the engineers. "I have a stick!"
One of the engineers advanced towards Sid, but Sid swung his stick, catching the engineer across the head. "Ha ha! Take that!" Sid cried. "Now, who's next?" Sid took a step backwards, onto the computer's navigating controls, sending the ship into a hard right turn that threw everyone across the room.
"You've got to do something!" Scotty pleaded. "Hurry! Before it destroys everything!"
The security team had arrived, and they moved towards Sid, phasers drawn. When Sid saw them, he planted himself defiantly in front of them, waving his stick. "Stay back!" he said. "Keep your evil, weaponie thingies away from me!"
One of the security officers fired a single shot from his phaser, catching Sid directly in the chest. Sid fell, unconcious, stunned.
"You oughtta keep that thing locked up, Captain," Scotty said. "It's likely to destroy the whole ship!"
"Yes, we'll be more careful in the future," the Captain said. "Won't we, Bones?" he added.
McCoy scowled.
The security officers picked up the unconcious Sid and carried him back to his cage in sickbay, and locked him in it.
"What are we going to do about this... this thing, Jim?" McCoy asked, when the security officers had left sickbay.
"Keep it locked up," the Captain said. "And as soon as it wakes up, we'll give it a very thorough explanation of the rules itis expectedto follow while on the Enterprise."
A few hours later, Sid found himself sitting in the briefing room, strapped to a chair. Captain Kirk, Spock, and Doctor McCoy sat across from him. "What is the meaning of this?" Sid demanded, pulling at the straps holding him to the chair. "I demand to be released!"
"I'm sure you do," Captain Kirk said. "But first, you're going to listen to what I have to say."
"No long speeches, please. I have a very short attention span."
"I don't doubt it," McCoy muttered.
Captain Kirk ignored the doctor's comment, and looked directly at Sid. "First of all, I am the Captain of this ship, so you must do whatever I tell you to do."
"Mister Bossy," Sid said.
"And I am telling you to behave," the Captain continued. "Running through the ship and wrecking things is not acceptable. From this point forward, you are not allowed to go anywhere without my permission, and even then you must be accompanied by someone."
"Release me!" Sid demanded, struggling to free himself from the straps. "I demand to be released!"
"Not yet," the Captain said. "I want you to tell me some things about yourself."
"Well," Sid began. "My name is Sid, and I'm a sloth. My favorite color is blue, like the sky. I like to eat berries and veggetables. I'm not a carnivore like those evil tigers. They're really scary, you know. They've got really sharp teeth, and they're always trying to eat me. But I did know this tiger once, and he didn't try to eat me. Well, I guess he did at first, but then we got to be kind of friends, you know? There were these other tigers attacking us, and he fought them off. Actually, he almost died, and at first I thought he had, and I was really sad. But he wasn't dead! And so I was really happy. And then--"
"Sid, that's enough," Captain Kirk said. "Maybe you could tell me a little bit about the planet you live on."
"Oh, yes. My home, sweet home," the sloth said. "Well, there are lots of nice trees for me to climb. Sloths love to climb trees, you know. And there are lots of yummy berries for me to eat. It's really nice down there, except in the winter. Then it gets really cold and snowy."
"Sounds a lot like Earth," Bones commented.
"I love my home," Sid continued. "But you evil kidnappers took me away from my beloved home. I was just wandering around, kinda lost, minding my own buisiness, and I found this little box that was shaped like a stretched-out square--"
"A rectangle," Spock supplied.
"Yes, a rectangle," Sid said. "Well, anyway, I was playing with it. It was really neat. It was kind of grayish-shiny color--"
"Silver," Spock said.
"Sure, whatever. And it had this big, red... this-shaped button on it." With some difficulty, Sid made his hand into the shape of a circle.
"Circular," Spock corrected him, in a tone that bordered on annoyance.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Sid said. "You and your technical terms."
Spock raised an eyebrow.
"Well, anyway," the sloth continued. "I demand to be released! You evil kidnappers."
"We are not kidnapping you," the Captain said. "We are just taking you to somewhere else. Some important people want to see you."
"I am the almighty Sid," Sid announced proudly. "I am the most important person I know."
"Yes, and because of your importance, these people want to meet you," McCoy said.
"Oh..." Sid said, obviously considering this. "Yes, of course," he said importantly.
"And we are not kidnapping you," the doctor insisted. "We are simply bringing you to where you can meet these people."
"Yes," the Captain agreed. "And while you are on the ship, you must promise to behave by the rules I explained to you."
"Rules?" the sloth repeated inquiringly.
"Don't tell me he's forgotten already," McCoy muttered.
"Oh, those rules!"
McCoy rolled his eyes.
"Release me," Sid demanded.
"All right," Captain Kirk consented. "I will untie you, but only if you promise to behave."
Sid seemed to be considering this. Finally he said, "Yes, yes, okay."
Captain Kirk eyed him warily, but untied the straps that were holding Sid to the chair.
As soon as he had removed the last strap, Sid jumped up and bolted from the room. "Yahoo!" he cried happily. "I'm free!"
Captain Kirk jumped to catch him, but had to draw back in order to avoid getting his arm caught in the closing turbolift doors.
"Here we go again," McCoy said. "That was brilliant, Jim, releasing him."
"I wanted to see if we could trust him."
"Well, apparently, we can't. And now that thing is off to destroy the entire ship."
