Siege - Sci-Fi (M/M)

3. From another walk of life

Secaro

I looked at the guy and showed him my wrist-com. He looked at it, then at me. He moved out of the way and allowed me to board. He had verified my identity by reading my memory and all conversation had been established via telepathy. That was the way we communicated on Secaro. Except I wasn't going to be there anymore.

It was strange being a passenger on one of these things - nearly always being part of the crew. I had undertaken my training and completed it a while ago, and had partaken in local flights since then. However, if I wanted to do the big boy stuff, I had to study the human race as I would have to mingle with them in my new job aboard one of the ships.

Originally I had hoped to land a job on the kind of ship I was boarding now, but they only take on older and more experienced crew members as it is a long flight. I was happy to hear of a position on an more Earthbound flight, but before then, I had to spend a short while on Earth - practising my language skills and getting properly acquainted with the culture. We learn a lot in our human studies, but it is much different when you are speaking with them and interacting I am told.

I find the pod I will be sleeping in for the journey and get comfy. The flight length is what humans would call a month, and some people can get a little crazy being on a ship for so long, so we have to spend most of it in a sleep-like state. They wake us up every 3 days for a day before sending us back to sleep. This is because it is dangerous to be put into one of these sleeps for too long and we need to keep our bodies moving frequently so we can still walk properly when we arrive at the port. I experienced this sleep-like state in training so I am used to it.

Waking up every 3 days can be a little disorientating so I am glad when I realise it was my last wake up and am now being prepared to leave the ship for boarding onto my next flight. I have some time to kill so I walk around the massive port and try to listen in to some of the human conversations. It's funny but I didn't expect voices to sound so varied. We were given examples in my studies but only a few - and most of us tried to mimick those sounds so we all sounded pretty similar to one another at the time.

Now I am here, I start to panic a little. I have no qualms about being on a ship at all, but the reality is setting in. Will my human crew-mates accept me? Can I manage to understand them and be around them? How will humans treat me on Earth when I visit? We haven't exactly been the best to them, so history says, so I don't know how hostile they may be to our kind.

A bar! Great.