I am not your load to bear - Chapter 2 (Early Access) (Patreon)

Dillan

With his rejected port leave request hanging off the edge of his desk, Dillan stabbed at his keyboard irritably. He had attempted to line up his leave allowances with every human planet on the roster but hadn’t managed to get permissions for either of the two they had stopped at so far. Three months into the mission and he had yet to set foot on a human-occupied planet.

Even if the places were hell holes, pits of poverty and desperation like the human crew members described, he wanted to see it for himself. There was no point beating out thousands of applicants to take a position on an experimental alliance ship only to spend the entire journey visiting your own kind’s territories.

Of course, Dillan was getting to experience humans up close and all around him on-board The Cornucopia. And that was interesting, too. But it turned out they weren’t as different and exotic as he, and probably most of the Ailu’t crew, had expected.

The human he was most close with, physically speaking, was his fellow logistics documentation officer, Bexley. He was quite small, and loud, and liked to give Dillan sarcastic looks when he was “finger-banging his keyboard.” Dillan’s personal communicator had not had a clear translation for the expression, but he got the impression it was crude.

Dillan glanced up. Bexley was watching him, waiting for his moment. Just as he opened his mouth, Dillan jumped in first.

“Don’t say it. I’m sorry for typing angrily, but I am angry.”

“Dillan, I swear, there’s nothing exciting or cultural about human-occupied planets this far out in the galaxy. They’re basically the Wild West reborn in space. Which sounds a lot cooler than it is. You’re saving yourself from seeing public brawls or getting your pockets picked.”

Dillan only understood half of the words Bexley had used, but he huffed in disagreement regardless.

“Half of them are basically giant labour camps, too. We’re picking up and dropping off shit loads of crates of raw minerals - how do you think they generate this much product? The people that live on these planets do nothing but work, drink and try to leave.”

“If these places are so awful, why are the humans not doing anything to change them?”

“That’s a good question, Dillan. The answer is that humans have a terminal addiction to this thing called capitalism-”

The door to their shared office clunked open jerkily. The touch-pad hadn’t been functioning so well since Bexley head-butted it while extremely drunk their first week into the mission. Maintenance had pushed their repair request to the very bottom of their list when they found out the damage was man-made, so to speak. Dillan liked that expression “man-made”, the humans had lots of phrases that he was slowly stealing. His other current favourite was “chicken scratch”, it meant unclear writing and a chicken was an edible animal. Bexley's pencil writings were chicken scratch.

He had gotten caught up in a tangent inside his own mind. Not uncommon but embarrassing when he realised Officer Sovereign was speaking from the doorway. Bexley was listening intently, so Dillan pretended he was, too.

"-only approximate but be ready to document the inbound cargo within that time," she said.

"Sounds like I have time to drop a load of my own cargo," Bexley replied cheerfully.

Dillan did not like all of the human euphemisms for pooping. Humans’ favourite topics of conversation were their bowels and their penises.

Officer Sovereign gave the human a look of disdain but did not respond.

"Thank you, Officer Sovereign," Dillan said quietly, hoping to break the awkward silence.

"You are welcome, Officer Dynasty." It still brought a prickle of awkward embarrassment to Dillan’s neck to be called ‘officer’ by someone who was a real officer. A documentation officer and a soldier were not even slightly related.

Officer Sovereign took her leave swiftly, and Bexley pulled a face at her back.

"Why are your people all so serious?" he asked as he stood from his desk. No doubt on his way to the bathroom, which he would advertise to every other male along his path.

"I don't think that's true," Dillan answered. Bexley took no notice of his words. He also didn't bother with the strain of dragging their office door closed.

Dillan locked his computer and climbed free from his seat. The documentation office couldn't comfortably fit two people, but the Alliance had ordered that for every role, bar commander and marine major, there would be a human and Ailu't consignment. Dillan and Bexley's desks hadn't a hair’s width between them and much of their paperwork overlapped. It was not difficult to determine ownership, though, as they were each fulfilling the same role in different languages. Bexley created the same reports as Dillan but in English. Dillan wrote his in South-Western and Southern. Bexley's paperwork went to Commander Laurel, and then the human delegation of the Alliance. Dillan's passed through Marine Major Symphony on their way to the Ailu't side.

Ailu't languages were only supposed to be written, not spoken, aboard Alliance ships. The universal language for crew members was ordered to be English. However, Marine Major Symphony frequently attempted to start conversations with Dillan in Southern. He would always hold up his side of the conversation in English.

As she was his superior, he didn't have the authority to order her to stop. But he often felt as though she were leading him into a trap. As though she were hoping he would respond in his neighbour language, and she could report him for refusal to follow Alliance orders. It was not as though they were friends or knew each other prior to the experiment. He had no reason to trust her as anything other than a colleague and, more importantly, his superior.

With Major Symphony coming from a military background rather than a logistical one, Dillan was not always sure she understood what his reports meant or how to read them, but as long as they reached Alliance HQ, he supposed it was none of his business.

He ambled down to the cargo bay, day-dreaming the entire way. Bexley would notice he was gone and follow him down, hopefully in time for the loaders arrival. They got very annoyed when they had to wait. They were all much larger than he and Bexley, in every direction. Dillan had no interest in riling them up.

As crates came in, it was Bexley and Dillan's duty to document the contents, their origin and their destination. They then kept track of what was on-board and what was due to leave at which stop throughout their journey. This pick-up was not scheduled on the original journey plan, but it had been added by an official within the Alliance and was on their way, so Commander Laurel had seen no reason to decline the request.

The more stops, the happier the crew were. It gave them more chances to visit new places and stretch their legs and enjoy real, fresh air. It was the ship's captain's duty to ensure the crew made it back to their home port within their contracted time. Any extra days of work required to wrap up the deliveries were paid very well. Either they would get home on time because the Alliance did not want the extra charges, or they would all be getting big bonuses once they eventually made it back.

A queue was waiting for him when he reached the loading bays. Not a long one, but the climate of the planet they were perched on was humid, and the sweat sheens on the lined men told Dillan they wouldn’t be particularly patient with his faffing today.

He took up his booth and scanned his access card to lift the barrier. Bexley’s remained empty on the opposite side of the metal ramp leading into the underbelly of The Cornucopia.

“Approach, please!” Dillan called to the first man in line.

He was heavy-set, as was the common theme for the cargo loaders, and had stringy brown hair that was clumping together with sweat over his head, giving the illusion of balding patches.

“’ppreciate you openin’ up early,” he grunted.

“It’s hot,” Dillan explained with a shrug.

“Yer tellin’ me! Sweatin’ from places you ain’t know.”

Dillan was fairly certain this was another instance of a human discussing their penis publicly. He gave an awkward laugh and scanned the trolley of enormous crates with his wireless label reader. The stock code was of human design and implied, from those that Dillan had seen so far, that the contents included raw materials.

Rocks and dirt, as Bexley had put it.

Beckoning the man to load his trolley onto the scale, Dillan wondered why the Ailu’t designation of the Alliance would request a pick-up of human resources. Any sign of trade between the two species had to be promising.

The weight that displayed on the monitor above Dillan’s head was low. The materials had to be loosely packed; perhaps they were volatile and had to be individually packaged. Although if they were, he should have received a warning when scanning the crate. He recorded the weight and nodded the sweaty man through to load up the hold.

By the third trolley load, all raw materials and all surprisingly light, Bexley sidled up to his booth.

“Roll up, roll up, gentlemen!” he called over his barrier with a wink. When he raised the barrier, the queue split into two.

The first to approach was a human. He had yellow hair that curled over his forehead and flicked out like he had slept with it folded against him. Dillan hadn’t noticed him before, but today he was curled over Bexley as though trying to shade him from the sun with his shadow. His muscles bunched visibly under his rolled t-shirt sleeves every time he moved. There was something strange about all of his movements.

The man attempted to make conversation, but Bexley brushed him off with eye rolls and snorts of exasperated laughter. He could handle himself; he didn’t need Dillan watching over him.

“Is something wrong?” The Ailu’t cargo loader beside him barked.

Dillan jumped and wrote down the weight of his trolley and waved him along. The man grumbled as he shoved his trolley forward with much more force than was necessary.