My ship’s hatch hissed open and I stepped out into the pink light of Neon, clinging to my bag by the straps. I grinned as I glimpsed in the distance the city the Alliance training base was situated in, a mish mash of rounded buildings of all sorts of sizes and colours, with rubbery plants snaking around them into the sky. My skin tingled and I ran my hands over the implant attached to my waist that I’d been given on my summons here. It was apparently supposed to stabilize my body chemistry so that I could exist on this planet without, like, dying. Nice of them really. The Alliance (or as I liked to think of it, the Space UN) had members from planets all over the galaxy, so Neon was chosen as a planet with a fairly neutral atmosphere and stuff for their training to take place with minimal support systems for each species’ wacky biology. I was excited to be around aliens again. Although obviously it had been good to find my father’s expedition after years of searching and get a break from planet hopping week after week, I’ve got to say I had missed the excitement and diversity of the universe. When the Alliance had offered me a job on a relief team, whatever that would turn out to be, I had jumped at it. It was the perfect work for me – visiting planets, meeting cool aliens, helping people, fixing machines – amazing right? Before that, of course, I would have to go through three months of preparatory training here at Neon’s cool facilities, get all brushed up on whatever I needed to know to be an Alliance agent. There had been some pre reading but I’d only skimmed over it because my attention span was non-existent.

Guess I was about to find out. Because my signing up to the Alliance had been super last minute I’d arrived on Neon just in time for their orientation seminar; I got the feeling from the lack of other ships arriving and the settled in look of people walking around that most people had been here for a while, at the very least a couple of hours to get their bearings before diving straight into training. Oh well. I didn’t mind. I pulled up the booklet I’d been sent and headed off towards orientation.

And then I realised I’d misread the map and had to run very quickly to the other end of the campus, entering the lecture hall just in time. It was already packed and there were probably about two hundred people filling the seats of various sizes and with various attachments. I picked my way through to a seat that I felt would be okay for me to sit on and put my bag on the small table in front of me. I turned sheepishly to the people beside me and introduced myself. I immediately got shushed and one chick pointed a tentacle towards the screen at the front of the room, where an orientation video was playing.

I was fascinated with the set up they had going on. It was wild. The presentation was being spoken by one of the Alliance heads, literally a floating head in a jar speaking in Galactic Basic, which I understood a bit of, not my forte really. It was okay though because on my desk I had hundreds of options for subtitles to choose from so I could follow along. While the presenter spoke the screen flashed different colours for those who communicated that way, and also emitted substances for those who used chemoreception. It was very inclusive and very cool. I took a moment to glance around at the various aliens in the room with me and almost squealed in awe. I’d been a lot of places in the universe but I’d never seen a place with so much diversity. There were a lot of aliens I recognised and a lot I didn’t but I slid my eyes over every section, taking in all the different colours and shapes and faces.

Across the room an alien floated upside down on the ceiling, tendrils pointing downwards at the screen. I didn’t know the species but that was awesome.

Further down on the wall was a Matraxan, a little purple starfish alien whose one eye blinked rapidly as it took everything in; I’d been on Matraxa the first time I learnt about the Alliance and it would be neat to work with their species again.

Speaking of working with, if I remembered right that guy there was a Staphan. Termite-like, flickering wings, communicated telepathically with each other. They were the native species of Staphas, which is where Alliance Base 17, the one I would be working on, orbited around.

Ooh, and over there! A whole row of Fullerton Asteroid-Archipelago Gobbleforms! I’d only seen one once before on an asteroid colony. They were blobby dudes who spoke by changing colour, and floated in the right gravity, but otherwise had to use their limbs to propel themselves.

At the end of my row sat an Andruin, and I had to physically tear my eyes away to stop myself from staring. Andruin’s were ethereal beings, vaguely humanoid but also partway in another dimension. They glowed faintly and just generally looked a bit terrifying, not because they looked dangerous but because of how almost normal they seemed, yet you could always tell there was something eerie about them. Until recent times, the main continent of Andruin had been ruled by a tyrannical government which had sold off many of their people as slaves to other planets. This had ended when an Andruin known as the Protector had overthrown them as the head of an activist group. The Protector was weirder than most Andruin’s because she could traverse the transdimensional space and thus teleport almost anywhere in the universe merely by thought, and also she had lightning powers. She’d become a living legend in the galaxy right now, and I had heard that Andruin had recently signed a treaty with the Alliance and would now be once again involved in intergalactic affairs. So that was pretty cool.

I realised that I had immediately become distracted from the video I was supposed to be watching. It wasn’t like it was a boring one either, it was quite engaging. I was just very talented like that. I forced myself to pay attention, pulling out a little gadget I’d made to fiddle with for this very purpose.

“As a member of the Alliance you will all be involved in our important work in maintaining intergalactic peace and security, through upholding the requirements of each planetary treaty, delivering eleemosynary aid, promoting sustainable development and fostering unity and empowerment. It is vital to everything we do that we are meeting the inherent rights of all beings, and being respectful to all cultures and values. To this end the Alliance developed the Gigaanum Development Goals, and an essential part of your training will be learning those goals and how you personally and as part of the wider organisation contribute to the bettering of the whole galaxy.”

I smiled and pressed on the translator so I could have simple answers for some of the difficult words that were being said. I didn’t receive a high school education after all. I thought about Abigail, my best friend from the planet Flauraan, and how excited this speech would be making her. She loved big words and social justice, she was that sort of intellectual person. I wished she was here with me right now, so I could watch her face as she looked around the room. If I had been excited to see aliens, she would be even more excited. She’d only ever left her planet once in her life, and that had been to go to Halapatov, where all the people looked like humans anyway (though they did have telekinesis). Also I missed her. She wasn’t only my best friend, she was basically my only friend. My lifestyle hadn’t exactly helped me to get to know many people closely, and I had to admit as keen as I was to join the Alliance, a little bit of fear spoke in the back of my mind. I was so used to being on my own, jumping from place to place, but I didn’t know how to make friends, and I was about to have a somewhat stable job where I’d be around the same people for extended periods of time. Even without looking that far ahead, I was spending the next three months here on Neon doing training and my mouth went dry as I looked around the room once more. Would I even be able to make friends here? I didn’t know, and despite being in a room with hundreds of people I felt very alone.

The rest of orientation went by in a blur. We were given an overview of the courses and of the campus, broken into groups to discuss what we were most looking forward to from working in the Alliance, introduced to various Alliance staff who would be working with us, had time to ask questions and then there was a lot of finnicky stuff to do. Like being measured for uniforms, have ID cards printed, have the Alliance grade organic translators fitted in our ears, check over our paperwork, get access to the campus wifi and then, after hours of this stuff, supper!

I picked from the multicultural swash of finger foods and chomped down on some Rocattian eel puffs, dipped some oiberries in chocolate sauce and sipped green carbonated foam as I made small talk with the people around me. All in all, orientation was good.

It was nearing the end of a Neon day, and as it was close to dark, we were ushered off to our dormitories where we would be staying for the duration of training.

Being in such a rush when I’d arrived, I hadn’t gotten the chance to notice the layout of this little Alliance settlement. There was the main training centre where most of my theory classes as well as some practical would take place, which was designed to blend in with the local architecture, all round and coloured with the orange Alliance flag as well as a lot of smaller planet flags flying over the entrance and signs that flashed in an almost incomprehensible number of languages.

There was the mess hall where we had our supper, with lots of devices and stuff to facilitate different species’ molecular and dietary needs. There was the ship ground where I’d arrived, with some parked ships off to the sides. I made a mental note to go admire them when I had free time. According to my map there were other buildings which were offices and behind the training centre there was a large open area for outside activities relevant to our learning. And on the edges of the campus were the dormitories.

Unlike all other parts of the training grounds, which emphasised diversity and integration, the dormitories were separated by species, or to be more exact, species type. This was apparently in part to help us feel comfortable as we transitioned to such a diverse organisation, but it was also just practical because obviously different species were different sizes and had different needs. Equity instead of equality and all that. I passed the plasmaform dorms with my hands covering my eyes, the dorms of the silicon based life forms and moved onto the dormitories for carbonoforms, ie. me, which looked a lot like an apartment building. As I took the lift up to my designated room, I wondered if there were even any other humanoid (oops I mean wormiform) people here or if I would be on my own.

I tapped my ID card on the door and it opened to one of the messiest rooms I’d ever seen in my life, and I’d been in some messy ones. There were clothes and toiletries spread around the room, which had four sets of bunk beds set into the walls and a door that probably led to a wormiform appropriate bathroom. Sprawled on the floor with their legs crossed in the air was a person around my age, dressed in a snazzy blue suit and heeled boots, with skin far paler than mine and jet black hair tied in a bun. This person looked up curiously as I entered the room, and I glimpsed wild eyes before they jumped up to greet me.

“Hey, I got a roommate! Epic.” They bounded across the room and grabbed me in a half handshake half hug. I responded enthusiastically, though a bit stunned. “What’s ya name slick?”

“Uh, Sophie.” I said. “What about you?”

“Beth.” They were chewing what seemed like gum and they blew an impressive bubble which popped in my face. “They/them pronouns. You human then?”

“Yep.”

“Earth human or colony?”

“Uh, Earth, I guess. You?” I asked curiously.

“I grew up in a ring world near Alpha Centauri. Oh, also, I’m not human exactly. Half human, half Shalronite.”

“Oh, really? I’ve been to Shalron!” I burst out, excited to have something in common with my roommate. “Have you ever visited?”

“Oh, uh, no, I’ve never gotten the chance to go myself but um… I’ve heard it’s lovely.” I nodded. It was a lovely place, although my personal experience there had been a bit messed up. I probably shouldn’t tell that particular story to Beth. They glanced down at my hand, because I was still holding my bag, and then put their hands on my shoulders. “Agh, I’m so sorry, you haven’t even put your stuff down yet. Which bed do you want?”

I looked around the room, noting the one bed with crumpled sheets that was probably Beth’s and then shrugged. “I don’t mind. What’s with the bunk beds anyway?”

“I know right.” they said, looking kind of amused. “It’s like we’re on a school camp.”

Not for the first time in my life, the fact that I didn’t go to high school became glaringly obvious and I realised I had missed out on experiences that are supposed to be universal. “Uh, is it?”

“Yeah, course. Bunk beds. A bunch of chums learning things together stuffed in a room. Clothes everywhere.” They must have noticed my blank face because they suddenly stopped and raised an eyebrow at me. “Wait, have you never been on a school camp?”

“Nope.” I admitted.

Beth covered their mouth in shock. “Okay, that changes everything. It has now become my duty to educate you on the classic school camp experience. That starts with sharing a bunk bed.” I followed them over to what was now our bunk bed. “You have to have bottom bunk tho. You can put your stuff here.” They waved their hand over a bedside table which was only partially covered in their things. I smiled and placed down my bag.

“Cool.” I plopped myself down on what I guess was my bed for the next couple of months.

Beth was still looking at where I placed my bag. “Is that all you brought?” I shrugged and nodded. “Packing light. A useful skill. Not one I have mastered.” They gestured at their scattered belongings. “I wasn’t sure what counted as professional attire for Alliance training so I brought myself lots of options. I landed on this one for my most striking first impression. What do you think?” They struck an exaggerated pose.

“Uh… It’s good?” I said with a shrug. I knew nothing about fashion.

“Hmm.” They put their hands in their pockets. “Anyway, so we’ve got a lot of important camp traditions to do. Hmm, what to do, what to do.” Beth pondered for a moment with their hand on their chin and then jabbed a finger in the air triumphantly. “Let’s build a blanket fort!”

My eyes lit up. I hadn’t done that since I was a kid and had, like, an actual family to do it with. “Absolutely!”

About an hour later we had an elaborate construction set up with multiple blanket rooms and a main turret suspended from the ceiling and lit up with tiny torches I’d extracted from the lamps in the room. We were sitting on cushions in the middle of it and drinking hot chocolate that we’d stolen from the mess hall… if that even counted as stealing.

Beth put down their cup and clapped their hands together decisively.

“Okay, Sophie, a very important sleepover tradition is that we have a D&M, and the most vital part is that we talk about our crushes.” Beth said, waggling their eyebrows suggestively at me.

“Oh.” Abigail’s face flashed in my mind; I pushed that thought aside and tried to think of a way to answer, until Beth continued.

“That would be boring though because I don’t know anyone you know and you don’t know anyone I know, so we couldn’t gossip about it. We can save that for once we’ve got some cuties in mind for each other to rate.”

“Oh, okay.” I sipped from my cup. “What should we talk about then?”

Beth sighed and leaned back with their hands resting on the floor. “We’ll just have to get to know each other, I suppose.”

“Hmm,” I thought for a moment. What do you ask someone you’ve just met? “So uh, why are you joining the Alliance?”

They glanced up at me, looking a bit startled. “Uh, well… ya know… I don’t know really. Need a job to survive in this galaxy you know, and this is as good as any. My uncle has some influence in the Alliance so he was able to get me a position in this centre on Valye. So that’s why. Um, what about you, Soph?”

Ah, I should have realised that would get turned back on me. “Uhhh… it’s sort of a long story. But the short version is that I’ve travelled the galaxy a bit and I was involved in the Alliance resettling these people who’d been kidnapped by pirates, and afterwards they offered me a job. And I figured it sounded cool so I said yes.”

Beth studied me with their head cocked to the side. “I get the feeling you have a far more exciting backstory than I do.

I shrugged. “You said you grew up on a ring world, right? That sounds exciting. Tell me about that.”

Beth perked up and launched into a story about a neighbour who’d run a secret circus out of their backyard, and we talked well into the night, falling asleep on the floor on the cushions. I got to say, it was nice to have a friend.

The next morning we went to our first proper class, an Introduction to Alliance Infrastructure. We were split into smaller groups for this and I didn’t end up in the same one as Beth, which was a shame but like, I was pretty good on my own. Wasn’t a big deal.

At lunch time I entered the mess hall and picked up some food, looking around the room for somewhere to sit. As I walked towards an empty space I heard Beth’s voice calling my name.

I turned and saw them waving me over from a table with three other people on it, so I headed over to join them.

“Guys, this is my roommate Sophie. These guys were in my class this morning Soph. This is Tok.” They waved their hand in the direction of a slug like guy who lifted a tentacle in greeting. “Belatadiakorisafosaea.” The Staphan in question nodded at me. “And uh… geemo? Gorvu?”

This last guy had a long body and one big eye in the centre of his head. They sighed tiredly. “Gavin, Beth.”

“Oh yeah.” They grinned wickedly.

I smiled brightly as I started to eat my lunch. It was nice to be wanted somewhere. I was used to just imposing myself in most social situations, because I wasn’t good at normal conversation and people generally put up with me, usually a bit reluctantly. I’d been ready to do that over and over again while I was here on Neon, but for some reason Beth had actually invited me to sit with them. I mean, we already were roommates, surely they would get sick of having me around all the time? I pushed aside those fears as they threatened to take root in my brain and I laughed at someone’s story and made a stupid joke and just was happy in this moment.

I needn’t have worried about Beth getting sick of me. Every day after that they made sure we ate together, and we even shared a few classes, including one on rudimentary combat training and also an overview of Alliance devices and machines, where I got to show off my amazing ability to tear machines to pieces and find uses for said parts. Beth was impressed. My instructor wasn’t.

“Finally, you’re back.” Beth said cheekily to me as I entered our room after spending a few hours meticulously putting together all the things I’d pulled apart. It was well past dark. “I saved you some food.” They threw a bag at me.

“Food I can eat?” They stuck their tongue out at me and I returned the gesture, opening the bag to find a sandwich and some pink potato-like chips. I wolfed it all down.

“So what exciting camp experience are we doing today?” I asked Beth once I’d finished.

They thought for a bit. “Hmm, well a classic is sneaking out after curfew. But since we are adults and we don’t have a curfew that might be a bit impossible to achieve.”

I shook my head. “I can’t believe we don’t even have a curfew.” A smile crept onto my face as a thought occurred to me. “We could sneak out anyway though.”

Beth raised their eyebrows at me. “Yeah?”

“We’re technically meant to stay on the grounds unless we have permission to leave right? Let’s go out to the city. Get the Neon experience.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” Beth walked over to one of the piles of clothes on the floor and rooted through it, throwing fabric around until they extracted a puffy coat lined with stylish fluff which they slipped on. “Let’s do this.”

It wasn’t very hard to leave the Alliance grounds without permission. To be fair, I did have some experience breaking in and out of places, though usually it involved a teleport watch. This time all I needed to do was glitch one security camera and help hoist Beth and myself over a wall.

Not long after we were in the centre of the surrounding city, Beryllium, with aliens bustling about doing whatever you did at night here. Especially in this part of Neon it was very multicultural. We even saw a few humans. We went to a late night bakery, staffed by a native Neonite with glowing purple eyes, and picked out some pastries that wouldn’t burn our tongues off and monched on them as we strolled through the streets. Unlike a lot of cities I’d been in, the natural environment of the planet was really well integrated with the structures here, which was very pleasant to be within.

Beth had a comms device out and was scrolling through Beryllium attractions before they found something they liked and pulled on my arm, dragging me through the city until we found ourselves at the Neon version of an arcade. Well, I wasn’t going to complain.

It turned out that most of the games we didn’t have arms long enough or senses tuned enough to do, but we had fun with a few that were more accessible for us. We had a stupid and enjoyable time. The only time I’d had more fun in my life had been with Abi. I was so so thankful to have a friend like Beth.

Much later we got back to our room, and once we’d gotten ready for bed, Beth began rifling through one of their bags. “There’s a very important tradition we haven’t done yet…” They paused for effect and then pulled out a container and held it dramatically. “Midnight snacks.”

“Ooh. Smart.” I watched as they popped open the lid of the container to reveal a bunch of treats in little foil packages. I barely had a moment to read what they were before Beth snatched one up and ate it, foil and all. They proffered the treats to me.  I picked one up and eyed it suspiciously. I had met a few aliens in the past who could eat inorganic things, but Beth didn’t look like any of them, so maybe the packaging of these treats, which were lollies of some sort, was edible. I turned the snack over in my hands. I sniffed it. And then I went hey what the hell and stuffed it in my mouth.

Only after I’d done so did I notice the amused look Beth was giving me, and as I started to gag and cough the snack back out they burst into a fit of laughter.

I spluttered and bent over double and Beth rolled around on the floor, clutching their sides and giggling uncontrollably. I recovered quicker than them and sat there trying to retain some sort of dignity as they tried to sit up, looked at me again and burst back into laughter. Okay, okay, I’m dumb, but like, it was a fair assumption. Sort of.

“WHY… WHY WOULD YOU- BAHAHA.” Beth pointed at me and their face contorted as they continued to laugh. Finally they sat up and tried to keep a straight face as they looked at me. “Why would you do that? Can you eat foil?”

“Uh…” I said intelligently. “I thought I might be able to. Guess not.”

“Right.” Beth said and promptly popped another foil snack into their mouth and started crunching it with their teeth. They tossed me one. “Unwrap it this time.”

Time flew by pretty fast as we continued to train and take part in shenanigans. Over the course of our three month training, we learnt a hell of a lot of stuff. We studied the basics of multiform first aid, learnt how to navigate the extensive online network the Alliance maintained to keep all of their programs running, had classes on social justice and the core values of the Alliance as well as a simple history of important treaties and policies we would need to understand in order to help people without breaching our scope of practice. See, I’m using fancy words, that means we learnt a buttload. Beth continued their mission of teaching me school camp traditions, so we watched bad old movies and played holocard games and set off the fire alarm and went to a flying fox in the surrounding city and we quizzed each other on content for our exams we had to pass to qualify as an Alliance agent. It was a good and fun time.

We passed our exams. We completed a long list of camp experiences. We got our official uniforms. Our placements were finalised. It all happened too fast; we had to go from this fun bubble on Neon into the real world, and work.

On our final day, Beth and I cleaned our room and packed everything up, blasting Beth’s playlist. It was hard to believe that training was over, and we’d be going off to our Alliance jobs now. Before we departed for the ship ground, I tackled them with a massive hug and we stood in the hallway like that for a bit.

“I’m gonna miss you Beth.” I said, muffled into their shoulder.

They laughed so that they wouldn’t cry and pulled back, pointing their finger at my face. “Babe, don’t talk like that. You won’t be missing anything. We are going to talk everyday and visit each other whenever we can, okay?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You’ve got me on Fishbank right?”

“Course I do.”

“Good. If you don’t talk to me I am going to come blow up Alliance Base 17.”

“Fair enough. If you don’t talk to me I will add thrusters to the base and pilot it to Valye so I can crash it into you.”

“We’re agreed then.” Beth shouldered one of their many bags and almost dropped the ones they had clutched in their hands. Since I only had the one backpack, I took another of their bags so they wouldn’t upend themself before we even got to the landing bay.

We headed downstairs and checked out on the system, transferring our profiles to each of our destinations, our new jobs and homes for who even knew how long.

When we arrived, my ship was waiting ready to take me, some of the Staphans, and a few other aliens to Alliance Base 17.

Knowing I had to leave basically right now, I handed Beth their bag and tried to think of a good way to say goodbye.

Beth spoke first. “I’m glad we got roomed together Soph. It’s been a good time.”

“Yeah.” I said, affection rippling through me. “Beth… thank you for being my friend.”

They smiled at me “Nah. Thank you.”

The pilot of my ship beeped the horn behind me.

Beth pushed me. “Go on. I’ll talk to you soon. I wanna hear everything about the base.”

I nodded and turned away, rushing to enter my ship. I waved just before the entry bay closed and I settled into one of the side seats, holding my bag to my chest.

The Alliance had already surprised me. Among everyone I could’ve met, I’d made friends with Beth, someone as chaotic as me and who actually liked me and wanted to be my friend. I couldn’t wait to keep in touch with them, to visit them.

With a smile, I wondered what was in store for me now.

 

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