...

I'm sneaking towards the cafe's kitchen, when I feel a hand on my shoulder. A familiar voice sighs.

"Sabreeeee..." She says.

I slowly turn around, seeing one of my friends behind me.

"...Heyyyy, Dropsy." I say, giving an awkward smile.

"Were you seriously going to steal cheese from the kitchen again?" Dropsy asks, taking her hand off my shoulder and facepalming.

"Hey, it's not my fault all I get are the stupid nutrient blocks. I wanted actual food." I say. "But noooo, that's for people with better positions, the cruise passengers that paid for the trip to watch the construction of the phasegate, and the higher-ups."

"Sabre, that's not what I'm on about." Dropsy says. "I'm not saying sneaking food from the kitchen is 'bad', necessarily... Where do you think I get my dark chocolate?"

"Then why can't I get some cheese, then?" I ask, giving Dropsy a pretend angry look.

Ryan suddenly appears next to us and punches my shoulder. Dropsy and I both jump.

"Cuz you're lactose intolerant, ya stupid." Ryan says.

"Ryan! Don't scare us like that!" Dropsy says, and Ryan laughs.

"What? You think I was Ozzy at first?" He says, giggling.

"Well, kinda." I say, giving Ryan a smile. "You know how he is about the cafe on this side of the ship. Even calls it 'his' cafe..."

"And he probably would've just blown up at you again once you made yourself sick again." Dropsy says, now also laughing a little. "Pretty sure he and Danby are already on a short fuse with you."

"Shut up." I say, laughing and giving Dropsy a soft shove.

We're interrupted by Ozzy as he pokes his head around the corner of the hall.

"GET THE FRICK AWAY FROM MY KITCHEN, CHEESE THIEF!" Ozzy yells.

"I didn't even do anything! We're just talking!" I say.

"Just GO." Ozzy says, giving me a glare as he walks back to wherever he came from.

"Well, he's grumpy today." Dropsy says as we start to walk to the break room we always hang out in.

"Yeah, that one dumb passenger lady ruined his meal prep for today by basically turning a 2-liter of soda into a bottle rocket." Ryan says. "Apparently she heard about this old trend from the 2010's and wanted to see if it was real. What was her name again..."

"Well that's stupid." I say. "And as always, those idiot rich people are always wasting stuff the rest of us would take in a heartbeat."

"Yeah..." Dropsy sighs. "I got yelled at by some dude because he thought I was a janitor while I was in my nurse's scrubs, heading to the medical bay because I got sent to get some more supply refills. Luckily Jerome was in that wing of the ship, and came over and made him back off, but... not before the guy punched me in the face."

"He hit you?!" I exclaim. "Are you alright?!"

Ryan gives a stone-cold stare and faces Dropsy just as we enter the break room.

"Name. Quarter number." Ryan says, but Dropsy just sits down in the couch and sighs.

"Ryan, no. It's fine." Dropsy says. "You'd be for sure fired if you fought a passenger. And yeah, Sabre, I'm good. Probably just gonna have a little bruise on my face for a while. He didn't even hit that hard, it felt like getting hit with a pool noodle."

We all laugh a little at that, as Ryan and I also take seats on couches. Right after, Lucas and Jerome enter the break room as well. Lucas is carrying what looks kinda like a grocery bag.

"Heyyy guys, what's up?" Lucas greets us, and Jerome flops down on his favorite seat.

"Ooh, rough day, Jerome?" I ask him. He looks up at me as he rests his head on his hand.

"Apparently, all of the cruise passengers decided to be jerks today." Jerome sighs. "Not only did that one guy hit Dropsy and that dumb lady exploding the soda bottle, one tried messing with a powerbox's wiring because 'it didn't look that hard', another let their kid into research lab 5 and got mad when the kid got a chemical burn, another started a scene in the west cafe because he didn't like the chef there for some reason (which I later learned that dude was being racist, as the chef was Asian and he kept screaming all sorts of stuff), in cargo bay 4 one of them tried to operate a forklift, another one thought I was a janitor too and yanked on my headphones when I told them I'm not and tried to walk away (both she and the dude that punched Dropsy are in the brig by the way), and finally one went into the cockpit and started taking pictures because 'they paid to be here, they would be able to take as many pictures wherever and whenever they want' (also brigged because there was highly sensitive information on the screens in there)."

"Dang, that's awful dude." Ryan says. "Hopefully tomorrow's gonna be better."

"I sure hope so..." Jerome says, seeming to calm down after venting all of that.

We all started talking about our days after that, the better parts of them. When I mention Dropsy catching me by the kitchen, Lucas holds up the bag.

"Oh yeah, Sabre, I got this for you." Lucas says.

Lucas tosses me the bag and I open it. Inside is one of the prepared meals from the cafes, cooked instant noodles in a sealed container, a bag of chips, and a brownie. I smile and look up at Lucas.

"Thanks so much, man!" I say.

"Hey, I'm not letting the higher-ups treat you like trash just because you're a full-time engineer." He says. "You deserve actual food too. And if that means sneaking purchases on my research employee pass, then so be it."

Just then, one of the high-ranking HR managers walks by, and sees me with the bag. He pokes his head in.

"Hey, the engineers shouldn't have access to that stuff, that's for other occupations." He says, obnoxious as ever.

"Screw you, I got it for him. Back off." Lucas says, giving the manager a death glare.

"Maybe you shouldn't be restricting the engineers from having anything but nutrient blocks, buddy." Dropsy says, copying Lucas' stare. "I doubt it's all that healthy for them."

"And they're the reason a lot of the systems on this ship are still running, so maybe treat them with a little more respect?" Ryan adds, giving his own glare.

"Yeah, in fact, Sabre's the one that fixes the VR suites every week. That includes yours pal." Jerome says.

The HR manager looks a mix of angry and disgruntled, then he quickly walks off.

"Thanks guys." I say. "He's been on my back about my job a lot, since we took off."

"Dude, no problem." Jerome says. "Y'know, how have the HR higher-ups back on Alterra HQ not heard about this crap? It's absurd."

"Right? Maybe we should raise some awareness about it." Dropsy says.

"Can I-" Ryan starts, but Lucas cuts him off.

"No starting riots on the ship, Ryan." Lucas chuckles.

"I wasn't!" Ryan says, but we all laugh a few seconds later. Ryan crosses his arms. "I'm still messing with his VR suite later."

"Put a few memes for me, will ya?" I ask.

"You know I will." Ryan smirks.

We all keep talking for a while, just shooting the breeze and joking around as we always do. Sometimes I miss our college days, when everything was easier, but... I wouldn't trade being able to travel with my friends on starships for the world.

...

..

.

—————————————————————————————————————

I'm awoken by someone poking my shoulder.

"Sabre?" I hear Orange ask. "You awake?"

I sit back up from leaning in the wall and rub my eyes.

"I am now..." I say, still a little half-asleep.

I then remember what happened yesterday... and look over at Orange to see he's upset about it as well.

"...You doing alright, buddy?" I ask, putting my hand on his shoulder.

Orange looks up at me and gives a small, weak smile.

"Mostly. I just... that was horrifying, you know?" He says. "Red... he actually told me he knew he was gonna die soon, because his people can get things that are like visions, and... I thought it would be like a few months, but..."

I give Orange a hug. He takes a moment, but returns it.

"I might not have known him for that long, but I could tell that you two were really close." I say. "I'm so sorry all of this happened."

"Hey, there's nothing that you need to apologize for." Orange says. "The Kharaa did this, not you."

Orange and I step back, and he looks out the window.

"Oh, it's raining..." He says. "That doesn't happen often."

I look outside as well, and see droplets of bright blue water splashing down into the ocean around us. They slowly add into the deep blue sea, lost in the vast abyss of water everywhere around the planet. Orange steps closer to the window.

"Want to hang out on top of the lifepod and just... watch it, I guess?" I ask.

"How would we get up there?" Orange says, looking at me.

I go over to the ladder in the middle of the pod, climb up, and open the upper hatch. Climbing out, I extend my hand towards Orange once I'm balanced on the lifepod's roof.

"Come on, not like it'll be too bad if we fall off, right?" I say.

Orange shakily climbs up the ladder, probably having never been on one before. He takes my hand as he grasps the edge of the hatch, and I pull him up. Once he's out, I close the hatch behind him, and we both sit down on the pod's roof. We stay silent for a while, just observing the area as it's darkened and a bit colder, although it's not scary or saddening. Just... calm. Like a foggy Sunday morning back on Earth.

"Hey Sabre?" Orange asks, breaking the tranquil silence. "What's rain like on your world?"

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Is it, like, not water? Does it fall differently? What's it like?" He says.

"Oh, it's actually just like this, only with a lot more land." I answer. "Even though water takes up two-thirds of the surface, that last third of land is gathered in a lot of different spots, making continents. I lived on a part of a continent that had a lot of rainy seasons, but it was never really annoying. Me and my friends have always liked the rain, either just doing peaceful things as we listened to it outside or actually going out and doing things like playing in the puddles."

I smile as I reminisce, missing the times before we had gotten jobs at the Alterra Corporation. We had a lot more freedom back then, just being college kids taking in as much of life as we could. Orange listens intently as I tell more stories.

"Wait, so when the grass got soaked, you'd take... uh, what were they called?" Orange asks.

"Sleds." I answer. "We'd take sleds that are mostly just used in winter, and go over to a bunch of hills and use the sleds to slide down them really fast while it was raining. It was extremely dumb, but it was fun. I'm surprised we didn't stop after Lucas broke his arm one year."

"Broke his arm?" Orange says, looking both worried and intrigued. "How does that work? Do- Do limbs break off like starfish limbs for you guys?"

"No, no. Of course not." I chuckle. "What happened was that he lost control of the sled, and he went really close to a tree stump. He had his arm out trying to find his balance, and hit his arm right on the stump. That made one of the bones inside his arm snap."

"It snapped on the inside?!" Orange exclaims. "Didn't that hurt?!"

"I dunno how bad it hurt, I wasn't the one that broke an arm." I shrug. "Thing is though, Lucas just ignored the pain and laughed about how he got hurt doing something that stupid. That eased up a lot of the tension when the rest of us went to check on him, and none of us panicked."

I laugh a little, remembering something else.

"Heh, it was an inside joke then for someone to just randomly call Lucas 'Twiggy', and he'd hold up the arm that got broken once it was out of the cast." I say.

"What's a cast?" Orange asks.

"Oh, it's something people use to fix a broken bone." I explain. "They set the bone in proper place for it to heal, take this special kind of bandage, wrap it around the limb that has a broken bone, and wait for the bandage to harden so nothing can get to the hurt arm. It takes a few months for it to heal, but eventually the bone fixes itself as long as it stays in the right place. Do you guys not have those?"

"Nope. Our bones are much more durable than that." Orange says. "When someone does break something, though, it works a lot like yours do. Except... they often end up either losing that limb so they can survive, or die from infection. We don't really have a way to treat something like that. I'm honestly scared it'll happen to me or one of my friends from my village..."

Orange looks a little worried, but I give a little smile.

"Hey, buddy, I actually know how to make that special bandage and wrap a cast. Learned it from my friend Dropsy." I say. "If that ever happens, just find a way to get to me and I'll help. Alright?"

"You can?" Orange asks, looking happier.

"Absolutely." I reply.

We then just go back to staring out into the rainy sky, ignoring our soaked clothes. Well, I guess Orange is used to that. Speaking of, Orange turns back to me after a minute.

"Y'know, you talking about your world actually made me feel a little better." Orange smiles.

"Same here, buddy." I say, smiling back. "Same here."