Page 36 of The Bully Alien

"Do you often travel via deep sleep?" Delana asks.

"Hardly ever. I prefer to remain awake."

"I don't think I could fall asleep on a spaceship," she says, a tinge of awe coloring her tone.

"I could easily. I just choose not to, and if you opt for deep sleep, it's chemically induced."

She shivers. "How would the machine even know how to deduce how much is necessary for an Earthling compared to a Grolla?"

"It would be able to. Algorithms along with taking note of your height, weight, measurements like that."

"Of course," she murmurs.

"The computer should also be able to detect any allergies one might have to different components and make alterations based on that."

"Really? That's marvelous!"

"Yes, well, I have to take medication every day that I am here."

"You do?"

"It's an alien planet to me," I remind her as I start to look around for another part of the ship to tinker with. I hadn't bothered with attempting to fix the deep sleep mechanism before because I hadn't thought it necessary. Nor had I checked to see if the beds required for deep sleep were intact. Like I said, it's not strictly required, but a win is a win, and it's giving me confidence, even if it might only turn out to be false hope.

"Of course. You must not be able to tolerate everything."

"Not without medication, but I'm managing. It took me some time to be able to learn how to tolerate your vegetables. They gave me tremendous gastro issues at first."

"Do you even like them?" she asks.

"I try to eat healthy," I say.

"Diner food is so healthy," she retorts.

I snort. "You can find healthy options anywhere."

"I suppose," she says, her tone turning a bit wistful.

I eye her curiously.

She looks away. "I don't eat out."

"Never?"

Delana shakes her head and grins her hands.

I'll bet anything that it's because of her scar. People stare, whisper, make her feel uncomfortable, and she would rather hide away than deal with that.

I would instead snap at them to look elsewhere.

Hell, I would do that for her if we ever went out eating together.

Not that we will.

I sigh and return to work. The engine is going to be the hardest part to tackle, and I opt to at least look it over. The cylinders are half-burned, eroded away from the heat of the atmosphere, and I truly do not know how to fix it. The metals we use, the materials, simply aren't found on Earth, and I do not think any of their metals will make for a solid replacement.

But I might as well try. If I fuck up the engine, am I truly any worse off than I am now?

So I head to the junkyard with Delana, and we strip out as many engines as we can. I bring them all back to the spaceship, and I see if there's anything I can salvage from them and try to see if anything at all might help.