As far as a mechanic workshop goes, Avarez-Galieta Workshop is very well equipped. We have most of the equipment needed, we certainly have the best there is for the essentials. It isn’t a really big place, four people work at the place including me and my partner, Tedet Galieta.

Being fair his name isn’t how it should be pronounced, but then again humans can’t make those noises radera can. However his name isn’t supposed to be pronounced Tedet, but it is the closest to it. Similar things happen with raderas all around the planet, although it is much more common in human cities.

Tedet is your typical radera, maybe a little on the taller side. Normally raderas aren’t as tall as humans, at one meter and a half, all thanks to being hunchbacks. Their skin is mostly orange-looking, but they can range from a light yellow to a deep maroon, very rarely do you see them pale or dark brown. Their skin is mostly covered in hard pimple-like features, although, apparently, the ugly ones have few of them. Three yellow-colored eyes bigger than a golf ball, the third on top of their forehead, looking slightly up. Jaw bigger than my entire head, but with a row of similar-looking small teeth, that of a dolphin.

Tedet normally wore a kaki overall, usually stained with grease, oil, and rust. I normally wore similar attire, but Tedet is the kind of guy who has a piece for every day of the week -- might I remind you that human time-keeping system is used generally for daily life; Earth hours, weeks, months, and years is the standard for daily routines, but when being more technical Sovail daily hours, as well as moons cycles, and orbit time around the main star, Haehai.

A mechanical workshop has a distinct vibe to it. Weirdly enough it could either be very quiet or loud as nothing you’ve heard before. The sound of hydraulics machines giving as much pressure as it can move, remove, and tear things apart has not changed for millennia now. Using liquids to brute force things is the most effective and cheapest way to do things. It’s a lot simpler and better to have one huge machine supply the pressure necessary than one small one using electricity and torque; there is just no contest.

“Hey, I’m back,” I shout to be heard over the many noises. Right now the workshop wasn’t loud, but with everyone working they are bound to ignore other low sounds.

“Avarez,” came out a raspy voice follow by some deep clickings and hissings; radera noises, he could be doing the equivalent of grunting, squealing, or just generally sighing, I can never tell. But they seem to not get our grunting, squealing, or sighing either. “Back from work?”

“I know you’re having fun saying that, but,” I said and proceeded to sigh.

“I don’t know what that means,” he answered my sigh with confusion. See what I mean? We’re just too different -- alien, I must say.

“It means I’m not happy,” I said. “I was sighing.”

“Oh, yes, the sighs.” He stopped waiting for me to continue as I walked past him, him working under a vehicle. “So?” he asked, peeking from under it. “So?”

“So, I have troubles,” I sighed again.

“That was a sigh? I’m guessing big trouble?”

“Now you’re getting the hang of it,” I said.

“No, I just guessed you’ve been sighing this whole time,” he said, gesticulating with his hands still holding the tool. He pulled himself out from under the machine and clicked and hissed. “But then sighing doesn’t always mean it’s bad, you’ve told me.”

“This time it’s the bad kind.”

“How bad?”

I crouched and leaned in to speak almost a whisper. “Torviela bad.”

“Oh,” I imagined him say because all I heard were some raspy sounds. His eyes also blinked -- radera have eyelids, too. Sometimes life finds convergence. Same eyes, same way of protecting them: eyelids.

He was probably surprised, but I couldn’t know, radera make no facial features. Humans and radera decided that assuming each other’s emotions is fine; I doubt we’re ever going to figure out how each other works. Aliens, right?

“You look fine -- no blood, I think,” he said.

And now things were getting awkward. Not understanding anatomy and physiology made personal conversations awkward when you tried to be empathetic with an alien, even if it’s one you’ve known for over ten years.

“Nothing violent,” I said. “But very troublesome.”

“A deal?”

“It was,” I answered. “I had no choice, though, he knows where my nephew is.”

“I still don’t get why you’re so concerned with that, man.”

“He’s family, Ted!”

“Human familial relationships don’t make sense.”

“Same goes for radera’s,” I retorted. “How can you not feel something for a nephew? Blood of your blood!”

“Diluted blood,” he remarked. “Brother and sister. Children and grandchildren. That’s where the real blood is!”

I scowled. We’ll never understand each other. I don’t fault him, it’s just hard to feel understood. We’re friends, though. I won’t get angry at him for not understanding me. But I sure as hell will act like I am. It’s the privilege of being friends. You get to be angry with your friends and they have to deal with it. The same goes for family. But, then again, friendships are more laid back.

“It’s important for me!” I screamed… as quietly as possible.

He clicked weirdly. I like to assume he whistled in surprise. “So,” he asked again, “what was it about? What was the deal?”

“To be his champion.”

This time I knew he was surprised because his weird radera noises were erratic. I like to imagine he choked before speaking: “Champion! But that means putting your life at risk! In battle! One on one!”

“For my nephew,” I said, and I liked to think it looked cool and manly, but it was all wasted on a radera.

“You’re stupid!” he screamed. “No. You’re completely idiotic! Nothing of this makes sense!”

“You wouldn’t get it, you’re a radera. To me it’s important. My sister’s son’s life could be in danger if the torviela know about it.”

He scowled, I think -- again weird radera noises, you should be getting the idea by now. “You all humans are crazy,” he said as he pulled himself off the floor. “And you want my help.”

“Not asking?”

“I already figured how any human would act at this point,” he sighed, maybe. “We take care of friends, too.”

“Now, that makes no sense,” I reproached.

“It does to me,” he said, smiling maybe. No facial muscle could show a smile but his pimples changed color. That’s one thing about radera, pimples show emotions. They can turn into all the colors of the rainbow, except for purple. This time, Tedet turned slightly red.

I smiled back, and I’ve always wondered how it would look like to a radera. To have a creature show its teeth to express happiness. It probably looked menacing to any who first witnessed it. But if there’s something that both radera and humans have understood each other completely from the very start: handshakes. It is a tribal expression, to show no ill intent, to show no weapons.

We shook hands. “I love friendship,” I said.

“I hate humans,” he said.

“Including me?”

“Sometimes,” he cackled. That I understood. The son of a bitch was laughing at me. So I laughed in return.