Eric Dormer stepped off of the transport shuttle in the docking bay, slinging his duffle bag over his shoulder and taking a deep breath. He couldn't blame himself for being nervous; it wasn't every day that one started a new job, after all, especially considering the line of work that he was in. Here he was - the first human to work as a guard at the Ascalon II Galactic Penitentiary.
It was strange for the human man to look around and see nothing but aliens of various shapes and sizes. The last prison that he'd worked at was on Earth's moon and had been comprised entirely of human males. Now, after he'd been laid off from that position, he'd managed to pull some strings and get reassigned to the far reaches of Galactic Confederacy space, where the humans were still considered newcomers by the allied alien races of the community.
Ascalon II was a prison space station in one of the farthest sectors of the outer rim of the galaxy, where only human settlement had been slow and sporadic in recent years. As such, it came as little surprise to Eric when he was told by his former captain that this station had no human guards in its staff. On top of that, there were only a handful of males on staff as well, given that Ascalon II was a women's prison. That fact in particular had initially made him uncomfortable, and his wife Sarah even more so. But a job was a job, and he had been in dire need of one after getting laid off. So he'd managed to convince his wife to move to this region of Confederacy space with him where she could work as a teacher, teaching human culture and history to the alien colony kids, while he worked as a prison guard at Ascalon.
Eric glanced around the docking bay, wondering where he needed to go. He'd been told to report to the Warden's office after arriving, but all of the lit signs on this station were in alien gibberish that he had only basic understanding of. Like all the other citizens in the Confederacy, he'd been surgically implanted with neural inhibitors at birth, meaning that he could speak his own language to aliens and they would understand him, and vice versa. But unfortunately he still couldn't read much of their words, aside from what he'd picked up along the way. The dominant alien race in this sector of space were the Noors - a species of draconic-looking aliens - and all of their words just looked like slashes and dashes to him.
"Lost, human?" a guttural voice said behind him.
Eric turned around and saw four eyes blinking at him simultaneously. The eyes were attached to burly, muscular alien body with a mottled, off-white color and with the alien's head having the appearance of an arachnid. Eric recognized this alien - likely a dockworker by the looks of him - as a Kromonid, an alien race native to the nearby arid homeworld of Syloth.
Eric shook his head in reply. "Yeah. Just got dropped here. I'm looking for Warden Hecula's office."
The dockworker grunted and pointed a thick finger to the right. "Down there and then through decontamination, then security and processing. The guard'll direct you from there."
"Thanks," Eric replied, nodding.
The alien grunted again, returning to the task of unloading cargo. "Yeah, yeah. Watch yourself inside, human. Warden Hecula's a mean bitch, but the inmates are meaner. Do what she tells you to do and this place won't chew you up and spit you out."
Eric frowned at that, looking at the alien with a raised eyebrow. If this was meant to intimidate him, he wasn't buying it. Ascalon was not his first foray into guard duty at a prison, and it would not be his last. He'd seen the worst that humanity had to offer when he'd done shifts at the prisons on Luna. How could this place be much worse, even if they were aliens that were incarcerated here?
The human shrugged and walked off, following the dockworker's directions to make his way through the unfamiliar space station. He had his bag and gear checked at the security checkpoint, where all of his clothing and items were scanned to ensure that he didn't smuggle in contraband of any kind. The alien guards at the checkpoint initially questioned the side arm that he had stowed away, but he showed them his permit and explained his reason for being there. The two guards, both females, were surprised immensely that a human was to be working with them, and a male at that.
He proceeded through and found the express elevator that would take him to the Warden's office at the top of the main overlook tower. The pressed the button and the elevator took him up to the top of the tower at fast speed. As he went, Eric looked through the glass window of the elevator and saw cell block after cell block where most of the prison's five thousand (give or take) inmates were residing. He saw figures in red prison jumpsuits walking about, but he couldn't tell which female was of which alien race from this distance.
The door behind him opened up into small room with a security desk, where two more alien guards were sitting. Upon seeing him, one of them stood up from the desk and walked up to meet him as he exited the elevator. The guard was entirely covered in downy brown fur and had a catlike appearance. Eric had had relations with Kithars in the past, given that the catlike aliens had been among the first to welcome humans into the intergalactic community. Still, he hadn't quite adapted to the feeling of shaking one's hand and feeling a paw, as well as fur.
The Kithar guard appraised him for a few moments before speaking. "State your business here."
Eric handed her the paperwork. "Eric Dormer, here to meet with the Warden. I hope I'm on time."
She handed him back the paperwork and flicked on her wrist communicator. "Mam, an Eric Dormer here to meet you."
After a moment, a commanding, feminine voice echoed back from the communicator. "Ah, our human arrival. Send him in."
"Yes mam." The guard said, signing off. She looked at Eric, eyeing him up and down one more time before nodding to the door behind her. "Go on in," she said to him.
Eric nodded and stepped up to the office doors as they drew open for him. Before he walked in, he could hear the two guards speaking softly to each other, but he could make out some of what they said.
"So we got a human man working here? Never seen a human up close. They don't come out to this sector."