Strange lights and other occurrences; a guide to alien housemates

Chapter 7: The Wait

Several weeks had passed, and Dan was beginning to think Yana was not going to reply. Maybe he never saw it? What if he was out of range? He checked the upload again to make sure they had actually done it right. They had. It was 3 am, and Dan was not asleep. He could hear Phil snoring, and Anya was presumably asleep. He rolled over, put the pillow on his head, tried everything but couldn't sleep at all. 

"Ugh" he sighed, looking up at the ceiling. He whipped back the sheets and sat up, rubbing his eyes, and crept to the door. Tiptoeing to the kitchen, he noticed a light was on behind its closed door. He sighed again. Phil had left the light on. Opening the door as quietly as he could, he stood, blinking in the glow of the harsh lighting. He looked to the counter and-

"OH MY GOD" he clapped his hand to his chest, heart pounding. Anya was sitting at the table, having watched him do the slowest door open ever. Dan shut the door behind him, and walked over to her.

"You almost gave me the fright of my life" he whispered.

"Why are you whispering?" Anya said at normal volume.

"Phil's asleeeep. SSSHHHH!" Dan was still whispering.

"OH" said Anya, now in a whisper. "Look!" she pointed at the screen of Dan's laptop, which she had borrowed earlier that day.

"Have you been on that all night?" Dan asked, thinking about how much more like them she was becoming.

"Yes, but," she beckoned "look at the screen!"

Dan shuffled over, blinked, and looked into the screen. On the other side, a face. A man, about 30 in looks, with dark hair and mid-tone skin, looked back. Silent, Dan waved. The screen glitched a little, but the man waved back, then looked to Anya and said, in a very high pitched voice,

"ANYA, LOOK, IT'S DANIEL HOWELL!" 

Anya sighed and put her head in her hands. She turned to Dan.

"Dan, this is Yana, Yana," she pointed at Dan "This is Dan."

Yana laughed. He was obviously very excited. He proceeded to ask Dan millions of questions. 

How's YouTube going? Is Anya a good housemate? Where's Phil? "Yana" How do you make your hair look so cool? When is the next Sims 4 video coming out? "Yan" What's your new apartment lik- "YANA" Anya took a deep breath. "Where are you?" Yana cleared his throat.

"Well, you see, that's the problem. At the moment I'm in a Tarinan Cargo ship, on my way to Alepra Cortezcha. We're due to dock in a few days but... I'm not sure how fast I can get to Earth, I'll have to request an alliance permit to land, Earth only being a level 5 intelligence planet and all." Dan had no idea what any of that meant, but it sounded a lot like 'I'll be a while'.

"Right" Anya started. "Can you request the permit from there? If so, that'll take some time off at the other end." Yan nodded "And... if I remember correctly, Aaron should be on Alepra base at the moment, ask him if there's any way he can procure you a vessel in time for docking."

"Right" said Yana "I'll see what I can do. Have you had a chance to investigate any salvage you found at your crash site?"

"Yes, I managed to find a few items, including the Peraj mehs teuplra of my ship." Anya replied. "Most of the things I found were too water damaged to make any sort of use of, but dried, I can harvest a few components. I should be able to make a scanner to check for any other landed vessels in the area, but I'll need you to log in to the permit database so I can check it against who does and doesn't have landing permission." 

This all sounded very official.

Anya stretched. "Well, Yana, I should probably be resting now, I'll contact you in a few days to see how we're both getting on." She closed the laptop and looked at Dan.

"Can't sleep?" she asked. He nodded. "Well, I can't either. Not when-" she stopped. " Would you like to assist me in creating a scanner?" He had so many questions, but decided they were more for asking when it was daylight. He nodded, and followed Anya to her room, where the table was littered with the pieces she had found on the beach. She closed the door and sat on the end of the bed. 

"These" She pointed at the pieces "Will help me build a scanner" Dan couldn't quite imagine that this small amount of metal, which, if he was honest, looked like a pile of junk, could create anything of use. 

"Do you need anything else to... fix them with?" Dan attempted to make some sense.

"A wiring kit and magnifying glass if you have one." This surprised him. If she could make anything even close to a scanner with those, he would be shocked.