The howl and shriek of the band onstage reminded her of several tomcats fighting over a bitch in heat. The three musicians were Andorran and making great use of their extra appendages to cover their strange instruments. Upon inspection, the instruments were unfamiliar to her and she wondered if perhaps another musical fad had come and gone while she was on the voyage here. The singer was Cathrachan and her fur was dyed a color that hurt Jaan's eyes. She had no idea what kind of music it was, but it definitely wasn't Terran. Not that this was a big surprise to her, Station Liberty was out near the galactic rim and they rarely saw Terrans here. She tolerated the bizarre and cacophonous music, but preferred the Vivaldi or Mozart she listened to on her long flight in. The bar was packed and as far as she had seen she was the only human in the place. This was normal too and she could not remember the last time she had seen another human. She was actually looking forward to this next run, all the way to Earth. It would be good to see home again, although home was a strange concept to her now.
Jaan was an oddity in a lot of ways. She was one of a handful of full-blooded human flyers. Most Terrans never left Earth and why should they? At the epicenter of a vast galactic empire they could get anything they wanted without ever leaving home. With the laws so biased in their favor and the income of each human supplemented by the Terran Authority they enjoyed a standard of living that was unrivaled. Except for the valiant men and women of the Space Corps and the few planetary officials, humans were rare outside the immediate vicinity of Earth. The human body didn't take well to space travel and only the hardiest souls volunteered for the corps. It was only by serving your five years of compulsory duty to the Authority that you could earn full citizenship, however. By this means the Authority kept enough humans to staff the mighty battle fleets. Career officers were uncommon however; most humans did their five years and returned to their homeworlds, never giving space another thought.
Spacefareing humans were uncommon but flyers were even more rare. Flyers were a breed apart, a close-knit brotherhood of the few beings that piloted the vast faster than light starships that held the empire's trade networks together. It took a rare being to enter cryogenic sleep and still have the necessary brain wave activity to control the titanic ships. Most flyers were of an avian race called the Vertuzi, who hailed from a planet in the Vodrux system. For some reason not yet understood by scientists the gift manifested itself more often in a race that was born with the power of flight. Yet even among them the "gift" occurred only in about one tenth of the population. Among humans the number was about one in every billion. The "gift" was a latent psychic ability, which allowed the possessor to remain at least semi-aware of their surroundings even in Cryogenic suspension.
Jaan was nearly one thousand nine hundred years old, but most of that time had been spent in cryogenic sleep. The years passed unnoticed while her sleeping form hurtled through the void. A single trip to the Rim took nearly fifty-five years and she was only ageing for a few months of that time. Two months on average, from station to jump point, fifty-four years in transit, and another two months inbound. It was a lonely existence, you almost never saw the same people twice. The old stories of the pilot with a girl in every port were romanticized bunk. Even in the stations where the life span of the local population was more than the hundred and ten-year minimum between jumps that length of time seemed to kill passion and often even memory.
Jaan could have had a lover in any port she stopped in. Banging a Terran was an accomplishment to be bragged about in many quarters of the empire. Some of the wealthiest prostitutes in galactic history were Terrans who chose to follow the oldest profession. In fact, Jaan had been approached on her first flight out by a wealthy madam. Jaan was attractive enough to get noticed even when in a Terran port. She was five foot three inches and one hundred and nineteen pounds, with light blonde hair and striking blue eyes. Her bust was small and her build very petite, but even in dull gray coveralls she got propositions on the rare trips home.
She almost always politely declined because, for her, sex demanded intimacy and that was a trap. She loved the stars and she knew she would never be happy tied to one man or one place. She never let people in and always kept her distance, erecting inner barriers that were impossible to scale. The time between visits was just too much to overcome, and sex for the sake of sex had always left her feeling cheap and used. On the other hand, falling in love terrified her because that meant leaving the stars and she knew in her deepest soul she would always be a flyer.
Liberty was an old station, built before researchers had learned that cramped quarters and lack of recreational facilities lead to bloody rebellions and madness. The station's amenities were spartan and the huge bar was an addition to the original. They had tried to get the old station up to snuff with today's more modern facilites, but the effect here was random and not overwhelmingly successful.
Liberty floated above the gas giant Porserpina V. Down there in the maelstrom over four hundred individual platforms mined the gas called Rebiline. This highly ionized gas, once it was refined, formed the main fuel of the current generation of FTL drives and as such was worth its weight in credits.
Life on the platforms was brutal in the extreme. The howling winds never fell below gale force and often reached extremes that were beyond belief. Six months was the standard tour on most of the platforms. Six long months in an envirosuit, busting your hump in twelve-hour shifts with no days off. At one time the standard was a year, but it quickly became evident that such a long shift brought insanity. With one tour's pay a miner could live like a king for a year as long as he or she stayed out of the galactic core, where only Terrans could afford to live. Most of the beings in the bar were miners, whooping it up and waiting for a slow inter-system freighter that would take them back to Daggerhelm, the only habitable planet in the system or enjoying one last fling before they took a drop ship down to begin another stint on the platforms. For those who were leaving it would be food, drugs, sex, and whatever other perversions their hearts desired, until the money ran out. Then another six months of hell.
Most of them were Cathrachan, a humanoid race covered in red fur and prone to be volatile. Jaan had witnessed barroom brawls of epic proportions when drunken Cathrachans started arguing, usually over something trivial. There were at least fifty other races represented in the bar and Jaan observed them with detached interest. In one corner a male Volluskan sat drinking heavily and rubbing his crotch. He was eyeing her and Jaan made sure she showed no interest. The Volluskans were a large race, which hailed from a high G world in the Askade system. Incredibly strong, they were valued as enforcers in organized crime, heavy laborers by the Corporations and shock troops by the various colonial armies. The males were highly territorial and aggressive and often fought for nothing more than the pleasure of it. They were also constantly horny and emitted a strong pheromone that drove the females of many species into heat. Due to their immense size, the results were often fatal for the unfortunate woman who fell under one's spell. The females emitted a similar pheromone, but interestingly enough it too seemed to affect the females of other races, rather than the males.
A pair of ethereally lean Andromidans moved about the place along with several other varieties of "working girl". The smarter ones were surgically altered to be able to accommodate most any race. On a station like Liberty, where females were extremely rare and the males had credits burning their pockets, they could make a fortune in less than a year. As Jaan watched, the two of them sidled up to the Volluskan. After a few words were exchanged they all rose and left. Jaan remembered the smooth madam and her pitch so many years ago. Jaan had been naive and had almost agreed to give it a try.
"There but for the grace of God go I," she said to herself and finished her drink in a single swallow.
"And where is that hunny?" a deep, gravely voice responded.
Jaan turned to find herself staring at the largest bust she had ever seen. Each of the giant mammarys had to be larger than her head and the semi erect nipples looked to be as large as her thumb. A black shimmery top was stretched tightly over them, but it seemed to be straining to hold them in. The woman's face was flat, all sharp angles and very manly with thin lips and a cleft chin. Volluskan women were a breastman's fantasy come true, but if you liked anything else feminine you were better off with an Andromidan male. Her skin was deepest blue, but her eyes and hair were a dark green. The effect was stunning.
"Nowhere," Jaan said looking back into her cup. She could feel a slight buzz in the back of her head and a very mild arousal. She recognized the effect all to well, the alien was aroused and Jaan was getting a dose of her pheromones. If it had been a male she would have fled immediately, or taken one of the pills she kept in her jacket pocket. Since it was a female and she posed no threat Jaan did neither, it was mildly pleasant and she had not been really aroused in a long time.
"You're a Terran aren't you?"
"Yes,"
"And a flyer?"
"Yes, how did you know?"
"When a Terran makes stationfall I generally know,"
"You're a miner?" Jaan asked. The woman sat back on her bar stool and smiled crookedly. Her legs were impossibly long and so heavily muscled Jaan could see the individual muscles moving under the tight black pants she wore. Her waist was slim, leading to her massive breasts and heavily muscled arms. She was elementally powerful, but even in that power she was all woman.
