Futanari Freighter Pt 01

Futanari Freighter

Carla Piers had many thoughts about what her life in space would be like. She'd always dreamed of it, signing up for great and wonderful expeditions into the unknown, meeting the various alien races humanity has met and forged bonds with, making fascinating scientific discoveries, perhaps even being there when encountering a new civilisation!

Accepting a contract to work on a bulk freighter doing regular shipping runs was not one of them. But, for having a degree in astrophysics, it seemed there wasn't any work on any of the more prestigious vessels in the known galaxy for anyone that wasn't a PhD haver or someone well versed in very particular sciences.

She knew she should've gone for that xenobiology course.

There was no excitement in working on a freighter. They didn't go to anywhere unknown or unexplored. They didn't reach out to new civilisations.

Going from point A to point B, sometimes C. That's what they did.

But, if Carla wanted more dosh than what the UBI provided, and didn't want to go mad doing nothing all day, it was all she could do. After all, space travel was still quite expensive, and only got to the point it did because of some of the joint research between the Terran Union and one of the alien races they met. Freighter work was some of the most consistent space traffic in Stellar Cooperative space.

She sighed as she heft her bag over her shoulder, the rest of her effects already in the process of being loaded onto the bulk freighter. The noise around her wasn't unusual to her anymore, she'd already spent several days waiting for said freighter to arrive at the asteroid station she came to, constructed just on the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt. Galgontha Station, it was called, named for one of the Hergo diplomats pivotal for forging relations between their race and humanity. A show of goodwill.

So it was only natural that, after Carla crossed the catwalk to a landing overlooking the rest of the hanger, numerous shuttles and smaller tenders docked at their landing pads, that a Hergo was waiting for her with a datapad in hand.

They were stout creatures, their skin a mottled sickly green. Vaguely humanoid, but they had flexible fingers almost like sausages, and they basically had no necks, their heads looking like a deflated ball atop of their shoulders. Their mouth was a narrow slit, but they sported numerous solid white eyes arranged around their cranium, giving them almost 360 degrees of vision to make up for the inability to turn their head. And despite the colour, they were far from blind.

They were wearing a navy blue jumpsuit, sporting the logo of Galgonatha Station, a boxy contraption on their back that injected fluorine into their system intravenously so they didn't have to wear full suits in environments tailored for humans - since it was mostly humans who worked at the station - as they were oxygen breathers, but their homeworld had a considerable amount of fluorine in its atmosphere, and they needed it.

The alien looked at Carla, and then at its datapad. She waited patiently; Hergos often seemed slow, and foolish, but people underestimated them at their peril. They often found jobs as quartermasters and accountants, due to a particular species trait, that being their almost universal incorruptibility.

They were sticklers for law and rule, but despite their outward slowness, they were not easily duped, and many understood human penchant for institutional corruption well.

Many within the Union valued them for this, it helped keep the more unsavoury elements of society in check, and kept things running efficiently, on top of various AI systems.

"Carla Piers?" the alien asked. The voice was tinny and modulated, a device nestled into the back of their mouth to translate their rather bizarre vocalisations. Humans could not learn to speak their language, it was impossible due to anatomical reasons, and translators the other way weren't so sophisticated yet. So it was mostly just Hergos who used them, and they were fine with that.

"Yeah, that's me," she answered, watching as the lumpy creature rather deftly tapped away at its pad.

"I see... new hand on

FTF Tangerine

," they said. "No priors, clean history, completed all medical checks, no noted xenophobia or prejudice... all seems to be in order."

The last remark made some sense; she was going to be the only human on this ship.

If she was one of those rare crazies that didn't like aliens, then she would have lost her mind. And of course, nobody wants a bigot in their midst treating them like crap.

Still, she had her reservations, given the race of the crew on board...

"Anything else?" Carla asked, and the alien gave a wave of their hand, side to side, equivalent to a head shake.

"Negative. You are cleared to board Shuttle One-Eight-Alpha-Seven as soon as it arrives. This is the last series of checks before decontamination at your destination."

And thank fuck for that; whilst meeting this alien was a pretty simple affair, the bureaucracy she'd already gone through just to get here was something nutty.

She sighed, and found a metal bench to sit on, looking up at the ceiling high above; Galgontha Station was massive, a megastructure built into a large asteroid two kilometers long, one kilometre wide, and almost that tall. The hangar itself was at least five hundred metres from the lowest point to the ceiling above, numerous rails for cranes criss-crossing the metal sealing surface, for cargo and carrying shuttles. Plenty of ships and cargo flowed through this station, and it was a marvel of construction when it was built, the joint efforts of humans, and two other alien races including the Hergo.

The race that crewed the freighter she was about to work on was not one of them.

After ten minutes of waiting, she heard an alert chime, and a loudspeaker relay an automated landing message.

She turned her head and saw a boxy shuttle emerge from a nearby shuttle airlock, carried along via a crane, the shuttle swinging beneath the magnetised gripping armatures, before it was deposited on the pad before her.

After a moment, green lights lit up around the door on the side, which swung downward and formed steps to get into the shuttle. A man stepped into the frame, wearing a vacuum-sealed pilot suit, the bulbous helmet obscuring his features.

"Miss Piers, time to board," he said, his voice sounding a little tinny from the helmet.

"Yes, coming," she said, making her way over to the shuttle and climbing the steep steps inside.

There wasn't much within, two columns of twin seats either side of the central aisle, with crash bars ready to fold down if necessary. At the rear seemed to be a survival cache, and the front was the cockpit; this was a runabout, nothing more.

Yet, Carla was the only passenger, it seemed.

"Take a seat, miss, we'll be at the

FTF Tangerine

in about ten minutes," the pilot informed, before making his way through the door separating the passenger cabin from the cockpit. It sealed with a hiss behind him, and the main door Carla entered through followed shortly after.

There was a bit of a wait, Carla knew that the actual flight would be less than ten minutes, but checklists and clearances and other red tape were in the way first.

Then, she felt the ship lurch as it was picked up by the crane; most of these smaller shuttles were just not strong enough to operate in artificial gravity. Nor did they fit all the docking umbilicals. So, the crane system brought them in through the airlock outside the gravity zones, and carried them to their landing pads. For the little runabouts, it was perfectly fine.

"Warning: Leaving Artificial Gravity in Five..."

The automated voice counted down, and at 'zero', Carla felt like throwing up as she was suddenly weightless, held down in her seat only by the crashbars.

The ship still lurched as the crane moved it to the launch point. And then, she felt a drop. A rumble, and the thrusters kicked in, and she was on her way.

She couldn't see outside, the shuttle had no windows. So she didn't even know what the

FTF Tangerine

looked like, beyond what she saw in the job application back on Pluto.

Not that it looked particularly interesting even in the holograph; it was a freighter, they didn't need to be aerodynamic, they didn't need to be angular and sleep to avoid detection like a warship, it didn't have all manner of instruments, antennae and dishes poking out of it like the research and exploration vessels Carla had hoped to be a member of one day, and it didn't need to have any other exotic shape like some of the rare luxury vessels had.

It was long, boxy with rounded edges, and a slightly fatter rear end for the engines. That's what a freighter was.

She sighed, and wiped down her auburn hair, finding that, even through the gloves of her dark green jump suit, it felt a little flaky, making her cringe; she hadn't been taking care of her hair as much as she should've.

Her green eyes looked down, sullen that working on a freighter was what she could look forward to in the near future, her 'grand adventure among the stars'.

She hugged herself and grumbled, feeling a little chilly; the jumpsuits that most 'spacers' wore could equalise temperature quite well, and in an emergency, assuming a full-face helmet was present, they were vacuum-rated and could keep someone alive for a little bit longer than if they were exposed. Longer still if they had an oxygen supply, but they were no real space suit.

If anything, she felt cold because of how... exposed she looked.

The subtle hexagonal patterning on the suit did little to hide how well it hugged her curves, showcasing her generous bust, bubbly rump, and shapely hips, slender though she was.

Hardly as curvaceous as some of the women she saw wearing these suits, but if one wanted to be working around spaceships and industrial zones, they were almost mandatory given how advanced the technologies that went into making them were.

And because having as few loose bits on ones body that weren't attached via safety quick-tear fasteners was a good thing, and it made slipping into tight confines and heavy-duty exosuits a breeze, and was the perfect inner lining for proper environment suits, as most came with ports and accesses for intravenous connections and other couplings.

Still, having spent most of her life wearing slightly baggier casual garb, she felt a little self-conscious. Not that many people noticed the form-hugging nature of these suits in many places these days.

They

were

comfortable at least.

She felt the shuttle decelerate, and the tiny jerks as it manoeuvred into position. Then the shaking thud as it landed on a platform, the sound of magnetic locks clanking to life rumbling through the hull.

After a moment, a green light came on, and the pilot exited the cockpit.

"We're here, Miss Piers," he announced, taking loping steps thanks to his magnetised boots; there was no gravity yet. "Have you got all your things?"

She tried to lift her bag, but her arms were still contained by the crash bars.

"Yeah, yeah I've got them," she said, somewhat embarrassed.

If the pilot found it amusing, he didn't show it.

"Alright, I'll release the restraints now," he said, tapping some buttons by the door to the cockpit.

The crash bars then lifted, and Carla felt herself slowly rising upwards. She almost fumbled, missing her bag, but she soon had it in hand, using the other to grab onto the various hand-holds situated around the cabin.

"Well, this is where we part ways," he said, trying to sound casual. "Good luck out there."

"Thank you," Carla answered, the pilot beckoning out the side door which opened up into the airtight hangar beyond.

"There's an airlock directly across from the door. Float up on there, go through decontamination. Be seeing you."

Carla nodded, and removed herself from the vessel, the pilot watching to make sure she was clear of the hangar.

It was clearly designed with larger shuttles in mind, feeling quite spacious. She was floating for a little while after kicking away from the shuttle towards the railing of the catwalk by the airlock, a steep ladder to the left and a compact staircase to the right allowing access from the pad when gravity was enabled.

Based on her initial remote training, gravity was currently disabled because they were loading cargo; it was a helluva lot easier to bulk load a freighter in zero-G.

She grabbed the railing, the bright yellow and black hazard striping looking quite fresh. All around her, she saw only minimal wear, and she knew the ship wasn't new; the specifications indicated it was built around Titan thirty years ago, and was flagged with the Terran Union before being sold to its current non-human owners as part of the Free Trade Agreement.

She moved over the railing and her bag with it, and then floated to the airlock.

She fished a keycard out of a slim pocket on her hip, and pressed it to the pad. It lit up green and chimed, a picture of her face and credentials appearing on the small touch screen.

The airlock opened, and she went inside. The outer door closed, and red lights came on.

"Please stand on the marked square as indicated and raise your arms to the side. Place all belongings on the floor,"

came an electronic voice.

There was a small illuminated pad with shoe markings to show where and how to stand. Carla did as instructed, and winced as cool mist blew over her face, sprayers in the airlock dousing her in a special decontamination mixture. Safe for the eyes, it didn't feel different to water, though there was a slight sting.

She'd have to get a further decon later, without her clothes, but this was sufficient for now.

The red lights turned white and blue, and the airlock hissed, and the interior door opened.

And an alien was waiting for her.

"Ah, Carla Piers, welcome aboard!" the feminine alien said.

A Zamaar. The aliens came from a shadowy world around a dim star, and they had a reputation for shady activity.

They were also remarkably similar to humans, sharing exceptionally similar anatomy. Their skin was smooth, though a bit more fish-like, as though covered in tiny, almost imperceptible scales, with hues that ranged from greens, to blues, to purples, the one before her somewhere between the latter two.

Their eyes were slightly larger than humans, and instead of white sclera with a coloured iris, their sclera was black, with pupils that ranged from white, to red, and sometimes even pink, having no real irises, not distinct from the rest of their eyes at least.

They had no hair, instead possessing strange protuberances and growths that were akin to solid, flat spines, swept back over their skulls, obscuring their ears, which were elongated, but merged into the sides of their head.

Their lips were very humanlike, though there was more of a groove along the middle of both, and a much darker shade than their skin, as if they were wearing lipstick.

They had two fingers and two thumbs on either hand, the fingers in the middle and the thumbs on either side of the palm, and their feet were similar, which was why the greeting alien had a slight fan-shape to their boots at the front.

They had only a small bump above their face for a nose, twin slits for nostrils, fairly compact so they did not seem particularly unsightly.

Which helped the fact that Carla's greeter was quite pretty. Easy on the eyes, in a strange, exotic way, and they had a

very

human physique, their bust and hips quite nicely outlined beneath the dark green bodysuit they wore.

There were stories of them trying to seduce human diplomats because of this attraction, even likely fictitious legends of them sending assassins against certain people, using charm to get close for their own ends.

But generally speaking, Zamaar were said to be hard to get along with. They were... strange, and eccentric. They often snooped into each other's business, something they didn't mind, but other races... did.

They apparently lacked social decorum around other races, particularly humans, and struggled to keep their stranger behaviours or lack of tact in check.

They worked well enough with the Terran Union and the SC, and their sensory technology was unparalleled, important for navigating through nebulae and certain hazardous regions of space, and made mapping planetary bodies a much simpler affair. But otherwise, they preferred to work via the FTA, with a large number of its contractors and employees being Zamaar. One of the sitting members of the Free Trade Bureau council was a Zamaar, and they were... mostly sensible.

They seemed more comfortable with cooperation that still let them operate independently. At the very least, they weren't known for corruption, though that could be thanks to the Hergos in the organisation.

Nevertheless, the blue-skinned Zamaar before Carla had a pleasant smile, the aliens quickly adopting human mannerisms, and though they often kept to themselves, they were adept at adjusting their behaviours to the species they were interacting with... yet somehow, without managing to always stay polite.

"A pleasure," Carla answered, looking into the scarlet pupils of the alien. It was a little unsettling, but oddly aesthetic.

"Come with me, I'll show you to your cabin. After that, a full decontamination shower, and

then

we can give you basic training for your job."

The alien gestured for Carla to follow, and began leading the human through fairly narrow hallways of the ship, floating in the zero gravity, pulling themselves along via handholds; though the freighter was almost 800 metres long, the majority of the space was cargo hold, and the actual crew space was relatively small, as were the crew requirements for a vessel of such a size.

Freighters were one ship class where humanity managed to get the design down to a fine science. That science being how to make it as simple and as rugged as possible. A lot of automation replaced crew, where nobody was needed to deal with unexpected faults or situations that might present in more sophisticated vessels or ships that had more hazardous or unusual roles.

Not much could go wrong on a ship like this. In particular, the

Type-Four-Eight-Class

, which the

Tangerine

was, was known for being incredibly reliable, as long as it was maintained. When it wasn't, it started falling apart fast.

Given the state of the thirty-year-old ship, Carla could only assume the Zamaar took very good care of it.

Of course, she was no expert. She wanted to go exploring the stars. A degree in astrophysics isn't too helpful on a freighter.

At least she was always prepared to get her hands dirty.

The Zamaar woman led Carla to her cabin on the crew deck, nestled at the far end of the corridor lined with bulkhead doors on either side, each leading to a separate cabin that would've houses at least two people in modest comfort.

The alien unlocked it with her keycard, and beckoned Carla inside.

She couldn't call it luxury, but the two beds on either side of the room seemed fairly soft, designed like sleeping bags to keep the sleepers in place during acceleration and zero G, the outer layer coloured red, the inner mattress coloured a soft blue. There were lockers in between the beds against the far wall, and desks at their end with integrated computers, seating built into the desks, which were designed to fold away.

There was a large screen built into the ceiling of the room, with lights on either side above the bed, and additional screens next to the beds mounted to the walls, all currently showing a system menu to set whatever the occupant wanted.