Sarkasus Orbital Platform
To some pilots, the act of docking is a not-so-subtle metaphor for intercourse. The inexperienced pull in slowly, nervously, dangerously unsure of what exactly to do or whether they'll be able to do it, despite whatever simulated practice they might have previously had.
If not for some assistance, many such pilots would likely reach their destination too quickly or not all, ruining the event for both parties, indeed. The experienced, meanwhile, can do what is expected of them, guiding their vessels to the proper opening without doubt or error, a necessary skill in the modern age. The prevalence and potential harm caused by the modern hyper-viruses make computer link-up a precarious risk no matter how many or how secure the firewalls are, a risk most platforms prefer to avoid by using living pilots and manual guidance.
So if docking is intercourse, the esteemed lady Sarkasus Orbital Platform is a whore on a far grander scale than even the great breast-laden fertility goddesses of antiquity could have hoped to match or their worshippers dared envision. Thousands of ships bearing markings of every kind pull in and out of her grace daily, exchanging their goods with seemingly reckless abandon before going on their way again. She is used out of necessity, but both benefit from the relationship, if only in a small way. Strangers come and go, and the esteemed lady pays them no mind, only requesting that they be gentle while they do their business and deposit the required commission of Yire into her modest on-site account, the dresser top of our own enlightened era, if you will.
It is within a whore, dear fellows, that this simple author begins his humble tale, a setting more appropriate than one might immediately realize. It was quite a sight, actually. Several dozen ships of varying sizes and diverse cargo were in the process of loading and unloading, and a few doing both simultaneously. Hundreds of workers and machines scrambled to and fro, moving items from here to there in a highly structured chaos. The din was tremendous and overpowered most any voice that tried to speak, but not all one can know can be learned from listening.
At a far corner of our esteemed whore, there was a particular Human standing near a particular ship. That he was particular matters only to you and I, for you see, this particular Human was not particular in any way. I would be remiss, I think, if I did not make this point clear. His political views non-existent, his morals situational, and his beliefs in the nature of the universe secondary to more practical, tangible matters that he actually dealt with in day to day life. His appearance was bland among his own kind—neither handsome or terribly ugly, neither overweight or athletic—and his occupation was given that same forgetful respect granted to so many other professions considered honorable but not remarkably worthy of attention.
Jack Gwinn, our particular Human, was a pilot, nothing more, nothing less. He was a cog in the machine of interstellar trade whose function was to ferry goods from one place to another, usually from his home stationary platform to orbital platforms, the middlemen of trade, which would then distribute the products to nearby terrestrial sites. When he'd been younger, Jack had been willing to be an independent contractor, getting far better pay per shipment but leaving himself at the mercy of irregular work in the process. After his marriage, he had become a full-time employee of a chemical refinement company. While he himself could easily survive on flavorless Yemen Insta-Noodles for months at a time, he was determined he would not force his wife to do the same.
Jack was a Human, terribly average among his own kind, but on an orbital platform full of terrestrials, he was an exceptional novelty. As the terrestrial Humans passed by Jack, they wrinkled their noses and made unflattering remarks he chose to ignore while he signed over responsibility of the shipment from his company to Sarkasus Platform. He wouldn't let himself become upset at typical terrestrial bigotry. After all, what else could one expect from ignorant brown-necks? Most of them didn't know any better, anyway.
The terrestrials hated Jack simply because he was a "Platformer." Like all of his kind, Jack's pallid pink skin, light blond hair, and pale blue eyes disgusted the backwards, colonial brown-necks who associated those features with a number of unrelated physical, social, and moral defects.
Jack had spent enough time around colonists that their own leathery brown skin and repulsive dark or olive pigment didn't make his stomach knot as it once had, but that didn't mean he enjoyed looking at them. The appearances of other species, no matter how dissimilar from his own anatomy, didn't bother Jack in the slightest, but there was something intensely revolting about seeing his own race so horribly twisted like that. How they could live getting basked in radiation and pelted with dirt all day—moreover how they could prefer it—baffled him. For terrestrials, working on orbital platforms was being "in space" and most of them only did it for the Yire to send back home. For Jack, being within the selfish bounds of a natural gravity felt awkward and he was anxious to be away from it to get back into the apathetic arms of deep space once again. He was, after all, just an average man.
"You're done here, right?" the brown-neck supervisor asked Jack as the last barrels of the shipment finished unloading, his booming voice hardly discernible above the rest of the noise.
"Yeah," Jack answered with a shout." I'm done."
"Then get your pale white ass outta' here and go back to your own platform," the man ordered coarsely. "We need room for more ships and besides, I wouldn't want you to get that pretty backside a' yours burned from the radiation, what with bein' within a couple hundred million kilometers of natural light and all."
Jack thought of a retort to the laughing supervisor far too late; the man had already begun to move away and couldn't hear him. As he turned and headed for his ship to go back home, Jack sighed and gave a silent praise. He had a long trip a head of him but he was glad to finally be rid of the whore.