Secrets of the Star Master

Rarely was a cargo transfer performed with such jollity. Even considering the extensive use of robotic assistance, the habit of the laborer is complaint. The special consideration which delighted those workers who were facilitating a transfer from the great drone freighter, half a mile long, to their own fleet was that none of those goods belonged to them according to any laws contemplated by an orderly government.
Greater than their good humor at the prospect of the customary piratical division of plunder was their dismay and confusion when their flagship abruptly disengaged, sending many tumbling through space, though not to an irretrievable distance. The consternation extended to the ship's bridge where entrepreneurs unaccustomed to deference demanded an explanation for the captain's intemperate behavior.
His explanation satisfied. "Our guys came through with a warning. The Star Master is already past the outer peepers."
The only objection to that dealt with referring to a person as "the" anything, and that was muttered so as to be heard by nobody but an adjacent officer who replied he had always believed the Star Master to be the ship, not the captain. Soon even the quietest speech died that was not relevant to ship operations.
After the missile exchanges, the electronic rakings and counter-sweeps, and the insulting impacts of DeMarten pellets which did more in alerting the recipients about the failures of their defenses than in damage, the pirates yielded to the notorious pirate hunter. Reduced to suffering from gratitude to their attacker for allowing them to live, the conquered struggled to preserve a pellet of pride by gaining information, trivial as it was.
"So which is Star Master? The ship or the man?"
The grand figure beyond the screen did not hesitate to answer. "It's no wonder you lost, if you think a distinction exists!"
Finis

Founding of the Space Patrol

Volunteers packed the auditorium. Volunteers to become the first of the Space Patrol.
"The importance of your duties cannot be exaggerated," the general told them. "To survey astronomical bodies, to combat space piracy, to swing by the other side of the sun from time to time and check nothing untoward is going on back there. I know you all expect as much, but understand this."
He surveyed the body before him, thousands of men and women distinguished by courage and ability. "Out of everyone who enters the training, a few will die. A third will wash out. And a fourth of those who remain . . . They will have to become space pirates, because there aren't any to combat yet. A fourth for now. We're still unsure of the proper proportion."
"Can't we just wait for people to take that up themselves?" one volunteer asked.
"There's the first washout."
"I'm not saying I won't do it. I think we all just want to fly around in spaceships."
"Glad to have you back in the program, son."
Finis

Addender

It's tough to explain curseships because they're uninterested in communication, but an unnamed space pirate can handle it.

Addendum

A horn should go off if they try to bypass the lock so that everyone knows they're page pirates.

Treasure of the Giants

"Geh heh heh! You're in a bind this time, my friend!" For once, the villainous space pirate Macaulay spoke the truth. His three cruisers had moved into formation disguised as freighters before they ran up the black flag. Even the Bayard could not hope to escape them. "I'll take the ransom now, if you don't mind."
"Not at all." The attitude of Captain Winham-Ross as he stood on the Bayard's bridge with one hand behind his back resembled that of a man about to be announced at function thrown by a planetary governor more than someone brought beneath the sway of one of known space's thirty most infamous pirates. "Do you have the wherewithal to handle seven tons of Sindonian fruit? The containment fields required are far from standard equipment."
"Regrettably, I do not. I'll loot your brain instead. You're an expert in the traditions of the origin system beyond compare, after all. That has to be worth something."
"Beyond compare? I must say that Ambassador Geraud is exceedingly—"
"No no no! I won't hear a word of it. I don't have the time." Macaulay raised three fingers, and in response, each of the cruisers under his command opened three torpedo tubes. "Well, right now I have all the time in the world. But if you were able to tell me where someone like Fargus would be going if you knew for a fact he was planning an expedition to the origin system, I would be in such a hurry to get there first that I'd be forced to leave your ship intact."
"There might be much to interest a man like Fargus there, or nothing at all, depending on the legend in question. Do you have more information?"
"Geh heh heh! Since we're both stellar gentlemen, I'll confess I was able to learn he said something about 'the treasure of the giants.'"
Captain Winham-Ross flicked a speck of dust off his otherwise-immaculate coat. "If it's the treasure of the giants, I've heard Jupiter spoken of in relation to that phrase, though I can tell you nothing definite about that very questionable story."
"That's enough for me!" Macaulay's three fingers changed to a horizontal flat hand. His flotilla took off at top speed.
"Is it all right to tell him that? Anything that villain wants is something he shouldn't have," Navigator Bradel said.
"Your judgment is entirely correct. That lost weapon from ancient times can't be trusted in the hands of anyone alive today, much less a pirate. That's all right, though. He won't have it, and neither will Fargus, unless he knows to travel to Riordom first. Preparations must be taken before one searches for the treasure of the giants. After all, the reason the ancients used to go to Jupiter . . ." Captain Winham-Ross seated himself in his command chair. ". . . Was to get more stupider. To Riordom!"
Finis

Fictional Society Question Number 1,676

How would the people of this society rate the following professions in terms of respectability?

- Merchant
- Pirate
- Orator/Arguer in law courts
- Farmer (owns property)
- Farmer (does not own property)
- Informer

A Plausible Threat

"My parrot takes care of the gentlemanly stuff while I slit throats," the pirate captain with the sophisticated parrot told them. "Now tell me where the treasure is."

Addendum

Of course the parrot wants some disgusting kind of cheese on its cracker. Very runny and very expensive.

Trends Never Stay Still

Out: A mysterious person with one glove
In: A pirate captain with a very sophisticated parrot

A New System of Classification

There are two kinds of fiction: Pirates are good and pirates are bad. Not all works of fiction have pirates in them, but you can figure it out. For instance, in an Ellery Queen story pirates would be bad, while in Hyperion they would be good. At least the pirate who told a tale about all the action he got after an intense poetry reading would be good.

Some Notes on the Meihousou Event

Why did they have footage of Moriarity's conversation with Nursery Rhyme? Who recorded that? Was it Fou?
Servants are spiritual phenomena contained in a mystical human-like vessel. They do not get tuckered out from thinking about a movie too hard. Or painting too hard.
Is the intended message that Murasaki Shikibu is a complete hack? Her idea was to redo The Tale of Genji except focusing on the groomed girl and everybody loves her, with Murasaki as the lead actress? Maybe since the rubes already summoned for her, it's time to get everyone on the Sei train.
What was a Welsh pirate doing there? No, really, why was he there? And why did he disappear? "Something something fragile spirit origin" is all well and good for contrived servants like Jeanne Santalancerdancer or Okita Alter, but Black Bart is a perfectly normal dead famous person.
"If only there were some way to have more than one cut of a movie," said Mash "The Dumbest Woman in the World" Kyrielight.
I like the idea of mini-stories, but they all end up being so shoddy.