Star Hookers Space Pirates

by David A Sizemore

  “Um, no. I rather like the body I have. I couldn’t live with myself that other way.” Monica said with a frown.

  “So, I guess we are down to the pirate option. I'm broke and need money to operate this ship and―well, eat and stuff,” Peter said resignedly.

  “Pirates?” Oscar said grinning like mad and looking excited.

  “Look, Oscar, you don’t have any stake in this. We can drop you off in any civilized world, and you can walk away.”

  Oscar jumped up with an irritated look on her face, surprising Peter. “But I think being a pirate would be Farzookian! I was getting tired of the sex trade, and assholes like Chang.” The sound of a hand slapping flesh came from beneath Oscar’s skirt.

  “Hey, speak for yourself, asshole! For me, being a whore was awesome!” Oscar’s trouser snake said angrily from under her skirt. Oscar replied to Heshe looking down at her crotch, “Pipe down! It’s my body, you don't get a vote; you are just along for the ride. Remember who's the boss here, dickhead.”

  “Names? I am a dickhead? Well, you better get me wet often is all I'm saying. Will there be raping allowed along with this pirating?” Heshe said sounding hopeful.

  “Uh no. We're not going to be that kind of pirate,” Peter replied.

  “So, what kind of pirates are we gonna be? Ass bandits?” Oscar's wiener asked hopefully.

  Oscar slapped her crotch again. “Ouch! Ouch!” came simultaneously from Oscar and her crotch.

  “Um—anyway—so, what do you think, Monica? I'm going to need a crew, but I need some partners more if we are going to do this. I could use the money from selling your glow-metal and such. I don't know you very well, so this is a conditional offer. You too, Oscar. We need supplies and to add on some rooms if we are going to do this,” Peter said with a questioning look on his face. “look,” he continued, “if you like, we will only pull a few jobs until we get some money ahead, and then rethink our options. If you prove to be untrustworthy or you simply want out, I'll return your investment as best I can. I'll drop you somewhere, and if need be, send you the rest, and you're on your own.”

  “Farzookian!” Oscar said with a grin and high-fived Monica, who responded reluctantly.

  “But a pirate―doesn’t that involve violence? I don’t think I could shoot people,” Monica said wide-eyed.

  “Implied violence. I suppose we will have to outfit ourselves with shipboard weapons other than the ones boss inadvertenty gave us. An EMP emitter to shut down electronics maybe, magnetic grapples, hand weapons for show, that sort of thing. But there will be no real violence, if I can help it.”

  “Can we politely ask if they want a quickie?” Oscar's bio-engineered penis inquired from beneath the folds of her skirt.

  “Uh, let’s play that by ear,” Peter replied trying to be diplomatic.

  “I told you to be quiet,” Oscar whispered to her skirt.

  “Well, I really don't have much choice, do I? Alright, I'll give it a try,” Monica sighed.

  “Great! I don't like this any more than you do, but I just could not continue to sell drugs that involved murdering living beings to obtain it. I'm no goody-two shoes, but I'm not a murdering asshole either!” Peter said with a little tightness in his voice.

  “What do you mean murdering people for drugs, I don’t like the sound of that,” Monica said looked frightened.

  “I didn’t actually murder beings for drugs—see, the drugs were made out of beings—uh, I was going to have to start killing-- err, colecting it’s kind of complicated. That's why I was on the run from my former boss—I found out I was party to something despicable, immoral and I quit. Boss wasn’t too happy about that, let me tell you. Smuggling's okay, sheesh, everybody fudges on the shipping fees and tries to avoid them. Some of these planets, the import duties they charge are criminal.”

  “Where are we going to sleep? Not that we mind snuggling up with you—you are kind of cute, if a little bit short,” Oscar said looking around.

  “Uh, let’s keep this strictly business, okay? For now, you two can share my cabin, if that's OK with you. Shirley, get some fresh sheets for our guests,” Peter spoke into the air. She appeared briefly and gave Peter a mock salute. “I'll sleep in the command chair, I often do anyway. I guess it will be my first order of business to construct new cabins. I can sacrifice some cargo space. These old freighters are roomy.

  ~

  Peter gave them a short tour of the Centennial Lunch Bucket. In the ten years he had lived and worked here, he had never had guests to show off to. The cargo bay was about half the size of an old Earth football field. The holds were roomy, with ceilings twenty feet high. There were two bay doors leading to the outside—one small airlock from the cargo bay exiting the ship—one into the ship from the hold. The corridors were utilitarian and gray, full of pipes and conduits.

  Peter hardly ever visited the other parts of the ship. Shirley kept everything shipshape with her spider bots. The only sections Peter frequented were the cargo bay while supervising unloading, his cabin, and the control room. He recalled with wonder he had not been down to other parts of the ship since he signed on with Boss.

  The engine room was the largest section of the ship with huge storage tanks. The hydroxy engines took a lot of fuel and space. Peter pointed out the hyperspace drive as a point of interest.

  “But it’s so small,” Monica said pointing to the shoe-box sized device surrounded and suspended by a magnetic field.

  “Uh, most of it’s not in this dimension. I don't pretend to understand the math or how it works; I'm not an engineer. It’s all based on quantum mechanics, and the proven theory that everything's connected to everything. It’s not the folding of space to move through long distances like physicists surmised, but something about a butterfly's wings flapping in California causing a typhoon in Japan. I can't remember. Just like your Data-coms, I know how to use one, but I have no clue how they work or how to build one. I had a hell of hangover the day they covered hyperspace theory.

  “A day? To cover Hyperspace theory?” Monica said incredulous.

  “You have to be a mathematician and an engineer to fix one anyway, so they really don’t spend all that much time teaching pilots about it. Anyway, that warp drive they postulated in those famous old earth TV show, what a crock! You can't go faster than light, or warp space. So, just consider it the magic box that gets us long distances from here to there. Only a few scientists of various races know how to build one anyway. Half the cost of this ship is tied up in that one little box.”

  Oscar put out a tentative hand to touch it, and Peter grabbed her hand and said sharply, “Don't mess with it! It’s been known to do weird things to people that get too close or poke at it, like turn them inside out, make them disappear, or go insane.” Oscar quickly pulled her hand back.

  He led them forward to the command section, “This is the control room, Shirley’s got memory modules and backups scattered throughout the ship, but most of her personality modules are in here—her brain if you will—as well as the manual controls. Shirley does most of the flying anyway, but she can control it from anywhere in the ship because her body is the ship.”

  “More like all the flying, Bucko. This is just Peter’s game room, and jerk-off parlor.” Her hologram turned to face Monica and Oscar, and she put her hand near her mouth like she was imparting a secret, “He actually doesn’t do a thing around here, but eat, sleep and fart a lot. He’s a bit like a cat, mostly annoying but cute and entertaining.”

  “Shirley, please!” He said slightly red faced. Oscar and Monica put hands to their mouths and giggled.

  “We are aware, that human males, hell, most of the alien races, need frequent sexual stimulation, sometimes solo. Why me and Monica…” Oscar shut up as Monica gave her a hard shot to the ribs, “Shut up puta de madre!” Monica hissed at Oscar, looking sheepishly at Peter. She had already intuited that Peter was a little more conservative sexually, by nine world standards. Oscar noticed a metal crab creature p
ick up a bit of fluff or debris and scuttle back into a hidden recess.

  “So, uh, what are all those little metal, crab-like objects scuttling about?” Oscar asked to cover Peter’s embarrassment.

  “Oh, those are Shirley’s hands. They clean, adjust, and tweak things that Shirley needs to touch. So, that's pretty much it. Anything else? Oh! There is a cleaning unit and bathroom in my cabin. Help yourself. The shower is set for gravity use or Zero-G, whatever you enjoy."

  “Thank you, Peter, we appreciate it,” Monica said politely.

  “Shirley, program a hyper-jump to the Hyak planetary system. We are heading to Hyak 1, not 2,” he said speaking into the air.

  “Aye, aye, Dickless.”

  “Say, Peter, why Hyak, and um, why does your computer speak to you so…so, disrespectfully?” Monica asked with consternation.

  “Hyak is one of the few systems that has two habitable planets. They both have about the same planetary climate and exportable resources. They are in a trade war, and have kind of spread it about that any one that carries their flag or registry has carte blanche to pirate the other planet’s ships. As for Shirley and her sass, the former captain had her on polite mode, and after a year it drove me nuts.I have her on rude mode. Her rudeness keeps me on my toes— it’s a brilliant program. Sometimes she really gets under my skin.”

  “I see,” Monica said raising an eyebrow at Oscar.

  “Ready for hyper-jump, Captain Douche-bag. If you had any, I'd hold on to my balls! Sorry, and your lady part—err man parts whatever”

  “Oh, and medication for the jump,” Peter said reaching into his pocket, shaking out three pills, and handing one each to Monica and Oscar, as well as one for himself.

  VRUUUUUMMM.

  Chapter 5: Hyak Station

  Hyak Station looked like a large soup can with countless windows and a few gantry arms protruding. It was based on the space habitats designed for the L5 Lagrange centuries ago. It was an efficient design. Even other alien civilizations had adopted the design; it was so simple, it was used by more than half of the planets in various galaxies for docking, space manufacturing, and warehousing. They were not pretty, but they worked, and were cheap to build.

  Shirley announced, “Prepare for docking in five, Dick.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, ‘Dick’ is not short for Peter, Shirley! Dick is the short name for Richard; although, that never really made any sense to me either,” Peter said with mock irritation.

  "I could call you ‘Pete’, but you just seem like a ‘Dick’ to me,” Shirley retorted with a snicker.

  “You are not funny at all, Shirley.” Peter snorted back. Standing before the cargo doors before exiting, Peter turned and looked at Oscar and Monica.

  “I hate to ask, but I'm going to need your assets now― uh, jewels and such.”

  Monica started stripping her jewelry off, and Oscar made to hand Peter a small bag. Peter put his hand up and hesitated.

  Oscar scowled and screwed up her face, “Oh come on now! I washed them off and put them in a different container hours ago. Tarcack! Who would just dig them out of their butt and hand them to someone? Give me a fooking break!” Oscar said indignantly as she handed her baubles over.

  “Err, thanks,” Peter said gingerly taking the bag from Oscar. He turned to Floyd, “Use your internal E-connection to place an ad in the station’s classified section. See if we can unload these tractors, Floyd, you are going to have to get a sonic cutter and remove that Quaxxin from the tractors drive shafts and destroy it. But first bring me a bag to carry all this stuff in please.”

  “Certainly Captain, but, sir…the remaining Quaxxin is worth over two million credits; seems rather rash to destroy that much money over ethics, especially as we need the credits. After all, they are dead already and made into drugs. No use crying over dead Baloovians.” Floyd spread his arms and shrugged.

  “Floyd, just do it! I hate to flush that much money down the toilet too―and don’t put it in the actual toilet, Floyd. It will get into our recycling system. Vaporize it with a beamer or something. I just can’t in good conscience sell something made from the err, flesh of intelligent creatures and sleep at night. We should be having a funeral over their dead remains, but that is a useless gesture.”

  Oscar and Monica exchanged glances, finally hearing more details about Peter’s smuggling and drugs past.

  Turning to Oscar and Monica, he handed them some credit flimsies from his uniform pocket. “I know you left with only the clothes on your back; you may need toothbrushes, and uh, feminine products, whatever,” Peter said semi-embarrassed. “You will have to wait ‘till I get some more cash before we go wardrobe shopping, OK? I could transfer some credits to your Datacom’s, if you prefer. If you want to accompany me now, I’m going on station.”

  As they looked at each other, Oscar winked at Monica and tucked the money into her blouse. “No problem, we will just wait and do it all at the same time.” They were both amused at Peter again over his uncomfortable attitude over female things.

  Peter exited the airlock into Hyak Station from the Lunch Bucket and walked the short distance to the shopping and commerce district. He soon found the main promenade, and soon stood in front of Crazy Sal's pawn shop. A sign in the window announced: We Buy Glow-Metal/ Best Prices! The bell on the door dinged as Peter walked in.

  Futuristic musical instruments, unidentified alien devices and weapons in cases cluttered the shop, floor to ceiling. In short, it was just like every pawnshop he had ever seen, but with even more weird alien stuff crammed into every corner. A Meloovian with its arms behind its back, wearing a short vest and a baseball cap perched on top of its bald, bulbous, grey head was standing behind the counter. His large, shiny black eyes were unreadable; his face expressionless like all Meloovians.

  “Good day, being. May I help you?”

  “Sure, I need some cash,” said Peter setting the bag of jewels and necklaces Oscar and Monica had provided on the counter. “What will you offer me for these?”

  The Meloovian grabbed the bag and turned to a workbench adorned with mysterious objects and bottles. It donned a jeweler’s loop over one eye; applied chemicals and rubbed the jewelry on a plate; weighed it and performed other esoteric actions; then after a few minutes, turned back to Peter.

  “I can offer you 40,000 credits on all of it.”

  With an incredulous look, Peter protested, “Look, I'm no expert, but that looks to me to be worth about 100,000 credits or more, easy! The Granymeed diamonds are worth fifty thousand or so I was told. ”

  “Being,” it said screwing up its mouth in a tight sphincter, "retail maybe, but I need to make a profit. Besides, do you have certificates of ownership?” It looked at the jewels, and then back at Peter.

  “They are not stolen,” Peter said indignantly.

  “None the less—receipts—certificates—a note from your mother perhaps?”

  “Funny. Say, you wouldn't be trying to screw me over because of that old Meloovian thing; that we sold your star drive to all the other races, and started 300 years of interstellar warfare, would it?”

  The Meloovian drummed its fingers of one hand on the counter and pointed to a sign where glow-metal rates were posted, managing to look irritated even with its expressionless alien face.

  “Being, even though I was taught since hatching, that humans are vile, eat excrement, are traitorous to the bone, selfish, fornicate with Flox, and your ancestors probably dissected my great grandfather's corpse…I would never cheat a customer. Go check with Crazy Moe’s down the corridor, he’s human. You want your jewelry sold as jewels, go to a jeweler. Here, we pay by the weight, and grade on the stones and the glow-metal. My rates are honest.” It folded his arms and its body language indicated angry glaring.

  “Sorry, I wasn't trying to impugn your integrity. Could you go 75,000?” Peter asked hopefully. He knew that Meloovians liked to haggle.

  “50,000 is the highest I can go.”


  “How about you throw in that knife, and you got yourself a deal,” he indicated a very large, scary, ornate knife with inexpensive semi-preciuos jewels in the case.

  “That is acceptable to me,” the Meloovian said, and exited to the back of store. It came back a few minutes later counting a large stack of currency, hesitated and looked up at Peter,

  “Perhaps you would you prefer I transfer your credits to your data chip?”Knowing that he probably wouldn’t.

  “No. Cash is fine. What is it with all you pawn shops; naming yourself 'Crazy' or 'Big' something or other?” Peter wanted to know.

  “Tradition, mostly. The implication is that due to mental aberration, we will give you an incredible deal or break your kneecaps if you shoplift—which we WILL—while searing your reproductive organs with a blowtorch, if we don't just disintegrate your hands first.”

  “Tarcacks balls! Okay, just curious. Thanks. Nice doing business.” Peter shoved the stack of cash into a bag.