Bright and early the next morning at Dry-Well Central Station, a grand promotion ceremony was held right in front of Star-Train Track #1.
Pirate Queen Hong Ye—who just four days ago had been sitting on a six-inch plastic stool in Traffic Court—stood tall on the red carpet at the front of the platform. Behind her stood her three sworn brothers (whose bald heads now sported neat blue police caps) and fifty thousand of her sharpest former pirate veterans.
Pei Xuan walked down the steps of the magistrate’s pavilion carrying a folded Navy-Blue Space Marshal Uniform, a pair of snow-white cotton gloves, and a gleaming gold badge shaped like a Star-Train shield.
“Hong Ye,” Pei Xuan said, his voice carrying clearly across the ten worlds on the morning spirit-screen broadcast. “Over the past three days, Mining Crew #10 has dug out two hundred million tons of Rank 8 Solar-Gold Ore ahead of schedule. More importantly, now that our Ten-World Duty-Free Wholesale Mall is open on the border of the Broken Star Belt, hundreds of merchant convoys are flying into our sector every day.”
Pei Xuan gestured toward the outer star chart floating above the station.
“Where there are fat merchant ships, rogue space-bandits from the outer belt are bound to show up,” Pei Xuan continued. “General Tie Zhan is busy training the heavy army on Black-Iron Moon, and Ye Guhan has his hands full inspecting train tickets and keeping the rails straight. Nobody knows the sneaky hideouts, smuggling routes, and dirty…
