What’s it like being a space pirate?

Sheesh, kid. Is this what passes for an education in the Profiteer Federation these days?  

I grew up on an ice-ball planet you’re too lazy to Google, but even I learned the good manners to do a little research before emailing a stranger. Frankly, if I wasn’t stuck on this ageing space yacht to nowhere with a Calamarian named Ed Bunkdysseus, I would’ve just deleted your email. (FYI, help with my homework isn’t a compelling subject line, kid. Just saying).

But I am stuck on this rusting old space yacht to nowhere, and there’s nobody to talk with, except the aforementioned Ed Bunkdysseus, who is currently going into the eighth hour of a trance music jam session. I hate it when he does that.

(A word about Calamarians since you probably won’t bother to Google them either. They look like a cross between humans and squids. Two legs. Two arms. And a face full of tentacles that never stop snacking. Never. They also have fur everywhere except their tentacles, which look like pasta with slimy residue).

ANYWAY, since I’m on a trip to nowhere with the universe’s worst travel companion, I thought I’d kill some time and write you back, even if your question was a little insulting.

First, we are not—repeat not—space pirates. We are space privateers. What’s the difference?

They hang pirates, kid. Unless it’s in space, where hanging might be an issue, depending on the quality of your gravity stabilizer. That kind of equipment isn’t standard on a lot the older ships.

Did you know that ninety-nine percent of space ships are old? Really old. Like they should’ve been decommissioned around the time Earth 3 was abandoned. (I’ll save you the trouble of Googling it, kid, we’re talking more than a century ago). On the older ships, we just blow the space pirates out of the air lock, which is perfectly legal, assuming all the paperwork is in order.

ANYWAY, privateer means we work for a corporation called Fidelity Buccaneer Group, which is duly licensed and organized under the laws of the Profiteer Federation. We don’t just Blast & Board like those space pirates on those cheesy network shows.

We hunt for treasure in Independent Space. And as they should’ve taught you at that school of yours, what happens in Independent Space stays in Independent Space, unless it’s treasure brought back by privateers.

That’s what Ed Bunkdysseus and I were supposed to be doing with this particular yacht. It’s a Branson Class yacht with a good hull that’ll make a fine frigate or inter-system ferry, if we ever get it back to the Profiteer Federation. But I doubt we’ll make back. Honestly, at this point, I’d surrender to the Egalitarian Alliance, even if it meant spending the rest of my days overseeing picker droids on a legume farm in the Agrarian System. That’s how much I want off this space yacht.  

See, as it turns out, my fellow scoundrel Ed Bunkdysseus lied on his Buccaneer employment application. And without running afoul of the non-disparagement clause in the Fidelity Buccaneer Group’s employment manual, let’s just say folks in HR aren’t exactly earning their Profiteer Dollars. I mean, Ed’s aces when it’s battle stations and the laser blasts are close enough to shave the fur off a Calamarian, but when it comes to, you know, maintenance skills, Ed Bunkdysseus sucks.

He broke the toaster oven. Then the media player. And I don’t even want to get into what happened with the bathroom in the master cabin, except to say that at a certain point you just have to stop flushing.

By the way, that was all day one. At that point, I still could’ve hailed our ship, The Moral Hazard, for help. I could’ve told Captain Wally T. Industry to put a skeleton crew on with us. I should’ve done that, but I didn’t. What I did was press on because it was only supposed to be six days to Liquidator’s Station in the Turnaround System. (Side note: if you ever make it there, kid, avoid Al’s Discount Tuna Emporium—Al is crook, and whatever he’s selling sure as heck isn’t tuna).  

ANYWAY, I figured I could live without a toaster as long as we still had a microwave. Most space food is better in the microwave anyway, especially if said food isn’t fish, which should never—I repeat never—be part of your space rations. And I could handle six days without my media, because books. That’s rules one and two of space travel right there, kid: always bring extra food and pack a couple of good books. Also, we still had three working bathrooms, which is one more bathroom than we had on The Moral Hazard, where a crew of seventeen shared one bathroom and Captain Wally T. Industry kept the other bathroom to himself. (Without getting gross, kid, let’s just say it was a real you-know-what show the last time we were at Liquidator’s Station and old Al sold us some “tuna”).

Where was I? Oh yeah. I was talking about Ed “the destroyer of space yachts” Bunkdysseus. So, there we were on a course for Profiteer Federation space, down one toaster, one media system, and one bathroom when the fit hit the shan, as they say.

Just as soon as we made the jump to hyper-space, bathrooms two and three went down. Again, I’m just going to say it, at a certain point you’ve just got to stop flushing and get a plunger.

Well, there’s nothing like a bathroom crisis on an ageing space yacht to focus your attention. Unfortunately, while our attention was focused on sorting out the plumbing issues, the navigation unit went on the fritz. Somehow, it loaded up old space charts that were hand-drawn by Richard Branson’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grand daughter, Hilda.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Hilda drew a lovely map. I mean her space maps are beautiful. They’re works of art, actually. I’d love to frame one and hang it on the wall of my cabin. But I definitely wouldn’t use Hilda’s map to navigate. Most of the distances are wrong. The maps are missing key systems. And frankly, there are parts that Hilda—gifted amateur cartographer though she was—just totally screwed up.

As near as I can figure, we’re drifting in the middle of one of those screwed up parts of Hilda’s map. But I don’t know for sure, because as soon as Ed Bunkdysseus looked into the situation with the navigation unit, it went from fritzed to fuuuu-get-I-almost-said-that-word… (Sorry, kid, I forgot who I was talking to for a second). Point is: the navigation unit is broken. Like really broken.

What happened was Ed Bunkdysseus did a hard reboot on the navigation unit. Now, it’s very important that when you’re on a space ship and you do a hard reboot on an essential piece of equipment, like the navigation unit, that you give your crewmates a heads-up beforehand. That’s basic space equipment maintenance and repair knowledge, and it’s the kind of thing you’d know if you put “certified space mechanic” on your resume, assuming that your resume isn’t a laundry list of lies.

Point is, Ed Bunkdysseus didn’t give me a heads up before doing a hard reboot on the navigation unit. He just “gave it a whack-a-doozy,” as Ed says. And if you’re wondering, whack-a-doozy is not a technical term.  

Well, I jumped out of my chair. Which is how I hit my head, because in my haste I had forgotten that the previous day Ed Bunkdysseus had taken the gravitational stabilizer apart for routine maintenance, and Ed Bunkdysseus being Ed Bunkdysseus, the unit had promptly died.

But I didn’t have time to think about the gravitational stabilizer, or the fact that I had found several missing screws from said unit in my morning cereal. Without the navigation unit, which controls the auto-pilot, I needed to take manual control of steering to make sure we didn’t hit any space junk.

(Another side note, kid: space junk is a real problem, so tell your parents to call their corporation reps on Capital Planet and tell them to pass a law or something. Seriously, there’s more space junk in some systems than sentient life forms—it’s gross).

ANYWAY, while I was hauling my you-know-what to get to the bridge, Ed Bunkdysseus just kept rebooting the navigation unit like it was his job. Which technically, it was his job. But if he hadn’t lied about his skills to get said job, he would’ve known that you’re supposed to wait thirty seconds between each hard reboot. Otherwise, you’ll fry circuits. But just like with flushing the toilets, Ed Bunkdysseus gave it another whack-a-doozy. Then another. And another.

That was nine months ago. I’ve been stuck on this space yacht ever since. Stuck here with Ed Bunkdysseus, a privateer whose only real skill—outside of being one heck of a photon-gunner—is making this really weird trance music with his face tentacles. He kind of sounds like a wet Theremin, but he assures me that his band was “huge” on Calamari. Of course, if that was true, why did Ed Bunkdysseus leave the rock star life behind to become a space privateer?

If you said because Ed Bunkdysseus is a liar, you’re catching on, kid.  

After one epic jam session, I asked him if all Calamarians had such lousy taste in music, or if he was unique. Ed Bunkdysseus didn’t pick up on my snark. Instead, he offered to share his fish fondue—a dish you really shouldn’t make on a space yacht with a dire bathroom situation. He also talked my head off about how music is a great way to fight stress.

Um… yeah! I’d be cranking some sweet space tunes myself, except you destroyed the media system, Ed Bunkdysseus, and I don’t have the tentacle power to hum an entire album. Also, Ed Bunkdysseus doesn’t take requests, which is not cool. Just saying.

But I have learned a few cool things about Calamarians in my time on this yacht. And maybe that information will come in handy if I ever get off this space yacht.

Did you know, for instance, that if a Calamarian has green fur on their arms and legs, it means they’re wise? That’s kind of cool. I mean, it probably cuts down on arguing because you just listen to whoever has the green hair. Unless, of course, there are several green hairs around—then I guess it’s up to the wise ones to discern real wisdom. I don’t know. I lost all my hair a year after graduation.

Now, if a Calamarian has red fur it means they’re brave. That’s how we got this yacht in the first place. We were outnumbered seven-to-one by an Egalitarian raiding party, and I don’t have to tell you what those share-and-share-alike goons would do with a yacht like this. But the other Calamarian posted to The Moral Hazard was a ginger named Tina Roundhouse. Let’s just say, she kicks butt—a lesson the Egalitarian raiding party learned the hard way.

OK, you’re probably wondering what color fur Ed Bunkdysseus has. Well, it’s mauve. He kind of looks like a giant squid-man whose hairy parts got covered with grape bubble gum.

I once asked what it meant if a Calamarian had mauve fur, and he told me it meant he was among the “chosen” of the Calamarian people. He didn’t say what he was chosen for but based on his endless parade of snafus, I’m certain old Ed wasn’t chosen for a spot at one of Calamari’s intergalactically famous trade schools. I mean, would it have killed someone in HR to call Calamari and verify that Ed Bunkdysseus was a certified space mechanic?

Nope, instead HR just looked at all those face tentacles and figured Ed Bunkdysseus was multi-tasking rock star. Why hire a cook, a gunner, and a mechanic, when Ed “many tentacles make light work” Bunkdysseus can do all those jobs?

I tell you why. Ed Bunkdysseus can’t do all those jobs because Ed Bunkdysseus isn’t a certified space mechanic. He lied on his resume. And it doesn’t matter how many tentacles he has, because everything Ed Bunkdysseus touches turns to crap.

But let’s talk about the face tentacles from a roommate’s perspective. Ed Bunkdysseus does not wash his face tentacles. I’ve worked with a lot of Calamarians, and let me just tell you, all of them have better hygiene than Ed “five second rule” Bunkdysseus. The other day, I saw him eat a piece of cheese off the ceiling, then go back to double-dipping the peanut butter with the same tentacle. Then he licked off the peanut butter, rooted around in his ear for like an hour, then went back to the peanut butter!

That’s who I’m stuck with. And that little game—will Ed Bunkdysseus finally wash his smelly tentacles? —that’s what passes for entertainment around here. Honestly, I’m losing my mind, kid. That’s why I answered your email. Because that’s what it’s like being a space privateer.

Good luck with your homework. You didn’t ask for my advice, but here it is. Stay in school, kid. Be a doctor, or a lawyer, or get a job in HR. Do anything you want, but whatever you do, don’t sign up to be a space privateer. The hours are long. The pay is low. And your coworkers are scoundrels.  

Sincerely,

Treasure MeTaken, privateer second class, Fidelity Buccaneer Group

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