Six standalone science fiction stories set in the Space Station Alcatraz universe.Pop and the pirates: An asteroid, a security detail, a band of pirates. And a traitor.Beans and marbles: Two astronauts manning a cargo ship full of frozen colonists, and their falling-out over a cup of espresso brewed in the most unlikely location on the ship.Pain Tolerance and Resistance to Corrosive Substances in Four Specimens of Exomalaclemys Oharensis: When the war effort asks scientists to commit torture for science, truth clashes with compassion.A matter of mass: Father Zio is to be replaced. His Bishop has come to Outpost Psi, in the remote outskirts of the galaxy, and brought his replacement: a paracreational shepherd in the terminology of the Mother Church. But Father Zio will be… well, damned before he leaves his flock to the pre-programmed care of a robot.The case of the vanished Kirbari: On the flagship of the Galactic Mediocracy, a Kirbari prisoner has inexplicably vanished, and only the famed detective Mycroft Greysel can find them again.Midnight on the Space Station Alcatraz: No one ever escapes from Alcatraz Station. And even if she could, where would Noria go, in the midst of a galatic war with the hideous Gakoar?