Snakes' Nest

by Spencer Cook

more night of luxury before I get a new job.’

  The next morning, Alice is back aboard her Sidewinder and scanning through star charts, reading news feeds, and checking every bit of disturbance to pirate activity she can lay her hands on. After nearly a day in the cockpit she sets out for her first location, an attempt to become a pirate. Heading towards Quator, the most likely place to get into a pirate gang. Getting the feel for her ship, with the luxuries removed, and removal of the cabin space for those patrons with enough money to have Alice as a taxi service, “Shadow” felt empty to her, but she needed the space for scooping up goods. She waits near an asteroid field hidden from view watching as a small trader comes into view. Balking at what she’s about to do, Alice powers up her ship and attacks. The small trader ship didn’t last long under a volley of shots, as a pitiful bounty was dumped. This was enough for the small craft, and analysing the containers Alice scoops up her bounty, Three containers of food and one of computers. How can pirates survive on this paultry bounty? Alice heads towards the station to sell her goods. Inbound she’s attacked by three ships. Playing tag with them and not wishing to destroy, Alice turns to face the first, a small nimble Sidewinder like her own. She rolls one way, then another flipping her ship avoiding all shots and taking her time. She manages to get in behind the scout craft and after two quick shots disables its engines, leaving it to drift and watch. The two remaining craft close in, a pair of Mambas. This will be interesting, if they’re any good they’ll want me, if they’re not then they die. Two shots come inbound, one of them scoring a hit and almost draining the mini shield, Alice quickly shoots back then alters her course before anymore shots can come her way. Rashly one of the mamba’s fires a missile, which disintegrates under Alices quick reactions on her ECM device. A second missile from the same ship ends the same way. These aren’t the ones, Time to finish them. Turning her ship, Alice puts on full thrust, and closes in on the ship that launched missiles. Two quick, hits from her laser had hull plates peeling away. As the craft turned to avoid her it scraped along the hull of the second craft. Taking advantage Alice pursues the attacker and almost misses the signs of air venting from its cracked cockpit window. Almost feeling sorry for the would be pirate she holds the laser trigger and stabs a continuous beam of light. That’s ended his suffering. A turn to her left sees the first of the ships in view, and two bursts of laser later that ship is no more. Checking her scanners she sees the third ship fleeing and starts to give chase. Her smaller lighter craft catching up in just a couple of minutes. Alice moves into position for a kill shot when another beam strikes the final would be pirate from the side. She turns to head away from this newcomer, only to see a number of glinting hulls scattered around her in the asteroid field. None have fired, and Alice decides to kill her speed and see what happens.

  A comms channel opens, ‘Good choice Alice.’

  ‘How do you know who I am?’

  ‘Sleek fast Sidewinder? known Ident of courier and escort pilot Alice? Ruthless in battle, Never failed a client yet? Oh we know you.’

  ‘Good now who are you?’

  ‘I’m who you should be worried about, Why are you trying to pirate in my patch?’

  ‘I didn’t know there were patches. Pirates have always been a source of income for me and that’s all to change.’

  ‘So why change career? You were doing well, and obviously well off judging some of the customisations.’

  ‘Fancied a change, I’m after more combat, I WANT that Elite title, and I need combat for it.’

  ‘So you turned to piracy?’

  ‘Well the courier and escort business does well, but a lot of it is sitting and cruising. The risky ones you only get one or two ships come at you as others seem to avoid crossing the more deadly assassins.’

  ‘Well we may just have work for you.’

  ‘I’ve got work thanks.’

  ‘Now looky here, even the best of the best, the one at the top of the elite pile, wouldn’t make it out of this, not in your ship, not in any, I’ve got twenty lasers pointing at you at the moment, so you have two choices.’

  ‘Dump my cargo and leave, or join you I assume.’

  ‘Not quite. Joining us is certainly one option, the other.... well lets just say your cargo will certainly be left floating.’

  ‘Not a lot of choice then, so how do I sign up and what’s my pay?’

  ‘Steady now, to start with, this is now your sector after you wiped out my new recruits, they just didn’t have it in them. You’ll have two mamba’s escort you, get to know them, they’ll be your ally’s.’

  ‘And I’ll be the scout then? and we share our booty?’

  ‘Yes you’ll be scout, no you don’t share your booty, You bring it to me and you get ten percent of the market value.’

  ‘TEN? don’t you mean YOU get ten?’

  ‘No, you get ten. When you’re more trusted, and reliable, you can move upward for a bigger cut, but for now you get ten. And don’t think about leaving us without our permission, You’ll be hunted, and not even your skill will evade us for long.’

  ‘As long as I’m being paid, and getting my kills I’ll be happy enough, but don’t send your bad boys’ after me either, they won’t return. If you have grief with me, come see me.’

  ‘That’s brave talk little girl, particularly in your current position.’

  ‘My position isn’t that risky now, You’d have incinerated me on sight if you didn’t want something else. And I must say it’s easy joining you, what If I’m a spy.’

  ‘You found it easy because you’re known. A repertoire like yours doesn’t appear from a few changes in someones Ident. Now dump your cargo for me to scoop and I’ll transfer the money.’

  ‘So how do I find you to trade? if that’s how you want to call it.’

  ‘The boy’s joining you will tell you the details, when you can have time off, and how you drop off your goods. You’ll be out here a little while, so enjoy.’ Two the pirates all moved out leaving two Mamba’s moving towards Alice.

  ‘Hi there, I’m Tommy.’ One craft, slightly brass looking, rocked.

  ‘And I’m Juno.’ A black ship came alongside. ‘You’ll not find it too hard out here, and when we progress we’ll be given our own system to manage.’

  ‘Fancy that,’ came Tommy’s reply, ‘Our own Conda’ and escort crew, picking up the booty to deliver to the boss.’

  ‘So who is the boss?’ Alice cuts across their day dreaming.

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ Came a joint reply.

  ‘You only find that out when you’re given a system for yourself.’ Tommy says.

  ‘Yeah and that will take years.’ Adds Juno. ‘Pirates will fight each other and kill for the chance to move up.’

  ‘But that’s only in the higher roles, at our level, there’s too many pilots taken out in normal freeloading for us to find time to fight each other.’ Tommy sighs.

  ‘We’ve, been here a year, and have been paired with the likes of those idiots you killed at least fifty times, before we’d been allowed to join groups of Cobra’s and Transporter class ships on longer runs. I guess we’re accepted and worth something now.’ Juno enthuses.

  ‘Yeah, and you must be something special.’ Tommy adds. ‘The boss made a personal appearance, he’s got some ship, a massive customised Boa.’

  ‘So the boss resides in this area?’ Alice makes an enquiry.

  ‘Don’t know, he crops up all over, and Juno here almost got rammed one day. That sleek black ship of his, engines powered down, to hide from view.’

  ‘That was a day of panic, I’ll tell ya. I’ve never powered up and moved so fast in my life.’ Juno starts to chuckle.

  ‘What you laughing about?’ Tommy asks.

  ‘Your face must of been a picture when it looked like I’d had it.’

  ‘Yours can’t of been that pretty either.’

  ‘I take it you two are related.’ Interjects Alice.

/>   ‘Brothers.’ came a joint reply

  ‘Time to show you the area and see what money we make.’ Juno then moves out with Tommy and Alice in tow.

  The first months of Alice's new pirating career were hard months. The work was easy, as was the combat, she was a very proficient combateer. The hard part was that Alice didn't agree with attacking a hapless trader. If someone came in for the attack, then she was more than happy to see their ship destroyed. She had a feeling however that this request was for something vitally important, it was something in the offhand way Giles had requested her personally. And he was true to his word, every month a payment was made. This income along with her bounty from piracy was proving lucrative, and "Shadow" had never looked in such good condition. After nearly a year of sitting in the same system, Alice was part of a bigger group, Juno and Tommy were still with her, reaping the benefits of her intuition. The Boss had made her leader of a group of seven pirates. Not an exceptionally big group, but the eight of them managed to turn a profit equal to groups of fifteen pirate craft. At an outpost section awaiting the arrival of the large freighters, coming to take their haul, a