The pirate base might have been the size of a village, depending on which village you were using for reference. It might have been the size of a factory, depending which factory you were using for reference.

  If compared to a village, the base had a fairly small footprint and was quite dense. If compared to a block of flats, the base was quite large and sparsely populated.

  In Laila’s opinion, the pirate base resembled a factory. It was comprised of three large, metal buildings, and a landing pad. On the landing pad was a familiar-looking ship. A ship that looked almost exactly like the one that had shot the Friendship out of space. The only difference was that this ship wasn’t in space.

  Despite the middling snow, there were several people outside. Laila could see five on the roofs of those three buildings, five more apparently working on the ship, and six more people who were meandering around as if they were supposed to be looking out for things but weren’t expecting anything to happen.

  Unlike a factory, it was quiet.

  From the edge of the woods, several hundred metres away from the base, Laila could not hear the sounds of machines and engines that she thought she go along with the large metal buildings. She could see people huddled outside in the cold, smoking, which she would expect from a factory.

  ‘I have a bad idea,’ Laila announced.

  ‘Could be better than no idea,’ Jecca said.

  ‘I consider it unlikely.’

  ‘You can tell me anyway,’ Jecca said. ‘I promise not to make fun of you.’

  ‘What’s stopping us from just walking up and asking?’

  Jecca nodded several times in rapid succession. ‘Us? Hostility. You? Nothing in particular.’

  Laila nodded back several times in rapid succession. ‘Could offer to give them the cart back if they give us Shae and Woll.’

  ‘You certainly could do that.’

  Laila frowned. ‘Look, I’m not ethically opposed to killing everyone here,’ she said. ‘But I worry that it would be unnecessarily difficult, and dangerous.’

  Jecca nodded several more times, slower. ‘Trade me the rifle, then.’

  As soon as someone spotted Laila, the shouting started. At first, it wasn’t directed at Laila, but at the six people who were presumably on patrol. As they grouped up and got into various cover positions facing Laila, the shouting continued, this time at the mechanics, who eventually went inside.

  Laila waved and wondered if she looked friendly. Dragging the train of carts that already belonged to the pirates probably didn’t help. But she figured it would be better to offer something.

  Whether or not Laila looked friendly, the pirates didn’t open fire on her as she got within shouting distance.

  ‘What do you want?’ someone shouted.

  ‘Who are you?’ someone else shouted at the same time.

  Laila cupped a hand around her mouth. ‘I want to trade,’ she shouted back. ‘I’m a trader.’

  There was some quieter yelling between the six guards.

  ‘Bullshit,’ someone else shouted at Laila.

  ‘I want to trade,’ Laila shouted again. ‘I’m a mechanic.’

  Some more quiet yelling.

  ‘You’ve got our train,’ someone shouted.

  ‘I’m here to trade it to you,’ Laila shouted back.

  ‘It’s already ours,’ someone else shouted.

  Laila shrugged. ‘Not right now.’

  Some more quiet yelling, very much audible to Laila.

  ‘What’s stopping us from killing you for it?’ someone shouted.

  ‘Snipers,’ Laila shouted back.

  This time, everyone ducked into cover before resuming their internal yelling.

  ‘What do you want?’ someone shouted.

  ‘Can we stop shouting?’ Laila shouted.

  ‘No,’ someone else shouted.

  ‘I want the people from the crashed ship,’ Laila shouted. ‘Not the green one.’

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  Someone burst out laughing.

  ‘We don’t want him either,’ someone yelled to their colleagues.

  ‘Shush,’ someone else yelled.

  ‘Someone go and get Boss,’ someone else yelled.

  ‘What about the snipers?’ the person who would presumably get Boss yelled.

  ‘Wait there, and make sure the snipers don’t shoot,’ the third person shouted to Laila.

  Laila held up a hand. ‘Sure.’

  After a few moments of no sniper fire, a young man rushed out of cover and into the nearest door. And then they all waited.

  And waited.

  Laila heard a door slam up on the roof and was just in time jumping behind the carts full of scrap to not grow a new hole in her head. Jecca fired three shots in very rapid succession from the woods.

  Laila peeked around the side the cart she was hiding behind and didn’t end up like a man she didn’t know had been called Fish. It was a near thing, though.

  She poked just the barrel of the pistol around the corner and fired. A flurry of shots hit the cart and she withdrew her hand.

  A couple more shots came from the woods behind her.

  Another shot from above hit the ground just behind Laila.

  Another shot from the woods. Someone shouted and fell from the roof.

  Laila pushed off her hood and peeked over the top of the cart, through the miniature forest of scrap. No one shot at her immediately. She couldn’t get a good view of the group in front of her.

  She shifted to try to get a better look and someone shot at her. There was a loud thud and something stung in Laila’s cheek.

  Another shot from Jecca in the woods. Someone blurry ducked out of the way.

  Laila shifted further and fired another couple of times. Someone else ducked. Someone tried to shoot her without looking. Laila flinched, but stayed still until she saw someone actually emerge from cover.

  Another shot from above. This one wasn’t at Laila.

  Someone peeked at Laila and she shot him. He groaned and collapsed into the snow. She shot him again when he started trying to drag himself back behind cover.

  That hadn’t been very nice of her.

  Laila didn’t even notice someone else pop out of cover until he shot at her. Something hit her in the shoulder, barely a flesh wound. She turned and shot back, but he was already behind cover again.

  Laila finally had a thought.

  She ducked back behind the cart, reached back with one hand, and pulled on the cart. It felt like it weighed a ton. She managed to get it moving.

  Several people took exception to the cart moving and did their best to kill it.

  Another shot from the woods.

  Without anyone steering it, the carts picked their own direction. Laila wasn’t too worried about it. There was nothing she could do to steer at this point. She just dragged the carts until the front wheels turned toward the buildings. She let go and ducked to the next cart in the train.

  Laila couldn’t see much of anything in the gap between the front two carts. When she tried peeking between the back two carts, someone shot at her. He missed, so she shot back. She missed.

  A gun that wasn’t Laila’s went click.

  Laila had only seen the move in films.

  Someone shouted. ‘Cover me, I’m reloading.’ Another barrage of bullets hit the side of the cart.

  Several move quick shots came from the woods and the barrage stopped immediately.

  Laila ducked behind the final cart in the train, leaned around the back, and waited. Another person was groaning on the ground. She didn’t shoot him.

  The series of clicks and clacks of a gun being reloaded felt deafeningly loud even past the thunder of Laila’s heart and the ringing in her ears. She should have thought of some kind of ear protection.

  A man with a rifle popped up from behind a barricade and Laila shot him.

  Several people shot at her in retaliation. Something stung on her side as she ducked back behind the cart. Another couple of shots from the woods cut the barrage short again.

  Laila tried to take deep breaths. She checked her side, another flesh wound. She was barely even bleeding.

  Someone had a familiar idea. The same idea Laila had had some sixteen hours ago. Snow exploded out from under the cart.

  Laila leaned further out of cover than was strictly wise, located the man who had just done that, and shot him.

  Another barrage stopped when another gun clicked loudly.

  Laila had another idea.

  This reload was not accompanied by more shouting and another inadvisable barrage of bullets.

  Before leaving the woods with this pistol, Laila had investigated. She hadn’t used pistols anywhere near as much as rifles when she was young. She knew the principals about as well.

  A function that some hunting rifles had was a magazine cutoff, which turned the rifle into a single-fire weapon. This pistol didn’t have an equivalent, of course, what it had instead was a detent to retain the magazine even if it wasn’t seated all the way.

  Laila hit the magazine release, carefully made sure the magazine was still retained, and leaned gingerly out of cover. Someone was ready. Laila shot back as she ducked back into cover. Her gun clicked open like a whisper.

  There was no way someone had heard that.

  Something Laila had only seen in video games happened.

  ‘She’s out,’ someone shouted.

  ‘The sniper,’ someone else shouted.

  Very gently, Laila nudged the magazine back into place. Holding tight to the slide, she racked it slowly, quietly.

  She could hear someone say something, but couldn’t hear what it was.

  Resisting the urge to clear her throat and project like she was doing a public poetry reading, Laila settled for a loud whisper. ‘Shit, shit, shit. Where did I…’ She knocked on the side of the cart. ‘Fuck.’

  Another idea occurred to her. She fumbled under her parka to find something in a pocket.

  ‘Aha,’ Laila muttered, loudly.

  She dropped a screwdriver into the snow. ‘Shit.’

  Someone yelled something. Laila couldn’t hear it over the beating of her heart.

  The snow around the screwdriver exploded. Laila leaned out of cover and shot the man who had apparently been crawling toward the cart across the snow. Not the worst idea she’d ever heard of, but she wondered what he’d been planning when he got there.

  The barrel of a pistol poked out from behind cover. Laila waited for the wielder to follow it, but instead the gun launched from cover and landed with a soft clatter in the snow.

  A pair of hands appeared over the top of the barricade.