I hope you all enjoy this new chapter, and please tell me what you think of it.

The Naming.

The beacon was primitive as it hung in space, there was no doubt about that, it had been built up in different sections by the humans of Earth. The humans had long since known since they had constructed space stations and other installations in space that by building them in pieces and assembling them in space meant that it would cost fewer resources to put them up in the orbit of their planets. There were numerous advantages to this design method - for instance, in case of severe damage, a section that was compromised and leaking atmosphere could be jettisoned to reinforce the hull integrity.

But the beacon wasn't that large. It was just there as part of a galactic network of satellites designed to fulfil navigational functions for the numerous spaceships that buzzed around human space and to take part in important space charting missions. There were dozens of them, hundreds, dotted around the human sphere of space. Some of them were specially designed and built to help human space exploration missions. Designed to weather the strains of long periods of being left out here in space, and built by skilled human engineers at immense cost, the various pieces and components of this beacon and the others of its class had been carried out here by space freighter, where engineers put them together. The segments of the beacons were held by magnetic force and packed with computers and instruments to fulfil the navigational needs of Earth's empire.

Thousands of hours and thousands and thousands of credits had been spent to design and construct these beacons, but that meant nothing to Theta.

Materialising her TARDIS beyond the range of the beacon's scanners was easy enough, even if the sensors were so basic it was easy for the TARDIS to jam them - the Space Corps had begun a program of installing automatic scanners on their beacons to send distress signals if unscheduled ships approached in answer of the piracy raids that had cropped up over the last 20 years, raids begun by the criminal known as Maurice Caven, a dangerous criminal mastermind who had decided the best way to get rich was to break up the beacons to steal the metal they were constructed from. While she admired Caven's drive, Theta knew the humans would in the next decade or so stop using Argonite altogether, but at this point in time where humans hadn't yet discovered metals or alloys that were better suited than Argonite the metal was still used, and it was still as valuable as gold.

Gold. While the humans would lose track of Voga, the planet of gold in their wars against the Cybermen, they would discover other sources of the precious metal that would make the measly stock found on Earth superfluous, and for serious space pirates the metal, like silver and later platinum which would be found in greater sources in different solar systems, was useless. There were other treasures and means of getting rich, but really pirates got rich through all kinds of means.

Dressed in a space suit, Theta checked that her TARDIS's chameleon circuit was working and had disguised the ship as a space cruiser that, to the humans, was one of the latest models of ships and was fast. As the TARDIS smoothly slid closer to the beacon like a shark approaching a basking whale, she carefully programmed the TARDIS so it locked onto the airlock of the beacon. The smoothness of the precision spoke of a lot of time and practice rather than sheer luck, and it was because Theta had materialised her TARDIS in deep space in the forms of various starships and had carefully guided them around as best she could, wishing that the Time Lords had not moved on from space ships altogether and depended on TARDISes to travel through time and space.

Once the TARDIS was locked onto the airlock, Theta donned the rest of her suit and clipped on a jet pack and picked up the magnetic charges before she opened the door and floated out into the vacuum. The weightlessness of the vacuum didn't bother her as she carefully travelled around the beacon to plant the charges at carefully chosen weak points. Once she was finished, she went back to her TARDIS and came back with a number of small propulsion units and tiny transmitters that would send a signal for her to find.

When Theta was finished with the charges and the propulsion units and her business inside the beacon, she went back to her TARDIS. A few minutes later the TARDIS disguised as a space ship began pulling away slowly before it moved off and travelled beyond the range of the beacons scanners before she dematerialised, the computer instantly obeying the pre-set co-ordinates. The TARDIS didn't travel far, at least by the standards of Time Lords or any other species with interstellar travel, just ten light years where there was another beacon lying in space. It was virtually identical to the one she had just been too, and it was the scene of the same series of events.

Her TARDIS locked onto the beacon's airlock and then she left to plant more charges and clamped on to the sides the propulsion units and the micro transmitters while she worked inside the beacon as well. Once she was finished, she dematerialised the TARDIS and headed for another beacon where she repeated her moves.

Theta worked on another five beacons before she moved her TARDIS to a distant region of space to help her calculate the positions of the beacon segments before she triggered the charges. She spent the next few hours finding the pieces of the different beacons and materialising her TARDIS around them once she'd gotten a decent fix on their positions.


Not far away a massive space-ship in the shape of a massive T with the striking eagle insignia of the Space Corps. The V class cruiser had been in service for years now, with the design receiving little in the way of adjustment but its internal workings had been redesigned. On the enormous flight deck General Warne glowered at the screen.

Agonite pirates, he mused darkly, the bane of my existence, and yet without them I probably wouldn't have a career. Warne had spent most of his career dealing with all kinds of threats like the numerous little wars that occasionally broke out but piracy was something that wouldn't go away.

Warne had been one of the instrumental people who'd brought down the gang of pirates led by Maurice Caven, who'd been out for revenge against Milo Clancey, although it had very nearly resulted in the total destruction of the Argnonite mines on Ta. But while their leader had been killed, the space pirates Caven had led had inspired others who were more serious about making money rather than going out for revenge. It was so easy for them to operate - just grab a ship, preferably a fast one, find a small crew who were experts and trained astronauts who were good at space walking and also unscrupulous enough to blow the beacons to bits to be melted down and sold off to make hard cash.

Warne had spent a good portion of his career locating and putting gangs like that away. It never ceased to amaze him just how many people were willing to go down that route.

Now it was happening again.

"Communications, send a message to other cruisers to investigate beacons in their patrol regions. Helm, plot a course to take us to the sites of the beacons that have just been destroyed," Warne said accepting the inevitable.

The V ship arrived at one of the nearer sites of one of the destroyed beacons, and apart from the basic framework the segments that contained the vital computer instruments that handled navigation were long gone. Warne groaned when he saw it, already drafting a report that would not be well received by his superiors.

While the general was issuing his orders to scan the region so then they could move on to the next and track the beacon segments so they could be reassembled and find a lead on the pirates themselves, the crew were too busy to notice the massive asteroid passing through the region.


The massive sleek form of the V ship filled the scanner screen, but while this ship would terrify an ordinary space pirate it meant nothing to Theta who just looked at it with Time Lady detachment. They had no way of knowing that her TARDIS was nearby, they didn't even know of her ship's ability to take on different forms, and they had no idea the Argonite they were looking for was only a handful of miles away from their ship and drifting slowly away. Theta had no real idea why she had decided to bring her TARDIS so close to the space corps ship, and decided it was simply so she could gloat without them knowing about it.

Leaving the console room, she headed down to the room in the TARDIS that she had prepared for the melting down of the Argonite and its storage. The room had needed careful expanding of the interior dimension, but it was worth it with the number of segments in the room. Towering over her like pieces of fruit that had been chopped up and enlarged, the beacon segments were arranged the way she'd found them, which was why the room was so big now. When she had detonated those charges, the beacons had still been bound in magnetic force to keep them together while the propulsion units had moved them to a pre-arranged location so she could locate them. There was four gigantic induction furnaces in the room with her so she could melt down the segments and collect the Argonite.

Melting down the segments to get to the precious metal would take a long time, but even if she broke down a few of the segments from just one of the beacons she'd still make a lot of cash. After donning heavy gloves and putting on an insulated apron, Theta switched on one of the furnaces which used the power of her TARDIS to work. After stripping the interior of the segment out of all traces of Argonite, she began working on the walls of the segment and making a nice little pile. It took the Time Lady over two hours to break up more than 3 of the segments and put the pieces into the furnace, but the end result were a number of bars of refined Argonite. It would be tricky to sell since the Space Corps kept an eye out on sales of the metal, but even if she ended up having to sell the metal to them, they wouldn't really bat an eyelid since Argonite was expensive to find and then mine, not to mention refine and process. It would be the ultimate joke in Theta's mind, the Space Corps would be searching for the Argnonite she'd just stolen and they would still accept the stuff if she sold it to them.

Theta worked for hours to get enough of the metal of the segments before deciding it was worth it. The metal bricks themselves were placed into the baskets of a small cart she'd prepared for the job, and she drove them out of the room. She could always come back for the others later.


Theta studied the Argonite supplier, knowing he was her man for the job. She had read his mind; he was the typical middle man between the pirate and the companies that constructed space ships. Argonite was becoming so scarce nowadays the companies no longer cared where they got it from, and it was hardly the pirates' fault. Argonite was a metal between rare and highly common in the galaxy, and the humans had practically discovered all but the most distant mines out there. Ta was one of them, and it was practically worked out now because of the steady demands to build space-craft capable of travelling further and longer than previous generations. Theta had chosen this point in time because of that factor - she wanted anonymity rather than people noticing her giving out large amounts of Argonite to companies and other organisations that needed the stuff.

The supplier was studying the bricks of Argonite closely, his face slack with shock since he had never encountered a haul like this in his entire life.

"Where did you get all of this?" he asked, surprised by the amount of Argonite he was seeing.

Theta was becoming tempted to hypnotise this human and be done with it. The last thing she wanted were too many questions. "I found the Argonite, it was from a drifting ship," she said, deciding to go for it and focused her hypnotic powers on the man.

"You….f ound the Argonite," the man repeated, "it was from….drifting…ship."

Theta nodded. "Yes, it was from a drifting ship," she intoned, not breaking the spell until it was fully placed in the human's mind. Once she was positive the human wasn't going to ask any questions or his mind would break through the spell - contrary to other Time Lords, she knew that the mind was a powerful thing, especially in races that the Time Lords would instantly dismiss as inherently primitive - she said briskly, "Now, do we have a deal or not?"

The human smiled, unaware that his mind had been manipulated. "Yeah," he said, reaching into his pocket and giving her a few credit cards. Theta took them and scanned them."Why is there hardly any money on these cards?"she asked.

"Argonite shortages, the companies are buying tons of the stuff to make up for discrepancies in the shipments due to piracy and smuggling," the dealer sent her a look, but he carried on, "so they pay people like me a pittance. There's nothing I can do about it, but while the companies were showing themselves to be legal, they're willing to take whatever they can find, but they're still spending millions finding more legal sources."

Theta nodded, accepting the truth. It was possible the human was lying, of course, but it didn't really matter.

Three days later, Theta was standing in the middle of a bank. There were robot tellers and assistants working with the numerous humans that worked here. Everything in the bank was ultra modern - for this century at least, and it was computerised. Although she had little interest in the bank she looked around again for the ninth time as she waited for the robot teller in front of her to finish setting up her bank account.

The bank assistant robot looked up. "Miss Smith, your bank account is now online, and your present balance is at 51, 600 credits," the robot said in an artificially pleasant voice. "Here you have your credit card, and your online details." In its plastic hand was a small packet.

Theta was handed a plastic pack which contained the card and other banking details. "Thank you," she said as she took the packet. She left after another minute of having to listen to the robot talk about other offers, but she quickly lost her patience and she left the bank quickly.

As she left the bank she had time to think about the recent two months. Theta had melted down enough of the beacons she had materialised the TARDIS around to make a small fortune, and she had carefully put the money she had collected in different banks. As she walked down the street, she was thankful because that last bank was the last one on the list, but there was still so much for her to do.

Theta smiled as she approached the TARDIS, now in the shape of a car thanks to the chameleon circuit. After she unlocked the door and she walked in, she headed for the console and studied the computer.

The Time Lady stood by the computer for a few minutes before she nodded and she started setting the controls before she activated the drive units and her TARDIS left the planet.


Solo yawned loudly as she checked the radar screens as the cargo ship Falcon travelled at sub-light speeds past the outer markers of the 8th system before they could enter FTL. The rest of the crew were in their rest shift, and Solo, much to her own disgust, had been relegated to bridge work while the others drank and cheered at the prospect of another bonus. Money in the bank. The only problem was this ship was so fucking new that most of the systems were automated, and not for the first time Solo cursed the company she was with. She missed the old ships because then she knew all the systems were being manned.

But it was happening everywhere, mechanisation and automation. The good news was while the computers were good, they still weren't designed or constructed to be versatile enough to think for themselves, so humans were still needed to operate them.

The FTL system would be automatic with her direct observation - in space, by law, it was recommended and demanded that freighter crews remained on duty throughout but no one really cared. Solo knew that her shipmates would be back on the bridge soon, but she would have to be on duty until then.

"SECURITY ALERT. HOLD NUMBER 5 BREACHED. HOLD NUMBER 5 BREACHED."

Startled by the alarm, Solo sat up straight and checked the readouts and the computer, before wondering to herself if the security system was on the blink. That idea died quickly in her mind when she saw the picture from the CCTV feed.

"Security, bridge here - Lieutenant Solo reporting, the suspect is a woman wearing a black coat with brown hair in a ponytail. She does not appear to be armed, but she is stealing the cargo." Solo zoomed in until the woman's face filled the screen and she recorded it for the wanted posters that would appear if the security detachment failed to capture the woman.

Finally the doors to the cargo hold opened and 6 crew members that she knew were on security duty stormed into the hold, carrying heavy duty blasters.

Theta cursed as she jogged away from the security detachment, zig-zagging away from them as they fired their weapons, cursing herself for not having a blaster of her own. It might be silly, but ever since that mess on Gallifrey where she'd had to evade the Castellan and the rest of the guards, she hadn't wanted to pick up another gun as long as she lived, but now she was literally running for her life, trying desperately to avoid being hit while she carried some of this freighter's cargo in the dimensionally transcendental backpack she'd prepared for this.

She had all 12 of her allotted regenerations, giving her 13 lives in total, but she didn't want to waste them because she was reckless enough to get shot, but judging from the trigger happy nature of the guards on this freighter, Theta realised she might have to rethink her stance about carrying guns.

It had gone so well, as well; the heist had been so straight forward and she had no trouble stealing small amounts of the cargo and put it all in her backpack, and then she had accidentally triggered an alarm, but she wasn't worried because she had been heading back to the TARDIS by the time the guards came in. She had the head start but the guards knew the hold well, they should because this was their ship, and they were gaining on her all the time.

"Stop! There's no-where to run!" One of the guards shouted behind her.

Theta laughed. Oh, they had no idea… Finally she came across the TARDIS in its basic and uncamouflaged form; the hold was packed full of crates and barrels and while she knew the TARDIS wouldn't cloak itself in the form of something similar she hadn't wanted to take the chance. Beaming in relief and skidding to a stop Theta reached into her pocket and took out her key and slapped it on the sensor plate so she could get inside. Theta was halfway through the door when a guard who had somehow gotten ahead of the main group shouted, "FREEZE!"

Theta froze, and she studied the human guard and saw that her hand was trembling around the gun. She was nervous and Theta didn't need to look into the woman's mind to see that, and she knew that if she made a single mistake with how she handled this one then she could very well be shot at, and there was a chance that she'd be hit by a stray bullet.

It was the guard who broke the silence. "Get out of that…. thing," she ordered.

Theta smiled gently at the guard, hoping that the calm attitude would soothe the woman's nerves, though she wouldn't be surprised if that set her off. "No, I won't," she replied and quickly leapt into the TARDIS and rushed to the console and dematerialised while setting the controls.


Once the TARDIS was safe within the Time Vortex, Theta walked over to the rucksack and picked it up and took it over to the small table and chair she'd placed in the console room. There was a fortune within the bag, she knew. Most of the items in the bag were new produces made on the planet the ship had left. Theta had spent 4 hours on the ship, going through all of the things she had recently stolen from a number of different ships over the last week ever since she'd taken the last of the Argonite for selling and collecting the money. What was in the bag might arouse some interest, of course but she was sure she could sell the contents, but she would need to be careful in the future.

Theta looked at the bag thoughtfully before looking around the console room of her TARDIS and came to a decision. She had been working for a short time, carrying out little raids on different ships not to mention those navigational beacons, and she believed that she was ready. She had been waiting for this moment for a long time now.

"I am the Pirate," she said, testing it out and then nodded her head, liking the name. It had a nice ring to it and she hoped that she lived up to what the name represented. Walking over to the console, the newly named Pirate started setting the controls for the next target.

"I've got work to do," the Pirate said to herself.


Chapter notes.

Milo Clancey, Maurice Caven, and Warne are characters from the second Doctor story The Space Pirates. Milo Clancey was an old space prospector who was the enemy of Maurice Caven, a murderous criminal who was later handed over to the authorities by Clancey, but later escaped and formed a gang of pirates and used them to get revenge on Clancey, even hinting he was behind the pirate operation and the Space Corps believed it as well before the Doctor cleared it up.

I don't think I need to say a word about Solo. Yeah, I was inspired by Han Solo, but this Solo isn't a smuggler. I've thought about making one of The Pirate's future incarnations a smuggler, but what do you think?

I am really looking forwards to writing the future chapters of this story. Please give me ideas and feedback to help give me a direction - I have ideas, but I am welcome to hearing your opinions.