As the sun was beginning to set, Will and Debra sought out Lord Lestron to let him know they were heading back to their ship. They found him in the library sitting at his desk looking despondent.

Hearing Will and Debra come in he called them over. “Please have a seat. It’s nearly time for dinner,” he said. “I really don’t feel like eating, but I can have Braith make something for you.”

Will shook his head. “I don’t have much of an appetite right now.”

“Me either,” agreed Debra.

The three of them sat there in silence for a while.

“I’ve spoken with King Raphul,” finally said Lord Lestron. “He’s dispatching a ship for my protection and a crew to repair the defensive shields. However, it will be over a week before it gets here. I know I asked you to stay on, but …”

“Think nothing of it,” interrupted Will. “It’s because of me that this happened and we’ll stay here as long as you need us.”

Lord Lestron shook his head. “Captain Power, please don’t blame yourself. You’ve done nothing wrong.” A touch of anger could he heard in his voice as he continued speaking. “Your Earth’s president is the one responsible.”

“I know you’re right, but I still feel responsible,” answered Will in a low voice. “And the last thing I want is for the same thing to happen to anyone else.” He stared at Lord Lestron. “And I’ll make sure it doesn’t,” he declared in a firm voice.

“As do I,” agreed Lord Lestron. “However, you can’t let the fear of something that might happen control your actions.”

Debra laughed bitterly. “There’s no might about it,” she said trying to control her rage. “In the message on the tablet you gave Will, Grandle threatened to do the same thing to anyone who harbored Will.”

Lord Lestron’s face reddened and he got to his feet. “I for one will not be cowed by such threats. You are welcome to remain here as long as you wish. And I can assure you that King Raphul feels the same way.”

“I wish it was that simple,” answered Will, in a low voice. “What of Braith and Grelth or even the citizens of Celentus? Do they deserve to suffer or perhaps even die because of me?” He shook his head. “They don’t and that’s why Grandle has to be stopped.”

“So how do you plan to stop him?” asked Lord Lestron. “Assassination?”

“No,” replied Will. “That would only make Grandle a martyr potentially leading to someone worse taking his place.”

“We need to discredit him, to let people see who is really is and what he’s up to,” explained Debra. “However, once that’s done, I kind of like assassination idea,” she added, a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

Will looked over at her with a look of disapproval, but she merely smiled back at him.

“Now as to how we do that,” said Will. “I have no idea.”

“Certainly, with the message he sent you, the evidence of the invasion of Celentus, and the attack here, would be sufficient for the people of your world to decide to remove President Grandle from office,” suggested Lord Lestron.

“Oh, you don’t know Grandle,” answered Debra. “He’d be able to talk his way out of all of those. The message to Will, trying to get a traitor to surrender and the attacks he’d blame on rogue military officers.”

“That’s right,” agreed Will. “We’d need hard evidence. Something showing the orders came from him or getting him to publicly implicate himself.”

“Doesn’t sound promising,” said Lord Lestron.

“We’re not giving up through,” declared Debra. “As Will likes to say, ‘As long as you’re alive, you’ve always got a chance.’ We’ll come up with something.”

“And if there’s any way I can help,” said Lord Lestron. “Just let me know.”

“We certainly will,” said Will, getting to his feet. “It’s getting late so we’re going to return to the ship. We’ll radio if we there’s any trouble.”

He reached over and shook hands with Will and Debra. “Thank you.”

The smoke caused by the attack had finally begun to dissipate, but there was still enough to block the dim light which made it through the clouds. Strapping on their jetpacks, they activated their lights and flew up and out of the clearing where the house was located. Once in the air, there was nothing but darkness around them, as the attack had knocked out the landing field lights.

Will gestured for Debra to follow him and he flew off in what he thought was the direction of the field. As they flew on, Debra noticed the red flashing beacon light on top of the ship off to their left. Flying over to Will, she pointed it out to him. He gave a sheepish nod and followed her to the ship.

They landed on the gantry and after taking off the jetpacks, stepped inside.

“They say your sense of direction is the first thing to go,” she joked.

Will just shook his head and laughed. “Then it’s a good thing I have a pretty young woman to show me the way.”

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Debra blushed and forgot about replying with a clever comeback. “Thanks.”

They took shifts keeping an eye of the tactical display, but saw no ships entered orbit that night or for the next nine nights they remained on Thadeus Seven. During the day, the helped clear out the debris from the attack from the house. Will was able to repair the house’s sensor array so Lord Lestron would detect any ships that entered orbit around the planet.

The kitchen had been damaged so the meals weren’t as fancy as on their prior visits. However, the food was delicious and Lord Lestron could always be counted on to entertain them with his knowledge of history. The hard work and good company suited Will very well. And yet, the threat hovering over him and Debra never fully left his mind.

Through all this, the thing he looked forward to most was returning to the ship in the evening and spending time with Debra. She’d begun opening up to him more and even told him about her experience being a member of a pirate crew. It wasn’t quite what Will had expected. They were sitting in the ship’s control section when she began her story.

“You hear all these stories about bloodthirsty pirates,” she began, “but the group I was with just seemed to be a bunch of frustrated shopkeepers. They even had daily meetings to go over financials and to decide on upcoming targets.” She laughed. “There was probably more fighting in those meetings than on any of our attacks.”

“Why is that?” asked Will with a smile.

“Well considering we hit things like furniture and food transports the crews weren’t really about to risk their lives for the cargo. They let us take what we wanted and then we’d leave.”

“Doesn’t sound very profitable.”

“It wasn’t, but it provided enough to keep the ship stocked with supplies and enough left over for the occasional bonus. Overall, it wasn’t a bad life.”

“If it wasn’t so bad, why’d you leave?”

“It wasn’t by choice actually. Most of the crew eventually got tired of pirating. Plus, we’d accumulated so much stuff from our raids, we couldn’t fit anything else in the cargo hold. So they decided to open a store on Preltis Three. Last I heard, they’d turned it into a multi-million credit business.”

“Are you sorry you left?” chuckled Will.

She reached over and rubbed his shoulder. “No. Can you imagine me dealing with customers and filling out financial statements? I’d be bored to tears.” She got up from her seat. “Besides,” she said, bending down to kiss the top of his head. “I think I ended up in a pretty good place.” Before will could answer, she’d gone down the ladder to the crew quarters.

During the early afternoon of their tenth day on Thadeus Seven, Will and Debra were in the house when the alarm sound. “Come on!” cried Will as he and Debra raced to put on their jetpacks. As they were doing so, the alarm went silent.

Everything’s all right,” called down Lord Lestron from the top of the stairs. “That’s the ship sent by King Raphul.”

Will and Debra began undoing their jetpacks. “Glad it was a false alarm,” she said.

Will smiled grimly. “I guess that means we can head out tomorrow.”

“We still going to Celentus?”

He shook his head. “Earth’s already invaded Celentus once,” he explained. “I don’t want to give them a reason to try again.”

“Where then?”

“Don’t know,” replied Will, scratching his head. “We’ll figure that out when we get back to the ship.”

The ship had radioed that it was sending down a shuttle. It wasn’t long before a shuttle descended from the sky and landed in the clearing not far from the house. Will, Debra, and Lord Lestron waited by the house until its engines shut down. As they walked over, a man and two women wearing overalls and carrying cases exited the craft along with several soldiers.

The commanding officer walked over to and saluted. “Lord Lestron, I’m Commander Stelia” she said. “If you would show these technicians where your shield controls are located, they’ll get started on the repairs.”

“Thank you,” answered Lord Lestron. He gestured to the technicians. “This way please.”

Commander Stelia turned to Will and Debra. “Captain Power and Debra, the king has asked me to reiterate his invitation for you to visit Celentus. He is aware of the threats made by the President of Earth and has taken precautions to protect the planet.”

“Commander,” replied Will, “we greatly appreciate the King’s invitation, but must decline.”

“Might I ask why?”

“I have no doubt that King Raphul will take every precaution to protect his people,” explained Will. “However, putting civilians in danger is a risk we can’t take, no matter how small it may be.”

Commander Stelia nodded. “I understand. I know the King will be disappointed, but he’ll understand as well.”

“Thank you.”

By the end of the afternoon the repairs to the shields had been completed and the shuttle carrying the technicians and soldiers returned to the ship in orbit. Not long after, Will and Debra made their good byes to Lord Lestron. They stood outside in the clearing in the fading light of day.

“What will you do?” asked Lord Lestron.

“Don’t know,” answered Debra. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

“Good luck to both of you,” he said shaking their hands.

Will and Debra activated their jetpacks and flew out of the clearing. Within a few minutes they were back to the ship. Since the ship from Celentus was in orbit, there was no need to take shifts to monitor the tactical display. They both finally have the opportunity to get a full night’s sleep.

However, it was still early and they just finished dinner so neither of them was tired. So they sat in the control section looking at star charts to decide where they were going next.

“The Jersel sector is pretty sparsely populated,” noted Will. “I’m sure we could find a place there to lie low while we figure out how to stop Grandle.”

Debra shook her head. “I just don’t like the idea of hiding. Who knows what kind of trouble Grandle will cause in the meantime.”

“I don’t like it either,” agreed Will, “but sometimes it’s necessary. At the moment there’s not really anything else we can do.”

Debra sighed. “I guess you’re right, but I still don’t like it.

First thing the next morning, they strapped themselves into their seats and prepared to leave Thadeus Seven. Will flipped switches and as he flipped the last switch announced, “Initiating ignition sequence.” However, his usual enthusiasm wasn’t there.

The ship’s engines sprung to life and it made its way into the atmosphere. In a few minutes they were in space.

“Anything on sensors?” asked Will.

“Just the Celentus ship and the debris field from the destroyed cruiser.”

Will set course for the Jersel system. “It will take about a week to get there.”

“I was wondering something,” said Debra. “Why do you thing they destroyed the cruiser we damaged. It was certainly repairable.”

“Usually that’s done to keep it from falling into enemy hands.”

“Well I doubt we’d have taken it,” laughed Debra.

“Oh, it’s not only that,” explained Will. “There might be tactical infor …” Will suddenly stopped.

He turned to Debra, speaking excitedly. “What if that ship and the one they destroyed at Celentus had records of President Grandle ordering the attacks?”

“Even if they did,” replied Debra, “it won’t do us any good.”

“But what about the ships we attacked on the ground at Omega-245?” exclaimed Will as he began putting in a new course. “They may not have thought necessary to destroy those ships.”

Debra sat up in her chair. “Sure,” she cried, “it’s distant and I’m sure they’d never expect us to go back there.”

“Well, it’s certainly a better use of our time than hiding out in the Jersel system.”

“Okay,” he announced pushing the control stick forward. “Next stop, Omega-245.”