Sual Av grinned ruefully. “I'm not so sure I want to be a raid pirate, if this kind of thing happens often."
"It was a cunning trap set for us Companions by the League navies,” declared Lana. “They even actually loaded those freighters with rich cargo, knowing we'd have spies watching who would report that, and that we'd make an attack when we heard. And they had those cruisers disguised as tankers, ready to gun us as soon as we were busy looting the freighters."
Her blue eyes flashed. “But we escaped their trap! We didn't lose more than four of our ships, and we've got a good portion of the freighters’ cargoes — the cargoes that were to be the bait of the trap!"
"If old Stilicho Keene watched those freighters and tankers sail from Jupiter why didn't he suspect their game?” Thorn asked her keenly. “A close look at the tankers would have showed him that they were disguised cruisers."
Lana looked troubled. “I can't understand why Stilicho didn't see that.” She added loyally, “But it can't be any fault of his. And, anyway, we, got out safely."
"If that League cruiser that grappled onto you had gunned you, it would have been the end of you,” John Thorn told her. “I can't understand why they didn't when they had you helpless."
"Neither can I,” Lana confessed. “They must have wanted to capture me, and take me to be tried and executed as a lesson to the whole system. If so, they overreached themselves!"
She turned to the Jovian pilot, and ordered, “Straight to Turkoon, now. There's no danger of more pursuit."
As the Lightning throbbed on through the Zone, homing toward the jungle asteroid like all the other scattered pirate ships, John Thorn drew his two comrades unobtrusively back down into the privacy of the narrow corridor below the control-room.
"There was something damned queer about that trap the League set!” Thorn declared. “Their whole object seemed to be to capture this ship — to capture Lana — and they took good care not to fire once at her craft, lest they kill her."