e the pirate raid.

* * * * *

It was, as it turned out, simple enough. Looting parties of three
pirates each moved skulking about, seeking plunder. Quaking cameramen
dared to ask them, in shaking voices, to pose for the news cameras. It
was a request no Darthian gentleman, even in an act of piracy, could
possibly refuse. They posed, making pictures of malignant ruffianism.

Commentators, adding informed comment to delectably thrilling pictures,
observed that the pirates wore Darthian costume, but observed crisply
that this did not mean that Darth as an entity had turned pirate, but
only that some of her citizens had joined the pirate fleet.

The camera crews then asked apologetically if they would permit
themselves to be broadcast in the act of looting. Growling savagely for
their public, and occasionally adding even a fiendish "Ha!" they
obliged. The camera crews helped pick out good places to loot for the
sake of good pictures. The pirates co-operated in fine dramatic style.
Millions watching vision sets all over the planet shivered in delicious
horror as the pirates went about their nefarious enterprise.

Presently the press of onlookers could not be held back by the police.
They surrounded the pirates. Some, greatly daring, asked for autographs.
Girls watched them with round, frightened, fascinated eyes. Younger men
found it vastly thrilling to carry burdens of loot back to the pirate
ship for them. Thal complained hoarsely that the ship was getting
overloaded. Hoddan ordered greater discrimination, but his pirates by
this time were in the position of directors rather than looters
themselves. Romantic Waldenian admirers smashed windows and brought them
treasure, for the reward of a scowling acceptance.

Hoddan had to call it off. The pirate ship was loaded. It was then the
center of an agitated, excited, enthusiastic crowd. He called back his
men. One party of three did not return. He took two others and fought
his way through the mob. He found the trio backed against a wall while
hysterically adoring girls struggled to seize scraps of their garments
for mementos of real, live pirates looting a Waldenian town!

But Hoddan got them back to the ship, in confusion tending toward the
blushful. Their clothes were shreds. He fought a way clear for them to
get into the ship. He fought his way in. Cheers rose from the onlookers.
He got the landing port shut only by the help of police wh