"Wilma! NO", Buck screamed. But it was too late. He watched as the ground around her exploded sending Col. Wilma Derring into oblivion. A split second later, Buck felt a searing pain in his head and then nothing.

They had come to the planet Oros, he and Wilma, in search of Rogue, leader of a vicious band of pirates that was wrecking havoc on the trading ships throughout the galaxy. Because of Rogue's band, Terrans in New Chicago and elsewhere were in danger of running low on food and fuel. The intelligence information had been spotty at best. There were some that believed that Oros was the home base. Others felt that the planet was too far removed from the regular shipping lanes to be effective. Buck had been in Dr. Huer's office while the debate had raged among the members of the ruling Federation. Buck was bored by all this discussion. He preferred action. After what seemed like hours, Wilma had suggested sending in low level craft to scan the planet surface with heat sensors.

"Isn't that going to be a waste of time, Wilma? Why bother if you guys are not sure that Rogue and his henchmen are there? Why not send in a raiding party and make sure," Buck had said.

"Because it's that important that we follow up on every lead as quickly as possible. The time it would take to marshal the kind of force you are suggesting will guarantee that if Rogue is on Oros now, he won't be by the time we arrive," was Wilma's measured reply.

"We must also keep in mind the political implications of sending in forces to Oros. It is after all in the neutral zone. The Pic people could interpret that as an act of aggression," Put in Dr. Theopolis.

"I thought the Pic's were neutral" Buck said "What happens if Rogue is using Oros as his base?"

"They are neutral, and they carefully guard their neutrality. But if we can show them solid evidence, hopefully we can prevent a diplomatic issue."

" I thought we had the evidence" Buck protested.

"Buck, what we have doesn't even convince all of us in this room, I don't think I would want to present it to the Pic Congress," Wilma said quietly.

It was finally decided, two pilots would make the trip to Oros in A7's.

It fell to Col. Derring to make the necessary arrangement to have the ships made flight ready.

As the meeting broke up, Buck approached Wilma, " so when do we leave?" He asked.

"Why, are you volunteering?"
"Why not, at least it is taking action."

"It will take at a few hours to get the ships readied and onto the hanger deck. We should be ready to take off by oh eight hundred hours tomorrow," she replied. And with a twinkle in her eye, she added, "that will give you time to say good-bye to your girl friend"

On the flight deck, Wilma waited for Buck to arrive while she calmly went over the preflight checklist with Major Terry O'Malley. The major was a veteran pilot who had been in charge of the flight deck for some time.

Buck arrived ready to go.

"Is the preflight done?" he asked

"Just about, we should be ready to take off in about 10 minutes"

"Explain to me again, why are we taking these old crates? They must have been in mothballs forever."

Wilma looked at him quizzically, "Mothballs? Oh you mean, out of service, yes we haven't used the A7 for a number of years but they will be perfect for this mission," Wilma replied as she returned to her checklist.

"But they are so slow"

"Exactly, low and slow, we make one slow pass at a low altitude and then out. We get in and get out before anybody knows we were there."

"Will you two stop bickering and get ready for take off please, I need to have this area ready for Alpha patrol group landing shortly." Put in O'Malley.

"Right, let's go then," said Buck as he entered the ship on the right through the open ramp door.

Wilma shook her head, picked up her flight helmet and entered the craft on the left.

Soon they were out of the hanger deck through the atmosphere and heading for the stargate. Once through the stargate it was only a matter of an hour or two until they entered Oros' atmosphere. Oros was a hardscapple planet, with a scarcity of vegetation and an abundance of rocks and boulders.

The two ships crisscrossed the areas of the planet that the intelligence and scientific committees felt were the most likely hiding places for the pirates. They held their craft only a few thousand feet above the surface.

As they flew over a clear area their instruments registered elevated heat and ion levels, usually an indicator that there was human activity. However the levels were not high enough to indicate that humans were currently in the area.

" I don't know Buck these readings are very ambiguous. I wish it was clear cut."

"Suggest we try another fly by, we should have enough fuel for one more" was Buck's answer.

"You're right, we need to be sure, once more around."

The readings on the second trip were almost identical to the first, which in itself was strange. If there were humans on the planet the readings would have been much stronger, and if they had been there and left the readings would decrease with each passing minute.

"I think we should land and investigate ourselves Wilma. I wouldn't want to send a raiding party here for nothing," Said Buck.

"I don't know, that's not what our mission." She relied

"Look, it's more important that we find out what's going on. We don't want to send in troops without knowing for sure if Rogue is here, but we can't risk not letting him slip through our fingers if he is."

"You were paying attention in the meeting after all, I'm impressed. Your right, I just get a real bad feeling about this."

"I thought I was the one who always acted on my hunches, not you. You're always the planning guru," Buck said.

"Guru, what, oh whatever. Readouts say that there is a small clearing about six grids to the left that should be large enough to land."

"Roger, six grids over, got it on screen, I'll go in first since I'm closer Col. If that alright with you" Buck said in mock earnestness.

With a sigh Wilma replied "Roger"

They brought their craft down and carefully slid out of the side hatches. They met in the lee of the lead ship. Everything around them was quiet, eerily quiet.

"Stay close behind me" Buck started to say

"Hey wait a minute, why should you go first, I don't need to be"

Buck cut her off. With his finger to his lips he said "You need to watch the readings on the scanner, and I'll keep a watch. Just poke me if the readings change at all."

As they came into another clearing they saw what looked like an old lean-to. Smoke appeared to be billowing up lightly from the other side of the hut.

"Something just doesn't look right" Buck whispered as they stopped. He motioned to move to the left.

They circled around to try and get a better view but there were too many boulders in the way. Wilma nudged Buck, and pointed to the scanner, the readings had not changed at all.

"I'm going back to the ship for the gas analyzer," Wilma whispered in Buck ear.

She turned around and started to pick her way through the rocks toward the ship, leaving Buck staring at the hut. Suddenly, he realized what had not made sense. The "smoke" was rising straight up; it wasn't swirling in the light breeze.

It was a trap.

He turned around to alert Wilma when the unthinkable happened; everything exploded.