Five minutes later we all gathered in the Chatrang ship. The captain stood to the side, still clearly pissed off at Tarrasch for usurping his command and holding a gun to his head, but the rest of the crew seemed to accept that he was now in charge. The Princess stood next to Tarrasach, which bothered me for some reason, but, being a guy, I didn’t give much thought as to why—besides I had other problems.

“I tried to help you and you paid me back by stealing the HTS,” Tarrasch yelled at me. “You put the Princess’s life in danger and if the idiot against the wall over there was as competent as he thinks he is, both the ship you took and everyone inside it would be in much smaller pieces than they are.”

“Technically, you gave us the ship,” offered Mr. Fisher in his most teacher-like voice, while stepping between Tarrach and me.

“Step back, old man,” Tarrasch said. “This is between the boy and me.”

“Old man?” muttered Mr. Fisher.

Boy? I thought.

        “Look, Tar, Tarass--”

        “It’s Tarrasch, fool.”

        “Right, Tarrasch. I had no choice,” I said. “Her brother has my parents in a cage and they are about one day from being eaten alive by a Magorckis, or whatever it’s called. If I don’t show up with the HTS, they’re dead.”

        “It’s a maggoricus,” said J.P.

        “Whatever. Look,” I said, turning back to Tarrasch, “I really appreciate your help and I’m sorry you both got into trouble and, I guess, are still in trouble, but until five days ago, I didn’t even know HTS, Ashtapada, Chatrang or those scary little cookies existed, so cut me some slack. It’s been a pretty overwhelming few days and I’m just doing the best I can. If I stop and think too much about it, I’ll probably have a nervous breakdown.”

        “All right, that’s enough,” said the Princess, placing her hand on Tarrasch’s shoulder. “You’ve made your point and yelling isn’t going to change anything. Tom was doing what he thought he had to do because of my brother. Now, every one take a deep breath and Tom, perhaps you could introduce your new friend.”

        It took a moment to realize who she was talking about until Soldat stepped forward.

        “Oh, sure. This is Soldat. He’s, well, he’s kinda the guy in charge around here. He helped us out after we crashed and he’s the one who talked to your captain,” I said. I was never very good with introductions.

        “And he has his own HTS it would appear,” the Princess said, “even though there are not supposed to be any more HTS.” Soldat’s face hardened and his hand moved toward the gun at his side.

    "There's no need for that," the Princess said quickly. "I'll admit I'm surprised at this discovery, but I have no wish to cause you any more harm than has already been done to you and your people."

    "What my people would like is for you to go away and take this boy and his friends with you. As I told your captain, he is willing to return the stone in exchange for safe passage," Soldat said.

“The real HTS,” I said. “Not the one we were going to give the captain."

     The Princess turned to me and said, "And I can promise that you will arrive safely back on Chosroes, but I cannot be sure what my brother will do when you return without the HTS. In fact, I am quite sure my brother never expected you to return at all."

    "If an old man could offer a suggestion, I might have an idea as to how we could get Tom and the rest of us home, and his parents free," said Mr. Fisher, and he looked like he had just thought of the best pop quiz ever. As a student, I knew the look and it frightened me.