Odys and the people of Krus Island had much the same idea about when the Deep Blue pirates would attack: this weekend or early next week.
That was the conclusion they had reached by counting the days.
More than ten days ago, Press and the others had broken off negotiations with the Deep Blue pirates' envoys, and Press had killed several of them.
By their calculations, the pirates would have had just enough time to prepare and return to Krus Island.
The preparations would take that long partly because Egbert, captain of the Ghost, had not expected the negotiations to end that way.
Under interrogation, the pirates had revealed that their captain was already on Midway Island along the Central Route, buying mining equipment.
Clearly, Egbert had not expected Press and the others to reject his terms and kill his men.
The people he had sent to Krus Island had come less to negotiate than to deliver an ultimatum.
It was also a favorite pirate tactic.
The people of Krus Island would spend those days in dread. By the time the pirates arrived, many might already have lost the will to resist.
Things had gone much as Egbert expected. Nearly half the Northerners living around the port had fled to nearby islands, ready to join the Deep Blue pirates at any moment.
For Odys, the timing was not too bad. It was tight, but he still had a day or two to prepare.
He finished his deployments on Saturday. The Deep Blue pirates appeared on Sunday.
It was not their fleet, though. A lone ship was sailing toward Moon Bay.
The entire port erupted into panic. Many residents grabbed the luggage they had packed long ago and fled into the mountains; others went looking for family members stationed in ambush