"Any report from the search squadrons yet, Steve?" asked Commander
Walters.
"No, sir," replied Captain Strong. "We're concentrating on the asteroid
belt, but so far we've drawn a blank."
"Well, keep trying and let me know the minute something turns up," said
Walters.
"Yes, sir," said Strong, saluting his commanding officer as the elder
spaceman left the room. He turned back to a large desk in the center of
the room where Roger Manning was busy noting figures on a large chart,
showing the areas already covered and listing the squadrons engaged in
the search.
As Strong leaned over his shoulder, Roger placed a finger on the chart.
"Squadron Ten has just completed a search of all asteroids in their
assigned area," he said, then added laconically, "Nothing."
Strong studied the chart a moment. "Well, we'll have to keep it up," he
said. "It's the only way we'll find them. A systematic search of the
belt from end one to the other." He paused and then muttered, "Only one
thing I'm worried about."
"What's that, sir?" asked Roger.
"That when we do find them, it'll be too late to help Tom."
"You really think he's aboard Coxine's ship, Captain Strong?"
"Couldn't be anywhere else," answered Strong. "And he'll be trying to
signal us, you can bet on that. Keep me posted on all radar contacts
made by the search squadrons. I want a continuous six-way radar sweep by
every ship."
"Yes, sir," said Roger.
"One more thing," said Strong, "tell Astro to get the _Polaris_ ready to
blast off. And you make sure your radar bridge is in A-one condition."
"Are we blasting off, sir?" asked Roger.
"Every ship we can get into space will give us a better chance of
finding Coxine and his crew. Now that we've got the search fully under
way there's no need to hang around here any longer."
"Glad to hear it, sir," replied Roger. "I was getting a little itchy to
hunt for those crawlers myself. And Astro can hardly keep still."
Strong smiled. "Don't worry, we'll find Tom," he said. "Wherever he is,
you can bet he's taking care of himself and doing a good job for the
Solar Guard."
Roger's eyes twinkled. "Oh, I wasn't so worried about Tom as I was
Astro, sir. He'll be pretty mad if there isn't anything left of Coxine
to pay him back for slugging him."
Strong rubbed his head and said grimly, "Astro's not the only one!"
The blond-haired cadet left the room, and Strong wearily turned back to
study the chart of the search in the asteroid belt.
Immediately upon arrival at Space Academy, two days before, Strong had
been placed in charge of the search by Commander Walters. The attack on
the prison asteroid and the escape of the prisoners had created the
biggest sensation in his life. From one end of the Solar Alliance to the
other, the visunews and the stereos were full of the attack and escape
details, with Strong's name appearing often in the headlines and news
flashes. To search the asteroid belt had been his suggestion, and while
he could offer no proof, he believed the attacking ship had been
commanded by Wallace and Simms. Speaking only to Commander Walters,
Strong had received permission to combine the search for Wallace and
Simms, with the new hunt for Coxine. Strong was convinced that Coxine
was behind the activity of Wallace and Simms, from the beginning at the
Solar Exposition to the present.
Strong looked at his watch. It was past midnight. He flipped a switch
and paged Lieutenant Moore on the central communicators. In a few
moments the young officer appeared and saluted smartly.
"Take over here, Moore," said Strong. "I'm going to sack in for a little
rest and then take the _Polaris_ out. I'll be in constant contact with
you and will direct search operations from the _Polaris_. You stand by
here and relay all reports. We'll use code 'VISTA' for all contacts."
"Yes, sir," said Moore. "Shall I work up charts like that one?" He
pointed to the chart left by Roger.
"Statistics here at the academy will handle that," replied Strong. "Just
shoot the information down to them as you receive it. And you'd better
get someone else up here to help you. You'll be here a long time."
Moore saluted and Strong walked wearily from the room. There wasn't any
need for cleverness now, thought the Solar Guard captain. When we catch
Coxine, he'll fight. And when he fights, that will be the end of him!
He went to his quarters and in thirty seconds was asleep.
* * * * *
"Radar bridge to control deck!" A voice crackled over the intercom
aboard the newly named pirate ship, _Avenger_. "Hullo, control deck!
Come in!"
"Yeah?" roared Bull Coxine. "Whaddya want?"
"Picked up a blip on the radar, Captain," replied the radar officer.
"Looks to me like the jet liner from Mars to Venus."
"Relay the pickup to the control-deck scanner and let me take a look at
it," ordered Coxine.
In a moment the big pirate was studying the scanner carefully. Wallace
and Simms stood to one side. Coxine turned and looked at them with a
hard glint in his eyes. "That's the jet liner, all right!" He rubbed the
palms of his huge hands together and smiled thinly. "It looks like we're
in business!"
Wallace stepped forward. "You mean, you're going to--?"
"I'll tell you what I mean," snapped Coxine, "when I want you to know
it!"
He turned to the intercom and began to bawl orders into the microphone.
"All hands! Stand by your stations for attack!"
There was an answering roar of approval from the crew.
"We're making our first strike, you space crawlers! A jet liner from
Mars to Venus. There'll be lots of fancy things aboard her. Things the
Solar Guard wouldn't give you on the Rock!"
There was another roar over the loud-speaker.
"But the first man that takes anything but what I tell him will find
himself on the wrong end of two big fists!"
"We're closing in, Captain," interrupted the voice from the radar
bridge. "The angle of approach is in our favor. I don't think they've
seen us yet!"
"Keep watching her, Joe," replied Coxine, and turned to his two henchmen
on the control deck. "You, Wallace! Take number-one jet boat. Russell,
Stephens, Attardi, and Harris. Each man will take a paralo-ray pistol
and rifle. Report to your boat when I give the order."
There was a pause as the men named scurried to their stations. Coxine
continued, "The following men will come with me in boat number two.
Shelly, Martin, and the Space Kid. The rest of you man the forward and
aft blasters. But no one fires until Lieutenant Simms gives the order!"
He turned to Simms and stared at the man coldly. "I'll be in contact
with you all the time. You'll fire when I say to fire, and not before.
Is that clear?"
Simms nodded.
"Range-fifty thousand yards to liner, Captain!" reported the radar
bridge. "I think she's sighted us!"
"Forward turret!" roared Coxine. "Put a blast across her bow just to
show how friendly we are!"
"Aye, aye, sir," acknowledged a voice from the gun turret.
In the turret Tom listened to the orders to attack the helpless
spaceship with mounting anxiety. If he could only plant the signal on
the _Avenger_ before going to the liner, he might be able to remain
aboard the passenger ship and escape. He was interrupted in his thoughts
by a rough voice in back of him.
"Hey, Kid! Space Kid!" yelled Gaillard, the commander of the gun turret.
"Come on! You heard the orders, didn't you? Get me the range."
"Right away," answered Tom. He stepped to the range finder, quickly
figured the speed of the jet liner, their own speed and the angle of
approach. Racking them up on the electronic tracker, he turned back to
Gaillard, "Let her go!"
"Fire!"
There was a thunderous noise and the _Avenger_ rocked gently in recoil
from the heavy blast. Tom quickly sighted on the range finder and saw a
ball of light flash brilliantly in front of the passenger ship. He
breathed a sigh of relief. He had to keep up his avowed reputation of
being a crack marksman and at the same time could not damage the unarmed
passenger ship. The shot had been perfect.
"Good shooting, Kid," roared Coxine from the control deck.
"Thanks, skipper," said Tom, aware that he had not called Coxine
captain, but knowing that his earlier speech to the giant pirate had
earned him a certain amount of respect.
Coxine quickly made contact with the captain of the liner on the
teleceiver and the outraged captain's face sharpened into focus on the
screen aboard the _Avenger_.
"By the craters of Luna," exploded the skipper of the passenger ship,
"what's the meaning of this? There are women and children aboard this
vessel."
Coxine smiled thinly. "My name's Bull Coxine, master of the vessel
_Avenger_. One funny move out of you and I'll blast your ship into
protons! Stand by for a boarding party!"
"Captain! Captain!" the radar operator's voice screamed over the
control-deck loud-speaker, "they're trying to send out a signal to the
Solar Guard!"
"They are, huh?" roared Coxine. "Forward turret, check in!"
"Turret, aye!" reported Tom. He had been left alone while Gaillard
issued small arms to the boarding parties.
"Listen, Kid!" roared Coxine. "You said you're a good shot. Right now is
the time to prove it. Blast away her audio antenna!"
Tom gulped. At a range of fifty thousand yards, the antenna, a thick
piece of steel cable, might as well have been a needle to hit.
"Right, skipper," he finally replied. "I'll show you some of the
fanciest shooting you'll ever see in your life!"
He turned back to the range finder, his mind racing like a calculating
machine. He figured the angles of the two ships, considering that the
jet liner was a dead ship in space and the _Avenger_ still under way,
but slowing down at a specific rate of deceleration. He rechecked his
figure a third and fourth time, correcting his calculations each time
with the forward movement of the _Avenger_. If he misjudged a fraction
of a degree, he might kill or injure hundreds of people aboard the
passenger vessel.
"Well?" roared Coxine. "Are you going to fire or not?"
"Coming right up, skipper!" shouted Tom. "Watch this!"
Steeling himself, lest he should hit the ill-fated ship, he fired. For a
brief moment he felt sick and then heard the roar of the pirate captain
from the control deck.
"By the rings of Saturn," roared Coxine, "that was the best shot I've
ever seen! Well done, Kid! All right, boarding crews! Man your boats and
stand by to blast off!"
While Coxine vocally lashed the members of the murderous crew into
action, Tom tried to figure out some way to get to the radar deck
unseen. Being assigned to the jet boat with Coxine, instead of Wallace,
had been a lucky break and Tom wished for a little more of the same.
Lining up with his boarding crew, he received his paralo-ray pistol and
rifle from Gaillard, deftly stealing a second pistol while the gunnery
officer's back was turned.
After hurriedly hiding the stolen gun, he slipped stealthily topside to
the radar bridge. Reaching the hatch, he was about to open it, when he
heard footsteps. He turned and saw a man walking toward him. It was
Simms!
"Where in the blasted universe is the jet-boat deck?" snarled Tom. He
dropped his rifle on the deck and bent over to pick it up, hiding his
face.
"You're on the wrong deck," said Simms. "Two decks below. Get moving!"
The pirate lieutenant hardly gave the cadet a glance as he brushed past
and entered the radar bridge. Tom caught a fleeting glimpse of the
interior. His heart jumped. The bridge was exactly like the one on the
_Polaris_! Though annoyed that his chance had slipped past, Tom was
thankful to learn that the communications equipment was thoroughly
familiar.
"Space Kid! Report to the jet-boat deck on the double!" Coxine's voice
rumbled through the empty passageway. Tom dashed down the nearest ladder
and hurried to the jet-boat deck where the pirate captain waited
impatiently.
"I was checking the range and setting up to blast the liner in case they
try anything funny," explained Tom. "I don't trust anyone on that range
finder but me!"
Coxine chuckled. "Good work, Kid. I like a man that thinks ahead. Maybe
I made the wrong man gunnery chief." He climbed into the jet boat. "All
right, take the controls, Kid. Shelly and Martin, get in the stern." The
men climbed in and Tom slid under the controls and waited for the order
to blast off.
Wallace and his crew were on the opposite side of the ship, so Tom had
no fear of being recognized until they were all on the passenger ship.
At his side, Coxine spoke to Wallace in the other jet boat over the
audioceiver.
"We'll split up. I'll handle the control deck and you go aft to the
supply lockers. Dump everything out in space and we can pick it up
later. Search the passengers, but no rough stuff. The first man that
puts his hands on anyone will never know what hit him!"
Tom listened to the pirate captain's orders and was forced to give the
man credit for his tight control over his murderous crew. However
rebellious he might be against the Solar Guard, and whatever it was that
made the man become the system's most notorious criminal, his orders
spoke for themselves.
"All right, Kid," roared Coxine, "blast off!"
Tom pressed the control pedal at his foot and the small ship shot out
into the black void of space. Ahead of them, thousands of yards away, he
could see the gleaming passenger ship.
In a few moments the two jet boats were braking their jets and drifting
to a stop inside the catapult deck of the luxurious liner.
Almost before Tom had stopped the small craft, Coxine was out of the
boat waving his paralo-ray pistols at a cluster of frightened merchant
spacemen.
"Back inside!" he snarled. "Kid! Shelly! Cover me! We're going to the
control deck. Martin, you stay here with the jet boat."
Coxine marched straight through the ship, head up, eyes straight ahead,
while behind him, Tom and Shelly swept the luxurious lounges with their
ray rifles, ready to fire on any who dared resist. They marched past the
frightened passengers, climbed a flight of carpeted stairs to the next
deck, and entered the control room.
The liner's captain, a tall, thin man with graying hair, stood waiting
beside the control panel, his eyes flashing angrily. A half-dozen junior
officers stood stiffly in back of him.
Coxine stepped up to the elderly officer and laughed good-naturedly. "No
one will be hurt, skipper. I just want a few things for my men"--he
paused and glanced at the ship's vault--"and whatever you have in
there!"
"I'll live to see the day when you're caught and sent to the prison
asteroid for this," snorted the captain.
"Don't make me laugh, skipper," said Coxine lightly. "The Solar Guard
will have to build a new one for me. Don't think there's much left of
the old one!"
"Then it was you! You're responsible for the attack on the asteroid!"
Coxine just smiled and turned to Tom and Shelly. "Watch these crawlers
closely, now. I'm going to open the vault."
Tom stared at the ship's officers, hoping to catch the eye of one of
them, but they were all watching Coxine.
The pirate captain pulled a thin rod about two feet long, with a switch
on one end, from his jacket. He walked to the solid titanium door of the
vault and inserted the rod into a small hole, pressing the switch at the
end of the rod carefully several times. He stepped back and inserted it
in another hole in the face of the door and repeated the procedure.
Putting the key back in his jacket he grabbed the handle of the massive
door. It swung open at his touch. The captain of the liner and officers
gasped in amazement.
Working quickly, Coxine crammed the thick bundles of credit notes and
passenger's valuables into a bag. At last he straightened up, and facing
the unbelieving officer again, he tossed them a mocking salute. He
nodded to Tom and Shelly and walked out of the control room without
another word.
Shelly and Tom quickly followed the giant spaceman back to the jet-boat
deck, where Wallace was just returning from his own operations. Wallace
made a circle out of his fingers to Coxine and the giant pirate nodded.
"Let's get out of here!" he ordered.
"Aren't you afraid they'll try to stop you, skipper?" asked Tom.
Coxine laughed. "Just let them try. I never met a man yet that had the
nerve to pull the trigger of a paralo-ray gun while my back was turned."
Tom gulped and wondered if he would have the nerve to fire on the
spaceman. He thought about it a moment and decided that he would take
any chance that came along, if he could outwit the criminal. When the
time came, he would risk his life to stop Coxine!