"Spaceman's luck, sir," said Tom, shaking Captain Strong's hand.
Silently the other two cadets in turn gripped their skipper's hand
tightly.
"Thanks, boys," said Strong. "If we're going to get that space crawler,
we have to trap him. And the best bait I know is a twenty-million-credit
pay roll."
"But won't you take at least one man with you, sir?" pleaded Tom.
"Sitting up there in space in a decoy ship waiting for Coxine is
like--" Tom paused. "Well, you won't have much of a chance, sir, if
Coxine opens fire before asking questions."
"That's the risk I've got to take, Tom," said Strong. "It took a lot of
talking to get Commander Walters' permission to try this. But we've got
to force Coxine to come out far enough from the asteroid belt to catch
him before he can run back in and lose himself again." The young captain
smiled wanly and added, "Don't think that your job is unimportant!"
Tom, Roger, and Astro nodded. On their return from the unsuccessful
attempt to capture Coxine, they had been suddenly faced with the routine
duty of transporting a twenty-million-credit pay roll from Atom City to
the satellite of Titan for the crystal miners.
Thinking one sure way to catch any rat was to use a lure, Tom suggested
that the Titan armored freighter be used as a decoy to capture the
pirate, and the cadets could carry the pay roll in the _Polaris_.
Commander Walters had considered the plan, and then realizing that
Coxine might fire on the freighter before seizing it, disapproved of
placing a full crew aboard the lightly armed ship. Instead, he would
send only one man. Strong had volunteered for the assignment and had
persuaded the commander to allow him to man the decoy ship.
Now, the two ships, the _Polaris_ and the armed freighter stood side by
side at the Academy spaceport, and the three cadets and their commanding
officer waited for the signal to blast off.
"You have your course for your trip out to Titan, Tom?" asked Strong.
"Yes, sir," replied Tom. "We're to blast off later to-night and take a
course through the asteroid belt, traveling on the plane of the
ecliptic. As soon as we get through, we are to proceed under full
emergency thrust to our destination."
Strong nodded his head, satisfied.
"Do you think Coxine will come out after you, sir?" asked Roger.
"We've tried to make sure that he will, Roger," replied Strong. "It's
pretty common knowledge that the Titan pay-roll ship leaves every month,
and that it travels a different route each time. Sometimes it goes
through the asteroid belt on the plane of the ecliptic and sometimes it
goes over. We believe Coxine knows this, and with the thinly guised
messages we've sent to Titan, we're hoping he'll try for it."
"But how will you get him, sir?" asked Astro, puzzled. "I mean, with no
armor on the freighter to speak of, and no crew aboard, how can you nail
him before he gets you?"
"Hyperdrive," replied the captain laconically.
"Hyperdrive?" echoed Tom quizzically.
"I'm going to take the decoy ship through the asteroid belt too, but
through a different area, closer to the part we think Coxine is
operating in. Seven full squadrons have blasted off ahead of me and
taken up positions in that area. When and if Coxine attacks, I'll alert
the waiting ships, who'll come in on hyperdrive. By the time Coxine
spots them on his radar, they'll be on top of him."
"Then," ventured Tom, "you're staking your life on the ships arriving
before Coxine can attack."
"That's right, Tom," said Strong. "If our plan works, we catch Coxine.
If it doesn't, at least we know that the Titan pay roll is safe. That's
why your job is as important as mine."
They were interrupted by the ground-crew chief who reported the decoy
ship ready to blast off.
Strong nodded and the three cadets gripped their captain's hand again.
Turning, he climbed into the freighter and five minutes later the Solar
Guard officer blasted off from the Academy spaceport while Tom, Roger,
and Astro watched from the traffic-control tower.
"Come on," said Tom. "It'll be two hours before we can blast off. We
might as well get some sleep. We'll need it."
Reluctantly, Roger and Astro followed their unit-mate from the traffic
tower, their eyes full of concern for their skipper. Each was grimly
aware that they might never see their skipper alive again.
* * * * *
"Now shut your traps!" roared Bull Coxine. "The next crawler that opens
his mouth gets taken apart!" He stood on top of a table and faced his
crew of pirates who were sitting about swilling large cups of rocket
juice.
The room in which the giant pirate spaceman had gathered his men was one
of many in a building constructed since their arrival from the prison
asteroid. Hidden from even the closest inspection by the smaller bodies
circling around the main asteroid, Coxine had expanded the small hut
used by Wallace and Simms into a huge rambling building containing
armories, machine shops, and storage rooms packed with everything he and
his murderous crew might need.
Now with a string of successful raids behind them and their personal
pocketbooks bulging with stolen credits and valuables, the crew of
pirates waited attentively while their cruel but brilliant leader
outlined the most daring plan of all.
"Now listen," roared Coxine. "There's a few things I want to say before
we start on the plans of the next strike!"
The big spaceman paused and glared at the men in front of him. "Ever
since that space-crawling cadet pulled a fast one on me there's been
talk about voting for another leader!" He spat the word as if it had
left a foul taste in his mouth. "Well, get this. There'll be no voting!
I'm the boss of this outfit! Any man who thinks he can take over my
job," Coxine's voice dropped to a deadly whisper, "_just let him try!_"
Stony silence greeted the huge spaceman, a silence inspired by fear.
"Now!" roared Coxine, his coarse features changing from a scowl to a
broad grin. "The strike!"
This was greeted with a roar of approval. The men demanded action after
a week of idleness on the asteroid.
"Wallace!" yelled Coxine.
"Yes, sir," answered the spaceman, stepping up to the table and facing
Coxine.
"We'll take up a position in the asteroid belt, here!" He placed a
finger on a map of the belt. "Simms!" roared the giant spaceman.
"Yes, sir!" the wizened space pirate stepped forward.
"You remember that rocket scout we blasted? The one that got our other
ship?"
"I sure do, sir."
"It's drifting around in orbit near asteroid seventeen. Take a crew of
men and a few jet boats and go get her. Bring her back here and fix her
up. Strip every pound of excess weight off her. I want a ship that'll
fly faster than anything in the system and I want it in twenty-four
hours."
"Yes, sir," gulped Simms. "But then what'll I do with her?"
"After you've done what I've already told you to do," snapped Coxine,
"I'll tell you more!"
Simms' face turned red, and he nodded curtly.
"Now as for the rest of you crawlers," said Coxine, facing the room full
of men. "Repair crews have been assigned for work on the rocket scout
and the rest of you will work on the _Avenger_ and prepare her for a
long flight. I want the three-inch blasters, every paralo-ray gun and
rifle, the fuel tanks, food supplies, oxygen circulators, in fact
everything checked, rechecked, and _double-checked_!"
Joe Brooks, who had become a favorite of Coxine's, rose and faced the
pirate captain. "Where are we going to strike next, skipper?"
Coxine looked at the man with a half-smile playing on his lips. "This
operation will have two parts, Joe. The first--well--" his smiled
broadened--"the Titan pay-roll ship just blasted off from Space Academy.
For the last ten years, the Titan pay-roll ship has been blasting off
from Atom City. Now why do you think it would suddenly leave from Space
Academy, the home of the Solar Guard?"
The crowd of men murmured their bewilderment.
"I'll tell you why!" bawled Coxine. "Either they have that ship so
packed with blasters it would take a fleet to stop it, or it's a trap!"
"But if you think it's a trap," exclaimed Wallace, "you're not going to
hit it, are you?"
"I said it _might_ be a trap!" snapped Coxine. "But it might not and
with twenty million credits to be had for the taking, I'm not going to
let her breeze through. I'm going to make sure it's a trap before I try
something else!"
"But how?" persisted Wallace.
Coxine looked at his lieutenant coldly. He had indulged the man too
long. "I'll tell you when I get good and ready! Now all of you, get out
of here and make sure everything, and I _mean everything_, is ready to
raise ship at a moment's notice!"
The men got up and shuffled from the room. Coxine turned to his two
lieutenants. "All right, Wallace, see that those crawlers do what I told
them to do. And you, Simms, get after that rocket scout."
The two spacemen saluted their captain and turned away. Coxine watched
them leave the room, already planning his next move, a move calculated
to be so surprising that the Solar Guard would be absolutely helpless.
Bull Coxine smiled and turned to study the charts of the asteroid belt.
* * * * *
Alone aboard the armored decoy ship, Captain Strong blasted steadily on
his course through the asteroid belt. The young Solar Guard officer was
aware that at any moment after reaching the celestial jungle of small
planetoids he could be fired on without warning. And though the Solar
Guard patrol ships, well hidden in the belt, would blast Coxine out of
existence, it would still be too late for him.
Grim-faced, his hands gripping the controls, he rocketed through space,
determined to put an end, once and for all, to the marauding pirate and
old enemy, Bull Coxine.
* * * * *
When night fell over the Academy spaceport, Tom, Roger, and Astro
climbed silently into the giant rocket cruiser _Polaris_ and raised ship
for Titan. Their departure from Earth was routine, with no one but
Commander Walters and Captain Strong knowing that stowed in the storage
compartment of the spaceship was twenty million credits, the pay roll
for the miners of Titan.
Once in space, the rocket ship was put on course and held there by
automatic pilot. The three cadets gathered in the messroom and sipped
hot tea, staring moodily into their cups. Unable to break audio silence,
lest they should betray their position, their first chance of hearing
any news lay far ahead of them at Titan. They could only hope that the
decoy trap would succeed and that their skipper and friend would return
safely. The only comment was Astro's grim prediction.
"If anything happens to Captain Strong," he paused and finished his
sentence in a tense whisper, "I'll search the universe until I find
Coxine. And when I do, I'll break him in two!"