Rip looked up, startled. The Consops cruiser passed directly overhead,
about ten miles away. It was decelerating rapidly. Rip wondered why they
hadn’t spotted it earlier and realized the Connie had come from the
direction of the hot side.
The enemy cruiser was probably the same one that had attacked them before.
He must have lain in wait for days, keeping between the sun and Terra.
That way, the screens wouldn’t pick him up, since only a few observatories
scanned the sun regularly. To the observatories, the cruiser would have
been only a tiny speck, too small to be noticed. Or if they had noticed
it, the astronomers probably decided it was just a very tiny sunspot.
The Planeteers worked with increased speed. Kemp welded the final plug
into place, then hurried to the crater from which they would set off the
charge. Dominico and Dowst connected the wires from the rocket head to a
reel of wire and rolled it toward the crater. Nunez got a hand-driven
dynamo from the supplies and tested it for use in setting off the charge.
Santos stood by the rocket launcher, with Pederson ready to put another
rack of rockets into the device when necessary.
Rip and Koa watched the Connie cruiser. It decelerated to a stop for a
brief second, then started moving again, with no jets showing.
"That’s the sun pulling," Rip said exultantly. "They’ll have to keep
blasting to maintain position."
The Consops commander didn’t wait to trim ship against the sun’s drag. His
air locks opened, clearly visible to Rip and Koa because that side of the
cruiser was brilliant with sunlight. Ten snapper-boats sped forth. Rip was
certain now that this was the enemy cruiser they had fought off back in
the asteroid belt. Two Connie snapper-boats had been destroyed in that
clash, which explained why the commander was sending out only ten boats,
instead of the full quota of twelve.
The squadron instantly formed a V, like a strange space letter made up of
globes. The sun’s gravity pulled at them, dragging them off course. Rip
watched as flames poured from their stern tubes. They were firing full
speed ahead, but the drag of the sun distorted their line of flight into a
great arc.
Rip saw the strategy instantly. The Connie commander knew the situation
exactly, and he was staking everything in one great gamble, sending his
snapper-boats to land on the asteroid—to crash land if necessary.
The asteroid was so close to the sun that even the powerful fighting
rockets would use most of their fuel in simply combatting its gravity.
"All hands stand by to repel Connies," Rip shouted, and drew his pistol.
He looked into the magazine, saw that he had a full clip, and then charged
the weapon.
Santos was crouched over the rocket launcher, his space gloves working
rapidly as he kept the rockets pointed at the enemy.