by Anthology
The logic of it sent a chill down Rip's spine. The Connie could get the Scorpius with one nuclear blast and then clean up the asteroid at leisure. The Federation would suspect, but it would be unable to prove anything, because there would be no witnesses. If the Connie took time to tow the remains of the Scorpius deep into the asteroid belt, it likely would never be found, no matter how the Federation searched.
They had to warn the ship. But how? Their helmet communicators wouldn't reach it until it was right at the asteroid, and that would be too late. They had no other radio. If only the radios in the snapper-boats were on a Federation frequency.... Hey! They could take one of the boats and intercept the cruiser!
He was hurrying toward them before Koa understood what he was saying. He tried to make his legs go faster, but they were unsteady. He knew he was losing blood. He had lost plenty. He gritted his teeth and kept going.
The snapper-boats seemed miles away to Rip, but he plugged ahead until his belt light picked them up. He took a long look, then turned away, heartsick. The Connie's exhaust had charred them into wreckage.
"Now what?" he asked.
"I don't know, sir," Koa answered somberly.
They went back to the cave, not hurrying because Rip no longer had the strength to hurry. Weakness and a deep desire to sleep almost overcame him, and he knew that he was finished, anyway. His wound must be too deep to clot, which meant it would bleed until he bled to death. Whether he warned the Scorpius or not, his end was the same.
Back in the cave, he leaned against the wall and asked tiredly. "How is Dominico?"
"I am fine, sir. My wound stopped bleeding."
"How is the Connie I got?"
"Unconscious, sir," Santos replied. "He must be bleeding badly, but we can't tell. The one you landed on is all right now, but he may have a broken rib or two."
Because his voice was weak, Rip had to turn up the volume on his communicator to tell the Planeteers about the Scorpius. They were silent when he finished. Then Dowst spoke up.
"Looks like they have us, sir. But we'll take plenty of them with us before we're finished."
"That's the spirit," Rip told them. "I won't last much longer. When I get too weak, Koa will take over. Meanwhile, I want to get outside. Bring the rocket launcher outside, too. Who's the gunner? Santos? Stand by, then. We'll need you, in case the Connie decides to send a few snappers before it goes after the Scorpius."
The cruiser's glow was plain above the horizon now. It was so close that they could make out its form against the background of stars. O'Brine was decelerating, and Rip was certain he was watching his screens for a sign of the enemy. He would see nothing, because the enemy was in the shadow of the asteroid. He would think the coast was clear and would come to a stop nearby while he asked why Rip had called for help. Failing to get a reply, since the landing boat was wrecked, he would send a landing party, and the Connie would attack while he was launching boats, off guard.
Rip watched the prediction come true. The nuclear cruiser slowed gradually, its great bulk nearing the asteroid. O'Brine was operating as expected.
Rip was having trouble keeping his vision from blurring. He leaned against the rocket launcher, and his glove caressed one of the sharp noses in the rack.
He heard his own voice before the idea had even taken full form. "Santos! Do you hear me? Santos! Get the Scorpius! Fire before it comes to a stop. And don't miss!"
Santos started to protest, but Koa bellowed, "Do it! The lieutenant's right. It's the only chance we've got to warn the ship. Get the scorpion, Santos. Dead amidships!"
The young corporal swung into action. His space gloves flew as he cranked the launcher around, turned on the illuminated sight, and bent low over it. Rip stood behind the corporal. He saw the cruiser's shape stand out in the glow of the sight, saw the sighting rings move as Santos corrected for its speed.
The corporal fired. Fire flared back past his shoulder. The rocket flashed away, its trail dwindling as it sped toward the great bulk above. It reached Brennschluss, and there was darkness. Rip held his breath for long seconds, then gave a weak cry of victory.
A blossom of orange fire marked a perfect hit.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hard Words
The Scorpius could have taken direct hits with little or no major damage from a hundred rockets of the kind Rip had used, but Commander O'Brine took no chances. When the alarm bell signaled that the outer hull had been hit, the commander acted instantly with a bellowed order.
The Planeteers on the asteroid blinked at the speed of the cruiser's getaway. Fire flamed from the stern tubes for an instant, and then there was nothing but a fading glow where the Scorpius had been.
Rip had a mental image of everything movable in the ship crashing against bulkheads with the terrific acceleration.
And in the same moment, the Consops cruiser reacted. The Connie commander was ready to fire guided missiles, when his target suddenly, mysteriously, blasted into space at optimum acceleration. There was only one reason the Connie could imagine: His cruiser had been spotted. The ambush had failed. It was one thing for the Connie to lie in ambush for a single, deadly surprise blast at the Federation cruiser. It was quite another to face the nuclear drive ship with its missile ports cleared for action. The Connie knew he had lost.
Rip and the Planeteers saw the Consops ship suddenly flame away, then turn and dive for low space below the asteroid belt, in a direction opposite to the one the Scorpius had taken. The Planeteers' helmet communicators rang with their cheers.
The young officer clapped Santos on the shoulder and exclaimed weakly, "Good shooting!"
The corporal turned anxiously to Koa. "The lieutenant's pretty weak. Can't we do something?"
"Forget it," Rip said. There was nothing anyone could do. He was trapped inside his space suit. There was nothing anyone could do for his wound until he got into air.
Koa untied his safety line and moved to Rip's side. "Sir, this is dangerous, but there's just as much danger without it. I'm going to tie off that arm."
Rip knew what Koa meant. He stood quietly as the big sergeant major put the line around his arm above the wound, then put his massive strength into the task of pulling the line tight.
The heavy fabric of the suit was stiff, and the air pressure gave further resistance that had to be overcome. Rip let most of the air out of the suit, then fought for breath until the pain in his arm told him that Koa had succeeded. He inflated the suit again and thanked the sergeant major weakly.
The tight line stopped the bleeding, but it also cut off the air circulation. Without the air, the heating system couldn't operate efficiently. It was only a matter of time before the arm froze.
"Stand easy," Rip told his men. "Nothing to do now but wait. The Scorpius will be back." He set an example by leaning against the thorium crystal in which the cave was located. It was a natural but rather meaningless gesture. With virtually no gravity pulling at them, they could remain standing almost indefinitely, sleeping upright.
Rip closed his eyes and relaxed. The pain in his arm was less now, and he knew the cold was setting in. He was getting lightheaded, and, most of all, he wanted to sleep. Well, why not? He slumped a little inside the suit.
He awoke with Koa shaking him violently. Rip stood upright and shook his head to clear his vision. "What is it?"
"Sir, the Scorpius has returned."
Rip blinked as he stared out into space to where Koa was pointing. He had trouble focusing his eyes at first, and then he saw the glow of the cruiser.
"Good," he said. "They'll send a landing boat first thing."
"I hope so," Koa replied.
Rip wanted to ask why the big Planeteer was dubious, but he was too tired to phrase the question. He contented himself with watching the cruiser.
In a short time the Scorpius was balanced, with nose tubes counteracting the thrust of stern tubes, ready to flash into space again at a second's notice.
Rip watched, puzzl
ed. The cruiser was miles away. Why didn't it come any closer? Then suddenly it erupted a dozen fiery streaks.
"Snapper-boats!" someone gasped.
Rip jerked fully awake. In the ruddy glow of the fighting rockets' tubes, he had seen that the cruiser's missile ports were yawning wide, ready to spew forth their deadly nuclear charges in an instant.
The snapper-boats flashed toward the asteroid in a group, sheered off, and broke formation. They came back in pairs, streaking space with the sparks of their exhausts.
"Into the cave," Koa shouted.
The Planeteers obeyed instantly. Koa took Rip's arm to lead him inside, but the young officer shook him off. "No, Koa. I'll take my chances out here. I want to see what they're up to."
"Great Cosmos, sir! They'll go over this rock like Martian beetles. You'll get it, for sure."
"Get inside," Rip ordered. He gathered strength enough to make his voice firm. "I'm staying here until I figure out some way to call them off. We can't just stand here and let them blast us. They're our own men."
"Then I'm staying, too," Koa stated.
A pair of snapper-boats flashed overhead and vanished below the horizon. Two more swept past from another direction.
Rip watched, curious. What were they up to? Another pair quartered past them at high speed, then two more. The boats seemed to be crisscrossing the asteroid in a definite pattern.
A pair streaked past, and something sped downward from one of them, trailing yellow flame. It exploded in a ball of molten fire that licked across the asteroid in waves. Rip tensed, then saw that the chemical would burn out before it reached them.
"Fire bomb," Koa muttered.
Rip nodded. He had recognized it. The Planeteers were trained in the use of fire bombs, tanks of chemicals that burned even in an airless world. They were equipped with simple jets for use in space.
The snapper-boats drew off, back toward the Scorpius. Rip watched, searching for some reason for their actions. Then one of the boats pulled away from the others. It returned to the asteroid, with stern jet burning fitfully.
"Is he landing?" Koa asked.
Rip didn't know. The snapper-boat was moving slowly enough to make a landing.
Directly above the asteroid it changed direction, circled, and returned over their heads. Rip could almost have picked it off with a pistol shot. Santos could have blasted it into space dust with one rocket.
The snapper-boat changed direction, and for a fraction of a second stern and side tubes "fought" each other, making the boat yaw wildly. Then it straightened out on a new course.
Koa exclaimed, "That's a drone!"
Rip got it then. A pilotless snapper-boat! That's why its actions were a little uneven. Only one thing could explain its deliberate slowness. It was bait. The Scorpius had sent piloted snapper-boats over the asteroid at high speed, crisscrossing in order to cover the thorium world completely, expecting to have the unknown rocketeer fire at them. Then a fire bomb had been dropped as a further means of getting the asteroid to fire. But no rockets had been fired from the asteroid, so the pilot in control of the drone had sent it at low speed, a perfect target.
That meant O'Brine wasn't sure of what was going on. He must have seen the blip on his screen as the Connie cruiser flamed off, Kip reasoned. But the commander probably suspected that the Connies had overcome the Planeteers and were in control of the asteroid. He had sent the snapper-boats to try to draw fire, in an attempt to find out more surely whether Planeteers or Connies had the thorium rock.
"The Scorpius doesn't know what's going on," Rip told his Planeteers. "O'Brine didn't know the cruiser was waiting to ambush him, so the rocket we fired made him think the Connies had taken us over."
He put himself in O'Brine's place. What would his next step be? The snapper-boats hadn't drawn fire, even when a drone was sent over at low speed. The next thing would be to send a piloted boat over slowly enough to take a look.
Rip hoped O'Brine would hurry. There was no longer any feeling in his arm below Koa's safety line. That meant the arm had frozen. He had to get medical attention from the Scorpius pretty soon.
He gritted his teeth. At least he was no longer losing blood. He wasn't getting any weaker. But every now and then his vision fogged, and he had to shake his head to clear it.
The pilotless snapper-boat made another slow run, then put on speed and flashed back to the group of boats near the cruiser. Another boat detached itself from the squadron and moved toward the asteroid.
Rip wished for a communicator powerful enough to reach the Scorpius, but he knew it was useless to try with his helmet circuit. The carrier waves of the snapper-boats were on the same frequency, and they would smother the faint signal from his bubble.
But the boats might be able to hear if they got close enough! He had a swift memory of the communications circuits. The pilots were plugged into their boat communicators. If a boat got near enough, he could turn up his bubble to full volume and yell. Not only would the boat pilot hear him, but also his voice would go through the pilot's circuit and be heard in the ship!
Rip grabbed Koa's arm. "Let's move away from the cave a little farther."
The two of them stepped away from the cave and stood in full view as the snapper-boat moved cautiously down toward the asteroid. Rip planned what he would say. "Commander O'Brine, this is Foster!"
No, that wouldn't do. Connies would know that Kevin O'Brine commanded the Scorpius, and if they had taken over the Planeteers on the asteroid, they would also have learned Rip's name. He had to say something that would immediately identify him beyond the shadow of a doubt.
The snapper-boat was closing in slowly. Rip knew the pilot and gunner must be tense, frightened, ready to blast with their guns at the first wrong move on the asteroid. He groped with his good arm and turned up his helmet communicator to full volume.
The fighting rocket drew closer, cut in its nose tube, and hovered only a few hundred feet above the Planeteers.
Rip summoned enough strength to make his voice sharp and clear. His words sped through space into the bubble of the pilot, echoed in the helmet, were picked up by the pilot's microphone, and then were hurled through the snapper-boat circuit and through space to the cruiser's control room.
O'Brine stiffened as the speaker threw Rip's voice at him, amplified and hollow-sounding from reverberations in the snapper-boat pilot's helmet.
"O'Brine is so ugly he won't look at his face in a clean blast tube! That no-good Irishman wouldn't know what to do with an asteroid if he had one!"
The commander turned purple with rage. He bellowed, "Foster!"
A junior space officer hid a grin and murmured, "Looks like the Planeteers still have the asteroid."
O'Brine bent over the communicator and yelled, "Deputy commander! Launch landing boats. Get those Planeteers and bring them here under armed guard. Ram it!"
The snapper-boat pilot through whose circuit Rip had yelled turned to look wide-eyed at his gunner. "Did you hear that? Throw a light down on the asteroid. It must have come from there."
The gunner threw a switch, and a searchlight port opened in the boat's belly. Its beam searched downward, swept past, then steadied on two space-suited figures.
"It worked," Rip said tiredly. He closed his eyes to guard them against the brilliant glare, then waved his good arm.
Santos called from the cave entrance. "Sir, landing boats are being launched!"
"Bring out the prisoners," Rip ordered. "Line them up. Planeteers fall in behind them."
The landing boats, with snapper-boats in watchful attendance, blasted down to the surface of the asteroid. Spacemen jumped out, awkward at first on the no-weight surface. An officer glided to meet Rip, and he had a pistol in his hand.
"It's all right," Rip told him. "The Connies are our prisoners. You won't need guns."
The spaceman snapped, "You're under arrest."
Rip stared incredulously. "What for?"
"The commander's orders. Don't gi
ve me any arguments. Just get aboard."
"I can't argue with a loaded gun," Rip said wearily. He called to his men. "We're under arrest. I don't know why. Don't try to resist. Do as the spacemen order."
Rip got aboard the nearest landing boat, his head spinning. O'Brine had made a mistake of some kind.
The landing boats, loaded with Planeteers and Connies, lifted from the asteroid to the cruiser. They slid smoothly into the air locks and settled. The massive lock doors slid closed and lights flickered on. Rip waited, trying to keep consciousness from slipping away.
The lock gauges registered normal air, and the inner valves slid open. Commander O'Brine stepped through, his square jaw outthrust and his face flushed with anger. He bellowed, "Where's Foster?"
