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"I've just received word of a speed-up in the preparations for our attack," he said. "Soon, Corbett soon you will see what will happen to the Solar Guard!" "Bring that dirty little space crawler in here!" Captain Strong had never seen Commander Walters so angry. The cords stood out in his neck and his face was red with fury as he paced up and down the Solar Guard office in Venusport.
As Senior Line Officer of the Academy, it is hereby requested that you bestow upon this unit some form of expression of the gratitude of this Council for their remarkable and inspired behavior in the face of relentless odds. Signed, Secretary General, Solar Council, Venusport, Venus. Fourteenth of June, 2354, end quote." Connel slipped the paper inside his tunic and faced the three cadets.
The crew could have abandoned ship, but they chose to remain with it and were blown to atoms. It could have happened to the station. That night he got a three-day pass from the station and went to Venusport." Scott shook his head. "I've heard Venusport will never be the same after that three-day pass of Captain Stefens." The young officer looked at Corbett quizzically.
"I doubt it," said Sinclair, with a queer apologetic note in his voice. "I'm inclined to believe that it was nothing more than a bunch of the younger, more hotheaded kids in the organization. As a matter of fact, Sharkey told me he was quitting as president. Seems you fellows in Venusport scared him plenty.
I'll have an alert sent out for the cab driver, and I'll have the owner of the pawnshop picked up. There must be someone on the Solar Delegate's staff who stole those priorities. We'll start searching there first, and if we come up with anyone who can't explain his absence from Venusport at the time the priorities were used, and fits Corbett's description, we'll contact you. End transmission!"
Connel remained with Strong and Walters to work out the details of the mission and to draft a top-secret report to the Grand Council of the Solar Alliance. The three weary cadets were quartered in the finest hotel in Venusport and had just stumbled into bed when the room teleceiver signal buzzed.
Having no way of knowing whether Tom had made it back to Venusport or whether their destruction of the communications center would be of any value, they nevertheless had to proceed on the assumption that Tom had gotten through. Astro crawled behind the drums and stopped twenty feet from the door to wait for several Nationalist officers to leave. They finally got into a jet car and roared away.
Roaring with jubilation and jumping high in the air at every other step, Astro raced out of the gigantic maintenance hangar at the Venusport spaceport and charged at his two unit mates waiting on the concrete apron. "Everything's O.K.," he yelled, throwing his arms around them. "The Polaris is going to be brought in for full repairs! I just saw the audiograph report from the maintenance chief!"
The jet cab slid along the arrow-straight highway toward the heart of the city of Venusport. Soon it reached the outskirts. On both sides of the highway rose low, flat-roofed dwellings, built on a revolving wheel to follow the precious sun, and constructed of pure Titan crystal. Farther ahead and looming magnificent in the late afternoon sun was the first and largest of Venusian cities, Venusport.
"Well, what are you doing here?" Tom was amazed and impressed. "Simple. I want to be an officer. I want to get into the Solar Guard and handle the power-push in one of those cruisers." Tom's eyes glowed with renewed admiration for his new friend. "I've been out four or five times but only in jet boats five hundred miles out. Nothing like a jump to Luna City or Venusport."
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