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Updated: July 27, 2025
Every pressure suit had magnetic boots and hand-pads to enable crewmen to go outside and make repairs on the hull of a ship in transit. Tom clung, and moved, and clung again, trying to reach the protecting hull of the Ranger before the orbit-ship swung him around to the sun-side again.... He couldn't move fast enough.
To say nothing of totally disabling a seventeen-million-dollar orbit-ship and placing the lives of four hundred crewmen in jeopardy." The Major picked up a sheet of paper from his desk. "According to Merrill Tawney's statement, the three of you hijacked a company scout-ship that chanced to be scouting in the vicinity of your father's claim. Your attack was unprovoked and violent.
But you were asking for trouble, and that's what you got. Frankly, I am amazed that you ever returned to Mars, and how you managed to make rubble of an orbit-ship with a crew of four hundred men trying to stop you is more than I can comprehend. But you did it. All right, fine. You were justified; they attacked you, held you prisoner, threatened you. Fine.
He saw the homing shells burst from the Ranger's tubes. The Scavenger vanished from his range of vision, but moments later he saw the sudden flare of light reflected against the hull of the orbit-ship, and he knew his plan had worked, but the ordeal lay ahead. And at the end of it, he might really be a dead man.
Greg checked the controls while Tom and Johnny strapped down. A moment later the engines fired, and the leaking wreck of the orbit-ship fell away, dwindling and disappearing in the blackness of space. It was a quiet journey. The red dot that was Mars grew larger every hour. One of the three stayed awake at all times to watch Tawney while the others slept.
The Ranger would not need a great thrust to move away from the orbit-ship ... but if they were in a hurry, they might start out at nearly Mars-escape.... The jets flared, and something slammed him down against the fin strut. The Ranger moved out, its engines roaring, accellerating hard. Tom felt as though he had been hit by a ton of rock.
He's trying to make a break!" Two guards appeared at the lock almost instantly, but it was too late. Already she was straining at her magnetic cable moorings; then the exhaust flared, and the little scout ship leaped away from the orbit-ship, moving out at a tangent to the asteroid's orbit, picking up speed, moving faster and faster.... In toward the orbit of Mars.
Then suddenly Tom knew what it was ... the braking jets of a Class I Ranger, crouching beyond the reach of sunlight in the shadow of the asteroid.... Swiftly he fired the bumper again, turning back toward the orbit-ship. His hand went to the speaker-switch, but he caught himself in time. Any warning shouted to Greg and Johnny would certainly be picked up by the ship.
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