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Updated: June 27, 2025
As the Planeteers opened and unpacked the crates, Rip and O’Brine inspected and the clerk checked the items off. The first case produced a complete chemical cutting unit with an assortment of cutting tips and adapters. Rip looked around for the gas cylinders and saw none. "Something’s wrong," he objected. "Where’s the fuel supply for the torch?"
"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.
Apparently there was a time for spacemen and Planeteers to fight each other, and a time for them to cooperate like friends. He hoped he’d catch on after a while. "I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out what to do with this stuff," O’Brine said. "If you need help, let me know." And Rip knew his apology was accepted. The deputy commander arrived, drew O’Brine aside, and whispered in his ear.
Then, as Rip was enjoying the comfort of air during his off-watch hour in the boat compartment, Koa beat an alarm on the door. Rip and the Planeteers with him hurriedly got into space suits and opened up. "It’s Terra base calling on the communicator, sir," Koa reported. "Urgent message, they said, and they want to talk to you, personally." Rip hurried to the base cave.
"Open outer valve when ready." He took a quick, final look around. The pilots were in the boats. His Planeteers were standing by, safety lines already attached to the boats and their belts. He moved into position and snapped his own line to a ring on Dowst's boat. The spacemen vanished through the valve, and the massive door slid closed. The overhead lights flicked out.
A thousand miles above earth’s surface the great space platform sped from daylight into darkness. Once each two hours it circled the earth completely, spinning along through space like a mighty wheel of steel and plastic. Through a telescope from earth the platform seemed a lifeless, lonely disk, but within it, hundreds of spacemen and Planeteers went about their work.
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, Rip reasoned. But the commander probably suspected that the Connies had overcome the Planeteers and were in control of the asteroid.
Result, we get a Connie cruiser after the asteroid." "You hit it," Rip acknowledged. Corporal Santos shrugged. "If the Connies try to take the asteroid away, they’ll have a real warm time. We have ten racks of rockets, twenty-four to a rack. That’s a lot of snapper-boats we can pick off if they try to make a landing." The Planeteers stopped talking as the voice horn sounded. "Get it!
Bradshaw, the English Planeteer, said mildly, "Don't worry, Lieutenant. If it isn't the solar frying pan, it's Connie fire." A chorus of agreement came from the other Planeteers. "What a crew!" Rip thought. "What a great gang of space pirates!" He finished his calculations and found the exact place where Kemp would cut. A few feet away from the spot was a thick pyramid of thorium.
The Connie was doing its arguing with fire, knowing that the exhaust would char every man on the asteroid's surface. The Planeteers watched as the Connie sped away, blasted with side jets, and turned to come back. Dowst tensed over the controls, trying to anticipate the next move. He delicately touched the firing levers, letting out just enough flame to maneuver.
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