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"Is he landing?" Koa asked. Rip didn’t know. The snapper-boat was moving slowly enough to make a landing. Directly over 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 asteroid sped on its lonely way for two days and then a cruiser came out of space, its nuclear drive glowing. The Planeteers manned the rocket launcher and Rip and Santos stood by the snapper-boat just in case, but the cruiser was the Sagittarius, out of Mercury.
"I object!" the Connie bellowed. "Come now," MacFife burred soothingly. "Checking a few instruments won’t hurt ye." A small rocket exhaust appeared, leaving the Aquila. The exhaust grew rapidly, more rapidly than that of any snapper-boat. Rip watched it, while keeping his ears tuned to the space conversation. Koa tugged his arm. "See that, sir?" Rip nodded.
He waited until the private had finished, then said, "Turn out the Connie lights, too." If he could get in touch with the Connies, he could tell them they were finished. But using the snapper-boat radios was out, because the enemy cruiser would hear. The cruiser couldn’t hear the helmet communicators, though, because they carried only a short distance.
He was moving, and the direction of his move told him the sun was already pulling. Its pull was strong, too. He cut his jets back on, just to hold position, and saw Dowst do the same. Another few miles toward the sun and the landing boat wouldn’t have the power to get away from Sol’s gravity. A few miles beyond that, even the powerful little snapper-boat would be caught.
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.
"I object!" the Connie bellowed. "Come, now," MacFife burred soothingly. "Checking a few instruments won't hurt ye." A small rocket exhaust appeared, leaving the Aquila. The exhaust grew rapidly, more rapidly than that of any snapper-boat. Rip watched it, while keeping his ears tuned to the space conversation. "Surely sending boats is too much of a nuisance," the French commander said winningly.
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?
Where Connie snapper-boats carried five men, the Federation boats carried two. The Connies could fire in any direction. The Federation pilots aimed by pointing the snapper-boat itself, as fighter pilots of conventional aircraft had once aimed their guns. Rip watched the boats approach. He was ready to duck inside if they decided to look the asteroid over before landing.
A few miles beyond that, even the powerful little snapper-boat would be caught. Below, the timer reached zero. A mighty fan of fire shot into space. The asteroid shuddered from the blast, then swerved gradually, picking up speed as well as new direction. Rip swallowed hard. Now they were committed. They would reach a new perihelion far beyond the limits of safety. P for perihelion and P for peril.
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