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Updated: May 7, 2025
They were firing full speed ahead, but the drag of the sun distorted their line of flight into a great arc. Rip saw the strategy instantly. The Connie commander knew the situation exactly, and he was staking everything in one great gamble, sending his snapper-boats to land on the asteroid—to crash land if necessary.
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.
Rip remembered the lay of the ground, and Santos’s description of the snapper-boats’ position. He circled almost to the horizon, then told Dowst to cut his light. He cut his own. In a moment they topped the horizon, and standing with only helmets visible from the snapper-boats, looked the situation over. The three Connies were standing between him and the boats.
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, puzzled. 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.
The wires had been laid up to the rim of the crater in which Kemp worked, and the dynamo was attached. Rip was everywhere, checking on the launcher, on Kemp, on the pistols of his men. And Santos, hunched over his illuminated sight, watched the Connie snapper-boats draw near. "Here we go," the corporal muttered. He pressed the trigger.
He reduced helmet power and told Santos, "Angle to the right. Get as close to the edge of shadow as you can without being cooked." As an afterthought, he asked, "How many tubes do you have?" "One after this, sir. I had three." Rip also had one left. That was correct, because snapper-boats carried three in each man’s position. "Save the one you have left," he ordered.
But we won't be able to sneak up on them all." "We have an advantage," Rip reminded them. "We've been on the asteroid longer. We know our way around, and we're used to space walking. They've just come out of deceleration, and they won't have their space legs yet." Santos reported. "They're breaking up into groups of two. Three are guarding the snapper-boats. One is the man with the chatter gun."
It had to work! If it didn’t, asteroid and Planeteers would end up as subatomic particles in the sun’s photosphere, because he had calculated his blast to drive the asteroid past the limit of safety. It was the only way he could be sure of putting them beyond danger from Connie landing boats or snapper-boats. The Connie would have only one chance—to bring his cruiser down on the asteroid.
Two Connie snapper-boats had been destroyed in that clash, which explained why the commander was sending out only ten boats instead of a full quota of twelve. The squadron instantly formed a V, like a strange space letter made up of globes. The sun's gravity pulled at them, dragging them off course. Rip watched as flames poured from their stern tubes.
The law of the Federation said that no spaceship could fire on a Connie spaceship, or on Connie land bases, except with special permission of the Space Council. The theory was that small struggles between men, or even between small fighting craft like the snapper-boats, was not war. But firing on a spaceship was war, and the first such act could mean starting war throughout the Solar System.
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