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Updated: June 7, 2025
Then, when they’re pretty well satisfied that all is quiet, we’ll show up." Rip grinned at his Planeteers. "We can have a real, old-fashioned surprise party." Koa slid the safety catch from his pistol. "With fireworks," he added. The snapper-boats came out of the darkness of space, leaving a glowing trail of fire. They were not graceful.
If only the radios in the snapper-boats were on a Federation frequency ... hey! They could take one of the boats and intercept the cruiser! He was hurrying toward them before Koa understood what he was saying. He tried to make his legs go faster, but they were unsteady. He knew he was losing blood. He had lost plenty. He gritted his teeth and kept going.
Rip wished for a communicator powerful enough to reach the Scorpius, but he knew it was useless to try with his helmet circuit. The carrier waves of the snapper-boats were on the same frequency, and they would smother the faint signal from his bubble. But the boats might be able to hear if they got close enough! He had a swift memory of the communications circuits.
"Sir, this is Santos. Only three men are at the snapper-boats. If you can get here without being seen, maybe we could knock them off. The rest wouldn’t be much good if we had their boats." "You’re right, Santos," Rip replied instantly. Why hadn’t he seen that for himself? He knew how he and Dowst could approach the craters without being spotted, now that they had removed two teams of Connies.
The system gave high maneuverability to the boats. By playing on the controls with the skill of an organist, the pilot could shift direction with dazzling speed. Snapper-boats used by the Federation operated on the same principle, but they were of American design, and they showed the American’s love of clean lines.
We were about to take off for some test runs around the space platform when we got a hurry call to come here. The Aquila has two of these. If they prove out, they’ll replace the snapper-boats. More power, greater maneuverability, heavier weapons, and they carry more men." There was only the officer and a pilot, but Rip saw positions for several others.
The snapper-boats blew their front tubes, decelerating, and squashed down to the asteroid in a roar of exhaust flames, sending the Planeteers running out of the way. Rip thrust harder with his space knife and yelled, "Tell them!" The Connie officer nodded. "Turn up my communicator." Rip turned it on full, and the Connie barked quick instructions.
According to the message from Terra base, he had about fifteen minutes before the Consops cruiser arrived. "We have one advantage we didn't have back in the asteroid belt," he remarked to Koa. "Back there they could have landed anywhere on the rock. Now they have to stick to the dark side. Snapper-boats could last on the sun side, but men in ordinary space suits couldn't."
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 them and the boats. To the left of the boats was the second crater. Rip studied the ground as best he could in the Connie belt lights and decided on a plan of action. Calling to Dowst, he circled again.
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!
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