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Updated: August 6, 2024
But you won't care, because you won't know it." The truth was that Santos couldn't hope to get them all with his rockets. They might overcome the Connies in hand-to-hand fighting, but there would be a cost to pay in Planeteer casualties. Rip hoped the Connie wouldn't call his bluff, because that's all it was. He couldn't use a space knife on an unarmed prisoner. The Connie didn't know that.
Sometimes it seems like I’ll never get a job where I don’t have to fight Connies." Rip was trained in science and Planeteer techniques and he didn’t pretend to know the ins and outs of interplanetary politics. Just the same, he couldn’t help wondering about the strange relationship between the Consolidation of People’s Governments and the Federation of Free Nations.
He knows we've taken the asteroid." Koa looked wistfully at the atomic bomb which remained. "If we had a way to throw that thing at them...." "But we haven't. And the thing wouldn't explode, anyway. We don't have the outside casing with an exploder mechanism, so it has to be turned on electrically." Rip could see no way to use the atomic bomb against the Connies.
"We’d better get to the dark side ourselves," Koa warned. He was right, Rip knew. The Connies didn’t have far to search before reaching the sun side. "Koa, you take Trudeau and Kemp. I’ll take Dowst and Dominico. Nunez and Bradshaw stay here to guard the cave. If they arrive in twos, let them get into the cave before you jump them. Bradshaw, how do you feel?" "I’m all right, Lieutenant."
Connies and Feds, mostly Planeteers but sometimes spacemen, were constantly skirmishing. They fought over property, over control of ports on distant planets and moons, and over space salvage. Often there was bloodshed. Sometimes there were pitched battles between groups of platoon size. But at that point, the struggle ended.
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!
The four certainly knew by this time there were Federal men on the asteroid. Unless something were done quickly the four Connies would be shooting at them from the darkness. He ordered, "All Planeteers. Kill your belt lights." The lights on the Connies they had just taken still glowed. Dowst was putting a patch on the Connie Rip had stabbed.
The landing boats, with snapper-boats in watchful attendance, blasted down to the surface of the asteroid. Spacemen jumped out, awkward at first on the no-weight surface. An officer glided to meet Rip, and he had a pistol in his hand. "It's all right," Rip told him. "The Connies are our prisoners. You won't need guns." The spaceman snapped, "You're under arrest." Rip stared incredulously.
"We're after two more Connies near the wreck of the landing boat, sir." "Be careful. Pederson, go help Koa. Nunez, how are things at the cave?" "Nunez reporting, sir. Two Connies in sight, but they haven't seen us yet." "Let me know when they spot the cave." "Yes, sir." "Santos, go ahead." For long moments there was silence. Rip felt for a solid foothold, found one, and flexed his knees.
A cut with a space knife let air out of the suit and created at least a partial vacuum. If it also cut flesh, the vacuum let the blood pressure force out blood and tissue to turn a minor wound into an ugly one. They would have to bring this space flap with the Connies to a quick end, Rip thought. He had to get his men into air somehow, to take a look at their wounds.
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