The Three Planeteers

'You will be fighting for yourselves!” Lana flared. “You'll be fighting to establish in the Zone the new, independent world I've dreamed so long of establishing here.'

Lana went on to tell them of her cherished dream of making an independent world of the Zone, that might be a refuge to all the oppressed of the system, in the future.

'That's what you'll be fighting for!” she finished fierily. “For if Haskell Trask wins and dominates the whole system, that dream can never be realized. But if the Alliance wins, they'll help us establish our world here, from gratitude!'

The Companions’ eyes were shining now as they listened. Lana's plan, revealed to them for the first time, had fired them with excited enthusiasm.

'We follow you then, Lana!” they yelled.

'Ah, now you're talking like true Companions,” cackled old Stilicho Keene.

'All ships prepare to blast off with full crews!” Lana's voice rang. “We'll need every man. Trask must have a heavy force of cruisers and men on the moon.'

'Ho, we'll show the cursed tyrant how the Companions of Space fight!” boomed Brun Abo.

Kinnel King's eyes were burning.

'It will be good to strike a blow for old Earth,” he muttered, as he hurried off.

The jungle-surrounded field became a scene of intense, shouting activity as the hundred ships of the Companions were hastily prepared. Lana had ordered a new audio hastily installed in the Venture to replace its damaged one. She and the Planeteers listened to the storm of messages vibrating through the system, carrying word of the League's continued pursuit of the Alliance fleet,

'There's so little time!” Thorn murmured hoarsely. “And, even if we can recapture the moon, if Blaine's invention fails—'

Stilicho burst into the control-room. “All ships ready to start, lass!” he cried.

'Take over, Stilicho,” she ordered, and then spoke ringingly into the audio.

'Our course is straight sunward out of the Zone, then directly toward Earth's moon at top speed. Blast off!'

With a roar of tubes, the Venture leaped up from the field. And as it cometed up through the atmosphere of Turkoon, the five-score pirate cruisers were rising like a flock of falcons behind it, following its lead.

'Keep down our speed to the top speed of the others!” Lana told the old pirate.

Out through the Zone, a hundred strong, throbbed the grim formation of pirate ships, streaming in short columns after the Venture, that led the way through the swarms and whirling planetoids. Quickly they emerged from the Zone, and headed toward the bright, shining planet and smaller satellite that were Earth and its moon.

Thorn stared feverishly toward their goal, as the pirate fleet picked up speed in empty space. Somewhere there in the barren moon was Trask, and somewhere there, too, was the mysterious mechanism that might, or might not, decide the destiny of worlds.

Gunner Welk and Sual Av peered forth with him. The Planeteers, all three, sensed that they were approaching a showdown in their long struggle against the League dictator.

Lana watched from beside old Stilicho, the space dog, Ool, pressing anxiously against her side.

'Trask is sure to have a heavy force there with him on the moon,” she murmured. “If we don't manage to break through—'

'We will!” Thorn exclaimed. “You've set these pirates of yours on fire with that plan to establish the Zone as a new world. They feel now that they're fighting for their world, too.'

* * *

Rocket-tubes spouting white fire from straining power-chambers, the pirate force swept on for hour after hour. At last they had crossed Mars’ orbit and were thundering on at hazardous speed toward Earth and its satellite.

Earth largened ahead. Upon the great, gray, cloudy sphere, Thorn could glimpse the outlines of the familiar continents, the white sheen of the polar snows. And the moon was expanding, too — lifeless, gleaming white sphere, all its earthward face in full sunlight.

'Cut to landing-speed!” Lana cried into the audio, and the velocity of the pirate ships began to lessen.

Sual Av, from the ‘scope eyepiece, shouted to John Thorn, who was now holding the controls of the Venture.

'League cruisers are pouring up out of Copernicus crater — at least a hundred and fifty of them!'

'Then Copernicus must be where Philip Blaine's laboratories are, where Trask is now!” Gunner yelled.

'We'll hit those cruisers before they can form up for battle!” Thorn cried. “On suits, everybody! Give the order, Lana!'

As the pirate girl shouted the order into the audio, the pirate ships grouped swiftly together into a phalanx of which the Venture was the apex. And as they drove straight down toward the lunar surface, the crews struggled hastily into their suits.

Thorn, at the controls, saw the sunlit surface of the moon rushing up toward them, an airless, white desert plain, with Copernicus crater almost directly underneath, the vast white blankness of the Mare Imbrium northward, and the towering Appenines northwestward.

Out of the circular crater of Copernicus, a fifty-mile plain surrounded by a ring of stupendous peaks, League cruisers were swarming up like startled hornets from their nest. But before they could gain altitude or fall into battle formation, the phalanx of pirate ships crashed down among them.

It was a whirling chaos of battle then for minutes, a raging dogfight of League and pirate ships low across the surface of the moon. Atom-shells clogged space with blinding flares, fatally hit ships went whirling down out of control to crash on the lunar desert, other ships collided in midspace and tumbled in a single twisted mass of wreckage.

But the Companions of Space maintained their formation. The pirates were fighting with traditional ferocity, pouring shells from every gun, increasing the disorganization of the League ships. Unable to form up, broken into scattered groups of ships that rapidly fell prey to the concentrated fire of the pirates, Trask's squadron was losing two ships to the pirates’ one.

When but a score of the League ships survived, those survivors turned and fled back toward Copernicus. At once, Thorn swung the Venture around in the same direction.

'After them!” he shouted. “Now's our chance!'

More than sixty pirate ships had survived that terrific battle above the moon. They raced after the Venture, toward Copernicus.

Thorn glimpsed the League cruisers landing in the great crater, their crews pouring forth in space-suits, retreating across the crater to where a great glassite window glistened in its floor.

Down into the crater swept the Companions’ ships, landing near the deserted League cruisers. The Planeteers and old Stilicho and Lana raced down to the door of their ship, the excited pirate crew gathering to follow them out. “Lana, you can't go with us!” Thorn cried.

The girl's eyes flashed inside her glassite helmet.

'I go!” she flared. “I've led the Companions to battle before, and I'm leading them now!'

The door opened, and they poured out onto the surface of the moon, onto the floor of the giant crater. Out of all the other ships, the space-suited pirates were pouring in hundreds.

'Follow, men!” Lana's voice rang from her suit-audio. “See, they run before us!'

The League sailors were retreating still toward that big glassite window set in the floor of the crater. They were firing back at the pirates with their atom-guns as they retreated.

The Planeteers and Lana and Stilicho led the pirate rush forward. And beside the girl bounded the blazing- eyed space dog. Ool was in his native element upon the airless surface of the moon!

Thorn saw that the League men were retreating into the entrance of a big airlock set in the crater floor beside the great window. An airlock that he knew must give entrance into the lunar cavern beneath that held Blaine's laboratory.

With a fierce rush, the pirates swept on. Men among them fell by dozens from the bursting shells of the enemy's guns. But they were firing back as they charged, using their atom-pistols with deadly effect as they ran.