“I wouldn’t be too sure of that, Manning!” Strong’s voice boomed out as he climbed up through the control-deck hatch. The three boys immediately snapped to attention.
Strong walked around the control deck, fingering the controls lightly.
“This is a fine ship,” he mused aloud. “One of the finest that scientific brains can build. She’s yours. The day you graduate from the Academy, if you graduate, and I can think of about a thousand reasons why you won’t, you’ll command an armed rocket cruiser similar to this. As a matter of fact, the only difference between this ship and those that patrol the space lanes now is in the armament.”
“Don’t we have any arms aboard at all, sir?” asked Tom.
“Small arms, like paralo-ray pistols and paralo-ray rifles. Plus four atomic war heads for emergency use,” replied Strong.
Seeing a puzzled expression cross Astro’s face, the Solar Guard officer continued, “You haven’t studied armament yet, Astro, but paralo rays are the only weapons used by law-enforcement agencies in the Solar Alliance. They work on a principle of controlled energy, sending out a ray with an effective range of fifty yards that can paralyze the nervous system of any beast or human.”
“And it doesn’t kill, sir?” inquired Astro.
“No, Astro.” replied Strong. “Paralyzing a man is just as effective as killing him. The Solar Alliance doesn’t believe you have to kill anyone, not even the most vicious criminal. Freeze him and capture him, and you still have the opportunity of making him a useful citizen.”
“But if you can’t?” inquired Roger dryly.
“Then he’s kept on the prison asteroid where he can’t harm anyone.” Strong turned away abruptly. “But this isn’t the time for a general discussion. We’ve got work to do!”
He walked over to the master control panel and switched the teleceiver screen. There was a slight buzz, and a view of the spaceport outside the ship suddenly came into focus, filling the screen. Strong flipped a switch and a view aft on the Polaris filled the glowing square. The aluminum scaffolding was being hauled away by a jet truck. Again the view changed as Strong twisted the dials in front of him.
“Just scanning the outside, boys,” he commented. “Have to make sure there isn’t anyone near the ship when we blast off. The rocket exhaust is powerful enough to blow a man two hundred feet, to say nothing of burning him to death.”
“You mean, sir—” began Tom, not daring to hope.
“Of course, Corbett,” smiled Strong. “Take your stations for blast-off. We raise ship as soon as we get orbital clearance from spaceport control!”
Without waiting for further orders, the three boys scurried to their stations.
Soon the muffled whine of the energizing pumps on the power deck began to ring through the ship, along with the steady beep of the radar scanner on the radar bridge. Tom checked the maze of gauges and dials on the control board. Air locks, hatches, oxygen supply, circulating system, circuits, and feeds. In five minutes the two-hundred-foot shining steel hull was a living thing as her rocket motors purred, warming up for the initial thrust.
Tom made a last sweeping check of the complicated board and turned to Captain Strong who stood to one side watching.
“Ship ready to blast off, sir,” he announced. “Shall I check stations and proceed to raise ship?”
“Carry on, Cadet Corbett,” Strong replied. “Log yourself in as skipper with me along as supercargo. I’ll ride in the second pilot’s chair.”
Tom snapped a sharp salute and added vocally, “Aye, aye, sir!”
He turned back to the control board, strapped himself into the command pilot’s seat and opened the circuit to the spaceport control tower.
“Rocket cruiser Polaris to spaceport control,” he droned into the microphone. “Check in!”
“Spaceport control to Polaris,” the voice of the tower operator replied. “You are cleared for blast-off in two minutes. Take out—orbit 75 … repeat … 75. …”
“Polaris to spaceport control. Orders received and understood. End transmission!”
Tom then turned his attention to the station check.
“Control deck to radar deck. Check in.”
“Radar deck, aye! Ready to raise ship.” Roger’s voice was relaxed, easy.
Tom turned to the board to adjust the teleceiver screen for a clear picture of the stern of the ship. Gradually it came up in as sharp detail as if he had been standing on the ground.
He checked the electric timing device in front of him that ticked off the seconds, as a red hand crawled around to zero, and when it swept down to the thirty-second mark, Tom pulled the microphone to his lips again. “Control deck to power deck. Check in!”
“Power deck, aye?”
“Energize the cooling pumps!”
“Cooling pumps, aye!” repeated Astro.
“Feed reactant!”
“Reactant at D-9 rate.”
From seventy feet below them, Strong and Tom heard the hiss of the reactant mass feeding into the rocket motors, and the screeching whine of the mighty pumps that kept the mass from building too rapidly and exploding.
The second hand swept up to the twenty-second mark.
“Control deck to radar deck,” called Tom. “Do we have a clear trajectory forward?”
“All clear forward and overhead,” replied Roger.
Tom placed his hand on the master switch that would throw the combined circuits, instruments and gauges into the single act of blasting the mighty ship into space. His eyes glued to the sweeping hand, he counted past the twelve-second mark—eleven—ten—nine—
“Stand by to raise ship,” he bawled into the microphone. “Minus—five—four—three—two—one—zero!”
Tom threw the master switch.
There was a split-second pause and then the great ship roared into life. Slowly at first, she lifted her tail full of roaring jets free of the ground. Ten feet—twenty—fifty—a hundred—five hundred—a thousand—picking up speed at an incredible rate.
Tom felt himself being pushed deeper and deeper into the softness of the acceleration cushions. He had been worried about not being able to keep his eyes open to see the dwindling Earth in the teleceiver over his head, but the tremendous force of the rockets pushing him against gravity to tear the two hundred tons of steel away from the Earth’s grip held his eyelids open for him. As the
