The Three Planeteers For All

  * * * *

  The trap had been perfectly sprung. The League cruisers, lagging behind in the guise of slow tankers, had waited until the pirate ships were hooked onto the freighters by grapples and catwalks, their crews engaged in looting. Then they had thrown off their disguise and leaped in on the Companions’ ships.

  'Cut away!' cried Lann Cain's voice from the audio. 'It's a trap! Cut loose and break for the Zone!'

  Thorn saw his silvery cruiser leap forward to engage the rushing League battleships, to try to hold them back while the pirates engaged in looting could cut away from the freighters.

  Loyally, old Stilicha Keene's long black cruiser, and four or five others dashed forward with the pirate boy's silver ship. And Thorn's cruiser was one of those that followed him, for Thorn had yelled the order to Sua Av.

  Blinding, dazzling flares of bursting atom-shells from the League cruisers seared space around Thorn's ship, Sua Av was following Lann's lead right into the forefront of the formidable League battle-squadron.

  'Drive in to cover Lann's ship!' Thorn cried to the Venusian. 'If they get him, everything's ruined for us!'

  She yelled into the interphone. 'Let go with all batteries to starboard, Gunda!'

  The Cauphul shook to the roar of its straining rocket-tubes and the thudding thunder of its atom-guns going off as Sua Av flung the ship in beside Lann's silvery cruiser.

  The very madness of the wild counter-attack of the little handful of pirate ships, as they dashed fiercely at the League cruisers, seemed momentarily to disconcert the latter. Precious moments were gained in which the main body of the pirate fleet was hastily cutting away from the freighters they had grappled.

  Thorn was wild with anxiety for Lann Cain. If anything happened to the boy, if the mysterious secret of Erebus died with her—

  The League cruisers had not concentrated any fire upon his silver ship yet. They were pouring shells upon the other pirate craft, including Thorn's, but Lann's had escaped fire even though he had his batteries streaming shells forth.

  Thorn was thrown from her feet as a salvo of blinding bursts rocked the Cauphul. She heard the scream of escaping air below, the slam of automatic doors as she staggered up.

  'They've got Lann's ship!' Sua Av shouted hoarsely. 'Look!'

  Thorn's heart plummeted as she saw through the fight. A League cruiser had got its magnetic grapples onto Lann Cain's silver ship, and was drawing it closer. It had grappled his craft by its keel, so that he was unable to use his guns.

  'They've got my ship, Companions!' stabbed the pirate boy's voice, clear and unafraid, from the audio. 'You can't save me—break for the Zone while you have the chance!'

  'If we don't do as he says,' cried Sua Av tensely, 'we'll be gunned to a wreck. But if we leave her—'

  'We can't leave him!' Joan Thorn exclaimed fiercely. 'Our plan for the Alliance depends on him!'