look at the
gleaming Planeteer guns and their hands stayed upright.

The Planeteers lashed the Connies' hands behind them with their own safety
lines and, at Rip's orders, dumped all but one of them into the crater
where Kemp was just finishing.

Three snapper-boats remained. Rip watched, holding tightly to the arm of
the Connie he had kept at his side. The man wore the insignia of an
officer.

The remaining snapper-boats were going to make it. Santos threw rockets
among them and scored hits, but the boats kept coming. The Connies were
too far away from the cruiser to return, and they knew it. Getting to the
asteroid was their only chance.

Rip called, "Santos. Cease fire. Set the launcher for ground level. Let
them land, but don't fire until I give the word." He hoped his plan would
work. Experience back in the asteroid belt had taught him something about
Connies.

He put his helmet against his prisoner's for direct communication. "You
speak English?"

The man shouted back, "Yes."

"Good. We're going to let your friends land. As soon as they do, I want
you to yell to them. Say we have assault rockets trained on them. Tell
them to surrender or they'll be killed in their tracks. Got that?"

The Connie replied, "Suppose I refuse?"

Rip put his space knife against the man's stomach. "Then we'll get them
with rockets. But you won't care because you won't know it."

The truth was, 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. In Rip's place he would have no compunctions
about using the knife, so instead of calling Rip's bluff he agreed.

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. The
exhausts died and five men filed out of each boat with hands held high.
Rip blew a drop of perspiration from the tip of his nose. Empty space! It
was a good thing Connie morale was bad. The enemy's willingness to
surrender had saved them a costly fi