Their plan was simple. Astro would enter the building from the front,
while Connel would enter from the rear. Astro would draw attention to
himself, and while the guards inside the building were busy dealing with
him, Connel would come upon them from behind, knock them out of action,
and then destroy the radar equipment.

The two spacemen gave no thought to their own safety. They were
concerned only with accomplishing their objective. Having no way of
knowing whether Tom had made it back to Venusport or whether their
destruction of the communications center would be of any value, they
nevertheless had to proceed on the assumption that Tom had gotten
through.

Astro crawled behind the drums and stopped twenty feet from the door to
wait for several Nationalist officers to leave. They finally got into a
jet car and roared away. Astro nodded to the major waiting to edge
around to the rear and then headed for the main entrance.

Connel saw Astro making his way to the front door and hurried around to
complete his part of the mission. He waited exactly three minutes,
gripped his shock rifle firmly, and then crossed over to the rear of the
building and stepped inside.

Once inside, the major found it difficult to keep from bursting into
laughter. The large ground-floor room was a frenzy of brawling, yelling,
shouting Nationalist guards trying to capture the giant cadet. Astro was
standing in the middle of the floor, swinging his great hamlike fists
methodically, mowing down the guards like tenpins. Two of them were on
his back, trying to choke him, while others crowded in from all sides.
But they could not bring the cadet down. Astro saw Connel, shook
himself, and stood free.

"Stand back!" roared Connel. "The first one of you green monkeys that
makes a move will have his teeth knocked out! Now line up over there
against the wall--and I mean fast!"

The sudden attack from the rear startled the Nationalist guards, and
they milled around in confusion. There was no confusion, however, when
Connel fired a blast over their heads. Astro grabbed a paralo-ray gun
and opened up on the guards. A second later the squad of Nationalists
were frozen in their tracks.

Once the men were no further danger to them, Connel and Astro locked the
front and rear doors and then raced up the stairs that led to the main
radar and communications rooms on the second floor.

"You start at that end of the hall, I'll start here!" shouted Connel.