surprised the experienced Solar Guard officer.

"Where's the rest of the fleet?" roared Strong. "Why aren't they here
yet?"

"I don't know, sir," replied Tom, "but if they don't show up soon, there
won't be much left to save!"

"Bandits dead ahead," droned the voice from the radar bridge calmly,
"trying to envelop us."

Tom's hand shot out for the intercom to relay orders to the power deck
and glanced quickly at the scanner. He almost cheered. "Steve--I mean,
Captain Strong. The rest of the fleet! It's coming in! Attacking from
top-side!"

"By the craters of Luna, you're right!" yelled the young Solar Guard
captain, as he saw the white blips on the scanner screen. "O.K., it's
time to stop running and fight!"

The Solar Guard reinforcements swooped down on the fighting ships with
dazzling speed, and the sky over the jungle belt of Venus base was so
thick with zooming, firing, maneuvering ships that observers on the
ground couldn't tell one ship from another. For an hour the battle
raged. During the seesawing back and forth it seemed as if all ships
must be blasted into space junk. Finally the superior maneuvering and
over-all spacemanship of the Solar Guard vessels began to count heavily,
and the Nationalist ships began to plunge into the jungle or drift
helplessly out into space. Reforming, the Solar Guard ships encircled
the enemy in a deadly englobement pattern, and wheeling in great
co-ordinated arcs through space, sent combined volleys of torpedoes
crashing into the enemy ships. The space battle was over, a complete
Solar Guard victory.

Strong called to the remaining ships of his fleet, "Take formation K.
Land and attack the enemy base according to prearranged order. The enemy
fleet is destroyed, but we still have a big job to do."

"What happens now, sir?" asked Tom, relaxing for the first time since
the space battle had begun.

"We try to destroy their base and put an end to this rebellion as
quickly as possible," replied Strong coldly.

One by one, the ships of the Solar Guard fleet landed around the rim of
the canyon base. Troop carriers, that had stood off while the space
battle raged, disgorged hundreds of tough Solar Guard Marines, each
carrying shock rifles, paralo-ray pistols, and small narco grenades
that would put an enemy to sleep in five seconds. A half-hour later,
after the last Nationalist ship had been blasted out of the skies, the
rim of the canyon was alive with Solar Guardsmen waitin