oat over the
audioceiver.

"We'll split up. I'll handle the control deck and you go aft to the
supply lockers. Dump everything out in space and we can pick it up
later. Search the passengers, but no rough stuff. The first man that
puts his hands on anyone will never know what hit him!"

Tom listened to the pirate captain's orders and was forced to give the
man credit for his tight control over his murderous crew. However
rebellious he might be against the Solar Guard, and whatever it was that
made the man become the system's most notorious criminal, his orders
spoke for themselves.

"All right, Kid," roared Coxine, "blast off!"

Tom pressed the control pedal at his foot and the small ship shot out
into the black void of space. Ahead of them, thousands of yards away, he
could see the gleaming passenger ship.

In a few moments the two jet boats were braking their jets and drifting
to a stop inside the catapult deck of the luxurious liner.

Almost before Tom had stopped the small craft, Coxine was out of the
boat waving his paralo-ray pistols at a cluster of frightened merchant
spacemen.

"Back inside!" he snarled. "Kid! Shelly! Cover me! We're going to the
control deck. Martin, you stay here with the jet boat."

Coxine marched straight through the ship, head up, eyes straight ahead,
while behind him, Tom and Shelly swept the luxurious lounges with their
ray rifles, ready to fire on any who dared resist. They marched past the
frightened passengers, climbed a flight of carpeted stairs to the next
deck, and entered the control room.

The liner's captain, a tall, thin man with graying hair, stood waiting
beside the control panel, his eyes flashing angrily. A half-dozen junior
officers stood stiffly in back of him.

Coxine stepped up to the elderly officer and laughed good-naturedly. "No
one will be hurt, skipper. I just want a few things for my men"--he
paused and glanced at the ship's vault--"and whatever you have in
there!"

"I'll live to see the day when you're caught and sent to the prison
asteroid for this," snorted the captain.

"Don't make me laugh, skipper," said Coxine lightly. "The Solar Guard
will have to build a new one for me. Don't think there's much left of
the old one!"

"Then it was you! You're responsible for the attack on the asteroid!"

Coxine just smiled and turned to Tom and Shelly. "Watch these crawlers
closely, now. I'm going to open the vault."

Tom stared at the ship's officers, h