g, and I _mean everything_, is ready to
raise ship at a moment's notice!"

The men got up and shuffled from the room. Coxine turned to his two
lieutenants. "All right, Wallace, see that those crawlers do what I told
them to do. And you, Simms, get after that rocket scout."

The two spacemen saluted their captain and turned away. Coxine watched
them leave the room, already planning his next move, a move calculated
to be so surprising that the Solar Guard would be absolutely helpless.

Bull Coxine smiled and turned to study the charts of the asteroid belt.

* * * * *

Alone aboard the armored decoy ship, Captain Strong blasted steadily on
his course through the asteroid belt. The young Solar Guard officer was
aware that at any moment after reaching the celestial jungle of small
planetoids he could be fired on without warning. And though the Solar
Guard patrol ships, well hidden in the belt, would blast Coxine out of
existence, it would still be too late for him.

Grim-faced, his hands gripping the controls, he rocketed through space,
determined to put an end, once and for all, to the marauding pirate and
old enemy, Bull Coxine.

* * * * *

When night fell over the Academy spaceport, Tom, Roger, and Astro
climbed silently into the giant rocket cruiser _Polaris_ and raised ship
for Titan. Their departure from Earth was routine, with no one but
Commander Walters and Captain Strong knowing that stowed in the storage
compartment of the spaceship was twenty million credits, the pay roll
for the miners of Titan.

Once in space, the rocket ship was put on course and held there by
automatic pilot. The three cadets gathered in the messroom and sipped
hot tea, staring moodily into their cups. Unable to break audio silence,
lest they should betray their position, their first chance of hearing
any news lay far ahead of them at Titan. They could only hope that the
decoy trap would succeed and that their skipper and friend would return
safely. The only comment was Astro's grim prediction.

"If anything happens to Captain Strong," he paused and finished his
sentence in a tense whisper, "I'll search the universe until I find
Coxine. And when I do, I'll break him in two!"

CHAPTER 18

"Have you got everything straight?" asked Coxine. Simms nodded his head.

"All right, blast off," ordered the pirate. "We'll follow you and keep
you spotted on radar. If it's