"Bring down what you've got, Roger!" he yelled. "We'll just have to take
a chance that it'll work. And grab yourself a space suit on the way
down. When they blast through the inner portal of the lock, we'll need
'em!"

"Right!" replied Roger. "Be down there in a second."

Astro and Tom hurriedly donned space suits and waited for Roger to bring
the beacon. In a moment the blond-haired cadet appeared with the
hurriedly contrived beacon. Tom quickly placed it between the two hulls
and sealed the hole in the inner hull.

A fourth explosion rocked the ship and the three cadets knew that by now
the air lock had been blasted away. They put on their space helmets and
climbed the ladder to the upper deck.

Coxine met them near the air lock, two paralo-ray guns clutched in his
gloved hands. Behind him, his crew swarmed in and fanned out all over
the ship.

But the space pirate stood on the control deck, glaring at Tom. "Whaddya
know! The Space Kid himself!"

"That's right, Coxine," said Tom quietly, "only the real name is
Corbett."

Suddenly there was a triumphant shout from one of the pirates. "Skipper!
The credits! All twenty million! We found 'em!"

Over their spacephones the three cadets could hear the pirates yelling
and cheering. Coxine bellowed for silence and the cheering quickly
subsided.

Paying no further attention to the three cadets, the pirate captain
ordered his men to repair the hole in the air lock and prepare for
immediate acceleration. There was a triumphant gleam in his eyes as he
announced their destination.

"With the Solar Guard on the other side of the belt, we're going to hit
the richest prize in the universe! The colony on Ganymede!"

He then turned and smiled at his three prisoners, adding menacingly,
"And we've got three passes to get us through the defenses!"

CHAPTER 19

Ganymede, the largest moon of Jupiter, was an important way station of
the Solar Alliance for all spaceships traveling between the outer
planets of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto and the inner planets of
Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury. The colony on Ganymede was more of a
supply depot than a permanent settlement, with one large uranium
refinery to convert the pitchblende brought in by the prospectors of the
asteroids. Refueling ships, replenishing supplies, and having a small
tourist trade, it was a quiet colony, one of many spread throughout the
system.

With the Solar Guard search squadrons hopeles