p-plane of
the ecliptic!"

"Right!" said Tom, clutching the master manual-control lever and
beginning to fly the giant ship through space by "feel."

"What in blazes are you doing, Corbett?" shouted Connel in sudden alarm.

"Just hang on and watch, sir," replied Tom, keeping his eyes on the
scanner where he could see the space torpedo trailing them. Over and
over, Tom kept slamming the ship into sharp left turns, while the
torpedo followed in an ever-narrowing circle.

"All right, Tom!" yelled Roger again. "Give it the same thing on the
right and the down-plane of the ecliptic!"

"Check!" answered Tom, reversing his controls and sending the ship
corkscrewing through space on an opposite course.

Connel grabbed the arms of his chair and gasped, "You kids are space
happy!"

"Those gyros are so perfect, sir," said Tom, working the controls
quickly and smoothly, "that the only way you can throw them off balance
is to confuse them."

"Confuse them!" exclaimed Connel.

"Yes, sir," said Tom. "It's a theory Roger and I worked out together. No
gyro is perfect, and if you can get it bouncing back and forth in
extreme turns, it will be thrown out of balance. Then all we have to do
is make the torpedo miss once and it won't come back."

"Heaven help us all!" was Connel's groaning reply.

"On the ball, Tom!" cried Roger. "She's closing in on us!"

"I see her," replied Tom calmly. "Hang on, everybody. I'm going to turn
this ship inside out!"

Jerking the controls, Tom threw the ship into a mad, whirling spin,
subjecting the vessel to the most severe strain tests it would ever
undergo. The hull groaned and creaked, and badly fitted equipment tore
loose and clattered across the deck. Suddenly the young cadet leveled
the ship.

"Nose braking rockets, Astro!" he called.

"Braking rockets, aye!" acknowledged the Venusian over the intercom.

On the power deck, Astro jammed the forward drive closed and slammed
open the nose rockets. The ship trembled, bucked, and finally came to a
shuddering stop before it started a reverse course, accelerating
quickly.

"Here it comes!" yelled Roger.

As Connel and Tom watched tensely, the space torpedo loomed large and
menacing on the scanner, and then, as they held their breaths, it
whistled past the silvery hull of the ship, with less than two feet to
spare!

Sighing deeply, Tom brought the ship back to level flight. "We're O.K.
now, sir," he said. "Her gyros are out. She won't