The jatos were firing furiously, and the ship jumped.
There was a bellowing that drowned out the sound of the engines. Joe was
slammed back on the rear wall of the cabin. He struggled against the
force that pushed him tailward. He heard the pilot saying calmly: "That
plane shot rockets at us. If they're guided we're sunk."

Then the threads of smoke became the thickness of cables, of columns!
They should have ringed the transport plane in. But the jatos had jumped
it crazily forward and were still thrusting fiercely to make it go
faster than any prop-plane could. The acceleration made the muscles at
the front of Joe's throat ache as he held his head upright against it.

"They'll be proximity----"

Then the plane bucked. Very probably, at that moment, it was stretched
far past the limit of strain for which even its factor of safety was
designed. One rocket had let go. The others went with it. The rockets
had had proximity fuses. If they had ringed the transport ship and gone
off with it enclosed, it would now be a tumbling mass of wreckage. But
the jatos had thrown the plane out ahead of the target area. Suddenly
they cut off, and it seemed as if the ship had braked. But the pilot
dived steeply, for speed.

The co-pilot was saying coldly into the microphone: "He shot rockets.
Looked like Army issue three point fives with proximities. They missed.
And we're mighty lonely!"

The transport tore on, both pilots grimly watching the cloud bank below.
They moved their bodies as they stared out the windows, so that by no
possibility could any part of the plane mask something that they should
see. As they searched, the co-pilot spoke evenly into the microphone at
his lips: "He wouldn't carry more than four rockets, and he's dumping
his racks and firing equipment now. But he might have a friend with him.
Better get here quick if you want to catch him. He'll be the innocentest
private pilot you ever saw in no time!"

Then the pilot grunted. Something was streaking across the cloud
formation far, far ahead. Three things. They were jet planes, and they
seemed not so much to approach as to swell in size. They were coming at
better than five hundred knots--ten miles a minute--and the transport
was heading for them at its top speed of three hundred knots. The
transport and the flight of jets neared each other at the rate of a mile
in less than four seconds.

The co-pilot said crisply: "Silver Messner with red wing-tips. The
numb