Strong paused and looked up at the sky overhead, still thick with smoke. "And if he does ask for help, I'm going to answer him with the biggest fleet of spaceships he'll ever see in his life!"
CHAPTER 12
"Stand by, you space crawlers!" roared Bull Coxine into the microphone, but the loud laughter and singing of the noisily celebrating prisoners continued unabated over the intercom's loud-speakers. "Avast there!" he bellowed again. "Stow that noise! Attention! And I want attention!"
Standing on the control deck of his ship, Coxine waited as the men gradually quieted down. No longer wearing the white prison coverall, he was dressed in a black merchant spaceman's uniform, the snug-fitting jacket and trousers stretching tightly across his huge shoulders. He wore a black spaceman's cap, and two paralo-ray pistol belts were crisscrossed over his hips.
"Now listen to me!" he roared again. "Let's get one thing straight! I'm the skipper of this ship and the first man that thinks he's smarter than me, let him speak up!"
There was a long pause and the big man added with an ominous whisper, "But I warn you, if one of you opens your mouth, you'll take a swim in space!"
There was an angry murmur among the prisoners that Coxine heard over the intercom. "Don't think I can't take care of you, the lot of you, one by one or all at once. I cut my milk teeth on mutiny. I know how to start one and I know how to finish one! I needed a crew and that's the only reason you're here! Any spaceman that doesn't like the way I run things aboard this ship, better keep it to himself, or start swimming back to the prison asteroid!" He paused. "Well? Are you all with me?"
There was a chorus of cheers on the intercom and Coxine nodded grimly.