The young curly-haired cadet turned to the control board and flipped on the teleceiver. "Rocket cruiser Polaris to spaceport control tower," he called. "Request blast-off orbit and clearance!"
The traffic-control officer in the spaceport tower answered immediately. "Control tower to Polaris. You are cleared for blast-off at 1405 hours, orbital tangent 867."
Tom repeated the instructions and turned to the intercom and began snapping out orders. "Power deck, energize the cooling pumps!"
"Power deck, aye!" replied Astro. The slow whine of the powerful pumps began to scream through the ship. Tom watched the pressure indicator and when it reached the blast-off mark called to Roger for clearance.
"All clear, forward and up!" declared Roger.
"Feed reactant at D-9 rate!" ordered Tom. And far below on the power deck, Astro began to feed the reactant energy into the firing chambers.
Hardy looked at Strong and nodded in appreciation of the cadets' smooth efficient work. They strapped themselves into acceleration cushions and watched the red second hand of the astral chronometer sweep around, and then heard Tom counting off the seconds.
"Blast off—" bawled Tom, "minus five—four—three—two—one—zeroooo!"
The giant ship lurched off the blast-off platform a few feet, the exhaust of the powerful rockets deflected against the concrete surface. Then, poised delicately on the roaring rockets, the mighty ship picked up speed and began to accelerate through the atmosphere.
Pushed deep in his acceleration chair in front of the control board, unable to move because of the tremendous pressure against his body, Tom Corbett thought about his new adventure. And as the ship hurtled into the black velvet depths of space, he wondered what the future held for him as he and his unit mates began a new adventure among the stars.