"What? How? How can we get to you?"
How could they get down here! Patrol ships didn't have these heat guns. God!
Glancing down, Ricker saw the ships closing beneath him like a flock of starved condors. In a moment they'd be in gun range.
"Gotta keep moving," he told the radio. "They're coming fast. Stand by and I'll try to think of something."
He streaked up to the roof of the icy chamber, sailed fast toward the far end.
And suddenly he did think of something—something so simple it seemed foolish.
"Listen!" he yelled to the radio. "Turn your ships around. Sit down on the ice! Give your rockets half throttle and let gravity pull you down as the ice melts under you. It'll take a long time but I may hold 'em off till—"
A flash of white lightning streaked across his view plate. The ship steamed, sweat formed little beads on Ricker's forehead, ran into his eyes. One was diving in front of him. Ricker squeezed his trigger, saw the ship flash into floating dust before him. He saw another coming down from above.
With a quick jerk of the wheel, he zoomed up and over, wheeled into a swift Immelman and dived.
The buildings, the field, the standing planes below whirled, surged up to meet him like a nightmare of falling.