"All x—I'm watching the range, close. Wish we had instruments like these on the IPV's. We'll have to install some when we get back. All x! Give her the gun—level and dead ahead!"
Half the battery of rockets burst into their stuttering, explosive roar of power and the vessel darted away in headlong flight.
"He sees us and is after us—turn her straight up!"
A searing, coruscating finger of flame leaped toward them, but their calculations had been sound—the hexan was harmless at that extreme range. King, under the pilot's direction, kept the plane at a safe distance from the sphere while the satellite grew smaller and smaller behind them and Czuv lapsed quietly into unconsciousness.
"He's been out for quite a while. Far enough?" asked King.
"All x now, I guess—don't believe they can see the flash from here. Cut!"
The rockets died abruptly and a blast from the side ports threw the plane out of the beam—and once out of it, beyond range of the electromagnetic detectors as they were their coating of absolute black rendered the craft safe from observation. One dirigible rocket remained in action, its exhaust hidden from the enemy by the body of the vessel, and Captain Czuv soon recovered his senses.
"Wonderful, gentlemen!" he exclaimed, as he manipulated the delicate controls of his gunnery panel. "This is the first time in history that a Callistonian vessel has escaped from a hexan by speed alone."
An instantaneously extinguished flare of incandescence marked the passing of the hexan sphere into nothingness, and the cruiser shot back toward Callisto in search of more prey. It was all too plentiful, and twenty times the drama was reenacted before approaching day made it necessary for Czuv to take the controls and dive the vessel into the westermost landing-shaft of Zbardk. A rousing and enthusiastic welcome awaited them, and joy spread rapidly when their success became known.
"Now we know what to do, and we had better do it immediately, before they get our system figured out and increase their own power." King reported to the Council. "You might send a couple of ships to Europa and bring back as many of the Tellurian officers as want to come and can be spared from the work there. They all test above forty-five meters, and they can learn this stuff in short order. While they're coming, your engineers can be building more ships like this one."