"You found him again, Mike!" Nord exulted grimly. "Right across the tubes!"
"He can't run, for those tubes won't last seconds!"
Kadine's fighter dogged frantically, in a brief, vain effort to shake the beam which followed every twist. Abruptly, the dark ship swerved off course.
"There goes one tube!" Doren shouted jubilantly. "He'll have to cut down his drive now—to trim the jets!"
The outlaw ship swung slowly in a climbing turn, and Kadine was sweeping black space with his fiery beam as he came.
Like fencing foils, the two dazzling pencils of light crossed and recrossed—slashing and stabbing for the ships. But it was the duel of a slower, heavily armored adversary against a faster, unprotected opponent—for Kadine's metal hull would stand long seconds of heat, and a touch of his own stopped-down beam could bore into the vitals of the plastic Patrol Ship at a touch.
"What's he up to?" growled Mike Doren. Once again, he had the other ship glowing dangerously red. Still Kadine came on.
Nord's throbbing eyes were slitted almost shut. The other wouldn't get away with the same trick twice! As the ship loomed almost upon them, Nord laughed harshly, touched his own retarding jets briefly. Let the outlaw—Only then, he realized, suddenly—too late! Desperately, he threw the drive lever—as the glowing nose of the other ship smashed into their lower hull!
The universe spun around him. He saw the stars streak across the view screens, and the floor beneath his feet bulge upward under the terrible impact—even as the last surge of her jets wrenched the Patrol Ship free, sent her staggering drunkenly upward.
He gripped the control panel with long fingers whose steel clutch almost lifted him from the seat, and the grey eyes in his white face were bloodshot and wild! Beside him, Mike's rasping breath deepened into a groan.