"Our heat ray's out! That devil—"
Nord laughed. Their ship swung smoothly enough under its drive, as his hands shot over the levers. Of all the intricate wiring beneath them, only the ray circuit had been broken! But the bottom of their fighter had been torn open under the nose.
In the lower screen, he saw the asteroid fragments they'd stowed away below, floating in space, bumping lightly against Kadine's steel hull as the black ship turned back. Steel hull! Asteroid fragments! In his brain, the words rushed together into sudden, strange meaning with the thought of the heat ray!
Nord laughed again, throwing his body far across the seat to press the two studs before the astounded Mike. "Mike, maybe we don't need a ray!"
"I don't get it," his partner gasped.
Behind and below them, the little bay opened in the still undamaged section of their hull, the electro-magnet shot downward under its tiny automatic jets, and the winch paid out the cable.
"Sunspot!" the dazed Mike whispered mechanically. The magnet had struck Kadine's ship, and clung, the cable falling slack below as the winch continued to turn. "But what good does it do us, Nord? He can't drag us into the Belt with him, our mass will throw off his trick drive correction."
"Right! Kadine will have to finish us first—he can't ray that cable off!"
His partner nodded glumly. "Here he comes! And we can't touch him."