"Land—or die!" snapped Channing in a vicious tone. "I'm no humanitarian, Murdoch. You'd be better off dead!"
"Never," said Hellion Murdoch.
Channing punched the lever for the third time, but as he did, Murdoch's ship leaped forward under several G. The magnets could not change in field soon enough to compensate for this change in direction, and the charge failed to connect as a bull's-eye. It did expend some of its energy on the tail of the ship. Not enough to cripple the vessel, but the Hippocrates took on a charge of enough value to make things hard on the crew.
Metal sparked, and instruments went mad. Meters wound their needles against the end pegs. The celestial globe glinted in a riot of color and then went completely dead. Gun servers dropped their projectiles as they became too heavily charged to handle, and they rolled across the turret floors, creating panic in the gun crews. The pilot fought the controls, but the charge on his driver tubes was sufficient to make his helm completely unpredictable. The panel sparked at him and seared his hands, spoiling his nervous control and making him heavy-handed.
"Murdoch," cried Channing in a hearty voice, "that was a miss! Want a hit?"
Murdoch's radio was completely dead. His ship was yawing from side to side as the static charges raced through the driver tubes. The pilot gained control after a fashion, and decided that he had taken enough. He circled the Station warily and began to make a shaky landing at the South end.
Channing saw him coming, and with a glint in his eye, he pressed the lever for the fourth and last time.