"They're no faster than.... Wait a minute! We can blow 'em out the forward catapult and add the catapult speed to the ship's speed."
The flagship became a flurry of action. Men hauled the fighters aloft and one by one they were hurled out of the launching tube. They kept their added velocity and slowly, yard by creeping yard, the fighters drew away from the mother space craft. But yard by crawling yard would be enough by the time the whole distance was covered....
Wilson said to Maury Allison, "You've got a tender ready?"
"Yes."
"All right, then. Let's plan this operation carefully. As I see it, we're going to have a split-second advantage, and we've got to make good use of it."
Allison eyed the dials on the magnetic-mass detector, and made some calibrating adjustments.
"From what I can tell," he said, "the lifeship is in free flight along a course not more than ten to fifteen degrees angle from our own free flight course. We've been in a slight-vector thrust, you know."
Wilson nodded. "That's all to our advantage. Now unless I've miscalculated, I think I can be belted out of here in your tender. I'll make contact, then continue on until you catch up with me. Right?"
"Sounds reasonable."
Allison gave some orders to one of his techs. The tech punched his keys for a half-minute and waited another ten seconds for a strip of paper to come out of the machine in jerky sequences. He tore the paper off when it had stopped, and handed it to Wilson.