"Not for long," said Brecken in an ugly tone. "Get hot on those controls. You, Phillips! Run back to that rocket room and see that things work!"
"You try it," suggested the engineer quietly.
He would have preferred to avoid the trouble the girl had been stirring up, but he did not relish Brecken's tone. A few days off Luna, he reflected, and already he was getting independent.
"Listen," said Donna, encouraged in her defiance, "when I touch those controls, we'll go right up and touch noses with them. You'd better have a torpedo ready!"
She turned to the banks of buttons and switches. Muffled thunder from the stern jets trembled through the hull as the men staggered.
Brecken recovered his balance first. With a snarl, he grabbed the girl by the nape of the neck and shook her roughly. Glimpsing Phillips' cold sneer, he reached back and seized a heavy metal bar from the spacesuit rack.
"Now, dammit!" he grated. "You'll do like I tell you! And you get back there an' see that those tubes recharge okay!"
Phillips felt a hard anger swelling his throat. From the corner of his eye, he saw Truesdale shrinking back against the bulkhead. He glanced about desperately for something with which to parry Brecken's bar.