"Orders to Tharine," rapped back Commander Leigh's hard voice swiftly. “Close in before they slip past you into the Zone. Calling cruiser Rantal!"
" Rantal speaking!” came a quick voice.
"Change your course to eighty-six degrees sunwise,” hammered the Commander. “You and the Tharine can catch the Planeteers between you if you put on all speed."
Sual Av scratched his bald head and looked at Thorn. “They're converging on us from two sides, John."
"Damn them!” growled the huge Mercurian angrily. “If they only knew that we Planeteers are risking our necks for the sake of the Alliance—"
"But they don't know. To them, we're outlaws who must be either captured or gunned,” John Thorn clipped. “We've got to outrun those two cruisers! Turn the injectors on full, Gunner."
The Mercurian quickly obeyed. Thorn leaned toward the bank of firing-keys, his eyes on the power gauges.
All modern space ships were propelled by the atomic disintegration of copper or a similar metal. The powdered metal's atoms were broken down by terrific electric voltages, in power chambers of heavy inertrum. Only inertrum, that artificial metal whose atoms were synthetically “crystallized,” could stand the awful strain.
Much of the atomic energy generated in the chambers had to be fed back into them as electric voltage, to continue the process. But there was enough surplus to eject streams of protons at high speed from the inertrum rocket-tubes, propelling the ship.
John Thorn cut in all stern tubes. The little ship jerked forward with the deafening roar of the blast.