Thorn was thrown from his feet as a salvo of blinding bursts rocked the Cauphul. He heard the scream of escaping air below, the slam of automatic doors as he staggered up.
"They've got Lana's ship!” Sual Av shouted hoarsely. “Look!"
Thorn's heart plummeted as he saw through the fight. A League cruiser had got its magnetic grapples onto Lana Cain's silver ship, and was drawing it closer. It had grappled her craft by its keel, so that she was unable to use her guns.
"They've got my ship, Companions!” stabbed the pirate girl's voice, clear and unafraid, from the audio. “You can't save me — break for the Zone while you have the chance!"
"If we don't do as she says,” cried Sual Av tensely, “we'll be gunned to a wreck. But if we leave her—"
"We can't leave her!” John Thorn exclaimed fiercely. “Our plan for the Alliance depends on her!"
CHAPTER VII
Shadow of the League
John Thorn's ship rocked wildly as another shell struck it. The shells of all atom-guns contained a charge of powdered metal whose atoms had been brought to a critical point of instability. When an electric charge stored in the shell was released, either by impact or a timer, it detonated the unstable atoms into a destroying flare of atomic energy. These deadly shells were fired from guns and pistols by the push of an electroisolenoid built into the barrel.
Red lights flashing on and off in the panel in front of him warned Thorn that already a half dozen compartments of the Cauphul had been holed and had lost their air. Down below, Gunner Welk was still keeping his crew batteries going, pouring shell out on the encircling League cruisers, but at any moment a hit on their rocket-tubes or power-chambers might disable them entirely.