The pirate ships could not match the heavily armed League cruisers in fire-power. But one thing the ships of the Companions of Space did have, and that was speed. They were drawing slowly away from the hotly pursuing cruisers as they rushed upward.
It was a wild yet thrilling scene to John Thorn's eyes! The black vault of abysmal space around them tapestried with countless blazing stars, the blinding flares of atom-shells bursting like exploding lightning, the raving flame of proton-fire from pursued and pursuing ships, and the vast, vague cloud of light-flecks of the Zone stretching above.
They were thundering up into the Zone now, Lana Cain's silver ship leading, curving sharply to avoid the meteor-swarm directly above. But the League cruisers were pursuing them into the vast wilderness of debris.
"Scatter!” came the girl's sharp order from the audio. “We'll rendezvous at Turkoon!"
"That finishes us, John,” said Sual Av bitterly. “We don't know the wave code. We can't navigate this damned jungle."
But hard on the heels of his words came a quick call from the girl.
"Planeteers! Keep your ship with mine!"
The pirate ships scattered in all directions, like a frightened flock of wild fowl. Darting away through the swarms and planetoids, navigating by means of the coded wave-signals from the projectors on every swarm and asteroid, they melted away.
The League fleet could not hope to pursue all those diverging ships through the wilderness of debris in which they were perfectly at home. But a dozen League cruisers followed purposefully after Lana's silver ship and the Planeteers’ crippled craft as they raced away through the Zone in a counter-sunwise direction.
"Damn them, they must have recognized Lana's ship and they're determined to catch her!” Sual Av exclaimed.