The Lightning curved sharply, shot between the two vast clouds of dangerous debris.
Looking back through the rear window of the bulging control-room, Thorn saw two of the pursuing League cruisers glow red and fall out of line. They had been meteor-struck. Trying to cut across after their quarry without aid of the wave-code navigation signals, they had blundered into the edge of one swarm.
The other League ships slackened speed, and tried to grope their way ahead. But the Lightning, dashing on at full speed and then changing course abruptly to cut up across a “family” of whirling, planetoids, soon lost them from sight.
"Off suits. We're safe from them now!” Lana called into the interphone.
Thorn and his two comrades divested themselves with relief of their suits and helmets, as the girl did likewise.
Lana turned toward the Planeteers. The girl's bronze-gold hair was tossed in disorder, her face flushed, her dark blue eyes blazing with excitement. There was something vital and dynamic about her, and there was a throbbing, eager emotion in her eyes as she faced Thorn, impulsively holding out her hand.
"You Planeteers saved me down there!” she exclaimed. “If you hadn't rammed in between ships and broken those grapple-lines—"
John Thorn felt a queer sense of shame as her warm little hand grasped his. If she knew his real reason for taking such desperate chances to save her, he thought — But it was for four great worlds.
"I'll never forget this, John Thorn,” Lana was saying earnestly.
"I'll never forget it, either,” growled Gunner Welk, rubbing a bruised shoulder. “When we wedged, between the two ships it nearly threw me right through a wall of the gun-deck."