The man shouted back, "Yes."
"Good. We're going to let your friends land. As soon as they do, I want you to yell to them. Say we have assault rockets trained on them. Tell them to surrender, or they'll be killed in their tracks. Got that?"
The Connie replied, "Suppose I refuse?"
Rip put his space knife against the man's stomach. "Then we'll get them with rockets. But you won't care, because you won't know it."
The truth was that Santos couldn't hope to get them all with his rockets. They might overcome the Connies in hand-to-hand fighting, but there would be a cost to pay in Planeteer casualties. Rip hoped the Connie wouldn't call his bluff, because that's all it was. He couldn't use a space knife on an unarmed prisoner.
The Connie didn't know that. In Rip's place he would have no compunctions about using the knife, so instead of calling Rip's bluff, he agreed.
The snapper-boats blew their front tubes, decelerating, and squashed down to the asteroid in a roar of exhaust flames, sending the Planeteers running out of the way. Rip thrust harder with his space knife and yelled, "Tell them!"
The Connie officer nodded. "Turn up my communicator."
Rip turned it on full, and the Connie barked quick instructions. The exhausts died, and five men filed out of each boat, with hands held high. Rip blew a drop of perspiration from the tip of his nose. Empty space! It was a good thing Connie morale was bad. The enemy's willingness to surrender had saved them a costly fight.
The Planeteers rounded up the prisoners and secured them, while Rip took an anxious look at the communicator. It was about time he heard from Terra base.