"They're Using Fire Bombs," Muttered Koa.
Koa exclaimed, "That's a drone!"
Rip got it then. A pilotless snapper-boat! That's why its actions were a little uneven. Only one thing could explain its deliberate slowness. It was bait. The Scorpius had sent piloted snapper-boats over the asteroid at high speed, criss-crossing in order to cover the thorium world completely, expecting to have the unknown rocketeer fire at them. Then a fire bomb had been dropped as a further means of getting the asteroid to fire. But no rockets had been fired from the asteroid, so the pilot in control of the drone had sent it at low speed, a perfect target.
That meant O'Brine wasn't sure of what was going on. He must have seen the blip on his screen as the Connie cruiser flamed off, Rip reasoned. But the commander probably suspected that the Connies had overcome the Planeteers and were in control of the asteroid. He had sent the snapper-boats to try and draw fire in an attempt to find out more surely whether Planeteers or Connies had the thorium rock.
"The Scorpius doesn't know what's going on," Rip told his Planeteers. "O'Brine didn't know the cruiser was waiting to ambush him, so the rocket we fired made him think the Connies had taken us over."
He put himself in O'Brine's place. What would his next step be? The snapper-boats hadn't drawn fire, even when a drone was sent over at low speed.[pg 153] The next thing would be to send a piloted boat over slowly enough to take a look.
Rip hoped O'Brine would hurry. There was no longer any feeling in his arm below Koa's safety line. That meant the arm had frozen. He had to get medical attention from the Scorpius pretty soon.
He gritted his teeth. At least he was no longer losing blood. He wasn't getting any weaker. But every now and then his vision fogged and he had to shake his head to clear it.
The pilotless snapper-boat made another slow run, then put on speed and flashed back to the group of boats near the cruiser. Another boat detached itself from the squadron and moved toward the asteroid.