"How are you doing with their ship?" Bryce asked, "Is it armed?" Armament for spaceships was illegal, and careful official inspection made it rare.
"I didn't wait to see," Pierce's voice came apologetically after a pause in which some background noise sounding like a crash came over the televiewer speaker. "It started swinging around when I came in sight, so I just rammed it with that pretty ornamental nose spike. I'm backing off now with the forward braking jets."
"Then whoever's inside is probably either spacefrozen or cooked. Jockey that ship around on the spike and give her a four minute shove toward Earth, then push that button that collapses the ornamental vanes on the spike and let it pull loose when you start braking. I don't want any ship hulks floating around here."
"Aye-aye, Cap."
"Go slow on those braking jets when you pull loose. The back wash could touch your hull."
Pierce returned and came in to help Bryce drag the corpses through the airlock and into space.
They braced against the silver curve of the floating spaceship and gave the body a combined strong shove towards Earth. Spinning slowly end over end it dwindled into a dark speck against the glowing orb of Earth, destined to be a meteorite and make a small bright streak in the Earth sky several days later.
When the tubes conk out, the fuel runs down,
The cold creeps in to where I lie.
Pierce was reciting as they went back into the globe for the second corpse.
I'll take the meteor's trail—go home to Earth
And make a Viking's funeral in the sky.