"Night work," Stew said briefly. "Two ships passed and signalled with our flags for permission to enter. I gave them the okay after checking their numbers and the flight charts. They didn't go into the tunnel. I saw them start heaving stuff out into space at the tunnel mouth.
"It was pretty dark, but I recognized the stuff they were tossing out." He paused, then said, "Space mines."
"They planned to blow the head of the tunnel?"
Stew nodded.
"I opened fire and blew them straight to hell."
"But your men?"
Stew grunted.
"They had time to put one shot across my forward deck. Knocked out one gun. Killed a couple of good boys."
He stood up, emptied his pipe and put it back into his mouth with bowl upside down.
"Graham and his men came through on routine patrol just a few seconds after those damned ships blew up," he said. "If they had hit one of them space mines...."