"Look out! We can't stop them!"
"It's a suicide dive! Man your crash stations!"
We dropped down, inches above ground level of the airless moon, our nose pointed like a needle at the green bubble. Suddenly I braked our speed with reverse rockets, bruising my ribs with deceleration.
"Fire!" I shouted.
Naomi launched the first missile straight for their airlock. It struck just before the emergency siege gate slid shut, blasting jagged holes through the outer and inner locks. Air whooshed from the dome, hurling men and debris into the vacuum. Seconds later the catastrophe seal was oozing down to plug the hole, but by then our ship had plunged through.
"You've done it!" Naomi screamed joyously. "We're inside!"
"And their fleet is outside, and there's nothing the boys can do about it."
I slowed our ship to practically zero ground speed. We hovered for a moment near the ceiling of the great transparent dome, considering our next target. Below us lay the ramshackle gangland, a maze of roofless partitions clustered around a tiny lake. One quarter of the city was virtually an open-air machine shop. Near the shattered airlock stood a parade ground, overlooked by a tall, balconied tower with people on top making frantic gestures.
"I'll bet that's headquarters."
"Down it goes," said Naomi excitedly.