THE RUNAWAY ASTEROID
1: Controlled Fury
“THEY’RE getting closer! They’re almost on us! We won’t make it into the Belt on time!” The navigator of the Silver Spear was on the verge of panic. His frenzied hands moved over the controls.
“Keep going! Keep up full speed! Make sure that we get there ahead of them!” Lurton Zimbardo’s voice was even and controlled, but it was obvious that he was barely containing his volatile fury. His commands were not to be questioned. His nostrils flared, the muscles around his lips were taut, he kept his fists clenched and pounded a persistent rhythm on his ship’s control panel. His breath sounded as if he could inhale and exhale the room’s entire atmosphere. It was only his iron self-control that kept his crew from giving in to their fears.
Behind them just moments away Starman David “Zip” Foster’s ship, the Star Ranger, was closing the gap. The pursuit had been going on for two days, since the Silver Spear had blasted off from Eagle City on Mars and escaped while the rest of the pirates were rounded up by Earth’s forces. Zip Foster, accompanied by Starmen Mark Seaton and Joe Taylor and their companion Steve Cliff, had followed less than fifteen minutes later. The brief lead that Lurton Zimbardo’s ship had was enough to keep the Silver Spear out of the clutches of their pursuers, but not by much. The crew of the Spear was suffering acutely from sleeplessness and mounting anxiety.
Only days earlier, Lurton Zimbardo had been second-in-command under Troy Putnam. Together they had organized over 500 men and attempted to take control of the capital city of Mars in a sudden attack. Had they succeeded, the pirates could have held the people of the Earth-Moon system hostage to their demands. The Starmen and their allies had thwarted the pirates’ plan. Most of the pirates, including their leader, had been captured. Zimbardo, however, had escaped with a few others. With the Starmen in close pursuit, he was desperately trying to outrun them and return to the pirates’ base in the Asteroid Belt.
The Belt loomed up. The first few chunks of rock were visible now to the unaided eyes of those on the deck of the Silver Spear. In seconds, they were among them. The navigator screamed as the ship whipped by a pitted rock a quarter of a mile long, missing it by a few yards.
“Fool!” shouted Zimbardo. “Turn on the automatic pilot!” The navigator’s eyes were the size of saucers. Immobile with terror, he didn’t respond to Zimbardo’s command. The former second-in-command of the pirates pushed him out of the chair, took over, and activated the switch that cut in the automatic pilot. Lurton Zimbardo was not physically imposing, but more than made up for his slight build with an immensely strong will and a decisive nature that was merciless whenever it served him.
He knew they were going too fast even for the automatic pilot to keep the ship safe once they entered the thick sweep of the asteroids. He also knew that the Belt was their only hope of escaping the Starmen on their trail. Powered by adrenaline, his senses were functioning at their peak. With amazing alacrity and intensity, Zimbardo aided the automatic pilot and threaded the Silver Spear through the weaving asteroids. It almost seemed as if he were in a trance.
Soon a dark asteroid loomed ahead, roughly shaped like a potato, forty-five miles long and twenty-five wide, rotating slowly around its longest axis. It was nearly invisible both to the eye and to the instruments, but Zimbardo knew where it was. He barked out a command. The Silver Spear slowed quickly, and moments later a huge airlock door opened in one of the poles of the asteroid. Zimbardo piloted the ship into the airlock, through the stone tunnel that led into the interior of the asteroid, and then touched down.