But there was an explanation for this.
At the very top of the loop, threads of white smoke appeared. They should have been unnoticeable against the cloud. But for the fraction of an instant they were silhouetted against the silver wings. And they were not misty wisps of vapor. They were dense, sharply defined rocket trails.
They shot upward, spreading out. They unreeled with incredible, ever-increasing velocity.
The pilot hit something with the heel of his hand. There was a heart-stopping delay. Then the transport leaped forward with a force to stop one’s breath. The jatos were firing furiously, and the ship jumped. There was a bellowing that drowned out the sound of the engines. Joe was slammed back on the rear wall of the cabin. He struggled against the force that pushed him tailward. He heard the pilot saying calmly: “That plane shot rockets at us. If they’re guided we’re sunk.”
Then the threads of smoke became the thickness of cables, of columns! They should have ringed the transport plane in. But the jatos had jumped it crazily forward and were still thrusting fiercely to make it go faster than any prop-plane could. The acceleration made the muscles at the front of Joe’s throat ache as he held his head upright against it.
“They’ll be proximity——”
Then the plane bucked. Very probably, at that moment, it was stretched far past the limit of strain for which even its factor of safety was designed. One rocket had let go. The others went with it. The rockets had had proximity fuses. If they had ringed the transport ship and gone off with it enclosed, it would now be a tumbling mass of wreckage. But the jatos had thrown the plane out ahead of the target area. Suddenly they cut off, and it seemed as if the ship had braked. But the pilot dived steeply, for speed.
The co-pilot was saying coldly into the microphone: “He shot rockets. Looked like Army issue three point fives with proximities. They missed. And we’re mighty lonely!”
The transport tore on, both pilots grimly watching the cloud bank below. They moved their bodies as they stared out the windows, so that by no possibility could any part of the plane mask something that they should see. As they searched, the co-pilot spoke evenly into the microphone at his lips: “He wouldn’t carry more than four rockets, and he’s dumping his racks and firing equipment now. But he might have a friend with him. Better get here quick if you want to catch him. He’ll be the innocentest private pilot you ever saw in no time!”
Then the pilot grunted. Something was streaking across the cloud formation far, far ahead. Three things. They were jet planes, and they seemed not so much to approach as to swell in size. They were coming at better than five hundred knots—ten miles a minute—and the transport was heading for them at its top speed of three hundred knots. The transport and the flight of jets neared each other at the rate of a mile in less than four seconds.