As Stuart ran down to his post at the airlock, he heard Gordon's calm voice from the intercom. "All right, Brettner. Keep them covered, but don't fire."
At the lock, the linguist remembered to punch the personnel buttons as the men climbed in, out of breath and swearing. He pushed the stud beside his own name last and shut the lock as the "All Aboard" shone green.
Gordon spoke again, apparently to someone in the control room with him. "They've evidently lugged a disrupter or something along a tunnel. Seem to have a couple of big beasts of burden carrying a gadget ... looks like one of those old pack howitzers. Let's wait 'till they get it nearly assembled, so we can get an idea of—hup! Let's GO!"
Stuart had forgotten to buckle his safety straps. He just had time to grab a stanchion when the violent acceleration tripled his weight and nearly threw him to the floor. No more than a heartbeat later, there was a muffled boom from outside the ship, and a section of blazing tree went rocketing past the glassite window.
After a few seconds' acceleration he felt the ship take on a horizontal component. The pressure eased off. He got up from his hands and knees and adjusted the periscope controls until he got a view of the ground. There was a group of burning trees several kilometers below, sliding rapidly to the east. Several times the scenery shifted rapidly as the ship zigzagged.
As he swung the 'scope, Stuart was thunderstruck to discover a hole blasted in the edge of a fin, not four meters away from where he stood. Shreds of charred camouflage netting fluttered in tangled strings.
On the intercom, White's voice broke the tense silence. "Gimme that again, slowly, somebody. What happened, anyway?"
Gordon answered. "That must have been a tunnel they came out of, right at the edge of the woods. Maybe they use it to get home if hell-cats happen to catch them out on the prairie. That fellow we caught today was probably heading for it, hoping to lose the cats in the woods first."
After a moment, he added, "Anyway, they showed up with a heavy weapon and nearly got us. Patrol guessed wrong about its portability, and I guessed wrong about its operation."