The navigator nodded, panting.
In the little silence they could hear the scraping and clashing of steel claws throughout the ship.
'They got the crew,' the navigator panted. 'Tore them apart, back in the engine room.'
The pilot looked through the glass. The surface of Ganymede was just below. He had been leveling off with short, expert rocket blasts, for an easy coast into Satellite City.
'Get a gun!' he shouted. 'Hold them off! Maybe we can make it.'
The navigator leaped for the rack where the heavy flame rifles hung. But he was too late.
The door buckled beneath a crushing weight. Savage steel claws caught it and ripped it asunder.
The pilot, glancing over his shoulder, saw a nightmare of mad monsters clawing into the control room.
Monsters manufactured at the Robots. Inc., plant on Mars, enroute to Satellite City for the show at the Ganymede Battle reunion.
The flame rifle flared, fusing the hideous head of one monster, but the tentacles of another whipped out, snared the pilot with uncanny ease. The pilot screamed, once-a scream chopped short by choking bands of steel.