CHAPTER VI
The Trap
FORTY pirate ships throbbed steadily through the wilderness of the Zone. Their course through the jungle of swarms and debris was sunwise. The six basic directions in space navigation are sunwise and counter-sunwise—that is, in the same direction as the rotation of the sun or in an opposite direction; sunward and outward—that is, toward or away from the sun; and up or down, from the equatorial plane of the Solanr System as plotted by the fixed stars.
The pirate fleet moved in a close formation of short columns. In the lead was Lann Cain's silvery cruiser, the Lightning. The ship that had been given the Planeteers to command, the Cauphul, was close behind him. On one side of them sailed old Stilicha Keene's cruiser, and on the other the ship of Jen Cheerly, which was marked on the bows with an ominous, painted black skull.
Joan Thorn stared through the glassite window of the control-room, as they throbbed on. In the pilot's chair beside her sat Sua Av.
'I don't like this raid,' the Venusian was saying, her ugly face troubled. 'An attack on peaceful freighters is out of our line, Joan.'
'Nobody on those freighters will be killed,' Thorn reassured her. 'You heard Lann's orders. And we've got to help rob those ships, to keep up the part we're playing here. We've got to do anything until we get that secret out of the boy. And they are not Alliance craft.'
'I still can't see how we can get it from him,' muttered Sua Av, her green eyes thoughtful. 'We can't use force, when he's surrounded by hundreds of his women all the time. He doesn't look the kind who can be tricked. And from what’ you said, he'll never tell it to you of his own free will.'
'We'll find a way,' Thorn declared tightly. 'But I wish I knew who planted that Ear on me, and what her game is.'
Thorn watched the wilderness of meteor swarms, cross-orbiting planetoids, and occasional stray comets past which they sailed. There was no need for navigating by the wave-code, with Lann's cruiser leading the way.
Finally the silvery torpedo-shape of the Lightning slowed down and stopped. At once all the other pirate ships responded with a blast of fire from their bow tubes, braking themselves.
Thorn looked out. They were lying low in the Zone, close by a meteor swarm whose myriad masses of stone showed very near their ships in the aura-chart. They had reached the point under which the Jovian freighters would soon pass, when they detoured downward under the Zone as all ordinary shipping did.
Thorn spoke into the interphone connecting the ship's divisions.
'Gunda, are you cleared for action down there?'
Gunda Welk's rumbling voice came through the instrument from the gun-decks where the mighty Mercurian had taken command.
'All ready! Every woman's at her post.'
'On space-suits, everybody,' Thorn ordered sharply. 'Then stand by.'
It was customary before an action in space for all the crew of a ship to don their suits, so that in case their hull was torn open they could continue to work and fight the ship until there was time to make repairs.
Thorn and Sua Av put on their own suits and helmets. Then they waited in silence, their ship floating beside the others. Lann Cain had strictly forbidden use of the audio between ships until the attack opened, lest the freighters be given the alarm.
Thorn peered through the eyepiece of the telescope built into the wall between the broad windows. She could see no sign of the freighters sunward, and her eyes tired.
A little later, Sua Av gripped her arm and pointed ahead at Lann's ship.
'The signal, Joan! They're coming!'
Lann's silvery cruiser had emitted three short flashes of fire from its bow and stern tubes, the agreed signal.
Thorn peered again through the scope. Now she saw the coming freighters, far down and sunward. They were coming straight on, and would pass the Zone directly underneath the pirates.
There were thirty big freighters, and lagging after them came forty tankers of the type used for transporting liquefied gases, broad-beamed and very dumpy ships, Thorn's keen eyes searched space for sign of a naval convoy, but found none.
'Those are the dumpiest tankers I've ever seen,' she muttered. 'It's a wonder that freighters running without convoy would take such old tubs along to hold their speed down.'
Sua Av shrugged. 'The League worlds are pressing every old ship they've got into service, in their preparation for war. Anyway,' she grinned, 'these pirates aren't going to bother the tankers.'
The merchantmen came steadily on, and now the freighters that led were directly underneath the part of the Zone in which the pirate fleet hovered. Thorn knew the aura-charts of the freighters would show the pirate ships only as part of the great meteor swarm they were lying near. That was why Lann had chosen the position.
Thorn's nerves tensed as the Jovian freighters came directly underneath, a little flock of gleaming specks swimming on through black space toward distant Saturn, the slow tankers still lagging behind. Sua Av was leaning tensely over her bank of keys, and there was no sound in the ship except the throb of its power chambers.
Abruptly from the audio-speaker flared Lann Cain's silver voice.
'Attack! Dive on them!'
Forty pirate ships streamed blasting white fire from their stern tubes, forty grim torpedo-like shapes roared down through the spatial vault toward the thirty hapless freighters.
As they swooped, the forty corsair craft split into five divisions of eight ships each. The eight led by the flashing cruiser of the Three Planeteers headed toward the sunwise end of the freighters. Jen Cheerly and her division headed for the counter-sunwise end. Kinne Queen for the sunward and Brun Abo for the outward sides. Lann Cain himself, with Stilicha Keene's ship and six others, cometed down below the merchantmen.
Joan Thorn saw that the swift maneuver had succeeded. The freighters were 'boxed'—hemmed in on every side except the upward one, which was closed by the dreaded Zone. The pirates had not included the worthless, lagging tankers in their trap, and those dumpy ships were still coming bewilderedly on.
The freighters, as the corsairs swooped down around them, milled confusedly with blasts from their bow-tubes braking them, seeking to find a way out of the trap. The few atom-guns with which they were armed spat shells frantically, that exploded in blinding flares of atomic energy.
'Ahoy, freighters'’ rang Lann's silvery voice from the audio. 'Cease firing or we'll gun you out of space! Surrender and nobody will be harmed!'
'How do we know you'll keep your promise?' came the hoarse, fear-laden voice of the freight squadron commander.
'This is Lann Cain speaking!' answered the boy's voice instantly. 'I keep my promises.'
A moment's silence. The scattered fire from the trapped freighters suddenly stopped.
The freight commander's answer came. 'You've the reputation of not killing. We'll surrender.'
Sua Av, her green eyes gleaming with excitement through her helmet, glanced swiftly at Joan Thorn.
'The boy's policy of mercy does pay dividends, Joan,' she muttered.
'Stand by to board the freighters!' crackled Lann's voice to his pirate followers. 'Two ships in each division stand off to keep watch. Hurry, women!'
Like sharks eager for prey, thirty of the forty pirate cruisers one to each victim, dashed in at the helpless freighters. The lead-ship of each division, with one other, stood by ready to turn its guns on any freighter that might resist the boarding.
Thorn's cruiser, the Cauphul, was one of those that stood off to keep watch. She saw the pirate ships already hooking onto the freighters by means of the magnetic grapples they shot forth. The grapple-lines were winched in swiftly, the pirate and merchant ships were drawn close together, and the flexible metal catwalks run swiftly out between them by the corsairs. Then the space-suited pirate horde was pouring across the short, swaying catwalks, hammering at the doors of the freighters until they opened.
Back across the precarious catwalks staggered the helmeted pirates, laden with bales and cases, sacks
of valuable minerals, bars of rare metals, crates of silks and wines and foods.
'Why can't we be in on this?' demanded Sua Av, twitching with excitement. 'There's no fun to lying off here watching the others.'
'It's Lann's orders,' reminded Joan Thorn. 'And we Planeteers agreed to take his orders when we were in space.'
Thorn looked sunward, and frowned. 'Why the devil haven't those tankers run for it? The fools are blundering right on.'
The forty tubby tankers that had been laboriously trailing the freighters in space were coming stupidly on the scene of the hold-up, as though unable to realize what was happening. They were now quite close.
Thorn's brain suddenly sounded an alarm, as she stared at the oncoming tankers. Her eyes, trained by long naval experience, saw something queer about the lines of those dumpy ships, something—
She leaped to the audio. 'Lann, those tankers are disguised naval cruisers!' she yelled. 'They're—'
Her warning was too late. At the very moment Thorn shouted, the forty 'tankers'were unmasking.
Their bulging sides suddenly fell away. Those sides had been only a skin of thin metal plates. Their disappearance exposed the ships, not as tankers, but as sleek, grim-lined naval cruisers with batteries of heavy atomguns all along their sides, and with the four interlaced circles of the League of Cold Worlds on their bows.
Instantly the unmasked League cruisers shot forward. Their rocket-tubes burst fire, and from their batteries hailed a storm of deadly shells that burst in blinding lightning-flares among the startled pirate ships.
The Three Planeteers For All Page 9