Destination: Saturn

VIII

At last, the invisible, probing fingers of radar “sighted” the hurtling shape of Ajax’s fugitive kingdom. Hastily, Ajax focused the vision screens and got a visual fix on the runaway planetoid-ship.

“My own Kingdom!” he cried dramatically, as the monster ship gleamed on the velvet backdrop of the void like a great steel ovoid. It was shaped very like an egg, a thick, blunt oval several miles in length along its longitudinal axis.

There were a few features to be observed, for the main airlock (huge enough to swallow a spaceship) was recessed into the unbroken, sweeping curve of its sheer hull and whatever mysterious mode of propulsion thrust it forward, it at least did not show any visible jets.

Then the radar alarm chimed again.

And there was Kreplach! Like a swarm of angry silver bees, the EMSA pursuit squadron sped after the giant planetoid-ship. They were running about neck-to-neck with the Destiny, although they still seemed unaware of her presence as yet. Who was going to get there first?

A glance at his velocitometer—and a careful reading of the squadron’s average speed through the dopplerscope—gave satisfactory proof that the Destiny was gaining, rapidly overtaking, and would very soon pass the EMSA ships.

He reported this happy news to Emily. She remained unenthusiastic.

“What’ll we do when they spot us?” she asked worriedly.

“I dunno. But they haven’t seen us yet!”

“They will, though, won’t they? They must have an automatic radar alarm like ours…”

He grinned confidently. “Don’t bet on it! A team of Calkans technicians dreamed my alarm system up, designed and installed it to my specifications. Oh, they may notice us, but I’d say we’ve got a good chance to pass ‘em by before Kreplach’s eagle-eyed lads even know we’re anywhere in the immediate neighborhood…”

On the second screen, five of the pursuit ships broke formation to curve swiftly in their direction. Ajax’s self-assured expression faded into a glum look. Wrong again!

“Well—maybe we can outrun ‘em!”

But that proved useless; the pursuit vessels were on a converging course and any extra speed from the Destiny would only hasten the inevitable…

Ajax set his jaw grimly and hunched over the controls.

“All right, I’ll outmaneuver the slobs!” he grated between clenched teeth. “Don’t tell me this baby can’t fly circles around those clumsy tin cans EMSA builds—I designed the Destiny myself!”

The sleek yacht abruptly changed direction, curving under and around the pursuit-segment in a complex figure-8 flightpath.

“Hang on, Emily!”

The radio buzzed angrily as Ajax whipped the Destiny around and up in an ascending spiral—obviously, Kreplach wanted to know who the blue blazes was trying to outrace him to Ajaxia—but Calkins was too busy to answer the call. As the pursuing ships broke formation to follow his spiral, he looped over and back, hurtling past them so close he virtually clipped the rivet-heads off a couple of the nearer ships, doubtless scaring the eyebrows off the pilots.

Ah, this was the life! In his mental eye, Ajax Calkins, that romantic dreamer, was now “Ace” Calkins of the Lafayette Escadrille, hurtling through the seething fury of a tense dogfight above the fields of France. All about him buzzed the ominous biplanes of Baron von Richthofen’s Flying Circus… if only I had a machine gun in this crate (Ajax thought, happily), I’d blow these Jerries out o’ the sky!

He kicked his tough little Spad around in a tight circle, motor snarling and almost going into a stall, and zipped down and under the hurtling belly of von Richthofen’s crimson triplane, when—blammo!

“What happened?” Ajax asked fuzzily, coming back to Earth (or the Destiny, rather—Earth was some hundred million miles behind them) with a thump.

“They shot off your engines,” Emily said bitterly.

He did a double-take, and checked the panel. Power was failing rapidly in the drive units, and the Destiny was careening out of control towards the monstrous bulge of Jupiter, which glowed beneath them like the angry bloodshot eye of some infuriated Cyclops.

“Oh, no!” he groand.

“Oh, yes!” she countered. “While you were doing those fancy loop-the-loops, one of Kreplach’s squadron cut loose with a laser unit and hit us somewhere in the aft-section.”

The crippled yacht fell helplessly towards Jupiter in a broad flat spiral. The pursuit ships circled for a moment or two—then sped off to rejoin the rest of the squadron and were swiftly lost to sight on the trail of Ajaxia.

Clutching the dead controls, Ajax remembered his philosophical observation about Destiny whopping you over the head with a meat-axe just about the time you decided all she had to clip you with was a baseball bat.

This latest calamity made him revise his maxim a bit… for Destiny had just smacked the Destiny with a laser-cannon.

“Are we completely flooey?” Emily asked.

“Well… almost, but not quite. That beam knocked out the main drive engine, but we still have the auxiliaries as well as the forward and lateral steering jets. Lot of good they’ll do us, though!”

“What do you mean?”

He cocked a thumb at Jupiter, now a great brown shield banded with orange, no longer a visible sphere.

“The big boy has too much ‘pull’… Destiny’s auxiliary jets don’t pack enough moxie to push back against this kind of gravity,” he explained moodily.

She looked at him, round-eyed.

“So what do we do? Throw in the sponge and radio Kreplach for help? Surely, he wouldn’t let us f-fall to our … d-death… ?”

“What? Surrender? Never!” He cast a hungry eye over the dials and meters with which the control panel was studded. “I’ll figure out something… just you wait.”

They continued to fall…