On the Trail of the Space Pirates_ A Tom Corbett Space Cadet Adventure - Carey Rockwell [194]
"Space Kid! Report to the jet-boat deck on the double!" Coxine's voice rumbled through the empty passageway. Tom dashed down the nearest ladder and hurried to the jet-boat deck where the pirate captain waited impatiently.
"I was checking the range and setting up to blast the liner in case they try anything funny," explained Tom. "I don't trust anyone on that range finder but me!"
Coxine chuckled. "Good work, Kid. I like a man that thinks ahead. Maybe I made the wrong man gunnery chief." He climbed into the jet boat. "All right, take the controls, Kid. Shelly and Martin, get in the stern." The men climbed in and Tom slid under the controls and waited for the order to blast off.
Wallace and his crew were on the opposite side of the ship, so Tom had no fear of being recognized until they were all on the passenger ship. At his side, Coxine spoke to Wallace in the other jet boat over the audioceiver.
"We'll split up. I'll handle the control deck and you go aft to the supply lockers. Dump everything out in space and we can pick it up later. Search the passengers, but no rough stuff. The first man that puts his hands on anyone will never know what hit him!"
Tom listened to the pirate captain's orders and was forced to give the man credit for his tight control over his murderous crew. However rebellious he might be against the Solar Guard, and whatever it was that made the man become the system's most notorious criminal, his orders spoke for themselves.
"All right, Kid," roared Coxine, "blast off!"
Tom pressed the control pedal at his foot and the small ship shot out into the black void of space. Ahead of them, thousands of yards away, he could see the gleaming passenger ship.
In a few moments the two jet boats were braking their jets and drifting to a stop inside the catapult deck of the luxurious liner.
Almost before Tom had stopped the small craft, Coxine was out of the boat waving his paralo-ray pistols at a cluster of frightened merchant spacemen.
"Back inside!" he snarled. "Kid! Shelly! Cover me! We're going to the control deck. Martin, you stay here with the jet boat."
Coxine marched straight through the ship, head up, eyes straight ahead, while behind him, Tom and Shelly swept the luxurious lounges with their ray rifles, ready to fire on any who dared resist. They marched past the frightened passengers, climbed a flight of carpeted stairs to the next deck, and entered the control room.
The liner's captain, a tall, thin man with graying hair, stood waiting beside the control panel, his eyes flashing angrily. A half-dozen junior officers stood stiffly in back of him.
Coxine stepped up to the elderly officer and laughed good-naturedly. "No one will be hurt, skipper. I just want a few things for my men"—he paused and glanced at the ship's vault—"and whatever you have in there!"
"I'll live to see the day when you're caught and sent to the prison asteroid for this," snorted the captain.
"Don't make me laugh, skipper," said Coxine lightly. "The Solar Guard will have to build a new one for me. Don't think there's much left of the old one!"
"Then it was you! You're responsible for the attack on the asteroid!"
Coxine just smiled and turned to Tom and Shelly. "Watch these crawlers closely, now. I'm going to open the vault."
Tom stared at the ship's officers, hoping to catch the eye of one of them, but they were all watching Coxine.
The pirate captain pulled a thin rod about two feet long, with a switch on one end, from his jacket. He walked to the solid titanium door of the vault and inserted the rod into a small hole, pressing the switch at the end of the rod carefully several times. He stepped back and inserted it in another hole in the face of the door and repeated the procedure. Putting the key back in his jacket he grabbed the