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"Make time!" he snarled. "I want the straight story about that so-called test flight!"

Barret glared at Strong. "I suggest that you let go of my arm, Captain," he threatened, "or I will be forced to bring charges of assault against you!"

Realizing an open fight would be useless, Strong released his grip on the man's arm and turned away quickly. Barret's mocking laugh echoed in his ears as he stepped on the slidewalk and glided away toward the Academy. Behind him, the big hangar buzzed with the sound of men working in high gear again. The mighty ship and its specially designed equipment seemed at last to be ready for testing. But Strong felt none of the excitement. It mattered little to the Solar Guard captain whether the project was a success or failure. His thoughts were of the three cadets in his unit, who were, first and foremost, his responsibility.

With double guards around the hangar area and even tighter security restrictions than before, the unknown saboteur was unable to attack the precious ship again. But he struck elsewhere. The single track monorail that Barret had run into the area was blocked by an explosion in the mouth of the tunnel. Nearly a thousand tons of rock and earth had fallen on the hangar side, blocking delivery of vital equipment.

With powerful earth-moving machinery, the tunnel was cleared of the heavy rocks and dirt, and all that remained was a general cleaning up, and the enlisted man's work gangs had been assigned to that job.

Nearly a hundred tough, battle-scarred spacemen from the enlisted ranks of the Solar Guard worked in the area, stripped to the waist, their bodies burned brown from the sun. Sent to the work gang for petty offenses, rather than for criminal acts, the enlisted men as a whole did not mind the work. They were under guard, watched by a squad of Space Marines armed with paralo-ray guns, but there was no attempt to make the men feel as if they were criminals. Most of the sentences were short, usually running from five to thirty days, with some extreme cases serving as long as three months. But no one had ever remembered a Space Cadet working on the squad, and particularly for six months! It was an extraordinary situation and the guards, as well as the men on the work details, sympathized with Roger and Astro. They realized that nothing really serious had been done, or the boys would have been sent to the prison asteroid, where all true criminals were sent. So a true spirit of comradeship developed between the cadets and the enlisted men.

When Captain Strong arrived to speak to Roger and Astro, he found them in the tunnel, working as a team of a shoveler and a sweeper. Roger would sweep up a little pile of dirt and Astro would shovel it into a handcart nearby.

"All right, you Venusian pug!" bawled Roger. "Police the joint!"

Astro scooped up the little pile of dirt neatly and deposited it in the truck.

"Manning, what made the spaceship cross to Pluto?" he asked.

"To get to the other side of the universe," said Roger.

"All right," interrupted Strong. "If you two will cut out the comedy, I'd like to talk to you."

"Captain Strong!" yelled Roger. "Hey, fellas! Look!" He turned to the other men on the work gang. "We're special characters! See? We have visitors during working hours!"

Strong laughed with the others, and then motioning for Roger and Astro to follow him, walked to an isolated corner of the tunnel.

"How is it going?" he asked.

"Fine, sir," said Roger. "We have no complaints."

"Yeah," chimed in Astro with a grin. "The food is better here than at the Academy!"

"Give this Venusian bum a good kitchen and he'd go to the Rock!" Roger laughed.

Strong noted their lean, brown bodies and decided that a little work in the sun with a pick and shovel had done them good. But six months of it would interfere with their work at the Academy and could hold them back.

He told them of the work he had been doing to have their case renewed by the Solar Guard