As he fed power to the repelatrons, the ship took off like a comet, beaming its thrust against the earth. Even at the space station, they had been hurtling along at a high orbital velocity. Tom directed the repelation force in such a way that the ship left the orbit and started on a long, graceful curve, accelerated toward the moon.
Suddenly the intercom crackled. “We’ve picked up that rocket, skipper,” a crewman reported.
“Where?”
The operator read off the relative angle from his instruments. Both Tom and Bud peered through their view panes.
“There she is!” Bud cried out.
The rival rocket was little more than a glittering speck in the distance. Tom veered course and increased power to bring it within closer range. Soon they were racing neck and neck.
“Brand my space boots, what kind o’ contraption d’ya call that?” Chow muttered.
The silvery missile was round and bulging at the forward end, with polished reflectors opening out like petals on all sides. The ship tapered aft, then flared out again in a funnel-shaped
MOON HO! 145
stern, which emitted a faint, luminous exhaust, trail.
“Ion rocket probably,” Tom replied, “powered by solar turbine or batteries.”
“Brungarian?” Bud asked.
Tom nodded grimly. “Must be.” As he spoke, he opened the throttle levers wider, gunning the repelatrons still more.
The race to the moon was on as the two ships roared through the void at unthinkable speed!
“Take over, Bud,” Tom ordered a short time later. Leaving the controls, he relieved the radioman at his post and beamed out a code message: TOM SWIFT TO SPACE FRIENDS. WE HAVE TAKEN OFF FOR THE
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129