Read Captain Future 10 - Outlaws of the Moon (Spring 1942) for Free Online Page B

overhaul the Comet as Curt deliberately reduced speed.
    He gripped the space stick tightly.
    “Hold tight, all of you!” he gritted. “Here we go back over!”
    Curt yanked the space stick back into his lap. At the same time his foot jammed the cyclotron pedal to the floor. The Comet stood on its tail in space as the full power of its raving cyclotrons was diverted into its keel rocket tubes. It roared back over in a hairpin loop no other pilot would attempt at such speed.
    Curt Newton felt as though his brain were exploding from the pressure. His senses cleared enough to let him glimpse that they were rushing headlong back into the midst of the pursuing ships.
    “Look out for a collision!” Otho yelled.
    Patrol cruisers loomed up head-on in front of the Comet . Curt’s lightning maneuver had taken the pursuers utterly by surprise.
     
    HE SLAMMED the space stick sideward and the Comet swerved to a blast of its lateral tubes, avoiding collision. They screamed straight back through the swarm of Patrol cruisers. Guns of a few cruisers let go with a startled scattered tire, but the atom-shells went wide of their mark.
    “We’re through them!” shouted Otho. “Pour on that power, Chief!”
    Curt kept the “cyc”-pedal to the floor. The Comet thundered Earthward at the highest speed of its rocket drive. Captain Future glanced back. The squadron of Patrol cruisers was curving around to follow them. But the ships of the formation could not double back in a hairpin loop as Curt had done, lest they run into each other. They had to swing around in a broad curve, losing much time.
    “Hah, they’re finding out now they’re not chasing clumsy space pirates!” exulted Grag’s booming voice. “We’re slipping them!”
    The Comet was taking full advantage of the pursuers’ loss of time. Streaking through space as though on wings of flame, it pulled out of even telescopic sight of the turning Patrol cruisers.
    “Now we’ll zoom for Eros,” Captain Future declared, his gray eyes sparkling with excitement. “They’ll be sure we’re heading back across the System for Venus, and will comb space from here to that world.”
    They lost the swarms of Patrol cruisers that had been about to trap them. But Curt well knew that the squadrons would quickly reshape their plan, that all the System between here and Venus would be crackling with code to draw the net around them again.
    He kept the Comet streaking at highest speed toward the yellow speck of Eros. The little asteroid, whose extraordinarily eccentric orbit brought it nearer Earth at times than any other body except the Moon, was at present a third of the way between Earth and Mars.
    The asteroid presented an outlandish appearance as the ship of the Futuremen drew near it. It was almost the only world in the System that was not spherical in shape. The little planet had the oblong shape of a brick, and turned over and over in space as it followed its path.
    “Look at it — it even looks wacky!” said Otho, staring in intense dislike. “Chief, can’t we find some other hideout than that crazy little flying brick?”
    The Brain spoke up satisfiedly.
    “I’m glad we’re landing here. It’ll give me another chance to study the peculiar Erosian gravitational field which causes that curious time-phenomenon.”
    Otho gave up.
    “All right, take me there — what do I care? What have I got to live for, anyway? I might as well go crazy on Eros as die out in space.”
    Captain Future paid no attention to the android’s grumbling. He was keenly surveying the little yellow, bricklike world as he approached.
    Small as it was, Eros had a tiny satellite. It was a silvery object that circled the asteroid in a regular orbit. Curt only glanced at the object, which was now on the opposite side. Eros grew into a large, yellowish bulk as the Comet dropped in toward it. Thin air whistled outside, for one of the marvels of this tiny world was the fact that it was able to hold an