I said grimly, "Well, it's six against one. They'll blast us out of space, but by the purple gods of Pluto, we'll take at least one of them with us. This thing is connected?" And I reached for the trigger. But once again Slops held my hand. "No, Joey! There's a fighting chance we can get _all_ of them. Wait till they cut the tractor beams and we're free of them. Then turn the cannon _upward_ toward the Belt--" "Upward?" I repeated dazedly. It didn't make sense. I glanced outside to make sure. Here was the situation. The planetoid Vesta lay about a mile or so below us. Larger than most of the meteoric and planetesimal fragments that comprise the Belt, its orbit was irregular. The smaller hunks of rock--and of course when you talk about "smaller" asteroids that means shards ranging anywhere from a yard to several miles in diameter, with weights ranging from a hundred pounds to twice that many thousands of tons--were whirling and swirling _above_ our ships in a tight, lethal little huddle. That, of course, was the _melee_ into which Ras Thuul planned to plunge us after he cut his tractor beams. * * * * * Surprisingly, it was O'Hara who seconded Andy Laney. "Do what he says, Joe. I don't know exactly what he has in mind, but it's his pigeon. He's steered us right this far; we might as well go whole-hog." "Thank you, Captain!" said Slops gratefully. And as he spoke the words, the _Leo_ rocked violently. With gathering speed we began to move away from our erstwhile captors, their tractor beams now released. Upward we surged toward the web-work of flailing missiles that spelled pure destruction. "Now, Joey!" almost screamed Slops. "Aim the cannon at the rubble. Hold it firm. Full strength!" And I did. I yanked the controls over to full power and aimed the heat gun straight into the heart of the rubble. The radiation was invisible, of course. Our enemies couldn't know we had an operative weapon. I held it for seconds which dragged like centuries. Nearer we were hurtling toward doom, nearer and nearer. I cried, "Nothing's happening, Skipper! We're going to crash in a minute. I might as well turn the gun on one of their ships--" "_Hold it!_" shrieked Captain Slops. "It's working as I hoped. Hold it steady, Joey!" And now, returning my gaze to the target, I saw what he meant. Something strange and weird was happening--not to us or to the enemy spacecraft, but to the Bog itself! Like a huge, churning kettle it was seething, rolling, boiling! And even as I cried aloud my astonishment, one of the tinier bits of matter plummeted _down_ from the overhanging canopy of death to rattle against the hull of Ras Thuul's flagship.