Dhain Kadine, whose cunning and skill were legendary, had never hesitated in battle. He did not hesitate now! The black hull of his ship loomed in the view screen, and a slender, dazzling pencil of white darted forth--a heat ray stopped down to its most penetrating beam, concentrating the maximum fiery energy into a tiny area of searing destruction. Nord whipped their vulnerable plastic hull aside, and the beam flared harmlessly in the view screens, as it lashed past, spending its fury against cold space. Nord threw the drive control lever forward to the last notch. The Patrol ship surged ahead, matching the speed of Kadine's vessel--blocking the outlaw from the safety of the Asteroids below! "That guy doesn't fool around!" Mike Doren said hoarsely. His big hands were busy as the ray tube's cross hairs shifted in the rear view screen. "Neither do I!" he added savagely. "Sunspot!" Holber cried. "You hit him, Mike!" The thin heat ray danced into the dark hull--drew a spreading circle of dark, sullen red! Kadine's side jets flared. "Stay with him, Mike." Nord ordered calmly. "That steel hull will take a lot of heat before you do any damage!" Doren sent his beam lashing after Kadine's dancing ship, against which the circle of red faded, then glowed once more as the merciless heat found the spot again. Holber's grey eyes blazed, and his long fingers wove their swift movements into a smooth pattern on the drive levers--following, like a dance partner, the wild dartings of the outlaw ship. For a few arrested seconds, Kadine's ray tube was cold, as he turned all his frenzied attention to the drive. Vainly, he spun and twisted. Mike Doren grinning savagely, traced every desperate motion with the fiery pencil of his heat ray. "He can't get past--and he can't turn back! He's got to keep coming!" As though in silent agreement, Kadine whipped his ship out of its gyrations, and drove a straight course toward the stern of the Patrol fighter. In the split second it took Nord to react, the pirate drew closer. His black hull blocked out the stars behind, filled the rear screen! In the steel nose, the red spot flared brighter, rising toward the white heat that meant disaster-- And the view screen was suddenly an incandescent patch of unbearable brilliance that burned all vision from Nord Holber's brain--brought his eyelids down instinctively over throbbing eyes! He reeled in his seat, head spinning, stomach writhing, and realization more sickening than physical agony in his mind. Kadine had blinded them with a blast of his retarding jets! It was an old trick--a veteran space-fighter's trick that took the cool nerve of blasting your ship's nose forward into your enemy's ray, shielding your own eyes from his aft jets, until you were so close your nose almost covered his view screen, then--Risky, but it gained several precious seconds!