All this took place in seconds. The pilot said, "I see something!" and instantly there was swift, tense teamwork in action. A call by radio, asking for help. The plane headed up for greater clearance between it and the clouds. The jatos made ready for firing. They were the jet-assisted take-off rockets which on a short or rough field would double the motors' thrust for a matter of seconds. In straightaway flight they should make the plane leap ahead like a scared rabbit. But they wouldn't last long. "I don't like this," said the co-pilot in a flat voice. "I don't see what he could do----" Then he stopped. Something zoomed out of a cloud. The action was completely improbable. The thing that appeared looked absolutely commonplace. It was a silver-winged private plane, the sort that cruises at one hundred and seventy-five knots and can hit nearly two-fifty if pushed. It was expensive, but not large. It came straight up out of the cloud layer and went lazily over on its back and dived down into the cloud layer again. It looked like somebody stunting for his own private lunatic pleasure--the kind of crazy thing some people do, and for which there is no possible explanation. But there was an explanation for this. At the very top of the loop, threads of white smoke appeared. They should have been unnoticeable against the cloud. But for the fraction of an instant they were silhouetted against the silver wings. And they were not misty wisps of vapor. They were dense, sharply defined rocket trails. They shot upward, spreading out. They unreeled with incredible, ever-increasing velocity. The pilot hit something with the heel of his hand. There was a heart-stopping delay. Then the transport leaped forward with a force to stop one's breath. The jatos were firing furiously, and the ship jumped. There was a bellowing that drowned out the sound of the engines. Joe was slammed back on the rear wall of the cabin. He struggled against the force that pushed him tailward. He heard the pilot saying calmly: "That plane shot rockets at us. If they're guided we're sunk." Then the threads of smoke became the thickness of cables, of columns! They should have ringed the transport plane in. But the jatos had jumped it crazily forward and were still thrusting fiercely to make it go faster than any prop-plane could. The acceleration made the muscles at the front of Joe's throat ache as he held his head upright against it. "They'll be proximity----" Then the plane bucked. Very probably, at that moment, it was stretched far past the limit of strain for which even its factor of safety was designed. One rocket had let go. The others went with it. The rockets had had proximity fuses. If they had ringed the transport ship and gone off with it enclosed, it would now be a tumbling mass of wreckage. But the jatos had thrown the plane out ahead of the target area. Suddenly they cut off, and it seemed as if the ship had braked. But the pilot dived steeply, for speed.