and
when it reached the blast-off mark called to Roger for clearance.

"All clear, forward and up!" declared Roger.

"Feed reactant at D-9 rate!" ordered Tom. And far below on the power
deck, Astro began to feed the reactant energy into the firing chambers.

Hardy looked at Strong and nodded in appreciation of the cadets' smooth
efficient work. They strapped themselves into acceleration cushions and
watched the red second hand of the astral chronometer sweep around, and
then heard Tom counting off the seconds.

"Blast off--" bawled Tom, "minus five--four--three--two--one--_zeroooo!_"

The giant ship lurched off the blast-off platform a few feet, the
exhaust of the powerful rockets deflected against the concrete surface.
Then, poised delicately on the roaring rockets, the mighty ship picked
up speed and began to accelerate through the atmosphere.

Pushed deep in his acceleration chair in front of the control board,
unable to move because of the tremendous pressure against his body, Tom
Corbett thought about his new adventure. And as the ship hurtled into
the black velvet depths of space, he wondered what the future held for
him as he and his unit mates began a new adventure among the stars.

CHAPTER 3

"Control deck to power deck, check in!" Tom's voice crackled over the
power-deck loud-speaker and Astro snapped to quick attention.

"Power deck, aye!" replied the giant Venusian into the intercom
microphone. "What's up?"

"Stand by for course change," said Tom. "Roger's picked up a meteor on
the radar scanner and--"

"Here's the course change," Roger's voice broke in over the intercom.
"Three degrees up on the plane of the ecliptic and five degrees
starboard!"

"Get that, Astro?" snapped Tom. "Stand by for one-quarter burst on
steering rockets!"

"One-quarter--right!" acknowledged the power-deck cadet and turned to
the massive panel that controlled the rockets.

On the control deck Tom Corbett continued talking to Roger. "Relay the
pickup to the control-deck scanner, Roger," he ordered. "Let me take a
look at that thing."

In a moment the thin sweeping white line on the control-deck scanner
swept around the green surface of the screen, picking out the blip that
marked the meteor. Tom watched it for a moment and then barked into the
intercom, "Stand by to execute change course!"

He watched the meteor a few more seconds, making sure the course change
would take them out of its path, and then ga