irate's mid-section until
they thought he would put his fist completely through the man's body.

Just as Coxine looked as if he would fall, he suddenly charged in again.
But his powerful strength restored, Astro stepped back and waited for an
opening. Coxine threw a whistling right for Astro's head. The Venusian
ducked, shifting his weight slightly, and drove his right squarely into
the pirate's face. His eyes suddenly glassy and vacant, Bull Coxine sank
to the deck, out cold.

Breathing heavily, the cadet turned, wiped his face, and smiled
crookedly at Tom and Roger.

"If I ever have to fight another man like that again," gasped Astro as
he loosened the ropes around his unit-mates, "I want to have both fists
dipped in lead before I begin!"

He held up his hands. There was not a bit of flesh remaining on his
knuckles.

As soon as Tom was free he grabbed the pirate's paralo-ray gun. "We'd
better tie this crawler up!" he shouted.

"We'll do that," said Roger. "You try to figure out how we're going to
get off this ship!"

Suddenly, behind them, the hatch burst open and Captain Strong rushed
into the room, followed by a dozen armed guardsmen.

"Captain Strong!" yelled the three cadets together.

The young captain's face lighted up with a smile. He rushed over to Tom
and grabbed him by the hand, then turned to where Roger and Astro were
tying up Coxine.

Strong pointed his gun at the fallen pirate. "What happened to him?"

Roger smiled and nodded toward Astro. "Coxine told Astro he reminded him
of an ox he saw at a zoo once on Venus. Astro got mad--" Roger shrugged
his shoulders. "Poor Coxine, he didn't have a chance!"

Astro blushed and looked up at Strong. "Never mind us, sir," said the
big cadet. "How did you get here!"

Strong told them of having picked up the beacon signal. "That was quick
thinking, boys," he said. "It was the end of Coxine. If we hadn't
stopped him now--" Strong shook his head.

"But how did you get aboard the _Avenger_, sir?" asked Tom.

"This was the only ship that wasn't a Solar Guard fleet vessel, so it
was easy to spot. We captured the _Polaris_ right off the bat, and after
we searched it, figured you three were either dead, or aboard this one.
I gave the order not to fire on you, since we wiped out Coxine's fleet
before he could do any real damage. When we saw you accelerating, after
that last near miss--which incidentally was intended to miss you--we
came alongside, forced the