When they landed, Lana and the old pirate and the Planeteers were first outside the Venture. A crowd of hundreds of pirates and their women was approaching hastily from the town.
Thorn recognized Brun Abo, the scarred-faced Jovian pirate captain, and Kinnel King, the handsome Earthman. They, and all the mass of hundreds of Companions, uttered shouts of joy as they recognized Lana.
"You're back, Lana! We thought you dead for sure!” shouted Brun Abo joyfully. Then the Jovian's face stiffened and his hand darted to his pistol as he recognized Thorn and Sual Av and Gunner. “The Planeteers!"
"The Planeteers and Stilicho were the ones who rescued me!” Lana's silver voice rang out.
She faced the joyfully shouting mob of pirates gathered in the pale sunshine on the field. Her white face was determined, as she spoke to them in quick, ringing words.
"Companions, you know of the attack the League is making upon the Alliance,” she began.
"Aye!” roared a pirate in the throng. “We've heard on the audio. The latest word is that the League fleet has pushed the Alliance navies inside Mercury's orbit, and are trying to trap them and bring them to battle!"
"We can save the Alliance from defeat, Companions!” Lana cried, her blue eyes flashing. “On Earth's moon is a great weapon that can defeat the League, if it could be used. But Haskell Trask and a strong force hold the moon. That weapon can't be used unless we pirates storm the moon, and recapture it!"
There was a dead silence. The pirates looked at each other. Then a tall Martian broke the silence.
"Why should we do that, Lana?” he demanded. “Whether the League or the Alliance wins means nothing to us. Now, while this war is going on, is our chance to raid all commerce."
"Does it mean nothing to you that the world of your birth is about to be conquered and enslaved by a tyrant?” Lana asked passionately. “You, Kinnel — you are an Earthman, will you let Earth be ground under Trask's heel? Both of you were born on the inner worlds. You may be outlaws and pirates now, but surely you have some patriotism left?
"And you, Brun Abo,” she continued scorchingly to the Jovian, “you fled from Jupiter and became an outlaw to escape Trask's tyranny. So did nearly all you other outer-planet men. Now is your chance to strike back at the dictator who enslaved the outer worlds, and now is trying to enslave the inner ones also!"
"That's all very well, Lana,” grumbled Brun Abo. “But I still don't see why we should fight for the Alliance."
"Aye,” called a Venusian pirate. “Let's do any fighting we do for ourselves."
"You will be fighting for yourselves!” Lana flared. “You'll be fighting to establish in the Zone the new, independent world I've dreamed so long of establishing here."
Lana went on to tell them of her cherished dream of making an independent world of the Zone, that might be a refuge to all the oppressed of the system, in the future.
"That's what you'll be fighting for!” she finished fierily. “For if Haskell Trask wins and dominates the whole system, that dream can never be realized. But if the Alliance wins, they'll help us establish our world here, from gratitude!"
The Companions’ eyes were shining now as they listened. Lana's plan, revealed to them for the first time, had fired them with excited enthusiasm.
"We follow you then, Lana!” they yelled.
"Ah, now you're talking like true Companions,” cackled old Stilicho Keene.
"All ships prepare to blast off with full crews!” Lana's voice rang. “We'll need every man. Trask must have a heavy force of cruisers and men on the moon."
"Ho, we'll show the cursed tyrant how the Companions of Space fight!” boomed Brun Abo.
Kinnel King's eyes were burning.
"It will be good to strike a blow for old Earth,” he muttered, as he hurried off.
The jungle-surrounded field became a scene of intense, shouting activity as the hundred ships of the Companions were hastily prepared. Lana had ordered a new audio hastily installed in the Venture to replace its damaged one. She and the Planeteers listened to the storm of messages vibrating through the system, carrying word of the League's continued pursuit of the Alliance fleet,
"There's so little time!” Thorn murmured hoarsely. “And, even if we can recapture the moon, if Blaine's invention fails—"
Stilicho burst into the control-room. “All ships ready to start, lass!” he cried.
"Take over, Stilicho,” she ordered, and then spoke ringingly into the audio.
"Our course is straight sunward out of the Zone, then directly toward Earth's moon at top speed. Blast off!"
With a roar of tubes, the Venture leaped up from the field. And as it cometed up through the atmosphere of Turkoon, the five-score pirate cruisers were rising like a flock of falcons behind it, following its lead.
"Keep down our speed to the top speed of the others!” Lana told the old pirate.
Out through the Zone, a hundred strong, throbbed the grim formation of pirate ships, streaming in short columns after the Venture, that led the way through the swarms and whirling planetoids. Quickly they emerged from the Zone, and headed toward the bright, shining planet and smaller satellite that were Earth and its moon.
Thorn stared feverishly toward their goal, as the pirate fleet picked up speed in empty space. Somewhere there in the barren moon was Trask, and somewhere there, too, was the mysterious mechanism that might, or might not, decide the destiny of worlds.
Gunner Welk and Sual Av peered forth with him. The Planeteers, all three, sensed that they were approaching a showdown in their long struggle against the League dictator.
Lana watched from beside old Stilicho, the space dog, Ool, pressing anxiously against her side.
"Trask is sure to have a heavy force there with him on the moon,” she murmured. “If we don't manage to break through—"
"We will!” Thorn exclaimed. “You've set these pirates of yours on fire with that plan to establish the Zone as a new world. They feel now that they're fighting for their world, too."
Rocket-tubes spouting white fire from straining power-chambers, the pirate force swept on for hour after hour. At last they had crossed Mars’ orbit and were thundering on at hazardous speed toward Earth and its satellite.
Earth largened ahead. Upon the great, gray, cloudy sphere, Thorn could glimpse the outlines of the familiar continents, the white sheen of the polar snows. And the moon was expanding, too — lifeless, gleaming white sphere, all its earthward face in full sunlight.
"Cut to landing-speed!” Lana cried into the audio, and the velocity of the pirate ships began to lessen.
Sual Av, from the ‘scope eyepiece, shouted to John Thorn, who was now holding the controls of the Venture.
"League cruisers are pouring up out of Copernicus crater — at least a hundred and fifty of them!"
"Then Copernicus must be where Philip Blaine's laboratories are, where Trask is now!” Gunner yelled.
"We'll hit those cruisers before they can form up for battle!” Thorn cried. “On suits, everybody! Give the order, Lana!"
As the pirate girl shouted the order into the audio, the pirate ships grouped swiftly together into a phalanx of which the Venture was the apex. And as they drove straight down toward the lunar surface, the crews struggled hastily into their suits.
Thorn, at the controls, saw the sunlit surface of the moon rushing up toward them, an airless, white desert plain, with Copernicus crater almost directly underneath, the vast white blankness of the Mare Imbrium northward, and the towering Appenines northwestward.