"Carey Rockwell - Tom Corbett Space Cadet 02 - Danger in Deep Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rockwell Carey)

DANGER IN DEEP SPACE
 CHAPTER 1

"Stand by to reduce thrust on main drive rockets!" The tall, broad-shouldered officer in
the uniform of the Solar Guard snapped out the order as he watched the telescanner screen
and saw the Western Hemisphere of Earth looming larger and larger.
"Aye, aye, Captain Strong," replied a handsome curly-haired Space Cadet. He turned
to the ship's intercom and spoke quickly into the microphone.
"Control deck to power deck. Check in!"
"Power deck, aye," a bull-throated voice bellowed over the loud-speaker.
"Stand by rockets, Astro! We're coming in for a landing."
"Standing by!"
The Solar Guard officer turned away from the telescanner and glanced quickly over the
illuminated banks of indicators on the control panel. "Is our orbit to Space Academy clear?"
he asked the cadet. "Have we been assigned a landing ramp?"
"I'll check topside, sir," answered the cadet, turning back to the intercom. "Control deck
to radar deck. Check in!"
"Radar bridge, aye," drawled a lazy voice over the speaker.
"Are we cleared for landing, Roger?"
"Everything clear as glass ahead, Tom," was the calm reply.
"We're steady on orbit and we touch down on ramp seven. Then"-the voice began to
quicken with excitement-"three weeks' liberty coming up!"
The rumbling voice of the power-deck cadet suddenly broke in over the intercom. "Lay
off that space gas, Manning. Just see that this space wagon gets on the ground in one
piece. Then you can dream about your leave!"
"Plug your jets, you big Venusian ape man," was the reply, "or I'll turn you inside out!"
"Yeah? You and what fleet of spaceships?"
"Just me, buster, with my bare hands!"
The Solar Guard officer on the control deck smiled at the young cadet beside him as the
good-natured argument crackled over the intercom speaker overhead. "Looks like those
two will never stop battling, Corbett," he commented dryly.
"Guess they'll never learn, sir," sighed the cadet.
"That's all right. It's when they stop battling that I'll start getting worried," answered the
officer. He turned back to the controls. "One hundred thousand feet from Earth's surface!
Begin landing procedure!"
As Cadet Tom Corbett snapped orders into the intercom and his unit-mates responded
by smooth coordinated action, the giant rocket cruiser Polaris slowly arched through Earth's
atmosphere, first nosing up to lose speed and then settling tailfirst toward its destination-the
spaceport at Space Academy, U.S.A.
Far below, on the grounds of the Academy, cadets wearing the green uniforms of
first-year Earthworms and the blue of the upperclassmen stopped all activity as they heard
the blasting of the braking rockets high in the heavens. They stared enviously into the sky,
watching the smooth steel-hulled spaceship drop toward the concrete ramp area of the
spaceport, three miles away.
In his office at the top of the gleaming Tower of Galileo, Commander Walters,
commandant of Space Academy, paused for a moment from his duties and turned from his
desk to watch the touchdown of the great spaceship. And on the grassy quadrangle,
Warrant Officer Mike McKenny, short and stubby in his scarlet uniform of the enlisted Solar
Guard, stopped his frustrating task of drilling newly arrived cadets to watch the mighty ship