Space Patrol

“ Robbin Cutlass was angry. He wouldn't let this one go by. Not even with a million credits on his head. But damn it, one ship and one crew couldn't fight the whole Tri-Planet Entente Space Patrol alone. But that was how it had to be.
"Track her down!" He switched over to all-stations. "All hands read this. Gunners to stations, oblique ecliptic eight, Earth reading three starboard, two torpedoes across her bow and stand alert to blow her! Boarders don your suits, man lock stations and stand by. ”

“ The pilot glanced at them sourly. "I thought you were through with the service," he shot at Heydrick.
"I am—it's my last job. I can't live on any of the inner planets after being exposed to the zero-rays of outer space. It takes six months for a resignation to go through in the Space Patrol. My time is up in two weeks and four days. After that, I'll have to stick to the places outside the asteroid belt or resign myself to a very brief life—18 months, at the outside." ”

“ We know why and how those people disappeared. It would take the Space Patrol ship at least a month to arrive here; I don't intend to perch on the back of this devil as long as that. And if we leave, old thing, it'll just lure other chivalrous fools to very unpleasant ends. ”

“ Metallic voices broke the frightened silence in which the huddled passengers watched the unequal combat. Over the intercom pilots spoke sharply: "Stand by. Patrol ship within sight, coming up fast. Hold your positions."
Even as they cried out in relief, the attacking ships suddenly arced upward and swung away toward Venus, their fiery wakes a long trail of incandescent crystal in the inky void. Their parting shots missed the liner as she swerved on a new course to avoid just such vengeful rage, and a moment later they were lost among the sparkling stars. ”

“ The youth of the race wanted a real spaceman, full fledged and heroic, and so they got it.
Meet Dusty Britton of The Space Patrol....
The sleek spacecraft landed and the clouds of hot dust rose almost to the spacelock, driven up by the fierce reaction blast. A hundred yards from the Patrol cruiser lay the broken spacecraft of Roger Fulton, arch-fiend, cornered at last.
The spacelock opened and Dusty Britton looked out through a wisp of the deadly radioactive dust. He was clad in the uniform of The Space Patrol: black breeches and dark blue whipcord shirt piped in gold. ”

“ Completely so—the ship of the Galactic Patrol was hurling herself through space at a pace in comparison with which any speed that the mind can grasp would be the merest crawl: a pace to make light itself seem stationary. ”

“ In the name of the Galactic Patrol, I command you to surrender yourself and your accomplices to Captain Glover at once!"
"I am chief of state of a sovereign nation and I will not be spoken to like that," the voder said. "If necessary, we will cast loose the tender and enter space to find our own planet. We are holding the tender crew at their stations, even as I speak."
"I forbid it absolutely!" the ensign barked. "If you inspace at random, you will likely be far beyond the sphere of permitted exploration. You may betray humanity to an unknown enemy. ”

“ To support the ever-growing need for trained spacemen to man the rocket ships that linked the planets and distant satellite outposts, the Solar Alliance, the government of the solar system, had erected Space Academy. It was there that the most promising boys were trained to become members of the Solar Guard to patrol the space lanes and keep peace in the universe. ”

“ We must also examine the hexan space-ship which is towing, to do which it will be desirable to drift at constant velocity for a time. In it we may find instruments or devices as yet unknown to us. It also occurs to me that since this is an Interplanetary Police problem of the first magnitude, we should at once get in touch with Police Headquarters, so that the Peace Fleet can be armed as we ourselves are, or shall be, armed; for a large and highly efficient fleet will be necessary to do that which must be done. ”

“ In conclusion, you are now able to understand fully what kind of mentalities compose our patrol. You know that any creature wearing the Lens is in every sense a Lensman, whether he be human or, hailing from some strange and distant planet, a monstrosity of a shape you have as yet not even imagined. Whatever his form, you may rest assured that he has been tested even as you have been; that he is as worthy of trust as are you yourselves. My last word is this—men of the Galactic Patrol die, but they do not fold up; individuals come and go, but the patrol goes on! ”

“ Certain men in both the Navy and the Air Force are looking forward, rightly enough, to space travel. These men also seem to take it for granted that their own branch of service, viz. the Navy or the Air Force, will be the one to take over the military duties of patrolling the spaceways, or whatever might be required. ”

“ It would seem to me, if it were a question of handing this future job over to the Navy or Air Force, the latter would be the most logical choice. The Navy traditionally steers its course on a two-dimensional plane, while the Air Force by its very nature must constantly operate in a three-dimensional plane. Of course, it is not necessary that any future space travel, if any, be assigned to any existing service. It would be more logical and a lot simpler to create a special, independent rocket force. ”

“ You want to become an active spaceman? Very well, your next tour of duty will be at the Space Force Station on the planet Eden, Tau Ceti. It will terminate when you have finally succeeded in locating the flaw in Hansen's Folly and can show the error to the satisfaction of Commander Briggs. ”

“ Finding it correct, as he had known it would be, he leaned back in his chair against the centrifugal push of the ship as it banked slightly and headed in for Mars. Then a buzzer made frantic bees' noise, and he released the automatic pilot, taking the controls himself. The buzzer had been a warning that atmosphere was close, and it takes a human hand to handle a rocket in an atmosphere.
It was possible, of course, that this trip of his was purely a waste of energy, but it wasn't his job to guess; he was the type who made sure first—if he had not been, the Patrol would never have accepted him. ”

“ Winter said, grinning foolishly. "We'll be going through the first-line defense belt in a few minutes. If they don't shoot us down—"
"We better radio back." The Pilot clicked the radio to send. "I'll contact the main bases, one of the observation stations."
"Better get the defense belt, at the speed we're going. We'll be into it in a minute."
"And after that," Kramer said, "we'll be in outer space. He's moving us toward outspace velocity. Is this ship equipped with baths?"
"Baths?" Gross said.
"The sleep tanks. For space-drive. We may need them if we go much faster." ”

“ Connel reached for the switches and levers that would bring the giant ship to rest on the red planet of Mars. Even after his many years in the Solar Guard and thousands of space flights, landing a rocket ship was still a thrill to the veteran spaceman, and knowing that he had a good man on the radar deck made it even more exciting and demanding of his skill. ”

“ Dale looked up at the rows of upturned, unsmiling faces and stepped from the dais, coming to a halt near the first desk.
"I know that all of you here have your hearts set on becoming spacemen, officers in the Solar Guard. Most of you want to be space pilots. But there must be astrogators, radar engineers, communication officers and power-deck operators on each ship, and," she paused, braced her shoulders and added, "some of you will not be accepted for any of these. Some of you will wash out." ”

“ When you're assigned to guard duty with the E.M.'s of the Solar Guard, you leave your immunity as cadets here in the Academy. From now on, you belong to me. And I'll tell you right now, there isn't anything in space that I hate more, or think less of, than Space Cadets. You get special privileges you don't deserve because you wear that uniform. You get a chance to learn to be a spaceman and most of you muff it. ”

“ However, crewmen couldn't be drugged. They had to be awake to tend the ship. The credo of the Space Service was that you couldn't trust a machine to itself any more than you could trust an extraterrestrial, a non-human. If a man wasn't in charge, ultimately everything would go to pot. That was part of the space tradition, like the primitive axes that hung on the bulkheads, so a man could smash his way to the modern fire-fighting equipment. ”

“ Since the oxygen-producing machinery will be too heavy and bulky to carry aboard the space-ship the job will have to be done at air-refueling stations and these advanced bases will be the key of space-campaigns. Naturally, they will be powerfully fortified against attack from the enemy's space-fleet. Equally naturally they will be logical points of attack in the hope of limiting the enemy's operations by cutting his bases from under him. ”

“ The Ped-A-Ride had nearly reached the gate of the spaceport when Garry said to his friend, “Patch, we’d better move down among those people ahead of us. It looks like they’re going to get off at the port.”
“Why?”
“If one of the port police spots us, he might get suspicious seeing a couple of kids alone at this time of night. If we mingle with the crowd, the police may think we are with them.”
They got up and began walking forward along the moving platform. Then they took seats behind a man who wore the uniform of the Space Service. ”

“ We’ve lost control.”
“Lost control?”
“This is an experimental ship.”
Gross took the radio. “This is Commander Gross, Security. We’re being carried into outer space. There’s nothing we can do. Is there any way that we can be removed from this ship?”
A hesitation. “We have some fast pursuit ships that could pick you up if you wanted to jump. The chances are good they’d find you. Do you have space flares?”
“We do,” the Pilot said. “Let’s try it.”
“Abandon ship?” Kramer said. “If we leave now we’ll never see it again.”
“What else can we do? We’re gaining speed all the time. ”

“ 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 come to Earth. ”

“ Under the bright pictures of spacemen were the captions:
"A Space Officer Is Honest" "A Space Officer Is Loyal." "A Space Officer Is Dutiful."
Honesty, loyalty, duty. Trite words, but without those concepts, mankind would never have broken away from the planet that held it prisoner for half a million years.
Without them, Everson, after three failures and a hundred men dead, would never have landed on the Moon twenty-seven years ago.
Ben sighed. He had a debt to pay. A good officer would pay that debt. He'd surrender and take his punishment. He'd rip the crimson braid from his uniform. ”

“ On came reserves, platoon after platoon, only and continuously to meet the same fate; for as soon as one projector weakened the invincibly armored man would toss it aside and pick up another. But finally the last commandeered weapon was exhausted and the beleaguered pair brought their own DeLameters—the most powerful portable weapons known to the military scientists of the Galactic Patrol—into play. ”

“ Then, as Tom, Roger, and Astro sprawled on their bunks, grinning openly, the three Earthworm cadets began their simulated flight through space. Going through the movements of operating the complicated equipment of a spaceship, they pushed, pulled, jerked, snapped on imaginary switches, read unseen meters and gauges, and slammed around in their chairs to simulate acceleration reaction. The three cadets of the Polaris unit could no longer restrain themselves and broke into loud laughter at the antics of the aspirants. ”

“ Instead of such a crew the boarders met a force that was overwhelmingly superior to their own—not only in point of numbers, but even more markedly in the strength and agility of its units. Also, the defenders were more capably armed than were the attackers, since, in addition to the efficient armor of the patrol and its ultra-deadly portable weapons, at least one of those terrific semiportable projectors commanded every corridor of the freighter. In the blasts of those projectors most of the pirates died instantly, not knowing what struck them, not even knowing that they died. ”

“ Our horizons and our competence have expanded to the point that we can consider unmanned missions to any region in our solar system; manned bases in earth orbit, lunar orbit or on the surface of the Moon; manned missions to Mars; space transportation systems that carry their payloads into orbit and then return and land as a conventional jet aircraft; reusable nuclear-powered rockets for space operations; remotely controlled roving science vehicles on the Moon or on Mars; and application of space capability to a variety of services of benefit to man here on earth. ”

“ Everywhere Hatch saw the ugly snouts of projectors lifting and turning in their turrets.
He broke out in a cold sweat. Hatch was as frightened a man as ever existed.
He was a commander in the Space Force, a body trained for combat. But the Space Force, for obvious reasons, was not trained in combat. Aside from having to contend with an attempt at space piracy, some more frequent attempts at barratry, theft, and other forms of skullduggery, and very frequent smuggling, the Space Force was not armed against opposition.
They had their arms, and their ships were efficient. ”