Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids

Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids is the second book in the Lucky Starr series, a set of six juvenile science fiction novels written by Isaac Asimov under the pen name Paul French. It was released in November 1953 by Doubleday & Company.

Plot summary

A year after the events of David Starr, Space Ranger, the spaceship TSS Waltham Zachary has been captured and stripped by pirates operating from the asteroid belt. David "Lucky" Starr, who holds a personal grudge against the pirates for the murder of his parents, devises a plan: the unmanned survey ship Atlas will explode once the pirates seize it and bring it to their hidden base. Unbeknownst to anyone, Starr has leaked this plan to the pirates and secretly boarded the ship, believing infiltration will be a more effective way to destroy them.

When captured, Starr tells the pirate leader, Captain Anton, that his name is Williams (his alias from the first novel) and offers to join the pirates. Anton makes Starr prove himself by fighting a duel in open space. Starr wins but remains a prisoner aboard the Atlas as it is taken to an unnamed asteroid. There, a hermit named Joseph Patrick Hansen lives; the pirates leave Starr in his care.

Hansen explains he bought the asteroid as a vacation spot and gradually made it comfortable, but now depends on the pirates for supplies. He eventually recognizes Starr as Lawrence Starr's son. Starr admits his identity, and Hansen convinces him to pilot them to Ceres.

On Ceres, Starr plans to send his friend Bigman to infiltrate the pirates, but realizes Hansen's asteroid is not in its expected location. Starr and Bigman take their ship, the Shooting Starr, to search for it and land on its surface. Starr is captured by Dingo, the pirate he defeated in the duel. Dingo takes him inside the asteroid, revealing a hyperatomic engine used to move it.

A fight ends when Dingo knocks Starr unconscious with a neuronic whip. Starr wakes in a spacesuit on the asteroid's surface, where Dingo straps him to a catapult and flings him into space. Starr uses his oxygen reserve to reverse course and return, and he and Bigman defeat several pirates. As they leave, they learn a pirate fleet is attacking Ceres.

Back on Ceres, Starr realizes the pirates' true goal was to capture Hansen, which they have done.