only be loosed upon them as we chanced to glimpse or guess their position. I saw ships in our line all about and behind us reeling away as the beams raked them, and then set my teeth, pressed a single one of the keys before me. At once all our great line of ships bore toward the left, against the line of the serpent-ships.
Toward them we slanted, even as we raced with them past the tremendous green sun, and then our line was pressing against their own, our ships colliding with theirs, oval ships and flat craft vanishing in great wrecks of metal as they crashed into each other, beams and force-shafts leaping thick from line to line as we bore inward against them. Involuntarily, though, their line gave beneath the terrific pressure of our own, veered to the left farther to escape that pressure, toward the great green sun. Then, as it veered too far, that which I had hoped for came to pass, for at the terrific speed at which they were moving that inward swerve took a full two thousand of their ships into the outward-leaping prominences of that sun. Into those gigantic, out-rushing tongues of green flame they blundered, a tiny swarm of midges in comparison to them, and in the next instant had vanished, only a few tiny jets of fire from the prominences' sides marking their end. Then we were past the green sun, were flashing on and into the galaxy's thronging suns that lay thick in the heavens all about us.
The moments that followed live in my memory now as a mad time of insane, racing combat, of our two gigantic fleets, strung out still in their long lines, flashing inward into the galaxy and between its thundering suns at an unabated, awful speed, striking and soaring and falling with wild, unceasing fury as they plunged on. For now a score or more of great suns were looming close before us as we raced forward, crimson and white and yellow stars between which we reeled crazily and blindly as we grappled still in our vast running fight. Full before us a single one of them, a sun of brilliant white, was looming larger each instant as we sped toward it, and as we almost reached it the serpent-ships drove us in toward it, striving to repeat our own maneuver, pressed us inward until its heat was terrific even through our insulated walls, until almost we were within the limits of the glowing, stupendous corona.
One or two of our inmost ships were already shriveling and perishing as they drove inward too far and plunged into that corona, but as they did so I had sent our long line heading outward again with a swift flash signal, crashing against the serpent-fleet's line with a mighty shock and forcing them outward as in hundreds their ships and ours perished by collisions and from the death-beams and force-shafts, as our line struck theirs. The next instant, though, as we forced them outward, passing the great white sun, there loomed swiftly before us the mighty, turning planets of that sun-great, far-swinging worlds through which our two vast fleets were flashing. Then all about us ships of our own fleet and of the serpent-fleet were crashing into those planets as we drove wildly on. One of them loomed swiftly before ourselves, a great turning world of whose mountains and gleaming seas I had a flashing glimpse, about which a swarm of little space-ships were thronging, like pigmies rushing to and fro as about and above them raged the colossal battle of giants. Then in the instant that I glimpsed it, as that world loomed lightning-like stupendous in size before us, we had flashed sidewise as Jhul Din shifted the controls and were past it.
Behind us our ships and the serpent-ships were crashing by hundreds, by thousands, into those turning planets as our two great fleets raged between and among them, at many millions of miles a second. Then we were through and past them, racing crazily on, soaring and stabbing at each other still, serpent-ships and Andromedan ships reeling away or crumpling and perishing as death-beams or force-shafts reached them. On-on-farther in among the galaxy's suns, a stupendous mass of great stars all about us that watched us like gigantic, flaming eyes as we reeled and ran and struck at each other's great fleet there between them. Away to the left one of the galaxy's mighty nebulae stretched, a stupendous cloud of glowing gas, while far ahead and to the right the strange, mysterious flaming beauty of one of the giant comets was visible, driving itself between the stars but at a speed snail-like in comparison to ours. And there among them all, fiery suns and whirling worlds, vast nebulae, and glowing comets, our two tremendous fleets were battling on.
On-on-it seemed unthinkable that any beings could live in that stupendous struggle, as we fought and flashed there past thundering suns and worlds, twisting, turning, swaying to avoid them. It seemed that we could but keep up our colossal battle until both fleets were destroyed there inside the galaxy. With a swiftness not of reason but of instinct I touched the keys before me, holding our fleet still to its long column-formation as we fought on, while beside me Jhul Din uttered low, fierce exclamations as he twisted our ship lightning-like to that side or this, his battle-hungry soul being glutted now for once; while, beneath, our gaseous Andromedan crew wielded the force- cylinders like mad beings, they and those in the thousands of ships behind me striking with all their force at their serpent-enemies, reeling here in mighty battle with them in a universe strange to both.
Above a great red sun our fleets were driving now, stabbing and striking still with all their force at each other's long, strung-out line of ships; then, as we rocketed out into more open space again, with other mighty flaming suns all about us, I had a flashing glimpse of a black point far ahead that stood out against one of those suns, a point that leapt lightning-like to greater size, to a tremendous dark, round bulk that was driving toward us even as our struggling line of ships flashed toward it. Then in the next fleeting instant I saw that it was a giant dark-star, one of the many that roved the galaxy, A colossal black and burned-out globe toward which our battling line of ships was racing and which was itself booming on through space toward us.
But a single instant did I glimpse that great dead sun before it was upon us, because of our terrific speed, and was looming gigantically before us. In that instant, though, I had seen our peril, seen the annihilation of our fleet that would come in another moment as we crashed into it, and my fingers had shot down upon the keys with lightning speed, our whole great line of ships swerving instantly to the right. As we did so the great line of serpent- ships swerved after us, shooting in pursuit as we seemed to give way before them, never glimpsing in their hot pursuit the thundering dark-star ahead. And as they swerved sidewise after us, just as we reached that dark-star, it was upon them, was crashing straight through their tremendous line of ships.
A full fifth of their vast, long line of ships that dead sun crashed through, as though through so many flies, annihilating in that instant thousands of their ships. Shattered by that awful blow, their fleet already depleted like ours by the fury of our great battle so far, the serpent-ships reeled back from us, while we leapt in turn toward them. But instead of racing on with us they were slowing, were halting, were massing together, were turning, gathered now in a compact mass, and were racing back-back toward the Cancer cluster, back toward the galaxy's edge.
'They're fleeing!' My cry was a great shout of triumph. 'We've beaten them-they're fleeing before us!'
Jhul Din was shouting hoarsely too, now, as I swiftly pressed on the keys before me, our long line of ships massing instantly together in close pursuit-formation and then flashing after the fleeing serpent-fleet. Not many more ships than that fleet did our own number, even now, yet before us the thousands of serpent-ships, close- massed together like ourselves, were racing back toward the galaxy's edge at their utmost speed, between the suns and past the swinging worlds, on and on. Nearer and nearer with each moment, though, we were drawing toward them, swiftly overhauling them, until within moments more they were visible just ahead of us, fleeing still from before us as steadily we overtook them. Then, as we flashed there between the flaming, thundering suns, as we seemed about to overtake them entirely, to blast them with our crumpling shafts of force, I saw a full hundred of their ships drop behind the rest of their mass; a hundred great oval ships different from the rest in that the rear portion of their oval had been truncated, cut squarely off, presenting toward us on each a round, flat surface that suddenly shone with brilliant red light.
An abrupt instinct of danger flashed through me in that moment, and my hands flashed down to the keys, to signal to our great mass of ships to slow our pursuit. But in the moment that they did so the thing had happened. For as our close-massed fleet raced on, after those hundred red-glowing ships ahead that lay between us and the serpent fleet, it was as though a gigantic hand had in the next moment grasped the compact mass of our ships and scattered them in all directions like a handful of sand, throwing Jhul Din and me to the floor as our ship was hurled blindly away with terrific force, scattering our compact-massed fleet in a single instant across all the heavens, for millions upon millions of miles. And as we were flung thus blindly outward I cried aloud.
'Those red-glowing serpent-ships!' I cried. 'They've generated colossal ether-currents behind them as they fled on-ether-currents that have shattered our fleet.'
For I knew, even in that desperate instant that that was the explanation. Those red-shining ships had been specially designed to project a great force into the ether behind them that would cause gigantic currents to whirl through that ether instantly, and the flight of the serpent-fleet had been feigned to give them a chance to use those ships. They had loosed the vast ether-currents behind them as they fled on before us, currents that had flung the
