scarlet rays found them, others driving crazily and aimlessly away as the pale beams wiped out in an instant all the crews inside them. But now we found ourselves at a disadvantage, for our enemy's gleaming ships could hardly be made out against the flaring suns of the galaxy, beyond them, while our own glittering cruisers stood out clearly against the darkness of outer space. It was an advantage of which they took swift use, for now the broad pale beams were reaching toward us in increasing numbers as we flashed along, while our own rays were all but ineffective, since, blinded as we were by the flaring suns behind the opposing ships, we could only loose the rays at random.
On still we raced, along the galaxy's edge, the great Cancer cluster dropping behind us now as we sped on, our two great fleets striking and grappling with each other even as they flashed on. Black space and flaming suns, pale ray and red, oval ships and long cruisers, all mingled and whirled in that wild scene like the features of some tortured dream, but dream it was none to us, flashing on with our fleet while in the hull beneath our crew loosed their red rays of death upon the chance-seen enemy ships that flashed between us and the dazzling suns. At an order flashed from the Chief's flag-ship our whole fleet increased to its utmost velocity, striving to pass the enemy fleet and get between it and the galaxy again, but the immeasurable speed of these great invaders from outer space defeated our efforts. At the same speed as ourselves they raced forward, keeping always between us and the suns, and when we slowed our speed suddenly to fall behind them they instantly did likewise.
Meanwhile ships all about us were driving aimlessly away, reeling blindly off into space or smashing into each other, as the pale death-beams found more and more of them in that mad running fight. Not for many minutes longer, I knew, could the unequal contest be kept up. Already we were past the Cancer cluster, still racing along the galaxy's edge, and then abruptly there came another sharp order from the instrument beside me. Instantly, in obedience to that order, all our racing, battling ships slowed, swiftly grouped themselves into a triangular formation, its apex in turn pointing toward the long line of the enemy's fleet, between us and the galaxy. Then, before they could mass their own fleet again, our triangle of mighty cruisers had leapt straight toward the galaxy, its apex tearing full into the long line of their ships.
There was a moment of reeling, crashing shock, as our massed fleet crashed into that line, and all about me in that moment, it seemed, patrol-cruisers and oval ships were smashing into each other, colliding and bursting wildly there in mid-space. Then suddenly we were through, the mass of our fleet ripping through their line by main force; but now, as we smashed on through, another order sounded and we curved swiftly about, and still in that close-massed formation rushed back upon the shattered enemy line of ships. Before they could reform that broken line, before they could mass again in their own close formation, we were upon them, and then again our wedge- shaped mass was driving through them, shattering their disorganized masses still further and sending scores of them into annihilation now with our red rays as we flashed through.
'We've won!' shouted Jhul Din, at the window, as our massed fleet again wheeled and sped back upon the disorganized mass of ships before us. 'We've won! We've broken up their fleet.'
Now, though, we were rushing back to strike another deadly blow, and before us, I saw, that thousands of the invading ships were still milling aimlessly there in space, their organization shattered by the smashing blows we had dealt them. With red rays flashing we sped upon them again, but now, from the disorganized mass before us, I saw a score or more of ships rising, flashing upward with immense speed, ships that were not oval like the rest but flat and round and disk-like, ships that I had vaguely glimpsed in our first rush on the enemy fleet and which through all the battle they had kept protected from us at their fleet's center. Now, with all their terrific speed, the disk-ships were flashing upward, and even in the instant that we rushed again upon our enemies they had attained to a great height above us. In that instant I gave them but a glance, since again we were darting upon the mass of oval ships, our own cruiser now toward the rear of our fleet's formation. But in the next moment, even as we flashed on in our swift charge, I saw the score of disk-ships hanging high above suddenly glow and flicker with strange force, the whole great lower side of their big disks alive with a flickering, rippling, viridescent light. And at the same moment I saw the ships of our fleet ahead of us suddenly breaking from their mad charge forward and lifting slowly upward, saw them twisting and turning and reeling but still moving steadily up, toward those score of disk-ships high above, as though pulled upward by a mighty, unseen grip.
'Attraction-ships!' I shouted, as I saw what was happening.
'Those disk-ships above-they're pulling our cruisers up with some magnetic or electrical attractive force, that affects the metals of our ships but not of theirs.'
We were still racing forward, at the rear of our fleet, but as I saw that all the thousands of our cruisers before us, almost, were in the grip of the attractive forces from above, were being pulled helplessly upward, I shouted to Korus Kan, and he shifted the controls swiftly sidewise, sending our cruiser veering away before it came beneath the disk-ships high above and was pulled up likewise. We had escaped for the moment, but now from ahead all the disorganized masses of the oval invading ships had gathered together again and were leaping forward, springing upon our own helpless masses of cruisers as they were pulled resistlessly upward. From all about those masses of twisting, turning cruisers the pale death-beams smote toward them, and only here and there could a few shafts of the red ray answer them, caught as our ships were in that tremendous grip.
Swiftly the cruisers of our fleet were being wiped clean of all the crews inside, as the death-beams swung and circled through them from all about. But a few score of cruisers at the rear of our fleet, like ourselves, had managed to escape the relentless grip of the disk-ships above, and now upon ourselves other masses of the oval ships were rushing. Wildly we battled there, the hordes of the invading ships spinning and flashing about us, but swiftly our few score of cruisers were sent reeling blindly off by the death-beams; and now, looking back an instant, I saw that the last of our mighty fleet of thousands of cruisers were being annihilated by the death-beams of the oval ships that swarmed about them, as they were drawn helplessly upward. We and a few other cruisers, struggling wildly there against the encircling masses of the oval ships, were all that remained of the galaxy's once mighty fleet.
Even as we fought there, with the mad energy of despair, I saw the last of our companion cruisers whirling away as the death-beams found it, and realized that except for a few stragglers here and there like our own ship the great fleet was annihilated, and that our only chance was in flight. With every moment the oval ships about us were increasing in number, completely encircling us, now, and it was only by a miracle of veering, twisting turns by Korus Kan that our ship was able to avoid the death-beams that reached toward us from all sides. Escape seemed impossible, so completely were we hemmed in by the circling, striking ships, and another moment would see our end, I knew; and so I wheeled, shouted hoarsely to Korus Kan.
'We'll have to break through them!' I shouted. 'Give her full speed, Korus Kan, and head straight in toward the galaxy!'
Instantly he jerked open the power-control to the last notch, and as our ship leapt forward like a living thing toward the masses of ships that surrounded us he sent it driving straight toward the galaxy, and toward a spot where there showed a momentary gap between the ships that hemmed us in. But a single instant it took us to reach that gap, pale beams whirling all about us while our own red rays flashed sullenly forth, but in the instant that we reached it one of the oval ships had seen our intention and had leapt forward to close the gap. An instant too late it was to close it completely, but the oval ship's nose, containing its transparent-walled pilot room, lay across our path as we reached the gap, and straight into it we crashed.
There was a terrific, rending shock as our great prow tore into the transparent-walled nose of the enemy ship, and beneath that shock we saw the whole fore portion of the oval ship crumpling up and collapsing, reeling away a shattered wreck of metal. Our own cruiser rocked and swayed crazily at the collision, and for a moment it seemed that we too were doomed, but the next our battered ship leapt forward, and in an instant was free of the masses of oval ships that had encircled us, and was driving now in toward the galaxy's suns, with a score of the oval ships behind in hot pursuit.
In we drove, speeding now past the great Cancer cluster as we flashed at our utmost speed into the galaxy, its great ball of gathered suns flaring in the black heavens to our left as we sped inward. Behind came our pursuers, racing on close after us; and now, glancing back beyond them, I saw the whole mighty fleet of the invaders, still fully three thousand ships in number, moving in toward the galaxy also, toward the great Cancer cluster, with its swarming suns and thronging worlds, saw the great fleet slowing, slanting down toward those suns, those worlds, and knew then that these invaders, having annihilated the galaxy's fleet, were settling upon the suns and worlds of the Cancer cluster as a first foothold in our universe, a base from which they could subdue all that universe. Then
