'Battle formation!'
Even as the deadly crimson bolts had shot up from the cubes toward us I had yelled the order into the instrument before me, and it was all that saved us from disaster in that moment, since in the split-second before the glowing bolts could reach us our cruisers had shifted their formation suddenly, only a score of them being struck by those glowing shafts. In that moment our cruisers had shifted into three long parallel lines, and then, as the massed cubes beneath flashed ever upward toward us, their glowing bolts blasting our cruisers, I had shouted another order into the speech-instrument above the great din beneath.
'The force-beams!' I cried. 'Turn them on these cube-ships-push them down into the coma!'
There came a deep shout from Gor Han at the order, and from Jurt Tul's ship there issued through my instrument the amphibian's cool laugh. The next instant there were shooting downward from all our cruisers the great force-beams, broad beams, not of light but of darkness, of utter blackness and absence of light, of great force that was invisible itself but whose terrific power drove even the light-vibrations from its path and so made the force-beams seem beams of utter blackness. Down toward the uprushing cube-ships the black force-beams stabbed, and as they smote among those cubes those that were struck by them were driven suddenly downward with inconceivable power. Down, down, struggling vainly against the irresistible force-beams that pushed them, down, down until in a moment more those struck had been driven into the crimson sphere of the mighty coma beneath, vanishing in its immense lurid sea and there meeting annihilation instantly in spurts of leaping light!
Thus a full score of the hundred cube-ships below had been forced down to death in the comet in a single moment, but the rest were still leaping toward us and before we could loose more of the deadly force-beams they were just beneath us, among us, their crimson bolts blasting lightning-like about them, leaping from cube to cruiser. High above the titanic thundering comet, like flies above a sun, cubes and cruisers whirled and struck and ran, with crimson bolts and black force-beams stabbing thick through the void about us. I heard the shouts of Gor Han and Jurt Tul and Najus Nar from the instrument before me, screamed my orders into its opening as my own cruiser soared through the wild melee with black beams whirling. I glimpsed one of the cubes rocketing toward us, looming in an instant to immense size, a colossal metal cube thousands of feet square, through the transparent sections of which I could glimpse for a split-second the white-lit interior, a mass of intricate mechanisms among which clung the beings who manned it, black, shapeless masses that I but half glimpsed in that mad moment. Then from the cube's great side a glowing red bolt shot toward us, but a moment too late, since by then our cruiser had shot upward and our black forcebeam had smote down upon the cubeship to drive it into the glowing sea of death below!
About us, too, all our cruisers were speeding upward, in answer to my orders, and before the cubes could check our maneuver we were over them, all our dark force-beams smiting from above. Struck by those beams, all but a scant half-dozen of the remaining cubes drove down to doom in the coma's fiery sea, before they could rise to our level to resume the battle. The half-dozen left seemed to hover motionless a moment, then turned and sped away from us, back over the coma's crimson-glowing sphere toward the great tail of the comet, streaming out behind!
'We've beaten them!' Gor Han was bellowing. 'They're trying to get away-'
'After them!' I yelled into the speech-instrument. 'They're trying to get back inside the coma-they must have some way of getting inside!'
But my order had been unnecessary, for even as the half-dozen great cubes flashed away, our cruisers, still some eight hundred in number, had turned and were racing after them like unleashed hounds after their prey. Downward and backward we raced after them, low across the glowing surface of the great comet, over the deadly coma to where the faint, vast tail issued from it. Ahead we could see the six cubes fleeing onward, at a speed equal to our own, and the sight of them caused us to open to the last notch the power of our throbbing generators for that wild pursuit. Within moments, at that tremendous speed, there came into view ahead the rear rim of the coma's colossal glowing sphere, with the fainter glow that marked the currents of the great tail streaming back from the rim into the void of space.
Swift as were the great cubes ahead, though, our great cruisers of the Interstellar Patrol, speediest of all the galaxy's ships, were proving now to be swifter, since slowly, steadily, we had begun to overhaul those fleeing shapes. I heard Gor Han's deep voice, excited as always in battle, from the speech-instruments, heard Jurt Tul's calm comments as we drove nearer the flying cubes, heard Najus Nar's eager cries. The cubes were passing out now from over the great coma, on over the vast tail, to my puzzlement. I had thought they were striving to gain the interior of the comet, but instead they were racing away from it, while with every moment we were drawing nearer to them. Then, just when it seemed that another moment's flight would bring us upon them, they halted abruptly in space, hovering above the faint, vast-streaming tail, and then plunged straight down into the mighty currents of the tail, and were moving back, inside that tail, toward the great coma behind us!
'The tail!' cried Najus Nar. 'They're going up the tail itself and into the coma's heart!'
But I too had seen and had understood all in that moment, had understood what I had not dreamed before, that the only opening through the great coma to the hollow at its heart lay at the coma's rear, and could be reached only by struggling up to it through the awful currents of the tail! These mighty cubes, I saw, had been constructed in that shape especially to resist and endure those terrible, back-sweeping ether-currents set up by the comet's rush through the void, terrific currents glowing with the electrical energy shot backward and dissipated in driving the comet on. The cubes thus specially constructed could brave those colossal currents where weaker craft would be battered to fragments. All this I understood and weighed, in that tense moment, and then had made decision and was shouting back into the instrument before me.
'Down with our ships, too, then!' I cried. 'We're going up the tail after them!'
I heard an exclamation from Gor Han, an answering shout from Najus Nar, and then my cruiser and all the cruisers behind us were dipping steeply downward, plunging into the vast and faint-glowing tail! The next moment was one of blind, utter confusion, for as we plunged into the terrific currents our cruisers were whirled up and backward as though by gigantic hands, thrown helplessly like leaves in a terrific wind, cruiser smashing against cruiser and destroying each other there by dozens in that wild moment. Then as the pilot beside me clung to the controls, bringing its bows around to face those mighty currents, heading toward the coma, our ship steadied, while those about it steadied likewise. We had lost half a hundred ships in that first terrific plunge, but neither my own nor those of the three Sub-Chiefs had been injured, and now we were moving slowly up the great currents of the tail toward the coma. The tail about us was to the eyes but a great region of faint light, but far ahead of us there glowed like a crimson wall of light across the heavens the mighty coma, and against it we could make out the dark square shapes of the cube-ships we pursued, likewise fighting their way toward the coma through those terrific currents.
I think now that the moments which followed, as we struggled in pursuit of those cubes, were almost the most terrible I ever experienced, moments in which it seemed impossible that our ships could breast such awful currents and live. About us the currents roared deafeningly, thrilling through every portion of our ships, sweeping against us with titanic power. On and on we struggled, veering to take advantage of weaker currents, blundering into great maelstroms, swaying, plunging, fighting on, with the coma's glowing wall looming ever closer ahead. I heard Gor Han's anxious comments from the instrument before me, glimpsed cruisers here and there behind my own collapsing and sweeping backward, knew that not for long could we fight against those currents and live.
The coma was very near, now, a giant wall of crimson light across the heavens, and now I made out a dark circle within that glowing wall, a circular opening rapidly largening to our eyes and toward which the flying cubes ahead were struggling.
'The opening!' Gor Han was shouting, his voice coming to me even above the awful din of the currents about us.
'Straight toward it after those cubes!' I cried. 'Our ships can't stand this much longer!'
Now ahead I could see the cubeships we pursued struggling toward that opening slower and slower, fighting the currents which were most powerful here where they issued from the mighty coma ahead. A moment more, though, and they had reached it, and vanished inside, while we in turn were fighting through the titanic sweep of those currents toward it. On-on-the currents that raged against us had become awful in strength, seeming to clutch at us with supreme power at this last moment. The opening loomed larger ahead, now, a dark circular passageway remaining miraculously open and unchanged through that electrical sea whose deadly crimson mass formed its walls. On-on-it seemed that never could we reach it, so terribly did the currents sweep about us. Yard by yard, foot
