Now before us the whole heavens seemed a single vast sheet of boiling white flame as we drove in toward the two mighty thundering suns, the gaps between them seeming no more than a narrow black cleft at the terrific velocity at which we were moving. At our topmost speed we rushed toward that narrow gap, the ships behind still leaping full upon our track, closing swiftly down upon us now. And now, as Korus Kan braced himself and held our controls still steady, we were flashing squarely in between the two gigantic suns. On either side of us they towered, thundering, boiling upright oceans of devouring, brilliant white flame, whose awful glare all but blinded us, seeming to fill all the universe about us with one great mass of raging fires. Out toward our onward-flashing ship there licked from the great suns on either side titanic tongues of flame bursting out toward us for millions of miles, huge prominences that could have licked up worlds like midges, but straight on between the walling fires our throbbing ship still flashed.
Now the hundred ships behind, still after us through that hell of light and flame, were racing down upon us even as we sped between the giant flaming suns, and now from behind shot shaft upon shaft of the pale death-beams, hardly to be seen in the awful blinding glare. As the beams sprang toward us, though, Korus Kan swerved to the left, and for a moment it seemed that we had swerved from death in one form only to meet it in another, since at our terrific speed we veered millions of miles in that moment toward the left gigantic sun. Its boiling fires were all about us, seemed to encompass us, and then just as it seemed that we were racing into the mighty glowing corona to our deaths Korus Kan had swerved our ship backward into the center of the narrow gap. And now we were reaching that gap's end, were passing from between the giant suns, and out into more open space inside the great cluster, with the pursuing ships again leaping forward to loose their deadly beams.
Out from between the two great suns we flashed, before us now the interior of the mighty cluster, a great swarm of flaming suns that thronged space all about us, and about many of which swung great families of planets, dozens of whirling worlds. Even as we shot into the interior of the great cluster, though, from between the two giant suns, the hundred pursuing craft had leaped forward upon us with one great burst of sudden speed, were behind us, on each side, all about us. It was the end, we knew, and there was an instant of sheer silence as we waited for that end, waited for the pale beams of death from the ships about us. But before they could loose those beams there flashed suddenly upon them from each side other ships, two mighty masses of ships like our own, that burst suddenly out upon our pursuers from behind the two great suns between which we had just come. Ships like our own! Ships long and slender and gleaming! Ships of the Interstellar Patrol, striking at the vanguard of the invaders in defense of our universe.
3: Death-Beam and Crimson Ray
Even as the great masses of ships on each side leapt out upon our pursuers, Korus Kan had glimpsed them, and had swung our own ship instantly around in a great curve. On each side of us, now, were the thousands of cruisers of the great patrol, and before us were the hundred ships that had chased us in toward the galaxy through space. Before those ships could recover from their surprise, before their occupants could realize the trap into which they had ventured, our whole vast fleet was leaping upon them from both sides, flashing down upon the hundred invading craft before they could turn from their onward flight.
Down with them swooped our own ship now, and we shouted aloud as we saw from all the swooping ships about us, as from our own, myriad brilliant shafts of the brilliant red ray flashing down and striking the enemy ships ahead and below. Within an instant, it seemed, half those racing ships had flared and vanished in brilliant bursts of crimson light, while the rest had dipped and turned in a wild effort to escape. Back toward the two great white suns they raced, seeking to escape between them into outer space again, to rejoin the oncoming main swarm of their great fleet, but down before and ahead of them leapt our Patrol cruisers, the red rays again whirling and cutting in great circles of death. And now as they vanished one by one beneath those rays, struggling still through space toward the two great suns, the death beams of the remaining ships sprang savagely up toward us, and I saw cruisers here and there in our own fleet driving aimlessly off, smashing into one another and whirling blindly away as the beams wiped out all life in them.
But now we were leaping after the fleeing ships between the great suns again, and as we shot after them through those terrific walls of flame our rays again took toll of them; so that as we flashed out from between the two mighty suns and into outer space once more but a scant half-dozen of them remained, and these leapt instantly forward and out into the blackness of outer space to rejoin the main body of their approaching fleet, while we in turn sprang after them in hot pursuit, though our ships were not capable of the tremendous speeds of those invading ones.
"Score for us!" cried Jhul Din as our ships flashed on. "We've all but wiped out those hundred."
"Wait," I told him. "The main body of their fleet's coming on toward us-"
Even as I spoke I saw the ship of Lacq Larus, Chief of the Patrol, the flag-ship of our fleet, slackening its speed ahead of us, and a moment later there came from a speech-instrument beside me his clear, unruffled voice:
"All ships halt and mass in battle formation!" he ordered; and at once, in answer to that command, our flashing ships slowed and stopped, forming instantly into three thick, short columns and hanging motionless in space.
On the space-chart above, now, we could see the mass of thousands of dots that was our fleet hanging motionless a little out from the galaxy's edge, and could see, too, a little outward from that mass of dots, another and equally large mass, that moved slowly in toward us, the great swarm that was the invading fleet. Already the few fleeing survivors of our hundred pursuers had raced back into that main swarm, and now, moving ever more slowly but coming steadily forward, it was driving through space toward us. The great swarm was moving still in a triangular formation, the triangle's apex toward us, and now at last, as we stared forward into the blackness, we made out light-points ahead, a vast swarm of them in that steady triangular formation, moving deliberately toward us.
Slowly now those light-points were largening, were changing into great, gleaming ships as their fleet came on toward us. Ever more slowly it moved, now at but a fraction of a light-speed, for it was evident that they, like us, sought no fight-and-run skirmish but a battle to the finish. At last they had stopped, had halted just out of ray-reach ahead and were hanging motionless in space like ourselves, facing us. And then, for a moment, it seemed as though about us was an unbroken stillness and silence, as the two mighty fleets, numbering each fully five thousand ships, faced each other there in space.
I think that never in all space and time could there have been a moment as strange as that one, when the mighty fleet of our galaxy lay prow to prow with this other mighty fleet from the dark, unguessed mysteries of outer space. All about us lay the cold, lightless blackness of the eternal void, with the great galaxy's colossal rampart of flaming suns stretched across the heavens behind us alone blazing in that blackness, the great Cancer cluster at its edge, just behind us, flaming with all the glory of its mass of gathered suns. A single instant that silence and stillness reigned in the stupendous scene about us, an instant that to our strained nerves seemed endless, and then a sharp order rang from the speech-instrument beside me, and as one our great fleet leapt forward while the opposing fleet sprang to meet us. The battle was on.
I saw the enemy fleet flashing straight toward us, the apex of its triangle pointed full at our center, and knew instinctively that it meant to cut us into halves with the great wedge that was itself. But as it flashed straight toward us and upon us there rang another order from the instrument at my side, and instantly our three short columns of ships veered to the right, changing in a moment into one long column, which instead of meeting the onrushing triangle flashed along its side. As we shot past thus I had a
lightning glimpse of the masses of countless oval ships racing by, glimpsed too a score or more of ships at the center of their fleet that seemed not oval but round and disk-like in shape, and then forgot all else as from all our ships there burst the brilliant red rays, raking the side of their fleet with a deadly fire as we flashed past it. Then scores upon scores of their ships were vanishing in crimson flares of light as those rays found them, and though their death-beams found our own ships here and there as we flashed by, the great mass of their ships dared not loose their beams upon us lest they destroy their own ships, so skillful had been our maneuver.
Only a moment did it last, that passing of the two fleets with red ray and death-beam crossing, and then we were past them, were turning and circling and racing back upon them to deliver another blow. Ahead we could see the enemy fleet turning and racing back to meet us, with beyond them the great suns of the galaxy flaming in the blackness of space, and again we leapt straight toward them there in the abysmal void; but this time they had anticipated our maneuver and as we swerved to the right of them their whole great fleet swerved right also, so that in order to avoid a head-on collision with their fleet we were forced to swerve still farther to the right, our long column racing along through space now parallel to the galaxy's edge, with the enemy ships strung in a similar column between us and the galaxy, racing along with us through space at the same speed as ourselves, their pale ghostly beams whirling toward us even as our crimson shafts cut through the void toward them.
Ships on each side were vanishing, now, some flaring in wild explosions of red light and disappearing as the 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 t
here 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.
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