Chapter VI: Part 6

Before me stood a tall, square instrument bearing a bank of black keys--keys that transmitted to the ships of our vast fleet my formation and speed orders, as I pressed them. I pressed one now, as we shot upward, glimpsed a long rank of ships on the ground behind and beneath us rising smoothly after us in answer, pressed another and saw another rank rising and following, until within a few moments more the whole of the vast fleet, a hundred thousand gleaming ships, had risen and was driving up and outward, with our flag-ship in the van. Up we moved, until we were slanting up over the ring of mighty suns that encircled the great central worlds and the swarms of smaller planets, that central world vanishing behind us as we flashed on, and the great circle of suns about it, and the suns beside us, all dropping smoothly behind.

Out between those great circles of suns we moved, our great fleet in a long, streaming line to avoid all danger of collisions with the suns and worlds about us. I saw the Andromedans in the pilot room with me standing motionless by its windows as we flashed on past the circled suns and swarming worlds of their universe, knew that they were watching those suns and worlds drop behind as they moved out to the great struggle that would decide the fate of their universe as well as of my own. Then at last we were racing out between the last great circles of suns, out over the edge of the Andromeda universe into the blackness and emptiness of outer space once more.

Now as the great darkness of the void lay before us, I pressed the keys before me in swift succession, and at once the thousands of ships behind me leapt into a new formation, that of a colossal hollow pyramid that flashed through space with my flag-ship at its apex. Faster and faster our great fleet shot out into the void, the tremendous mass of ships behind me uniformly increasing their speed, until at last at our utmost velocity we were racing on toward the faint, wraith-like glow of the serpent-universe ahead.

Outward, into the darkness and silence of the eternal void, we were flashing once more, but as I stood with Jhul Din there in the pilot room, watching the great Andromeda universe dwindling in the darkness behind us, no exultation filled me. We had done what none in our galaxy ever before had done, had crossed the gulf and procured the aid with which we were racing to crush our enemies before they could pour down upon us, but my thoughts were not on these things but on the friends we were leaving behind us. Somewhere out in the void from that Andromeda universe, Korus Kan had gone to his death with the sun-swinging ships, and as we sped on through the void toward the serpent-universe it was the thought of that that held our minds rather than that of the great battle before us.

Hour upon hour of swift flight was dropping behind us as we raced steadily and smoothly on, detouring far around the great heat-regions and radio-active regions that we encountered, heading on toward the serpent-universe that was glowing ever broader before us. Smooth, immeasurable and endless they seemed, those hours of swift and steady flight, but at last we became aware that they were coming to an end, the dying universe ahead a great dim glow across all the blackness of the firmament. Ever our eyes hung upon that misty region of light as we flashed nearer and nearer to it, and ever the same doubt, the same wonder, rose and grew in our minds. Could we, really, crush and destroy the serpent-peoples in this strange universe? What would be the outcome of the tremendous battle we must fight in it to prevent the serpent-hordes from pouring across space toward our own universe?

Before us now the somber splendor of the dying universe filled the heavens, a vast mass of dead and dying suns, black and burned-out stars and suns of smoky crimson, glowing in the blackness of space like the embers of a mighty, dying fire. Around that great, dim-glowing mass we could make out the gigantic shell of flickering blue light, all but invisible, that surrounded it, the titanic and impenetrable wall of vibrations that enclosed it. In toward that wall our vast fleet was racing, moving at slackening speed as I touched a key before me, until at last the mighty flickering barrier loomed close ahead, the single opening in it, guarded by the huge space-forts on each side, lying straight before us. And as we drew within sight of that opening we saw, hanging in space just inside it, massed solidly across it, a thousand oval ships!

"The serpent-ships!" I exclaimed. "They're going to hold the gate of their universe against us!"

Jhul Din was staring at them as though puzzled. "But why only a thousand ships?" he said. "Why haven't they massed all their great fleet there at the gate----"

But I had turned, had pressed the keys before me in swift succession, and at once our tremendous fleet had slowed and smoothly halted, hanging there in space. Then, as I depressed still other keys, our vast mass of ships split smoothly into three separate masses, my flag-ship at the van of the central mass, the others moving to right and to left of us. A moment our three great masses of ships hung there, and then those on either side of us had flashed toward the great space-forts that guarded each side of the great opening, while our own central mass, my ship at its head, drove straight in toward the great opening itself!

Straight toward and into the opening raced our close-massed ships and then the next moment it seemed that all the universe about was transformed into a single awful mass of pale beams that stabbed toward and through us from the space-forts on each side and from the close-massed ships ahead. How our own ship escaped annihilation in that first moment of terrific, reeling shock, I can not guess; since behind and about us scores of our ships were driving crazily away, their occupants annihilated by the deadly beams. Yet from all our own craft, reeling blindly as they were there in the opening, our cylinders were loosing their shafts of invisible force upon the space-forts to each side and upon the serpent-ships that leapt toward us from ahead.

Then as those ships met ours, there in the narrow opening with the huge towering space-forts at each side, there ensued a moment of battle so terrific--battle more awful in its concentrated fury than any I had ever yet experienced--that it seemed impossible that ships and living beings could fight thus and live. Terrific was the scene about us--the vast black vault of infinite outer space behind us, the far-flung, dim-glowing mass of the dying universe before us, the gigantic wall of pale blue flickering light that separated the two, the single opening in that wall, flanked by the titanic metal space-forts, in which our thousands of close-massed ships charged forward toward the onrushing serpent-ships.

* * * * *

Ships were crashing and smashing as we met them, death-beams were whirling thick from their ships and from the huge space-forts, serpent-craft were crumpling and collapsing beneath our shafts of force--and still our own ships were reeling away in scores as the death-beams found them. I knew that not for long could we continue this suicidal combat, since though the serpent-ships before us were being swiftly wiped out, the space-forts on each side still played their beams upon us with deadly effect. The other two divisions of our great fleet, dashing to attack the space-forts from outside while we battled there in the opening between them, had been thrust back, I saw, from each attack by the masses of pale beams that sprang from the forts.

But as the whole struggle hung thus in doubt, as our ships fell in fierce battle there in the opening beneath the beams of the forts, I saw a score of ships among those attacking the right-hand fort drive suddenly toward that fort with all their terrific utmost speed, leaping toward it like great thunderbolts of metal. From the great castle the death-beams sprang toward that score of ships, sweeping through them and wiping all life instantly from them, but before the ships had time to swerve or reel aside from that mad onward flight their terrific speed had carried them onward, and with a mighty, shattering collision they had crashed straight into the great fort's side.

I saw the great metal walls of the space-fort buckling and collapsing beneath that awful impact, and then all the space-fort had collapsed also, like a thing of paper, crushing within itself the serpent-creatures and generators and death-beam tubes it had held. To our left, another score of ships were leaping toward the left-hand fort in the same manner, and as they crashed into it, racing on through a storm of death-beams that swept through them, the left-hand space-fort too had buckled and crumpled and collapsed. At the same moment the last of the thousand serpent-ships before us was falling beneath our force-shafts, and then the great opening lay clear before us, with neither serpent-ships nor space-forts now in sight. We had forced the gates of the serpent-universe!

Then, our vast fleet massing together once more, we swept in through the opening, in a long column, into the dying universe. A full two thousand of our hundred thousand ships we had lost in that mad attack on the great gates, but heeded that but little as we flashed now into the serpent-creatures' universe. Through the dead and dying suns we sped, holding to a close-massed formation and moving slowly and cautiously forward. At every moment I expected the great serpent-fleet to burst out upon us from behind some dead or dying sun, for I knew that their allowing us to advance through their universe thus unhindered meant only that they had prepared some ambush for us. Yet as we sped in toward the center of the dying universe, there appeared no single enemy craft about us or on our space-charts, a total absence of all serpent-ships that began to affect our nerves as we drove ever more tensely forward.

At last there appeared far ahead the majestic trio of giant, crimson suns that swung at this universe's heart, and as we moved down toward these we knew that at last the final struggle was at hand, since between those suns turned the great world that was the heart of the serpent-civilization. Down toward that world we slanted smoothly, expecting every moment the uprush from it of the great serpent-fleet; yet still were we unchallenged and unattacked as we moved downward. Upon us there leapt no serpent-ships; in space about us, as we sank lower and lower, were no craft other than our own. In breathless silence we watched, sinking down toward the great sphere's surface, until at last we hung at a bare thousand feet above that surface, the mighty city of blue force stretching from horizon to horizon beneath us. And at sight of that city there burst from us wild, stunned cries.

For the mighty city was--empty! Empty, lifeless, its streets deserted and bare, its vast mass of towering structures of blue vibrations without occupant of any kind! No single serpent-shape moved in all that tremendous city, and I saw that upon the great clearing where the vast serpent-fleet and the colossal death-beam cone had rested there was now nothing. The world beneath us, the universe about us, were a world, universe--deserted!

"Too late!" Jhul Din's cry came to my ears like the voice of doom. "The defense of the gate was only to delay us, and the serpent-races have gone--they've struck! They've massed all their hordes in their great fleet and with their giant death-beam cone have sailed out across the void to attack our universe! We're too late!"

Too late! The thought beat upon my brain like drum-beats of horror as we stood there, in utter silence. All had been in vain--our tremendous journey, our fierce struggles, the loss of Korus Kan--since already far across the void the serpent-hordes in their countless ships were rushing toward our universe, where their vanguard had prepared a foothold for them. They had known that we were summoning help from the Andromeda universe, had swiftly gathered and sailed on their great attack, leaving only a force at the great gate to delay us. Too late! Then suddenly resolution flamed again inside me, and I pressed swiftly the keys before me, sent our whole fleet turning and speeding outward again--out through the dying universe away from the great trio of suns at its center--out toward the great opening in the vibration-wall.

"Too late--_no_!" I shouted. "We'll follow them across the void toward our own universe! They could not have completed that great death-beam cone yet--they've taken it with them to our own universe to complete it there--and if we can reach them and attack them before they have time to complete it, we yet may save our universe!"

Now our great fleet was rushing toward and through the opening in the vibration-wall, out into the void of outer space once more. There we halted, massed again in our pyramidal flight-formation, and then were turning slowly toward the left, toward the far little patch of glowing light that was our universe. Then we were moving toward it, with swiftly gathering speed, faster and faster, until at our utmost velocity we were racing through the infinite immensities of space toward it; flashing on toward the last act of the vast, cosmic drama that was rising now to its climax; rushing on through the void toward the final great battle in which the destinies of three mighty universes and all their suns and worlds and peoples were to be decided for all time!

_14. Back to the Galaxy_

Standing once more in the pilot room, with Jhul Din at the controls beside me, I stared out through the room's fore-windows, straining my vision out through the cosmic darkness that lay about our onward-rushing ships. Far ahead, in that darkness, lay a great, glowing mass of light, lay a radiant, disk-like mass that was resolving itself into a great swarm of brilliant stars as we rushed ever on toward it. In silence we two gazed toward it, for it was our own great galaxy that lay before us, toward which for day upon dragging day, hour upon slow hour, our mighty fleet had rushed on and on.

Now, as we gazed toward it, waxing there in splendor before us in the lightless heavens, I could not but reflect upon how infinitely strange and far a journey had been ours since we had left it, across what infinities of trackless space and upon what alien suns and worlds we had gone. Out into the infinite we had gone for the help that might save our universe, and now out of the infinite we were coming with that help, but two returning where three had gone out. Yet would the help we brought be in time to save our galaxy? Already the great serpent-hordes, we knew, would have reached that galaxy, would have settled upon the suns and worlds of the great Cancer cluster where their vanguard had made for them a base, and there they would be laboring to complete the colossal death-beam cone with which they could wipe out all the life on all the galaxy's worlds, and all our own great fleet. Could we reach them and conquer them before they completed that great cone of death?

We were within a few score hours of the galaxy ahead, I knew, and as we raced on toward it at the same unvarying velocity, its individual greater stars were burning out more clearly, and the great Cancer cluster was a tiny ball of light at the glowing swarm's edge. Countless billions of miles of space lay between us and that cluster still, I knew, yet it was with something of hope that I watched it as we flashed on. For though inside it the gigantic death-cone might be approaching completion, it would not be long before our vast fleet would be pouring down upon that cluster and upon the serpent-hordes within it, before the great cone could be finished.

As I mused thus, though, there came a low exclamation from Jhul Din, and I turned to find him peering forward into the void with a gaze suddenly tense. Then he had turned toward me and was pointing ahead and to the left into the darkness before us.

"One of the great heat-regions!" he exclaimed.

I gazed out toward it and in a moment I, too, had seen it--a dim, faint little glow of red light, flickering there in the darkness of space before us and to the left. Steadily that little glow was broadening, deepening, though, while our temperature-dials were recording swiftly rising heat outside as we neared it. There was no need to change the course of our fleet, though, since the heat-region lay toward the left and our present course would take us safely past its right edge. It was, perhaps, the same region into which we had blundered on our outward flight, and with interest we watched it as our great fleet shot forward and along its outer edge. It was a vast area of glowing crimson light to our left, now. A terrific furnace of heat-vibrations loosed by the collision of the great ether-currents through which we were plunging. Then, just as our fleet was speeding directly past the mighty, glowing region, along its outer edge, our prow turned slowly toward the left, toward the heat-region, and then we were racing straight inward toward the region's fiery heart!

For an instant I stared in stunned amazement as our ship shifted thus, then whirled around to the Spican. "Jhul Din!" I exclaimed. "The controls! The ship's heading into the heat-region!"

But already he was twisting frantically at the controls, and now he looked up wildly toward me. "The ship doesn't answer the controls!" he cried. "It's heading straight inward--and the ships behind us--!" And he pointed up toward the space-chart, where I saw now that as they rushed on, the thousands of ships behind us were shifting their course like our own and racing into the heat-region after us--racing in like us toward a fiery death! Then, as I gazed stupefied up toward the space-chart, I saw something else, saw that inches to the left of our fleet on the chart, away on the other side of the glowing heat-region from us, there hung a half-thousand ships, that showed on the chart as a close-massed swarm of dots, hanging there motionless. And as I saw them I understood, and with understanding a great shout broke from me.

"Attraction-ships!" I cried. "It's an ambush the serpent-fleet left for us if we followed them! Attraction-ships hanging there on the other side of the heat-region and pulling our ships toward themselves, and toward and into that region!"

With that cry I leapt forward, pressing swiftly a half-dozen of the keys before me, flashing an order for all ships behind to turn at right-angles immediately. Watching the chart, though, I saw that nearly all our mighty fleet was now moving into the heat-region, caught in the grip of the attraction-ships beyond it. As my order flashed, though, the last ships of our fleet, not more than a thousand in number, had turned immediately, just before they too had raced into the deadly grip, and were rushing clear. Then, as their occupants, too, saw upon the space-charts the attraction-ships hovering beyond the heat-region, I saw them race away and around the great glowing region's edge toward those attraction-ships, while the rest of all our mighty fleet was drawn farther and farther in toward its fiery heart.

All about us now was the faint red glow of the heat-region's outer portions, while swiftly the heat inside our ship was increasing, the air in the pilot room being already almost too warm to breathe. Onward we were being pulled, irresistibly, our walls beginning already to warp and crack beneath the terrific temperatures outside. Gazing forward through the glare of the great region's fiery heart, even as we were swept in toward it, I could make out through our distance-windows a swarm of great, disk-shaped craft hanging beyond the heat-region, the attraction-ships that were pulling us on to doom. Around the great region's edge toward those disk-craft our own thousand escaped ships were flashing, but before ever they could reach them, it seemed, we must perish, so awful had the heat about us become.

Then I saw our thousand ships, racing about the great region's edge, pouring down on the five hundred attraction-ships, rushing down upon them in a mad swooping charge. About ourselves the crimson glare had become all but blinding, and our walls were glowing dull red, the air about us stifling. Already Jhul Din was swaying at the controls beneath that overpowering heat, and as our walls wrenched and cracked again I knew that a moment more of the terrific heat into which we were being pulled would mean the end. But even with that realization I shouted with sudden hope, since through our tele-magnifier I had glimpsed one after another of the attraction-ships, far on the other side of the heat-region, reeling and crumpling beneath the force-shafts of our thousand attacking ships!

With every one of those attraction-ships destroyed, the pull that was drawing us into the fiery maelstrom of light and heat was lessening in strength, drawing us ever more slowly forward. But forward still we were moving, pulled by the remaining attraction-ships that fought still desperately against the thousand attacking craft, fighting to the end in their great effort to destroy all our fleet. Into the very inmost flaming heart of the great region we were plunging, now, the whole universe about us seeming but a single thunderous inferno of blood-like light and burning heat. Then, as choking and reeling I felt the ship quiver violently with the approaching end, I saw our thousand or less attacking ships beyond crashing down upon the resisting attraction-ships in one irresistible, headlong charge, and as those great disk-ships, flickering with attractive force, crumpled and vanished beneath that last wild swoop, the pull upon us suddenly relaxed, vanished also. The next moment we had shot the controls sharply over, and our ship and all the ships behind it were shooting out of that hell of heat and light into empty space once more.

Now, as we sped out into the clean cold void of space again, our ships again taking up their formation and heading toward the galaxy, I turned to Jhul Din.

"It's their last attempt to stop us!" I cried. "But we've won clear--nothing can keep us from reaching them now!"

And as our great fleet again shot forward at full speed through the void I stood now no longer tense or anxious but with the old lust for battle burning up in me stood grimly silent with eyes upon the universe ahead as its glowing mass of stars broadened across the heavens before us. For now, I knew, we had plunged through the last trap, the last delay, by which the serpent-creatures had planned to hold back and destroy us, and now nothing could prevent the final attack toward which we were racing. Our great flight outward from our galaxy for help, our terrible captivity in the dying universe, our mad flight to the Andromeda universe, and our struggle there in which one of us had gone to his end, our sailing for the dying universe with the great Andromedan fleet--all these things were drawing now toward their climax, when we were to pour down on the Cancer cluster and the serpent-creatures there in our great attack.

Humming, throbbing, droning, on through the void our great fleet shot, force-shaft cylinders and other mechanisms clanging now beneath us as our Andromedan crew cleared the decks below for action. With every hour, every moment, the galaxy's stars were shining in greater splendor ahead, a giant belt of suns across the firmament before us. My eyes roved across them, from the yellow splendor of Capella to the white brilliance of Rigel, and then something of emotion rose in me as they shifted to Antares, the great crimson star that had been Korus Kan's home sun. But my eyes hardened again as they turned toward the Cancer cluster, a great ball of suns glowing in resplendent glory at the galaxy's edge before us; for well I knew that upon the thronging worlds of its clustered suns the countless races of the serpent-creatures were gathered now, completing the gigantic death-beam cone with which they would sweep out to annihilate all life in our galaxy save themselves. Straight toward that ball of suns our fleet was leaping, and now Jhul Din turned toward me.

"You're going to drive with our fleet straight into the cluster itself?" he asked, and I nodded grimly.

"It's our only chance," I said. "All the serpent-hordes are on the worlds inside it, and we've got to reach it to destroy that great cone before they finish it."

Now the galaxy's flaring suns filled the heavens before us as our mighty armada raced in through the outer void toward them, the Cancer cluster flaming ahead in all the blinding glory of its gathered suns, those suns appearing on the upper part of our space-chart as a mass of glowing little circles, toward which our vast swarm of ship-dots was speeding. Minutes more of our terrific speed would see us reaching that cluster, I knew, and I turned toward the bank of keys before me to shift our great fleet's mass into a formation that would allow us to pour down into that ball of suns in our great attack. But as I did so, as I reached toward those keys, there came from Jhul Din a cry that held me rigid. He was gazing up toward the space-chart, and pointing.

"Look--in the cluster!" he cried. "Those dots--those ships----!"

I looked swiftly up, saw that among the massed sun-circles of the Cancer cluster, on the chart, were moving a countless number of tiny dots of black, dots that were sweeping outward from and between those sun-circles, ships that were rising from the worlds around them! Out between the cluster's glowing circles they moved, toward us, in thousands, in tens of thousands, until all hung just outside it, a huge swarm of dots as large or larger than our own, a full hundred thousand mighty ships! There in space outside the cluster that vast fleet hung, and then was moving out toward us, a tremendous swarm of dots that was creeping down across the space-chart toward our own up-moving swarm, a mighty armada that was rushing out through the void toward our own inrushing armada! And as I gazed up at the great chart, stunned, there came from beside me the Spican's cry again.

"_It's the serpent-creatures' fleet! They've seen us coming--know we mean to attack the cluster and destroy the cone--and they've massed all their ships and are coming out to meet us!_"

_15. An Armageddon of Universes_

As Jhul Din's cry rang out I stood for an instant quite still, my eyes fixed on the chart upon which that great, outrushing swarm was drawing nearer to our own each moment. It was the vast fleet we had seen building in the dying universe, I knew, that had carried all their hordes across the void to our galaxy, to the Cancer cluster, and that they were flinging out now to meet and halt us here in outer space while in that cluster they labored to complete their giant cone of death. Before ever we could attack the cluster, now, we must come to death-grips with the titanic fleet rushing out toward us, a fleet that in size and power was at least as great as our own, and for that instant hope sank within me. Then, as the two fleets rushed ever closer, my doubts dissolved into a fierce determination.

"They've come out for battle," I cried, "and battle we'll give them! A battle this time to the end!"

At the same moment I turned swiftly toward the bank of keys before me. On the space-chart I saw that the serpent-fleet was driving toward us in a long, rectangular formation, our own fleet racing in its pyramid-formation to meet it. Both tremendous armadas were moving at their utmost speeds, toward each other, but as I pressed a key that slackened the speed of our own fleet I saw the other slowing also. Then, in swift succession, I touched other keys, and out from the great mass of our fleet behind me sprang two thousand of our swiftest ships, driving out from our fleet in a great fringe, ahead of us and to each side and above and below; and in a few moments more there leapt from the approaching serpent-armada a similar line of scouts.

Tensely I gazed out into the void as our two fleets neared each other, the scouts of each driving far ahead and to the sides, while steadily our own speed was slowing as I touched one after another of the keys before me. On the space-chart I could see the foremost scout-ships of each fleet almost meeting, now, but even in that moment of suspense the strangeness of my position and of all about me struck home to me--the tremendous gloom of space about us, the blazing suns of our galaxy stretched across the firmament ahead, the Cancer cluster a brilliant ball of close-massed suns among them, the two tremendous fleets that were rushing through the void toward each other. With every moment the speed of the oncoming serpent-fleet was slackening, though, and smoothly that of our own was lessening as my fingers moved upon the bank of keys before me that held the control of all our hundred thousand ships. Surely never in any struggle in all time had any commander directed thus, with swift-changing finger-touches, such a colossal force as moved now behind my flag-ship, responding swiftly to every touch upon the keys before me. As I stood alone there in the little pilot room, save for Jhul Din at the controls, the tremendous responsibility that was mine seemed weighing down upon me tangibly, crushing me, but I gripped myself, peered tensely ahead.

Smoothly still our great fleet shot through the void of darkness, and then upon the space-chart I saw our most advanced scout-ships creeping toward the advancing serpent-scouts and meeting them, touching them. At the same moment, in the darkness far ahead, there glowed out here and there long, pale shafts of misty white light, appearing and disappearing, hardly to be seen against the flaring suns of the galaxy beyond. All along a broad, thin line ahead those little beams of pale light were showing, like ghostly, questing fingers of death, and as they glowed and vanished there far ahead, soundlessly, the big Spican beside me twitched with eagerness.

"The scouts!" he exclaimed. "They've met--they're fighting!"

I nodded, without speaking, straining my gaze into the void ahead, where our scouting-ships and those of the serpent-fleet were, I knew, already whirling and stabbing at each other, while in toward them were moving the main masses of the two vast armadas. Hardly more than an inch's gap lay between those two fleets on the space-chart, now, and as I gazed ahead I saw the fighting scout-ships coming into view before us, a long, thin line of battle extending across the void before us and made up of gleaming oval serpent-craft and flat Andromedan ships, dipping and striking and soaring there before us. Fiercely those advance-ships of the two mighty fleets were grappling there, scores of them reeling aimlessly away as the pale beams swept them or crumpling suddenly up as the invisible but deadly force-shafts struck them. But I was looking beyond them, now, looking beyond them to where, between them and the galaxy's suns, a gigantic, far-flung swarm of shining light-points was rushing toward us.

"The serpent-fleet!" I whispered.

On it was coming toward us, even as we moved toward it, the long line of struggling, raging scout-ships between our advancing fleets. Swiftly it was changing from a swarm of innumerable light-points to a swarm of vaguely glimpsed shapes that grew larger, clearer, with every moment that they neared us, thousands upon tens of thousands of great oval ships, flashing toward us in a mighty rectangle! Toward it our own vast pyramid of ships was rushing in turn, and then the struggling scouts ahead had flashed back to rejoin their respective fleets, and with only empty space between them now the two titanic armadas were thundering toward each other! The Armageddon of our universes had begun!

* * * * *

Swiftly, as our vast fleet leapt forward through the void, my fingers were pressing the keys before me, and instantly our massed thousands of ships had shifted from their pyramidal formation into one of two long and mighty columns, racing forward side by side. Nearer the colossal rectangle of the serpent-fleet was rushing toward us--nearer with each instant, until it seemed that the two vast armadas must crash into each other and destroy each other. Bending tensely over my keys I saw their huge fleet looming before us, an enormous, close-massed swarm of great oval hulls rushing lightning-like toward us. Then, just before they reached us, I pressed a single key.

Instantly our two great racing columns of ships divided, one to the right, our own ship at its head, and one to the left, splitting from each other and flashing past the great mass of the serpent-fleet on each side! And as we thus flashed past there leapt from the cylinders of our ships toward the serpent-fleet between our columns countless deadly shafts of invisible force, shafts that in the instant that we flashed past had crumpled and smashed to twisted wrecks of metal a full three thousand or more of the great mass of the serpent-ships! From their fleet's edge the pale beams sprang out in answer to us, wiping the life from scores of our racing ships; but caught as they thus were between our flashing columns they could not loose those beams effectively, and in a moment we were past them. Then with the galaxy's suns before us our great fleet was halting, turning, its columns closing again together, while toward those distant suns were drifting all about us the crumpled wrecks of the serpent-ships that had fallen before us.

"First blood!" cried Jhul Din, and I nodded without speaking, bending again over my keys as our fleet raced forward again toward the enemy.

The serpent-fleet, too, had turned, and was moving cautiously back toward us, and I knew that not again could we execute upon them the maneuver which we had just used. As we rushed again upon them, though, their fleet racing again to meet us, my fingers pressed swiftly again on the keys and our long columns of ships shifted swiftly into another formation, a long wedge with our own flag-ship at its point. Just before we again raced into the serpent-ships our fleet assumed this formation, for it was my plan this time to tear by main force through the serpent-fleet, shattering it before us. But in the instant before we could do so, before our mighty wedge's point could crash into them, their own fleet had divided suddenly, some fifteen hundred ships from its center driving upward and far above us while the remaining gigantic mass drove down under and beneath us. And in the next moment I saw that five hundred of the fifteen hundred ships above were great disk-ships, and that they were glowing with sudden, flickering radiance!

"Attraction-ships!" Jhul Din was shouting, but already our own ships and all those behind us were turning upward, pulled resistlessly up, while from beneath with death-beams whirling thick the mass of the great serpent-fleet was leaping up toward us.

With the first sight of the attraction-ships, though--a sight which I had been expecting--I had pressed quickly on two of the keys before me, and at once the great line of scout-ships that had hung high above us and on each side during all the battle so far, awaiting this emergency, were gathering swiftly high above and then leaping toward the attraction-ships! Out toward them sprang the thousand serpent-craft that had risen with the attraction-ships to guard them, and then as they met our charging scouts there was a fierce, wild struggle high above us, a struggle that was a tiny replica of the gigantic combat that was going on below. For now, as we were pulled helplessly upward, the thousands upon tens of thousands of serpent-ships beneath were rushing up to attack us, undeterred by the crumpling shafts of force that shot down to meet them, charging up with death-beams sweeping through us in great shafts of ghostly light!

Swiftly, I saw, the crews of scores of ships about us were being annihilated by the whirling beams, that wiped all life from those ships, though still they drove unguided upward, pulled by the relentless grip of the attraction-ships high above. Down toward those glowing disk-ships were racing our gathered scouts but ever as they charged down the serpent-ships that guarded the attraction-craft leapt to meet them, fighting with blind courage to hold them back long enough to encompass the destruction of our main fleet below. Not for much longer could we continue in that deadly grip if we were to escape, I knew, since through ever more of our ships were sweeping the deadly beams from beneath!

Then I saw one of the scout-ships high above charge down through the opposing serpent-craft in a terrific, headlong plunge, saw it smash squarely down onto one of the hovering disk-ships, and then both had buckled and collapsed, were drifting away toward the galaxy in twisted wrecks of metal. And down in the same way were plunging others of the scout-ships, a deliberate and awful self-sacrifice of their Andromedan crews; diving down with all their terrific speed and tearing through the guarding serpent-ships to crash into and destroy the glowing attraction-ships that had gripped our main fleet. A moment more and the last of the attraction-ships and the last of the serpent-ships also had vanished above us, our scout-ships perishing almost to the last one, too. But they had saved us for the moment, since now, released from that deadly grip above, our fleet was massing and swooping down in turn upon the main body of the serpent-fleet beneath us, whose beams had been slicing through us!

Down--down--black gloom of space and blazing suns and whirling ships, all spun about me as our fleet rushed giddily down through the void toward the massed serpent-fleet beneath; then we were upon them, were shifting into a long, slender line of ships as my fingers on the keys flashed another signal, were driving in that line past them, raking them with all the force-shafts of our cylinders. But as we did so their own great mass of ships shifted swiftly into a similar long, slender column, and then they were racing through space beside us, two tremendously long lines of thousands upon thousands of ships, rushing through the void toward the galaxy, with pale death-beams and invisible force-shafts clashing and crossing from line to line as they flashed on!

* * * * *

For the moment, as the two fleets rushed thus side by side toward the galaxy's suns, so narrow was the gap between their flashing two lines that it seemed they must needs annihilate each other with their mighty weapons. Plainly visible in space beside us raced the line of the serpent-fleet, its beams stabbing thick toward our own ships, and in that wild moment ships behind and about our own were reeling unguided away by scores as the pale beams swept through them. Into one another and into untouched ships about them they crashed, whirling crazily in all directions; but in the same moments the deadly shafts from our own cylinders were leaping across the gap between the racing lines also, and serpent-ships all along their tremendous line were crumpling and collapsing, the racing ships behind them often crashing into those twisted wrecks before they could swerve aside from them. On--on--in a tremendous running fight the vast fleets leapt, a fight that was annihilating the ships of both fleets by scores and hundreds with each moment, but which neither of us would turn away from, hanging to each other and stabbing furiously with our beams and shafts toward each other as we raced madly on!

On--on--far ahead the galaxy's suns were flaming out in greater splendor each moment as at all our terrific utmost velocity our ships and the enemy ships beside us reeled on. Blazing, glorious, those suns filled the heavens before us, now. We had reeled sidewise in our first mad struggle and now the Cancer cluster lay to our left ahead, a stupendous ball of swarming stars at the galaxy's edge, while directly before us at that edge burned a great star of brilliant green, a mighty sun toward which at awful speed our two struggling, tremendous lines of ships were leaping. All about us still the ghostly beams were sweeping from the great lines of ships to our left, but swiftly the controls clicked beneath Jhul Din's grasp as he sent our ship racing forward on a corkscrew, twisting course, evading with miraculous swiftness and skill the deadly beams; while at the same time from beneath there came to our ears over the roaring drone of the generators the slap and clang of the great cylinders as our Andromedan crew shifted their aim, sending crumpling, devastating shafts of unseen force across the gap toward the serpent-ships!

But now ahead the great green sun toward which our long, strung-out fleets were flashing was growing to dazzling size and splendor as we neared it, neared the galaxy's edge. Like a giant globe of dazzling green fire it flamed before us, with all about and behind it the awful blaze of the galaxy's thundering suns, in toward which at terrific and unabated speed we were racing. Countless thousands upon thousands of ships, stretched far out in long lines there in space, we were reeling on at our utmost velocity of millions of light-speeds, stabbing and striking and falling in wild battle as we plunged madly on. Toward the right our two flashing lines of ships shifted, as we neared the giant green sun ahead, for now it was flaming across the firmament before us like a titanic wall of blinding emerald flame. Still farther to the right we veered, and then we had reached that sun and it was flaming in stupendous glory just to our left as we raced along its side!

"We're racing straight into the galaxy!" cried Jhul Din hoarsely as we thundered on. "It means death to carry this battle in there--our ships will crash into the suns and worlds at this terrific speed!"

"The serpent-ships will crash then too!" I screamed back to him, above the roar of the generators and the hissing of beams and force-shafts about us. "We'll carry this battle to a finish!"

Now as we sped past the giant green sun to the left, the line of serpent-ships between our own vast line and that sun, their ships were all but invisible to us against the blinding glare of that sun. Swiftly they took advantage of this, their pale beams leaping toward us with renewed fury, while in that dazzling glare our shafts of force could 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, outrushing 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 great 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 inward 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 nebulæ 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 nebulæ, 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!