Now the whole sky above them had grown dark. For as far as Haral could see, the storm-clouds gathered. The roar of thunder drowned out the shrilly keening whine that filled his tortured ears. Lightning leaped in blinding sheets and chains and flashes.
With an effort, the blue man tore his eyes from the violence overhead and looked again to the viewer plate by the control board.
It blazed with the glint of Sark's carrier ships. A rushing silver wall of death, they hurtled ever nearer.
"Twenty seconds more!" Xaymar cried into his ear. "Twenty seconds—and they perish!"
The hurtling ships overflowed the screen. Hulls blotted out the sky.
"Ten seconds!"
The plate blurred, out of focus.
"Look! They come!" shrieked Xaymar, and there was a vindictive triumph in her scream that whispered of something close to madness.
Haral followed her sweeping gesture—up, to the sky itself, and the rocket-borne death that dwelt there.
There were Sark's ships—a fleet, a horde. Now they lanced downward on their final strike. The roar of their rockets slashed through the storm.