The grim black rocket, whirling and dipping with a swiftness of maneuver astounding in a ship of its size, was endeavoring to bring the twisting little craft that evaded it into the line of its guns. As their own ship thundered down on the scene, Evans and Calden saw the one side of the Hawk's rocket stabbing forth a half-score slender jets of blue fire as its electric-guns blasted toward the smaller craft. But the latter had shot upward in time to avoid the fire, and in the next moment the Earth-Guard rocket was rushing down upon the ebon attacker.
"Fire!" As Hartley's voice below shouted the order, the Earth-Guard ship poured a deadly fire toward the black rocket of the Hawk. But at the very instant of firing, with a swiftness born of a hundred space-fights, the Hawk's rocket had shot upward.
"Missed him!" Calden cried. "Look out—he's tailing—!"
"Over quick!" Evans exclaimed. "Let him have the stern guns, Hartley!"
For in the instant after shooting upward to avoid their fire, the rocket of the Hawk had flashed back down on them in the familiar maneuver of "tailing," using all the firing-tubes placed in its nose for braking purposes to halt it and reverse it in a flash.
Evans had a lightning glimpse of the great black shape rushing stern-foremost down on them. Then he felt his own rocket dip and dive like light as Calden's hands flashed on the firing-levers, and for a moment Evans saw the white-lit pilot-house of the other rocket, with the tense figures inside it, before it whirled out of view. He sensed rather than saw the blast of the Hawk's guns above them as they dived just in time to avoid the deadly missiles.
Evans heard shouting voices from their own gun-rooms and had no need to cry to Calden the next order, for already the other was straightening out their course and sending their ship soaring upward again. But the long black craft of the Hawk was gone! After that one swift swoop and blow it had flashed off the space-lane into the uncharted void, and they glimpsed it only as a dwindling point of fire that vanished in the next instant.
Evans, filled by a blind fury, whirled to give Calden the order that would send them in wild pursuit, but checked himself as he realized, despite his rage, the futility of such a pursuit. Once out of sight, the Hawk in his immensely swift rocket could laugh at all pursuit, as he had laughed many times. His face a study of conflicting emotions, Evans turned back toward his second-officer.
"Back to our regular course on the space-lane," he ordered wearily. "He's got away again."