Even as we swerved, though, there leapt from the foremost of the uprushing craft a pale broad beam of ghostly white light that stabbed up toward and past us, grazing our ship, and that struck the foremost of the ships of our squadron behind us. I saw the broad beam strike that ship squarely, saw it playing on and through it, and for a moment could see no effect apparent. Then, as the great pale beam played across the ship in a swift slicing sweep, I saw that as it shone through that ship's pilot room the figures inside it suddenly vanished! The next moment the ship had suddenly driven crazily off into space, whirling blindly away without occupant or crew, all life in it wiped instantly from existence by that terrible death-beam that had played through it! Now the attacking ships were leaping up toward us, flashing up lightning-like with ghostly beams of death whirling and stabbing about and toward us, and now, over the wild clamor of sudden battle in the hull beneath, I heard the great cry of Jhul Din, beside me.
"Space-ships in thousands, and they're attacking us! They've come from somewhere toward our galaxy—have come out of outer space itself to attack our universe!"
2. Chased Through the Void
The moment of swift, terrific battle that followed was to me then only a wild uproar of flashing action and hoarse shouts, as the mighty ships beneath leapt up toward us. It was only another sudden twisting turn of our ship by Korus Kan that saved us from annihilation in that wild first moment of combat, since the score or more of pale, deadly beams from beneath, stabbing past us as we twisted, struck the ships of our squadron behind and in another moment had sent half of them reeling blindly and aimlessly out of sight, driving haphazardly off into space as the ghostly beams annihilated all the life inside them. Then, as we raced still through space above the mighty swarm, the score of attacking ships suddenly divided, a dozen of them driving up toward the ships behind us while the remainder flashed toward us, their great, pale rays still stabbing and slicing as they leapt on.
Even as our ship swerved from the pale beams leaping up toward us, though, I had shouted an order into the tube beside me, and now from our own craft there stabbed down toward the upward-rushing ships a half-dozen long, narrow rays of brilliant red light. Four of the ships below were struck squarely by those brilliant rays, and from our crew came shouts of triumph as those four vanished in blinding flares of crimson light. It was the deadly ray of the Interstellar Patrol, destroying all matter it touched by raising its frequency of vibration, since matter itself is but a certain frequency vibration of the ether, and when that frequency is raised to that of light-vibrations the matter is changed in that moment from solid matter to light.
Even in the moment that the four ships vanished beneath our rays, though, I had glanced backward and had seen the last of the ships of our squadron behind vanishing in a wild chaos of whirling death-beam and crimson ray, since scores of other ships were leaping up to attack us from the mighty swarm far beneath. Toward us now, it seemed, ships were flashing from every direction, and I heard the hissing of the ray-tubes below as our crimson rays burned out to meet them, saw three more of them flare and vanish, glimpsed a dozen shafts of the death-beam graze past us as Korus Kan twisted our ship in an erratic, corkscrew course. Not for moments longer, though, I knew, could we keep up this wild and unequal battle, since the mass of ships behind that had annihilated our squadron were now leaping after us. Our only chance was in flight.
I shouted to Korus Kan, and then, as scores of the ghostly beams swept through the void toward us, I saw him swerve the control-levers in his hands sharply sidewise, so that our ship abruptly turned squarely to the right, away from the great swarm and the attacking ships about us. It was a maneuver that caught those ships off their guard, and traveling as we were at the terrific velocity of five hundred light-speeds, it put millions of miles of space between us and the great swarm before the attacking ships could realize what we had done. In a split-second they had vanished from sight about us and we were again rushing on through black and empty space, turning now and again heading toward the galaxy's far-flung suns. But, as I gazed anxiously at the big space-chart, I saw that now the great swarm of black dots upon it had slanted from their former course and was heading straight after the single dot that was our ship. By means of their own space-charts, which I knew they must have, they had discovered our trick and were in pursuit!
"Let her out to full speed!" I cried to Korus Kan. "They're after us and our only chance is to get to the galaxy ahead of them!"
Instantly Korus Kan opened wide the power-controls, and with a mounting humming roar our great ship went rapidly into its highest speed, its great generators flinging it on through the ether at a thousand times the velocity of light, propelling it headlong onward toward the galaxy that lay still far ahead, its mighty disk-like mass of shining suns stretched across the blackness of space before us. And behind us rushed the great swarm, too, racing on after us and toward the galaxy still. I knew that the speed of that mighty swarm of ships must be inconceivably greater than that of our own, since we ourselves had seen them on our charts racing in toward the galaxy from outer space with velocity unthinkable, a velocity which we had thought could only be due to some great ether-current, and which they had only slackened as they drew near the galaxy. There was a slender chance, though, that we might yet escape, and now as we rushed on toward the galaxy in headlong flight I turned quickly to the speech-projection instrument beside me, pressing a button in its base. A moment later there came from it a clear, twanging voice.