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!