Thousands of ships, I think, must have gone into annihilation in that first wild rush of the three fleets, for ships all about our own were reeling blindly away as the pale beams that whirled down from above swept through them. Upward and downward those ghostly beams were leaping thick, finding their mark in many of the ships of our two fleets, but it was the serpent-fleet that suffered most in that mad rush. Caught as they were between the deadly fires of both our fleets, though only in the moment that we flashed past, their ships had yet vanished by hundreds, by thousands, as force-shaft and red ray flashed and stabbed among them. I heard Jhul Din shouting with mad joy as we shot past them beneath, heard, too, the cries of our few followers among the Andromedan crew beneath and then we were past them, were pausing in space, as I pressed the keys of the fleet-control, and were turning to rush back for another blow.
Above us now the great galaxy-fleet was turning likewise, slanting down beside us, and then our two fleets were leaping together back toward the serpent-ships. They had courage, the beings in those ships, for though now the tables were turned and it was we who outnumbered them, they had turned, massed still closely together, and were racing forward to meet us. By this time our mighty battle had reeled sidewise toward one of the near-by suns, a great double yellow star that flamed to our left in growing, awful glory as we raced across the firmament toward it; but no thought did we give it in that wild moment, since ahead the serpent-fleet, forming suddenly into a long wedge, was racing toward us. On it came, heading straight toward our two fleets that flashed to meet it, and then just before it reached those fleets it veered swiftly sidewise, to pass by the side of our own fleet, raking us with its beams while our own ships should mask them from the rays of the galaxy-fleet.
In the instant that they had veered, though, I had seen their maneuver, had pressed lightning-like on the keys before me. Instantly our own great fleet shot sharply sidewise also, so far sidewise in that moment that instead of racing past us the serpent-fleet flashed between us and the galaxy-fleet. And again, as they ran the gauntlet of the terrible rays and force-shafts of our two fleets, their ships were crumpling and vanishing in flares of light, through all their mighty mass. Another such deadly blow and we would have shattered their fleet, I knew, and as the serpent-ships shot past us and beyond us, their own death-beams stabbing out sullenly still, our two great armadas were turning again, were wheeling and flashing back again for another great blow, while to our side the twin great golden suns toward which we were swaying were looming now in dazzling grandeur.
Backward, side by side, our two vast fleets shot once more, and before us the serpent-ships were whirling again upon us! Surely no such struggle to the death had any universe ever seen as this one, in which all of our three great fleets seemed intent only on grappling there until all were destroyed. On toward us the serpent-ships were flashing, all things before and about us bathed now in the dazzling glare of the stupendous yellow suns to our left; then, just as their great fleet had almost reached our own two fleets, racing forward to meet it, they had dipped, had dived sharply downward to pass beneath us. But in that same moment, with the same idea, I had pressed the keys before me and our own fleet, and the galaxy-fleet with us, had dipped down also, rushing forward; and then in the next wild instant our two great fleets and that of the serpent-creatures had collided, had crashed head on there in space!
I had only a blinding vision of those thousands of mighty ships rushing toward us, and we toward them, and then it seemed that in all the universe about us was nothing but colliding mighty shapes of metal, oval and cigar-like and long and flat, as our two massed fleets crashed into their own. How our own ship escaped, in the van of our fleet I can not guess, for space about us in that moment was but a single awful mass of shattered and shattering vessels. Crashing into each other head on, transformed in an instant from gleaming, leaping craft to mere twisted wrecks of metal, went the thousands of ships about us, perishing in thousands in that colossal shock. Before us there seemed only a single mass of great oval ships leaping toward us, serpent-pilots plainly visible for a flashing moment in their white-lit pilot rooms, and then our craft was twisting and swaying and ducking like a mad thing as Jhul Din shot it this way and that to avoid the ships before us.
Then, as the impetus of that mighty rush of the three fleets vanished with their awful crash together, they were hanging there, each fleet mixed and mingled now with the others in that wild, crashing moment, no longer three vast organized fleets but a single colossal mass of countless ships, struggling together, ship to ship, in one tremendous field of battle there between the suns. It was as though, in that moment, space about us had become suddenly peopled thick with struggling ships, before and ahead, to each side and above and below, striking at each other with red ray or pale beam of invisible force-shaft, whirling and crashing into each other with inconceivable fury.
Out of the mass before us a single serpent-ship was rushing head on toward us. As Jhul Din swerved our ship sharply up to avoid collision with it, its death-beam leapt toward us, but again we leapt sidewise and upward to avoid that beam and it shot past us and instantly wiped the life from one of the cigar-like galaxy-ships behind us. As it did so, though, our force-shafts were stabbing from their cylinders as our Andromedans beneath swiftly turned them, and then the ship ahead had crumpled and vanished; while across and above us shot other pale beams from beyond as another serpent-ship leapt to take its place.
Crash!—a mighty shock flung us sidewise as our craft reeled over, and we glimpsed a serpent-ship that had flashed down on us from above, grazing past us. Our force-shafts leapt from the cylinders toward it, missed it, and then as its death-beams whirled toward us in passing there burned past us from behind a brilliant red ray that touched it and destroyed it in a great burst of crimson light! Then in the next instant our cylinders were swinging toward a trio of close-ranked serpent-ships that were rushing toward us, one behind the other. The death-beams of the foremost leapt out, seared along the edge of our ship, but at the same moment that foremost ship had crumpled suddenly beneath our force-shafts, and before the two behind it could swerve they had crashed into that twisted wreck of metal and into each other. Then all three buckled, shattered hulks were drifting sidewise from the battle.
But now all about us an awful glare was growing, and as we whirled and struck there I looked up to see that our titanic mass of tens of thousands of struggling ships, whirling on with all their speed and striking with all their power at each other, were drifting blindly toward the two flaming yellow suns that loomed now in dazzling size and splendor just before us! Yet on, on we were whirling, stabbing, soaring and vanishing, locked still in the colossal death-grip of universes, on until all about and before us was nothing but thundering, blinding walls of flame as we reeled sidewise into those two great suns!