At nightside, the combined fleets dropped onto Ertene, showered the area with toroids, and landed. They forced the heavy doors open and emerged again with the machine.
Up they drove, into the Ertinian sky, and away. Ertene came to life then, and vortex projectors hurled their toroids into the sky after the fleeting ships of Sol.
Sol's ships scattered and avoided the toroids, and then answered by dropping their own onto a greater area than before. They silenced those that might give danger, and then sped away in a die-true line for Sol. From Ertene there arose the Ertinian fleet to give chase.
Normally, Terra could have out-distanced them, for they had the head start in an accelerative race. But Mars could not keep that killing pace, and Terra was forced to hang back; they hoped to best Ertene in full battle, if escape were impossible.
Conquest would give them Ertene, and that would have been desirable, too. But conquest of Ertene was planned for the future, and well-planned.
So Ertene caught up with the slower fleet of Sol, and the two intermingled.
Space filled with the myriad winking spots of prematured torpedoes. Gouts of released energy burst in empty space as crossed MacMillans backfired. Energy bombs were strewn as a matter of course to prevent the operation of sub-ships, and the milling mass circled in a battle plan that no space marshal had ever planned.
The ship that had Ertene's thought-beam was known. Battle centered about it, and it became evident that neither side cared to direct its fire in that direction. The whirling melee spread out into a vast sphere of fighting ships, with the thief in the middle. Wide spread the battle; the thickness of the fighting globe dropping as the sphere increased.
Maynard smiled. "Now!" he said.