Again a purple spark appeared from the sapphire globe, with a beam of white fire behind it. A tiny purple globe, hurtling at an inconceivable velocity before a lance of white flame. It reached out, with a certain deliberation, yet too quickly for a man to do more than see it.
It struck a sunship, at one tip of the crescent formation.
A dazzling flash of violet flame burst out. The tiny globe seemed to explode into a huge flare of red-blue light. And where the slim, eight-sided ship had been was a crushed and twisted mass of metal.
"A solid projectile!" Brand cried. "And driven on the positive ray! Our experts have tried it, but the ray always exploded the shell. And that was some explosion! I don't know what—unless atomic energy!"
The eight sunships that remained were closing swiftly upon the blue globe. The dazzling white rays flashed intermittently from them. They struck the blue globe squarely—the fighting crews of the Moon Patrol are trained until their rays are directed with deadly accuracy. The azure sphere, unharmed, shone with bright radiance—it seemed that a thin mist of glittering blue particles was gathering about it, like a dust of powdered sapphires.
Another purple spark leapt from the turquoise globe.
In the time that it took a man's eyes to move from globe to slim, glistening sunship, the white ray had driven the purple spark across the distance. Another vivid flash of violet light. And another sunship became a hurtling mass of twisted wreckage.
"We are seven!" Brand quoted grimly.
"Heliograph!" he shouted into the mouthpiece. "Fire all forward tubes one second twenty times a minute. Increase rear power to maximum."
White rays burst from the seven darting sunships, flashing off and on. That sapphire globe grew bright, with a strange luminosity. The thin mist of sparkling blue particles seemed to grow more dense about it.