Suddenly the Ancient Mariner was visible again. Simultaneously, three rays leaped down and bathed the formation in their pale radiance. The front ranks vanished, and the line broke, attacking the ship that hung above them now. Four magnetic beams hit the Ancient Mariner at once! Arcot couldn't pull away from all four, and his gunners couldn't tell which ships were holding them.
All at once, the men felt a violent electrical shock! The air about them was filled with the blue haze of the electric weapon they had seen!
Instantly, the magnetic beams left them, and they saw behind them a single Satorian ship heading toward them, surrounded by that same bluish halo of light. A suicide ship!
Arcot accelerated away from it as Fuller hit it with a molecular beam. The ship reeled and stopped, and the Ancient Mariner pulled away from it rapidly. Then, the frost-covered ship of the dead came on, still heading for them!
Arcot turned and went off to the right, but like a pursuing Nemesis, the strange ship came after them in the shortest, most direct route!
The molecular beams were useless now; there was no molecular energy left in the frozen hulk that accelerated toward them. Suddenly, the two envelopes of blue light touched and coalesced! A great, blinding arc leaped between the two ships as the speeding Satorian hull smashed violently against the side of the Ancient Mariner! The men ducked automatically, and were hurled against their seat-straps with tremendous force. There was a rending, crashing roar, a sea of flame—and darkness.
They could only have been unconscious a few seconds, for when the fog went away, they could see the glowing mass of the enemy ship still falling far beneath them. The lux wall where it had hit was still glowing red.
"Morey!" Arcot called. "You all right? Wade? Fuller?"
"Okay!" Morey answered.
So were Wade and Fuller.