Out of the DARK NEBULA
By MILTON L. COE
Five thousand green space-cadets, manning
the mighty Albion on their shake-down cruise,
heard that grim message from HQ: "War with
Xantu! Return immediately to Terra Base!"
Which posed a problem ... for lurking in
starry battleground, somewhere between Earth
and the doom-ship, was half the Xantu fleet!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories May 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The bulkheads of the mighty battleship rocked with the song welling from five thousand throats. As the young, eager voices swelled into the chorus of "The Spaceman's Hymn," Vice-Admiral Jack Harrigan felt a lump grow in his own throat. Captain Mike O'Brien, short, muscular and definitely Irish, joined the admiral at the balcony hatch; together they looked down upon the huge ship's auditorium.
"It's a long, long way to the Milky Way ..." the chorus rose, fell, faded and died.
Harrigan nodded to O'Brien and the two men matched strides down the passageway.
"Something on your mind, Jack?" O'Brien asked.
"Oh, I don't know, Mike. I just got to thinking about the old days, I guess, hearing those kids singing. The Force is all glory to them; color, ceremony, power, flitting around the Galaxy like this. Cream of the crop, they are, and every last one of them fought to get in the Force. But I wonder how they'd face up to the other side of this business?"