There had been no war in space for five thousand years. The last space-battle was that of Canis Major, when forty thousand warships plunged toward each other with their fighting-beams stabbing out savagely, aimed and controlled by every device that human ingenuity could contrive.
That battle had ended wars for all time, the Galaxy believed, because there was no survivor on either side. In seconds every combatant ship was merely a mass of insensate metal, which fought on in a blind futility.
The fighting-beams killed in thousandths of seconds. The robot gunners aimed with absolute precision. The two fleets joined battle and the robots fixed their targets and every ship became a coffin in which all living things were living no longer, which yet fought on with beams which could do no further harm.
With every man in both fleets dead the warships raged through emptiness, pouring out destruction from their unmanned projectors. It was a hundred years before the last war-craft, its fuel gone and its crew mere dust, was captured and destroyed. But there had been no space-fight since—until now.
And this one was strangeness itself. Four huge, squat ships of war rose steadily from the planet Sinab Two. They were doubtless bound on a mission of massacre. The Empire of Sinab gave no warning of its purpose. It did not permit the option of submission.
Its ships headed heavily out into space, crammed with generators of the murder-frequency. They had no inkling of any ships other than those of their own empire as being in existence anywhere.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a slim and slender space-craft winked into being—a member of Kim's squadron, just arrived. Within a fraction of an instant it was plunging furiously for the Sinabian monster.
The Starshine also flung itself into head-long attack, though it was unarmed save for projectors of a field that would not kill anyone. The other ships—and more, as they appeared—darted valorously for the giants.
Meteor-repellers lashed out automatically. Scanners had detected the newcomers and instantly flung repeller-beams to thrust them aside. They had no effect. Meteor-repellers handle inert mass but, by the nature of its action, an interplanetary drive neutralizes their effect.
The small ships flashed on.