"Then why don't you turn the heat on them?"
"We have. Our heat-rays have no effect on them. That pinkish light is a reflector wave of some sort. Several of our beam projectors were burnt up by the kick-back."
"Ram 'em then! Ram 'em! Sacred Ganymede! Is our Defense Service degenerating into a crew of Mugs?"
The officer's image on the screen was seen to flush, to draw itself up resentfully.
"We have sent ships up to ram them, Your Supremacy. Three of them have been destroyed."
"I was watching. I saw nothing."
"The visibility is worse than usual. They are half a mile high. Our own ships are invisible at a hundred yards. It's that cursed light."
Nikkia shut him off peremptorily.
"Never mind the conversation, Sonta. Get out every available defense craft. Box those teardrops. Ram them. Destroy them—I don't care how!"