It was in that moment that Fate cut the cord. An eye-searing light filled the cabin, and Kennedy shrieked—"The reaction sphere!"
The planet once known as Earth burst into a minor nova, blasting its Great Ring into spiraling shreds and tatters of celestial tinsel. In the face of that swiftly advancing flame, the star ships that had survived the rocket's first onslaught flicked safely into hyper-space, and Kennedy tried to stand enough Gs of acceleration to keep ahead of it. He barely made it.
But Weston and Edwards did not. At first they were blinded, utterly, by the blast, unprotected as they were in the blisters. Then, as a very small fraction of that searing wave licked out at the rocket, the hull resisted but the blisters fused and exploded. An airlock sealed the gun compartments off from the rocket's cabin, but the remains of the two gunners drifted into the turbulent ether.
There was one other decisive effect of the holocaust. Certain delicate apparatus connected with the collection and storing of Cosmic energy was also fused and made useless, before it had hardly begun to store up for the intended work ahead.
"That does it!" panted Kennedy. "We're licked!"
"No we're not," said Kimnar, nodding toward the observation panel. His tear-flooded eyes were struggling out of the momentarily induced blindness and he saw that the rocket had turned so that the glare of the explosion was not visible.
Instead, there was the towering, eternal firmament, and in it had suddenly materialized one of the star man spheres, glistening brightly in the light that their eyes were now being spared. Kennedy watched it helplessly as it approached.
Henry and Martia became aware of minds probing them gingerly and communing with Kimnar—minds of the star men, who had not struck back immediately because they had been hoping to rescue some of their own kind and take them home....