* * *
Russ shivered. The control room suddenly seemed chilly with a frightening kind of cold.
"He's carrying photo-cells and several thousand tons of accumulator stacks. Not much power left in them. He could pour a billion horsepower into them for hours and still have room for more."
Greg nodded wearily. “All we've been doing is feeding him."
The engines were humming quietly now, singing the low song of power held in leash.
But then they screamed like a buzz saw biting into an iron-hard stick of white oak. Screamed in a single, frightful agony as they threw the protecting wall that enclosed the Invincible all the power they could develop.
The air of the ship was instantaneously charged with a hazy, bluish glow, and the sharp, stinging odor of ozone filled the ship.
* * *
Outside, an enormous burst of blue-white flame splashed and spattered around the Invincible. Living lightning played in solid, snapping sheets around the vision port and ran in trickling blazing fire across the plates.
Russ cried out and backed away, holding his arm before his eyes. It was as if he had looked into a nova of energy exploding before his eyes.