For an awful moment it seemed as if the forces against them would defeat the ships. They seemed to hang static in space, as they turned the night of Saturn red with the furious cataracts of rocket fire. And then-- "They're going to make it. They are!" Bill Nardon exulted fiercely. V The foremost, a Terran spacer, had cut its rockets and swerved, peeling off in a magnificent plunge from dizzying heights into the atmosphere. Behind it streamed the balance of the Terran Fleet, like hounds that had sighted its quarry. And in the nebulous reaches of the stratosphere, the swarm that was still more ships flashed, reflecting the splendor of the rings. The lofty screen divided itself into two parts now. One segment showed the Terran ship come coasting down in great, breath-taking spirals, followed by its sister vessels, while the upper section mirrored the out-distanced and far more numerous portion of the immense fleet of spacers. They saw the Terran ship level suddenly, and from its bomb bays, a shower of black projectiles dropped swiftly toward some target they could not see. It banked in another wide turn and again its deadly bombs showered down on the maelstrom the first bombs had caused below. And then they saw the cause of the unexpected maneuver. An immense iridescent globe had risen from the shimmering depths of the sea. Another and another rose from the surface like cosmic bubbles rising from the tossing waves, hurrying to intercept the new invaders before they had a chance to land. The sinister violet haze was rapidly reaching out already, like an immense, empurpled amoeba reaching out with hungry tendrils. At a sign from Bill Nardon, the great strategist Nydron was at the Tele-radio, transmitting orders to the Terran ship that now darted and lashed out with its disintegrating rays like a Manthis over a nest of rattlesnakes. "Use your sub-atomic Dispersal Screen, you fools!" He was roaring, "and then strike ... strike hard with everything you got!" One hand was pounding into the reddened palm of the other. The balance of the fleet was thundering down now, and they saw the sudden burst of incandescent lightning that was the Energon screen as the Martian vessels turned their unrivalled protection on, then it vanished into invisibility as the screen took hold. And from the Terran ship, and its sister vessels that had finally caught up, the great yellow beams that turned into vortexes of emerald tinged power burst out, bathing the sinister Globes, enveloping them in their lethal stream. And then, the holocaust began. It seemed as if the liquid depths were spawning hundreds and hundreds of the great spheres, while overhead the sullen skies were black with the flashing vessels of the Inter-Planetary League. * * * * *