A burst of flame came from the flank of the _Scorpiad_, and the ports flashed outward, followed by gouts of smoke and incandescence. Four red spots spread outward on the _Scorpiad's_ hull, and the constellation ship lost drive. Unable to keep up the deceleration of the rest of the Terran fleet, _Scorpiad_ fell out of position and dropped below the fleet--farther and farther ahead. A blinding flash of flame came and died. "Gone!" moaned Maynard. "But what a cost!" said Ben. "No cost is worth it!" said Maynard. Then he calmed and added: "Accursed business. But we may be ahead in the exchange." "It's brutal," agreed Ben. "Let's keep 'em from getting another." "Might be robots." "Nope. If so, the technicians would have scrambled 'em. What's making now?" "The fighter-cover! It's arrived!" The incoming jet of Mephistan fighters wavered like a gas flame in a high wind, and scintillations scarred the perfection of the needling ships. The long-range fire of the constellation ships picked off the aimlessly moving ships and as the flaming specks reached an almost-solid appearance, the jet of tiny fighters ceased abruptly. "Stopped 'em!" Maynard nodded. "For the time." The communicator spoke: "Commander to Marshal: Located the mother-fleet." "Yes?" "We're hitting them now--as per orders. But this is a warning. If we don't stop 'em first, they'll be there in fifteen minutes. They're on collision course!" "Expected that," said Guy, worriedly. "O.K.," said Ben in what he hoped would be an encouragement. "Now we'll see if your battle-plan works." "I keep worrying that it won't." "If it didn't have merit," observed Ben dryly, "it wouldn't have been adopted." "I want to get out there and pitch." "You gotta stay in here and hope they pitch to your call," said Williamson. * * * * * Twelve minutes later, the Mephistan fleet came into long-detector range, and the entire Terran fleet opened fire. The heavies, still circling the fleet, took up the job as soon as they came into range, and the space between became filled with flashes of fire as crossed MacMillan beams neutralized one another and spent their mighty energies in light and heat. The power rooms of the ships became a noisy clatter of automatically opening and closing circuit breakers as the MacMillan overloads worked the safety-circuits. Now and then the ultra-loud clamor of the fuse alarms rang out above the chattering racket, and the power gangs worked furiously to replace master line-fuses while the rest of the ship fumed and fretted without power for offense or defense. The heavies--the sluggers--got between the constellation ships and the Mephistans, and their super-powered AutoMacs outfought the lighter turret-mounts of the Mephistans.