The path of the storm was strewn with smoking, ruined ships. The luckless were forced inside of the whirling cylinder and gunned there. They fell down that chimney of death to the ground that awaited them at the bottom, or crashed against uprising sub-ships that swooped upward through the vortex and fired on all sides, relying on the identifier-couplers that stopped their aim against their fellows. The vortex broke, and the Terran ships opened from circle to crescent to straight line to closing crescent and strove to encircle the Martians. Outnumbered now, the latter fled slowly and kept up a killing fire of retreat. Across the face of Mephisto arrowed the embattled fleets. A wall ten miles high and fifty miles long and thirty miles from front to back accelerated and swept everything before it. Between the two walls of fighting ships was a constant flare of death. Cities caught in the conflagration died; their buildings seared, blasted, and broken. In full rout, the Martian forces raced to converge upon a large city. In a tight circle, the Martians braced themselves. Power beams came from the city to feed them, and as Terra came before them they lashed out with the power of planet-supported fire. Terra englobed the city, but it was a questionable success. * * * * * From horizon to zenith, the Terrans poured their power into the Martian hemisphere. The ground about the city ran hot, and the grounded ring tilted and mired down, but they continued to fire back. Stalemate set in; Terra could not breach that close-knit hemisphere and Mars could not fight off the pressing Terrans. Destroyed torpedoes filled the annular gap with explosions, and crossed MacMillans flared to sear the eye. Then a mile inside of the Martian ring, the ground heaved upward, and the ugly snouts of underground raiders appeared. Their protected turrets lifted out of the blisters and began to pour energy into the Martians from behind. The Martians swept downward from their hemisphere and fought back against the pincer-movement. The topmost Terrans pressed downward as a second ring of underground raiders appeared to bolster the first wave. The city erupted in tiny areas as Terran undergrounds broke the surface, blasted the interfering building away with torpedoes, and lifted to add to the ever-increasing energy of the battle. The Martians hopped backwards over the ring of undergrounds and set up an inner line. At point-blank range, and almost plate to plate, the Terrans massed their energy in a flaming wall of destruction, fighting the Martians back, foot by foot.