In Huston's special courier the tons of official mail had been whittled down to one piece, four pages of micro-typewritten tissue paper and the remaining load had been filled up with additional power-pack. The timing had been calculated to perfection and the timing circuits had been carefully checked by the Standards Technicians. Then the drive had been set and the ship had taken off for Terra in a flight calculated to make space-crossing history. Only then did Huston's flight form and leap into space from Neoterra. Driving as hard and as fast as men and machinery would permit, Huston's crew came down out of supervelocity four months later, a couple of light months South Galactic from Latham Beta. Like Hoagland, Huston waited in space until the stragglers came through. Unlike Hoagland, Huston had to wait because he was going to defend, not make a destructive attack. Once the flight had formed, they circled Latham Beta and headed for Alpha in superdrive. They came in to one side of Alpha IV, and circled the planet less than a hundred miles up, coming around the planet in time to watch the first line of Hoagland's ship start the bombing run. "You know the score!" snapped Huston. "That relay station _must_ remain intact until the Network Beam gets here! Protect it!" Huston's flight spread out a bit and streaked across the ice cap, hitting Hoagland's bombing curve in the middle, ship after ship. Orange flames licked the noses of Huston's craft and the shells screamed across the ice cap to flash in and around Hoagland's flight. The careening ships and the flight of screaming shells destroyed the flight perfection of the bombing pilots. The ice cap blazed with dots of flame and pillars of smoke as the bombs landed in a shotgun pattern around, but never quite on, the relay station. Huston's men spotted the hare-and-hounds game forming at the upward swing of the bombing run and the ships roared for counter-attack. Like twin corkscrews, both flights spiralled up after Grayson's fleeing ship. "Grayson!" roared Huston. "Grayson!" "Yeah--?" It was Z-wave now, because all of the ships were close-locked in combat. Not the galactic separation that made original contact necessary. "Grayson, this is Huston. How long before the beacon beam arrives?" "Hours." Huston groaned. "We've got to defend that station for hours or defeat Hoagland completely!" Huston's flight split into two, one of them spiralled down to race in a large circle high around the relay station, the rest of them remaining in the locked spiral of the flight. Grayson snapped the high drive and his ship flashed into superdrive and away. Hoagland's flight gave up the chase and looped up and over and down towards the station again. Huston's half-flight cut the corner of the curve and passed through Hoagland's ships, the space-rifles barking. It was a maneuver similar to "Crossing the Tee" in naval warfare.