Out of the DARK NEBULA By MILTON L. COE Five thousand green space-cadets, manning the mighty _Albion_ on their shake-down cruise, heard that grim message from HQ: "_War with Xantu! Return immediately to Terra Base!_" Which posed a problem ... for lurking in starry battleground, somewhere between Earth and the doom-ship, was half the Xantu fleet! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories May 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The bulkheads of the mighty battleship rocked with the song welling from five thousand throats. As the young, eager voices swelled into the chorus of "The Spaceman's Hymn," Vice-Admiral Jack Harrigan felt a lump grow in his own throat. Captain Mike O'Brien, short, muscular and definitely Irish, joined the admiral at the balcony hatch; together they looked down upon the huge ship's auditorium. "It's a long, long way to the Milky Way ..." the chorus rose, fell, faded and died. Harrigan nodded to O'Brien and the two men matched strides down the passageway. "Something on your mind, Jack?" O'Brien asked. "Oh, I don't know, Mike. I just got to thinking about the old days, I guess, hearing those kids singing. The Force is all glory to them; color, ceremony, power, flitting around the Galaxy like this. Cream of the crop, they are, and every last one of them fought to get in the Force. But I wonder how they'd face up to the other side of this business?" "Combat?" O'Brien screwed up his face. "Yeh boy. Combat like we saw, with our backs to the wall and nine-tenths of the Galaxy howling for our heart's blood. Wonder if they'd change their minds about the force--" he jerked his thumb back towards the auditorium--"if it came again?" "Dunno." Mike shrugged. "Maybe old Fitzsimmons wondered about us the same way when we went on our shake-down cruise. We were a sad bunch, I'll admit. But we didn't pan out too bad, did we Jack?" The two officers had reached the observation deck. The Milky Way stretched a hazy filament across the heavens. Harrigan drew a long breath, hooked his thumbs in his belt and smiled. "No, Mike, not bad at all, if I do say so. It was rugged while we were going through it, I suppose. But things have been quiet for so long now ... damn it, we did have fun, didn't we Mike?" Mike grinned crookedly. "Fun is right. Remember the time Shorty Michaels caught those two Xantu ships flat-footed behind the Coal Sack?" "Yeah. Blew 'em to Hell and back and found out later they were the two strongest ships in the Xantu fleet. If they had seen him first ... brother, he shook for a week after they told him." Mike roared with laughter. "Battle wagons, and Shorty with a destroyer." * * * * *