Instantly our two great racing columns of ships divided, one to the right, our own ship at its head, and one to the left, splitting from each other and flashing past the great mass of the serpent-fleet on each side! And as we thus flashed past there leapt from the cylinders of our ships toward the serpent-fleet between our columns countless deadly shafts of invisible force, shafts that in the instant that we flashed past had crumpled and smashed to twisted wrecks of metal a full three thousand or more of the great mass of the serpent-ships! From their fleet's edge the pale beams sprang out in answer to us, wiping the life from scores of our racing ships; but caught as they thus were between our flashing columns they could not loose those beams effectively, and in a moment we were past them. Then with the galaxy's suns before us our great fleet was halting, turning, its columns closing again together, while toward those distant suns were drifting all about us the crumpled wrecks of the serpent-ships that had fallen before us. "First blood!" cried Jhul Din, and I nodded without speaking, bending again over my keys as our fleet raced forward again toward the enemy. The serpent-fleet, too, had turned, and was moving cautiously back toward us, and I knew that not again could we execute upon them the maneuver which we had just used. As we rushed again upon them, though, their fleet racing again to meet us, my fingers pressed swiftly again on the keys and our long columns of ships shifted swiftly into another formation, a long wedge with our own flag-ship at its point. Just before we again raced into the serpent-ships our fleet assumed this formation, for it was my plan this time to tear by main force through the serpent-fleet, shattering it before us. But in the instant before we could do so, before our mighty wedge's point could crash into them, their own fleet had divided suddenly, some fifteen hundred ships from its center driving upward and far above us while the remaining gigantic mass drove down under and beneath us. And in the next moment I saw that five hundred of the fifteen hundred ships above were great disk-ships, and that they were glowing with sudden, flickering radiance! "Attraction-ships!" Jhul Din was shouting, but already our own ships and all those behind us were turning upward, pulled resistlessly up, while from beneath with death-beams whirling thick the mass of the great serpent-fleet was leaping up toward us.