Above us now the great galaxy-fleet was turning likewise, slanting down beside us, and then our two fleets were leaping together back toward the serpent-ships. They had courage, the beings in those ships, for though now the tables were turned and it was we who outnumbered them, they had turned, massed still closely together, and were racing forward to meet us. By this time our mighty battle had reeled sidewise toward one of the near-by suns, a great double yellow star that flamed to our left in growing, awful glory as we raced across the firmament toward it; but no thought did we give it in that wild moment, since ahead the serpent-fleet, forming suddenly into a long wedge, was racing toward us. On it came, heading straight toward our two fleets that flashed to meet it, and then just before it reached those fleets it veered swiftly sidewise, to pass by the side of our own fleet, raking us with its beams while our own ships should mask them from the rays of the galaxy-fleet. In the instant that they had veered, though, I had seen their maneuver, had pressed lightning-like on the keys before me. Instantly our own great fleet shot sharply sidewise also, so far sidewise in that moment that instead of racing past us the serpent-fleet flashed between us and the galaxy-fleet. And again, as they ran the gauntlet of the terrible rays and force-shafts of our two fleets, their ships were crumpling and vanishing in flares of light, through all their mighty mass. Another such deadly blow and we would have shattered their fleet, I knew, and as the serpent-ships shot past us and beyond us, their own death-beams stabbing out sullenly still, our two great armadas were turning again, were wheeling and flashing back again for another great blow, while to our side the twin great golden suns toward which we were swaying were looming now in dazzling grandeur. Backward, side by side, our two vast fleets shot once more, and before us the serpent-ships were whirling again upon us! Surely no such struggle to the death had any universe ever seen as this one, in which all of our three great fleets seemed intent only on grappling there until all were destroyed. On toward us the serpent-ships were flashing, all things before and about us bathed now in the dazzling glare of the stupendous yellow suns to our left; then, just as their great fleet had almost reached our own two fleets, racing forward to meet it, they had dipped, had dived sharply downward to pass beneath us. But in that same moment, with the same idea, I had pressed the keys before me and our own fleet, and the galaxy-fleet with us, had dipped down also, rushing forward; and then in the next wild instant our two great fleets and that of the serpent-creatures had collided, had crashed head on there in space!