I saw the enemy fleet flashing straight toward us, the apex of its triangle pointed full at our center, and knew instinctively that it meant to cut us into halves with the great wedge that was itself. But as it flashed straight toward us and upon us there rang another order from the instrument at my side, and instantly our three short columns of ships veered to the right, changing in a moment into one long column, which instead of meeting the onrushing triangle flashed along its side. As we shot past thus I had a lightning glimpse of the masses of countless oval ships racing by, glimpsed too a score or more of ships at the center of their fleet that seemed not oval but round and disk-like in shape, and then forgot all else as from all our ships there burst the brilliant red rays, raking the side of their fleet with a deadly fire as we flashed past it. Then scores upon scores of their ships were vanishing in crimson flares of light as those rays found them, and though their death-beams found our own ships here and there as we flashed by, the great mass of their ships dared not loose their beams upon us lest they destroy their own ships, so skilful had been our maneuver. Only a moment did it last, that passing of the two fleets with red ray and death-beam crossing, and then we were past them, were turning and circling and racing back upon them to deliver another blow. Ahead we could see the enemy fleet turning and racing back to meet us, with beyond them the great suns of the galaxy flaming in the blackness of space, and again we leapt straight toward them there in the abysmal void; but this time they had anticipated our maneuver and as we swerved to the right of them their whole great fleet swerved right also, so that in order to avoid a head-on collision with their fleet we were forced to swerve still farther to the right, our long column racing along through space now parallel to the galaxy's edge, with the enemy ships strung in a similar column between us and the galaxy, racing along with us through space at the same speed as ourselves, their pale ghostly beams whirling toward us even as our crimson shafts cut through the void toward them. Ships on each side were vanishing, now, some flaring in wild explosions of red light and disappearing as the scarlet rays found them, others driving crazily and aimlessly away as the pale beams wiped out in an instant all the crews inside them. But now we found ourselves at a disadvantage, for our enemy's gleaming ships could hardly be made out against the flaring suns of the galaxy, beyond them, while our own glittering cruisers stood out clearly against the darkness of outer space. It was an advantage of which they took swift use, for now the broad pale beams were reaching toward us in increasing numbers as we flashed along, while our own rays were all but ineffective, since, blinded as we were by the flaring suns behind the opposing ships, we could only loose the rays at random.