Beneath we saw the single remaining oval ship turning, too, since it had been far enough behind the two to change its course in time to avoid the terrible corona. It seemed to pause, hesitate, and then, as though satisfied that our ship too had met death in the corona with its own two companions, it began to flash backward toward the galaxy's edge, toward the Cancer cluster where the mighty invading fleet had settled. And now, burning for revenge, our own cruiser was slanting back with it and down toward it, as it drove on unsuspectingly beneath. Another moment and we would be above it, would loose our red rays on it before ever it suspected our existence. I was breathing with relief at our escape, now, and heard an exulting cry from Jhul Din as he strode down into the cruiser's hull from the pilot room, to direct the ray-tubes there, but the next moment all our triumph vanished, for from our cruiser's hull, toward its battered prow, there came suddenly a succession of appalling cracks. Standing suddenly tense we listened, and then, as there came from beneath a prolonged, cracking roar, I heard shouts of fear from our crew, and then Jhul Din had burst up into the pilot room from beneath. "The cruiser's walls are giving!" he cried. "That collision with the oval ship when we smashed our way out strained and wrenched loose the whole prow and side-walls--the cruiser can't hold together for five minutes more!" There was a stunned silence in the little room then, a silence in which it seemed that all the disasters that had befallen us were crowding together upon us, overpowering us. This was the end, I knew. Within minutes more the walls about us would collapse and in the infinite cold and emptiness of interstellar space we would meet our deaths. We were hours away from the nearest friendly planet, with all our companion ships destroyed. It was the end, and for a moment I bowed to the inevitable, stood in stunned despair awaiting that end. But then, as my eyes fell upon the oval ship beneath, toward which our collapsing cruiser was still slanting downward, I saw that upon its broad metal back was the round circle of a space-door, like the double space-doors of our own ship, and as I saw that, all the ancient combativeness that has carried men out into the remotest of the galaxy's depths surged up in me, and I wheeled around to the other two. "Order all our crew down to the cruiser's lower space-door," I cried, "and have an emergency space-suit issued to each of them!" They stared at me, strangely, tensely. "What are you going to do?" asked Jhul Din, at last, and my answer came out in a shout. "We're going to do what never yet has been done in all the battles between the stars!" I told him. "_We're going to put our lives on one last mad chance and board that enemy ship in mid-space!_" _4. A Struggle Between the Stars_