"Better we should blitz eight or nine of them for sure than to try and get fifteen but miss all but six. And don't forget that we're in the lead. The boys in back will have more time to spread out and get the outlying ships." "I'd like to stay running free as long as I can," said Stellor. "It makes us just that harder to detect when we are not radiating," agreed Lane. "Too bad we can't run right on through this way." "Yeah, but we've got to use echo-ranging for the ordnance directors. We can't just use their radiation as a means. And if we use echo-ranging, that means squirting out the prime signal. That means detection anyway, and we might as well use power, too." "What's our speed?" "Point seven nine light." "Fast enough," grunted Downing. "O.K., let 'em have it!" At seventy-nine percent of the speed of light, the free-running ships came to life. The drivers went to work at the same time that the first pulse from the ordnance directors went out. The turrets, already trained by hand, moved only seconds of arc to correct for speed, when the pulse-echo returned with the data. And with the return of the second echo, reducing the error, the projectors belched energy. In the Loard-vogh, detectors screamed and flared. Turrets, directed at random or stowed for travel, whipped around, the projectors rising in elevation. Defensive equipment went to work--but not soon enough. For a dymodine crossing a dymodine will stop both, but they must be operating simultaneously. The Terran ships fired first, and they hit. The sky had been serene. There was the star, blazing as a sun should blaze, the only thing in view against a stellar curtain. The ships of both fleets were black, and minutely invisible against the sky. The planets of this star were as much a part of the stellar backdrop as any planets are, even on Earth, and the appearance was just that of a very distant disk, half-dollar size, blinding white, poised against a vast, never ending wall of twinkling points. Thirty seconds later, man had passed through--and left his mark. Dymodines flashed incandescent spots that erupted in flaming gases. Snatchers sliced backbone from the ships of the Loard-vogh and they crumpled; some exploding. Three atomic sphere projectors found their mark and three of the Loard-vogh blasted themselves to bits, leaving only expanding masses and hard radiation--against the sky were moving flecks of death; the Universe was spreckled with novae that spread as they were watched. Death, silent and unspectacular from a distance, struck. And the Terran ships were through the Loard-vogh fleet and gone. But not unscathed. Trailing lines of whispy, incandescent vapor from their intrinsic velocity, nine Terran ships traced their lives across the sky. * * * * * "Made it! Call base and tell 'em," said Downing.