But now the radio-controlled ships were released, and permitted to drop, uncontrolled. They wished to give the Sirians no warning. Then when the ships were scarcely ten miles from the Sirian fleet, they were brought under control, headed nose down in a power dive, straight through the surprised upper layers of the fleet, and with Dis rays glowing they drove straight for the ships below. Suddenly, there were great gashes in the ground beneath, and twenty of the cargo ships were gone in that first rush, and three more followed quickly. But while literally thousands of the Sirian torpedo-ships had been rayed, nearly half of the thirty thousand radio-controlled ships of Man were gone. And now they had to apply full power to prevent striking the ground. But twenty-two of them continued on in straight fall toward the great sphere. They were rayed by a hundred ships before they could get really separated from their companions. And now the fast radio ships were destroying hundreds of the Sirians, they were formed in a vertical column reaching up ten miles, one above the other, with the nine Dis ray projectors going full blast and spinning as rapidly as was safe lest the machines fly apart due to centrifugal force, for the Dis ray will work practically instantaneously. The top ship was preventing the torpedo-ships' attack from above. Suddenly each of the ships stopped spinning; its Dis ray went out and they dropped like rocks. The radio control had been drowned out by powerful interference; they were no longer under the influence of the men, and they had ceased to function. The radio-controlled-ships would no longer be useful against the Sirians. * * * * * Nearly the entire fleet of the Sirian torpedo-ships had been wiped out by that spinning column. Now thousands of the manually-controlled ships dove down at the weakened fleet. Every one of the remaining ships shot up to meet the advancing fleet; there were still several thousand of the torpedo-ships. And now the sphere rose with them, and among them. Suddenly the entire mass came together in the shape of a greater sphere with walls of torpedo-ships, and as it formed the torpedo-ships snapped on their Dis rays, and started the entire surface of the sphere spinning! They seemed invulnerable in this formation, but they quickly moved away across the surface of the planet, the larger part of the Solarian fleet following, wondering what to do about it. It seemed impossible to attack the sphere of destruction.