But now, as we shot toward them, the Neptunians had rallied from the first surprise of our crashing attack down upon them, and before we could again swoop down upon them, their unharmed cylinder-fliers, still more than two thousand in number, had separated themselves from the confused wreckage of those we had destroyed and were driving boldly up toward us, to meet us! In another instant they would have overwhelmed us, would have wiped us from the void with their great mass crashing over our own, their concentrated rays directed toward us, but before they could come closer Marlin had given an order and from our own racing fliers there had shot out toward the onracing Neptunian cylinder-fliers propulsion-rays that in an instant had pushed us back from their onrushing fleet, back through a great gulf of space in an instant! Before they could comprehend the maneuver, another order had sounded, and we were again leaping forward, this time on a lower level, leaping toward the half-score greater cylinders that still remained motionless where first they had been, their combined great ray still pushing our fleet on to Saturn! The cylinder-fliers above, their occupants seeing our object, darted down like falling meteors to prevent us, but were an instant too late. Before they could do so, our concentrated rays had cloven through the half-score greater cylinders and had annihilated them, their combined great ray ceasing instantly! "The greater cylinders are all destroyed!" Whitely was saying. "We've saved our fleet from death against Saturn, at least!" "Back toward Saturn--toward the fleet!" Marlin shouted. "We're outnumbered five to one by these Neptunian cylinders!" For even as he cried out, the two thousand or more Neptunian cylinder-fliers, too late to save their greater cylinders, but made more fierce by the sight of their destruction, were diving down from above, with all their concentrated weapon-rays toward us! Against those outnumbering cylinders our own few hundred fliers had no chance, and even as the Neptunians whirled down on us, as Marlin shouted his order, our space-fliers were going on toward Saturn, the Neptunians leveling out instantly and raging through the void after us in close pursuit. On we shot, their questing weapon-rays taking toll now of our rearmost fliers, and though Saturn was again filling the firmament before us with his mighty cloudy-yellow disk, his colossal whirling rings and circling maze of moons, there was no sign of our fleet's main body ahead. Had we destroyed the greater cylinders too late? Had their combined great ray pushed our fleet in to death against Saturn before we could save it? It seemed so in that tense moment and then, close ahead, there loomed in black relief against Saturn's mighty heaven-filling disk, a great swarm of black dots that were whirling toward us. "The fleet!"