Instantly our whirling space-fliers shot back suddenly from the wild ruck of the battle, formed instantly into a long double column of fliers with our own flier at the head, and then before the surprised Neptunians could reform their own spread-out and disorganized mass, our compact column had leaped forward and had crashed through their formless mass with a great shock, fliers and cylinders perishing in scores in that reeling crash! And then our double column had divided, pushing out to either side and thus splitting and separating the Neptunian mass of cylinders, and thus separated and inferior to us in numbers we were in the next moment leaping upon them there above Saturn's rings and sending their cylinders into wrecked fragments by the hundreds with our whirling rays! Fiercely their own rays came back upon us, as they faced us, and then they seemed to waver, to hesitate. And before we could sense their intention their remaining cylinders, depleted by scores each moment now and numbering no more than fifteen hundred, had dropped downward almost to the giant whirling rings, had formed into a swift massed formation there, and then with all the power of their propulsion-rays were speeding away, away from Saturn, out through the void toward the calm green distant spot of light that was Neptune! "They're fleeing!" I cried, as our own space-flier whirled around in that moment. "We've beaten these, at least--they're fleeing back to Neptune!" "Regular formation--all squadrons!" Marlin was shouting into the mouthpiece before him. "Full speed out from Saturn--after the Neptunians!" And as our space-fliers, still over four thousand in number despite the losses of that wild combat, massed swiftly together in their V-formation and then were hurtling out from Saturn through the gulf after the fleeing cylinders, I was crying to him over the sudden waxing throb of our generators: "There's far more Neptunian cylinders than these that waited for us at Saturn here--the rest must be waiting at Neptune itself!" He nodded, grim-faced. "The main Neptune fleet is probably waiting there for us--and must outnumber us by almost two to one. But if we can overtake these fifteen hundred cylinders before us we'll keep them, at least, from rejoining their main fleet!"