So astounded were we by that unlooked-for maneuver on the part of the Neptunians, that before we could check our speed, we were through, had shot in our entire column through that opening in their semi-circle, which instantly closed again behind us. And as it did so, there rushed toward each other the open ends of their semi-circle, thus closing that circle even as we rushed into it. Our fleet was held enclosed within the circle of their own! And then, from all those thousands of Neptunian cylinders that surrounded us, there were stabbing at us in countless number slender shafts of concentrated force, countless pencil-like weapon-rays that instantly clove through hundreds of our gathered space-fliers and that strewed space thick about us with their wreckage, even as we sought in vain to answer that terrible rain of deadly rays! "Trapped!" Whitely was shouting. "They've trapped us inside their circle--are destroying us!" For, though our own rays were fiercely springing forth and striking cylinder after cylinder of the vast fleet that had gathered about us, that fleet so outnumbered us and had such advantage of position, that it was decimating us in short order. Our space-fliers had broken from their column-formation now, and in a loose, disorganized mass were drifting at the center of that great ring of death which the Neptunians had formed about us. Swiftly our fliers were going into wreckage and death beneath the terrific storm of rays from all around us, and then Marlin's voice was flaring as he shouted an order into his mouthpiece. "All space-fliers mass together," he cried, "and turn all your propulsion-rays outward!" "You're going to--" Whitely began, but Marlin cut him short. "We're going to break up the Neptunians' circle in the only way it can be broken up!" he cried. As his order sounded the thousands of our space-fliers were obeying it, were massing compactly together at the center of the Neptunians' mighty circle. Thus massed, they presented for the moment a perfect target for our enemies' rays, and for a moment those rays stabbed thick toward us from all sides. In the next moment our massed space-fliers were shooting their great propulsion-rays outward, outward in all directions around us, outward toward the Neptunians' encircling ring! As those rays shot out, they pressed with terrific power against that ring of cylinders about us, and since our own fliers were massed together and thus braced against each other, it was not they that moved but the cylinders, their great ring instantly broken up, disintegrated, as those cylinders were hurled out into the void from us by the pushing power of our great propulsion-rays! For the moment they were broken up completely, their formation entirely shattered, and before they could reform, there had come another order from Marlin and in a compact formation ourselves, our space-fliers were leaping upon their shattered masses!