There was a flash of light on the screen and the image became clear and sharp. They seemed to be in a huge room, the walls were lined with small electro-vision boards, tier above tier of balconies ran around the sides of the great room, and in the center rose a mighty cylinder. The entire wall area of the great room was covered with the projectors, and before each one sat a man. But the mighty cylinder in the center was carefully walled off. Now, as they watched it, it suddenly glowed faintly bluish--the air about it was being ionized--there arose a faint, deep hum; then there appeared about it an intense corona of air, ionized under the titanic forces within it--tiny shooting sparks crackled blue over all its polished surface---- [Illustration: _The entire wall area of the great room was covered with projectors, and before each one sat a man, but the mighty cylinder in the center was carefully railed off._] The view faded; another replaced it. Now they seemed to be in a smaller room, a room whose front wall was lined with a series of large view boards. Twenty of these boards there were, and on each was the image of a room whose metal walls glistened in the light of the dull red sun. They were looking into the operating room of the greatest of the ships--the flagship. This ship, unlike the others, was a cube, surmounted by a smaller cube control-top. The mighty cylinder inside generated a field that surrounded all the ship with the protecting force, but triply intense. The fighting machines were two thousand one hundred feet long, and three hundred beam. These carried powerful protective force generators, but also they carried fourteen sets of the projectors, three along each side, the top and the bottom, and one at each end. Inside, the terrific energy needed to operate these was being generated in smoothly humming machines. Titanic they loomed above the tiny men tending them. These same giant machines would, later, with a few simple adjustments, furnish the power for the receiver machines to receive the things from the Solar System. But now they were engines of war. Over each thousand of these great ships was a division leader. The twenty division leaders were represented by the twenty view boards in the flagship. The individual ships were each represented by one of the boards in the central control room, so that in any case they knew the fate of every ship, and aid could be sent them. Now the scene on Hal Jus's screen became misty--the ship was being sent into space. It would be close to an hour before the scene reappeared. Now they shifted the adjustment to watch the sending of the armada of space. With the many stations in operation, the work went along smoothly and within two hours all were there. The twenty thousand ships had automatically assumed the formation of a mighty cone; the three dimensional equivalent of the flying wedge of their remote ancestors.