ver forward, toward new opponents.

Weakly and ineffectually the red-coated Han soldiery thrust at them with
spears, flailing with their short-swords and knives, or whipping about
their ray pistols. The forest men were too powerful, too fast in their
remorselessly efficient movement.

With a shout of unholy joy, I gripped a bayonet-gun from the hands of a
gunner whose leg had been whisked out of existence beneath him by a
pistol ray, and leaped forward into the fight, launching myself at a
red-coated officer who was just stepping out of a "worm hole."

Like a shriek of the Valkyrie, Wilma's battle cry rang in my ear as she,
too, shot herself like a rocket at a red-coated figure.

I thrust with every ounce of my strength. The Han officer, grinning
wickedly as he tried to raise the muzzle of his pistol, threw himself
backward as my bayonet ripped the air under his nose. But his grin
turned instantly to sickened surprise as the up-cleaving ax-blade on the
butt of my weapon caught him in the groin, half bisecting him.

And from the corner of my eye I saw Wilma bury her bayonet in her
opponent, screaming in ecstatic joy.

* * * * *

And so, in a matter of seconds, we found ourselves in the front rank,
thrusting, cutting, dodging, leaping along behind that blinding and
deafening barrage in a veritable whirlwind of fury, until it seemed to
me that we were exulting in a consciousness of excelling even that tide
of destruction in our merciless efficiency.

At last we became aware, in but a vague sort of way at first, that no
more red-coats were rising up out of the ground to go down again before
our whirling, swinging weapons. Gradually we paused, looking about in
wonder. Then the barrage ceased, and the sudden absence of the deafening
roll, and the wall of light, in themselves, deafened and blinded us.

I leaped weakly toward the spot where hazily I spied Wilma, now drooping
and swaying on her feet, supported as she was by her jumping belt, and
caught her in my arms, just as she was sinking gently to the ground.

All around us the weary warriors, crimsoned now with the blood of the
enemy, were sinking to the ground in exhaustion. And as I too, sank
down, clutching in my arms the unconscious form of my warrior wife, I
began to hear, through my helmet phones, the exultant report of
headquarters.

Our attack had swept straight through the enemy's sector, completely
annihilating everything