aser sounding-beam sent out ahead of him days
before.

So far he had been lucky---he had not had to deviate course. He knew
that once he did, leaving the path of the beam, he would have no
warning at all before smashing into an unrecorded meteor, or bit of
space debris. To come out of light-speed and fly by sight and
instruments meant to expose himself to tracking, almost certain death
while approaching enemy-controlled positions.

The small, blistering ship in which he flew had been designed with but
a single purpose: to outrace tracking, come out of warp just long
enough to aim the projectile, then split in two, the adjoining missile
(hopefully) striking its target before the enemy could react, while the
escape-ship ran for cover.

It was a desperate scheme, this squadron of forty missile-ships; but it
remained theoretically possible, and therefore must be tried. The
Coalition powers had not been idle since the attack on Athena, and the
high command of the Provinces of Democratic (East) Germany, suspecting
their inner planets to be a likely next target, were determined to show
Hayes what they were made of---that it would be no easy fight---and
that the Dreadnought was not impregnable.

Constant tension and near maniacal alertness had begun to take its toll
on the young pilot, chosen, along with the others, because of his
lightning reflexes and exceptional endurance. Two seconds of neglect
were all that was needed to end his life. If for that brief period he
did not watch the signal monitor and react instantaneously to its
warning---the possible complexities of which were too vast even for an
unassisted computer to judge---all was lost. He could not know it,
since the speed at which he traveled made communication impossible, but
eight of his comrades had already been killed, or forced to break off
because of mechanical failure.

He reached back to massage his aching neck. Scarcely a moment had
passed before he heard the warning tone---meteor particles directly
ahead. With the thought control computer he veered left and down, then
back again to the right. His reactions had been swift and correct, and
he was able to readjust quickly and continue on toward the target.

But the beam was lost, so that now he flew blind. And after a time the
real fear began to set in. Roughly two hours later his craft spun out
of control and exploded, after striking a meteor-pellet six inches
long. SubCaptain Schmidt was