and knew only from
hearsay just what it meant to be in a ship that might be destroyed any
instant without the least chance of anyone escaping. In space warfare,
there usually just were no survivors. You won and lived--or you lost and
were blasted out of existence.

But it wouldn't be long now--the scouts were already establishing their
globe just outside of detection range. "No signs of being discovered
yet," they reported.

Then the light cruisers began slipping through the screen of scouts to
take their positions. Suddenly, a number of great beams of energy
stabbed up toward them from below, and the screens of the cruisers
flared in brilliant confiscations of flame as those mighty rays struck
them.

"Don't you cruisers and scouts take foolish chances!" High Admiral
Ferguson's voice rasped into the mike. "If those beams are too hot, get
back fast! Heavy cruisers and battleships, down!"

Instantly Hanlon could feel the surge of acceleration as the great ship
he was riding plummeted planetward. In the plate he and his father were
scanning, he could see the dots of blue light that identified the
nearest scouts, and a moment later the greens of the light cruisers.

Then those dots fled behind his range of vision as the heavies flashed
past them.

The plate Hanlon was using was of limited vision, so he could not see
the battle as a whole, as High Admiral Ferguson could in his
wide-coverage screens. Only what was going on directly below and close
to either side was visible to Hanlon. Yet he could see several of those
great, stabbing beams reaching out toward the fleet.

A change in color at one edge of his plate caught his eye, and he saw
the ship nearest on his right begin to glow as a heavy beam from below
worked on its screens, burrowing its way in and in, trying to blast the
ship out of existence.

Great streams of radiance struck and ricocheted from its screens, which
were swiftly mounting through the spectrum as more and more power was
thrown against them by the enemy below.

The air in the Sirius began to grow hotter, and his father answered his
inquiring look, "They're attacking us, too, and that's heating us up.
Hope our screens hold," he grinned grimly.

"You said it." A shiver of fear gripped the young man, and he could feel
himself trembling. His father threw a comforting arm across his
shoulders. "First battles are always toughest," he said evenly, and
Hanlon calmed instantly.

He turned his atte