ame softly
through the open intercom into the tiny control room of the _Hound_. A
woman's voice, tense with excitement, but disciplined and controlled.

"Range five hundred miles, four seventy five, four fifty--"

And then Merril's voice, calm and reassuring, giving heart to all the
untried ones aboard with his steady conning commands.

"Four o'clock jet, easy, hold her. Drivers up one half standard. Steady
goes. Meet her. Steady--"

Line astern now, the two ships flashing low across the jagged lunar
landscape, and a world in the balance--

An alarm bell ringing suddenly, and my screen showing the fleeting
outline of a Russian monitor above, running across our stern. My own
voice, sharp with command:

"Gun pointer!"

"Here, sir!"

"Get me that gunboat."

The _Hound's_ turret wound about with agonizing slowness as the monitor
reached for the sky, clawing for altitude and safety. And then there
came a searing blast of fire and the fragments of the Russian gunboat
raining down lazily, seeking their eternal rest in the pumice of Luna's
hidden face.

But they had been warned at the UN Base. The monitor had left one dying
shriek in the ether, and the waiting garrison had heard. Merril knew it,
and so did I. We moved forward calmly, into the jaws of hell.

* * * * *

The _Arrow_ attacked from ten o'clock, low on the horizon, the _Hound_
from twelve o'clock high. We swept in over the batteries of pulsating
projectors, raining down our bombs. The ground shuddered and shook with
the fury of exploding uranium and the sky was laced with a net of fiery
death. The _Hound_ shrieked her protest as I swung her about for another
attack.

There was a sickening swerve and the smell of ozone in my ship.
Somewhere, deep within her, a woman screamed and I felt the deck under
me give as one of the questing beams from the fortress below cut into
the hull. Airtight doors slammed throughout the wounded vessel, and I
drove her to the attack again, hard. The last of the bombs clattered out
of the vents, sending mushrooms of pumice miles into the black sky. One
battery of guns below fell silent.

The _Arrow_ vanished into the night above and as suddenly reappeared,
her forward tubes spewing red fire onto the Base below. Then Merril
pulled her up again and disappeared among the pale stars.

The _Hound's_ hurt was mortal, I could feel her dying under my hands,
and tears streaked my face. Below decks,