tween them; they pounded one
another with guns, and then they sped apart. At the same time, Paul
Koreff was picking up an impulse-code signal from the third,
crippled, ship; a screen combination. Trask punched it out as
he received it.

A man in space armor was looking out of the screen. That was bad,
if they had to suit up in the command room. They still had air;
his helmet was off, but it was attached and hinged back. On his
breastplate was a device of a dragonlike beast perched with its tail
around a planet, and a crown above. He had a thin, high-cheeked
face, with a vertical wrinkle between his eyes, and a clipped blond
mustache.

"Who are you, stranger. You're fighting my enemies; does that make
you a friend."

"I'm a friend of anybody who owns Andray Dunnan his enemy.
Sword-World ship _Nemesis_; I'm Prince Lucas Trask of Tanith,
commanding."

"Royal Mardukan ship _Victrix_." The thin-faced man gave a wry
laugh. "Not been living up to her name so well. I'm Prince Simon
Bentrik, commanding."

"Are you still battle-worthy?"

"We can fire about half our guns; we still have a few missiles left.
Seventy per cent of the ship's sealed off, and we've been holed in a
dozen places. We have power enough for lift and some steering-way.
We can't make lateral way except at the expense of lift."

Which made the _Victrix_ practically a stationary target. He yelled
over his shoulder at Karffard to cut speed all he could without
tearing things apart.

"When that cripple comes into view, start circling around her. Get
into a tight circle above her." He turned back to the man in the
screen. "If we can get ourselves slowed down enough, we'll do all we
can to cover you."

"All you can is all you can; thank you, Prince Trask."

"Here comes the _Enterprise_!" Karffard shouted, with obscenely
blasphemous embellishments. "She hairpinned on us."

"Well, do something about her!"

* * * * *

Vann Larch was already doing it. The _Enterprise_ had taken damage
in the last exchange; Koreff's spectroscopes showed her halo-ed with
air and water vapor. Her instruments would be getting the same
story from the _Nemesis_; wedge-shaped segments extending six to
eight decks in were sealed off in several places. Then the only
thing that could be seen with certainty was the blaze of mutually
destroying missiles between. The short-range gun duel began and
ended as they passed.

In the screen, he had seen a