Now other of the Solarian ships were coming swiftly to the attack.
Suddenly a combination of three of the ten-man cruisers stopped another
of the great ships instantaneously. There was another soundless crash,
and the giant mass of wreckage that heaped suddenly up glowed dully red
from the energy of impact.

But now the little ships of the invaders got into action. They had been
delayed by the desperate attempts of the dreadnaughts to wipe out their
enemies with the death rays, and they could not cover the great
distances without some delay.

When a battle spreads itself out through a ten-thousand mile cube of
space--through a thousand billion cubic miles of space--it is impossible
to cover it instantaneously with any machine.

Already nearly a hundred and fifty of the giant liners had gone into
making that colossal mass of junk in space. They must protect the
remaining cruisers! And it was that flight of small ships that did
protect them. Many of the Solarians went down to death under their rays.
The death rays were exceedingly effective, but the heat rays were not
able to get quite as long a range, and they were easily detected by the
invisibility locators, which meant certain destruction, for a molecular
motion ray would be there in moments, once they had been located.

The main fleet of the Solar System was already on its way, and every
moment drew closer to this running battle, for the great ships of the
Nigrans had, although they were entering the system cautiously, been
going at a very high speed, as interplanetary speeds are measured. The
entire battle had been a running encounter between the two forces. The
Solarian force, invisible because of its small size, was certainly
getting the better of the encounter thus far, but now that the odds were
changing, now that the small ships had come into the fray, engaging
them at close range, they were not having so easy time of it.

It would be many hours before the full strength of the Solarian fleet
could be brought to bear on the enemy. They were not able to retire and
await their arrival, for they _must_ delay the Nigran fleet. If even one
of those great ships should safely reach the two planets behind them--!

But within a half hour of the original signal, the Rocket Squad had
thrown itself into the battle with a fervor and abandon that has given
that famous division a name that will last forever.

The small fliers of the Nigrans were beginning to take an a