they could not hold back the entire force of the Nigran fliers.
At last it appeared certain that the small ships could completely engage
the Solarian fleet!

Quickly the giant cruisers formed a great dense cone of attack, and at a
given signal, the fliers cleared a hole for them through the great
disc-shaped shield of the defenders. And with all their rays fanned out
in a 100% overlap ahead of them, the Nigran fleet plunged through the
disc of ships at close to four hundred miles per second. They broke
through--were on their way to the unprotected planets!

The Solarian ships closed the gap behind them, and eighteen of the giant
ships burst into wreckage as powerful beams found them, but for the most
part the remnant of the defending forces were far too busy with the
fliers to attack the large ships. Now, as the monster engines of
destruction raced on toward the planets still approximately two billion
miles away, they knew that, far behind them, their fliers were engaging
the Solarians. They had left their guard--but the guard was keeping the
enemy occupied while they were free to drive in!

Then from nowhere came the counterattack! Nearly five thousand
thirty-man ships of Earth and Venus, invisible in the darkness of space,
suddenly leaped into action as the dreadnoughts sped past. Their
destroying rays played over the nigh-helpless giants, and the huge ships
were crumbling into colossal derelicts. With the last of their guard
stripped from them, they fell easy prey to the attackers. Faster than
they could keep count they were losing their warships of space!

The ruse had worked perfectly! Nearly all of the ten-man and one-man
ships had been left behind them in the original disc, while all the
thirty-man light cruisers, and a few hundred each of the ten-man and
one-man crafts sped away to form a great ring twenty thousand miles
farther back. The Nigran fleet had flown blindly into the ambush.

There was only one thing left for them to do. They were defeated. They
must return to their far-off black star and leave the Solarians in
possession of their worlds. For all battle purposes their great force
was nearly wiped out, only the fliers remained in force; and these could
no longer be carried in the remnant of the great liners. Swiftly they
fell back, passing again through the disc, losing thirty more vessels,
then raced swiftly away from the fleet of their enemies.

The Solarians, however, were not content. Their s