as to
be the flagship of the Fleet--the mightiest and heaviest space-ship
which had yet lifted her stupendous mass into the ether.

Now, systematically and precisely, the great Cone of Battle was coming
into being; a formation developed during the Jovian Wars while the
forces of the Three Planets were fighting in space for their very
civilizations' existence, and one never used since the last space-fleets
of Jupiter's murderous hordes had been wiped out.

The mouth of that enormous hollow cone was a ring of scout patrols, the
smallest and most agile vessels of the fleet. Behind them came a
somewhat smaller ring of light cruisers, then rings of heavy cruisers
and of light battleships, and finally of heavy battleships. At the apex
of the cone, protected by all the other vessels of the formation and in
best position to direct the battle, was the flagship. In this formation
every vessel was free to use her every weapon, with a minimum of danger
to her sister ships; and yet, when the gigantic main projectors were
operated along the axis of the formation, from the entire vast circle of
the cone's mouth there flamed a cylindrical field of force of such
intolerable intensity that in it no conceivable substance could endure
for a moment!

The artificial planet of metal was now close enough so that it was
visible to the ultra-vision of the Service men, so plainly visible that
the cigar-shaped warships of the pirates were seen issuing from the
enormous airlocks. As each vessel shot out into space it sped straight
for the approaching fleet without waiting to go into any formation--gray
Roger believed his structures invisible to Triplanetary eyes, thought
that the presence of the fleet was the result of mathematical
calculations, and was convinced that his mighty vessels of the void
would destroy even that vast fleet without themselves becoming known. He
was wrong. The foremost vessels were allowed actually to enter the mouth
of that conical trap before an offensive move was made. Then the
vice-admiral in command of the fleet touched a button, and
simultaneously every generator in every Triplanetary vessel burst into
furious activity. Instantly the hollow volume of the immense cone became
a coruscating hell of resistless energy, an inferno which with the
velocity of light extended itself into a far-reaching cylinder of
rapacious destruction. Ether-waves they were, it is true, but vibrations
driven with such fierce intensity that