th every
weapon and defense known to that arch-Nevian, Nerado!

Unknowing and contemptuous, Roger launched his converter field, and
instantly found himself fighting for his very life. For from Rodebush at
the controls down, the men of the _Boise_ countered with wave after wave
and with salvo after salvo of vibratory and material destruction. No
thought of mercy for the men of the pirate ship could enter their minds.
The outlaws had each been given a chance to surrender, and each had
refused it. Refusing, they knew, as the Triplanetarians knew and as all
modern readers know, meant that they were staking their lives upon
victory. For with modern armaments few indeed are the men who live
through the defeat in battle of a war-vessel of space.

Roger launched his field of red opacity, but it did not reach even the
_Boise's_ screens. All space seemed to explode into violet splendor as
Rodebush neutralized it, drove it back with his obliterating zone of
force; but even that all-devouring zone could not touch Roger's
peculiarly efficient screen. The outlaw vessel stood out, unharmed.
Ultra-violet, infra-red, pure heat, infra-sound, solid beams of
high-tension, high-frequency stuff in whose paths the most stubborn
metals would be volatilized instantly, all iron-driven; every deadly and
torturing vibration known was hurled against that screen: but it, too,
was iron-driven, and it held. Even the awful force of the macro-beam was
dissipated by it--reflected, hurled away on all sides in coruscating
torrents of blinding, dazzling energy. Cooper, Adlington, Spencer, and
Dutton hurled against it their bombs and torpedoes--and still it held.
But Roger's fiercest blasts and heaviest projectiles were equally
impotent against the force-shields of the super-ship. The adept, having
no liking for a battle upon equal terms, then sought safety in flight,
only to be brought to a crashing, stunning halt by a massive tractor
beam.

"That must be that polycyclic screen that Conway reported on." Cleveland
frowned in thought. "I've been doing a lot of work on that, and I think
I've calculated an opener for it, Fred, but I'll have to have number ten
projector and the whole output of number ten power room. Can you let me
play with that much juice for a while? All right, Blake, tune her up to
fifty-five thousand--there, hold it! Now, you other fellows, listen! I'm
going to try to drill a hole through that screen with a hollow,
quasi-solid beam; like