dy her now. You might leave her controls in
neutral, so that we can calculate her position if we should want her
later on."

"All right." The three armor-clad figures stepped into the _Boise's_
open lock, the tractor beam was cut off, and the speedster flashed away
from the now stationary super-ship.

"Better let formalities go for a while," Captain Bradley interrupted the
general introductions taking place. "I was scared out of nine years'
growth when I saw you coming at us, and maybe I've still got the humps;
but that Nevian is coming up fast, and if you don't already know it I
can tell you that she's _no_ light cruiser."

"That's so, too," Costigan agreed. "Have you fellows got enough stuff so
that you think you can take him? You've got the legs on him, anyway--you
can certainly run if you want to!"

"Run?" Cleveland laughed. "We have a bone of our own to pick with that
ship. We licked her to a standstill once, until we burned out a set of
generators, and since we got them fixed we've been chasing her all over
space. We were chasing her when we picked up your call. See there? She's
doing the running."

The Nevian was running, in truth. Her commander had seen and had
recognized the great vessel which had flashed out of nowhere to the
rescue of the three fugitives from Nevia; and, having once been at grips
with that vengeful super-dreadnaught, he had little stomach for another
encounter. Therefore his side-thrust was now being exerted in the
opposite direction; he was frankly trying to put as much distance as
possible between himself and Triplanetary's formidable warship. In vain.
A light tractor was clamped on and the _Boise_ flashed up to close range
before Rodebush restored her inertia and Cleveland brought the two
vessels relatively to rest by increasing gradually his tractor's pull.
And this time the Nevian could not cut the tractor. Again that shearing
plane of force bit into it and tore at it, but it neither yielded nor
broke. The rebuilt generators of Number Four were designed to carry the
load, and they carried it. And again Triplanetary's every mighty weapon
was brought into play.

The "cans" were thrown, ultra-and infra-beams were driven, the furious
macro-beam gnawed hungrily at the Nevian's defenses; and one by one
those defenses went down. In desperation the enemy commander threw his
every generator behind a polycyclic screen; only to see Cleveland's even
more powerful drill bore relentlessly throu