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The ship suddenly opened back, opened like the peel of a banana, till a little nub remained at the further end, and the metal flaps dropped back across and behind it dejectedly. A second ship was struck, and it was struck on one side, so that it was shattered like a spent firecracker. Then the Miran fleet vanished in speed. Kendall followed them.
The first Miran ship struck, sparkled magnificently, and a terrific cascade of white-hot metal rolled down from its nose. The great ship nosed down and to the left abruptly, accelerated swiftly and crashed with tremendous energy on the plain outside of Mars Center City. White, unwavering flames licked up suddenly, and made a column five hundred feet high against the dark sky.
Shrieking, the Miran pilots clawed their way from the controls as the fearful flood of ultra-violet light struck their unaccustomed skins. Others too felt that burning flood. The second torpedo they caught and deflected on a beam of alternating-current magnetism that repelled it. It did not come nearer than half a mile to the ship.
The terrific beam of ultra-violet energy struck the second Miran ship, and the spot it touched exploded into incandescence, burned white-hot and puffed out abruptly as the air pressure within blew the molten metal away. The Mirans were startled. This was not the type of thing Gresth Gkae had warned them of.
Triumphantly, the Europa IP station hurled out its radio message of the first encounter between a fort and the Miran forces. Most important of all, it sent a great deal of badly wanted information regarding the Miran weapons. Particularly interesting was the fact that it had withstood the impact of that disintegrating ray. Grimly Buck Kendall looked at the reports.
Day after day, the two hurled through space faster than light. Gradually Mira brightened, and at last became a disc. Gresth Gkae slowed his ships, and Kendall, watching, slowed to match his speed. Five billion miles from Sthor, they had reached normal space speeds. Viciously the Miran fleet attacked the lone ship from Earth. Their rays, their bombs, their every weapon was flaming.
Then the "dead-man" took over the ship and the stored power in the atostor tanks blasted in a terrible flame that shattered the metal hull to molecular fragments. The interstellar cruiser shuddered, and rolled half over at the blasting pressure. Leaking seams appeared in her plates. The scouts raced back to Luna as the Miran settled heavily, and a trifle clumsily to Phobos.
Now all he desired was safety again. The ion-rockets flared recklessly as, crushed under an acceleration of four Earth-gravities, he sank heavily into his seat. Grimly the Miran ship was pursuing them, easily keeping up with the fleeing midget. The crumbler became more intense, the violet glow more vivid. The UV beam was reaching out directly behind now. The
For perhaps a minute and a half, the ship was without control, then the control was re-established and in vain the telescopes and instruments searched for the T-253. Lightless, her rockets out now, her fields damped down to extinction, the T-253 was lost in the pulsing, gyrating fields of half a dozen scout-ships. Kendall looked grimly at the crushed spot on the nose of the Miran.
Early in 1759 the Shahzada at last invaded Bengal, and on the 5th of February Law marched to join him; but the invasion was badly managed, and was an absolute failure. On the 28th of May Law was back at Chatrapur. The only result of the invasion was that the lands of a number of Rajas in Bihar were plundered by Miran, son of Mir Jafar, and the English. These Rajas were all Hindus.
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