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Updated: May 7, 2025
Hawsers were instantly slipped, and the steamer skipped away from the British port on the minute, and soon met her escort destroyers, out of sight not long since, now ready for their job. These slender speedsters of the sea never stop; so everything must be done according to schedule. Four of the destroyers surrounded us as we ploughed through the water.
The Solarian speedsters were even smaller than the comparable Nigran craft, and some of these did a tremendous amount of damage. The heat ray was quite ineffective against the ten-man ships, even when working at full capacity, when produced by the small generators of the Nigran one-man boats. The cruisers could absorb the heat and turn it into power faster than the enemy could supply it.
These speedsters were literally piloted projectiles, and their amazing mobility made them a powerful arm of offense.
As close to target as possible the man jumped from his ship, clothed, of course, in an altitude suit equipped with a radio transmitter and receiver. Death rays could not stop the speedsters, and with their momentum, the invaders could not make it less deadly with their heat beam, for, molten, it was still effective.
They would need a fleet of mother ships ships that would hold both the speedsters and their pilots say thirty to a cruiser. There would also be some ten-man scouts, operating in the same manner as the larger cruisers, but with a smaller fleet of speedsters dependent on them.
Each of the speedsters was equipped with a small machine-gun shooting luminous paint bullets. One of these, landing on another craft, made it visible for at least two hours, and since they could cover an area of about thirty feet, they were decidedly effective. It was found that ray practice was rather complicated.
The battle so far had been a preliminary engagement. The huge ships of the Nigrans were forced to stop their attack, and releasing the last of the fliers, to retire to a distance, protected by a screen of small ships, for they were helpless against the Solarian speedsters.
Despite their utmost endeavor and the hard work of the industrial might of two worlds, it was nearly six weeks before the fleet had grown to a thing of importance. The tests to which they subjected the tiny speedsters had been more than satisfactory. They behaved wonderfully, shooting about at terrific speed, and with all the acceleration a pilot could stand.
The heating effect of the sun on the black pigment when near the great star was rather disagreeably intense, and to cool the speedsters they had installed molecular director power units, which absorbed the heat and used the energy to drive the ship. Heaters offset the radiation loss of the black surface when too far from the sun.
The first intimation of attack that the Nigrans had was the sudden splitting and destruction of the leading ship. Then, before they could realize what was happening, thirty-five other destructive molecular motion beams were tearing through space to meet them! The little ten-man cruiser and its flight of speedsters was in action!
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