"Right--and if worse comes to worst, remember the zone of force. Let him shoot first, because he may be peaceable--but it doesn't look like olive branches to me."
"Yes. Mart, you might take number two visiplate and work the guns--I'll handle the rest of this stuff. Better strap yourselves in solid, folks--this may develop into a kind of rough party, by the looks of things right now."
As he spoke, a pyrotechnic display enveloped the entire ship as a radiation from the foreign vessel struck the other neutralizing screen and dissipated its force harmlessly in the ether. Instantly Seaton threw on the full power of his refrigerating system and shot in the master switch that actuated the complex offensive armament of his dreadnought of the skies. An intense, livid violet glow hid completely main and auxiliary power bars, and long flashes leaped between metallic objects in all parts of the vessel. The passengers felt each hair striving to stand on end as the very air became more and more highly charged--and this was but the slight corona-loss of the frightful stream of destruction being hurled at the other space-cruiser, now scarcely a mile away!
Seaton stared into number one visiplate, manipulating levers and dials as he drove the _Skylark_ hither and yon, dodging frantically, the while the automatic focusing devices remained centered upon the enemy and the enormous generators continued to pour forth their deadly frequencies. The bars glowed more fiercely as they were advanced to full working load--the stranger was one blaze of incandescent ionization, but she still fought on; and Seaton noticed that the pyrometers recording the temperature of the shell were mounting rapidly, in spite of the refrigerators.
"Dunark, put everything you've got upon one spot--right on the end of his nose!"
As the first shell struck the mark, Seaton concentrated every force at his command upon the designated point. The air in the _Skylark_ crackled and hissed and intense violet flames leaped from the bars as they were driven almost to the point of disruption. From the forward end of the strange craft there erupted prominence after prominence of searing, unbearable flame as the terrific charges of explosive copper struck the mark and exploded, liberating instantaneously their millions upon millions of kilowatt-hours of intra-atomic energy. Each prominence enveloped all three of the fighting vessels and extended for hundreds of miles out into space--but still the enemy warship continued to hurl forth solid and vibratory destruction.