Outside the Universe

15: An Armageddon of Universes

As Jhul din's cry rang out I stood for an instant quite still, my eyes fixed on the chart upon which that great, out-rushing swarm was drawing nearer to our own each moment. It was the vast fleet we had seen building in the dying universe, I knew, that had carried all their hordes across the void to our galaxy, to the Cancer cluster, and that they were flinging out now to meet and halt us here in outer space while in that cluster they labored to complete their giant cone of death. Before ever we could attack the cluster, now, we must come to death-grips with the titanic fleet rushing out toward us, a fleet that in size and power was at least as great as our own, and for that instant hope sank within me. Then, as the two fleets rushed ever closer, my doubts dissolved into a fierce determination.

"They've come out for battle," I cried, "and battle we'll give them. A battle this time to the end."

At the same moment I turned swiftly toward the bank of keys before me. On the space-chart I saw that the serpent-fleet was driving toward us in a long, rectangular formation, our own fleet racing in its pyramid-formation to meet it. Both tremendous armadas were moving at their utmost speeds, toward each other, but as I pressed a key that slackened the speed of our own fleet I saw the other slowing also. Then, in swift succession, I touched other keys, and out from the great mass of our fleet behind me sprang two thousand of our swiftest ships, driving out from our fleet in a great fringe, ahead of us and to each side and above and below; and in a few moments more there leapt from the approaching serpent-armada a similar line of scouts.

Tensely I gazed out into the void as our two fleets neared each other, the scouts of each driving far ahead and to the sides, while steadily our own speed was slowing as I touched one after another of the keys before me. On the space-chart I could see the foremost scout-ships of each fleet almost meeting, now, but even in that moment of suspense the strangeness of my position and of all about me struck home to me-the tremendous gloom of space about us, the blazing suns of our galaxy stretched across the firmament ahead, the Cancer cluster a brilliant ball of close-massed suns among them, the two tremendous fleets that were rushing through the void toward each other. With every moment the speed of the oncoming serpent-fleet was slackening, though, and smoothly that of our own was lessening as my fingers moved upon the bank of keys before me that held the control of all our hundred thousand ships. Surely never in any struggle in all time had any commander directed thus, with swift-changing finger-touches, such a colossal force as moved now behind my flag-ship, responding swiftly to every touch upon the keys before me. As I stood alone there in the little pilot room, save for Jhul Din at the controls, the tremendous responsibility that was mine seemed weighing down upon me tangibly, crushing me, but I gripped myself, peered tensely ahead.

Smoothly still our great fleet shot through the void of darkness, and then upon the space-chart I saw our most advanced scout-ships creeping toward the advancing serpent-scouts and meeting them, touching them. At the same moment, in the darkness far ahead, there glowed out here and there long, pale shafts of misty white light, appearing and disappearing, hardly to be seen against the flaring suns of the galaxy beyond. All along a broad, thin line ahead those little beams of pale light were showing, like ghostly, questing fingers of death, and as they glowed and vanished there far ahead, soundlessly, the big Spican beside me twitched with eagerness.

"The scouts," he exclaimed. "They've met-they're fighting."

I nodded, without speaking, straining my gaze into the void ahead, where our scouting-ships and those of the serpent-fleet were, I knew, already whirling and stabbing at each other, while in toward them were moving the main masses of the two vast armadas. Hardly more than an inch's gap lay between those two fleets on the space-chart, now, and as I gazed ahead I saw the fighting scout-ships coming into view before us, a long, thin line of battle extending across the void before us and made up of gleaming oval serpent-craft and flat Andromedan ships, dipping and striking and soaring there before us. Fiercely those advance-ships of the two mighty fleets were grappling there, scores of them reeling aimlessly away as the pale beams swept them or crumpling suddenly up as the invisible but deadly force-shafts struck them. But I was looking beyond them, now, looking beyond them to where, between them and the galaxy's suns, a gigantic, far-flung swarm of shining light-points was rushing toward us.

"The serpent-fleet," I whispered.

On it was coming toward us, even as we moved toward it, the long line of struggling, raging scout-ships between our advancing fleets. Swiftly it was changing from a swarm of innumerable light-points to a swarm of vaguely glimpsed shapes that grew larger, clearer, with every moment that they neared us, thousands upon tens of thousands of great oval ships, flashing toward us in a mighty rectangle. Toward it our own vast pyramid of ships was rushing in turn, and then the struggling scouts ahead had flashed back to rejoin their respective fleets, and with only empty space between them now the two titanic armadas were thundering toward each Other. The Armageddon of our universes had begun.

Swiftly, as our vast fleet leapt forward through the void, my fingers were pressing the keys before me, and instantly our massed thousands of ships had shifted from their pyramidal formation into one of two long and mighty columns, racing forward side by side. Nearer the colossal rectangle of the serpent-fleet was rushing toward us-nearer with each instant, until it seemed that the two vast armadas must crash into each other and destroy each other. Bending tensely over my keys I saw their huge fleet looming before us, an enormous, close-massed swarm of great oval hulls rushing lightning-like toward us. Then, just before they reached us, I pressed a single key.

Instantly our two great racing columns of ships divided, one to the right, our own ship at its head, and one to the left, splitting from each other and flashing past the great mass of the serpent-fleet on each side! And as we thus flashed past there leapt from the cylinders of our ships toward the serpent-fleet between our columns countless deadly shafts of invisible force, shafts that in the instant that we flashed past had crumpled and smashed to twisted wrecks of metal a full three thousand or more of the great mass of the serpent-ships! From their fleet's edge the pale beams sprang out in answer to us, wiping the life from scores of our racing ships; but caught as they thus were between our flashing columns they could not loose those beams effectively, and in a moment we were past them. Then with the galaxy's suns before us our great fleet was halting, turning, its columns closing again together, while toward those distant suns were drifting all about us the crumpled wrecks of the serpent-ships that had fallen before us.

"First blood!" cried Jhul Din, and I nodded without speaking, bending again over my keys as our fleet raced forward again toward the enemy.

The serpent-fleet, too, had turned, and was moving cautiously back toward us, and I knew that not again could we execute upon them the maneuver which we had just used. As we rushed again upon them, though, their fleet racing again to meet us, my fingers pressed swiftly again on the keys and our long columns of ships shifted swiftly into another formation, a long wedge with our own flag-ship at its point. Just before we again raced into the serpent-ships our fleet assumed this formation, for it was my plan this time to tear by main force through the serpent-fleet, shattering it before us. But in the instant before we could do so, before our mighty wedge's point could crash into them, their own fleet had divided suddenly, some fifteen hundred ships from its center driving upward and far above us while the remaining gigantic mass drove down under and beneath us. And in the next moment I saw that five hundred of the fifteen hundred ships above were great disk-ships, and that they were glowing with sudden, flickering radiance.

"Attraction-ships!" Jhul Din was shouting, but already our own ships and all those behind us were turning upward, pulled resistlessly up, while from beneath with death-beams whirling thick the mass of the great serpent-fleet was leaping up toward us.

With the first sight of the attraction-ships, though-a sight which I had been expecting-I had pressed quickly on two of the keys before me, and at once the great line of scout-ships that had hung high above us and on each side during all the battle so far, awaiting this emergency, were gathering swiftly high above and then leaping toward the attraction-ships! Out toward them sprang the thousand serpent-craft that had risen with the attraction-ships to guard them, and then as they met our charging scouts there was a fierce, wild struggle high above us, a struggle that was a tiny replica of the gigantic combat that was going on below. For now, as we were pulled helplessly upward, the thousands upon tens of thousands of serpent-ships beneath were rushing up to attack us, undeterred by the crumpling shafts of force that shot down to meet them, charging up with death-beams sweeping through us in great shafts of ghostly light.

Swiftly, I saw, the crews of scores of ships about us were being annihilated by the whirling beams, that wiped all life from those ships, though still they drove unguided upward, pulled by the relentless grip of the attraction-ships high above. Down toward those glowing disk-ships were racing our gathered scouts but ever as they charged down the serpent-ships that guarded the attraction-craft leapt to meet them, fighting with blind courage to hold them back long enough to encompass the destruction of our main fleet below. Not for much longer could we continue in that deadly grip if we were to escape, I knew, since through ever more of our ships were sweeping the deadly beams from beneath.

Then I saw one of the scout-ships high above charge down through the opposing serpent-craft in a terrific, headlong plunge, saw it smash squarely down onto one of the hovering disk-ships, and then both had buckled and collapsed, were drifting away toward the galaxy in twisted wrecks of metal. And down in the same way were plunging others of the scout-ships, a deliberate and awful self-sacrifice of their Andromedan crews, diving down with all their terrific speed and tearing through the guarding serpent-ships to crash into and destroy the glowing attraction-ships that had gripped our main fleet. A moment more and the last of the attraction-ships and the last of the serpent-ships also had vanished above us, our scout-ships perishing almost to the last one, too. But they had saved us for the moment, since now, released from that deadly grip above, our fleet was massing and swooping down in turn upon the main body of the serpent-fleet beneath us, whose beams had been slicing through us.

Down-down-black gloom of space and blazing suns and whirling ships, all spun about me as our fleet rushed giddily down through the void toward the massed serpent-fleet beneath; then we were upon them, were shifting into a long, slender line of ships as my fingers on the keys flashed another signal, were driving in that line past them, raking them with all the force-shafts of our cylinders. But as we did so their own great mass of ships shifted swiftly into a similar long, slender column, and then they were racing through space beside us, two tremendously long lines of thousands upon thousands of ships, rushing through the void toward the galaxy, with pale death-beams and invisible force-shafts clashing and crossing from line to line as they flashed on.

For the moment, as the two fleets rushed thus side by side toward the galaxy's suns, so narrow was the gap between their flashing two lines that it seemed they must needs annihilate each other with their mighty weapons. Plainly visible in space beside us raced the line of the serpent-fleet, its beams stabbing thick toward our own ships, and in that wild moment ships behind and about our own were reeling unguided away by scores as the pale beams swept through them. Into one another and into untouched ships about them they crashed, whirling crazily in all directions; but in the same moments the deadly shafts from our own cylinders were leaping across the gap between the racing lines also, and serpent-ships all along their tremendous line were crumpling and collapsing, the racing ships behind them often crashing into those twisted wrecks before they could swerve aside from them. On-on-in a tremendous running fight the vast fleets leapt, a fight that was annihilating the ships of both fleets by scores and hundreds with each moment, but which neither of us would turn away from, hanging to each other and stabbing furiously with our beams and shafts toward each other as we raced madly on.

On-on-far ahead the galaxy's suns were flaming out in greater splendor each moment as at all our terrific utmost velocity our ships and the enemy ships beside us reeled on. Blazing, glorious, those suns filled the heavens before us, now. We had reeled sidewise in our first mad struggle and now the Cancer cluster lay to our left ahead, a stupendous ball of swarming stars at the galaxy's edge, while directly before us at that edge burned a great star of brilliant green, a mighty sun toward which at awful speed our two struggling, tremendous lines of ships were leaping. All about us still the ghostly beams were sweeping from the great lines of ships to our left, but swiftly the controls clicked beneath Jhul Din's grasp as he sent our ship racing forward on a corkscrew, twisting course, evading with miraculous swiftness and skill the deadly beams; while at the same time from beneath there came to our ears over the roaring drone of the generators the slap and clang of the great cylinders as our Andromedan crew shifted their aim, sending crumpling, devastating shafts of unseen force across the gap toward the serpent-ships.

But now ahead the great green sun toward which our long, strung-out fleets were flashing was growing to dazzling size and splendor as we neared it, neared the galaxy's edge. Like a giant globe of dazzling green fire it flamed before us, with all about and behind it the awful blaze of the galaxy's thundering suns, in toward which at terrific and unabated speed we were racing. Countless thousands upon thousands of ships, stretched far out in long lines there in space, we were reeling on at our utmost velocity of millions of light-speeds, stabbing and striking and falling in wild battle as we plunged madly on. Toward the right our two flashing lines of ships shifted, as we neared the giant green sun ahead, for now it was flaming across the firmament before us like a titanic wall of blinding emerald flame. Still farther to the right we veered, and then we had reached that sun and it was flaming in stupendous glory just to our left as we raced along its side.

"We're racing straight into the galaxy," cried Jhul Din hoarsely as we thundered on. "It means death to carry this battle in there-our ships will crash into the suns and worlds at this terrific speed."

"The serpent-ships will crash then too," I screamed back to him, above the roar of the generators and the hissing of beams and force-shafts about us. "We'll carry this battle to a finish."

Now as we sped past the giant green sun to the left, the line of serpent-ships between our own vast line and that sun, their ships were all but invisible to us against the blinding glare of that sun. Swiftly they took advantage of this, their pale beams leaping toward us with renewed fury, while in that dazzling glare our shafts of force could only be loosed upon them as we chanced to glimpse or guess their position. I saw ships in our line all about and behind us reeling away as the beams raked them, and then set my teeth, pressed a single one of the keys before me. At once all our great line of ships bore toward the left, against the line of the serpent-ships.

Toward them we slanted, even as we raced with them past the tremendous green sun, and then our line was pressing against their own, our ships colliding with theirs, oval ships and flat craft vanishing in great wrecks of metal as they crashed into each other, beams and force-shafts leaping thick from line to line as we bore inward against them. Involuntarily, though, their line gave beneath the terrific pressure of our own, veered to the left farther to escape that pressure, toward the great green sun. Then, as it veered too far, that which I had hoped for came to pass, for at the terrific speed at which they were moving that inward swerve took a full two thousand of their ships into the outward-leaping prominences of that sun. Into those gigantic, out-rushing tongues of green flame they blundered, a tiny swarm of midges in comparison to them, and in the next instant had vanished, only a few tiny jets of fire from the prominences' sides marking their end. Then we were past the green sun, were flashing on and into the galaxy's thronging suns that lay thick in the heavens all about us.

The moments that followed live in my memory now as a mad time of insane, racing combat, of our two gigantic fleets, strung out still in their long lines, flashing inward into the galaxy and between its thundering suns at an unabated, awful speed, striking and soaring and falling with wild, unceasing fury as they plunged on. For now a score or more of great suns were looming close before us as we raced forward, crimson and white and yellow stars between which we reeled crazily and blindly as we grappled still in our vast running fight. Full before us a single one of them, a sun of brilliant white, was looming larger each instant as we sped toward it, and as we almost reached it the serpent-ships drove us in toward it, striving to repeat our own maneuver, pressed us inward until its heat was terrific even through our insulated walls, until almost we were within the limits of the glowing, stupendous corona.

One or two of our inmost ships were already shriveling and perishing as they drove inward too far and plunged into that corona, but as they did so I had sent our long line heading outward again with a swift flash signal, crashing against the serpent-fleet's line with a mighty shock and forcing them outward as in hundreds their ships and ours perished by collisions and from the death-beams and force-shafts, as our line struck theirs. The next instant, though, as we forced them outward, passing the great white sun, there loomed swiftly before us the mighty, turning planets of that sun-great, far-swinging worlds through which our two vast fleets were flashing. Then all about us ships of our own fleet and of the serpent-fleet were crashing into those planets as we drove wildly on. One of them loomed swiftly before ourselves, a great turning world of whose mountains and gleaming seas I had a flashing glimpse, about which a swarm of little space-ships were thronging, like pigmies rushing to and fro as about and above them raged the colossal battle of giants. Then in the instant that I glimpsed it, as that world loomed lightning-like stupendous in size before us, we had flashed sidewise as Jhul Din shifted the controls and were past it.

Behind us our ships and the serpent-ships were crashing by hundreds, by thousands, into those turning planets as our two great fleets raged between and among them, at many millions of miles a second. Then we were through and past them, racing crazily on, soaring and stabbing at each other still, serpent-ships and Andromedan ships reeling away or crumpling and perishing as death-beams or force-shafts reached them. On-on-farther in among the galaxy's suns, a stupendous mass of great stars all about us that watched us like gigantic, flaming eyes as we reeled and ran and struck at each other's great fleet there between them. Away to the left one of the galaxy's mighty nebulae stretched, a stupendous cloud of glowing gas, while far ahead and to the right the strange, mysterious flaming beauty of one of the giant comets was visible, driving itself between the stars but at a speed snail-like in comparison to ours. And there among them all, fiery suns and whirling worlds, vast nebulae, and glowing comets, our two tremendous fleets were battling on.

On-on-it seemed unthinkable that any beings could live in that stupendous struggle, as we fought and flashed there past thundering suns and worlds, twisting, turning, swaying to avoid them. It seemed that we could but keep up our colossal battle until both fleets were destroyed there inside the galaxy. With a swiftness not of reason but of instinct I touched the keys before me, holding our fleet still to its long column-formation as we fought on, while beside me Jhul Din uttered low, fierce exclamations as he twisted our ship lightning-like to that side or this, his battle-hungry soul being glutted now for once; while, beneath, our gaseous Andromedan crew wielded the force-cylinders like mad beings, they and those in the thousands of ships behind me striking with all their force at their serpent-enemies, reeling here in mighty battle with them in a universe strange to both.

Above a great red sun our fleets were driving now, stabbing and striking still with all their force at each other's long, strung-out line of ships; then, as we rocketed out into more open space again, with other mighty flaming suns all about us, I had a flashing glimpse of a black point far ahead that stood out against one of those suns, a point that leapt lightning-like to greater size, to a tremendous dark, round bulk that was driving toward us even as our struggling line of ships flashed toward it. Then in the next fleeting instant I saw that it was a giant dark-star, one of the many that roved the galaxy, A colossal black and burned-out globe toward which our battling line of ships was racing and which was itself booming on through space toward us.

But a single instant did I glimpse that great dead sun before it was upon us, because of our terrific speed, and was looming gigantically before us. In that instant, though, I had seen our peril, seen the annihilation of our fleet that would come in another moment as we crashed into it, and my fingers had shot down upon the keys with lightning speed, our whole great line of ships swerving instantly to the right. As we did so the great line of serpent-ships swerved after us, shooting in pursuit as we seemed to give way before them, never glimpsing in their hot pursuit the thundering dark-star ahead. And as they swerved sidewise after us, just as we reached that dark-star, it was upon them, was crashing straight through their tremendous line of ships.

A full fifth of their vast, long line of ships that dead sun crashed through, as though through so many flies, annihilating in that instant thousands of their ships. Shattered by that awful blow, their fleet already depleted like ours by the fury of our great battle so far, the serpent-ships reeled back from us, while we leapt in turn toward them. But instead of racing on with us they were slowing, were halting, were massing together, were turning, gathered now in a compact mass, and were racing back-back toward the Cancer cluster, back toward the galaxy's edge.

"They're fleeing!" My cry was a great shout of triumph. "We've beaten them-they're fleeing before us!"

Jhul Din was shouting hoarsely too, now, as I swiftly pressed on the keys before me, our long line of ships massing instantly together in close pursuit-formation and then flashing after the fleeing serpent-fleet. Not many more ships than that fleet did our own number, even now, yet before us the thousands of serpent-ships, close-massed together like ourselves, were racing back toward the galaxy's edge at their utmost speed, between the suns and past the swinging worlds, on and on. Nearer and nearer with each moment, though, we were drawing toward them, swiftly overhauling them, until within moments more they were visible just ahead of us, fleeing still from before us as steadily we overtook them. Then, as we flashed there between the flaming, thundering suns, as we seemed about to overtake them entirely, to blast them with our crumpling shafts of force, I saw a full hundred of their ships drop behind the rest of their mass; a hundred great oval ships different from the rest in that the rear portion of their oval had been truncated, cut squarely off, presenting toward us on each a round, flat surface that suddenly shone with brilliant red light.

An abrupt instinct of danger flashed through me in that moment, and my hands flashed down to the keys, to signal to our great mass of ships to slow our pursuit. But in the moment that they did so the thing had happened. For as our close-massed fleet raced on, after those hundred red-glowing ships ahead that lay between us and the serpent fleet, it was as though a gigantic hand had in the next moment grasped the compact mass of our ships and scattered them in all directions like a handful of sand, throwing Jhul Din and me to the floor as our ship was hurled blindly away with terrific force, scattering our compact-massed fleet in a single instant across all the heavens, for millions upon millions of miles. And as we were flung thus blindly outward I cried aloud.

"Those red-glowing serpent-ships!" I cried. "They've generated colossal ether-currents behind them as they fled on-ether-currents that have shattered our fleet."

For I knew, even in that desperate instant that that was the explanation. Those red-shining ships had been specially designed to project a great force into the ether behind them that would cause gigantic currents to whirl through that ether instantly, and the flight of the serpent-fleet had been feigned to give them a chance to use those ships. They had loosed the vast ether-currents behind them as they fled on before us, currents that had flung the ships of our fleet to all sides like a handful of toys as we raced into them. And now, with our ships scattered far across the heavens in all directions, our fleet shattered and disorganized and incapable of resistance, the massed thousands of serpent-ships ahead had turned and were racing back toward us.

Back they came, flashing in a close-massed formation still, gathered thousands of great ships speeding back upon our own ship and upon the few hundreds of our ships scattered directly about us. In an instant more they would reach us, and the death-beams of their mighty fleet would sweep us out of existence, would wipe out our few ships and proceed onward, annihilating the far-scattered ships of our great fleet before they could gather to resist! Motionless we hung there in space, in that instant, as they raced back toward us, the remnant of their mighty fleet looming vast before us, and I heard as through a great stillness the clang of the cylinders beneath as our Andromedans swung them forward, to die fighting to the last.

"It's the end, Dur Nal," Jhul Din was shouting, and I turned to him, my eyes meeting his strangely, steadily, in that instant.

"The end for us-and for our universe," I said, softly. Then in the next instant the mighty serpent-fleet was looming gigantic above and ahead of us, was flashing down in one titanic swoop upon us.

But what was that? Midway in that swooping plunge the serpent-fleet had halted, had recoiled. In a daze we looked up toward it, about us, behind us-and then we were crying out in our excitement. For there from above and behind us was racing toward us a new, tremendous fleet of ships, ships that were not oval like the serpent-ships, or long and flat like our Andromedan craft, but were long and tapering and cigar-like, as the ships of the Interstellar Patrol had been. In a vast armada of tens of thousands they were sweeping out from the center of our galaxy, toward and over us at a speed equal to our greatest speed, and then from them narrow rays of dazzling red light were springing out, striking thick among the massed serpent-ships ahead, annihilating those they struck in bursts of blinding crimson light. And as I saw that I cried aloud again:

"They're our own galaxy's ships." My great cry was like a trumpet-call of faith and hope in that mad moment. "They're the great fleet of ships that Council Chief said they'd build-and they're striking out now with us to save our universe."