The Earth ships had not gone far out. Suddenly they wheeled again, abandoning formation now. Spurts of light came from their launching tubes in quick rotation, each ship firing as she bore on the target. Then they cracked on speed and ran for the Belt.

One of the Orionid cruisers burst into a great flame and was gone.

Garstang shouted, and as though at a signal the screen went out again.

Kirk ran his uniform sleeve over his face, and kept still. There were so few of the Earth ships, and so many of the others, something more than double the strength of his own squadron. Far below, Earth lay naked, stripped, utterly without defense. Kirk thought of Lyllin, and the Vinson house with the dusty road in front of it. He thought of the woods and the meadow where they had fought in the night, and curiously enough he thought of the cat. Insolent little beast....

He waited for the screen to clear, and watched.

A number of Orion ships detached themselves from the main fleet and raced after the Earth ships. They were much faster. The long aim of Solleremos was reaching swiftly now, and one of the Earth cruisers winked out with a brave, brief burst of flame. The other four reached the Belt.

The Orionids plunged in after them.

"Now," whispered Garstang. "Now, now—"

The eight Orionid cruisers, apparently detailed to mop up this patrol, sped down a deceptively open "lead" through the asteroid drift. The scanner beams swung to a better angle to follow them, and now the screen showed a closer view of that stony wilderness. The Earth ships had vanished. The lead pinched out in a cul-de-sac of wildly gyrating rocks. The Orion cruisers did a fast-about, practically on each others' heels, but before they were finished the four Earth ships and half a dozen others appeared from nowhere, all around them.

"Hit them," muttered Garstang. "Oh, hell, get onto it and hit them!"

They hit them. There was a quick holocaust of light-bursts and the Orionid cruisers in there were gone.

"That hurt them," said Garstang. "They're hooked—"

He turned and looked at Kirk. Kirk lifted his hand, his body bent slightly forward, his eyes intent upon the screen.

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