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"Bandit at three o'clock—range twenty miles!" Aboard the command ship of the first group of attacking Solar Guard squadrons, Captain Strong stood in the middle of the control deck and watched the outline of an approaching Nationalist cruiser on the radar scanner. The voice of the range finder droned over the ship's intercom.

"Change course three degrees starboard, one degree down on ecliptic plane," ordered Strong calmly.

"Aye, aye, sir," replied Tom at the controls.

"Main battery, stand by to fire." Strong watched the enemy ship closely.

"Aye, aye!" came the answer over the intercom.

"Approaching target!" called the range finder. "Closing to fifty thousand yards—forty thousand—"

"Pleiades and Regulus," Strong called the other two ships of his squadron. "Cut in on port and starboard flanks. Squadron B, stand by!"

Abrupt acknowledgment came over the audioceiver as the cruisers deployed for the attack.

"Twenty-three thousand yards, holding course." The range-finder's voice was a steady monotone.

"Stand by to fire!" snapped Strong.

"Two bandits at nine o'clock on level plane of ecliptic!" came the warning from the radar bridge.

Before Strong could issue an order countering the enemy move, the voice of the commander of the Pleiades came in over the audioceiver, "Our meat, Strong, you take care of the big baby!"

On the scanner screen Strong saw the trails of two space torpedoes erupt from the side of the Pleiades, followed immediately by two more from its flanking ship, the Regulus. The four missiles hurtled toward the two enemy destroyers, and a second later two brilliant flashes of light appeared on the scanner. Direct hits on the two destroyers!

"Range—ten thousand feet," came the calm voice over the intercom, reminding Strong of the enemy cruiser.

"Arm war heads!" snapped Strong over the intercom, and, on the gun deck, men twirled the delicate fuses on the noses of the space torpedoes and stepped back.

"On target!" called the range finder.

"Full salvo—fire!" called Strong, and turned to Tom quickly. "Ninety-degree turn—five degrees up!"

The Solar Guard cruiser quivered under the recoil of the salvo and then bucked under the sudden change of course to elude the torpedoes fired by the enemy a split second later.

As the Solar Guard cruiser roared up in a long arc, eluding the enemy torpedoes, the Nationalist ship maneuvered frantically to evade the salvo of war heads, but Strong had fired a deadly pattern. In a few seconds the enemy ship was reduced to space junk.

Concentrating on the control panel, Tom had been too busy maneuvering the giant ship to see the entire engagement, but he heard the loud exulting cries of the gun crew over the intercom. He looked up at Strong, and the Solar Guard captain winked. "One down!"

"Here come squadrons C, D, and E, sir," said Tom, indicating the radar. "Right on time." He glanced at the astral chronometer over his head. "Two minutes after twelve."

"It doesn't look as if we'll need them, Tom," said Strong. "The Nationalists got only two cruisers and four destroyers off the ground. We've already knocked out one of their cruisers and two destroyers, and Squadron B is taking on the second cruiser and its destroyer escorts now!" He turned to the radar scanner and saw the white evenly spaced blips that represented Squadron B enveloping the three enemy ships. The bulky converted cruiser was maneuvering frantically to get away. But there was no escape. In a perfectly co-ordinated action the Solar Guard ships fired their space torpedoes simultaneously. The three Nationalist ships exploded in a deadly flash of fire.

"Don't tell me that's all they've got!" exclaimed Strong. "Why, we still have the rest of the fleet coming in at 1205!"

Suddenly Tom froze in his seat. Before him on the radar scanner he saw a new cluster of white blips, seemingly coming from nowhere. They were enemy ships, hurtling spaceward to meet the Solar Guard fleet. "Captain Strong! Look! More of them. From secret ramps in the jungle!"

"By the craters of Luna!" roared the Solar Guard