Alarmed, we swung our eyes skywards. For a time we could see nothing save our four remaining colleagues maneuvering against the ceiling of cloud. As though someone had ripped the sky open with a bright steel blade, the cloud rack parted and through the opening, one by one, brazenly disdaining concealment, came the eighty ships or so of the Mercurian armada.

They had been closer than we thought. Glistening golden shapes, the smallest of the size of the Cosmos, they slowly settled down, secure in their own overwhelming power…

One of our four ships, the closest to the descending host, suddenly whirled, flashing its heat ray as it moved. The ray landed on the nose of the foremost space-ship. There came a red glow, and almost instantly an explosion set the air rocking. Perhaps the Mercurian was carrying explosive material. At any rate for the second time our puny heat ray, almost by accident it seemed, was the spark to touch off the powder and blow the ship to fragments…

One moment we were dazzled by that whirling circle of gold. The next the whole visible round of the cloud-wrapped sky had turned that unearthly electric blue — and the very heavens seemed to be raining molten metal on us.