
Part 1
A seasoned commander watches a lone, gleaming sphere loom on his view screen, the silent harbinger of an alien force that has already wiped out every patrol daring enough to approach. With his crew’s nerves taut, McPartland orders the fastest, most heavily armed fighter in the system into a desperate chase, hoping the ship’s advanced defenses will hold long enough to buy the Solar System a chance. The battle erupts in a storm of plasma rays and frantic maneuvers, each hit tearing through hull sections and testing the limits of human resolve.
Amid the crackle of generators and the cold glare of distant stars, the crew must decide whether to press the attack or retreat, all while the mysterious enemy shows no sign of communication or mercy. As the alien sphere draws nearer, the stakes rise: destroy it, or watch a whole planetary network fall under an unknown intelligence’s relentless conquest.
Language
en
Duration
~23 minutes (22K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2020-09-24
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

A little-known pulp science-fiction writer, this author sent readers to Mars, the asteroid belt, and beyond in brisk, imaginative adventures first published in the 1940s. Only a handful of works are firmly attributed to him, which gives his stories an extra air of mystery.
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