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Farisha's heavily fortified base was doomed and
the legions of Venus rushed toward victory, but . . .
The savage onslaught against the heavily fortified Federation interplanetary base on Farisha began on the morning of May second, at ten o'clock, in the year 2130 A.D., when the special radios announced excitedly that the Venusians had established their first footholds on six small asteroids surrounding the base.
To the breathlessly waiting universe, and especially to the Federation G.H.Q. on Earth, the news of this attack on the far flung and supposedly impregnable interplanetary outpost came as a shock. For even though the Venusians, since the outbreak of the Fourth Interplanetary War six weeks previously, had already succeeded in swarming over more than three-fourths of the interplanetary belt against which their first treacherous attack was launched, Farisha had been considered by all as the one vital garrison which would check the aggressors until a counteroffensive could be launched.
None could believe that it stood in danger of falling.
Farisha was an unconquerable bulwark; everyone knew it was. And none was more certain of this fact than the
military garrison and civilian population on Farisha itself. None save Space
169
