A battered spaceship blinked into existence on the far side of the sun.

A burst of blue erupted from the tail of the pockmarked ship and launched it toward Earth on the opposite side of the yellow star, 130 million miles away. Moments later, a second craft, elegant, like a droplet of silver, blinked in just behind the first intruder and darted off, riding a wake of fierce yellow.

The two visitors opened fire on each other. Trading incandescent red and green volleys, the two ships sliced through the solar system at nearly one-third the speed of light. Occasionally the shots intersected, creating brief electric explosions, silent in the vacuum, but nearly bright enough to outshine the nearby star.

The first ship, with the blue tail, was large, bulbous, ugly. A blob of discordant corners with bulges and edges seemingly carved by a blind maniac; it was scarred and scorched from previous battles.

The second machine was smooth, sleek, tapered, and unblemished, an arrowhead with a point that seemed sharp enough to divorce a water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen. It slipped through the void on a golden trail.

But as war machines, the ships were equals. Guns fired and probed for weakness from each side, colliding against staccato batteries of defensive energy. The ships plunged through the gateway of a solar flare that had arced from the stellar surface. They burst through the arch, trailing twin contrails of superheated gas, with the waterfall of weaponry continuing to pour from each fighter.

The crafts rocketed through the solar system.

Mercury, a blasted rock with no atmosphere, was bombarded by stray fire, carving fresh, molten craters. The ships raced on around Venus. The yellow clouds of sulfuric acid absorbed the wayward artillery, the blossoms of light quickly swallowed up by the poisonous fumes. Now the fighters plunged toward the blue Earth.

The second, sleeker ship launched a small auxiliary craft from its underbelly, which vanished and reappeared ahead of the first, hulking craft. The drone unfolded a scaffold of guns and fired. The battered ship momentarily evaded the new attack, changing course and turning toward the night side of the living planet. Then as the North American continent came into view beneath the fighters, one shot, then two, slipped through the defenses. Chunks of the misshapen craft disintegrated in a flash of flame and light.

The damaged ship jettisoned the ruined sections, but the wounds were lethal. More crashing than flying, the smoking ship made one last stab at the planet, fending off its still-firing pursuer as it burned into the atmosphere.