Milton L. Coe 26 min read

Five thousand green cadets on the Albion's shakedown cruise hear the grim word: war with Xantu, return to Terra at once, with half the enemy fleet lurking somewhere between them and home.

Milton L. Coe's 1951 story is a rousing military space opera of raw cadets thrust into interstellar war. Colorful, kinetic golden-age pulp. Read it for a stirring tale where a trainee crew must run a gauntlet of the enemy fleet, singing the Spaceman's Hymn as they go.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

26 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Raymond F. Houlihan