Galactic Patrol

1950 (1937/38 magazine format)

Centuries after Virgil Samms had created the Galactic Patrol and the Lensmen, Humans had spread throughout the Galaxy.

Despite an economy that looks healthy, there is a problem - Space Pirates, Zwilniks and other such low lifes are sucking the life blood of Civilisation dry. Corrupt politicians ignore basic freedoms, the Zwilniks destroy lives with their foul drugs and Pirates have made interstellar trade nearly impossible.

Meanwhile, Kimball Kinnison has just graduated from Terra's Lensman Academy as top in his class. When he's told that he's going to be given command of the latest Patrol battlewagon, he's daunted but bravely takes his crew out to find one of the Pirates' new super battlewagons.

A tough fight ends up with a Pirate ship in the capable hands of the Terrans, which they strip down in order to wrest it's secrets from their enemy, but while they're aboard, the Pirates' commander realises that they're on-board and order his ships to destroy the invaders.

Can the Terrans get home? Will they succeed in gaining the Pirates' secrets? A new race is introduced to Civilisation and a visit to the strange world Trenco has to be endured before the questions can be answered.

It has become clear that the Pirates aren't really Pirates in the traditional meaning of the word - they are not the dregs of our own Civilisation, but the fighting force of another civilisation that is inimical to ours, so the fighting is ratcheted up a gear or two.

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