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I've only read a little of this story online a while back.

Basically the crew of a spaceship encounters an odd spaceship, which upon closer inspection is made up of much smaller ships. (Kind of like the swarm ships from Star Trek Beyond).

I'm definitely sure this was published in the '30s or '40s, because it was one of those sites which had PDFs of old pulp magazine stories.

Can anyone please help me find this story?

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  • Could it be "The Storm" by van Vogt "she dissolved into her nine thousand separate sections. Streamlined needles of metal were those sections, four hundred feet long, forty feet wide;" See scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/214035/… Commented Dec 20, 2021 at 15:44
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    @Organic Marble thanks but this ain't it.The ship wasn't an earth vessel. Commented Dec 20, 2021 at 17:08
  • Then what happened?
    – user14111
    Commented Dec 20, 2021 at 20:04
  • Sorry for the lack of details but I couldn't read much of it when I had it. All i remember is the crew being amazed by this strange ship, and then one of them going on to explain how this ship is made up of smaller units. Commented Dec 21, 2021 at 4:33

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Possibly "Combined Operation" by James White (can be found in the collection "Sector General")

From Wikipedia: The scene of a spacewreck contains hundreds of pods, which turn out to be a colony ship carrying the last survivors of an alien race.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sector_General_(collection)

(The publication date doesn't match, but question isn't certain on the date)

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  • Sorry,but this isn't it.I'm very sure it was published in the era of pulp magazines. Also It wasn't a shipwreck. The crew found it active and moving. Commented Dec 21, 2021 at 4:38

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