Too Many Fight Scenes

So far in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, which I am rereading:

Humanists have conspired against, then overthrown, Psychotechnicians;

the cabal and the Solar Union have overthrown the Humanists;

Psychotechnicians have conspired, unsuccessfully, to regain power.

In "Brake," someone conspires to do something but I cannot remember who or what so I am rereading the story but it is one in which action scenes take center stage for far too long. On the Fireball spaceship, "Thunderbolt":

the Minerals Authority representative, Sergei Andreyev, holds the Planetary Engineer, Luke Devon, at gun-point in a ship's corridor;

Captain Peter Banning knocks out Andreyev;

Devon goes for a steward but does not return;

Cleonie Rogers, tourist, joins Banning, who is standing over Andreyev;

Robert Falken, a nucleonic technician en route to a job on Callisto, runs towards them;

Banning, suspicious of Falken, warns him off but then Andreyev, who has revived, attacks Banning;

Banning fights off Andreyev but is then attacked by Falken who grabs his gun;

Cleonie attacks Falken;

Banning fights off Falken and retrieves his fallen gun but then Morgan Gentry, astronaut en route to a piloting job in the Jovian Republic, approaches and fires at Banning;

Banning, carrying Cleonie, runs up some stairs and collides with second mate Charles Wayne;

still fired at by the pursuing Gentry, Banning orders Wayne to carry Cleonie to the bridge and then follows them...

This has taken thirteen pages and the reader still does not know what is going on, except that Devon had recognized Andreyev under some surgical changes. I will persevere because I am interested in what the bad guys are conspiring about.