Under the Sea
Green depths that swirled about us, shafts of yellow light that swung
and stabbed through them, rushing cruisers and detonating guns and
drone of motors and wild shouts--all these merged and mingled in one
great phantasmagoria of strange impressions in those first moments. I
had shot under the ocean's surface in my cruiser many a time before,
but never in battle. And now, with our two great fleets plunging down
into those peaceful depths, all about me seemed for a moment a strange
dream. Then I saw before us, the cruisers of the First Air Chief and
those about him, dark long bulks that gleamed there in the depths
beneath us as the yellow shafts of light struck and crossed them.
Peering downward, figure tensed over the wheel, Macklin was holding
the cruiser behind those rushing ones ahead, and now, looking away
to the right, I could make out the dark, long bulks of the European
cruisers also. And across the gap from fleet to fleet were hurtling
storms of the heat-shells still, shot forth by our great heat-guns
whose valve-breeches made them capable of underwater operation. And
as they burst there broke from them the same great flare of light and
heat as in the air above, little affected for the moment by the waters
about them, destroying in that moment the ships they struck and making
the waters about those fusing ships boil terribly with their terrific
released heat.
But straight downward through those boiling waters swirled and swept
the following cruisers of the two great fleets. As our guns thundered
there in the great deep, as heat-shells raced and broke and flared
about us, I saw schools of fish and strange sea-creatures and denizens,
for a moment in the glow of the yellow searchlights or the flares of
bursting heat-shells. The fish were all striving desperately to escape
from this hell of battle and death that we men had carried down with
us. And still downward--our two great columns were racing, hanging to
each other with fierce, resistless tenacity, raking each other still
with the great heat-guns as we shot lower into the mighty depths!
Finally Hilliard dashed up into the bridge-room from below.
"This can't keep on much longer!" he cried. "The cruiser's walls can't
stand this heat and speed!"
"It'll have to keep on as long as the First Air Chief keeps on!" I
shouted to him, over the drone of motors and thunder of guns. "If the
battle is to end for both fleets here--let it!"
But I saw even in that moment that Hilliard was right, and that the
walls about us, the transparent metal of the windows, had become
searing to the touch. Not only had we raced through areas of water
boiling at terrific temperatures from heat-shells that had burst in
ships there, but our own immense speed was producing by its friction
with the waters a heat that was almost softening the cruiser's walls.
Yet I saw that still the First Air Chief's cruiser was rushing deeper
and deeper before us, and that still the great column of our own fleet
and that of the European fleet were following locked in that colossal
death-grip, their heat-guns thundering still toward each other.
I could see too that the cruisers of the European fleet were suffering
far more than our own in this awful undersea battle, since there in
the green depths, only able to half see each other and to aim their
heat-guns by the uncertain light of their searchlights, their greater
numbers were of but small advantage to them. And our gunners, following
the former orders of the First Air Chief, were concentrating their fire
upon the European column's head, so that when ships were struck there
by heat-shells, changed to motionless white-hot wrecks in the waters,
those behind were unable in the green depths to see them in time to
swerve aside, and so crashed into the fusing wrecks and were themselves
destroyed. It was a maneuver that the First Air Chief had long before
explained to us for use in undersea warfare, and now it was proving of
the highest effectiveness and score after score of the European ships
were flaring and crashing in their opposing column.
[Illustration: Our gunners, following the orders of the First Air
Chief, were concentrating their fire on the European column's head,
there in the ocean's green depths.]
For only a moment more, though, did the two great columns continue
thus, for then the European fleet, feeling the great losses which it
was experiencing in this terrific underwater combat, responded suddenly
to some order, curving sharply upward again. Instantly the First Air
Chief snapped an order from the distance-phone, and instantly our
own great column of ships had turned upward too, had curved upward
through the waters after the racing European fleet like wheeling sharks
after prey, their guns and ours still beating a tattoo of thundering
death there in the great depths. Now as we rushed upward again at
undiminished speed the waters were becoming green and translucent once
more. Then as we flashed up through those green depths, heat-guns
sounding still from fleet to fleet, the cruisers ahead and above us,
and then our own, burst suddenly up from the waters into the sunlit air
once more!
Into the Clouds
Surely some battle out of a nightmare was this, in which our two great
masses of cruisers hung still with deadly purpose upon each other.
Macklin and Hilliard and I aware of ourselves now only as infinitesimal
and unreasoning parts of this mighty fleet about us, moved upward,
miles again above the waves. The two rushing fleets slowed, halted, as
though by mutual purposes. Slowed and halted there in two great masses
of cruisers in mid-air, our own to the west and the European one to the
east, and then, with every heat-gun detonating and with the air between
them seemingly filled with shining, hurtling shells, they were hanging
motionless in a mighty death-grip!
The great struggle for its sheer intensity was appalling, as the two
giant fleets hung there unmoving, high in the air, each unheeding its
own danger, intent only upon annihilating the other. I was aware, as
though I were a spectator, that I was shouting hoarse commands into the
order-phone, that in obedience to those commands our gun-crews beneath
were working the great heat-guns like madmen, loosing an unceasing
hail of shining shells toward the fleet opposite, shouting as they did
so even as Macklin and Hilliard were shouting wildly beside me. I was
aware of heat-shells that seemed exploding all around us, of brilliant
and unceasing flares of blinding heat and light that burst in dozens
each second amid either fleet, their cruisers whirling downward now in
score of hundreds.
I know now that that motionless battle there in mid-air could not have
exceeded a few minutes, yet then it seemed an eternity. I was aware
dimly that our ships were falling faster than the Europeans, that
their greater numbers were telling upon us once more here in the open
air, and that but few more than a thousand ships were left to us, no
more than half of our original number. Yet more than twice that number
of European cruisers remained, smothering us with shining shells!
Then suddenly the silver-striped ship of the First Air Chief, that
had swayed beside our own, turned westward, and at the same moment
Yarnall's voice came sharply from the distance-phone.
"Retreat-formation!" he was shouting. "All ships retreat westward at
full speed!"
"Retreat!" My cry was one of incredulity, of mad anger. Retreat--we
were beaten, then, our great battle lost--I was aware of Macklin
hovering in irresolutely over the wheel, of Hilliard almost sobbing in
his rage.
Then despite our fury the sense of discipline was reasserting itself,
and with the First Air Chief's ship at its head, our great mass of
ships was turning, was forming swiftly into a great T, the longer
column or stem of it pointing westward, moving westward at swiftly
mounting speed with the flagship at its head, while the shorter column
or head of the T lay across its rear at right angles. This protected us
somewhat from the European fleet that now was leaping swiftly after us,
triumphant, exultant at our flight. Our stern guns still firing toward
them as they leapt upon our track, we raced westward, on until at full
speed. And now, even as the thunder of guns still came to our ears
from behind, a dull, dead silence reigned over our own ship, and those
about us, Macklin and Hilliard as silent beside me as myself, a silence
of the apathy of utter dismay and despair. For never, surely, had any
American fleet ever thus fled homeward, before, pursued by a conquering
enemy.
On to the westward though we raced still, our rear-guard line of
cruisers now the targets of numberless heat-guns. Still cruisers among
them were being destroyed by the heat-shells, and still, too, they were
striking savagely back to find their marks here and there among the
mass of our pursuers. On and on we rushed, the European fleet closing
gradually toward us, and now we were but a score or so of miles from
the coast, I knew, and should be sighting the great double line of our
air-forts that were hanging far out to sea. It was the one chance of
escape for our outnumbered fleet, I knew, to gain the shelter of those
great forts. And now it was clear that it was with this object that the
First Air Chief was leading our fleet in full retreat westward. But as
we gazed ahead, we saw that though we should have been within sight of
them the great air-forts were nowhere to be seen! Save for a great,
long bank of floating white clouds ahead the sky was completely empty,
and of the air-forts there was no trace!
"The air-forts gone!" I cried. "Our last chance gone!"
"But our fleet's going on!" exclaimed Macklin. "The First Air Chief's
leading us into those clouds!"
The Ambush
Gazing ahead, incredulous, I saw in a moment that it was so, that the
First Air Chief's cruiser was flying straight on toward the great long
bank of clouds ahead, leading our whole fleet into their fleecy white
masses. Even as I stared unbelievingly, I saw his silver-striped ship
rush into those clouds and vanish from view, and after it were rushing
our own ship and all those about us, all the long mass of our fleet!
Unable to credit my eyes, almost, I stared, for it was a suicidal
maneuver, to attempt to elude our pursuers in those fleecy masses. They
needed only to surround the cloud-bank and then wait and destroy us
one by one as we emerged again. Yet even as I gazed forward our ships
were speeding into the white masses of vapor, after our flagship, our
rear cruisers still returning the fire of our pursuers. Then as our own
cruiser flashed into them, all things vanished from about us save the
thick masses of cloud-vapor that hemmed us in, that seemed to press
against our windows, curtaining all things else from sight!
I stared forth tensely with Macklin and Hilliard in a vain attempt to
see through those masses, heard the thunder of guns still going off
blindly somewhere in the great cloud-mass behind us, knew that in the
wild heat of pursuit the European fleet had rushed after us into that
great cloud-bank. Then came a swift order of "All ships halt!" from
the distance-phone, and as we came swiftly to a halt there in the
blinding, fleecy masses, motors droning still, we heard the crash of
ship on ship behind us in the cloud-bank as the foremost cruisers of
the European fleet drove blindly into our own, then halted fearfully
themselves, milling confusedly about in fear of further collisions and
with neither fleet firing now in the absolute blindness that held each
ship. Thus the two mighty fleets hung there for the moment blind and
helpless in the huge cloud-bank, and in that moment there came again
the First Air Chief's voice from before us in a swift, shouted command.
"All American Federation ships--_drop_!"
Before the order had ceased to echo Macklin's hand had flashed to the
power-stud, and as the great drone of our motors suddenly lessened our
cruiser dropped downward like a falling stone, plunged downward until
in a moment more it had ripped through the great fleecy mass of the
cloud-bank and into the open clear air beneath it, leaving the great
European fleet for the moment still in it. And in that moment, even as
our cruisers halted their plunging downward fall, there came a great
hissing sound from above as of the hissing of terrific jets of air, and
at the same instant we saw the mighty cloud-bank above breaking up,
disintegrating, its great fleecy masses whirling suddenly away in all
directions, driven away in a moment as though by mighty winds, breaking
away in formless flying vapors! Breaking away to leave clear air where
they had been, to leave the European fleet hanging there, appearing to
our sight suddenly as a confusedly milling mass of numberless ships
above us! And coming to----? on either side of that confused mass of
ships was _the great double line of our giant air-forts_!
"The air-forts!" My cry was echoed in that moment by Macklin and
Hilliard beside me, by all in our cruiser, in our fleet.
The air-forts! On either side of the disorganized European fleet they
hung, in their mighty double line, and as that fleet saw them now
for the first time with the sudden disappearance of the cloud-bank
that had hidden them, it seemed to hang motionless still as though
stunned with astonishment. Then the great heat-guns of the air-forts
had swung toward them, were thundering in swift chorus, were loosing
storm upon storm of heat-shells upon the confused, astounded ships that
swung between them! Were pouring forth in that awful moment all the
concentrated fire of their mighty batteries upon the European ships
caught between them.
The air-forts! And it was between them, between their two mighty lines,
that the First Air Chief had purposely led the European fleet, I saw
now. For _this_, then, was the new device of the air-forts of which
he had spoken to us before our start, this device which enabled them
to surround themselves with a great cloud-bank that kept them hidden
from all and unsuspected by any enemy. Some device for projecting
forth great masses of water-vapor it must be, that had enabled them
to form that great artificial cloud-bank about themselves. And when
the First Air Chief, staking all upon the device, had led the pursuing
European fleet into that great cloud-bank, into that giant ambush of
the air-forts, then with our own fleet dropping down out of it they had
needed only to disperse the artificial cloud-mass about them by means
of great air-jets of terrific power, to disperse the cloud-mass and
to turn all the fury of their great guns upon the European fleet that
hung still dazed there in the withering fire of those suddenly-unmasked
batteries!
For now above us the European ships, whirling aimlessly about in that
terrific fire that raked them from either side, were falling faster
still! Their own shells burst and flared along the sides of the great
air-forts, but were too few in number to cripple or destroy any of
those gigantic, heavily-armored edifices. And at that moment, even
as the European ships strove to mass together to escape from that
great death trap of the air, the First Air Chief's ship was slanting
up toward them, and now we needed no orders to follow as we raced up
after him. Up until our great fleet rushing upward in a single mass was
pouring up before us a third terrific fire of heat-shells which, added
to that of the air-forts on either side, sent blinding death-flares
dancing and leaping over all the mass of ships above us.
[Illustration: And now above us the European ships, whirling about
aimlessly in the terrific fire that raked them from either side, were
falling faster still. And even as they massed together to escape that
great death trap, we were slanting up after them.]
"They're turning!" cried Hilliard. "They're fleeing!"
Homeward
Fleeing! Even as our fleet shot up toward them the European ships,
reduced now to hardly more than two thousand in number, and unable to
bear the terrific fire concentrated upon them from three directions,
were soaring frantically upward above the air-forts, up and away to the
eastward, massing together in a close-bunched, irregular formation. And
our fleet had shot up after them, sending a rain of shining messengers
of death among them as we shot after them, pursuing them with bow-guns
firing just as minutes before they had pursued us. Then, broken and
disorganized and incapable of further resistance for the time being,
the great European fleet was drawing away from us as an order from
the First Air Chief halted our wild pursuit. Outnumbered still as we
were by two to one we could not carry the pursuit too far from our
supporting air-forts.
As we halted, we saw the European ships racing on in a struggling
mass, dwindling and vanishing from us quickly against the gathering
dusk eastward. Then our own battered cruisers were turning, heading
back westward, back toward the brilliant, waning sunset, and with our
flagship at our head until we paused above the air-forts. There, with
the wild exultation of victory we three in the bridge-room, Macklin,
Hilliard and myself, and our crew and all the cruiser crews about us,
expressed ourselves in great roaring shouts. And then, once more, there
came from the distance-phone before us the voice of the First Air Chief.
"Cruiser-captains and men of this fleet," he said, "we have beaten back
the first attack of the European Federation fleet. And I have received
but now a distance-phone message from the Second Air Chief, commanding
the western fleet out of San Francisco. He reports that his own fleet,
meeting the oncoming Asiatic Federation fleet, was able after a battle
as terrific as our own to drive it back also, by using the same
cloud-ambush device in the air-forts as we used here. Thus on this day
to west and east we have accomplished the impossible."
He paused, and at his words, his news, a wilder cheer went up from all
our ships and air-forts, hanging motionless there against the crimson
of the dying sunset. But now, his voice solemn, the First Air Chief
went on.
"We have won today, in east and west, but what we have won is but a
respite. The mighty European and Asiatic Federations have gathered all
their forces to annihilate our American Federation. Their great fleets
have been cut in half by these two battles, but so have ours. And they
not only outnumber us still by far, but they can build new cruisers
faster than we. Undoubtedly within weeks, days perhaps, there will come
another mighty onslaught from them, from west and east, an onslaught
for which they have been preparing and are preparing some colossal and
terrible plan or weapon of which we know nothing. It is some unknown
device that it is rumored will enable them to move gigantic forces upon
us. We must stand against them, nor can we hope to surprise them with
the cloud-ambushes used by us today. Yet whatever forces they bring
against us, whatever giant new weapons or terrific attacks they loose
upon us, whatever is the great end of this Last Air War that today has
started, you of the American Federation fleet can be proud always of
the way this first battle was fought and won!"
There was silence a moment and then another shattering cheer. And then,
the First Air Chief's cruiser leading, our fleet was moving smoothly
westward toward the sunset, and toward New York. As we moved on our
watchful patrols were already out from the fleet's main body to north
and south, while behind us the great air-forts, slowly and ponderously,
were following us, spreading into a long single line which with the
ceaseless patrols was to guard us from any surprise attacks or raids.
Already, by now, the dusk was gathering behind and about us, the
sunset's light waning in the west. And by the time that our fleet came
again in sight of New York the great air-city's outline was visible
only as a mass of brilliant lights floating high in the gathering
darkness. The mighty city, as we learned, had begun to move eastward
to meet us upon hearing of the results of the day's battles, and now
glimmered before us like a great mass of brilliant gathered stars, the
giant beams of its searchlights sweeping the night.
Onward and down toward the mighty city shot our fleet, and as Macklin
and Hilliard gazed down with me we saw the cruisers that landed upon
the white-lit plazas across the immense floating city surrounded at
once by joyful crowds, their weary crews carried high on shoulders.
The whole great city, indeed, was rejoicing, though that rejoicing was
not extravagant, being tempered by the knowledge that it was but the
first attacks of the European and Asiatic Federations and that other
and greater attacks might be expected to follow soon. So although the
great city blazed with lights as our fleet slanted down toward it, its
great towers and pinnacles and pyramids seeming like magic palaces of
radiance floating there in the night of the upper air, yet its great
watchful searchlights stabbed and circled still, and there came and
went still high above it and to north and east and south the humming
patrols, on guard now and challenging every craft that approached the
city.
Then our cruiser was landing, and Macklin and Hilliard and I were
emerging from it with our crew, mindless of the shouting crowds that
surrounded every landing plaza, stumbling in our utter weariness
through those crowds to our barracks, to fall into a stupor-like sleep
of utter exhaustion....
The Respite Ended
It was the middle of the afternoon when we awoke, more than a score of
hours later. Our quarters lay in one of the uppermost levels of the
great barracks-tower, and as I rose and after dressing joined Macklin
and Hilliard at the window, we could see far out over the air-city's
great expanse. Above us blazed the afternoon sun shining on numberless
patterned windows of all the gigantic metal towers about us. Far
overhead there still hummed and flashed the ceaseless patrols, still
watchfully hovering above and around New York. Beneath, on the city's
landing plazas, there rested still the hundreds of cruisers of our
returned fleet, and now we saw that upon the great central plaza where
our own ship lay there were gathered now some two hundred and fifty
of our twelve hundred and fifty ships, and that about these central
ships were swarming a great horde of mechanics and attendants; caring
for and inspecting their great motors, filling the liquid-air tanks
that supplied constant breathable air, refilling their magazines with
shining masses of heat-shells.
I turned puzzled toward the other two. "Strange that they should be
giving such swift attention to those two hundred and fifty cruisers," I
said.
Macklin nodded, frowning. "And our cruiser among them," he commented.
"One would almost think that--" He stopped short as our door snapped
open and an attendant stepped inside, saluting.
"Captain Martin Brant to report at once to the First Air Chief's
headquarters in the tower," he said, "and all cruiser officers and
crews of Squadrons 1 to 4 to rejoin their ships at once!"
Again he saluted and disappeared, leaving us staring blankly
at each other. Then we were struggling into the tight black
jackets of our uniforms, were striding out in a moment and down
to the great air-city's "ground" level in one of the building's
electrostatic-motored cage-lifts. Through the crowded streets we
strode, seeing now that in all those streets other black-uniformed
men of the squadrons named were pressing toward their cruisers in the
central plaza. Then we three had reached that central plaza, from whose
center rose the mighty electric power-tower, and around which the two
hundred and fifty cruisers rested, all of our first four squadrons that
had survived the battle.
Already, I saw, the crews of those cruisers were taking their places
within them, and as Macklin and Hilliard took up their positions in
our own I strode on across the plaza toward the huge tower's base,
in which were the headquarters of the First Air Chief. Passing
challenging guards at its door, I passed through a few narrow white-lit
ante-rooms, and then had stepped into the great circular room that was
his innermost office. The curving walls of that room were covered with
panel after panel of instruments and switches, which controlled the
vast electrical currents that rushed down from the electric-tower's
tip and transformers to those motors in the city's base. Near the
room's center was the battery of six great switches which controlled
the city's direction of motion, moving it in any direction at will at
slow and ponderous speed, the speed-control's gleaming knob beside
them. And beyond the controls of the great air-city, there stood a
great table-map of the world, upon which a myriad of red circles
automatically showed the position of the world's air-cities.
Behind this table-map, as behind a desk, the First Air Chief was
sitting as I entered, while around the panelled walls there moved
a half-dozen black-jacketed attendants constantly watching and
controlling the flow of current from the power-tower's tip to its
motors. The First Air Chief, as I entered, motioned me silently to a
metal seat before himself, at the great table-map's edge, and then for
a moment contemplated me in silence, as though considering his words
before speaking. Regarding me intently, he began.
"For a second time, Captain Brant," he was saying, "I have summoned you
here to me, but this time alone, and with the two hundred and fifty
remaining cruisers of our first four squadrons summoned also outside.
You are wondering, no doubt, why I have done so.
"The victory we have gained is, as I said, but a respite. We know that
the two great Federations, though beaten back with great losses will
soon be launching another and a far greater attack upon us, one against
which I think we cannot stand. From the European Federation to the
east and from the Asiatic Federation to the west that mighty second
attack will be loosed upon us, with some terrible new weapon or plan
whose nature we cannot guess. For though hundreds of agents have been
sent by us to all the European and Asiatic air-cities, months before
the outbreak of this war even, they have been either captured and made
away with, or have been able to report only that immense preparations
of some sort are going on in those cities, in Berlin and Peking
especially. And the rumors which have reached us through them indicate
that whatever great new colossal weapon or thing they are devising at
Berlin and Peking, it is one which, they boast, will enable them to
sweep all our cities from the air in a single mighty attack.
"You see, then, that to wait for them to develop their great weapon
or plan, to await this terrible attack without action, is but to pave
the way for our own doom. We must strike out to halt them, to cripple
or destroy their great secret plans, must strike at the European and
Asiatic Federations both before they expect us. And that is why I
have called you here to me. For it is my intention to launch a great
raiding attack of our own at both Berlin and Peking. If we can strike
a smashing blow at those two air-capitals, can damage or destroy the
great military preparations within their arsenals, which must hold
their great secret also, we shall have crippled, for the time being,
their plans and shall have gained time for us to learn and counteract
those plans. Even now our two hundred and fifty ships are ready and
wait to start for Berlin, while from San Francisco a similar number
will raid westward to Peking. And it is my order that you, Captain
Brant, shall command this great raid eastward, for your conduct in the
great battle of yesterday proves you worthy of the command. So soon
after that battle, our enemies will never dream of our lesser forces
attacking them, so now is your great chance to strike back at them, to
flash across the Atlantic in a great surprise raid and strike down out
of the night with all your power at the great air-capital of Berlin!"