City Against City
In the moment that followed, after our flashing circle of cities had
thundered headlong into the line before us, all other sounds, all the
thunder of countless guns and the drone of motors and the hiss of
tube-propellers and cries of voices, were drowned in one tremendous
splintering crash of metal upon metal. The giant mass of cities about
us seemed to reel drunkenly in mid-air in that moment. New York at
their center staggered from the awful shock transmitted to it. Then
upon the screen north of me, I saw titanic metal masses that had
been cities falling downward. Moscow with Sydney and Algiers, and
Boston with Detroit, these whirled downward in that moment--no longer
recognizable as air-cities and seeming to the eye but great twisted
bulks of rended metal.
But not even that giant collision had been able to halt the tremendous
momentum of our northward-thundering mass of cities; for as those
cities before us crashed downward, the whole great circle of our mass,
New York still at its center, was thundering on through the gap that
that crash had made in the line before us! We were sweeping northward
and out beyond that line that our great crash had shattered. We had won
free only by means of that awful crash. Instantly, Yarnall had cried
another order, and our great mass of air-cities was swiftly shifting
its formation into a long line; and at its head rushed our own city
of New York. And then, while the great circle of the enemy's combined
armada remained there for the moment still behind us, as though stunned
by our colossal crash and escape through it, the First Air Chief sent
another order flashing forth. At once our line turned like a wheeling
snake, high in the air, and was rushing back upon the circle of our
enemies! We were rushing back and along the line of European Federation
cities that made up that circle's eastern half for the moment. And, as
our long line of mighty cities whirled past them, all our batteries
were thundering upon them roaring death.
[Illustration: Now our line turned like a wheeling snake, high in the
air, and was rushing back upon the circle of our enemies. And as our
long line of mighty cities whirled past them all our batteries were
thundering.]
The advantage now was all with us; since in their great circular
formation more than half their great mass of cities could not reach us
with their guns. And, so during that moment, the odds were more than
even as our long line swept on, with all our batteries pouring their
broadsides forth! Steady at the controls, I held New York at that
colossal line's head, holding it at an even distance from the great
circle of the enemy cities. I saw now that our terrific fire, as we
rushed past those cities, was swiftly in that moment taking effect upon
them. Even as I gazed, Amsterdam, Vienna, Cairo and Madrid were falling
beneath the awful concentrated fire of our rushing cities; and in our
own line Buenos Aires staggered, swayed and fell as the enemy barked
savagely back toward us.
"On!" Yarnall was crying beside me: "It's our chance to strike hard at
them--before they can bring the rest of their cities into action!"
"But they're doing it now!" I shouted back to him, above the thunder
of guns, the drone of motors and hissing tube-propellers. "They're
stringing their circle out into a line also!"
For it was plainly visible, upon the great screen beside me, that the
commanders of the enemy were striving to form their great circle into
a line that could meet our own more effectively in mid-air. We saw
their cities rushing inward and changing formation there beside us;
but we knew that our change had come and so hung upon the flank of
the great mass of cities, our line rushing along it with all our guns
turned toward it. And now, though Quebec was falling in our line, our
guns had sent down Copenhagen, Yokohama and Calcutta in the mass beside
us; since by now we had raced past the mass of the European air-cities
and our guns were thundering against the Asiatic cities. Their guns
roared sullenly in answer to us as we flashed past them; but, for the
moment, in their disorganization, in their attempts to reform swiftly
from their circle into a line like our own, their fire was seriously
hampered by their own movements. In that moment we were pouring a
smothering hail of shells upon them, and city upon city was whirling
downward in wild destruction.
Then suddenly, with a supremely swift effort, their circle had
lengthened, straightened, their confusion of the moment had vanished;
and their cities had formed almost instantly into a long line, like
our own, but longer than our own. We found ourselves in that moment
with our own line parallel in mid-air to theirs, a mixture of European
and Asiatic cities directly opposite us; and then, as we raced on,
they were racing on with us, their own batteries thundering with
newly-released fury, as they sought to blast us from the air beside
them! I heard the sharp order of the First Air Chief beside me, and
held New York steady at the head of our line. The two great city-fleets
were racing through the air in a great running fight, with every gun
thundering!
Directly opposite New York there raced, at the head of their line, the
mighty air-city of Peking, third of the three great air-capitals. The
two giants were evenly matched; and now at the head of our respective
lines we engaged in a tremendous duel in mid-air, a duel so intense
that, almost, I forgot the fate of the rushing armadas behind us. In
all New York about us mighty fountains of brilliant light and awful
heat, were flaring with each salvo of heat-shells from the Asiatic
capital. But, at the same time, our own gunners were working their
batteries like madmen; and we could see similar giant craters of fusing
metal springing into being over all the vast mass of clustered towers
that was Peking. Far behind in the enemy's line raced the third great
air-capital of Berlin; and we guessed that it was now from Berlin that
the movements of all our foes were being directed. But so awful was the
battle that we were undergoing with the Asiatic capital opposite us
that for the moment we forgot almost all else.
Behind us, I was dimly aware of all our great line of air-cities
grappling with the line rushing opposite; Chicago, a little farther
back in our line from ourselves, was carrying on as terrific a duel
with London. Constantinople in the enemy's line was whirling downward
beneath the batteries of Denver and Valparaiso. Montreal, in our own,
was falling in fusing death as it became the target for all the giant
batteries of the colossal city of Berlin. City after city in the two
racing, struggling lines was falling to annihilation as the awful
battle raged on. High above the colossal lines of racing cities, our
own great fleet of cruisers and the enemy's were whirling in a wild
fury, insane as our own giant battle of cities. Surely Armageddon had
come upon the earth at last!
Although the European and Asiatic cities still outnumbered us, we had
cut down their great margin of superiority in that attack which our
line had made upon their confused circle. Now, with equal fury, they
were striking from line to line.
Straight ahead of our two racing lines, there loomed now a great bank
of drifting vapors, great cloud-masses drifting south from the lakes
to the north. Neither of our two battling lines desired to enter those
vapor-masses, and so as one, when we neared them, both lines shot
downward.
Surrounded Again
Down--down--with our batteries thundering still across the gulf
toward Peking, whose own guns answered with as great a fury, though
in their city as in ours, battery after battery was being silenced!
Down--down--until the green earth beneath, lit by the descending
afternoon sun, seemed just beneath us, rushing up toward us with awful
speed as we shot down to it! Yet in that dread moment neither line of
struggling cities straightened upward, each fearful of the other's
gaining an advantage. In an instant more, it seemed, New York must
crash together headlong into the earth.
Downward we shot, and I saw the green plain looming awful beneath us.
At the last moment I jerked back another of the direction-levers before
me; and as, in answer to the controls, New York tipped sharply upward
once more. I saw Peking opposite rushing up at the same instant, saving
itself as we had done. Behind us the cities that directly followed in
our two lines were curving up as swiftly, all their guns thundering
still as furiously. But, farther back in the two lines, there were
cities that had swooped too low to recover, had dipped lower and in the
next moment had crashed and been annihilated upon the green earth, as
they collided with it at their terrific speed!
But while our two lines were whirling upward at as steep a slant as
they had descended, the battle seemed to deepen in furious intensity.
New York and Peking were stabbing still at each other with all their
forces, each colossal city seeming too mighty to be struck down, though
each was flaming under a terrible fire of shells. Behind us, after
a running duel that had achieved almost the magnitude and fully the
intensity of our own, Chicago had given London the finishing stroke;
and that great city was wavering, staggering, then slipping and falling
in white-hot annihilation toward the earth! And, as all along both
lines, other cities staggered and fell, I saw that above us the two
whirling cruiser-fleets had almost entirely vanished. They had almost
entirely annihilated each other by the insane fury of their attacks!
I felt my brain spinning, felt all things about me resolving into a
wild whirl of thunderous sound and flaring light. I heard, as though
from a great distance, the orders of Yarnall beside me, and the
frenzied voice of Connell sending those orders flashing out from the
distance-phone; heard the thunder of guns and sound of motors and
propellers and wild noises that were coming from all the city about
us. Then, before our two onrushing lines, there loomed another great
mass of drifting vapors; and again our two lines dipped downward to
avoid those masses. But, as we shot downward, the line opposite us with
Peking at its head shot as quickly upward again, in answer to some
command; it raced on _through_ the vapor-masses instead of beneath
them!
In the next moment we had shot our own line upward again to race side
by side with them still; but we were too late, for that moment had
given them, at their tremendous speed, the advantage for which they
sought. For in that moment, rushing on through the vapor-masses instead
of beneath them, they had gained a little; so that when we shot upward
again to their level they were ahead of us as well as beside us! And
then their line ahead of us was swiftly curving back and around our
other side! As we slowed instantly, to avoid a collision that would
annihilate us and all our mass, they swept the end of their longer line
around the rear of our own, and thus in the next instant were forming a
complete circle around our cities. They had at last accomplished their
great objective, had managed to surround our mass of mighty cities,
outnumbering us still.
As their circle closed lightning-like about us, we three sat in
that moment as though stunned; and then, from all the air-cities
that encircled us, a terrific thunderous fire was pouring upon us!
Encircled, we were a perfect target now for all the European and
Asiatic gunners around us, pouring all their mighty broadsides upon us.
And now Yarnall had leaped to his feet, the tense agony in his eyes
reflected in those of Connell and myself in that terrible moment.
"They've got us!" he was crying hoarsely: "They've got us inside their
circle at last--they're hammering us to doom!"
"Can't we break out?" I cried: "Break through this circle about us?"
He shook his head, his eyes burning: "No--their circle is complete
around us now and we'd only crash our own cities to earth--but we'll
try above and below!"
With the words, he gave a brief order and, as Connell's voice flashed
that order to all our confused mass of cities, they leaped upward in
sudden concerted motion, all their motors' energy turned suddenly
into their vertical lifting power. But, as they shot upward thus, to
win free of the circle about us, that circle lifted at the same speed
as our own mass, hovering still around us and beating us still with
all the relentless fire of their massed batteries. And, when we shot
suddenly downward in an attempt to escape from below they sank downward
at as quick a speed, were encircling us still. And now, beneath that
awful hammering fire of all the massed cities that enclosed us, our own
were beginning to stagger; to sway and reel!
The titanic circle of enemy air-cities about us and our own great
throng of cities, each a giant circular mass of belching flame,
floating there miles above the earth; the thunder of each city's giant
batteries, and the terrific brilliance of the storms of heat-shells
that struck from city to city; the great glowing craters of metal that
each striking shell made in a city, all these things seemed merged
in the six periscopic screens that enclosed us like some chaotic and
meaningless panorama!
I was aware of Yarnall's agonized expression, as we strove with every
power that was ours to save our great air-cities from destruction. For
now in our cluster, city after city was falling beneath that deadly
fire of fusing shells. Los Angeles, Winnipeg, Panama, and Nashville
whirled down one after the other. And, though our batteries were still
thundering their roaring answers, our surrounded cities were still
striking savagely out, with the colossal batteries of New York still
thundering loudest, I saw how swiftly we were being annihilated!
For, raging there in fearful battle high in the dusk between earth
and stars, there was left now hardly more than sixty of our hundred
air-cities; while in the circle about us there still hung, despite the
giant blows we had struck them, a hundred or more of the European and
Asiatic cities! And with all their guns thundering into us, the odds
were swiftly changing and becoming more in their favor!
Finally I stood up, as though jerked to my feet by some strange force
greater than myself, and wheeled toward the First Air Chief.
"It's the end now, Yarnall!" I cried to him above that thunderous roar
of battle that seemed splitting all the night about us: "The end for
all our cities within an hour if this keeps on!"
"The end!" he said, his own face grim: "But there's no escape--we can
only meet it fighting!"
My eyes held his fixedly in that tense moment. "The hundred cruisers in
the plaza outside!" I said: "The cruisers I had you keep waiting for
me--that last crazy plan of mine is our one chance now!"
"Your plan?" he cried, a flicker of hope rising into his eyes. But when
I explained that plan in a few swift words his eyes widened with sudden
stunned astonishment, and he cried out: "The thing's insane, Brant!
You'll never make it!"
"But it's our last chance!" I shouted to him as the thunderous drumming
of doom all about us deepened, and two more of our cities crashed
earthward. "It's the one last chance to save our cities!"
He paused there silent a second, then reached, wrung my hand tightly.
"Then go, Brant!" he said simply: "Take the hundred cruisers--and God
grant that you are able to do the thing!"
I shouted to the black-jacketed attendants who were working like
madmen around the great room's instrument-panels, cutting out motors
that the heat reached, switching in spare motors and tube-propellers,
keeping the mighty sustaining power of New York steady. Two of them
leaped swiftly at my call, to the side of Yarnall to take the places of
Connell and myself. And then Macklin and Hilliard who had been working
with them, were running toward us also, and we four were running across
the room and through the ante-rooms until we issued out from the
electrostatic tower's base into the great plaza.
Standing there in that plaza with the darkness gathering about us,
there stretched from horizon to horizon a boundless mass of gigantic
light-gemmed cities, our own and the titanic ring that encircled
us. The myriad lights of those cities, though, by which their
gun-crews worked the great batteries, were feeble in comparison to
the tremendous and blinding flares of brilliance in all directions
that were fountaining up in giant gouts of dazzling light. Across all
those cities floating, there leaped and flew the heat-shell flares,
and the thunder of the guns was deafening, titanic, like the thunder
of a stream of falling worlds! Beneath that thunder there came to us
thin, high cries, the wild cries of crowds in the towers of cities and
in their streets and plazas. And high, high above all these, far, far
overhead, began to gleam the pale mocking eyes of the distant, watching
stars.
All about us, in that moment that we burst out onto the plaza, it
seemed that heat-shells were striking and flaring. But the static-tower
itself was of a composition that the shells could not harm, the
rare refractory alloy that in air-cities is used only for the vital
power-towers. And, though shells had struck here and there at the
plaza's edge and on its surface, though there were on it and around it
still-glowing craters of fusing metal, few of the hundred close-massed
cruisers that waited with their crews upon it had suffered serious
injury in the awful course of the battle so far. And now Macklin
and Connell and Hilliard and I were racing across the plaza toward
those cruisers, into the foremost of them and up to its bridge-room.
Then Macklin jumped to the controls, as I called an order into the
distance-phone over the titanic drumming of guns. In the next moment
our hundred cruisers were driving up like mad things above the titanic
battle raging there above.
Up--up--through a wild inferno of rushing shells, up over all the
struggling, thundering, reeling cities we sped, on the wild venture
that was our last wild chance. As we drove upward, I now saw others
of our central mass of air-cities falling. Atlanta and Cleveland and
Mexico City were whirling downward, giant masses of lights in which
glowed countless great fusing craters of metal, gyrating insanely down
through the darkness to crash in awful destruction on the surface
of the affrighted earth far below! Hardly more than a half-hundred,
indeed, remained of all our air-cities now; and the odds against them
swiftly lengthened, as they were hammered still upon an anvil of fire
and death by the circle that hemmed them in. They were staggering ever
swifter, were reeling and swaying so that within a few minutes, even as
I had said, the remorseless fire from all about them would send them to
earth also, and wipe the last of the cities and peoples of the American
Federation from above the earth!
But, as I saw that, our own cruisers were whirling on above that
giant central mass, toward the great ring of enemy cities about
them. Macklin at the controls, with teeth set, sent our ship and
those behind it driving low above the awful combat with the storms
of rushing shells from both sides thick about us. Ship after ship
behind us was flaring and fusing and falling in white-glowing meteoric
destruction, unnoticed and unheeded by any in the titanic thundering
battle beneath! On--on--we sped, rocketing through the night, seemingly
the only cruisers now in the air, since the two great fleets had all
but annihilated themselves. Yet as we shot on, it seemed almost that
no cruisers could exist in the air over that great battle; since in
dozens, in scores, our own ships were falling, stricken by the tempests
of shells through which we were rushing!
But now we were reaching our goal, the giant Berlin that hung there
in the enemy's circle with all its mighty batteries thundering again
our doomed cities. Down toward it our cruisers swiftly rushed, unseen
by any in the wild confusion that swept that city below us; down
until we saw plainly the terrific spectacle of thundering batteries
and wildly-rushing men. Here and there were heat-shells bursting and
flaring in dazzling death, as the guns of our own cities roared savage
answer. Down toward it moved our ships, now hardly more than a score
in number, until there loomed just beneath us, that mighty central
static-tower in which we had been so recently imprisoned! As we shot
down toward it I beheld a glass ball above its tip, recognized that as
similar in purpose to the periscopic screens on our own tower's tip,
and then we had shot down past it, until our score of cruisers hoved
beside the great tower's side, at the fifth level.
Hovering there in that moment beside the tower, with all the wild
confusion raging beneath, and the plaza below still empty, we were
still unseen by any beneath, by any in the great batteries that were
thundering all around that plaza. Poised there in the darkness, we
could see that the windows beside us were bright-lighted; that guards
were swarming in the static-tower's upper levels, rushing to and
fro. Then as our cruiser's door swung open, just level with a window
beside us, Macklin and Connell and Hilliard and I were springing forth
from that door and across the narrow gap, through that window, our
heat-pistols ready in our hands! And at the same moment there burst
after us our crew, and from all the windows around that level, from all
the cruisers hovering beside those windows, a stream of black-uniformed
Americans with heat-pistols in hands were pouring into the tower's
fifth level!
Instantly the guards in that level were snapping their own weapons
up toward us; but before they could fire a score of cartridges from
our pistols had flicked and flared among them. As they sank lifeless
in scorched, burned heaps of flesh we were racing through the other
rooms and corridors of that level, killing the guards in it with our
heat-pistols, the surprise of our attack taking them unawares. So awful
was the drumming of the titanic battle all around and outside, that no
alarm of our presence penetrated to the levels above and below us, and,
now with the last of the guards wiped from that fifth level, I turned
toward my three companions.
"Connell and Hilliard! Take half our men and find your places here in
the tower, keeping anyone in its upper levels from getting farther down
than this! Macklin, watch with our cruisers outside--at this low height
the batteries around the plaza can't reach the ships, can't pivot
toward you--and be ready to keep anyone from getting into the tower
from outside!"
As they whirled to obey my orders with the other half of our men, some
hundred and fifty in number, I was running toward the cage-lifts. With
swift blows we destroyed the controls that guided them from level
to level of the tower, and then we rushed toward the narrow stairs
that led also downward. Another moment and we were rushing down those
stairs, while as we did so there came a scuffle of battle above us,
and we knew that the alarm had penetrated to the upper floors of the
tower and that the guards there were pouring down to battle with
Connell and Hilliard and their men. We leaped on downward, though, down
until we had burst down into the fourth level. There our surprise was
as complete, and before the guards there were aware of our presence,
almost, we had sent our heat-cartridges flaring among them, had swept
them from existence and were leaping down to the third level. And in
that it went the same; and in the second below it, and then, with
hearts pounding, we were rushing down into the first level!
As we poured down into its ante-rooms, its guards rushed toward us and
their own heat-pistols came up; but they too were falling in scorched
heaps a moment later, and we were dashing through the ante-rooms
toward the great circular inmost chamber that held the inmost controls
of this great air-city of Berlin! Through those ante-rooms we burst,
the surprised guards falling lifeless and burnt before us, and then
into the inmost circular room! All around its panelled walls moved
green-uniformed attendants who whirled with surprise from their
switches and dials at our entrance; while at the room's center there
was what seemed at first to be a great dull-glass globe! We knew that
that globe enclosed within itself the great table-map and controls of
Berlin; and now there were bursting out, through an opening in that
globe, the three green-uniformed men who had been within it--the First
Air Chief of the European Federation and the two officers who with him
had been controlling the movements of all the mighty combined European
and Asiatic cities!
The Captured City
As the leader saw me, his swarthy face lit for a moment with a flash
of recognition, of astonishment; and then he and his fellows were
leaping toward us, their hands flashing down toward the heat-pistols
at their belts as the attendants around the room jerked forth their
weapons also. But as they did so, our own heat-pistols flashed up and
for the next instant the great room seemed full of flares of blinding
light as the cartridges burst among them, sending them staggering and
swaying and falling in seared heaps! I shouted to my men swift orders
that sent a score of them to the great switch-panels to take the places
of the attendants there; while the remainder rushed toward the great
doors that opened from the tower's lowest level into the plaza outside.
Swiftly they closed those doors, barred them and massed behind them,
and then I was rushing toward the great dull-glass ball at the room's
center.
Inside that ball stood the great table-map upon its great block, while
beside it were the six levers and speed-knob which controlled the speed
and direction of Berlin. As I took the seat before them now, I gazed
about me, and saw that the great ball's interior was in effect a great
periscopic screen itself, one in which I could gaze in any direction
through the other great ball above the static-tower's tip. And now,
gazing into it around me there, I could see that in the outer night
there stretched still the giant ring of the enemy cities, of which this
Berlin was the heart, surrounding our own survivors and hammering them
still with that deadly fire which would soon bring them crashing to
earth. Far out over that mighty field of battle, its brilliant lights
and blinding heat-flares stabbing the darkness, and its thunderous roar
of guns shaking the air, I could gaze; while even at the same moment I
heard, high above, Connell and Hilliard and their men engaged fiercely
in holding the guards in the upper tower back. At the same instant came
a sudden knocking, an alarmed rapping and then a battering and crying
of voices against the great tower's door from outside; as the alarm
spread from the tower's upper levels!
Disregarding all these things, I grasped the controls before me,
watching the scene all about the great city through the periscopic
ball about me. Swiftly I jerked open the speed-knob, at the same
time slamming down one of the direction-levers; and, as I did so, I
saw that the whole great city of Berlin was soaring up now above the
ring of cities in which it had hovered, until it was a little above
their level. And then I thrust back the lever in my hand and jerked
down another; as I did so the mighty air-city of Berlin, the titanic
air-capital whose controls we had captured and which lay now in my
hands, was driving sidewise toward Geneva, that hung beside it in the
ring. Toward it we sped, driving at top speed toward it at a height a
little above it, so that our colossal base was on the level of Geneva's
upper towers. And with set teeth I drove Berlin onward, and in the next
moment its great base had sheared right across the upper towers of
Geneva, had mowed down those great towers like blades of wheat before a
reaper!
Then as Berlin drove on from above it I saw Geneva wavering in mid-air
behind us for a moment, and then crashing down to earth through the
night! I had mowed away the great electrostatic tower whose collection
of cosmic energy held it aloft, and Geneva went crashing down to earth
through the darkness like some giant comet of blazing lights plunging
to doom! And then, beneath my hands, Berlin was driving still onward
across and over that great ring of enemy cities, shearing now in the
same way across the towers of city upon city in that ring. Stockholm
and Cape Town and Bucharest fell as I mowed their power-towers from
them; and to them that awful spectacle of Berlin rushing upon them and
sending them to doom, crashing across their great towers, must have
been utterly stunning and inexplicable in that wild moment!
On--on--around the great ring I held, almost insane with wild fury and
excitement in that moment of triumph, driving through the night on our
captured air-city and sending city after city whirling to death. I was
dimly aware that the fighting above had ceased. Connell and Hilliard
and their men had wiped out the guards in the tower above, and they
had rushed down to defend the electrostatic tower's doors, against
which a wild battering was resounding now. Huge crowds were surging
madly against the tower as they felt their great city rushing through
the night and crashing in wild destruction across their fellow-cities!
But, in the wild excitement that was surging through me now, I paid
no attention to all about me; for surely I was swaying such colossal
forces as no man ever had swayed before.
The European and the Asiatic cities were breaking from me, in wild
panic, disorganized and shattered; since there came now no commands to
them from this city of Berlin that had held their commander. And as
they broke into a disorganized mass, the half-hundred American cities
massed in the center, who had seen the terrible havoc that Berlin,
beneath my hands, was wreaking upon their enemies, were themselves
rushing to the attack once more; and all their guns were thundering
toward the disorganized mass of their enemies!
Up toward Berlin from that mass as we rushed forward there rose to meet
us the giant air-capital of Peking, battered, scarred; its commander
seeking to stay this crazy destruction its sister-capital was wreaking
upon their own forces. Up it came; and for an instant it seemed that
Berlin and Peking must crash together bodily, but with a last wrench
of the speed-control I sent Berlin racing higher. And then, as we
met Peking, crashed over it, that mighty capital's power-tower also,
with its other clustered towers, was sheared from it by our great
base. Peking was wavering for a moment and then went whirling down to
death! Yet even as it wavered, slipped and fell, its great guns were
thundering savagely upon us until it had crashed to earth far below!
Victory!
And now, down through the night upon the mass of our enemy cities, I
sent Berlin slanting down toward them, at its full speed, and across
them in a tremendous ramming swoop that sheared the towers from a
dozen of them, even as they attempted confusedly to rise and meet
the onthundering mighty city! Of that confused, disorganized and
broken mass there remained of them at last hardly more than a score,
still savagely belching death from their guns toward our half-hundred
American cities and still sending an occasional one downward! But now
as I whirled the giant mass of Berlin back toward them like a striking,
gigantic bird of prey, I was aware of a tremendous battering and
clanging of metal; and at the same moment Hilliard was shouting to me
from the great doors that opened from the ante-rooms into the plaza.
"They're breaking down the doors, Brant!" he was screaming above the
wild thunder of battle and the clamor of giant crowds that surged
against those doors outside: "Fight on, though--we'll try to hold them
back!"
"Hold them a moment longer!" I yelled back to him: "A moment more--!"
For now I sent Berlin whirling downward in another terrific swoop
across the mass of our enemy cities and it sheared across half their
mass, as they sought by rising or sinking to avoid that deadly swoop.
But a half-score were left of them now, and now the half-hundred cities
of the American Federation had gathered about them and were hammering
them with terrific fire. No gun sounded now on Berlin, all its crews
and soldiers were rushing wildly across it toward the electrostatic
tower, as the city whirled and crashed and fought and ran there against
their own allied cities! Caught in the terrific fire of the cities
around them, the half-score European and Asiatic cities were going
down with guns thundering into annihilation. But now I was aware at
the same moment of a terrific uproar there at the tower's doors and of
wild shouts and clanging blows there as our men fought to hold back the
madly surging crowds outside!
Gripping the levers before me for one last effort, I jerked open the
speed-control to its widest; and then, as it shot above the mass of the
European and Asiatic cities, only a half-dozen in number now, I whirled
the mighty mass of Berlin down upon them in one last tremendous swoop
from which they sought in vain to swerve. They too were hesitating for
a moment and then went whirling down to death, the last of the European
and Asiatic cities save for Berlin itself about me! And then, as I
brought that city to a stay, with the last of its companions crashing
beneath and with the American cities hanging all about us now, there
was a great clang of falling metal at the tower's doors, and back
through them wild crowds without were pushing our black-uniformed
defenders!
Connell and Hilliard at their head, our men were being pushed back
through the ante-rooms, back toward the great circular room in which
I sat at the controls; and, as I gazed out through the opening in the
great periscope ball about me, I saw that an instant more would see
them overpowering the last of our men, rushing in upon me to take
the city's controls once more! But as I saw that, I reached forward,
slammed down the lever that sent the city rushing downward! I gripped
that lever and with a supreme effort tore it completely from its
socket! The next moment a wilder cry came from the crowds fighting
through the door and the crowds over all the city outside, as they felt
that city whirling and swaying beneath them, felt it whirling down to
death through the night to annihilation!
And as they uttered that tremendous cry, as the swaying city flashed
downward, their struggle at the door forgotten in that awful moment of
doom, I was aware subconsciously that I was staggering with Connell and
Hilliard and our remaining men, up the narrow stair. Up to the great
tower's second level and to its windows, beside which hung our cruisers
with Macklin and a skeleton crew, holding them there beside the tower
even as the great city whirled with awful speed downward! Then we
jumped through those windows into the cruisers. And the next moment,
just as the cruisers with ourselves inside them drove upward like light
from the falling city, Berlin had crashed into the earth just beneath
us, with a terrific, annihilating shock that buckled it, broke it, made
of it but a great twisted mass of rended metal!
Then we were driving up toward the half-hundred remaining American
air-cities that hung still high above, the giant city of New York still
at their center. Up until we had soared above those cities and they lay
beneath us, giant circles of brilliant light, scarred here and there
with countless craters of fused metal! Their great crowds of peoples
had surged, now, from their towers, out into their squares and streets.
They gazed as if incredulously stunned by their deliverance, at the
empty air and night about them, where so shortly before had hung the
enemy that had been sending them to doom. In that moment, as we hung
there high over them, in that moment of incredible surprise and dawning
joy, it seemed that all the world was silent after the terrific thunder
of that wild rushing battle that had riven earth and sky so short a
time before. It was as though the night, and the winds about us, and
the white stars overhead, were as silent with astonishment in that
moment as the crowds on the cities that hung around and beneath us.
Then suddenly, from those cities, there was coming up toward us as
though from a single voice a single, mighty cry!
Dawnward
At dawn of the next day our half-hundred great air-cities prepared
to separate, to move back to those positions that had been theirs
before danger had brought them together. Through all of that night
they had hung there together, their streets crowded with weeping yet
rejoicing crowds; and, now that the dawn showed them the green plains
far beneath, they were beginning to depart. And we five, sitting there
within the periscopic screens in the power-tower of New York, were
watching them as they prepared to go.
Battered and scarred, all of them, by that titanic battle through which
all had fought, many of them with great towers fused and broken, and
scarred with great craters, they were crowding toward us. Washington
was foremost among them, until it hung just beside our city, its great
streets and plazas thronged with shouting crowds. And, in the wild
shouts of those crowds, we could hear our own names, their roaring
tribute. For, in their eyes, we had saved them by that last wild
effort of ours. And then Washington was moving away from us, toward
the southeast, speeding away and vanishing as a dark spot in the
southeastern sky.
And now another was crowding beside us, and another, and still they
came. Pittsburgh and Guatemala, Tacoma, Chicago and Philadelphia, Rio
de Janeiro, Kansas City and Vancouver--one by one they were driving
beside us, their giant bulks hanging beside New York, their mighty
cheers reaching us. They moved away to north and south and east and
west, to vanish as dark, dwindling spots in the skies, until New York
alone of them remained hovering there high above the earth. And then,
Yarnall's eyes returned to the screen beneath us, where there were
revealed the great, shattered wrecks, laying half-buried in the green
earth far below.
"We win," he said, slowly: "The American Federation wins; but at what
cost? Two-thirds of the world's cities have crashed to annihilation and
death, and a half of our own."
"It's so, Yarnall," I said, gazing down with him: "yet it was our
necessity, and not our will. They attacked us without warning;
attacked us with mighty weapons which they had devised especially to
annihilate us all--and we could but defend ourselves."
"I know it, Brant," he said: "We could do nothing else--but I am
glad--glad, man!--only that this greatest of all wars is the last."
"Earth's Last Air War!" It was Macklin speaking, thoughtfully: "Now,
the war lords of our enemies have gone, their people will join with us
to end all wars, to forget all! our enmities...."
"We will," I said, as I turned toward the controls, "but we five can
never forget what has happened."
And then, as the others sat silent at my words, I was opening the
speed-control before me, moving over one of the great levers, and
sending New York, with its great motors droning and its tube-propellers
hissing, away to the east; toward the sunrise, faster and faster,
rushing eastward over the green plains that were now rolling swiftly
back far beneath. On all the mighty city around us, in all its
streets and plazas, its great surging crowds were shouting still, a
great, rejoicing clamor. But we five there at the city's controls, in
the great tower, sat silent and unmoving. Gazing out into the blue
cloudless heavens before us as our city rushed dawnward, we looked into
the face of the morning sun. It was the sun rising on a world at peace.
The End