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!"