A Sudden Attack
Now, poised there miles above the great air-city, which was itself poised high over the earth, our great triangle of ships hung like so many birds of prey for the moment. Beside me Macklin was gazing downward as tensely as myself, Hilliard beneath with our waiting gunners, while under my fingers lay the four rows of white buttons the pressing of each of which would release from our cruiser's bomb-slots a portion of the immense heat-bombs they held. Poising there in that tense moment the whole scene was imprinted unforgettably upon my brain—the gloom of night about us, the vast radiant circle of the colossal air-city beneath, the patrols swarming over it, the throngs that filled its streets, excited no doubt over the beginning of the long-expected war that was to annihilate the American Federation. Then I spoke one sharp order into the distance-phone and instantly with all our motors droning suddenly loud our great triangle of cruisers was diving straight downward upon the radiant air-city beneath!
Down we shot with dizzying speed in that mighty swoop, down with my own cruiser flashing foremost and with all our others close behind it, down through miles of space in a flashing moment, it seemed, until our hurtling wedge of ships had crashed down into and through the swarming patrols above the city, had driven like light down through them toward the eastern mass of military structures and cruisers that was our goal! From all of our ships no single gun sounded nor from the patrol-cruisers through which we dropped, so stunned were they by our great crash downward through them. It was as though for that moment a tense silence had been enforced upon all the world, a silence broken only by the drone of our motors as we plunged. Then I was aware in a swift succession of flashing impressions of the white-lit city's towers and buildings rushing like light up toward us, of the great square military arsenals and buildings with the gleaming ranks of cruisers about them, just beneath us. Then as we plunged to within a half-mile of those buildings and cruisers my own foremost-flashing cruiser curved forward and, as our down-plunging ships levelled out behind it, I pressed swiftly a row of the buttons beneath my fingers. The next moment our cruiser was swaying from side to side as it rushed on, and down from it and from all the massed ships behind and about us were plunging thousands of giant, cylindrical heat-bombs!
Even before those heat-bombs struck, our onrushing ships had curved like lightning upward again, but the next moment were reeling and tossing even in the mad upward rush as from beneath came a titanic merged flare of all the bursting heat-bombs, from which an awful wave of super-heated air rushed up and overtook us, and beneath whose terrific released heat dozens of the huge military buildings beneath had fused and melted. We could glimpse, too, that below a full half thousand or more of the resting cruisers had perished also in that giant flare, and that it was as though a whole great area of the gigantic air-city beneath us had been transformed suddenly by the released heat of our mighty bombs into a huge crater of white-hot, melting metal near the floating city's edge! And from all across the mighty white-lit mass of Berlin, that had reeled itself in mid-air from that terrific blow, there rose a dull, roaring clamor of millions of voices that came up to us even over the drone of our great motors and the rush of winds about us!
Upward at utmost speed we were rushing, and just in time for hardly had our heat-bombs struck when, despite the utter unexpectedness of our attack, the great batteries of heat-guns around the central electrostatic tower that guarded it were wheeling toward us and thundering as they shot a storm of heat-shells above the white-lit city toward us. Even as I had said, those vigilant watchers at the power-tower would have blasted our fleet from the air before we could have ever got near to the tower itself, but as it was we had struck a terrific blow at the military arsenals and the resting fleet, and had flashed upward again in time to escape the blasting guns at the city's center. But now, through the night above the vast roaring city, the batteries all around its rim were swinging their pivoted guns toward us and sending a hail of shells after us while, as all the city's great searchlights wheeled their beams madly through the air toward us, the swarming patrols all around us had recovered from their stunned astonishment and were leaping also toward us!
"One more attack!" over the uproar I was yelling into our distance-phone as we shot upward through that mad chaos of whirling beams and ships and shells. "The city's western arsenals this time—loose the other half of our bombs on them!"
Holding still to our triangular formation in that wild mélange of sight and sound, our ships levelled out once more, high above the city again now, and with only a scant dozen having been reached by the hail of heat-shells that had rushed after us from beneath. Then we were speeding westward over the tremendous city, high above it, scorning to stop for the swarms of patrol-cruisers that were dashing toward us. Those cruisers were rushing with suicidal fury toward us with every heat-gun detonating, but our own gunners were plying our batteries even as we dashed forward above the air-city, and on all sides of us the patrol-craft were flaring and fusing and crashing down toward the city beneath! Here high over the city, though, the shells of all the heat-guns that now were booming toward us could not reach us, and through battling ships and whirling beams and gloom of night we rushed westward over the giant air-city until in a moment more we were pausing over the western arsenals, and the western plaza where rested other massed cruisers of the great European battle-fleet. And then as I gave another order we were diving once more, down toward those buildings and cruisers!
The Second Blow
This time, though, all the colossal city beneath us was roused and roaring with fury as we shot downward, and from beneath there slanted up toward us a terrific hail of shining heat-shells from all the city's great batteries. Eastward the cruisers that had escaped our bombs there were rising and forming to attack us, while, even as we shot down, the cruisers beneath were rising and flinging themselves to one side for the moment to escape our swooping rush and bombs. But through storming shells and blinding beams we shot again on our terrific dive, until in another moment our fleet was levelling again above them and as Macklin drove our cruiser level before the rest I had pressed the remaining buttons, had sent our remaining heat-bombs whirling downward with those of all the ships about me! And then as our ships curved upward again, our terrific blow struck, the bombs were finding their mark again, were flaring and fusing with terrific heat and power into another giant mass of melting metal and awful heat there at the city's western edge.