CHAPTER XI
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.
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.