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.