The commander nodded and withdrew, his throat so dry that he could no longer swallow and his gait so unsteady that he arrived in the gunnery compartment reeling like a drunken man.
Gradually the gaunt woman regained control of her shrieking nerves and some of the color crept back into her face. She reseated herself in the revolving chair and strained forward, waiting for the sky to light up with the bright flare of projectiles and the still brighter flare of a flame-enveloped and tailspinning flying machine.
She knew that she would not be able to see the actual destruction of the machine, for it was the last in line and, as the commander had informed her with his stupidity heavy upon him, flying very low. But she would know quickly enough, for the commander would not be slow in breaking the news when one or more of the projectiles found its mark.
She waited and as the shock and rage which she had experienced on seeing the Council building blasted to rubble began to wear off, she became more reconciled to what had happened. It was just possible that the Council—all of the Council—had been within the building, summoned into emergency session by the Chief Monitor. That was perhaps too much to hope for, but she saw no reason to let the unlikelihood of that darken her mood. At least half of the Council would be gone, for half of the Council resided in the building. It greatly reduced the number of her enemies and immeasurably enhanced her prestige.
There was the sudden, blinding flare of a projectile and she stiffened in anticipation, her eyes darting to the empty sky immediately above her and then sideways, hoping that the target-tagged machine with its traitor-pilot would increase its speed in a last-minute escape maneuver and come into view for a moment. If only she could witness the direct hit, could see it explode in the air!
Her hopes soared until she could scarcely breathe. But the traitor did not come into view. There was another bright projectile flare and the second machine in the squadron came abreast of the cockpit window, flying parallel at a distance of eighty or ninety feet.
There was something wrong with the way the second machine was flying. It had put on a sudden burst of speed, but now it was slowing down and wobbling from side to side.
It was unmistakably in trouble. Its cockpit seemed to sag, as if one of the interior struts had given way or the entire structure had been half shot away, on the side that was hidden from her.
Heavy black smoke began suddenly to spiral from the machine's middle section, coalescing into a thick black cloud in the air above it. It wobbled more violently from side to side and then, quite suddenly, it was plunging downward, twisting and turning in a zigzagging tailspin as it went spiraling toward the earth.
The gaunt woman was given no time to recover from the shock of that totally unexpected defeat. Another machine came into view in the sky above her and burst almost instantly into flame. Two more projectile flares lit up the sky, turning the bright silvery sheen of a third machine's wings to crimson as it turned completely about in the air and plummeted downward like a wounded falcon, its tail feathers in wild disarray.