The Air Trust

by George Allan England

"Where are the others?" thought he, and reached for a thanatos projectile, in the rack near the metal cup where the punk still glowered.

All at once, a glare of light burst upward through the white-glowing mist; and the 'plane reeled with the air-wave, as now a thunderous concussion boomed across the empty spaces of the sky.

At the same moment, a faint, ripping noise mounted to Gabriel—a sound for all the world like the tearing of stout canvas. Then followed a chattering racket, something like distant mowing-machines at work; and now all blent to a steady, determined uproar. Gabriel almost thought to hear, as he launched his own projectile, far sounds as of the shouts and cries of men; but of this he could not make sure.

"They're at it, anyhow!" he exulted. "At it, at last! By the way our men have launched the attack, the first explosion must have breached a wall! God! What wouldn't I give to be down there, in the thick of it, rather than here! I—"

Crash!

Again a spouting geyser of light and uproar burst into mid-air.

"That was my thanatos speaking!" cried Gabriel. "Now for another!"

Before he could drop it, as he circled round and round, directly over the great, flailing beams of the Air Trust search-lights, a third detonation shattered the heavens, nearly unseating him. Up sprang the roar, with wonderful intensity, reflected from the earth as from a giant sounding-board. And Gabriel noted, with keen satisfaction, that one of the huge light-beams had gone dark.

"Put out one of them, anyway, so far!" thought he, and swung again to westward, and once more dropped a messenger of death to tyranny.

Now the bombardment became general. Trust aerial-gun projectiles began bursting all about. Every second or two, terrible concussions leaped toward the zenith; and the earth, hidden somewhere down there below the fog-blanket, seemed flaming upward like a huge volcano. One by one the search-lights, whipping the sky, went black; and now the glow of them was fast diminishing, only to be replaced by a ruddier and more intermittent glare.