Jerry watched from his gun post as the city
vanished in a cloud of atomic smoke. His thoughts
were of his wife and son, but duty demanded that—
A Soldier's Home Is Battle
By Lowell Stone
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
March 1954
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
By the time the radar signal caught their eye it was too late to do anything. Planes traveling faster than sound were already inside the defense zone of the city.
Private First Class Jerry Conlon glanced from the radar screen to the other five members of his Atomic Gun Post team on the outer perimeter of the city. The look in their eyes was one of dazed alarm. Automatically he joined them in zipping shut radiation suits, and then they went for the gun controls, knowing it was too late.
A flash of intolerable brightness faded out the sun. One of the boys—Conlon saw him still struggling with his radiation suit—didn't make it in time. He paid for his slowness with his life.