We rose to the upper air, where the girls were still circling about. The other boats were keeping on their course, spreading farther apart now to be out of range of each other's projectors. I had hoped they would turn back with this catastrophe to their leader, but they did not.
I consulted hastily with Miela, and then we gave the order for a general attack, allowing each of the leading girls to act as she saw fit.
Like a great flock of birds we swooped downward upon our prey, spreading out to attack all the boats at once. The girls now turned on their hand lights—a myriad tiny beams darting about in the semi‑darkness.
I cannot attempt to describe the scene that followed. It can be imagined, perhaps, but not told in words. As we swept within range of the lights that swung up from below to meet us, I saw a girl, flying alone, pass directly through one of the red beams. It seemed to strike her sidewise. In an instant she had passed beyond it. I saw the dim outlines of her form as she fluttered onward, wavering and aimless like a wounded bird. And then she fell, turning over and over as with one wing she strove vainly to support herself, until at last, wrapped in the sable shroud of her shield, she plunged with a great splash into the sea.
The flashing light‑rays all about us now seemed mingled in inextricable confusion. The girls must have passed through them frequently, protected by their shields; and I know our platform was several times struck by them from below. The absence of sound was uncanny. Only the whistling wind of our flight, the flapping of the girl's wings, and the hissing of steam as our rays struck the water, accompanied this inferno of light.
We swept beyond the boat we had singled out, passing five or six hundred feet above it, and in the effort to avoid its ray turning so that I was unable to bring mine upon it. As we rose again, beyond it, I saw a boat off to the left in flames. A dozen girls had rushed upon it, darting in among its smaller rays to where their own would be effective. But there was only one girl above it now, struggling brokenly to maintain herself in flight. The boat sank with the roar of an explosion of some kind, but in the sudden darkness about I could still see this lone wounded girl fluttering onward.
We were not far away; I pointed her out to Miela, and instead of swinging back we kept on toward her. We contrived to pass close under her, and she fell abruptly almost into my arms. I stretched her out gently on the platform and turned back to Miela, who was kneeling behind our projector.
We were now nearly half a mile from the nearest of the boats. Several of them evidently had been sunk, and two or three others were sinking. One I could make out heading back for the Twilight shore; above it the lights of our girls following showed vivid against the dark‑gray sky. Where Mercer's platform was I could not tell.
Miela gripped my shoulder.
"See, Alan—there!" She pointed off to one side. "One of the boats tries to escape."