Air Wonder Stories, December 1929 — page 68: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AIR WONDER STORIES Through our screens we saw cruisers enveloped by scores in blinding flares, in that first moment of combat, as they raged in two separate mighty battles, But, east and west, our own cruisers were outnum- bered two to one and, despite their fierce resistance, were being pressed: steadily back toward our gathered cities. Closer and closer through the air toward. us were reeling those struggling lines of criisers, more and more American ships falling in white-hot destruc- tion as the heat-guns of their opponents concentrated upon them. Still far beyond them, to east and west, the colossal masses of the European and Asiatic air- cities were now rushing on toward us! Yarnall sent another order flying out, and the next moment a mass of cruisers that had remained at the edges of our gath- ered cities, on either side, and had not been in the first battle, were leaping forward now, like suddenly re- leased hounds after prey. A score of. them to the eastern combat and a score to the western one they flashed ; and each, as it reached the lines of struggling ships, shot up over them and then flashed along their lines.above them. And as they did, there shot down- ward from them over the battling cruisers intense jets of concentrated water vapor, which puffed out instantly into great white cloud masses that enveloped all the grappling thousands of ships! ; Yarnall had brought: into the battle, I saw, those _ great artificial cloud projectors that had saved us in our first great battle over the Atlantic! And, even ‘as their white masses enveloped the struggling ships, he sent forth another order; and our own cruisers shot upward and downward out of those cloud-masses, at the very instant that they had been formed. Then, with all our own cruisers clear of the cloud-masses to east and west, and: the European and Asiatic ships in- side them driving for the moment in blind confusion, our cruisers poured a deadly hail of heat-shells down into the cloud-masses and the thousands of ships that swirled inside them! Only for a moment was it that they remained within the cloud-masses before fighting their way free; but in that.moment they had been un- able to fire a single effective shell at our own ships outside, and we had poured.a veritable storm of deadly shells into the cloudy masses. So when, a moment later, the European and Asiatic ships broke from the vapor-clouds east and westward, our broadsides had taken toll of hundreds of their blinded ships, and hardly more than our own forces did they. number now! But, when they broke free from the cloud-masses and into open air again, they did not advance toward our awaiting ships; instead they shot back from either front toward their cities, in answer to some mysteridus order. At once a similar order from Yarnall brought flashing back, to form again above our own cities, our own ships—still nearly two thousand strong and almost a8 many in number as the combined cruisers of our enemies, I heard dimly the great cheers that were rolling across all our cities, for this mighty blow which had beaten back our enemies’ cruiser-fleets once more. Then those cheers died swiftly away; for, far away to east and west, the gigantic masses of the approaching air-cities loomed larger and larger, rushing through the air toward us! Eastward the European Federation was approaching, in a gigantic circle that seemed to fill the whole eastern sky. To us three sitting there amid our periscopic screens, it was as though all the eastern screen was filled with that great oncoming mass of cities; Paris, London, Moscow, Cairo, Rome—all the tremendous air-cities of the great European Federation—and their capital of Berlin still at the center. _And- westward, upon our western screen, loomed equally gigantic the similar circle of air-cities of the Asiatic Federation. Peking, the third in size of the world’s air-capitals, at the center of its cluster of cities rushed at the same smooth speed toward us, with Shanghai and Tokio and Bombay and Rangoon fore- most in its circle. From east and west thus the two stupendous circles of cities rushed.toward our own, grimly waiting; and, as we watched them, there flashed over me in that tense moment a strange wonder as to the feelings with which one of a hundred years before would have watched this battle. Then I laid aside that passing wonder as the two great circles drew nearer to the range of our great heat-gun batteries. And this, surely, was a spectacle that none had ever seen or dreamed before—this spectacle of the world’s mighty cities converging swiftly upon each other in battle to the death! And as strange, too, must have been the sight of us three, sitting there amid our box-like periscopic screens, the heart of the mighty tower’s base; yet seeing and directing from there all the great mass of the hundred mighty cities around us, “They’re not going to join forces!” I exclaimed: “They're going to strike us at the same moment from east and west!” Yarnall nodded, his eyes intent upon the screens: “Either that,” he said, “or—” Armageddon! E broke off suddenly; for at that moment there | I came to us a giant salvo of thunder from both east and west, a terrific shock of sound: that rolled deeply through the air toward us from the two distant armadas advancing! An instant later there was a whistling sound over our own cities, and we knew that a great storm of heat-shells was plunging toward them. A few struck with wild bursting flares across our massed cities, and with their suddenly-released gigantic heat there appeared great craters of fusing, melting metal. The-greater part of the. shells, though, fell short, whirled down to earth to flash on the ground far below. The range was not yet closed, I knew; and so far our own great cities remained silent as death. Yarnall was watching now with hands clenched tightly, as the two circles from east and west came on. A moment later there rolled from them another great salvo, and’ another mass of shells rushed toward us; but, though most of these also fell short, a greater number than before flared and fused in melting, sear- ing death upon our own massed cities! T gazed anxiously at Yarnall, a strange dread taking. possession of me for an instant as the tremendous armadas came on. Would he never give the order to fire? He was sitting still as a carved statue, his eyes upon the screens and his lips compressed; and in that moment there came to mea dim sense of all the ter- tific responsibility. that weighed upon him, the leader of a third of earth’s cities and peoples battling against the remainder of mankind, Silent he sat and still, while the great approaching armadas rushed nearer, their cities coming more and more distinctly into view in our far-seeing screens. In another moment, I knew, another thunderous broadside would be belching toward us. But, just as I looked for it to come, Yarnall spoke a single word and, as Connell’s swift voice sent that word flying out to all our cities, as my own flashed it to all the batteries of our centermost city of New York, there was a hush of a split-second. And then, out le books. a com