Air Wonder Stories, December 1929 — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

oS S =a! 548 AIR WONDER STORIES great hissing of the numberless new tube-propellers that were jerking it swiftly forward! And, as- New York Jeaped northward at my touch, all its great bat- teries still detonating; so were all the great air-cities that ringed us leaping northward, and all their guns were still thundering toward the advancing armadas! But now the enemy had seen our swift leap north- ward, and, as their commanders guessed our purpose, they sent their own two crescents whitling toward us with even greater. speed to enclose-us before we could escape! For the next moment it was a race between the three great. city-masses, a race in which our own sought to evade the two that closed-upon it from either side. And, as our cities and ‘theirs raced through the air at tremendous speed, évery gun still firing, it seemed that we must lose! For, just north of us, the two northward horns of the closing crescents had almost met, -were almost joined before us! That northward horn of the Asiatic crescent held Shanghai and Colombo and. Singapore and others; while the horn that-pro- jected from the European mass-had foremost in it Mos- cow and Brussels and Algiers. And as we shot north- ward in that wild moment, to escape before those two horns.could join, Yarnall sent flying forth a swift order for all batteries in ail our cities to concentrate their fire now upon the: foreniost cities in the two. closing horns to the north! At once our. own guns were thundering with re- doubled fury; for, unless we-could destroy: in the next few. minutes the foremost of those cities-north of us, they would ‘have closed upon us.and brought our: irre- trievable doom. So, disregarding for the time all the other air-cities of the two closing crescents about us, all fire was concentrated upon the foremost cities of the two hornis-closing northward, A storm of heat- shells rushed thick through the air toward them; but at the same time the masses of European and Asiatic cities east_and west of us were pouring down upon. us the broadsides of their own giant batteries! And he- neath that terrific fire, cities among our mass were falling swift in fusing. destruction. St. Louis and Miami and Seattle were whirling to death as we raced onward; all the people in them who had been left alive by the shells were meeting annihilation in the great crash far below! But, though we. were being decimated by the fire of the closing crescents on either side, our own terrific concentrated fire was having effect upon the closing horns of cities north of us, and: in the moments while we rushed toward them, Singapore, Colombo and Brus- sels had been sent down in-white-hot destruction. by. our awful-fire, The remaining cities in those two: pro- jecting horns were still rushing toward each other with their utmost speed to close the gap between them before our great circle.could speed through it. With Moscow and Shanghai at their eastern and western_tips, the two horns swiitly closed toward-each other; while as swiftly” and with every motor. droning its loudest, with every heat-gun thundering northward, we shot onward. For a moment the whole great race was in doubt; for a moment it seemed to us that our great mass of cities could flash through that gap before it closed. . But as we watched in tense,-terrible hope, even as our mighty cities raced northward, the cities of those closing horns seemed to make a last supreme effort, a last great burst of speed. They shot forward, their leaders Shanghai and Moscow almost racing into each other; and then, with all their tube-propellers reversed, they were suddenly halting a barrier of mighty air- cities all around us! But nothing now could halt our tremendous mass, so awful was our speed and so close were. we to the enemy's line. I saw those cities loom- ing suddenly gigantic before our own mass as we raced on; heard hoarse exclamations from Yarnall and Con- nell beside me; and then with a terrific shock, that seemed the shock of meeting worlds, our vast north- ward-flying mass of air-cities had crashed headlong into the great line of cities before us! CHAPTER XI City Against City N the moment that-followed, after our flashing circle I of cities had thundered headlong into the line before us, all other -sounds, all the thunder of countless guns and the drone of motors and the hiss of tube- propellers and cries of voices, were drowhed in one tremendous splintering crash of metal-upon metal. The giant mass of cities about us seemed to reel drunkenly in: mid-air in that moment. New York at their center staggered from the awful shock transmitted to it. Then upon the screen north of me, Isaw titanic metal masses that had been cities. falling downward. Moscow with Sydney and Algiers, and Boston with. Detroit, these whirled: downward in that mmoment—no longer recog- nizable as aif-cities and seeming to the eye but great twisted bulks of rended metal, But not even that giant collision had been able to halt: the tremendous momentum’ of our. _northward- thundering: mass of cities;-for as those cities before us crashed downward, the whole great. circle of our mass, New. York still at its center, was thundering on through the gap that that crash: had made ‘in the line before us! We -were sweeping northward and out beyond that line that our great crash had shattered. We had won free only by: means of that awful crash. In- stantly, Yarnall had cried another order, and our great mass of air-cities was swiftly shifting. its formation into a long line; and at its head rushed our own city of New York: And then, while the great circle of the enemy’s combined atmada remained there for the mo- ment still behind us, as though stunned by our colossal crash and escape through it, the First Air Chief sent another- order. flashing forth. At.once our line turned like a wheeling snake, high in the air, and was rushing back upon-the circle of our enernies! We were rush- ing -backand along the line. of European Federation cities that made up that circle’s eastern ‘half for the moment, And, as our long line of mighty cities whirled past them, all our batteries were thundering upon them roating death. The advantage now was all with us; since in their great circular formation more. than half their great mass of cities could not reach us with their guns. And, so. during that moment, the odds were more than even as our long line swept on, with all our batteries. pour- ing their broadsides forth! Steady at the controls, I held New York at that colossal line’s head, holding it at an even distancé from-the great circle of the enemy cities. I saw. now that our terrific fire, as we rushed past those cities, was swiftly in that moment taking effect upon them. Even as I gazed, Amsterdam, Vienna, Cairo and Madrid were falling beneath the awful concentrated:fire of our rushing cities; and in our own line Buenos Aires: staggered, swayed and fell as the enemy barked savagely back toward us. “On!” Yarnall was crying beside me: “It’s our chance. to strike hard at them—before they can bring the test of their cities into action!” “But they’re doing it now!” I shouted back to him, comicbooks.cot