Air Wonder Stories, December 1929 — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

who with him had been controlling the movements of all the mighty combined European and Asiatic cities! The Captured City S the leader saw me, his swarthy face lit for a mo- ment with a flash of recognition, of astonishment ; and then he and his fellows were leaping toward us, their hands: flashing down toward the heat-pistols at their*belts as the attendants around the room jerked forth their weapons also. “But-as they did so, our-own heat-pistols flashed up and for the next instant. the great room seemed full of flares of blinding light as the cartridges burst among them, sending them stag- shouted to my. men: swift orders that sent a score of them to the great switch-panels to take the places of the attendants there ; while the remainder rushed toward the great doors that opened. from: the tower’s lowest level into the plaza outside. Swiftly they closed those doors, barred them and massed behind them, and then I was rushing toward the great dull-glass ball at the room's center. Inside that ball stood the great table-map upon ‘its great block, while béeside-it were the six levers and speed-knob which, controlled the speed and direction of Berlin. As I took the seat ‘before them-now, I gazed about me, and saw. that the great ball's interior was in effect.a gteat periscopic screen itself, one in which I could gaze in any direction through the other. great ball above the static-tower’s tip. And now, gazing into it around- me there, I-could see-that in the outer night there stretched still the giant ring of the enemy cities, of which this: Berlin was ‘the heart, surrounding our own survivors and hammering them still with that deadly fire which would soon bring them- crashing to eatth. Far out over that mighty field of battle, its brilliant lights and blinding heat-flares stabbing the darkness, and its: thunderous: roar of-guns shaking the air, I could gaze; while even at the same moment I heard, high above, Connell_and Hilliard and their men engaged fiercely in. holding the guards in the upper tower back. At the same-instanit came a sudden knock- ing, an alarmed rapping and then_a battering and cry- side; as the alarm spread from the tower’s upper levels! Disregarding all these things, I grasped the controls before me, watching the scene all_about-the-great city through the periscopic ball about me. Swiftly I jerked open the speed-knob, at the same time slamming down one of the direction-levers; and,-as.I did so, I saw that the whole great city of Berlin-was soaring up now above the ting of cities in which it had hovered, until it was a little above their. level. And then T thrust back the lever in my hand and jerked down :another; as I did so the mighty air-city of Berlin, the titanic air- capital whose controls we had-captured and which lay now in my hands, was driving sidewise toward Geneva, that hung beside it in the ring. Toward it we sped, driving-at top speed toward it at a height a little above it, so that our colossal base-was on the level-of Geneva’s upper towers. And ‘with set teeth I drove Berlin on- ward, and in the next moment its great base had sheared right across the upper towers of Geneva, had mowed down those great towers like blades of wheat before a reaper! a . Then as Berlin. drove on from above it I saw Geneva wavering in mid-air behind us for a moment, and then crashing down to earth. through the night!- I had ’ PUGS Pe Vek ee Ces ee ee UN CU ee eRe oe oe See ee oe Or Veen Vh A yo ee ee mowed away the great electro-static tower whose col- AIR WONDER STORIES gering and swaying and falling in seared heaps! I. ~the wild excitement-that was:surging through me now ing of voices against the great tower’s- door from _out- lection of cosmic energy held it aloft, and Geneva went crashing down to earth through the darkness like some giant comet of blazing lights plunging to doom! And then, beneath my hands, Berlin was driving still on- ward across and over that great ring of enemy cities, shearing now in the same way across the towers of city upon city in that ring. Stockholm and Cape Town and Bucharest fell as I-mowed their power-towers from them; and to them that awful spectacle of Berlin rush- ing upon them and sending-them to doom, crashing across:their great towers, must have been utterly stun- ning and inexplicable in that wild moment! On—on—around the great ring I held, almost insane with wild fury and excitement in-that moment of tri- umph, driving through the night on our captured air- city and sending city after city whirling to death. I was dimly aware that the fighting above had ceased. Connell and Hilliard and-their men-had wiped out-the guards in the tower above, and they had rushed down to defend the electro-static tower’s doors, against which a wild battering was resounding now. Huge crowds were stirging madly against the tower as-they felt their great city. rushing through the night and -crashing in wild - destruction across theit fellow-cities! .But, in “ = ‘i 4 a a i f> (hc UTia ee AR ele & IT paid: no attention to all about me: for surely I was swaying such colossal forces as no man ever had swayed before. The Eutopean-and the Asiatic cities: were breaking from me, in wild panic, disorganized and shattered; since there came now. no commands:to them from this city-of Berlin that had held their commander... And as they broke into a disorganized mass, the half-hundred American cities massed in the center, who had seen the terrible havoc that Berlin, beneath my hands, was wreak- ing upon their enemi¢s, were themselves rushing to the attack once:more; and all their guns were thunder- ing toward the disorganized’ mass of their enemies! Up-toward-Berlin from that mass as we rushed for- ward there rose to meet us the giant air-capital of Peking, ‘battered, scarred; its commander seeking to stay this crazy destruction its sister-capital was wreak- ing upon: their own forces. Up-it came; and for an instant it seemed that Berlin and Peking must crash together bodily, but with a last wrench of the speed- control I sent Berlin racing higher. And then, as we met Peking, crashed over it, that mighty capital’s power- tower. also, with its other clustered-towers,-was sheared from it by: our great base. Peking was wavering for a moment and then went whirling down-to-death! Yet even as it wavered, slipped and fell, its great guns were thttndering savagely upon us -until it had crashed to earth far below! Ps Victory! ND now, down through the night upon the mass of our enemy cities; I- sent Berlin slanting down toward them, at-its full speed, and across them in a tre- mendous ramming swoop that sheared the towers from a dozen of them, even.as they attempted confusedly to rise and meet-the onthundering mighty city! Of that confused, disorganized and broken mass there remained of them at last ‘hardly more than a score, still savagely belching death from their-guns toward our half-hundred American cities and still sending an occasional one : downward! But now as I whirled the giant mass: of = Berlin back toward them like a striking, gigantic bird of prey, I was aware of a tremendous battering and clang- ing of metal: and at the same moment Hilliard was shouting to me from the great doors that opened from RET FO ATT ORR Gn ee Nee a et eee ~ comicbooks.com |