CHAPTER X
"_They Shall Not Pass!_"
Prester Kleig's heartfelt desire, as the American flyers closed with thefirst of the aero-subs, was to go out with them and aid them in theattack against the Moyenites. But he knew, and it was a tacit thing,that he best served his country from the safe haven of the Secret Room.
As he watched the scenes unfold on the screen of Maniel's genius, withoccasional glances at the somewhat mysterious but profound andconcentrated labors of Maniel, Charmion Kane rose from her place andcame to his side.
Wide-eyed as she watched the joining of battle, she stood there, hertiny hand encased in the tense one of Prester Kleig.
"You would like to be out there," she murmured. "I know it! But yourcountry needs you here--and I have already given Carlos!"
Prester Kleig tightened his grip on her hand.
* * * * *
There was deep, silent understanding between these two, and PresterKleig, in fighting against the Moyenites, realized, even above hisrealization that his labors were primarily for the benefit of hiscountry, that he really matched wits with Moyen for the sake ofCharmion. Had anyone asked him whether he would have sacrificed her forthe benefit of his country, it would have been a difficult question toanswer.
He was glad that the question was never asked.
"Yes, beloved," he whispered, "I would like to be out there, but thegreatest need for me is here."
But even so he felt as though he was betraying those intrepid flyers hewas sending to sure death. Yet they had volunteered, and it was the onlyway.
Maniel, a gnomelike little man with a Titan's brain, labored with hiscalculations, made swiftly concrete his theories, while at theSound-and-Vision apparatus excitable General Munson ranged the aerialbattlefield to see how the tide of battle ebbed and flowed.
That neither side would either ask or give quarter was instantlyapparent, for they rushed head-on to meet each other, those vastopposing winged armadas, at top speed, and not a single individualswerved from his course, though at least the Americans knew that deathrode the skyways ahead.
Then....
The battle was joined. Moyen's forces were superior in armament. Theirsky-steeds were faster, more readily maneuverable, though the flyingforces of the Americas in the last five years had made vast strides inaviation. But what the Americans lacked in power they made up for infearless courage.
* * * * *
The plan of battle seemed automatically to work itself out.
The first vanguard of American planes came into contact with the forcesof Moyen, and from the noses of countless aero-subs spurted that goldenstreak which the Secret Agents knew and dreaded.
The first flight of planes, stretching from horizon to horizon, vanishedfrom the sky with that dreadful surety which had marked the passing ofthe _Stellar_, and such of those warships as had felt the full force ofthe visible ray.
From General Munson rose a groan of anguish. These convertible fightingplanes had been the pride of the heart of the old warrior. To do himcredit, however, it was the wanton, so terribly inevitable destructionof the flyers themselves which affected him. It was so final, soabsolute--and so utterly impossible to combat.
"Wait!" snapped Prester Kleig.
For the intrepid flyers behind that vanguard which had vanished hadwitnessed the wholesale disintegration of the leading element of thevast armada, and the pilots realized on the instant that no headlongrush into the very noses of the aero-subs would avail anything.
The vast American formation broke into a mad maelstrom of whirling,darting, diving planes. Every third plane plummeted downward, everysecond one climbed, and the remaining ships, even in the face of whathad happened to the vanished first flight, held steadily to the front.
In this mad, seemingly meaningless formation, they closed on theaero-subs. Without having seen the fight, the Americans were aping theaction of that one nameless flyer who had charged the aero-sub that hadbeen destroyed.
* * * * *
Kleig remembered. A score of ships had been destroyed utterly above thegraveyard of dreadnoughts, yet only one aero-sub, and that quite bychance, had been marked off in the casualty column.
Death rode the heavens as the American flyers went into action. Forhead-on fights, flyers went in at top speed, their planes whirling onthe axes of fuselages, all guns going. Planes were armored against theirown bullets, and they were not under the necessity of watching to seethat they did not slay their own friends.
Even so, bullets were rather ineffective against the aero-subs, whoseapparently flimsy, almost transparent outer covering diverted thebullets with amazing ease.
A whirling maelstrom of ships. The monsters of Moyen had drawn firstblood, if the expression may be used in an action where no blood at allwas drawn, but machines and men simply erased from existence.
Hundreds of planes already gone when the second flight of ships closedwith the aero-subs. Yellow streaks of death flashed from aero-subnostrils, but even as aero-sub operators set their rays into motion theAmerican flyers in head-on charge rolled, dived or zoomed, and kepttheir guns going.
High above the first flight of aero-subs, behind which another flightwas winging swiftly into action, American flyers tilted the noses oftheir planes over and dived under full power--to sure death by suicide,though none knew it there at the moment.
* * * * *
These aero-subs could not be driven from the sky by usual means, andcould destroy American ships even before those planes could come tohandgrips; but they, the flyers plainly believed, could be crashed outof the sky and so, never guessing what besides death in resultingcrashes they faced, the flyers above the aero-subs, even as aero-subs inrear flashed in to prevent, dived down straight at the backs of theaero-subs.
In a hundred places the dives of the Americans worked successfully, andAmerican planes crashed full and true, full power on, into the backs ofthe "flying fish." In some aero-subs the container of the Moyen-dealingagency apparently remained untouched, and airplanes and aero-subs,welded together, plunged down the invisible skylanes into the sea.
Under water, some of the aero-subs were seen to keep in motion, limpingtoward the nearest mother submarines.
"I hope," said Prester Kleig, "the American flyers in such cases arealready dead, for Moyen will be a maniac in his tortures. Munson, do youhurriedly examine the mother-subs and see if you can locate Moyen."
* * * * *
However, only a scattered aero-sub here and there went down without thestrange substance of the yellow ray being released. In most cases, uponthe contact of plane with aero-sub, the aero-subs and planes wereinstantly blotted from view by the yellow, golden flames from the heartof the winged harbingers of Moyen.
Golden flames, blinding in their brightness, dropping down, mereshapeless blotches, then fading out to nothingness in a matter ofseconds--with aero-sub and airplane totally erased from action and fromexistence.
The American flyers saw and knew now the manner of death they faced. Yetall along the battle front not an American tried to evade the issue anddraw out of the fight. A sublime, inspiring exhibition of mass couragewhich had not been witnessed down the years since that generalengagement which men of the time had called the Great War.
Prester Kleig turned to look at Maniel. Drops of perspiration bathed thecheeks of the master scientist, but his eyes were glowing like coals offire. His face was set in a white mask of concentration, and PresterKleig knew that Maniel would find the answer to the thing he sought ifsuch answer could be found.
Would the American flyers be able to hold off the minions of Moyen untilManiel was ready? The fight out there above the waters was a terriblething, and the Americans fought and died like men inspired, yetinexorably the winged armada of Moyen, preceded by those licking goldentongues, was moving landward.
"Great God!" cried
Munson. "Look!"
* * * * *
There was really no need for the order, for every Secret Agent saw assoon as did Munson. Under the sea, just off the coast, the mother-subshad touched their blunt nose against the upward shelving of the seabottom--had touched bottom, and were slowly but surely following theunderwater curve of the land, up toward the surface, like unbelievableantediluvian monsters out of some nightmare.
"Yes," said Kleig quietly, "those monsters of Moyen can move on land,and the aero-subs can operate from them as easily on land as underwater."
Kleig regarded the time, whirled to look at Professor Maniel.
One hour and forty minutes had passed since Maniel had begged for twohours in which to prepare some mode of effectively combatting the mightof Moyen. Twenty minutes to go; yet the mother-subs would be ashore,dragging their sweating, monstrous sides out of the deep, within tenminutes!
Ten minutes ashore and there was no guessing the havoc they could causeto the United Americas!
"Hurry, Maniel! Hurry! Hurry!" said Prester Kleig.
But he spoke the words to himself, though even had he spoken them aloudManiel would not have heard. For Maniel, for two hours, had closed hismind to everything that transpired outside his own thoughts, devoted tofoiling the power of Moyen.
"I've found him!" snapped Munson.
* * * * *
He pointed with a shaking forefinger to one of the mother-subs crawlingup the slant of the ocean bed, twisted one of the little nubs of theSound-and-Vision apparatus, and the angelic face and Satanic eyes, thetwisted body, of Moyen came into view.
The face was calm with dreadful purpose, and Moyen stood in the heart ofone of his monsters, his eyes turned toward the land. With a gasp ofterror, dreadfully afraid for the first time, Prester Kleig turned andlooked into the eyes of Charmion....
"No," she said. "It will never happen. I have faith in you!"
There were still ten minutes of the two hours left when the mother-subsbroke water and started crawling inland, swiftly, surely, withoutfaltering in the slightest as they changed their element from water toland.
As though their appearance had been the signal, the aero-subs in actionagainst the first line of American planes broke out of the one-sidedfight and dived for their mother ships, while a mere handful of theAmerican planes started back for home to prepare anew to continue thestruggle.
Prester Kleig gave the signal to the second monster armada which hadremained in reserve.
"Do everything in your power to halt the march of Moyen's amphibians!"
Ten minutes to go, and Professor Maniel still labored like a Titan.