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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Astounding Stories November 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
All his strength went into that trick.]
When the Sleepers Woke
By Arthur Leo Zagat
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Only two small groups of people--enemies--survive the vastdesolation of the Final War.]
"Prepare for battle!" The command crackled in Allan Dane's helmet."Enemy approaching from southeast! Squadron commanders execute plantwo!" Allan settled back in the seat of his one-man helicopter, hisbroad frame rendered even bulkier by the leather suit that incasedit. He was tensed, but quiescent. Action would be first joined sixtymiles away, and his own squadron was in reserve.
Over New York and its bay the American air fleet was in motion.Suddenly movement ceased, and the formation froze. Ten flying fortswere each the apex of a far-spread cone, axis horizontal, whose bodywas the fanned back-ranging of its squadron of a thousand helicopterplanes. The cones bristled oceanward from the sea-margin of New York,their points a fifty-mile arc of defiance, their bases tangent to oneanother, almost touching the ground at their lower edges, thencircling upward for ten thousand feet. From van to rear each formationwas five miles in length.
Behind and above, the main body of the fleet sloped in echelonedranks, hiding the threatened city with an impenetrable terraced wallof buzzing helios and massive forts. Up, back, up, back, the serriedmasses reached, till the rearmost were twenty-five thousand feetaloft. And farther behind, unmoving on their six-mile level, were thelight 'copters of the reserve. Dane gazed down that tremendous vistato the far-off front line, and swore softly. Just his luck to be outof the scrap: the enemy would never penetrate to these northernout-skirts of New York.
"Men of the fleet!" General Huntington's voice sounded from hisflagship, the _Washington_. Somehow its gruffness overrode themechanical quality of the intra-fleet radio transmission. Almost itseemed he was there in the tiny cabin. "Reports have at this momentbeen received that our attack fleets have been everywhere successful.Our rocket ships have destroyed Tokyo, Addis Ababa, Odessa, Peipingand Cape Town, and are now ranging inland through enemy territory."
Even through the double leather of his helmet a roar came to Allan. Hefelt his craft vibrate to the exultant cheers of the fleet. His ownmouth was open, and his throat rasping....
"_But_"--the single syllable choked the surge of sound--"London,Paris, and Berlin have fallen to the enemy." The words thudded in thepilot's ear-phones. "San Francisco is being attacked. Communicationwith New Orleans has failed. The enemy are in sight of Buenos Aires--"The general broke off, and Allan sensed dully that there was othernews, news that he dared not give the fleet.
The gruff voice changed. "Men of the fleet, New York is in our charge.The enemy is upon us, the battle is commencing. The issue is in yourhands."
* * * * *
Pat on his last word, a dark cloud spread along the south-easternhorizon. From the spear-heads of the cone formations great green beamsshot out across the sea. Orange flame flared in answer, all along theblack bank that was the enemy fleet. Where the green beams struck theorange blinked out, and the blue of sky showed through. And theAmerican ships were as yet untouched. A great shout rose to Allan'slips--that they had the range on the enemy, and the attack defeatedbefore it was well begun.
But was it? Swift as the American rays scythed destruction along theenemy line, the gaps filled and lethal orange leaped out again. Nowthe black cloud was piling up, was rising till it was a toweringcurtain against the sky. On it came, like some monstrous tidal wave.Great rents were torn through it by the stabbing beams of the flyingforts, holes where ships and men had been whiffed into dust by thehundred. But the attack came on.
Now all the great defensive cones burst into an emerald blaze as thesmaller ships loosed their bolts. And from the terraced slope of thesupporting fleet a hundred steel ovoids lumbered forward to meet thethreat. All the vast space between the hosts, mountain-high from thesea's surface, was filled with dazzling light, now green, now orange,as the conflicting beams crossed and mingled. There were gaps in theadvancing curtain that did not fill, but the defending cones weremelting away, were disappearing, were gone.
"Flight ZLX prepare for action!" Dane's eyes flicked over the gages,checking in routine precaution. He started when he saw the V of thechronometer's hands. Only six minutes had passed since the battle'sstart--it seemed hours. And already the reserve was being called on!He was suddenly cold. Out there, over the bay, the enemy forces hadceased their advance. The American first line cones were gone--trueenough, but the support fleet was still intact. Some new element hadentered the battle, visible as yet only in the _Washington's_ powerfultelevision view-screens. The flight adjutant's voice again snapped acommand:
"Direction vertical. Thirty thousand feet. Full speed. Go!"
Dane jerked home his throttle. The battle shot down, and his seatthrust up against him. Something hurtled past, blurred by the speed ofits descent. The plane rocked to a sudden detonation, and Allan foughtto steady it. Then he had reached the commanded height. At sixtythousand feet the helio vanes were useless, only the power of theauxiliary rocket-tubes maintained his altitude.
"Formation B. Engage the enemy!" came the order.
* * * * *
They were just ahead, a dozen giant craft, torpedo-shaped andsteel-incased, the scarlet fire of their gas blasts holding thempoised steady in their fifty-mile-long line. From curious swellingsthat broke the clean lines of their under-bodies black spheres weredropping in steady streams. Allan knew then whence came the crash thathad rocked his ship as she rose. These were bombs, huge bombs,charged with heaven alone knew what Earth-shaking explosive. They werecatapulting down, an iron death hail, on the fleet and the city twelvemiles below!
The enemy's strategy was clear. While his main fleet was engaging theAmerican defense in a frontal attack, these huge rocket-bombers hadlooped unseen through the stratosphere to this point of vantage. Theplanes that had leaped to this new menace swept toward the bombers inthree parallel lines, above, to right and left of them. Allan's planeleaping to position at the very end of one long line. The threeleaders reached the first rocket-ship, and their green beams shot out.In that instant the enemy craft seemed to explode in intense bluelight. Then the awful dazzle was gone. The rocket ship was there, justas before, but the American helio-planes were gone, were wiped out asthough they had never been. The next trio, and the next, rushed up.Again and again came that flash of force, annihilating them. Superblythe tiny gnats that were the American planes plunged headlong at thehovering Leviathan of the air and were whiffed into nothingness. Sixtybrave men were dancing motes of cosmic dust before the shockedcommander could sound the recall.
The helicopter squadron curved away, still keeping its ordered lines,but orange flame leaped out from all twelve of the enemy vessels,orange flame that caught them, that ran along their ranks and sentthem hurtling Earthward--blackened corpses in blazing coffins."Abandon ships!" The adjutant's last order crisped, coldly metallic,soldierly as ever. In the next breath, as Allan reached for the leverthat would open the trapdoor beneath him, he saw the command-shipplunge down, a flaring comet.
* * * * *
Above Allan Dane, the twenty-foot silk of his parachute bellied out inthe denser air of the lower heights.
His respirator tube was still inhis mouth, and the double, vacuum-interlined leather of his safetysuit had kept him from freezing in the spatial cold of thestratosphere. He looked south.
All the proud thousands of the defense fleet were gone, blown tofragments by the time bombs from above. The city was hidden in athick, muddy-yellow fog. "Queer," the thought ran through his brain,"that there should be fog in mid-afternoon, under a blazing sun." Thenhe saw them, the circling black ships of the enemy, trailing behindthem long wakes of the drab yellow vapor that drifted heavily down toshroud New York with--gas!
Allan felt nauseated as he imagined a fleeting picture of themany-leveled city, of its mist-darkened streets with swarming myriadsof slumped bodies clogging the conveyor belts that still moved becauseno hand was left to shut them off; of women and children, and aged orcrippled men strewn in tortured, horrible attitudes in all theroof-parks, in