Flying Legion

by George Allan England

  CHAPTER XV

  THE BATTLE OF VIBRATIONS

  Two, five, a dozen, now a score of tiny specks dotted the mist,some moving right across the broadening face of the sun itself. As_Nissr's_ flight stormed eastward, and these gnats drove to the west,their total rate of approach must have been tremendous; for even asthe men watched, they seemed to find the attackers growing in bulk.And now more and ever more appeared, transpiring from the bleedingvapors of dawn.

  "Looks like business, sir!" exclaimed the Celt, his jaw hard.

  "Business, yes."

  "Bad business for us, eh?"

  "It might be, if we had only the usual means of defense. Underordinary circumstances, our only game would be to turn tail and runfor it, or cut away far to the south--or else break out a white flagand surrender. But--"

  "That must be the Azores air-fleet," judged Bohannan. "The otherscouldn't have made so much westing, in this time. Faith, what abuzzing swarm of mosquitoes! I had no idea there were that many planeson the Azores International Air Board station!"

  "There are many things you have no idea of, Major," replied theMaster, sharply. "That, however, is immaterial. Yes, here come thefringes of attack, all right enough. I estimate forty or fifty insight, already; and there must be a few hundred back of those, betweenhere and land, north and south. Technically, we're pirates, you know."

  "Pirates?" demanded the major, lowering his glass.

  The Master nodded.

  "Yes," he answered. "That's what the wireless tells us. We'll getshort shrift if--my apparatus fails."

  "How do they make us out pirates?" Bohannan ejaculated. It was notfear that looked from his blue eyes, but a vast astonishment. Hisruddy face, amazed under the now strengthening light of day, brought asmile to the Master's lips.

  "What else are we, my dear fellow?" the Master queried. "To seize aship--a water-ship or one of the air matters nothing--and to overpowerthe crew, kill or wound a few, throw them outboard and sail away,comes pretty near constituting piracy. Of course the air-rules andlaws aren't wholly settled yet; but we're in a fair way of giving thebig-wigs a whacking precedent to govern the future. I fancy a goodmany cases will be judged as _per_ the outcome of this expedition.

  "We're pirates all right--if they catch us. And they _will_ catchus if they get within gunshot. The next few minutes will settle thatquestion of whether they're going to, or not!"

  "Nice, comforting prospect!" muttered the Celt. "What do they dowith pirates, anyhow, these days? They can't hang us at the yard-arm,because airships don't have 'em. Of course they might stage ahanging-bee with this Legion dangling from the wings, but that wouldbe pretty hard to manage. It'll be shooting, eh?"

  "Probably, if my neutralizer fails."

  "You're cheerful about it! The neutralizer may be all right, in itsway, but personally I'm rather strong for these!" He laid a hand onthe breech of the Lewis machine-gun mounted in the gallery, its grimmuzzle pointed out through a slit in the colloid screen. "The six gunswe've got aboard, in strategic positions, look like good medicineto _me_! Wouldn't it be the correct thing to call the gun-crews andlimber up a little? These chaps aren't going to be all day in gettinghere, and when they do--"

  "I admire your spirit, Major," interrupted the other, with undertonesof mockery, "but it's of the quality that, after all, can't accomplishanything. It's the kind that goes against artillery with rifles.Six guns against perhaps six hundred--and we're not built for rapidmaneuvering. That swarm could sting us a thousand times while we weregiving them the first round. No, no, there's nothing for it now, butthe neutralizer!"

  "My will is made, anyhow," growled Bohannan. "Faith, I'm glad it is!"

  The Master gave no reply, but took from the rail the little phone thathung there, and pressed a button, four times. He cupped the receiverat his ear.

  "You, Enemark?" asked he, of the man at the neutralizer far down inthe penetralia of the giant air-liner. "Throw in the first control.Half-voltage, for three minutes. Then three-quarters, for two; andthen full, with all controls. Understand?"

  "Yes, sir!" came the crisp voice of Enemark. "Perfectly!"

  The Master hung up the receiver, and for a moment stood brooding.An intruding thought had once more forced itself into his brain--athought of "Captain Alden." In case of capture or destruction, whatof the woman? Something very like a pang of human emotion piercedhis heart. Impatiently he thrust the thought aside, and turned with aquiet smile to Bohannan.

  The major, red with excitement and impatience, still had a hand on themachine-gun. He was patting it slightly, his face eloquent of longingand regret.

  "Still pinning your faith to steel-jacketed streams of bullets,are you, as against ion-jacketed streams of vibrations?" the Masterrallied him. "We shall see, immediately, whether you're right or _I_am! Bullets are all well enough in their place, Major, but electronsare sometimes necessary. Vibrations, Major--I pin my faith tovibrations."

  "Vibrate all you want to!" exclaimed the Celt, irefully, his eyes onthe thickening swarm of flyers, some of them now plainly visible indetail against the aching smears of color flung across the easternreaches of cloudland. "Vibrate away; but give me _this_!" He fondledthe gleaming gun as if it had been a pet. "I tell you frankly, ifI were in charge here, I'd let the vibrations go to Hell and beginpumping lead. I'd have all gun-crews at stations, and the second wegot in range I'd open with all six Lewises!"

  "Yes, and Nissr would go crumpling down, a minute later, a blazingsieve fore-and-aft--wings, tanks, fuselage, everything riddledwith thousands of bullets. Vibration is the trick, I tell you. It'severything.

  "All life is vibration. When it ceases, that is death--and even deadmatter vibrates. All our senses depend on vibration. Everything wefeel, see, hear, taste, comes to our knowledge through vibrations.And the receptive force in us is vibration, too. The brain is just onegreat, central ganglion for the taking in of vibrations.

  "The secret of life, of the universe itself, is vibration. If weunderstood all about that, the cosmos would have no secrets from us.So now--ah, see there, will you? See, Major, and be convinced!"

  He pointed eastward, into the blazing sunrise. The out-fling of hisarm betrayed more human emotion than he had yet shown. Exultationleaped to his usually impassive eyes. Surely, had not thisexpedition--which he had hoped would give surcease from ennui and stirthe pulses--had it not already yielded dividends? Had it not alreadyvery richly repaid him?

  "See there, now!" he cried again, and gripped the rail with nervoushands.

  "Lord above!" ejaculated the major, squinting through his binoculars.

  "Astonished, eh?" demanded the Master, smiling with malice. "Didn'tthink it would work, did you? Well, which do you choose now,Major--bullets or vibrations?"

  "This--this is extraordinary!" exclaimed Bohannan. His glassestraveled to and fro, sweeping the fringelike fan of the attackers,still five or six miles away. "Faith, but this is--"

  The binoculars lowered slowly, as Bohannan watched a falling plane.Everywhere ahead there in the brazier of the dawn, as the two menstood watching from the wind-lashed gallery of the on-roaring liner,attackers were dropping. All along the line they had begun to fall,like ripe fruit in a hurricane.

  Not in bursts of flame did they go plunging down the depths, gyratinglike mad comets with long smoke-trailers and redly licking manes offire. Not in shattered fragments did they burst and plumb the abyss.No; quite intact, unharmed, but utterly powerless they fell.

  Some spiraled down, like dead leaves twirling in autumnal breezes,with drunken yaws and pitches. Others in long slants volplaned towardthe hidden sea, miles below the cloud-plain. A few pitched over andover, or slid away in nose-dives and tail-spins. But one and all, asthey crossed what seemed an invisible line drawn out there ahead ofthe onrushing Eagle of the Sky, bowed to some mysterious force.

  It seemed almost as if _Nissr_ were the center of a vast sphere thatmoved with her--a sphere through which no enemy could pass--a sphereagainst the intangible surface
of which even the most powerful enginesof the air dashed themselves in vain.

  And still, as others and still others came charging up to the attacklike knights in joust, they fell. One by one the white wool cushionsof the cloud, gold-broidered by the magic needles of the sun, receivedthem. One by one they faded, vanished, were no more.

  So, all disappeared. Between a hundred and a hundred and twenty-fiveplanes were silently, swiftly, resistlessly sent down in no morethan twenty minutes, while the watchers stood there in the gallery,fascinated by the wondrous precision and power of this new andfar-outflung globe of protection.

  And again the blood-red morning sky grew clear of attackers. Again,between high heaven's black vault and the fantastic continent of cloudbelow, nothing remained but free vacancy. The Master smiled.

  "Vibrations, my dear Major!" said he. "Neutralize the currentsdelivered by the magnetos of hostile planes to their spark-plugs, andyou transform the most powerful engines into inert matter. Not all thefinely adjusted mechanism in the world, nor the best of petrol, noryet the most perfect skill is worth _that_," with a snap of the strongfingers, "when the spark dies.

  "My device is the absolute ruler of whatever spark I direct itagainst. Our own ignition is screened; but all others within thecritical radius become impotent. So you recognize, do you not, theuselessness of machine-guns? The groundlessness of any fears about theAir Patrol's forces?"

  "Lord, but this is wonderful!" Bohannan ejaculated. "If we'd only hadthis in the Great War, the Hun would have been wiped out in a month!"

  "Yes, but we didn't have it," the Master smiled. "I've just finishedperfecting it. Put the last touches on it hardly twenty-four hoursago. If there's ever another war, though--ah, see there, now! Herecomes one lone, last attacker!"

  He pointed. Far at the edge of empty cloudland, now less blood-stainedand becoming a ruddy pink under the risen sun, a solitary aerialjouster had grown visible.

  The last attacker appeared a feeble gnat to dance thus alone in theeye of morning. That one plane should, unaided, drive on at _Nissr's_huge, rushing bulk, seemed as preposterous as a mosquito tryingto lance a rhinoceros. The major directed a careful lens at thissurvivor.

  "He has his nerve right in his baggage with him," announced the Celt."Sure, he's 'there.' There can be no doubt he's seen the others fall.Yet--what now? He's turning tail, eh? He's on the run?"

  "Not a bit of it! He's driving straight ahead. That was only a dip andturn, for better air. Ah, but he's good, that fellow! There's a manafter my own heart, Major. Maybe there's more than one, aboard thatplane. But there's one, anyhow, that's a real man!"

  The Master pondered a moment, then again picked up the phone.

  "Enemark?" he called. "That you?"

  "Hello! Yes, sir! What orders, sir?"

  "Cut off the ray! Quick, there!"

  "Yes, sir!" And through the phone the Master heard the _snick_ of aswitch being hastily thrown.

  "What's the idea, now?" demanded the major, astonished. "Going to letthat plane close in on us, and maybe riddle us?"

  The Master smiled, as he made answer:

  "I'll chance the bullets, this time. There's a _man_ on board thatplane. A _man_! And we--need men!"

  The Master smiled, as he made answer:

  "I'll chance the bullets, this time. There's a man on board thatplane. A man! And we--need men!"