1
/
of
0
SAP
When the Sleepers Woke
When the Sleepers Woke
Regular price
$0.99 USD
Regular price
Sale price
$0.99 USD
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Quantity
Couldn't load pickup availability
"Prepare for battle!" The command crackled in Allan Dane's helmet.
"Enemy approaching from southeast! Squadron commanders execute plan
two!" Allan settled back in the seat of his one-man helicopter, his
broad frame rendered even bulkier by the leather suit that incased
it. He was tensed, but quiescent. Action would be first joined sixty
miles 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 forts
were each the apex of a far-spread cone, axis horizontal, whose body
was the fanned back-ranging of its squadron of a thousand helicopter
planes. The cones bristled oceanward from the sea-margin of New York,
their points a fifty-mile arc of defiance, their bases tangent to one
another, almost touching the ground at their lower edges, then
circling upward for ten thousand feet. From van to rear each formation
was five miles in length.
Behind and above, the main body of the fleet sloped in echeloned
ranks, hiding the threatened city with an impenetrable terraced wall
of buzzing helios and massive forts. Up, back, up, back, the serried
masses reached, till the rearmost were twenty-five thousand feet
aloft. And farther behind, unmoving on their six-mile level, were the
light 'copters of the reserve. Dane gazed down that tremendous vista
to the far-off front line, and swore softly. Just his luck to be out
of the scrap: the enemy would never penetrate to these northern
out-skirts of New York.
"Men of the fleet!" General Huntington's voice sounded from his
flagship, the _Washington_. Somehow its gruffness overrode the
mechanical quality of the intra-fleet radio transmission. Almost it
seemed he was there in the tiny cabin. "Reports have at this moment
been received that our attack fleets have been everywhere successful.
Our rocket ships have destroyed Tokyo, Addis Ababa, Odessa, Peiping
and Cape Town, and are now ranging inland through enemy territory."
Even through the double leather of his helmet a roar came to Allan. He
felt his craft vibrate to the exultant cheers of the fleet. His own
mouth was open, and his throat rasping....
"Enemy approaching from southeast! Squadron commanders execute plan
two!" Allan settled back in the seat of his one-man helicopter, his
broad frame rendered even bulkier by the leather suit that incased
it. He was tensed, but quiescent. Action would be first joined sixty
miles 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 forts
were each the apex of a far-spread cone, axis horizontal, whose body
was the fanned back-ranging of its squadron of a thousand helicopter
planes. The cones bristled oceanward from the sea-margin of New York,
their points a fifty-mile arc of defiance, their bases tangent to one
another, almost touching the ground at their lower edges, then
circling upward for ten thousand feet. From van to rear each formation
was five miles in length.
Behind and above, the main body of the fleet sloped in echeloned
ranks, hiding the threatened city with an impenetrable terraced wall
of buzzing helios and massive forts. Up, back, up, back, the serried
masses reached, till the rearmost were twenty-five thousand feet
aloft. And farther behind, unmoving on their six-mile level, were the
light 'copters of the reserve. Dane gazed down that tremendous vista
to the far-off front line, and swore softly. Just his luck to be out
of the scrap: the enemy would never penetrate to these northern
out-skirts of New York.
"Men of the fleet!" General Huntington's voice sounded from his
flagship, the _Washington_. Somehow its gruffness overrode the
mechanical quality of the intra-fleet radio transmission. Almost it
seemed he was there in the tiny cabin. "Reports have at this moment
been received that our attack fleets have been everywhere successful.
Our rocket ships have destroyed Tokyo, Addis Ababa, Odessa, Peiping
and Cape Town, and are now ranging inland through enemy territory."
Even through the double leather of his helmet a roar came to Allan. He
felt his craft vibrate to the exultant cheers of the fleet. His own
mouth was open, and his throat rasping....