Thousands of fine, trained fighters were dying down there. The flames from their crashing ships sprinkled the still dark city.
Dane went back to the bridge. The attacking craft had been thinned out until pitifully few remained to attack them. But Nile Vanz kept his fleet in battle formation until the last of them were downed by gun or gas.
Abruptly, they realized there were no more combat planes in the sky. The Ionian ships broke formation and dropped slowly into the heart of the metropolis. By the glare of their landing lights, they could see hordes of men, women, and children lying motionless in the streets and parks. Everywhere there were wrecked planes and automobiles. Fires dotted the city.
Margo stood beside Dane as they came to rest in Central Park, He heard her quick, excited breathing. For the first time she was seeing the world Samuel Cabot had been telling her about for years. Dane would have liked to share with her the joy that was evidenced in her face, but for Margo there was Kris; and for Dane there was Brooke.
Brooke had said nothing as the ships neared the city. But now her eyes shone with excitment.
"Dane, it's glorious! The Hundred are defeated. It's you Margo's people have to thank—"
Dane's glance snapped from the port.
"It's Vanz, and my father, and Kris, and a hundred other courageous men," he retorted. "And there's nothing so glorious about the death of thousands of young men."
But he was conscious, as he spoke, that his heart dictated most of the speech. True, the victory had its morbid side. But it meant the culmination of a fight that had gone on through almost a century. The others looked at him queerly, and only Margo knew why his eyes were dark and brooding.
Soldiers began streaming from the ships as soon as word was given that the gas was sufficiently dissipated to be harmless. They walked heavily, unaccustomed to the powerful drag of Earth's gravity. Dane quit the bridge with the rest and they stood silent for a while on the soft greensward of the park. Across the gray dawn sky were splashed crimson washes of color from the fires that leaped through the city unchecked. From other ships hurried Samuel Cabot, Tolek Serj, and the various commanders. Typically practical, scorning the praise the others sought to bestow on him, Cabot was all business.
"We won't win the city by standing here," he told them. "We've got our work cut out for us. And right now these fires must be stopped! The whole city will be in flames in a few hours. Organize a hundred squads of ten men each, Vanz. The fire crews must be awakened and put on the job."
"But can we bring them to, this soon?" Dane queried. "The gas kept me under for four days!"
"That was in the confining walls of the ship. Here, with a wind already blowing, the victim’s lungs will be cleared soon. That means they'll be coming around in an hour or so."
Dane started.
"Good Lord! We've got to find Bayard and The Hundred, then. If we lose them, there may be guerrilla warfare with their loyalist bands for years."
Samuel Cabot's eyes lifted to the deep skyscrapers.
"That's the one thing we can't let happen." But the hopelessness of finding the men they sought in that wilderness of man-made granite crags and arroyos mirrored itself in his eyes. "From now on, Dane, you'll take charge. You know this city and ways of the Leaders
