Part 2

In the glow of floodlights, a thousand workmen were laboring like demons on some giant machine that gleamed dimly in the faint radiance. Far, far aloft, supported by four slender towers, was a vast network of wires.

Plainly the finishing touches to the engine were in progress. A hundred men were fastening cables to a two-hundred ton cylinder-head which would in a moment be hoisted into place by an electric crane. Other workers were inspecting and oiling the giant machine.

At one end of the strange titan was a control board bearing many levers, switches and dials; and before it stood the gaunt figure of a man who shouted orders through an amplifier system. It was Pelton; but how greatly changed from the plump young aviator of two months before! His hair was wildly disheveled, and sweat streamed down his shrunken face which, in the wan light, looked almost like a parchment mask hiding the visage of a skull. Lack of sleep and endless hours of labor had wrought this startling change. In spite of his worn condition, there was something magnetic about him that could not help but inspire confidence.

"Crew One, see to the lubrication of the cylinder valves and other parts," he cried; "use the L. F. liquid. Crew Two, examine all the connections of the Z wires. Crew Three, fill the main fuel tanks with the liquid _terrorium_ preparation; Crews Four and Five will take care of the cylinder-head. Are all the cables securely fastened? We can't afford another mishap, you know. Good! Now start the crane."

Every man realized that it was vitally important that he should perform his task to the best of his ability in the shortest possible time; and every man responded to the will of his chief with the promptness of a well-oiled machine. In a moment the mass of aluminum alloy soared upward and settled into position.

To the south, and high in the air, a vast oval patch of white light, looking like the head of some enormous comet, had appeared. It had drifted ominously near, and from it there came a subdued roar. In it thousand of insect-like specks flitted, and from them tiny points of radiance leaped as though they were fireflies. It was the battle.

As they fought the two contesting fleets had done their best to get above each other, to gain the advantage of position. As a result their altitude was prodigious. They must have been fully twenty miles above the earth.

"See! They are almost upon us," shouted Pelton. "Hurry! Ten minutes more of delay and we will be too late! Doubtless they are already bombing the outskirts of the city."

With all the speed they could muster the workmen bolted the cylinder-head into place.

"Is everything ready?" cried Pelton.

"Everything is ready," echoed Jerry Armstrong, his chief subordinate.

"Then, stand back, out of danger!" Pelton twirled a few dials on the control board; and then, grasping the big black switch at its center, he pulled it far down. There was a series of ponderous throbs that rapidly grew into an easy humming. The engine and the generator to which it was connected, were in operation. Leaping in the network of wires far above were many bright flashes like the lightning of a violent thunderstorm.

And now all eyes in Chicago had turned fearfully and expectantly toward the monstrous sea of light that was dropping plummet-like from the sky upon the city. The ships were only four or five miles above the ground now, and they could be seen quite plainly in the glow of their searchlights and magnesium flares. The American formation had been broken up and scattered. Apparently there was nothing that could prevent the Asiatics from completely crushing them within the next few minutes. Then they would destroy the city. Already an occasional bomb was falling, like the big raindrops that herald a summer thundershower. They contained the green chemical that gave off the gas which ate into human flesh like sulphuric acid.

With mingled doubt, fear, and hope gnawing at his very soul, Pelton stared at the sky. Had he calculated correctly? For a few seconds nothing happened; then his heart leaped with a mighty exultation! From the bow of one of America's ships a faint beam of bluish light stabbed out and struck an enemy craft, sweeping it from stem to stern! It passed through the vessel as though she had been made of glass, instead of thousands of tons of metal. Immediately the dreadnaught began to blunder oddly as though completely out of control. What had happened to her occupants? A grim smile passed over Pelton's lips, for he knew!

[Illustration: From the bow of one of America's ships a beam of bluish light stabbed out and struck an enemy craft. It passed thru the vessel as tho it had been made of glass instead of thousands of tons of steel.]

Presently, other beams of blue light awoke--hundreds of them!--thousands of them! And other Oriental craft rushed about crazily, crashing into each other or hurtling earthward. At the very threshold of complete success, the alchemy of fate was changing Asia's victory into crushing defeat.

Pelton Explains

Now Pelton felt a hand upon his shoulder. Turning he saw that Jerry was standing beside him. The man's face was pale with awe and when he spoke his voice was husky: "Congratulations, Capt. Pelton--here, shake! When it looks black as night, along you come and put those invaders in their proper place. I can't see through this at all. What wonder is it that you have created?"

The fulfillment of his ambition beyond the wildest dreams of his school days had wrought the young scientist up to a pitch of excitement more intense than ever before, "It is the thing that killed Calhoun, the ace," he almost shrieked; "The crystal ray!"

"You mean that your weapon inflicts death with just a beam of light? That sounds impossible."

"But it isn't! I'll tell you about it." Pelton's eyes were glittering and his face was flushed: "Not more than a month and a half ago I was in Ecuador with Calhoun on leave of absence. We explored an extinct Andean volcano of particularly ghastly reputation. There I found a peculiar crystal, which, on analysis proved to be a complex compound of silicon, iron and the hitherto supposedly inert gas, krypton--I call it _andite_.

"It was just by chance that I discovered what terrible things _andite_ could do. There was a big block of the material at the crater's western edge. The sun had been obscured by a cloud and, when it came out, its light struck the block, passed through it, and came out as a bluish beam. It hit my old friend and sent him on the long journey west. Thank God, it was not in vain!

"After a lot of effort I learned more about the wonderful properties of the crystal. You know that light is the vibration of an all-pervading medium sometimes called the ether, just as are radio waves. When a beam of light passes through _andite_, its rate of vibration is enormously increased; so that it exceeds by many thousands of times the vibratory rate of even Hadley's Q-ray which is used as an anaesthetic. This super-vibration is the crystal ray. It will penetrate four feet of solid lead and a much greater thickness of any other metal. When it strikes a man it produces within his blood a poison that is instantly fatal. The process is comparable with that which goes on in the leaves of a plant when starch is produced by the action of sunlight.

"The projectors of the crystal ray are merely specially constructed radio lamps, equipped with a receiver of wireless power, and fitted with a piece of _andite_ which modifies the light.

"After I had learned what my discovery was capable of, I staged a demonstration before the best minds of America. They gave me the cooperation of the whole country and this is the result."

"But what was the necessity of building this enormous power plant?" inquired Jerry: "Couldn't the old stations supply the needed energy?"

"No," said Pelton; "The light produced in the ray projectors must be many times as intense as that produced by ordinary lamps, in order to be effective at any considerable range. Only this new power plant could furnish sufficient energy. The filaments in the projectors would only glow on the power supplied by the old outfits."

Momentarily the roar of _terrorium_ shells and the flashing of magnesium flares waxed more intense in the air above. In the few minutes that the big generator had been running, the Americans had annihilated practically three-quarters of their foes. However, a few were trying to escape into the night with their lights turned off. One fifteen-hundred-foot monster was directly above at an altitude of not more than half a mile. Its guns belching with the fury of despair at a smaller but much more agile American ship that was rapidly approaching.

Suddenly the invaders scored a hit. The little vessel crumpled up and fell. The big ship was continuing its retreat away from the scene of battle when a bluish beam, originating from a projector in the neighborhood of Whitley Park, leaped up from the earth and struck it. The ray lingered over the whole expanse of its hull for a second and then died out. The dreadnaught continued to hurtle blindly on its way, its rocket-motors roaring full blast. It was headed straight for a sky-scraper, and a moment later it struck. A third of the building's height was sheared off; together with the twisted remnants of the ship the mass of steel and masonry fell with a terrific crash into the cleft of a dark street. There the airship still buzzed and hissed like a wounded insect.

A wild impulse was surging up in the breast of Pelton--an intense desire to take an active part in the victory he had done so much to bring about.

He turned to his companion: "Keep the outfit running, Jerry, I've simply got to be in this fight."

As rapidly as his legs would carry him, the young scientist raced to the little shed nearby where he kept his flier. In his hand he carried a small black tube fitted with a pistol grip and trigger. It was a ray projector.

In a moment he had dragged the little craft out and climbed into the cockpit. He turned a dial that operated the gravitational screen. There was a sudden feeling of weightlessness--and then he shot upward amid the gust of rising air.

Three thousand feet Pelton ascended before he started his _terrorium_ rocket-motors.

At a distance of perhaps half a mile, a "dog-fight" between countless small craft, was in progress.

At first he thought there was no one in his immediate vicinity; and then, above him and a little to the north, he saw a flier similar to his own, but obviously Asiatic. A bar of opalescence leaped out from the little weapon in Pelton's hand, and the enemy pilot was no more.

The discoverer of the crystal ray was in the act of turning around to join the "dog-fight" when a dozen or more bullets directed with an uncanny accuracy swept down upon him from above. He was unhurt, but a lead pellet had struck his weapon, destroying it completely. When he looked up, clammy fear seized him; for he saw a black flier painted with orange suns and piloted with a fiendish skill, diving straight toward him. Every inhabitant of the United States would have recognized that craft. It belonged to Saku, the ace who had shot more than a hundred opponents from the sky!

Impelled by the instinct of self-preservation, Pelton shut off the power from his gravitational screen. It was all he could do. He thought that perhaps by a rapid dive he could escape the yellow ace; but it was a vain hope. Even as he began to fall plummet-like toward the earth, a gust of poisoned bullets ripped through his body. Probably his sense swam, and it was certain that he felt no pain; for death in those cases is a matter of an instant. Nevertheless a faint smile crossed his lips. Against the blackness of the eternity that poured into his brain, he seemed to see his name written so that people of the future would read with awe, and after his name the words: "_He won the war!_"

THE END