The heavy bombardment which I had heard from Lo-Tan, they told me, was
merely a test of the enemy's tactics and strength, but it accomplished
little other than to develop that the Hans had the mountains and peaks
thickly planted with rocket gunners of their own. It was almost
impossible to locate these gun posts, for they were well camouflaged
from air observation, and widely scattered; nor did they reveal their
positions when they went into action as did their ray batteries.

The Hans apparently were abandoning their rays except for air defense. I
told what I knew of the Han plans for abandoning the city, and their
escape tunnels. On the strength of this, a general council of Gang
Bosses was called. This council agreed that immediate action was
necessary, for my escape from the city probably would be suspected, and
San-Lan would be inclined to start an exodus at once.

* * * * *

As a matter of fact, the destruction of the city presented no real
problem to us at all. Explosive air balls could be sent against any
target under a control that could not be better were their operators
riding within them, and with no risk to the operators. When a ball was
exploded on its target by the operator, or destroyed by accident, he
simply reported the fact to the supply division, and a fresh one was
placed on the jump-off, tuned to his controls.

To my own Gang, the Wyomings, the Council delegated the destruction of
the escape tunnels of the enemy. We had a comfortably located camp in a
wooded canyon, some hundred and thirty miles northeast of the city, with
about 500 men, most of whom were bayonet-gunners, 350 girls as
long-gunners and control-board operators, 91 control boards and about
250 five-foot, inertron-protected air balls, of which 200 were of the
explosive variety.

I ordered all control boards manned, taking Number One myself, and
instructed the others to follow my lead in single file, at the minimum
interval of safety, with their projectiles set for signal rather than
contact detonation.

In my mind I paid humble tribute to the ingenuity of our engineers as I
gently twisted the lever that shot my projectile vertically into the air
from the jump-off clearing some half mile away.

The control board before me was a compact contrivance about five feet
square. The center of it contained a four-foot viewplate. Whatever view
was picked up by the ultronoscope "eye" of the air ball was
auto