at this
time, with a great fleet already half-way across the Pacific, that the
Com-Pubs declared war in a fine gesture of ironic politeness. It was
within half an hour of this time that the Seventh Combat Squadron--the
only one left unimprisoned--dived down from fifty thousand feet into
the middle of the Com-Pub fleet and went out of existence in twenty
minutes of such carnage as is still stuff for epics.

The Seventh Squadron died, but with it died not less than three times
as many of the foe. And then the Com-Pub fleet came on. Most of the
original force remained; surely enough to devastate an undefended
nation, to shatter its cities and butcher its people; to slaughter its
men and enslave its women and leave a shambles and smoking ash-heaps
where the very backbone of resistance to the red flag had been.

* * * * *

It was twenty minutes before Thorn Hard stirred. His lungs seemed on
fire. His limbs seemed lead. His head reeled and rocked. He staggered
to his feet and stood there swaying dully. A vivid light, brighter
than the sunshine, played upon him from the flagship of the fleet
which now was helpless to defend its nation. Thorn's befogged brain
stirred dazedly as the message came.

"Com-Pub fleet on way. Seventh Combat-Squadron wiped out. Nation
defenseless. You are only hope. For God's sake try something.
Anything."

Thorn roused himself by a terrific effort. He managed to ask a
question by exhausted gestures in the Watch visual alphabet.

"Kreynborg took her to rocket-ship," came the answer. "She recovered
consciousness before being carried inside."

And Thorn, reeling on his feet and unarmed and alone, turned and went
staggering up a hillside toward the rocket-ship's position. He could
only expect to be killed. He could not even hope for anything more
than to ensure that Sylva, also, die mercifully. Behind him he left an
unarmed nation awaiting devastation, with a mighty air fleet speeding
toward it at six hundred miles an hour.

As he went, though, some strength came to him. The fury of his toil
forced him to breathe deeply, cleansing his lungs of the stupefying
gas which, because it was visible as a vapor, had been carried in the
rocket-ship. A visible gas was, of course, more consistent with the
early pretense that the rocket-ship bore invaders from another planet.
And Thorn became drenched with sweat, which aided in the excretion of
the poisonous stuff. His brain c