ue water leaped up three hundred feet, four hundred feet, five....

A square mile of ocean erupted as the planes climbed up and away from
it. There were bombs in the ocean--some had sunk down deep. Others
followed in close succession. Many, many burdens of bombs had been
dropped into the sea as plane-fleet after plane-fleet went by.

The sea exploded in monstrous columns. Ton, half-ton and two-ton bombs
began to detonate, fifty fathoms down. The Mekinese duty-officer below
had just learned that the spies' signalling device was cut off, when a
detonation lifted the hull of the Mekinese cruiser and shook it
violently. Another twisted its tail and crushed it. A bomb hit sea
bottom a quarter-mile away. More bombs exploded still nearer, in close
contact with the giant hull. A two-ton bomb clanked into contact with
its metal plating and burst.

The cruiser's duty-officer, cowering, thrust over the emergency-lever
which would put the ship through pre-recorded commands faster than
orders could be spoken.

Rockets flared, deep under water. But the flames set off bombs and the
rocket-nozzles cracked and were useless. A midship compartment was
flooding. A forward compartment's wall caved in, and still bombs
burst.... The skipper of the assassin cruiser screamed an order to fire
all missiles. They were already set on target. They were pre-set for the
spot where the space-navy of Kandar waited to rise.

They did not. One missile was blasted as the cover of its launcher-tube
opened. Another was blown in half when partly out of its tube and a
third actually rammed a sinking bomb and vanished with it when it
exploded.

The huge thing under the sea heaved itself up blindly. It reached the
surface. But it was shattered and rent and dying, and planes dived
vengefully upon it and blasted apart whatever could be seen in the
roaring foam. So the blinded, suffering thing of metal only emptied
itself of air and went down to the bottom again, where more bombs ripped
and tore it.

The atmosphere-fliers of Kandar swung in a gigantic, ballooning circle
about the spot where they had dropped a good fraction of a ton of bombs
to the square yard. But nothing stirred there any more. Still, the
planes flew in a great, deadly band about it until a flitterboat came
out from shore and lowered a camera and a light by long, long cords.

There was no space-cruiser at the bottom of the sea. There was evidence
of one, yes. There were patches of plating