The Project Gutenberg EBook of Raiders Invisible, by Desmond Winter Hall

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Title: Raiders Invisible

Author: Desmond Winter Hall

Release Date: June 6, 2009 [EBook #29053]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAIDERS INVISIBLE ***

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Astounding Stories November 1931.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

[Illustration: _The body went twisting and turning into the
gulf below._]

Raiders Invisible

By D. W. Hall

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Alone and unaided, Pilot Travers copes with the invisible
foes who have struck down America's great engine of war.]

The muffled, helmeted figure of a pilot climbed down the spider
ladder, nestled into the foremost scout's cockpit and pressed the
starting button. The motor spat out a wisp of smoke, then burst into
its full-throated roar: the automatic clamp above loosened: the scout
dropped plummet-like, bobbed to the flagship below, straightened out
and zoomed six thousand feet up into the morning blue, where it
hovered for a few moments like an eagle on taut wings. Lieutenant
Christopher Travers, the pilot, glanced around.

Behind and below him was spread a magnificent panorama. Across the
plate of scintillating glass that was the sea moved rows of toy ships,
tipped by the gleaming, one-fifth-mile long shape of a dirigible, of
whose three scout planes Chris's was the leader. As he watched, the
second scout dropped from the plane rack beneath the dirigible's sleek
underside and went streaking away, followed by the third, in response
to the Admiral's order of: "Proceed ahead to locate the enemy's
position."

A grin relaxed Chris Travers' tanned, boyish face. His narrowed gray
eyes swept the horizon. Below it somewhere lay hidden the ranks of the
Black Fleet, complete w