Cities in the Air by Edmond Hamilton

1. The Great Movement Starts

Stunned and stupefied, Hilliard and I gazed out in that moment from our window, out through the dusk above the air-city to where the cruiser of our two friends had plunged to death. I think now that for those first few moments neither of us was able completely to comprehend what had happened, to comprehend what malign fate it was that had sent our friends down to death there as they seemed making their escape. Staring forth blankly, we saw the cruisers that had been pursuing them, that had been overtaking them, turning back now toward the air-city, heard a cheer rolling across that city as the crowds in its streets witnessed the destruction of the fleeing craft, the flare of the shells that had destroyed it. That great roaring cheer from beneath penetrated at last into my brain with realization of what had happened.