Cities in the Air by Edmond Hamilton

1. The First Clash

For one moment we gazed toward them and toward the advancing cruisers that rushed before them, as though held by the grandeur of the spectacle. The tremendous mass of our air-cities hanging there, high above the earth the gleaming ranks of our own two thousand cruisers that poised to east and west, the advancing cruiser-fleets of twice their strength behind which there rushed gigantically on the great massed air-cities of our enemies -- it was a spectacle breath-taking enough! But, then, the two enemy cruiser-fleets had come within a short distance of our own waiting cruisers; and, as they did so, both their fleets shot suddenly upward, as though in answer to a common order, to drive above our own cruisers and our air-cities!