A wing flew from
one of the aircraft, and it plunged downward. Another came apart in the
air; a third burst into flames. The other two zoomed upward quickly.
Hradzka swung his blaster after them, blasting again and again. He hit a
fourth with a blast of energy, knocking it to pieces, and then the fifth
was out of range. He blasted at it twice, but without effect; a
hand-blaster was only good for a thousand yards at the most.
Holstering his weapon, he hurried away, following the stream and keeping
under cover of trees. The last of the attacking aircraft had gone away,
but the little scout-plane was still circling about, well out of
blaster-range.
Once or twice, Hradzka was compelled to stay hidden for some time, not
knowing the nature of the pilot's ability to detect him. It was during
one of these waits that the next phase of the attack developed.
It began, like the last one, with a distant roar that swelled in volume
until it seemed to fill the whole world. Then, fifteen or twenty
thousand feet out of blaster-range, the new attackers swept into sight.
There must have been fifty of them, huge tapering things with
wide-spread wings, flying in close formation, wave after V-shaped wave.
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