Nevertheless, Kinnison and his fellows were not too perturbed. Such a condition was not entirely unexpected. They were now veterans; they had been tried and had not been found wanting. They had come unscathed through a bath of fire the like of which the world had never before known. Give them any kind of computation at all--or no computation at all except old CR10685's own radar and their own torps, of which they still had plenty--and they could and would take care of anything that could be thrown at them. The third wave passed. Targets became fewer and fewer. Action slowed down ... stopped. The Technos, even the Sector Chiefs, knew nothing whatever of the progress of the battle as a whole. They did not know where their rocket was, or whether it was going north, east, south, or west. They knew when it was going up or down only by the "seats of their pants." They did not even know the nature of the targets they destroyed, since upon their plates all targets looked alike--small, bright, greenish-yellow spots. Hence: "Give us the dope, Pete, if we've got a minute to spare," Kinnison begged of his Fire Control Officer. "You know more than we do--give!" "It's coming in now," came the prompt reply. "Six of those targets that did such fancy dodging were atomics, aimed at the Lines. Five were dirigibles, with our number on 'em. You fellows did a swell job. Very little of their stuff got through--not enough, they say, to do much damage to a country as big as the U.S.A. On the other hand, they stopped scarcely any of ours--they apparently didn't have anything to compare with you Technos. "But all hell seems to be busting loose, all over the world. Our east and west coasts are both being attacked, they say; but are holding. Operation Daisy and Operation Fairfield are clicking, just like we did. Europe, they say, is going to hell--everybody is taking pot-shots at everybody else. One report says that the South American nations are bombing each other ... Asia, too ... nothing definite; as straight dope comes in I'll relay it to you. "We came through in very good shape, considering ... losses less than anticipated, only seven percent. The First Line--as you know already--took a God-awful shellacking; in fact, the Churchill-Belcher section was practically wiped out, which was what lost us about all of our Observation.... We are now just about over the southern end of Hudson Bay, heading down and south to join in making a vertical Fleet Formation ... no more waves coming, but they say to expect attacks from low-flying combat rockets--there goes the alert! On your toes, fellows--but there isn't a thing on Sector A's screen...." There wasn't. Since the CR10685 was diving downward and southward, there wouldn't be. Nevertheless, some observer aboard that rocket saw that atomic missile coming. Some Fire Control Officer yelled orders; some Technos did their best--and failed.