Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Dex struggled in vain, unable to wrest himself from the robot's grasp. The tentacles tightened. He looked at the torn map fragment in his hand, desperate. Wheels were turning in his head.

  As he rocketed away from the city and out over the metal gray Atlantic, Sky Captain dodged another volley of machine gun fire. By now the flames from the damaged fuel line had gained strength, engulfing the plane's wing.

  Swallowing hard, Polly looked out the back of the cockpit, then turned forward again. She scribbled furiously on her reporter's pad, mouthing the words out loud as she wrote them. "Six Flying Wings on… our… tail. Escape seemed… impossible. Outmanned. Outgunned. Hopeless…"

  "Do you always have to write out loud?" Sky Captain yelled. "It's already hard enough to think around here!" The Warhawk took another hit and shuddered violently. Any other airplane would have been sky wreckage long before this; however, even with its specially installed systems, the P-40 could not endure such a pounding. "I can't outrun them much longer."

  The Flying Wings continued to bombard their victim, and fire blanketed the entire left wing. Black smoke poured from the exhaust manifold, causing the plane to sputter, choke, and stall. Below, there was no way to escape, no place to land except the deep ocean.

  "Hold on! They'll never expect this." Sky Captain unexpectedly shoved down on his flight stick, sending the Warhawk straight toward the choppy Atlantic. With one engine stalled, he had very little control left.

  "Joe! What are you doing?" Polly peered through the windshield to see the ocean coming fast at them. "We're heading straight down. You'll kill us."

  "I know what I'm doing. Try to relax, would you?"

  "We're going too fast. We're not going to make it. You have to pull up." Polly grabbed the shoulder of his leather jacket, but he did not flinch. "Pull up, Joe! Pull up!"

  Sky Captain struggled with the controls as the Flying Wings regrouped. The Warhawk continued to accelerate downward, assisted by gravity. They hurtled toward the ocean's murky surface… sure to die.

  episode 3 "SHADOW OF TOMORROW"

  Dex has located the source of a mysterious radio transmission, but captured by Dr. Totenkopf's deadly machines, he is unable to warn Sky Captain.

  Meanwhile, Sky Captain's Warhawk has been attacked by strange flying machines and is about to crash into the ocean's surface.

  13

  Remarkable Capability. Underwater Ace. A Base in Flames

  Only seconds from crashing into the water, the P-40's engine sputtered, then briefly roared back to life. Sensing the end of the chase, the Flying Wings zoomed after them.

  Polly screamed. Sky Captain kept his stranglehold on the controls, never swerving. The ocean came at them like an endless expanse of blue pavement. Polly closed her eyes, bracing for the crash.

  Moments before impact, Sky Captain shouted through his headset microphone, "Switching to amphibious mode!" His right hand slapped an emergency switch.

  A series of servomechanisms clicked into place. Hull vents and exhaust manifolds sealed shut. Gaskets clamped around the cockpit canopy, and the engine droned at a lower octave. The Warhawk transformed into a sleeker bullet shape, like a flying torpedo.

  Then Sky Captain's plane plunged into the choppy water.

  The sounds became immediately muffled as the diving aircraft submerged in a froth of bubbles. The fire on the wing was instantly extinguished, and the propeller's growl became a more sonorous hum. The Warhawk jetted along underwater.

  Above, the streaking enemy Wings collided with one another, some swerving, some slamming into the ocean. Broken chunks of hulls, wings, and engines splattered like a meteor storm into the Atlantic.

  As the P-40 cruised along beneath the waves, going deeper, Polly kept her face pinned to the window, stunned. "We went… underwater!"

  Sky Captain calmly piloted the plane along. "Yeah, Dex rigged it up. Got the idea from one of his comic books. Good old Dex."

  Barely a month went by without Dex showing him some of his favorite literature, be it the colorful pages of a superhero comic or the black pen-and-ink drawings in Amazing or Astounding. The young man had invented sensors, supercharged engines, electrical armor (which shorted out more often than not), even new prototype weapons, like his "Buck Rogers" sonic atomizer.

  Since the evil geniuses of the world continued to create innovative threats, Sky Captain and the Flying Legion had to develop new ways to counter them. Dex continued to read his science fiction voraciously, purely for research purposes.

  Now, as Polly's terror melted away, angry realization crossed her face. "You knew this, and you let me think we were going to crash?" She shoved the back of his pilot's chair. "Damn it, Joe! I thought we were both going to die! You should have said something!"

  "I was a little busy trying to save our lives. Besides, you wanted to come aboard, adding about a hundred and fifty pounds of extra weight and hampering my maneuverability."

  "A hundred and fifty! Why you — "

  "Just a guess."

  "You still should have told me."

  The currents streamed by, carrying a flow of white bubbles away from the churning propeller. Filtered sunlight provided barely enough illumination for Sky Captain to see by, though he didn't have a particular destination in mind. He sounded exasperated with her. "Look, Polly, if you can't take it, it's not my fault."

  Though she seethed, Polly's natural toughness came through. "I can take it. I can take anything you dish out."

  "Good because this was nothing. Just a practice run." He reengaged the main engines. Yanking on the stick, he guided the Warhawk up toward the bright sunlight.

  As Sky Captain's plane burst through the surface, water sprayed, and the drone of the propeller changed again. He leveled the plane off and banked about, turning toward dry land. "Ready to head back to the base?"

  In the distance, he could see pieces of the destroyed enemy Wings continue to rain down into the water. He couldn't help but look at the dissipating stain without feeling smug pride.

  Sky Captain heaved a sigh and lifted the cockpit microphone. "Dex, come in. Please tell me you got what we needed." He paused, waited, then frowned. "Do you read me? Hello, Dex…?"

  But only the steady hiss of static came back at him. He and Polly exchanged a concerned glance; then he accelerated back toward land, setting course for the Flying Legion's base. On the way, he tried again and again to raise Dex or anyone. The Legion's private frequency remained ominously silent.

  His stomach knotted as they flew overland, crossing the hilly wilderness, approaching the huge complex where his mercenary squad had established their headquarters. The pillars of smoke were visible long before he reached the sheltered valley.

  When the base came into view at last, it seemed everything was in flames. As the scope of the destruction became apparent, Sky Captain could find no words to express his dismay.

  Polly whispered hoarsely, "My God… Joe!"

  The hangars were burning. Dozens of parked fighter aircraft, once neatly lined up and ready for takeoff, smoldered along the runway. The observation zeppelins lay slumped on the ground like blackened whale skeletons. Sky Captain could see many crashed enemy Wings, but he also spotted the wreckage of Legion aircraft that had been defending the base — far too many of them.

  14

  A Missing Friend. A Robot Infestation. A Secret Message

  The hard part was finding a clear patch of pavement in the disaster zone. Emergency crews were everywhere, dousing flames and pulling victims from the rubble. Sharp wreckage from the explosions and crashes lay scattered all about.

  Sky Captain was numb and sick as he circled for the second time, but he drove back his feelings and focused on the job at hand. He had to get down safely.

  One tire on the P-40's landing gear hit a torn metal plate sticking out of the softened blacktop. The Warhawk slewed, but Sky Captain drove forward, his brakes smoking and screeching. The plane bounced over a shallow crater and finally came to a halt in f
ront of what had been a secondary maintenance hangar.

  Grease-stained, red-eyed crewmen stumbled toward his plane. They rejoiced to see Sky Captain alive, drawing strength and hope from their leader. The crackling sound of fires was a background roar in the air. The task of simply extinguishing all the fires and rescuing the wounded seemed insurmountable, but the members of the Flying Legion remained undaunted.

  Sky Captain climbed from the cockpit and stood on his bullet-riddled wing. Polly came out behind him, and he extended a hand to her, distracted by the chaos around him. She was too shocked to comment on his help.

  Jumping to the ground and brushing himself off, Sky Captain turned toward the control hangar, where a group of men was straining to clear a heavy steel beam that blocked the doorway to the map room. They were trying to rig up a block and tackle, but could not find an intact support beam for the chain.

  Seeing him, one of the crewmen called out urgently. "It's Dex, Cap! They've got Dex."

  Sky Captain's distraught look transformed to rage as he took charge. "No time to mess with a chain and pulley. Unless you men can find one of Dex's disintegrator pistols, let's do this the old-fashioned way." Crouching, he leaned into the solid beam, using all his might to push. "We've got enough muscle around here. Help me."

  Working together, the men pushed the steel girder aside with sheer brute force. The beam finally gave way with a sound of twisting metal, dropping to the ground with a heavy clang. Sky Captain stood up to catch his breath and saw that they had opened a narrow tunnel into the map room.

  Polly squeezed through the small passageway beside Sky Captain to enter the ruined building. The two of them emerged in the map room, which had become a nightmarish scene.

  Walking robots were everywhere. A dozen of the man-sized machines marched about with mechanical precision, whiplike steel tentacles thrashing from their shoulder sockets. The coiled arms picked up furniture and equipment, tossing wreckage aside. The robot walkers moved through the map room like insects, obviously searching for something.

  "They're everywhere," Polly said. "It's an infestation."

  One of the machines detected the intruders and strutted toward them. Sky Captain turned just as the walking robot lashed out with a surprisingly long tentacle. Polly shouted a warning, but the appendage wrapped itself around Sky Captain's right hand, drawing tight like a python. He reached awkwardly with his left hand to pull out his sidearm. The robot tightened its snakelike metal grip as he twisted his body, managed to aim the pistol, and fired off one round. The bullet found its target, shattering the robot's single gleaming optical sensor. The spindle-waisted machine recoiled, rocking backward like a jack-in-the-box. The tentacle released Sky Captain's wrist and flailed about. The robot staggered blindly before it fell in a heap.

  The struggle alerted the rest of the robot swarm, and all of them turned their singular glowing eyes toward Polly and Sky Captain. Marching in an eerily gliding lockstep, the machines closed in from all sides. Polly stepped close as Sky Captain fired his pistol at another machine; the bullet smashed its blunt head, deactivating the robot in a shower of sparks. He knew how many rounds he had in the pistol and saw that there were far too many of the machines.

  "We've got to be a lot more efficient at this," he said. The walking robots stepped closer, raising jointed steel legs to climb over the rubble.

  Then Sky Captain looked up to the collapsed roof. Suspended directly above them, a massive girder dangled by the frayed remnants of two cables. The robots marched under its shadow.

  Sky Captain stepped back to lure the machines closer. Then he raised his pistol, squinted carefully along the sight line, and fired. The bullet clipped the cable holding the heavy beam in place; the remaining line groaned as the released girder swung down like a giant pendulum.

  He yanked Polly to the floor as the twisted beam whistled over them, missing their heads by inches. The battering ram swung into the front row of machines and crushed them with a sound like a truck full of brass musical instruments ramming a brick wall.

  Sky Captain and Polly sprang to their feet, ready to face the rest of the robot swarm, but before the walking machines could form ranks again, a strange alien siren warbled through the air.

  "What's that, Joe? A Legion signal?"

  "Not one of ours," he said.

  The walking robots froze in their tracks, tentacle arms drifting like seaweed in a gentle current. Then, all the remaining machines scattered like cockroaches, escaping through the gaping hole in the hangar wall. One of the machines stumbled on a loose chunk of concrete and collided with a second robot as if it were part of a slapstick comedy routine, but both righted themselves and evacuated through the opening.

  Sky Captain looked down at his sidearm. "That was easy."

  "We can't just let them get away, Joe. They've got Dex."

  Both of them scrambled over the rubble, chasing the walking robots. When they reached the hole in the wall, though, a backwash of exhaust fumes and air currents knocked them backward. Sky Captain kept his balance, squinting into the hot gust to see one of the large Flying Wings rise up. The enemy aircraft took off, stealing away with the remaining tentacled robots.

  "Hey!" Sky Captain waved his pistol and fired repeatedly at the flying machine until all his ammunition was gone. The small-caliber bullets merely bounced off the quicksilver hull.

  "They're getting away, Joe. We have to stop them!"

  She looked wildly around, but Sky Captain stopped her. "It's too late. They're gone."

  "They've got Dex, Joe. We have to try."

  Polly resisted, but he continued to hold her. "They're gone," he said again, "for now."

  She slowly accepted defeat. They stood together, watching in vain, as the last enemy ship arched skyward. Nightfall had darkened the sky, and the batlike Wing flapped upward to join a dozen of the enemy flying machines that converged overhead. Their angular silhouettes crossed the full moon, gaining altitude, remaining impossibly out of reach.

  Sky Captain and Polly stood side by side, sighing and staring at the complete destruction of the Legion's headquarters. Orange flames still smoldered like the bonfires of a primitive army encampment. Some surviving crewmembers worked together to spray water on the blazes; others used flashlights and crowbars to search for wounded men in the collapsed storehouses.

  "Of all the enemies we've faced, this is the worst blow the Flying Legion has ever suffered." Sky Captain couldn't even begin to assess the casualties and the irreparable damage.

  With a loud screeching groan, the last wall of a destroyed shed collapsed.

  Polly shook her head, staring across the blasted runways. "Why would Totenkopf do this, Joe? Why Dex? It doesn't make any sense."

  "I don't know enough about him to make a guess. Usually villains are all too happy to brag about their capabilities and gloat over their plans." Sky Captain turned back to the remains of the map room, peering into the dimness. Dex had stayed at his post until the last minute, trying to triangulate the source of the command transmission for the robot giants and the Flying Wings.

  Stepping back into the hollow-sounding room, he saw a stack of Dex's comic books and pulp magazines scattered across the stained floor. He spotted scuffed footprints, drag marks from robot feet, the signs of a struggle. With a grim frown, he bent over to pick up a torn comic book. A smear of drying blood tracked across the fanciful cover illustration. He pondered for a moment, then looked up at Polly. "Totenkopf was looking for something — something he thinks we have."

  Sky Captain tossed the magazine to the floor and reached down to pick up the prototype ray gun. "Dex said he knew where the transmission was coming from, but I didn't give him enough time to answer me."

  A flash of guilt crossed Polly's face. She knew she had withheld information from Sky Captain, especially the two mysterious vials. What if her secrecy had inadvertently led to Dex's capture? If Sky Captain had known all the details, might he have been better prepared?

  Sky Cap
tain continued to contemplate the Buck Rogers sonic atomizer, not looking at her. "He must have gotten too close to the answer. Dex was trying to tell me — "

  Having second thoughts about her secrecy, Polly reached into her pocket and started to withdraw the two test tubes Dr. Jennings had given her as his last act. She looked at the glass vials. She knew Sky Captain would be furious with her for keeping secrets.

  Before she could make up her mind to tell him, though, Polly spotted something on the floor among the clutter. She slipped the test tubes back into her coat and reached down to brush the rubble aside. A bubble gum wrapper, the brand Dex always chewed. "Joe…"

  Sky Captain turned the ray gun over in his hand, then stuffed it into his pocket. Polly stared at him, holding up the gum wrapper as if it carried extra meaning. He followed her eyes, curious, as she glanced upward. A slow smile spread across her face.

  On a fallen section of the ceiling, Sky Captain saw a torn section of map stuck there, out of reach, with a pink wad of gum. The chart scrap showed pinpricks from a compass, several tentative markings that circled down to a bold X drawn in the center.

  "Good boy, Dex!" Sky Captain let out a relieved laugh. His expression was different now.

  "This changes everything," Polly said, sharing his delight.

  "But it's still personal. We leave right away — while we have a chance. There's a long way to go."

  The word NEPAL was printed plainly across the center of the map.

  15

  Off to Nepal. A Satchel Full of Secrets. The Mark of Unit Eleven

  The Warhawk soared into the night, heading east across the Atlantic. After the robotic mayhem in recent days, Polly thought the long journey might almost seem relaxing. The droning sound of the engine would have made a good lullaby, if both she and Sky Captain hadn't been so tense.