Kevin Anderson - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

A uniformed officer bounded across the runway, waving a piece of paper at Franky. "Commander! We're tracking six enemy submersibles, bearing thirty degrees northwest."

"Most unusual. Do you recognize the configuration?"

"No, Commander. Not a design we've encountered before. The submersibles are very large, and they seem to be heavily armed." The young officer hesitated. "There are indications that they may have spotted us already."

Franky raised her eyebrows at Sky Captain again. "Who wants to kill you this time, Joseph?"

He flushed. "Oh, you know, it's always something."

A large explosion erupted in the clouds around them, so close that it rocked Manta Station. The rotors hummed more loudly, stabilizing the airborne runway. Royal Navy crewmen ran to their posts, yelling orders.

The sky filled with flak fire. Echoes of successive detonations cracked like a thunderstorm through the cloud cover. It seemed like the grand finale of a fireworks display, and the flying fortress was right in the muddle of It.

One of the blasts came close enough to tilt the station's vast deck, throwing Polly off balance, but Sky Captain instinctively caught her. The giant propellers strained to lift the heavy platform higher into the safety of the clouds. Franky shouted orders, but her well-trained crew already knew what to do.

Through hatches in the flying fortress' deck, Royal Navy gunners climbed down ladders into upside-down turrets hanging from structures beneath the platform. Large-caliber cannons extended as the men strapped into their seats. They let loose a roaring barrage to bombard the unseen enemies far below.

Sky Captain looked forlornly at his Warhawk, which sat motionless at the end of long black skid marks. "Franky, how fast can your people refuel my plane and load up?"

"Not fast enough, Joseph. Follow me. Right this way."

Hurrying, but showing no panic, Franky led them into the bridge structure. Sky Captain grabbed the edge of the door as another blast rocked the platform, and Polly went sprawling. Franky simply rode it out without losing her balance. "It'll take a while for you both to acquire your sea legs. Needs a bit of practice."

During the emergency, the bridge was a circus of organized chaos. Naval officers stood at their stations, shouting rapid-fire instructions and responses. Fighter pilots checked in as they sprinted across the various runways to scramble aboard their planes. Outside, louder than the constant thunder of explosions, dozens of aircraft engines fired up, propellers whirring, exhausts roaring. From the gun turrets below, defensive fire continued from the hull-mounted artillery.

Sky Captain marched close to Franky as if he belonged at her side, and Polly did not let him get too far ahead. Franky stepped up to her executive officer inside the command station. "I'll take over from here, Major Slater."

"Yes, Commander." He seemed relieved to relinquish control.

Sweeping her glance across the stations, Franky assessed their situation. "First order of business: raise us to ten thousand feet and deploy all countermeasures." The executive officer swiftly repeated her orders to the appropriate personnel.

Franky stood with perfect posture. In a piece of polished metal on one of the bridge stations, Polly spotted her own disheveled reflection and grimaced. "I don't appear to be much competition at all."

Franky went to a tactical table and spread out a map of the vicinity below. She motioned for Sky Captain to join her, and the two of them huddled over the charts. Their heads were very close together. Polly strained on her tiptoes, trying to peek over their shoulders.

Franky used a slender finger to point out an area where someone had drawn handwritten notes and a question mark on a blank expanse of ocean. "Right about here, Joseph. Our reconnaissance located a small island three kilometers northeast of our current position. It's not on any of our charts."

Polly couldn't contain her excitement. "That has to be him!"

Franky looked up, quizzical; she seemed to have forgotten the other woman was behind them. "Sorry? Has to be who?" She directed her question to Sky Captain, pointedly ignoring Polly. "What did you get me into this time, Joseph?"

His smile looked a bit too admiring. "Oh, it's nothing you can't handle, Franky."

Their calm camaraderie and respect made Polly wonder again just how deep this friendship went. Her brow furrowed.

Though the flying fortress was gaining altitude, lifted aloft by the churning propellers, one of the enemy missiles slammed into the bottom of the hull. Sparks flew from two control stations, and the level floor tilted at a severe angle.

Seasick, Polly grabbed an instrument panel and held on for her life, but as she clutched the controls, she accidentally yanked a lever. One of the rotors roared with increased power output, and Manta Station tilted in the opposite direction. She felt as if she were trapped on a giant seesaw in the sky.

Sky Captain lurched over and pointedly lifted her hand off the lever. "Try not to touch anything. In case you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of an emergency here."

Franky worked at a different station to stabilize the flying fortress. The commander flashed a glare with her one eye.

Polly sniffed. "I didn't mean to." Explosions continued to pepper the sky. The unending Klaxon sound was giving her a headache.

With the flying fortress rising steadily again on a stable course, Franky stepped up behind a young ensign manning a sonar array. A pattern of bright blips crossed the display screen, blurred outlines like ghosts in the fog. "Ah, so there you are."

"Commander!" the executive officer called. "Enemy warships, bearing three-one-six, mark four. Closing fast." He studied his own screen. "They're coming into firing range. We're about to have a spot of trouble, I believe."

Franky strode over to uniformed engineers at a communications array. "Give me a visual please."

The communications engineer activated a series of dials and switches. "Yes, Commander. Launching radio imager."

After he depressed a button, bat-wing hatches beneath the flying fortress opened and dropped a tiny beeping probe. It tumbled through the sky, falling past explosions, gunfire, and clouds of dissipating smoke, until it splashed like a small torpedo beneath the waves. Automated systems kicked in, and the probe turned about, orienting itself in the depths. Its sensors and range finders targeted a group of hulking shadows that cruised underwater.

"We're receiving a signal on-screen now, Commander," said the communications engineer. "Here comes the telemetry."

Sky Captain, Franky, and Polly stood together watching a small circular display. On the curved glass screen, a school of fleeing fish streaked past. Then a crude blurry image slowly resolved into a startling picture.

Twenty gargantuan iron machines emerged from the murk. The sea-bottom walkers plodded along like giant crabs, each with four massive segmented legs. They scuttled in inexorable slow motion, stirring up silt and mud from the ocean floor with every ponderous step.

With its next signal, the radio imager finally broadcast a clear picture of the winged-skull emblem on the foremost sea-bottom walker. "Totenkopf," Polly said, stating the obvious.

Then the crab machines' angular carapaces opened. With a gush of foam and flame, blunt rockets emerged, churning up to the target in the sky.

"They're still firing at us!" the executive officer shouted.

An explosive shell ripped through the flying fortress' deck, plowing through girders and thick hull plates before it detonated. Smoke and fire curled upward, stirred by the valiantly churning rotors. Debris showered down. Alarms and emergency signals ricocheted around the bridge.