Kevin Anderson - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

"Get ready to make a run for it, Joseph," Franky's voice said over the cockpit speaker. "You're only going to have one shot at this."

"Franky, I'm not much use. My rudder's jammed. I can't — "

Franky's plane dove overhead on a collision course for the crab machine. "She's heading straight for it," Polly said. "On purpose."

"That lady doesn't do many things by accident." Sky Captain lifted his microphone, unable to keep the alarm out of his voice. "Franky, what are you doing? This is no time to show off." But there was no question in his mind about what she intended to do. "She's going to ram it."

"But that's suicide!" Polly said.

"It's her way of accomplishing a mission." His face paled. "Damn it, Franky, pull up!"

But her amphibious plane rocketed straight for the lumbering monster. She completed a half barrel roll, putting herself right side up again. The menacing torpedo followed, closing the gap.

"On my mark." Her voice was maddeningly calm. "Don't let me down, Joseph. I'm going to rather a lot of trouble for you here."

"Franky! No!" Sky Captain was horrified.

"Three…"

Even with her mixed emotions toward the beautiful and mysterious British captain, Polly was drawn in. She whispered under her breath, "No, Franky. You don't need to do it."

"Two…"

"Franky, pull up! Come on, pull up!"

"One…"

Now Polly closed her eyes.

The giant crab machine completely filled the view in front of Franky. The torpedo closed the few remaining feet at her tail, its proximity fuse triggered. Everything happened faster than the human eye could absorb.

Franky grabbed a lever on the cockpit roof, yanking it down with all her strength. A spark flashed, clamps disengaged, and a small charge detonated to augment tightly coiled springs beneath her padded chair. The cockpit canopy blasted away, and the newly installed ejector seat flung her up through the water.

Just below, the merest fraction of a second after she shot away, the torpedo struck the tail of her plane and detonated. At the same moment, her underwater aircraft, now empty, crashed at full speed into the looming crab monster.

It seemed that the whole ocean convulsed with the terrific explosion. Shock waves slammed upward, nipping at Franky's heels as her ejector seat burst free of the wave tops like the cork from a shaken bottle of champagne. Shoved back with the force of the launch, Franky rode it through a rush of foam, gripping the arms of her chair. Beneath her, the sea roiled from the underwater fury. It was quite a ride.

As soon as she reached the open air, before the pilot seat ascended to the zenith of its trajectory, a rotor system activated under her seat. Slender alloy blades unfurled and began to spin, carrying her safely upward like an inverted version of Igor Sikorsky's new "helicopter" craft.

The previously untried escape system worked like a charm. "Thanks again for your imagination, Dex." She looked across to the misty silhouette of the nearby mysterious island. "Once you get rescued, I promise I'll buy you a year's subscription to any pulp magazine you take."

The rest of the Royal Navy's special amphibious squadron breached the surface of the waters below, activated their air engines, and rose from the ocean. Franky used controls in her chair to guide her own ascent. Together, they climbed toward the relative safety of the damaged flying fortress…

After the explosion, Sky Captain's Warhawk sailed through the watery inferno. The cauldron of bubbles and half-vaporized debris from the ruined crablike robot battered them like a whirlwind and dislodged the jammed stalactite in the P-40's rudder. The controls suddenly moved in his grip.

"Hey, I can maneuver again!"

The Warhawk rode the choppy waters past the sagging hulk of the destroyed guardian, and they finally slipped inside the undersea inlet.

The cockpit radio crackled to life with the familiar voice of Franky Cook transmitting from her ejected seat. "You're all clear, Joseph. Good luck. Go save Dex."

"Thanks, Franky. We'll take it from here." Relieved to hear she had escaped, he clicked off the radio. His plane plunged deeper into the cave.

Polly was unable to deny her exhilaration. "That Franky's some kind of girl."

"Yeah, I know," Sky Captain said.

Always alert for more of Totenkopf's monstrous defenses, the Warhawk drifted through the underwater cave, following bends and curves in the inlet. The plane's engine droned with a low hum, muffled by the murky water.

Spotlights emerged from the nose of the aircraft, shining into the mysterious labyrinth. Around them, the sheltered currents offered a strange tranquility for a universe of bizarre sea life.

Polly pressed her face against the canopy glass like a small child, her eyes filled with wonder. All manner of exotic fish, mollusks, and honeycombed coral growths passed before them — things she had never seen in any aquarium or naturalist's book.

Prehistoric sea lilies with segmented stalks and hard clamshell petals snapped at fish that darted by. Crawling multilegged creatures that resembled helmeted pill bugs squirmed through the ooze, cracking and devouring snails as large as pumpkins. Sponges like rubbery tubes sucked in warm water, filtering out microorganisms, while ribbony sea snakes glided by.

Everything Polly saw seemed to have a lot of teeth.

A creature that looked like a cross between a crocodile and a swordfish cruised in front of them, attracted by the P-40's lights. The plane's churning propeller made the monster reconsider its attack, and it darted off with a thrash of its sharp tail, chomping on two unfortunate fish as it fled.

"How far do we have to go yet, Joe?"

"We didn't exactly have maps of this passage. I can only hope the inlet penetrates to the core of the island. We'll just have to wait and keep our eyes open."

Before long, the character of the water around them changed. Shafts of sunlight penetrated through a break in the cave ceiling, giving the widening grotto a lambent glow. Predatory fish swam into the streaming light, then dove back into the comforting shadows of the inlet passage.

"Nap time is over." Sky Captain tilted the rudder so his plane angled toward the light. "I'm taking us up."

"Nap time?" Polly gave an annoyed sigh. "Fresh air sounds fine with me."

With a rush of bubbles, the Warhawk climbed out of the underwater cove and surfaced in a lagoon half covered by floating leaves and odd frilled lily pads. Startled amphibians dove into the water and splashed toward the weedy shore. The plane leveled itself and came to rest afloat on the pool.

Sky Captain slid open the canopy, then stretched his arms as he drew a lungful of the heady, mulchy air. The scent of foliage and rotting vegetation made each breath seem thick enough to chew.

Polly wrinkled her nose. "Smells like a compost pile."

Sky Captain sat on top of the canopy, gazing into the island wilderness. Now the two had a chance to look around at the dense, nightmarish jungle. The strange noises of unseen creatures came from every direction: clacking insect buzzes, howls and grunts, eerie whistles.

The sunlight shimmered and reflected in the steamy air, as if slowed down by plowing into the past. Giant rushes and wide-spreading ferns rose around them, dripping star points of dew. Squat armored fern trees towered overhead, some rising almost a hundred feet high. Primitive evergreens and trees with no flowers clustered in the wet undergrowth.

Sky Captain tapped Polly on the shoulder, put a finger to his lips, and pointed off into the forest. She turned, then couldn't believe her eyes. Drinking from a shallow pool were three giant protobirds with ferocious sharp beaks that looked strong enough to snip an oak tree in half. The creatures resembled ostriches, but their muscular legs reached twenty feet off the ground before connecting to disproportionately smaller bodies. One of those drumsticks would have fed a family for a week.