until he got his chin over the lip of the rocket's door. A final Herculean effort let him sprawl through the doorway, swinging his legs inside. He lay exhausted and panting on the deck just as the gantry came to a soft stop at the edge of the door.
Polly stepped gracefully through the entrance and into the control module. Sweating and ready to collapse, Sky Captain looked up at her as she strolled effortlessly past him into the rocket.
'Don't just lie there, Joe. We don't have much time.'
Outside, the booming loudspeaker counted down the remaining seconds until the actual launch… Funf… vier… drei… zwei… eins — zundung!'
Sky Captain got to his knees, lurching toward the open hatch. He swung the metal door shut and sealed the lock just as the towering ship began to lift into the air with all the noise of a thousand thunderstorms.
35
A Rocket in Flight. Emergency Systems. The End of the Plan
Accelerating fully now, Dex's hovercraft shot from the mouth of the cave fortress and cruised over the jungle. Behind them, the huge industrial complex smoked and trembled.
'Totenkopf didn't worry much about what would happen once he blasted off, did he?' Dex looked anxiously over his shoulder.
'Why should he?' Vargas said. 'He meant to turn Earth into a charred ball.'
'And us with it,' Lang said, even paler than usual. 'For decades, I have regretted ever working for Unit Eleven.'
Then, with an angry screech that could have shattered crystal, a prehistoric bird came swooping toward them, as if they were to blame for all the mayhem. Its talons extended to snatch a morsel of fresh human meat from the hovercraft.
'Another one of those flying creatures! We are doomed!' Lang tried to find a place to hide under the seat. The bird's wingspan was broader than that of Sky Captain's Warhawk.
Dex struggled with the transport vehicle's controls, but the hovercraft had not been designed to offer much maneuverability or speed.
Before the winged monster could attack, though, a tremendous explosive blast came from the heart of the secret fortress. The roar built higher as the nose of the rocket ship lifted above the thick jungle canopy.
The boom of the launch was deafening, accompanied seconds later by a hurricane-force shock wave. Startled and confused, the prehistoric bird flapped away, seeking shelter and leaving them alone.
'Shazam, that rocket's heading up! Time to get out of here,' Dex yelled over the continuing rumble. The rocket ship climbed higher, tracing a fiery contrail across the blue sky.
'It's no use now!' Dr. Lang wailed. 'Once the third stage ignites, the Earth will be a radioactive cinder.'
'If Sky Captain made it on board, this isn't over yet.' Dex sounded completely convinced. 'Give him a chance.'
The tremors and continuing detonations stirred the primeval forests that covered the island. Dex looked down, seeing huge dinosaurs stampeding for the coast.
Focusing on the hovercraft's control panel, he began to adjust the frequency of the radio transmitter. 'Come in Manta Station. Do you read me? Come in Manta Station. Franky, it's Dex. Do you read me?'
The rocket's liftoff knocked Sky Captain and Polly to the deck, but Sky Captain climbed to his feet and staggered to a narrow metal ladder that led to the control module above. He propped himself up by hanging on to a metal rung. Every cell in his body ached, and he honestly couldn't remember ever feeling worse. Maybe if he saved the world, he'd feel better about the whole situation.
Polly followed him, stumbling. The engines were powerful enough to lift the rocket's incredible tonnage free of Earth's gravity; the acceleration certainly made it hard for her to move. But Sky Captain had already ascended ahead of her, and she wouldn't let him get too far without her.
Polly managed to climb to a series of observation portals that allowed views inside the gargantuan cargo section. Exhausted, she hung on to the rungs and paused to peer through one of the small windows. Inside the cargo section she could see the massive zoo that Totenkopf had collected: cage after cage of breeding specimens, thousands of helpless creatures trapped inside and forced to fly off into the unknown because of a dead madman's dream of creating a new Eden.
Sky Captain looked down as she stared at the trapped animals. The rocket continued to accelerate. 'Polly, hurry.'
She caught up just after he climbed into the primary command deck. He gave her a hand, pulling her through the hatch in the floor, and they stood together inside the huge domed chamber.
Totenkopf had left a swarm of special robots to run the operations. Hovering machines worked like insects inside a massive hive, tending controls and receiving updates and complex binary readouts. The rocket ship tore like an arrow through the atmosphere.
A gargantuan screen spanned three stories, showing layers of clouds that streaked past. At the base of the screen stood a lone, poignantly empty command chair. Totenkopf's throne, his view into the galaxy. Though he'd been dead for decades, the robots proceeded without him.
Sky Captain and Polly stepped to the edge of the deck, which dropped down onto a dizzying spectacle. Below them, the cargo hold of the ark ship trailed off into seeming infinity, circular rings of cages and tanks that held thousands of species of birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, and fish.
Polly's heart wrenched in sympathy. 'We have to get those animals off this ship before the third stage explodes.'
'I'd prefer to get us off the ship too… and prevent the Earth from being incinerated while we're at it.'
A harsh mechanical voice clacked out of a booming loudspeaker, making an announcement in German. Polly turned to him. 'Joe, there's only one minute until primary ignition.'
Sky Captain stared down into the core, which dropped two thousand feet below them. Then he glanced across to see a narrow catwalk directly in front of them; it bridged the open core of the rocket and led straight to the system terminal.
'That's our only way across.' He set off across the narrow gangplank. The rocket shook violently as it accelerated, continuing its rough climb. Sky Captain fought to maintain his balance. Below, the core stretched downward on such a dizzying scale he could not see the bottom of the ship. 'No time for a fear of heights.'
As Polly was about to follow, she noticed a nearby control panel and frowned. Hazard markings highlighted a hinged metal box on which was printed the bold word DRINGLICHKEITSFREIGABE.
'Emergency release,' she said. Turning away from Sky Captain and his precarious balancing act, Polly lifted the steel flap on the box to find a single red button. 'I think this counts as an emergency.' She pushed the button.
A ratcheting alarm shrilled through the loudspeaker system. The synthesized robotic voice announced in German, 'Danger. Core separation engaged.'
Polly looked up, startled. 'I hope that's what we wanted to do.' The rocket shuddered.
On the catwalk, Sky Captain swayed back and forth with one leg uplifted. When he'd regained his balance after a breathless moment, he turned back to see Polly standing meekly at the control panel. 'What did you do?'
'Just trying to help.' Guilty and cooperative now, she retreated from the control box and joined Sky Captain on the catwalk. She glanced down, fighting vertigo, and suddenly loud, hydraulic noises rumbled from below. A gargantuan metal iris closed the cargo section, sealing off the control module from the ark chambers.
'Danger,' the mechanical voice repeated. 'Core separation engaged.'
A look of realization crossed Sky Captain's face. He turned to Polly. 'Run! We've got to get to the other side!'
They tore off across the narrow steel bridge, not looking down into the open core of the ship. The rocket was shaking so violently that they could barely stand. When he was halfway across the catwalk, massive hinged
