'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 front 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
