As he locked the controls so the gantry would keep moving toward the rocket, Polly started to run down the narrow walkway. Neither of them could wait until it was safe. Sky Captain hurried after her, catching Polly's arm just in time as the gantry rocked unsteadily. The mountain continued to convulse and disintegrate. Heavy pieces of debris pelted the metal walkway. Chunks of rock and dislodged piping spiraled through the air, tumbling all the way to the floor, where they crushed hapless robot workers.
Jagged boulders fell from cracks in the walls, and a rough section of debris crashed into the gantry's driving machinery, jamming the huge gears. As Sky Captain and Polly scrambled to the end of the telescoping gantry, the extended metal arm lurched and came to a grinding stop.
Polly teetered on the edge of the walkway. It was a dead end, with a twenty-foot chasm still separating them from the rocket entrance. "Joe!"
With a determined sigh, Sky Captain moved Polly aside, then stepped back. "I spend most of my time flying. Now it's time to try it without the airplane."
He made a running leap, using the end of the unstable gantry as a springboard. He sailed through the air but landed just short of the rocket opening, colliding with the smooth hull. He scrabbled for a grip, pushing his sweaty palms against the metal, but he slid down. One hand just barely grasped the bottom lip of the entrance. He hung there, his feet kicking and trying to gain a toehold.
Twenty feet away, Polly could only watch as Sky Captain struggled to pull himself up. She had no way to help him.
The roaring rocket engines shook the cavern as if the whole world was about to fall to pieces around them. Unexpectedly, one of the violent tremors knocked loose the debris that jammed the gantry's gears. The clockwork mechanism clanked and spun, and the structure began to extend forward again, closing the distance.
With brute strength and determination, Sky Captain pulled himself up, getting his other hand on the rim of the hatch. He strained, used any bit of friction from the soles of his boots, then caught the edge of a large rivet, 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."