"Anderson, K.J. - Sky Captin and the World of Tomorrow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Kevin J)

"Reconnaissance picked up something on radar traveling at over five hundred knots - and coming straight for us."
"How soon before it gets here?"
Suddenly, in the sky above, a dozen shapes emerged from the sunset-tinged clouds. The crewman pointed upward. "Right about now, I'd say, Cap." Slanted daylight splashed across the sleek metal hulls of flying craft that looked like mechanical vultures.
Obscured by a rippling haze of air distortion, the shapes took on the form of giant silver bats. Perfectly streamlined, as if made of quicksilver, the graceful yet deadly flyers flapped long and narrow wings like mechanized pterodactyls. They made a shrill whistling sound like a pipe sliding through a metal sleeve. The enemy Flying Wings dove forward, blunt noses marred by clusters of 50mm cannons. The black gun barrels extended, then began to spit fire.
Sky Captain scrambled for his plane, stepping up onto the wing and sliding the cockpit canopy aside. "Time to get going! Remove the wheel blocks."
The enemy wings swooped down like hawks upon the Legion's airfield. Crewmen ran for shelter into the hangars. Two of the Legion's warplanes screamed down runways and took off. Swooping along with mechanical grace, the fearful enemy flyers spat out heavy machine gun fire. The ammunition struck home in a searing hailstorm that blew up a row of unoccupied aircraft parked on the field. As the Flying Wings rose upward again with an eerie whistle, they left a firestorm in their wake. Row after row of Legion airplanes detonated after the strafing barrage.
"Does everybody know where our secret base is?" Sky Captain muttered as he swung himself into the Warhawk's cockpit. He raced through the takeoff checklist, glancing at the dials and controls as he fastened his helmet and seated his goggles over his eyes.
"Wait a minute, Joe."
As the enemy Flying Wings raced past for another attack, engaging the Legion fighters already in the air, Sky Captain looked down in astonishment to see Polly climbing the narrow fuselage ladder up after him. "What are you doing?" He had to shout over the deafening roar of the P-40's engine.
"I'm coming with you!" Another volley of explosions ripped through one of the supply hangars, igniting barrels of aircraft fuel.
"Don't be stupid, Polly. Remember what happened the last time you flew with me?" The chaos and noise all around them made it impossible for him to manage a reasonable tone.
"We had a deal!" She didn't even slow, but kept climbing.
"This isn't a game, Polly. People are going to die! In fact, some of my best men probably already have."
Determined and beautiful, Polly refused to let go of the rungs, even though the airfield was exploding around her. Howling alarms and roaring engines increased the racket during the bombardment. "You're not leaving without me, Joe! Not this time! It's my story."
Sky Captain curled his gloved fist, anxious to go and considering just how much more time Polly could waste with her incessant arguing.
Wings flapping briskly, the alien-looking machines circled around and struck again and again until they succeeded in blowing up the main hangar from which the P-40 had just emerged. Ducking from the backwash of the explosion, he shielded his head from the debris and shrapnel pelting all around them. The tiny impacts on his plane's fuselage sounded like a hailstorm on a metal roof.
Like a swarm of alloy-plated bats, even more of the Flying Wings converged on the Legion's hidden base. Sky Captain gritted his teeth, fuming. No time to argue. "Get in!"
Polly scrambled up behind him and threw herself into the cockpit's backseat. Sky Captain didn't waste even a second checking on her as he slid the canopy shut. The Warhawk's engine seemed to be screaming a challenge as he accelerated forward, taxiing down the nearest runway.

In the sheltered map room, Dex sprinted toward a massive, blinking communications array. He pushed past several of the radio operators who were frantically trying to coordinate the defense of the base. Taking control, Dex began to flip a series of buttons, causing a jagged signal to appear on another oscilloscope display. He stared at the bouncing radio signal expectantly, adjusting dials to triangulate. An oddly melodic Morse code tone came through the small speaker, sounding similar to what he had heard earlier - only closer.
"There you are!" Dex made a victory fist. "This'll do it!" He grabbed a headset microphone from one of the pasty-faced radio operators and hurriedly spoke into it. "Cap, do you read me?"
The sounds of emergency sirens and explosions continued in the background. The lights dimmed briefly from the attack going on outside. It was only a matter of time before the Flying Wings leveled the control hangar - if Sky Captain didn't stop them first.
The Warhawk streaked through the sky in fast pursuit of three Flying Wings. Like superfast metal vultures, the enemy aircraft flapped furiously, pumping with pistons and powerful whistling engines. They wheeled and evaded, reminding Sky Captain of crows on the wing.
"Dodge all you want," he muttered, forgetting that Polly was sitting behind him, "but you can't outrun this." He lined up the nearest quicksilver machine in his crosshairs. His finger hovered over the trigger on his flight stick.
A voice burst over the radio set. "Cap, this is Dex! Come in!"
He lifted his microphone. "Hang on, Dex. I'm a little busy."
Sky Captain locked his sights on one of the machines. His gloved finger flipped open the safety latch on his trigger, and with complete coolness he squeezed. A stream of machine gun fire embroidered with intermittent tracers stitched across the sky, intersecting the Flying Wing. Gunfire penetrated the smooth quicksilver hull, making the enemy craft explode in a massive fireball.
With a satisfied sigh, Sky Captain lifted his microphone. "Go ahead, Dex."
"Whatever you do, Cap, don't shoot!"
Sky Captain frowned sheepishly at the expanding cloud of smoke and tumbling shrapnel that had been the Flying Wing. "Uh, okay."
Dex sounded disappointed. "You shot it, didn't you?"
"Yeah. I thought that was the point."
"Listen, Cap, you asked me to track down the command signal, and I did. The signal is coming from one of those machines. It must be the leader. You've got to keep them in one piece, or I'll never be able to get to the bottom of this."
Sky Captain groaned, but he had never found reason to disbelieve Dex. "You sure know how to make a job harder, Dex. Which machine is it?" Ahead of him and all around the smoldering Flying Legion base, dozens of the flapping aircraft swooped and dove, continuing their attack.
Dex did not sound reassuring over the radio set. "No way of telling. It could be any one of them. Wait... I'm losing the signal." The younger man groaned. "Now it's getting fainter."
Sky Captain saw that one of the Flying Wings had veered off from the others and headed back toward the New York skyline. The rest of the mechanical attackers concentrated their firepower on the hangars and runways below. "I think I found it, Dex. It's heading for the city."
"Don't let him get away, Cap!"
Sky Captain hated to leave the rest of the Legion to the greater battle, but he knew he needed to win the war against this sinister enemy. "You better be right, Dex."
"Keep after it! I need you to bounce that signal back to me. If we lose it now, we may never get it back."
With a heavy heart, Sky Captain raced after the primary Flying Wing. "Just let me know when you've got something, Dex. The very instant you have it."
"I'll let you know. Out!"
While Polly clutched her seat in the back of the cockpit, Sky Captain veered off in pursuit of the lone enemy craft racing back toward Manhattan.


11

A Dogfight over Manhattan
Thieves from the Sky
Polly's Shortcut