Chapter Twelve: Belly of the Beast
"Brace for impact!" Joe yelled. A searing wave of incandescent gunfire, larger than the Great Wall of China, closed in on the P40 Warhawk, ready tear apart its intrepid crew like a bloodthirsty animal. Joe squinted into the millions of slivers of light and realized his options were few and, at best, unreliable. He lunged for the vertical steel bar next to his seat and swallowed hard. He and Dex had discussed the new modification to the plane, but between Totenkopf's island, rebuilding the Flying Legion, and now this he'd never had a chance to test it…
"Polly, hold on tight!"
Joe yanked the lever back. There was a hissing boom as the canopy exploded off the plane and the cabin's pressure was released. Locks disengaged, and Joe and Polly's seats broke free with a loud, metallic pop. Like cannonballs, they shot high into the sky seconds before his plane was consumed in a furious explosion of flame and shrapnel.
Joe gritted his teeth against the weight of gravity crushing him and pressed a button on the ejection lever. Steel plates blew off the backs and bottoms of their seats, revealing long, tubular rocket thrusters that poked out like mechanical spider legs. So far so good, Joe thought as he awkwardly worked the remote throttles that came out the back of his chair and arced over his shoulders. From what he could figure the left throttle controlled his rocket while the right one controlled Polly's. There was a brief moment of freefall, and then a hoarse exploding cough as the new rockets roared to life. With sickening velocity, Joe steered himself and Polly straight into the behemoth stone fortress in the sky.
The galleon and its foul armada had turned and continued its mysterious route since destroying Joe's ship, and although Joe and Polly flew in ever closer, the enemy never once set out to deal with them. God, we're probably too small to show up on their radars, Joe realized. Not much of an advantage, but at this point I'll take what I can get. Joe flew the emergency rocketpacks without really knowing where he wanted to go. There had to be some port of entry below the castle. Somewhere in the bowels of the galleon they could slip in unnoticed. There. A gaping steel hole like an open sore at the stern of the galleon, some kind of landing bay or exhaust vent he decided. Turning a sharp left, Joe and Polly flew into the void and were soon engulfed in shadow.
They landed in an engineering sector of the ship and stowed their rockets behind a small mountain of discarded scrap iron. The air was thick with humidity and the stench of grease, and thick smog smeared their vision. They cautiously delved deep into the guts of the airship, walking in awe below hydraulic pistons and rotormechanisms the size of skyscrapers, taller even. Heavily oiled gears slammed and grinded against each other, generating the immeasurable power supply needed to keep the galleon fortress afloat. The din of industry was deafening and painful to endure. Joe often had to yell above it to Polly when he wanted to change directions.
They walked in silence for miles, trying to perceive the devious intellect capable of creating such a monstrous vessel. Crossing a broad catwalk overlooking one of the galleon's thruster power plants, Joe gasped and threw Polly against the wall.
"Hey, what's the big idea?" she cried, punching him in the chest. Joe clasped his hand over her mouth and, with his other hand, pointed down over the catwalk. Below them, swarming around the power plants like mechanized bees, were legions of flying servitor robots.
"This place stinks of Totenkopf's touch," he whispered in her ear. "Looks like we weren't the only ones robbing him bling after fiasco on the island."
Below, hidden from view amongst the iron clad automatons, the woman in black looked up at her quarry and smiled.
Stay Tuned for Chapter Thirteen: Reunion