Tom had already rushed up to the second deck to prepare for the takeoff.
Only ten minutes had elapsed since the call for help had come!
The Sky Queen lunged upward in a fiery blast, and seconds later was streaking along through the sky on her way to intercept Sterling’s attacker. Tom contacted Hank and learned that the fight was still on. A few minutes later, traveling at a twelve-hundred-mile-an-hour rate of speed, the Flying Lab arrived on the scene.
Far below, two small black dots were maneuvering 92 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ROCKET SHIP
wildly. The Sky Queen bore down toward them.
“Okay, Arvid!” Tom called on the intercom. “Go to work on him! Come up behind with the robot!”
The hangar door opened and Tom saw the released dummy plane shoot downward. Skillfully Hanson beeped the drone toward its mark.
“You’re directly on the fellow!” Tom phoned down. “Veer him off to the right a couple of degrees! Get him away from Hank!”
“Okay!” Hanson responded.
Tom watched tensely as Hank’s attacker, now desperate, made a sudden maniacal attempt to execute a pass at the other plane.
“He must have felt the forcer,” Hanson reported. “I made contact for a moment, then lost him.”
The strange convoy glided past the guarding
A ROBOT AT WORK
93
“Try again,” Tom urged.
The enemy pilot was trying to come in from the right side. As he completed his turn for the new approach angle, the powerful landing forcer caught the plane in its electronic grip and rolled it violently away. Hank’s jet streaked ahead, unmolested.
“We’ve got him now!” Hanson cried excitedly into the phone. “Are you going to ground him here, Tom?”