COMMANDER'S AUDIO LOG: JUNE 19th, 1929 - 1015 hour

Per instruction, I, Commander Winslow Madison, will keep an account of the crew's travels and travesties. The ship is even more magnanimous than one could have ever expected. We are fifteen minutes away from our historic mission, and events are going exactly as planned.

Madison out.

1147 hour

She bolted at full pace down the metallic deck, short legs straining to keep pace with her Marine comrades. The ship suddenly seemed labyrinthine, the corridors of which expanded with every step. The lurching of the vessel only exacerbated this tense event, a reminder that man-made gravity was but three years old.

Double doors detailed POWDER ROOM unlocked slowly, as the commander and her bold men rushed in to a grievous sight. Captain Diego Viaje, ex-boxer from Costa Rica, stood tall over the bloodied body of Etherman Miles Rayman.

Twelve minutes into its first orbit and the crew of Nation's Hazard were a man down. Twelve minutes from the safety of the world; twenty minutes from the voltaic cannon fire of the Second Reich.

The staunch captain appeared like a young man with gray hair, nary a wrinkle in sight. The stolid gray moustache appeared just as bold as the man's stance. He gave a subtle nod to those who entered the fray, before turning his eye to the woman sporting the three-barred commander chevrons.

"Commander...?" he inquired with a voice that must have enthralled many a woman in his day.

"It's Jeffers, sir. Jane Jeffers."

"Do you know how I learned my first English word, Commander Jeffers?"

She stood flat-footed and flabbergasted. Her eyes were trained on the corpse of Rayman, his flaxen locks dyed an ominous red.

Jane shook her head.

"In my younger days in Costa Rica," he began, "I was a hunter in the jungles, looking for a German ship that crashed. While I was away, foreign agents sought to harm me to my heart." Captain paused and took a deep breath. "Needless to say, when I returned home to find my wife had been assaulted and killed, there was a swarm of policia around her. I pushed them aside, in time to hear a doctor proclaim, 'ex-sanguination'."

The commander gave her captain an empty stare.

Just as casually, the broad leader removed himself from Rayman, who instantly jumped up and giggled. Commander Jeffers, even the marines, leaped back towards the doors with exacting precision.

But, clearly the young etherman had nine holes in his body; a vivid blue tint colored his lips!

Rubbing his hands through his thick, bloodied hair, he saluted the captain. "Well sir, do you think we can catch the rat now?"

#

Five minutes later, the two head officers were trotting down the wood-paneled hallway, Jeffers again struggled to keep pace.

"Tell me Commander Jeffers, why you took the last minute call for the second chair?" the captain asked while turning the wheel-lock to access his office. Every door on the ship retained a wheel-lock, as on a submarine, in case of hull breach.

"I wanted the chair right from the start," she said. This elicited a look from Viaje, one she could not read. "But Madison got it."

Diego gazed at her, as if his eyes read words along the woman's irises. She looked young for her late thirties, age appearing only in her hands. Here he saw blanched skin, dirty blonde hair cut close with curled locks before the ears, ample blue eyes and thin lips, with a curved nose in between. Lovely and small, with a lilting voice, she looked nothing like a hardened sailor, or a fit ethernaut.

"Congratulations!" he declared, and she detected no sarcasm in the captain's voice. "It is a good thing that at the final hour, we unmasked nineteen men who were spies for the German Empire, my former commander included. Imagine espionage and a shootout right at takeoff! Welcome aboard, and my apologies for not meeting you until the murder."

His rapid-fire tones, from inspiring to compassionate to almost reckless, dizzied her mind.

"I will work twice as hard as anyone to get the job done, Captain," she declared.

Viaje smiled at her, his teeth flawless. "You're absolutely right about that. Now, tell me what you know."

They entered the office, or rather, Viaje's quarters with an add-on desk. The first rocket ship to attempt deep solar system exploration had to have its sacrifices. Space itself was tossed on the altar. The whole room was lathered in redwood, with a pair of corroded brown boxing gloves swinging over the man's hardwood bed. The place smelled like sweat and spicy cologne. Awards and plaques were innumerable. War hero. Prize fighter. Diplomat.

She was impressed, but tried not to show it.

As he sat in his chair, and placed a peculiar set of silver pince-nez on his straight nose, he reached into a set of files against the wall and retrieved a folder. Jeffers began her report.

"Nation's Hazard is a deep-space vessel, built of steel with a spectrumite cone tip. Its hull is lined in several layers of steel, asbestos and spectrumite. Crew complement is two-hundred and twenty. We have the first counter-gravity measures, with gravinite plating along the floors. We're powered by four massive Stockwell steam boilers with a diesel backup that stimulate counter-gravity in the negatrite fins. Our mission for the International Orbital Network is --"

"Yes," he answered, dragging out the final letter. "But tell me about the spies."

She gulped. "ION never informed me of much, sir. I received the telephone call at my home in Penns Grove, but was only told that Commander Madison had been relieved. By the time I got off the rocket at Lakehurst, there was chaos all around. The ship had already begun Phase One takeoff procedure. I was thrust onboard at the rear with Coleman, your new engineer. There were... bodies under bed sheets along the main hall."

The commander shuddered.

Viaje glanced with raised head at a letter. "It says here that you helped to design the Brain for the ship, primarily its tactical readiness counters. Your record is clean, with many commendations from your previous captain. You are one of the first three women to join the military, after the 1879 suffrage paved the way. You joined the Navy Aerial Corps in 1910?"

"Yes sir!" she said on her tiptoes.

"Excellent. If the men onboard give you trouble, please inform me. Otherwise, I expect you to perform as well as myself. Agreed?"

Jefffers gulped even harder. Diego Viaje was a legend from the Jovian Invasion, as a boy! He kept Costa Rica, the fortieth state, free from German hands. And all the while, the man retained his heavyweight belt in the local rings.

Lifelong doubts began to seize her by the throat.

"Sir, yes sir!" Jane uttered. "You are known to be rambunctious and wild, Captain. But, I'm the one you need at any time."

Diego squinted through his spectacles.

She felt dizzy, and wanted desperately to kick herself.

Captain Diego Viaje roared with laughter. "Wonderful! Blunt and confident! We shall get along splendidly, I think! Come, let us catch a murderer!"

#

They were running down the hall again, Deck Three, but now the whole vessel was abuzz with roving ethermen. Over Jane's head, the speaker blared a continuous warning from Doctor Gertz at the bridge:

"ATTENTION ALL HANDS. DECK THREE HAS BEEN BREACHED. I REPEAT. DECK THREE HAS BEEN BREACHED. SEAL ALL DOORS AND EVACUATE."

While young boys in dark blue scurried for their lives, Viaje and Jeffers stole down Deck Three like assassins, polished black boots barely clicking against grated metal. Yet the commander was visibly confused. They halted just outside the source of the hull breach, a locked door labeled OUTER AIRLOCK FOUR.

Viaje quietly revealed a key from his pocket, a wide, sturdy thing with many prongs. He inserted it into a slot in the wall that appeared irrelevant. With a soft swish of compressed air, a panel opened.

"Sir," whispered Jane, "I'm afraid I'm out of touch with the current assignment. Who are we pursuing, and why is Rayman still alive? How is Rayman alive?"

He reached into the panel hatch, producing two long-barreled revolvers, one of which he handed to his commander.

"Were you in the Sky War?" he asked while checking the gun.

"Yes sir. I was in the tactical box on the Yellowjacket, Mediterranean Theatre."

"Ah, then you are unfamiliar with the Second Reich's espionage overkill program."

She shook her head, eyed the gun, and noticed it was fitted with rocket cartridges. It was the only firearm with which the woman had no experience.

"The Germans took over whole towns with agents that would rise up all at once on a given day and hour, acquiring whatever controls necessary to reign. We caught nineteen at Lakehurst. They always use twenty."

He allowed time for the message to become clear, and watched Jane's eyes rove left to right, processing.

"So, you were aware we still had a saboteur onboard after takeoff, and had to flush him out?"

"Precisely, so I enacted a false call on the speaker, like a moment ago, alerting to the master keys being lost near the Powder Room, a worthy prize. Add to that Mister Rayman's peculiar talent of producing an endless supply of blood, he was a perfect candidate to flush out our man, now trying to escape. After all, I knew he would live to tell the tale. The current call clears our path, for our man won't leave the deck. He intends to depart from the ship altogether."

Jeffers shook her head and laughed. "Rayman is a Railroad City paranormal, I should have figured that out sooner." The thought made her shiver, an entire city in Missouri full of humans brandishing destructive powers the likes of which the world had never seen. They had saved over decades as much as they had decimated. She made a mental note to never vacation there.

"We have five on Nation's Hazard. ION, I assure you, was against the idea. But I persisted, just as I did during the war, but then to no avail. Had we more of them at the time, and sooner, we would not be a humbled nation. They will prove, I think, to be our singular edge on this excursion." Viaje winked and smiled during his explanation.

They peeked as one through the circular window of the airlock. A black-haired man with rodent features in his thirties had completed clamping down the lock on the bulbous helmet to his pea green spacesuit.

His hand pressed the release lever.

Diego Viaje punched the metal door, cursing in Spanish as the spy silently jettisoned from the ship via the power of vacuum. Jeffers looked at her captain with terrified eyes. His thick fists pounded like sledgehammers.

"I took too long sneaking down the corridor, gave him too much time..."

"It's not too late, Captain," Jane uttered, her mood shifting from scared to wild realization.

Viaje practiced breathing deep to calm, his eyes never once left from the vanishing image of the drifting saboteur.

"Is that so, Commander Jeffers? And, how would you suppose we apprehend our man?"

#

"Are you a madwoman?!" Captain Viaje demanded.

Jeffers completed putting on her own spacesuit, latching the straps to her flimsy rocket pack tightly. The device appeared to be a glorified Chinese firework with a pressure gauge. She ignored the captain, finishing her attire with the wool skullcap, a transparent dome of glass with wire mesh, and a larger outer dome. Checks and rechecks had to be made.

"With the suit's rocket, I can snag him long before he drifts into Reich territory. If not, I can shoot him, and return him to the ship."

Viaje paced the airlock. It took precious time to allow the door to seal, and for oxygen to flood the chamber. Scientists aboard kept an eye on the spy via telescopic tracking. He raised a hand in protest, until their eyes locked.

Diego foresaw a determination as great as his own. He placed an oxygen mask over himself, zipped into a suit himself, and strapped himself to the wall.

"Fine. I will be your anchor, in a way, keeping the door open for ease of return, sí?"

She nodded once, and touched the lever.

"I have lost one commander today. Please, do not make it two."

Jeffers skipped a breath, and slammed down the lever. Manhandled by the force of the ether, she spun out into an empty theater of cold nothing.

Immediately, Jane began to hyperventilate. It was only the tiny sight of a moving green object in the distance that allowed her to focus. She wiggled already chilled fingers and toggled a copper switch, attached to a band inside the palm of her left glove. Behind her came a dull heat, the exhaust of chemical fuel from the simple cylinder of the rocket.

The silent fury of outer space wiped away all thought.

Inexorably the woman was propelled forward, a sensation that surprised her. She wondered if 'forward' possessed any relevance in the void, if orientation should be more attuned by goal, than by physical direction.

She concentrated by making mental notes of what needed correction upon her return.

For one, insulation in the spacesuit is NOT good enough!

Feeling ceased in her pinky toes, a creeping tinge that crawled up her legs. The green dot had now become a green-suited man, floating carefree toward a now visible string of lights. The Second Reich's fleet was closer than she thought.

She counted five seconds, and rapidly was upon the man. The impact did as much harm to her as to the spy. They tumbled into a frenzy of fear-induced wrestling, and she heard her floating ribs crack. The spy spurted blood from his mouth and against the bubble helmet, droplets floating around him. He was blurred of vision, frightened, pained and now savage.

Jane nearly forgot to turn off the rocket, a lack of action that only moved them further into the spy's destination. She was a storm of emotions and agonies, spending more time grappling him like a terrified child, than as a soldier capturing an enemy.

So it was with ease that he took away her gun.

He fired it without hesitation, without seeing his own target. A growing circle of smoke enveloped Jeffers' head as a round moved past her without sound. The force altered their course, turning them to the left of the German line. She felt certain of death.

And suddenly, he never fired again. The first shot alone launched his own hand backward, the hammer of the revolver cracking his one-piece glass helmet. An air leak! Jane could see a mist of air escape, followed by a jettison of red and flesh tones spiraling away. She was glad his helmet had been clouded by blood, lest she witness the full horror of the man's disintegration.

For seconds, or for eternity, Jane spun slowly with her cadaver, shell-shocked.

Buzzing filled her ears. Reality grew about her. The sound of a radio microphone flared.

"Commander! Jeffers! You've been gone too long! Come back!" the static-doused voice of Viaje ordered.

She re-activated the rocket, and swerved around toward her ship, to her home.

The door to the airlock was within reach. Captain Viaje's gloved hand took hold of the commander's flailing body. She collapsed into his arms, doubling over in pain as her battered ribs flared.

Jane Ward Jeffers watched the lights grow ever dimmer...

#

Hours passed. Crew functions returned to normal, creeping to drudgery as day wove into late evening. The hallways of Nation's Hazard gave way to tedious inspections.

In the brightness of the medical chamber they stood and stared. Captain Viaje, Dr. Isaac Gertz, Dr. Gurneet Dhesi and Nurse Davinia Granger observed the headless body of Lieutenant John Lent. Lent's neck appeared in a twisted swirl of blood and tissue, and the officers were trying to overcome Gertz's comparison of it to a barbershop pole.

Jane had recovered consciousness, sitting upright on a bed near Lent, her ribs taped up with one of Dhesi's herbal/paranormal poultices. Her navy blue dress jacket was draped about her shoulders. A migraine pursued her every thought.

"That is a macabre remark, Doctor Gertz," said Dhesi in a lecturing tone. He was a very tall Sikh man, with swarthy skin, a pointed gray and black beard and wearing a violet turban on his head. He spoke while polishing the surgical table of his sickbay. "Might we remain professional, please?"

Gertz, a platinum blonde with petite build and white labcoat, shrugged. He proved to the crew once more to be bad at jokes.

Diego finished his observations of Jeffers and Granger and, satisfied of their grit, smiled and approached the corpse. He went through Lent's pockets.

On the steel table he laid out a billfold, a key to a storage locker, folding knife and a pin.

"Well, well, well. It seems Lent kept hold of a pro-German party pin. He was definitely a Rallyist."

A heavy hush hung over the senior officers, for any mention of the war America and her allies lost so horribly regurgitated bad images in everyone's minds.

Gravity bombs, skyschiffs and robota crawling over the civilized world, the loss of New York City, London, Oxford and more. Millions of souls returned to the dust of the earth, all for empire.

"We assumed as much once he attempted to kill Rayman," said Gertz, returning to a more mature frame of mind. "But he still kept to the schedule of disruption, despite knowing his compatriots were dead. I am German, and pride myself on efficiency, but such a degree is ...foolishness."

Davinia Granger at last covered the neck with a bed sheet. "How can we be sure there aren't more murderers?" She placed both hands on her lower back to stretch, and took out the pins holding up her voluminous brown hair. "I mean, they used twenty men during the war, but this is the biggest accomplishment we've had since -"

"Since we lost everything?" Viaje helped her finish. "Since we lost the war, signed a pact to end our military, and not to enter outer space for ten years. Yes, we have toiled under the worst of economic depression and humiliation ever since the arm twisting of 1919, as if the eight years of warfare and the countless deaths were not enough. We remain chained to the rules of chaos, whilst crying out for order."

Jeffers slowly slid from the bed, and examined Lent's billfold. Its only contents were a series of numbers, written faintly in pencil along the inside borders, and bit pieces of mail in German. Each piece was signed at the end by what appeared to be Lent's mother.

What Jane's eyes beheld though, was code. She turned away from the officers, clutched her aching head with one hand, and got to work.

"If we have more spies aboard, Sir, then we'll never fulfill our mission to pass Mars and set up shop for a future observational platform," Granger reminded her captain. The worry on her shoulders expanded, filling the medical chamber's bright white and polished stainless steel interior with a fog of gloom.

"Captain Viaje..." Jeffers whispered, suddenly realizing she was in possession of a sore throat. "I've unlocked the code. They're still using the ADFGVX from the war. I cut my eye-teeth on this code."

Senior officers ran her way like children chasing down an ice cream vendor. Anxiously, desperately, they crowded her space. She paid it no notice, for she was just as enthralled with the code herself.

"A code, you say?" Diego asked with skipping heartbeats. "The billfold contained messages? Ah! That explains his eagerness to leave, you see? He had orders, and wished to return what he knew to his superiors."

He clapped his hands in excitement.

"Apparently, the first message is the assignment, a request to find out how much the United States, or the Allies in general, knew about the Lunites' old home in the bottom of the Moon. It then instructs him to see if we are aware of something called an 'Angled Theorem'. Perhaps I have that last part deciphered incorrectly." Jane rubbed her eyes and pursued the code some more.

"You have it right," pronounced Isaac Gertz, albeit with a high degree of reluctance. "Angled Theorem is not a mathematical dilemma, but a code in and of itself. Stockwell Labs, the future division of Stockwell and Company, designated the term to reference an old secret."

Every head turned his way.

Diego Viaje marched into Gertz's space, taking his old boxer's stance of intimidation. Even though both men were the same height, Gertz looked away.

"Well, my science director keeps secret, yes?" Viaje bellowed. "Don't keep us in suspense, Doctor Gertz. This is not a radio play! What is the theorem? Hmm?"

Gertz gulped once or twice. "When the Lunites left in 1884 with our fellow hero, the Spaceman, it was believed that they transformed their seven black domes into spherical ships to depart for a new world. At that time, we had an orbital telescope, after all, we traded with them to get the low-grade negatrite we use to power cloudcraft-"

"And the Hazard," Diego interrupted, "Go on."

"However, before our platform was knocked out by their launch, we clearly took photographs of only four such orbs, and hundreds of smaller blue spheres, like the one beneath Railroad City, Missouri that fractured and created paranormals in 1877. The meaning was clear. There are still three domes in the crater at the Moon's southern pole. And, we believe they still function as artificial worlds with air, flora, fauna and-"

"Negatrite," both Davinia and Jane spoke at once.

"Yes," Gertz responded plainly. "However, since the Kaiser's soldiers have ruled orbit for a decade, why have they not gone to the crater and seized hold of its treasures? We pondered this many times at the labs, before I transferred to ION."

"I wonder why their fleet hasn't crushed us already, or even approached," said Diego, clutching a steel support handle in a vain attempt to crush it.

"So do I," said Commander Jeffers. "But, perhaps it's in the billfold too." She scoured its contents once more. "They won't come near us until they hear from Lent, right? So maybe while in the States, Lent found out the way into the domes, or at least, he thought he did."

"That is it!" announced Gurneet Dhesi. He sat down at his desk and allowed his chair to spin about in triumph. "There must be some security to keep out intruders! The Germans went there, but could not gain access. They believe, with our prior contacts with the Lunite warrior women, that we know the way in!"

"And they won't dare attack us without getting what they think is the key?" posed the captain.

"Intriguing."

He threw the wheel-lock on the door to the left, and stormed out.

Jane approached Isaac, and handed him the billfold. "Doctor, there are many codes here scattered about, but none relate to getting into the Lunite compound. But do you see this writing in the middle pages of this notepad?"

Gertz scanned the pages, his eyes doubling in size. "Gurneet! Come and look at this!"

The two doctors looked at the pages and nodded to one another in between. Gurneet pointed to one and replied, "Do you see this here?"

Isaac nodded, and gestured to the top and bottom pages. "Yes, yes. Does that look to you like...?"

Jane watched them with a stern lack of amusement.

"Gentlemen!" she cried, and clutched her ribs.

"Sorry, Commander," Isaac replied. "This is simply amazing. We ventured on this expedition, many of us believing we would be shot out of the sky by our slower but more armored and weapon-obsessed enemies. But this news, gives us the strategic advantage they could never garner!"

The doctors shared a celebratory laugh.

Their laughter was cut short by the harsh muffling of the speaker system.

"Attention crew! This is Captain Viaje speaking. Without orders from ION, I have taken the bold step of sending a coded message to the German line. I have sent it in old German code from the war, advising them that the Nation's Hazard does not know the key to enter the Lunite city on the Moon. I hope it will buy us time to go there, and explore its inner workings. Captain out."

A veritable chill went up the spines of the senior officers in the medical chamber.

"We're going there? We really are going to the Moon to kick in the front door to an alien civilization? What about Mars?" Jeffers spewed out unconsciously. Her heart hurt now more than her ribcage.

Dr. Dhesi grabbed her, and laid the commander on a bed. Nurse Granger injected a small dose of morphine into Jane's arm. The hot flow through her veins soothed her quickly.

"Engineer Brennan, report to medical chamber at once!" Isaac announced on the speaker.

Jeffers tried to rise. "Why do we need an engineer in here? Am I that bad off, Doctor? Will I need artificial prosthetics?"

"No, young lady," the doctor said while stroking her hair. "You will see."

As he left, Viaje re-entered the chamber like a raging gorilla. "What is going on? Why are you summoning an engineer here without my approval?"

Gertz dared to approach him. "I did, sir. If you will only look here, perhaps you will see why."

He showed the executive officer the middle pages. At first, Viaje's expression was one of angered confusion. But slowly, steadily, awareness came to beautiful life.

"The Reich has not a single one. Not one!" he declared, and again slapped his hands. "Our ship is smaller, lighter, and faster. We can get there at full speed, and have perhaps an hour or so to get in before they arrive. I'll radio ION at Lakehurst, and get approval right away."

As he turned to the door, the wheel-lock rolled and the latch clicked with a solemn echo.

In walked a buff looking man in his late forties, with deep frown lines. He wore the navy blue uniform well, with the single chevron of a lieutenant. The side pockets of his trousers were agog with tools. His collar bore the light gray coloration of the Engineering Department. He looked at his superiors through vivid orange eyes.

"Sir, you wanted to see me?" asked the lieutenant.

"Yes Mister Brennan," said the captain with a wide grin. "Tell me, Brennan. Your mother was a Lunite, yes?"

"Yes sir," he answered. "She died on Earth, though. She was... unhappy, from what I was told."

"And, how would you like an up close examination of your genealogy, Mister Brennan?"

Sean Brennan glanced at every officer. He fidgeted in his uniform. "I'm afraid I don't understand, sir."

"What I mean, son, is how would you like to get us all inside the Lunite city?"

Brennan thought hard and long. He seemed like a troubled man, but then again, the half-Lunites people called Azures had incredibly hard lives among prejudiced human beings. Sean Brennan was old before his time.

"Sir," the lieutenant said, "I'd like that very much."

Diego Viaje became the proud owner of a sly smile.

###

COMMANDER'S AUDIO LOG: JUNE 20th, 1929 - 0532 hours

This is my first log on the vinyl recording system Captain Diego Viaje has instructed me to use. Let the record show that he has refused to make audio logs himself, favoring pen and paper. To correct the previous log made before takeoff, I am Jane Ward Jeffers, taking the place of Commander Winslow Madison, who was revealed to be a German agent. As of 0600 hours, we are en route to the Moon, in a roundabout course, in order to throw the Reich off our scent. Thanks to the captain's ploy, they have backed their line even further away, believing we have no means to enter the Lunite city of BH'geth.

However, with the aid of our resident Azure, Lieutenant Sean Brennan, and hopefully very fast feet on our part, we will endeavor to penetrate the city, and behold whatever secrets the warrior culture left behind when they departed for a habitable planet billions of miles away. Maybe a ton or more of negatrite, crucial to future spaceship construction, will be there, waiting for us. Hopefully, we will succeed, and make the place our own before Kaiser Wilhelm gets his withered hand on it.

On a personal note, while I am fluent in German, mechanical brains and tactical thinking, I am nervous about our next venture. I am not a fighter, though I can be hasty at times. Sitting on the Moon will no doubt bring us into full battle, one our ship cannot win, but the possibility of reward is too high. I take some comfort in knowing this ship is the most advanced vessel ever designed by Man. Am I up to the task? I'm not sure. But, I will not surrender.

I will, however, need to learn the Lunite language.

Jeffers out.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: If you like this story, there's a whole world of it I call the Legacy Universe. A series, the Rail Legacy, details it starting with An Unsubstantiated Chamber, which is completely FREE on Instafreebie. Book Two, Cerulean Rust, is for sale on Amazon. Both links are below. My author page on Amazon lists LU (Legacy Universe) short stories. Read. Review. Tell your buds. Know your alternate history!

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/ropDh

https://www.amazon.com/William-Jackson/e/B00UC38FTI/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0