COMMANDER'S AUDIO LOG: June 21, 1929 - 0546 hour

          We have successfully reached the bottom of the Moon, thankfully without incident since launch day. The Captain has placed us in the lip of its southernmost crater for two days now, waiting for any Second Reich ship coming in or going out. We really have no idea who or what we might find in the city domes, only that Germany arrived here years ago. However, the one ace up our sleeve, is a key to the door...

Jeffers out.

0621 hour

          "Mucho obscuro," Captain Viaje gasped at the elongated window on the bridge of Nation's Hazard. Taking up its entire expanse, absolute blackness, the mouth of the crater at the southern hemisphere of Luna. One could not help but to stare into the screen. The conical shape of the bridge guaranteed it. Deep down lay the goal. In the mouth of nothing lay a lost city, the abandoned world of the blue-skinned, long gone Lunites.

          Captain put out a command for brighter spotlights.

          "Sir," Ensign Ambrose Dryer strained to keep sarcasm from his tone, "we already have them at full strength." He toyed with the clicking silver lever that zoomed in the lens on the forward camera. More darkness. Less darkness. Same view.

          "Captain, you know we won't see a thing until we fly to the base. And, when will that be exactly?" Clyde Tombaugh had not a spot of sarcasm in his utterance, but many layers of impatience. Young as springtime, brash as a nosedive was the ship's chief astronomer, he pressed for forward exploration every hour on the hour.

          Viaje took soft jabs at the padded armrest of his oval chair with the imposing safety harness he never used. Diego Viaje craved action, and, like a shark, had to keep moving.

          "If our data is correct, once the power went off in Eighteen Eighty-Four, the city's seven black domes began absorbing light in order to appear no different from any other crater floor." Tombaugh polished the lenses of his spectacles, realigned their extra electromagnetic sensory appendages. "Empress BH'kheya did not intend for we humans to enter unchaperoned. Our only option is to descend."

          "We have no way of knowing if a German ship, a German fleet, is down there!" He crossed the bridge, a rectangular box of harnessed chairs, cubic mechanical brains covered in black dials, thick cables dangled inches overhead and little left about in what could be defined as 'elbow room'.

          Viaje zoomed around the astronomer's engine box to stare into his face. Old man acting young versus young man acting old. Hard head versus strong will. A body hardened by combat towered over a skinny lad bolstered by facts. This happened often. This kept the bridge crew on edge.

          "We have no other option, Captain. Your trickery two days ago gave us a substantial lead. I feel we have squandered--"

          "I will decide...!"

          The wheel-lock on the bridge door turned. A click echoed, dissipating tension as the door parted in a slow manner. The slender pale figure of Jane Jeffers, commander, entered.

          "Permission to come on the bridge, Captain?" Having missed the opportunity for proper procedure the first day, Jane jumped at the chance to observe regulation.

          "Sigh! Permission granted, Commander. I trust your two days in the far reaches of the ship have had a positive effect on you, sí?"

          Jane grinned. "Yes, Captain Viaje. We are short three torpedoes due to the rushed launch, but I have assurances from Goldman she can jury-rig more with materials at hand. Carriages Compass and Sextet are complete, ready for duty. Here is my report." She handed him the double file, one typed on white paper, the other holding the same report electronically on a prismatic, battery-powered mimeovax.

          "Bueno, Jeffers, bueno! This is the hardest working crew in the American service, or any other. I have had the privilege of seeing many others. Even the efficiency of Russian airships does not compare. Now, perhaps you might put in your two cents on our current dilemma."

          Jane caught the window view on her peripheral. Darkness blossomed eternal. For two days, she crammed into her head between duties every historic account on the Lunite city called BH'geth (BEH-geth). Now, the abyss of the crater named Tycho robbed her of reason. Surely there can't be anything left in that...

          "Hiding won't help our cause, Commander." Clyde Tombaugh took apart the observer lens on his station for a diagnostic. "We have a possible way inside the enemy has lacked all these years, presumably. We'd best use it quick as can be."

          Jeffers drifted to the window. She hoped, in part, to touch Absence, to explore whether nothingness had a tactile presence.

          The Captain returned to his chair, slapping harnesses. "This ship has no direct chance against even the smallest skyschiff! One shot from them, a torpedo!"

          "Tombaugh is right." The words fluttered out in wisps from Jane's lips on airy feathers, barely audible. Viaje caught the words, crossed simian biceps and grumbled in Spanish.

          "Fine. Fine! We go down to oblivion or glory or I don't know what else! Ensign Dryer, take us in at one-eighth speed!"

          In the well called Tycho, movement as a point of reference ceased to be. Speaking at the navigation controls showed Jeffers all dials pointed up into the crater. Snap Control (called for the sound made with each degree the chrome bar is pushed) initiated boilers to a minimal thrust.

          Only the lurch in Jane's stomach indicated they were going into Nowhere and Everywhere. Down below, history's greatest treasure chest waited under lunar dust.

          "I need lights to full!" Captain said.

          "All forward lights going to full!" said Cadet Stanford Hill, the ship's certified illumination engineer (licensed from McStay-Allen Lumineers Academy, 1922).

          Lights of bold white and warming yellows found one side of the crater, a staggering display of Nature's art. Jagged cliffs over a mile long, chiseled edges sharp enough to make a grizzled Marine wet himself. Twice Dryer had to adjust azimuth to avoid tremulous shavings off of the hull. Nimble hands avoided giving Hazard a fatal crew cut.

          Jane stepped back to at last claim the second chair, a rectangular thing of straps and radio dials. Two days onboard and she sat in it for the first time. Black patent leather screeched like wounded mice. The chair lacked comfort and grace, but more than made up for it in safety and an asphyxiating headrest. An emergency dome and attached oxygen apparatus hung behind her head. She layered on the waist strap, shoulder straps, torso belt...

          "This is ridiculous!"

          "You find caution to be ridiculous, Commander?" said the captain. His eyes beamed into the side of her skull.

          She felt the drilling. Jane stopped looking at the insane harnesses to commit to facing her commanding officer. "Sir?"

          "Your comment? Unhappy with my hesitation?" He made fists.

          Jane glanced at those like drivers and then the straps. "Oh. Ah. Sir. I believe I may have thought aloud. Bad habit. I apologize. I was thinking of these safety straps."

          Viaje softened his face, but not his vision. "Is that so? Well, you are correct. They are redundant. Also, they chafe the skin. My neck will never recover."

          She choked. He giggled. Jane found her deep mind slow to catch up but did so soon enough and followed suit. The rest of the bridge breathed a collective sigh of relief.

          Nation's Hazard pushed on in the silence, bridge crew quieted. Seconds elongated, melting wax on the Candle of Time dripping into epochs.

          "Captain!" Dryer said. The bridge jumped. Straps jangled.

          Viaje clutched his chest. "What is it, man?"

          The screen offered those gawking at its nothing only more if the same. Dryer, however, stared into a circular display readout on his box. "I'm getting readings back from the spectrogon. There is now a very large mass of material ahead. Material that is not iron, silicon dioxide, calcium, magnesium, or anything associated with Moon matter."

          Jane had to ask. No one else bothered. "So the item in question registers as...?"

          "An unknown, ma'am, as in alien. Closest analogy the 'gon gives is a density more than lead but higher in durability."

          Jane gandered at the captain. He pounded on the armrest of his chair.

          "Eureka!"

          Dryer dropped the obvious now, even though the screen finally produced the truth. Three black domes siting in gray glitter softened their eyes. Massive structures, they seemed to look back at the crew like the lifeless oculi of some lunar arachnid.

          "I have a visual! Bearing right ahead! Main hemisphere registers at five-hundred meters across. Smaller two read two-hundred and sixty apiece!"

          Viaje fought his way out of the straps and was up like a shot. "Find us a suitable crevice to hover in, Mister Dryer. Commander Jeffers, sígueme."

          The wheel-lock turned and opened with flagrant force. Viaje kicked it shut with the bottom of his boot after Jeffers met him in the hall. He began to match. She skipped to keep pace.

          "Sir, are we going to form a scouting party to attempt entry?"

          Viaje stopped in what seemed to be a violent fit. "Qué? I mean, what? Scouting party? Ah, yes. Yes! We are going to net the Azure Lieutenant Brennan and four others to accompany you on the mission." He about-face and returned to the march.

          "Me, sir? I'm leading this?"

          He skid to a stop, fingers flexing, knuckles cracking. "Yes, Commander. Did you think your captain would go down? While I seethe for such a challenge, that is only allowable on missions requiring--"

          "Direct diplomacy. Yes, sir. I recall Section A-Seven of the ION Exploratory Manual." Her question had little to do with his qualifications and everything to do with her own. During the Sky War, Jane operated in the tactical box of a ship for years. Afterward she went home to Church Street in Penns Grove and gardened. Experience in ground operations amounted to a broad but well meaning zero.

          "Good! Then let us proceed to the Engine Room. I expect you to get inside, explore, photograph and get back here within two hours. Two! If there is any negatrite, then I will consider sending a larger team to acquire it for shipment back to Lakehurst."

          Everything mysterious about the Lunites entered her mind. Warfare. Plants for hair. Women in control. Legendary battles. Negatrite did not enter into her equation. Jane held a breath. "Yes, sir."

          They doubled their gait.

                                                                                                        #

          "Why is my Engine Room always the epicenter of your group meetings?" Chief Engineer Bessie Coleman secured the wheel-lock shut, a touch of Texas flavored her speech. She eyed the captain and his party: Jeffers, Lieutenant Brennan, bright blue-eyed Ensign Peter Doyle, Ensign Randolph Hessman, paranormal Lieutenant Pick and Cadet Snipe Waite. They fit into the corner between a triangular work table and an orange oxygen storage bin as tight as marathon dancers in a midget ballroom.

          "This ship has no room for a staff chamber," Viaje croaked. "Besides, this gives me an excuse to tour the Hazard and visit my engineer." A grin split his smooth bronze face to reveal a picket fence of white teeth. A few wisdom teeth bore a metallic origin.

          Coleman, husky, cute, brown-skinned and bold, didn't buy it. She kept arms crossed as she departed. "Riiggght. Ethersuits have been dusted off and primed. I've got a carriage ready for departure." The engineer switched down a narrow corridor of pipes toward the boilers.

          Jeffers wondered how many senior officers actually got along with Diego Viaje. She contemplated writing a list of suspects in case he ended up dead, chuckled, and forgot it.

          "What's funny?" Pick stared through Jeffers rather than at her.

          "Hmm? I didn't laugh." Jane looked elsewhere.

          It was eerie. Pick bore only a passing resemblance to a woman, or at least to a nice looking one. She was very thin at the waist, around fifteen inches, with robust hips and breasts. Skin of brilliant magenta shone under the lights as if Pick had been dipped in lacquer. Her hair, or what passed for such, were five wide, flat tentacles that dragged back down to the floor several feet, moving in different directions. But those eyes, casting an aurulent glow devoid of irises and pupils...

          "The lieutenant here will be perfect for making the rounds of the domes quickly," Viaje said. Did he witness the tension? "Her ability to crawl along vertical surfaces and revamp her epidural texture will be invaluable." He beamed.

          All involved nodded except Jeffers. Not wanting to seem more out of touch, she held back from asking what it meant to 'revamp' one's 'epidural texture'. She began to feel like the only American who hadn't grown up reading those two-bit stories about the Guild of Honor, various heroes in masks, that detective with the annoying accent.

          "She changes her skin to match the color and texture of what's behind her!" Snip Waite winked and tapped Jane on the right elbow as he spoke. He smacked gum, loudly, possessed big brown eyes almost to the point of being comedic and a long, tanned face. He took himself for a man's man. Jeffers took him for a...

          "Cadet! It's best to remember one's rank when speaking to one's commander, especially when one lacks rank."

          Waite quit chewing. He recoiled into a boyish pout, hands fumbling at the nearby wheel-lock. He made the move to exit. Captain's terminal gaze told him to do otherwise.

          Viaje patted every crewmate on the back. He laughed. "Excellent! Commander Jeffers, take your party to the nearest airlock to suit up, get into one of the domes, find negatrite, and get out of there!"

          Jeffers double-timed her step. The rest followed suit, aside from Pick. She chose to ambulate by letting those annelid tentacles lollygag along the ceiling, while she hung in the air. Jeffers swore she wouldn't look back to see such an unnerving event take place.

          But she did, and spent the remainder of her run trying not to vomit.

                                                 ***

          The black dome revealed very little, even when attacked more directly by the many lights on the scouting party's cumbersome suits. Indistinct lines hinted at possible plating, but nothing pointed to a doorway, access hatch or hangar bay.

          "Having hefty lights strapped on our shoulders shouldn't feel this heavy, even on the Moon." Waite remained ever optimistic.

          Jane suffered the Doubts again. "Along one of these walls, the Spaceman entered decades ago." But the wall revealed not one crack, crease or even an out of place symbol. The only thing keeping her interest was the suave texture of moon dust under her boots, a feeling of walking on talcum powder. She wondered if darkness had become a tangible item in the hands of the Lunites. Is it absorbing our light...or eating it?

          "He wasn't Lunite, but he got in." Pick's modified ethersuit provided sleeves for her tendrils. They slithered about the lifeless dome like probing tongues. "Nothing. Not even a slit."

          Brennan approached the dome last. Hands hovered over the surface but refused to take hold.

          "Up to it, Brennan. We're on a tight schedule." Jeffers gave the order and dropped her head to stare at noon dust. The proverbial clock ticked on, giving the commander a superior case of the jitters. Blackest blackness. Germans roaming about, Gid knows where. No. Be reasonable. Be resolute. Be breathing. Captain's Rules of Order for command staff. Snap to it! Back to the dust. She couldn't take seeing if--

          The touch worked. One solitary finger brought black boredom to neon fulfillment. A halo bubbly blue appeared around Brennan's fingertip. "Heh! How's it know me through the glove?" The man giggled.

          Jane gasped as the wall opened as torn skin, bathing the team in humble violet luminescence. She, and the scouting party, gawked for a considerable time. "Anybody else get the feeling this is too easy?" She whipped out the gun. Soothing lights and carpeted interior did nothing to dissuade her paranoia. Something was amiss. "If there's a door, why isn't the air...?"

          But Brennan stuck an arm inside, revealing the answer, much to the detriment of Jeffer's palpitating heart. A film, a force, something undefinable encircled the arm without damaging it. Brennan giggled again, shifted inside the suit, and jumped into the spacious hall. The field sealed up as he did so, not even a gap to slip in a particle if dust left open.

          The team watched Brennan jog down the hallway. He had a freeness of movement, a distinct drop in the shoulders, of a weight long added let go.

          Jane marched for the opening. "Better get in before it closes on us, and catch up to our man before he finds something he doesn't like." She penetrated the field, a sinking feeling in her gut despite the ease of transition.

          She felt all sorts of wrongdoing was soon to engulf them.