The Rules Of Chaos

Phase One- The Rules...

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.