The Rules Of Chaos

Phase Two- The Rules of Order

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.