“Captain Boone,” Dr. Scott said to her as he emerged from Reinhardt’s library. “He wants to see you now, Captain Boone.”

Kate grimaced and studied the doctor’s innocent face. She guessed that it probably hadn’t occurred to him that their host may have already alerted his superiors. Even as they walked down the hallway, a platoon of Nazis might be encircling the quaint little house.

Nodding, Kate made her way into the library. Like the rest of the house, the library was trim and tidy, with wood paneling and tasteful alpine-rustic furnishings. Three of the walls were lined with bookshelves. The fourth wall contained a painting of a snow-capped mountain and an ornate clock, the kind powered by a web of miniscule gears and hidden springs to make a wooden bird pop out and sing while miniature wooden skiers spin around the base. The sight of that clock made her want to strap Reinhardt into her co-pilot seat and do barrel rolls until he screamed.

Professor Reinhardt sat directly below the clock, a large, scuffed leather suitcase at his feet. He smiled at her in a way that made his white eyebrows rise up on his tall forehead.

“I have a gift for you,” he said.

“Does that gift involve turning us over to your Thule buddies or your Nazi masters?”

He shook his head sadly. “Please do not assume that all Germans are Nazis. Our people suffer greatly under Hitler’s rule, and if we ever go to war…” he seemed unable to speak the unspeakable.

“I’m not here to talk politics,” Kate said. “Someone swiped my professor. I aim to find out who, and I aim to get him back.”

“I can help you with both of those things,” he leaned back and fumbled in his pocket for an wooden pipe and a pouch of tobacco. He glanced up at her and seemed to change his mind. “Professor Scrumtumbler was a good friend of mine. A most unreliable man, but nonetheless a good friend and a valuable professional associate.”

“You’re a scientist too?” she asked. “Did you know him through that Prometheus Club?”

“I? No, frauline, I am not a member of the Order of Prometheus. I am an archeologist by training, which is not the type of science practiced by the Order. No, I knew Scrumtumbler during his association with a different organization, one that throws a broader net across the academic disciplines. I knew Scrumtumbler when he belonged to the Thule Society.”

Kate leaned over the small kitchen table and anxiously tapped her holster. She didn’t trust the man called Erich Reinhardt and she didn’t enjoy being a guest in his home. The others might have been taken in by his little-old-man demeanor, but all she saw was a German, and the last Germans she met had been firing fifty caliber shells in her direction.

It was Dr. Scott who had insisted that they come here. After refueling in Rio, she had flown them for a day and a night across over the Atlantic. (This one’s for you, Ms. Earhart, Kate thought as she caught sight of Africa on the horizon.) They touched down in Egypt and then turned north, crossing into Austrian airspace by night. Throughout the flight, Dr. Scott had assured them that Reinhardt was trustworthy because he, like Professor Scrumtumbler, was a member of the Order of Prometheus. But he was also a member of the Thule Society, and Kate wasn’t ready to trust anyone who had willingly joined that fuehrer-hailing pack of academics and thugs.

Reggie and Clem were currently reclined on the old man’s couches, happily snoring away their supper of bratwurst and home-brewed hefeweizen. They didn’t seem to think that Reinhardt’s nationality was an important detail, which blinded them to the possibility that if this little old man could be a double agent working against the Thules, he could just as easily be a triple agent working for them.

Kate sniffed her portion of the dessert strudel. She had eaten dinner, but only after seeing her host take a bite of each item. Reinhardt had retired with Dr. Scott immediately after serving the strudel, so she had not witnessed him sample it. For all she knew, it was laced with knock-out poison, and that’s why Reggie and Clem were sleeping so soundly right now. Then again, a long flight and a large meal would put anyone to sleep, so maybe it was on the level.

She leaned in and sniffed the dessert. It smelled sweet and delicious and she was tempted to take a bite. Just to test it. Just to see if the strawberry jam was as scrumptious as it seemed. But then she reminded herself that this was the confection of her enemy.

It might as well be sauerkraut, she thought as she pushed the plate away from her.

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you’re new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning.

Kate Boone dove to the floor as the bullets tore holes in the door and shattered the windows above her. Reggie kicked the door closed and then crouched down, carefully balancing his breakfast plate in his hands.

The men by the truck opened up with another burst of machinegun fire that almost cut the door in half. Wood splinters and glass shards rained down on them—and onto Reggie’s plate of food.

“Those guys aren’t kidding around this time!” he said, staring in horror at the mound of scrambled eggs now made inedible by the debris.

Dr. Scott stepped in from the kitchen, the mop still in his hands and a horrified look on his face. Kate sprang to her feet and ushered the doctor back the way he came.

“My research!” Dr. Scott yelled, pushing past her on his way to the stairs.

Reggie blocked the way with his husky frame “Sorry, doc. We gotta get out of this house before we end up looking like Swiss cheese.”

“Everybody out to the plane!” Kate ordered.

“Where’d Clem go?” Reggie asked. Nobody had an answer.

Kate dashed out the back door and over the open ground. The gunmen noticed her as she rounded the corner of the barn, and a hail of bullets kicked up the dust just behind her feet.

The airplane was parked behind the barn, but now the gunmen were watching that side of the house. Reggie knew he would never make it across the fifty yards of open, sun-blistered ground.

“Cover us!” Reggie called to Kate.

Kate must have heard him, because she popped back around the corner of the barn, taking aim with her one good eye.

By the truck, one of the two men scrambled to undo the ties to the cargo cover while the other fired the last three bullets from his sub-machinegun and then fluidly ejected the magazine. Kate’s Mauser pistol used rifle-grade ammunition, which gave her the advantage at this range. Her first shot kicked up a dust cloud at the man’s foot as he readied his new magazine and sprayed bullets in her direction. His shots fanned out uselessly; her next two shots found his chest and knocked him to the ground. The second man seized another gun from the truck bed, but Kate’s fire drove him under cover.

Reggie ran for it, hauling Dr. Scott behind him by the sleeve of his white lab coat.

Then the thing in the cargo bed knocked the canvas off itself with a huge steel hand. When Reggie saw what it was, he stumbled and fell to the dry ground.

It was all metal, pistons, and rivets, and it might have been mistaken for an armored car except that it walked upright on two stumpy legs that kicked up clouds of dust with each heavy step. Its blocky torso was armor-plated and adorned with a Swastika-and-dagger motif, and where it might have had a head it bore only a flat hatch a series of view-slits. Its arms were steel and iron girders bound by complicated joints that hissed and hummed as they moved. One of those arms ended in a crude fist, and the other bore a multi-barrel machinegun.

The huge gun swiveled to point directly at Reggie, its barrels spinning to life.

“Unbelievable,” Reggie coughed. “Where’s my camera when I need it?”

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you’re new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning.

Reggie Sparks scooped Dr. Scott’s special scrambled eggs into his mouth. Strangely, the others didn’t seem quite so eager to try the neon-orange eggs produced by mutant, carnivorous chickens.

Reggie watched Clem and Kate Boone daintily push their food around on their plates without actually eating any. (Evidently, Reggie noted, Kate Boone was not such a daredevil when it came to her food.) They hadn’t eaten any of the fried “chicken” at dinner the night before, either.

It just means more for me, Reggie thought as he speared another link of chicken sausage from the serving plate. It did, after all, taste like chicken.

“So let me get this straight,” he said through his mouthful of food. “You scientists have a secret society?”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” Dr. Scott said, dabbing the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “It’s not secret so much as it is…esoteric. Think of us as a professional organization. Invitation only. We call ourselves the Order of Prometheus. Professor Scrumtumbler was a member—”

“Is a member,” Kate cut in. “We’re going to find him and bring him home safely.”

“Yeah, anyway,” Reggie pressed on. “What you’re saying, Dr. Scott, is that this is why the Nazis are after you. They’ve been kidnapping or bumping off the other scientists and your name was next on the roster with the Order of—whatchamacallit—of the Phoenix?”

“Order of Prometheus,” Dr. Scott corrected. “These events are being driven by an organization within the Nazi party, a very influential group that calls itself the Thule Society. They’ve dedicated themselves to giving Hitler a monopoly on both technological and occult knowledge.”

“I gotta tell you,” Reggie waved the half-eaten sausage at the end of his fork. “This would make a dynamite screenplay. Any other secret societies out there we should know about?”

Before Dr. Scott could answer, Clem reached out with the hand bearing the eye-in-triangle tattoo and knocked over the carafe of orange juice. Everyone beat a hasty retreat from the table before the rivers of juice found their laps. Only Reggie managed to rescue his plate so that he could keep eating.

While Dr. Scott went to retrieve a mop from the kitchen, Kate scooped her food back into the serving dishes.

“We need to decide what to do next,” she said. “We slowed them down in Nevada, but it’s only a matter of time before these Thule creeps catch up to us.”

“But Dr. Scott doesn’t want to leave his research,” Reggie said. “He said so last night—hey, is that a car coming up the road?”

Popping the last of his sausage into his mouth, Reggie moved to the front room and peered out the window. He saw a large cargo truck pull around in the lawn so its bumper faced the house. Two men in grey business suits hustled out of the cab to work at the straps holding the canvas cover onto something large and lumpy in the truck’s cargo area.

“Looks like the Thule goons found us,” Reggie said, spitting a few flakes of sausage as he spoke. “What do you want to bet we don’t want to find out what they’ve got in the back of that truck?”

Kate strode past him and flung open the door. As soon as she did, machinegun fire ripped into the house.

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com