“Aaaa.. aaw…” Celeste managed to squeak despite von Wartenburg’s mystical command. Dumb galoot, she thought as she glared at him. You grow up with as many brothers and sisters as I did and ain’t nobody gonna stifle your voice.

“I have only one further question for you,” he said sternly. “Have any of your companions mentioned an ancient artifact, or have they spoken of a culture that once called itself Atlantis? You may speak now.”

She was certain he threw in the last sentence to cover for his spell’s inability to bind her voice.  “Aaaa… awright, buster,” she demanded as her words came flooding back to her. “Nobody shuts me up like that. What’d you do to me?”

“You will answer my question now.”

“Wrong, buster, you’re gonna answer my question. You can order me to shut my yap, but you can’t force me to talk. See what I mean? So you tell me how you do that voodoo you do and then maybe I’ll stop being too mad to sing like a canary.”

Von Wartenburg, as expressionless as ever, used a key to open his gun case. He selected a luger, loaded it, and turned back towards her. The pistol wasn’t pointed at her, but it wasn’t quite pointed away from her, either.

“I compelled you by means of the Atlantean language,” he said. “Every creature on this planet is neurologically evolved to understand and respond to that language. Perhaps even a simpleton such as you can see what that implies about the power of these ancient ones. Now, before I demonstrate the full might of these words, you will tell me if you ever overheard your betters speak of the Atlanteans.”

“You got a politeness problem, you know that?” Celeste shook her head. “But, in answer to your question: nope, I don’t think so. That is, Professor Scrumtumbler kept talking about his theory that some people from the olden-days built something he called the Hollow Earth. But he was expecting to find a big cave, I think. Not this place.”

Von Wartenburg’s eyes narrowed. “How did he know of the existence of the Hollow Earth?”

Celeste shrugged. “He theorized it, I guess. You know: he just made it up.”

Von Wartenburg snorted and slid his luger into his belt pouch. “Guard,” he called. “Take this one to the brig. I have business to attend to below.”

Although this military zeppelin was much larger than the luxury airship she once took from Hollywood to New York, Celeste was beginning to discover that it lacked all of the amenities of its civilian counterpart. The interior hallways were lit by naked bulbs instead of elegant electrical lamps. The deck was bare metal instead of plush carpet. The chairs were hard and rigid instead of soft and cushioned. The worst thing, aside from the pervading smell of oil and iron, was the color scheme, which couldn’t even be called a color scheme because everything was gray. The walls were battleship gray, the floors were gunmetal gray, and the uniforms were storm-cloud gray. The only thing that wasn’t gray was the commandant, who wore all black from his leather hat down to his polished boots.

“Why are you here?” von Wartenburg demanded. He spoke in English, his words showing almost no accent and even less emotion.

“I’m here because your goons grabbed me in the jungle and, listen, none of this is our fault. It was those monsters out in the jungle that killed your men when all we wanted was—”

“Silence,” von Wartenburg barked.

“But it wasn’t our fault! That bigger monster that came after me didn’t like my screaming. Also, there was a bear. Did I mention the bear?”

“SILENCE.” This time von Wartenburg spoke in that strange language of his, the one that he had used on Celeste in the cargo bay to force her to drop her knife. Just like before, she understood it perfectly even though she had never heard the word until that moment. Also like before, she was powerless to resist the command. She tried to protest, but when she opened her mouth she could not make even a squeak.

“I had hoped that your physical beauty indicated superior breeding,” von Wartenburg said with all the emotion of a doctor discussing birth defect statistics. “But now I see that you lack the intelligence of a common sow.”

While she worked her jaw in mute frustration, he pushed back from the desk and strode to the window, a small porthole that overlooked the ancient city below. Grabbing a desktop microphone, he spoke commands that were echoed across the jungle through the zeppelin’s PA system. When he was satisfied that his soldiers below were carrying out his orders, he set down the microphone and strode to a decorative glass case containing a selection of German-made pistols.

Celeste strained against the invisible strings that seemed to bind her larynx. “Aa…,” she managed. “Aaaa…”

It was hardly louder than the squeak of a mouse, but it made von Wartenburg’s eyes widen a fraction of an inch. With such an impassive face, he might have made a great poker player, but Celeste had studied human expression for too many years to miss the clue. It told her that von Wartenburg was surprised she was able to get out any sound at all. Although she had uttered nothing more than a syllable, it proved that she could resist his sorcery and defy his will.

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.

The other soldier backed off, raising his palms to show submission. Her hostage made a timid attempt to break free, but Celeste held the steel point against the soldier’s Adam’s apple and felt his body go rigid in fear.

“Okay, now what?” She asked herself, knowing that they didn’t understand English and trying to keep the tremor in her voice to a minimum. “Let me think. Let me think—okay, I got it. You,” she laid the flat of the blade against soldier’s throat and pulled him backwards, closer to the exit hatch. “You must know how to fly that plane out there. You’re going to buzz us out to safety. And then—then we’ll trade you for Jack. A prisoner exchange. That should work. After that, I can get in the drilling machine and just go home—”

She stopped when she saw a figure looming in the doorway behind the other soldier. This new person was silhouetted against the hallway behind him, but Celeste could see that he was over six feet tall, with a sweeping black coat and an officer’s cap.

The second soldier turned to the figure in the doorway. “C-commandant…” He stammered in surprise and terror. Celeste shrank backwards, instinctively afraid. This must surely be von Wartenburg, the man who struck supernatural fear into the hearts of the slaves throughout the city below—not to mention his own troops.

Von Wartenburg backhanded the soldier nearest him as casually as one might swat at a fly. The smaller man crumpled to the metal deck, holding the side of his bruised face with a quivering and unsteady hand. Like a well-trained dog, he would not rise until his master gave him permission.

The commandant took a single step forward into the cargo bay, his heavy boot producing a resounding thud on the deck. Light from the portholes now illuminated his face, allowing Celeste to see that his grey eyes looked to be made of steel while his square jaw might have been cut from stone for all the emotion it displayed. A thin fencing scar ran down his right cheek, so old now it was hardly visible. He seemed to be a man in his forties, but with an athletic physique that served to amplify the menace of his black uniform.

“Drop the knife,” he said in cold, precise English.

Celeste tightened her fingers around the pommel and pressed the tip deeper into her prisoner’s neck. She knew perfectly well that without that knife and without that hostage, she would have nothing between her and von Wartenburg.

“RELINQUISH,” von Wartenburg said again. This time, he didn’t speak in English, and it wasn’t German, either. Celeste wasn’t sure what language it was, and yet she understood the meaning deeply, intuitively, the way a person understands fear and love without words because they come from a place deeper than words can take root.

With all her might, Celeste gripped the knife, clinging to it as if it were her own life. But when von Wartenburg spoke that one resounding word, her fingers uncurled and the blade clattered to the deck.

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.

Before the guard could blow his whistle, the slaves hurled their stones at him. One struck his hand, knocking his rifle to the ground. Another clanged against his helmet with such a resounding thump that Jack could hear it from inside his cage, thirty yards away.

Sergeant Schmidt fired his rifle into the crowd of rebelling natives. One of the dark-skinned, red-haired men clutched his chest and fell, but the rest surged forward. Once these men broke free, Jack knew that they could release others to join their cause, who would release still more of their fellows until all the chains were broken. It was like watching the dam as the moment of ruptured as it spilled the first torrents that would soon become a flood of fury to wash the jungle free of the Nazi menace.

“HALT!” The word echoed out of the sky like thunder, and for an instant Jack thought it must be God himself issuing the order. But it was not: the resonant, commanding voice spoke through a loudspeaker aboard the zeppelin. Somehow, Jack knew this was the voice of von Wartenburg, the Nazi commandant who was so widely rumored to be a sorcerer.

When the rebelling slaves heard this voice, they froze in mid-step, their rocks, sticks, and other make-shift weapons still held aloft and their faces paused in their moment of seething anger. Yet there they stood, suddenly unwilling or unable to attack.

“KNEEL,” boomed von Wartenburg’s voice.

The slaved did not argue or question. They simply slid to their knees—all of them, in unison, as if they had been practicing it this way.

Jack stared in amazement. He didn’t know what language the commandant was speaking—it wasn’t German and it wasn’t English, yet somehow Jack recognized the sounds and even understood the meanings of the words. It was like the syllables triggered some primal instinct in his brain and called up deep impulses from somewhere below his conscious being. The commands felt physical, as if his muscles were tied to invisible strings and von Wartenburg were the puppeteer.

Other soldiers ran to the scene, keeping their weapons trained on the kneeling slaves. A medic tended to the wounded guard and Schmidt slung his rifle back over his shoulder and returned to pushing Jack’s wheeled cage with perfect nonchalance.

“How did he do that?” Jack asked desperately, pressing his face between the iron-hard bars. “Why would they obey those commands?”

“I told you,” Schmidt said. “Ze natives belieff Herr Doktor von Wartenburg iz a sorcerer.” He smiled then, showing off a broken incisor. “And I belieff zey are correkt.”

Schmidt pushed Jack through the arched doorway of the domed building. As he passed through the threshold, he heard the shots of a mass firing squad putting a final end to the thwarted rebellion.

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.

They told Jack that he would get into the cage or he would be shot, but Jack refused. Then they told him he would get into the cage or the girl would be shot. Begrudgingly, he climbed inside and allowed them to chain the door shut. Gripping the bars, he found that the cage had been constructed from some kind of wood that looked like black bamboo but was as strong as iron. There would be no escape for him, not until they let him out.

His cage was wheeled out of the command post by Sergeant Schmidt, a heavily muscled man with a flattened nose and the kind of eyebrow-scaring that can only come from a lifetime of boxing. His long arms, massive chest, and slightly stumpy legs combined to make him look like a shorn gorilla in an ill-fitting gray uniform.

Schmidt may have been a brute, but he was also one of the few members of the German expedition who spoke English. The trouble was that he only used his language skills when his words might cause discomfort to his prisoner. When Jack demanded to know what they were planning for Celeste, the big man’s only answer was stony silence. When Jack asked if any other members of their expedition had been found, Schmidt was continued to ignore him. Only when Jack asked where he was being taken did Schmidt crack a crooked grin.

“You go someplace fun,” he said in broken English. “Fun for us—not fun for you.”

Jack grabbed his bars again and gave them a test shake. They didn’t budge. Then he looked up at the worn path they were taking through the ancient cobbled streets. They seemed to be heading towards a large, domed building the size of Rome’s Coliseum. Along the left-hand side of the street, a chain gang of men in loincloths labored to move stones and rubble away from an intersection. A single Nazis guard oversaw their efforts.

Jack looked up at his Schmidt’s ugly face and decided that if he couldn’t rattle his own cage, he could at least try to rattle his guard. “Hey,” Jack said to him. “Looks like you’re going to have a slave rebellion on your hands.”

Sergeant Schmidt snorted derisively.

“Really. Look. You’re outnumbered twenty to one. I’m amazed they haven’t turned on you yet.”

Schmidt kept pushing the wheeled cage. “Zey belieff Commandant von Wartenburg to be a…” he paused, evidently searching for the right word in English. “…a sorcerer. Zat is vat zey belieff.”

Jack needed a minute to puzzle through the thick accent, but then decided he didn’t see how slaves believing that the German commander was a sorcerer would really hold off a rebellion. Yet before he could ask another question, a flash of motion caught his eye.

Thirty paces away, the group of road-workers turned on their captors. At some unseen signal, they scooped up the stones that they had been clearing and rushed their guard.

Jack wouldn’t need to ask any more questions about how the Nazis kept their slaves under control. He was about to have a ringside seat to see it in action.

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.

“Our operation is systematic and thorough,” the Nazi lieutenant said, just a bit defensively. “It is only a matter of time before we find what we seek. We have no need for you.”

Maia leaned back in her chair, the picture of nonchalance. “I’ve excavated more tombs than the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, and I’m only half as corrupt. So here’s the deal: you give me free access—are you writing this down?—you give me free access to the under-city and I find the trinket you want. Oh, but I get to keep everything else I can carry out of there.”

The lieutenant rubbed his big chin while studying her expression. Perhaps he was searching for signs of doubt or deceit, or maybe he was just wondering how to get out of this interrogation with his pride intact.

“Commandant von Wartenburg,” he said in a low, serious tone. “He will not like this offer.”

“Not your problem,” Maia tapped the report form with her finger. “Your job is to pass along my offer. Here, let me see the report to make sure you’ve spelled everything correctly.”

The lieutenant snatched the paper away and finished it where she couldn’t see it. Rather petulant, she thought, but at least he finished the paperwork.

Evidently, some ambient effect of this region interfered with radio communication, so the Nazis had assembled a small pool of message-runner slaves who had been deemed too infirm for heavy labor. The lieutenant waved over one of them, a white-bearded man, who accepted the report timidly and limped to a platform connected to the zeppelin by long ropes. The wobbling platform was then winched up into the zeppelin’s belly fifty feet overhead. It was a painfully slow process, and the whole while the frightened old man clung like a frightened gecko to the shaking ropes.

The minutes dragged on while Maia waited for Commandant von Wartenburg to come to a decision. From the hushed tones with which the soldiers spoke of him, Maia was beginning to realize that the Commandant struck as much fear into his own soldiers as he did in his slaves. That was bad news: it meant he would drive a hard bargain.  The truth was, finding whatever specific trinket the Nazis were after would be like finding a needle in a dank, dark underground labyrinth. All she wanted was a free pass to snoop around under the city and pocket some long-buried gold, but maybe it wasn’t worth it. She had asked for a hundred percent of her findings, but if the commandant offered her anything less than forty, she would have to walk away.

A scream broke the still air and Maia turned in time to witness a man fall from the zeppelin. With a sickening thud, the figure smashed into the ground and lay still, and only then did Maia recognize the white-bearded slave.

Maia was the first person at the old man’s side, but his broken body was beyond saving. A moment later, the lantern-jawed lieutenant shoved her to the side, then fished a piece of paper out of the dead man’s satchel.

“What is it?” she asked breathlessly. “What happened?”

“It appears the commandant has given you his answer,” the lieutenant said, handing her the paper.

Maia saw that it was the same official report they had sent up to the zeppelin. A box at the bottom of the page bore the commandant’s orders, written in pristine handwriting:

SHE WILL FIND THE ITEM OR SHE WILL BE SHOT.

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