snout opened ever so slightly and allowed
a reptilian hiss to escape. In a desperate
panic, the native guide charged the croc,
causing it open its ever-gaping maw. The
guide moved swiftly to jam his walking stick
between the upper and lower jaw of the great
lizard, rendering the beast unable to bite.
Infuriated by this, the crocodile mustered
all the strength in its jaw and snapped the
obfuscating walking stick as if it were a dry
twig. The native guide then proceeded to be
swallowed whole, down into the gullet of the
animal.
Stuttz did not believe the croc to be sated,
despite the human outline now in the belly
of the beast. It eyed him with eyes cold and
devoid of emotion. They appeared as two
black pools, darkened voids which stared
back at Wash. The giant reptile was rattled
and it knew that he was there, making Stuttz
a potential threat. Steeling himself, Wash
drew his mace and prepared for the worst.
First came its tail with a broad slash just
slightly over his head. Stuttz jumped back a
e
good six feet, narrowly avoiding connection
with the spiny appendage. The second time
around he was not so lucky. The tail swung
back and slapped into Wash’s hand with
pl
surprising force. He watched helplessly as
the mace rolled away and into the green,
bushy, undergrowth of Zanzibar. The lizard
moved swiftly towards him, mouth agape
just as it had done with its previous victim.
Empty-handed combat between a Harvard
m
professor and a giant crocodile; sounded fair
to Wash.
With fight-or-flight instincts fully in place,
Washington Stuttz leaped onto the crocodile’s
head. The head was essentially flat and
made for a perfect springboard. Wash was
Sa
able to propel himself to the animal’s rear
flank in order to grab hold of its tail. A
wrestling match of evolutionary proportions
commenced. Reptile versus mammal. Cold,
indifferent blood versus hot, American blood.
As expected, the crocodile put up a fierce
fight. It flipped. It snapped. But Wash
eventually was able to twist its tail enough
to render it completely upon its back. Now
came the most harrowing and treacherous
part. Could he remember how to do it? He
had seen it done once before at the World’s
Fair in New York. You pin a gator down and
15
then gently rub its abdomen until it falls
asleep. Of course this was a crocodile…and a
big one at that. Still, there was little choice.
As a mother would to a child with a tummy
ache, Washington Stuttz brushed, rubbed,
smoothed, and even caressed the stomach of
the croc. He fought the urge to twitch and
retch as his hand moved over the outline of
the native guide, being slowly digested within
the animal’s stomach. Eventually, the reptile
massage paid its benefits and the crocodile
collapsed, fast asleep.
e
Wash followed suit. He fell backward into
the grass as a spent shell casing on the
battlefield of the wild.
fil
Through the tropical foliage and across the
flimsiest of rope and plank board bridges,
Re-Zal Evad led Danner and Pentecost on a
most precarious trail that they could only
hope would end in finding their colleague, Dr.
Stuttz.
“Hurry! Hurry!” Evad encouraged them,
even as the rope bridge began to give and
buckle under their weight. “This way!”
“And how exactly did you find out that he
was here?” Veronica asked as she fought to
keep her footing.
“I bribed one of the local officials!” Re-
Zal said as if he simply wanted the line of
questioning to end. “Now we must hurry!”
End of bridge reached, the shores of Indian
Ocean could be seen ahead with the sun
setting in the distance. As fast as his stubby
legs could carry his rotund body, Re-Zal
ran to what appeared to be a log in the
brush upon which a figure was splayed in
exhaustion.
“Wash!” Chase exclaimed as soon as he
recognized the figure and then joined Re-Zal
in the beach foot race.
Much to everyone’s surprise, it was not a log
that Wash was upon, but rather a sleeping
African crocodile. Stuttz was barely conscious,
his mumbled and barely audible babble were
made all the more incoherent by the proximity
of the jungle noises. Chase urged him to keep
still and quiet while he administered a canteen
of water to him and cautiously dragged him
away from the deadly reptile.
“What the hell happened to him?” Veronica
asked as she arrived on the scene, observing
Wash’s torn clothes and bloody scrapes. “Is
he going to live?”
“He will live as long as the rest of you,
fraulein, which I’m afraid is not very long,”
came a sneering voice on the beach behind
them.
Veronica spun on her feet, her handgun
drawn and at the ready, only to find that
they were surrounded by soldiers holding
rifles who were dressed in entirely gray
uniforms and bearing the red and black
emblem of the swastika upon their lapels.
On their backs were metal gizmos the likes of
which neither Veronica nor Chase had ever
seen before. Standing amidst these troops
was a triumphant Col. Leermeister, smiling
like a fisherman who had just caught a prize
trout. Bitterly resigned, both Chase and
Veronica raised their hands in surrender
as the barrels of each rifle pointed towards
them.
“My name is Leermeister and I am Colonel
e
in the Fourth Reich. I have pursued you
halfway across the globe, mein freunde. At
last, I may stop chasing,” Leermeister said
calmly. “You have done well, Evad.”
pl
With that Re-Zal Evad took his place at
Leermeister’s side, stunning the ones who
were once in his charge.
“Money is in my account now, yes?” Evad
asked. Col. Leermeister nodded affirmatively.
m
“There’s two things in the world I hate,
Daddy-O,” Chase said to Re-Zal. “Nazis and
traitors…and you gone and done did both of
‘em.”
“Enough!” the Colonel hushed. “It is time for
Sa
us to depart.”
Having said that, Col. Leermeister removed
a flashlight from his belt and pointed it into
the darkening sky. After flashing as series
of timed pulses from the hand-held light
into the sky, a response of similar flashing
occurred. Then came a low, rumbling sound,
as if the sky were about to become filled with
large airplanes. But no such thing occurred.
Instead, a large blimp came into view
overhead…a blimp that bore the swastika
emblazoned upon its canvas side.
16
“Come!” Leermeister barked. “We depart for
New Berlin!”
Despite Veronica’s obvious repulsion to their
hands, the soldiers took hold of her and
Chase and Wash, just before demonstrating
that the contraptions on their backs were in
reality rocket packs that would hoist them
into the air and into the gondola of the Nazi
Zeppelin. Where they would go to from
there…none could say.
***
e
NEW YORK CITY
“Dr. Fleming!” Westinghouse said sharply
as he entered the wood-paneled room that
fil
had once been another study of his but
was now an impromptu laboratory for Dr.
Campbell Fleming, who was waving his hands
defensively in response to his name being
called.
“Not now, Westy!” Fleming pleaded in a
manner resembling an epileptic seizure.
“I’m up to my ass in alligators!” With that,
Jonathan returned his full attention to the
tuning knob of one of his devices.
“As is the rest of the world, Doctor. I’ve
just received word that Bombay, India has
just been toppled by a severe earthquake.
What is the status of our adventurers?”
Westinghouse asked.
“That’s just it!” Fleming explained. “I don’t
know! Maybe they’re alive…maybe they’ve
met an ill-fate. I don’t know…because I can
no longer get into contact with their wrist
communicators!”
Sterling Westinghouse paused briefly and
allowed his gaze to drift while he mentally
measured what his chief scientist had just
told him. If the expedition of the three was
indeed lost, then whoever was responsible
for these insidious earthquakes had already
won.
“You may have just written the world’s
epitaph, Dr. Fleming,” Westinghouse said
somberly.
HOW LONG CAN THE WORLD HOLD OUT
AGAINST THE EARTHQUAKE DEVICE? WHAT
WILL BE THE FATE OF OUR CAPTURED
HEROES? HAVE THE NAZIS RISEN FROM
THE ASHES TO AGAIN TORMENT THE
WORLD?
***
ANTARCTICA
Silently and effortlessly, the Nazi blimp glided
above the frozen wastes. Securely fastened
aircraft hangar. And what aircraft it housed!
Chase’s jaw dropped as his eyes fell upon
them for never before had he seen their level
of sophistication. Some were jets shaped
as batwings, others as saucers (explaining
to him the source of what people had been
calling UFO’s. Little did the world know
they weren’t from little green men, but from
men more evil even than the Commies), and
others were…yes they were! They had to be!
They were rocketships, on launch pads placed
beneath silo doors in the rocky ceiling and
pointing towards outer space!

e
to a chair in the gondola, Washington Stuttz
looked down at the mountains of ice and
swirling snows. Below him was the coldest “Damn,” Chase said with a long whistle. “I’d
continent on earth. Temperatures were give my right nut to fly one of those babies.”
regularly well into the hundreds below zero,

fil
“When exactly did your people invade
any exposed human skin would freeze on
Antarctica, Colonel?” asked Veronica
contact with the frigid air, and with nothing
Pentecost as they were ushered into warmer
but white in all directions, it would be so
parts of the hangar. Technicians and
simple to become lost. There would be no
mechanics still moved about, shouting at each
means of escape for Stuttz and his crew this
other in German.
time.
“We’ve been here for a very long time,
“Don’t be so glum, Jack. I hear it’s nice
fraulein,” laughed Leermeister.
e
down there, this time of year,” came the voice
of Chase Danner, the man who was chained
next to him and reading the creased copy of
On The Road that he carried with him.
SS troopers on guard snapped to attention
and raised a flat palm upward as Leermeister
approached victoriously with the prisoners.
pl
the guards stood aside and allowed heavy
“Sure…if you call over a hundred degrees
doors to move away, revealing an entryway
below zero ‘nice,’” Wash said with a sullen
over which hung a swastika-bearing flag.
tenor.
“Quite an igloo you got here, Colonel,” Wash
“Sounds cold,” remarked Veronica Pentecost
remarked as his eyes wandered about. “Like
who was likewise chained to a nearby chair.
something out of Buck Rogers.”
m

“We’ll just have to keep each other warm,

won’t we Chase?” “This is all from technology invented by the
Reich years ago,” boasted Leermeister as he
The Nazis dispersed parkas to the prisoners
led them through metallic hallways, dotted
and soon the blimp descended and attached
occasionally with electronic access panels
itself to a gantry tower born skyward
and glorious portraits of Hitler. “Once you
out of the snow and anchored in a metal
had invaded France in 1944, we knew that
Sa

platform. The entire area around the tower

we were kaput in Europe. So into U-boats
was bustling with activity as the Germans
went our most secret technologies, our most
had apparently carved an airbase out of the
brilliant scientists, and our most elite troops.
ice of the Antarctic shelf. Snow crawlers
All of them brought here to the South Pole to
and tanks scurried about with mechanics as
build this Neuschwabenland that you see here
Leermeister brought his captives down to the
today.
metal platform via elevator.
“And while you stupid Americans occupied
At the edge of the apron platform was a
yourselves with your ridiculous victory
gaping black mouth that formed the entrance
parades, we were building rockets,”
to a cave. As the troops plodded them along
Leermeister said with a sly sneer. “And jet-
in a hurry to get out of the cold air, Chase
powered aircraft that far surpass any of the
could see that the cave stretched deeply
‘kites’ in your arsenal.”
into the recess of the ground. But what’s
more, the cave served as an improvisational

17
“This guy’s startin’ to bug me, Wash,” Chase
said in anger as he attempted to wriggle
loose of his captors. Stuttz cautioned him
to remain as he was and allow for time to
formulate a proper escape plan.
“I think you’ll find that the wings of liberty
haven’t lost a feather, Herr Jack,” Stuttz
bragged with all confidence. “America and
her allies stopped you once before and we
can do it again.”
“Ja? How interesting…” the Colonel smiled
menacingly as he brought the prisoners
to a halt by a closed door. “This time,
Deutschland has allies of her own…and we’ve
recently made an arrangement that will have
most dire consequences indeed for America.”
With that, the Nazi opened the door. On the
other side was a chamber that resembled
a dining room, complete with a long and
grandiose table with chairs and place settings
all around. At the head of the table was
a man in purple robes, a bald man with a
sharp goatee and pointed ears. Slowly, the
e
sinister being began to clap his hands…a
considerable feat given his sickeningly long
fingernails.
pl
“Welcome, Americans,” he said with an accent
that was vaguely Oriental. “I am Xan, an
emissary from the kingdom of Hyperborea.”
This announcement was met with only an
exchange of dumb looks and disaffected
silence from our heroes.
m
“Of course, I should not expect you to
know of where I’m from,” Xan said smugly.
“Please sit. Our mid-day meal will be served
shortly.”
The Nazi troopers shoved the prisoners to
Sa
their places at the table. Resigned, Wash,
Chase, and Veronica each sat down and
unfolded their napkins.
“Hyperborea is a civilization which exists
many miles beneath the Earth’s crust,” Xan
explained. “Unbeknownst to your pitiful
scholars, an entrance to this kingdom lies
below the ice of this continent. We recently
encountered Nazi scouting parties and
though our rapport was tenuous at first, we
eventually came to find that we have…mutual
aspirations.”
18
“Namely, world domination,” Leermeister
said as he raised his recently filled flute of
champagne.
As if on cue, the sound of thunder rocked
the dining room and rattled all glasses and
dinner plates on the table. For Veronica, the
telltale shockwaves were far too akin to those
she had felt in New York.
“Earthquake!” she cried as she attempted to
crawl under the table, but was denied by Nazi
guards.
e
“No, no, silly frau,” Leermeister cackled.
“That is a squadron of our X-Jets, returning
from patrol, no doubt.”
fil
“Man, I ain’t never heard engines like those
on a plane before,” Chase marveled in awe to
the sound of the Nazi jets.
“I would wager that there are a great many
things here that you have never seen before,”
Xan mused.
“Yeah, like an earthquake device,” interjected
Wash, attempting to bring the matter
to a head. “What exactly do you hope
to accomplish by bringing that kind of
destruction to the world’s cities?”
“Oh certainly I have now made our goals
most clear, Dr. Stuttz,” the sinister man from
beneath the earth pompously stated. “Unless
the nations of the world turn total control
over to Hyperborea…and of course the
Fourth Reich…we will level every major city
on the surface world in less than two days.”
“You fiend!” cursed Stuttz as he stood to
vault over the table and wring Xan’s olive-
toned neck. He was impeded however by
Chase’s outstretched arm. This prompted
only laughter from Xan and Leermeister.
“A pity, this aggression of yours, Dr. Stuttz.
You all could become part of the genesis of
the new world order,” offered Xan with a
fingernail thoughtfully poised at his lips.
“Hey I might not be a church-going, cookie-
baking, Donna Reed kinda gal,” Veronica
began, incensed. “But this girl stands for
only the good ol’ red, white, and blue!”
“No dice, square,” Chase concurred.
“Very well then,” a contemplative Xan replied
before pressing a button on his ornate
belt. “I shall have you now meet a few of
our other creations who escort you to your
cells…where you will await whatever form of
execution we deem most amusing.”
At that, the door to the dining hall slid
open…and six killer penguins entered the
room.
Yes! Killer penguins! Ordinary Emperor
penguins of the Antarctic now had rows of
razor-sharp, piranha-like teeth in their beaks
and heavy weapons held in their modified
flippers. Around their waists were belts
laden with ammunition clips and grenades.
The penguin in the lead of the formation
leveled his heavy rifle at the three captives
and opened his beak for the first time and
spoke:
“Eep!”
After being herded and corralled by the
killer penguins into a frigid jail cell, Stuttz,
Pentecost, and Danner had no course of
wait.
e
action but to sit and wait…and wait…and
“This is driving me crazy!” Wash exclaimed
pl
as he stood up to pace, frustration finally
getting the better of him. “I can’t just sit
here! We’ve got to do something!”
“You’re flippin’ out, man!” Chase hollered
back. “There’s nothing we can do right now,
so let’s use our marbles to come up with
m
a plan!” And all the while, Veronica sat
silently, seemingly oblivious to their rant.
“Oh yoo-hoo!” a girly voice called from down
the hallway. Re-Zal Evad entered the brig to
stand before their cell and taunt sadistically.
His corpulent form had been squeezed into
Sa
the accoutrements of an American teenager.
“Re-Zal! You’re lucky I don’t tear through
these bars and stomp on your head while
cryin’ cocka-li-doodle-lee-doo!” Chase said
with his hands firmly planted on the steel
bars of their cell.
“Oh but sir! I was wanting to tell you that
soon I leave for America! I am going to hear
live jazz for first time! And I could not have
done it without money gained from your
imprisonment! Shukran! Shukran!” With
that, he cackled and departed in the same
19
direction that he came.
“Oh yeah?” Chase called after him, barely
able to stick his head through the bars. “I
hope your jazz show gets cancelled…and they
announce a puppet show instead!”
“I like puppet shows,” Veronica spoke for the
first time since they had been forced from
the dining room and into the brig.
“Yeah? Well I like not being locked up in a
cell by Nazis!” Washington complained. “Now
e
you want to actually contribute something
to our planning here, or are you going to
continue to just sit and stare like you have
been?”
fil
Without saying anything else, Veronica placed
her hand down her cleavage and removed
a lock pick in the same manner that a
magician might extricate a rabbit from a hat.
She brandished it about in the air pompously
for the men to see.
“Where’d you get that?” Chase asked,
surprised yet delighted.
“I’m a private investigator,” she replied
plainly. “How else do you think I get into
buildings and rooms that I’m not supposed to
be in?”
Leaving that question to hang in the air,
Veronica reached her hands through the bars
and around to the lock mechanism that she
began to pick with all deftness and skillful
tenacity. After what seemed like endless
seconds of rattling and clanking of metal,
the lock popped and the door swung free.
Before they were trapped and desperate, now
thanks to Veronica’s crafty handling of the
situation, the fight was again theirs to be
had. Overwhelmed by enthusiasm for this
prospect, Wash took Veronica in his arms and
kissed her…before promptly dropping her.
“Sorry,” he said wiping his mouth. “Got a
little excited.”
“S-seems I underestimated you, Stuttz,”
stammered an uncharacteristically doe-eyed
Veronica.
“Chase, you get to a radio transmitter…or
whatever kind of Flash Gordon gizmo they
have around here…and get word to the boys
back in New York. Veronica and I will find
the earthquake device and see how we can
blow it up. Now let’s move like we’ve never
moved before!”
With those final instructions from
Washington Stuttz, the three moved out.
Back in New York City, the experiments of
one Dr. Campbell Fleming were suddenly
interrupted by the sound of an incoming
transmission on the radio receiver.
“Uhh, hello?” Fleming spoke into the
microphone quizzically. His reply was a
voice garbled through static. “Hello? Who is
this? What do you want?”
“Doc! It’s Chase!”
“Chase?” a startled Fleming hooted. “Chase
Danner?”
“The one and only, Daddy-O.”
“Where in blazes have you people been? I’ve
been trying to reach you for…”
e Rapidly, Campbell Fleming recounted
“Cut out the hubbub, bub. We’ve been
Shanghaied to Antarctica by a bunch of
Nazis. They’re in cahoots with this other
strange guy who claims to be from a kingdom
pl
inside the Earth and together they’re causin’
the quakes with an earthquake device.”
“Great Scott!” Campbell exclaimed after
slapping his forehead and jerking about.
“That ain’t all, Doc,” Chase cautioned. “These
m
Nazis we got here in the South Pole? They’re
building up for an attack. I’ve seen a lot of
military installations in my time and I should
know. I got a look at the hangars on base
and I saw they’ve been building super attack
jets, rocket ships, and they’ve been breeding
Sa
an army of killer penguins.”
“All right! All right!” Dr. Fleming
interrupted. “Listen, Chase? How warm is it
in that base?”
“You mean other than the brig? It’s actually
very warm.”
“A steamy sort of warm?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“If they’re working with the Hyperboreans,
then I assume that the Nazis must now have
the ability to tap geothermic energy sources.
20
Listen, you must detonate the reserves of
jet and rocket fuel that they have in storage.
Once you do, the heat from the blast will
ignite the geothermic gases…and that entire
hall of nightmares you’re in will go up like a
second sun. If we’re lucky, the blast might
even be severe enough to shut off the tunnel
entrance to Hyperborea. At any rate, we
must make certain that the Nazis not reach
into space! Just make sure that you’re all
plenty far away from there when it happens,
okay, Chase? Chase?”
e
“Dammit! Doc! I gotta go!”
And with that final, pleading statement from
Chase, the airwaves fell silent.
fil
“Hold steady, boy! I’ll send help!” but
Fleming had absolutely no idea how he would
make good on that promise.
“You’ve found them?” asked Westinghouse
as he re-did his cufflinks and walked into the
room behind Dr. Fleming.
everything that the secret agent man had
reported to him over the radio and watched,
as the face of Sterling Westinghouse grew
grimmer by the moment. Though he
momentarily raised his eyebrows in optimism
as Dr. Fleming explained the physics behind
the explosion that he had just ordered them
to create, Westinghouse was still greatly
troubled as to how to get his three operatives
quickly out of harm’s way.
“I will call President Truman,” a determined
Westinghouse finally announced, and then
promptly turned for the telephone that sat on
the edge of Fleming’s cluttered desk. “And
tell him that a rapid strike force is needed in
Antarctica.”
“But Boss! Won’t he think we’ve failed in
our mission? Won’t he think…”
“Truman will think what I tell him to think!”
snapped the multi-millionaire as he picked up
the phone and dialed.
Well, that’s a radio that’ll never work again,
Chase thought to himself as he looked over
the shattered and smoldering radio console
with the legs of a Nazi trooper sticking
out of it. Far more serious than the state
of communications though, this trooper
would eventually be missed and it would be
discovered that Chase and his compatriots
had effected escape and were on the loose.
With those facts squarely in his mind,
Chase Danner drew upon all of his learned
instincts as a special agent in order to skulk
stealthily through the corridors of the Nazi
base. Deeper and deeper into what he was
sure was the recesses of the Earth beneath
the Antarctic ice and snow, Chase’s heart
leaped when he came across Veronica and
Wash as they were crammed into a confined
from the inferno that was the Earth’s core.
Veronica Pentecost shrugged off the matter,
claiming that dodging death was what they
did best and that the steaming gases had
actually been a benefit to her by curling her
hair. Less concerned with lady’s fashion and
more with escaping the Nazi’s Antarctic lair,
the men of the three rushed for the surface
to where the aircraft…and their escape…
awaited.
“Fools!” Xan cursed after the S.S. lieutenant
informed him that the cells containing Wash,

space that overlooked an open expanse of the
building that held storage tanks of fuel and
housed generators to power the hidden Nazi
fortress.
e
Chase, and Veronica were empty. “Find
them! You have 30 minutes to do so…before
I begin to find new ways of motivating you
and your men!”

fil
“Here,” Veronica winked before tossing
a handgun to him. “I got our guns and
communicators out of hoc. Got Wash’s mace,
too.”

“Cool, man, cool. But I got to the radio and

chewed the fat with the Doc. Here’s what we
gotta do,” Chase began as re-told the plan to
the others.
e
“Theoretically sound,” Stuttz ruminated to
himself. “All we have to do is find a way to
pl
blow this dump without getting ourselves
killed in the process.”

“Plenty of planes up top in the hangar,”

Chase remarked. “Just get me to any of ‘em
and I can fly us out of here.”
m

“Great, pretty boy. But outside of that we’re

stumped,” confessed Veronica. With no better
ideas coming, the three gave in and contacted
Dr. Fleming on their wrist communicators.

“Great day in the morning!” came Dr.

Fleming’s exclamatory expression,
Sa

transmitted from thousands of miles away.

“None of you ever studied science? Oh
for the love of… Break the piping of the
geothermal gases near one of the large fuel
tanks. The metal of the storage tank will
slowly rise in temperature and then ignite
the liquid fuel, causing a domino effect
throughout the area!”

And with the help of Wash’s mace, that
is exactly what the three accomplished,
despite the fact that all three of them were
very nearly sent to a scalding death by the
ensuing rush of gases that came straight
Not wanting to waste a precious minute
of that 30, the lieutenant gave a Nazi
salute and bolted out of the door. Xan
then turned to the table next to him and
ran his frighteningly long fingernails over

21
the scale model of the lunar base that was
planned. On the wall behind him were
biological diagrams showing the level of
genetic intricacy that went into breeding a
killer penguin. Too much was on the line.
Too much stood to be accomplished and
conquered to have it all in ruins because
these insignificant three. Leermeister stood
in the corner smoking a cigarette, seemingly
without sharing these concerns of Xan’s.
“They must not be permitted to disable the
earthquake device,” Xan told Leermeister, his
Hyperborean confidence breaking.
POW! POW! Gunfire filled the entire hangar
as Nazi troopers took cover behind aircraft
and equipment from the pistols of Veronica
and Chase. Rapidly they returned fire, their
stray bullets hitting a drum that contained
some form of flammable material and causing
a raucous explosion in the main hangar.
“Keep ‘em pinned down!” Stuttz shouted. “I’m
going to secure a plane!” Chase nodded in
understanding to Wash and then went back
e
to drawing a bead on the enemy soldiers.
Scurrying about and stopping to take cover
behind whatever equipment had been left
pl
strewn about the aircraft hangar, Wash made
his way over to his plane of choice: a bat-
winged Nazi super jet. Not only did it appear
large enough to him to accommodate all
three of them and not only did it look speedy
enough to carry them safely away form the
blast, but it just looked cool as all get out.
m
Crouching low, Wash made his play for the
plane.
It was then that his head bumped into the
firmest set of abdominal muscles he had ever
seen. A large, bald Nazi guard had emerged
Sa
from behind the plane, carrying a workmen’s
wrench and batting it menacingly into his
left hand. Every muscle in the giant’s torso
rippled in a show of pure testosterone and
his face sneered in challenge to Washington
Stuttz.
That’s the biggest damned German I’ve ever
seen! Stuttz thought to himself. Oh well, no
sense dragging this out any further. With
that, Stuttz thrust himself forward and
slammed into the man’s mid-section. Though
tiny by comparison, Wash was a brawler by
nature and was not going to go down without
swinging a few. But then again, neither was
22
his opponent.
With a shove on the shoulders, the giant Nazi
flung Stuttz from on top of him, sending him
flying into yet another series of steel drums.
After quickly picking himself back up, Wash
drew his mace and closed to engage the
wrench-wielding menace.
Their metal weapons clashed and clanked,
connecting with each swing like swords in
a duel. Wash could feel the Nazi’s superior
strength battering away at him and did not
e
know just how much longer he could hold
out against him. Suddenly, the bald Nazi had
found an opening and gave Wash a haymaker
of a right hook to the jaw. Wash immediately
fil
crumpled to the floor, seeing stars and very
nearly blacking out, an action that would
surely have doomed them all. The Nazi stood
over him, giving him insidious prodding kicks
to the stomach and jeering at him in German.
That was all it took for Wash to fight back
the falling curtain of unconsciousness. No
way was this man going to take a fall for a
Nazi! Thinking his prey had been sufficiently
disabled, the guard leaned his face downward
to inspect and ridicule his fallen foe. It was
a perfect opportunity for Wash to give a
massive swing of his mace and cave in the
side of the Nazi’s head entirely.
Elsewhere in the hangar, Veronica and Chase
had commandeered a tug cart. Veering and
careening between the parked jets, Veronica
drove the tug while Chase’s handgun spat
hot, leaded death at their enemies. A few
Nazis fled, fearing that if a bullet didn’t kill
them, Veronica’s wild driving would run them
over. Others still met one of the previously
mentioned fates.
“Hold on!” Veronica ordered as she found
herself unable to brake in time to avoid
hitting a wheeled tool chest.
Chase ducked and wrapped his arms around
his head just before there was a prodigious
crash and metal went flying. The tug went
into a skid. The world began to spin. And
though Wash stood by the flying wing,
frantically attempting to wave Veronica off,
the heavy vehicle clipped straight through
the nose gear of the jet, snapping it clean
from the fuselage. The front end of the
aircraft dropped to the floor with a heavy
crash, shattering the canopy and fragmenting
the nose into cracks with a small electric fire
beginning to burn. The tug came to a stop
after it veered out of control into the side of
the hangar, jolting its occupants free.
“It’s ruined,” Stuttz said sadly. “We fought
our way here for nothing.”
“We don’t have much time left,” Veronica said
somberly.
“Come on!” Stuttz said, shaking loose any
self-pity for their situation. “There’s a snow
crawler outside. Grab a parka from the
mechanic’s rack and let’s go!”
“This is a drag, Daddy-O!” Chase called out as
he held on to the side of the snow crawler. “I
think I just saw a turtle race pass us!”
Even Stuttz had to quietly agree with him.
The vehicle was already at top speed in the
snow and they had made only a modest
amount of distance from the base. The
ground shook from the shockwaves of the
initial detonation in the lower levels of the
e
base. Soon, the entire area would go up in
a gigantic paroxysm of fire. They weren’t
going to make it.
pl
Fissures began to develop in the ice as the
tremors from the blast flowed outward from
the center. As these cracks in the ice gaped
open wide, a moving mass of black and white
began to spill forth from them…the Killer
Penguins. Their incubation chambers had
broken apart and the penguins had been
m
set free…massing their way straight for the
snow crawler.
“Man, those things are going to devour
every scrap of flesh on our bodies,” Chase
said in soft awe, catatonic in the face of the
oncoming tidal wave of penguins that emitted
Sa
and endless chorus of “Eep! Eep! Eep!”
“Devouring my flesh has been tried on me
before. But I somehow doubt it’s going to be
as fun this time,” said Veronica as she lit a
cigarette in preparation for an ugly fight.
The region around the snow crawler had
turned from an endless field of white to
a sea teeming of black and white. Stuttz
turned the beam of the snow crawler’s rotary
searchlight directly upon the encroaching
killer birds. Their beaks squawked out at the
light as they became blinded from the glare
23
reflected by the snow and ice. That is when
Veronica took the first shot. The rapport of
the gun made a sharp crack in the cold air.
A killer penguin suddenly fell over dead…but
another soon waddled into its place. Chase
Danner joined in on the action, blazing his
handgun towards the deadly beasts.
“Uh-oh,” Danner said as his pistol began
making a tattletale clicking sound. “I’m out…
completely out.”
“Probably should have saved a few bullets for
e
ourselves,” Stuttz remarked, grimly assessing
the tide of oncoming killer penguins.
It was not in the nature of Chase Danner to
fil
give up quite so easily. With all the foolish
recklessness of youth, he dove from the
edge of the snow crawler and into the mass
of penguins. He punched. He kicked. He
wrestled. He had a decent-sized chunk bitten
out of the flesh of his back.
“Crazy kid,” Dr. Stuttz muttered while
shaking his head in disbelief.
Mace at the ready, Wash followed Chase and
jumped swinging into the fray. Through
fisticuffs and a mace, as well as the last
remaining shots from Veronica Pentecost,
many a killer penguin fell that day in the
Antarctic snow. But the situation grew
bleaker by the moment. For every avian
adversary that was killed, two more seemed
to follow in its place. The three fought as
Sisyphus against the stone.
It did indeed look like the end for our heroes.
That is until the blast of a laser beam
incinerated the penguin nearest Chase. Ray
after ray of red lasers shot down from the
sky, reducing the mass of penguins to a wide
pile of smoldering ash and cutting an arc of
safety around the snow crawler.
And as the three looked to the sky to
determine the source of their salvation, they
found it in the form of a group of men flying
through the clear Antarctic sky by way of
rocket packs strapped to their backs. Their
copper helmets gleamed in the sunlight and
shone as justice before the spawn of the Nazi
menace. It was the United States Rocket
Corps…The Fightin’ Rocketmen.
Three of the Rocketmen landed on the snow
crawler, causing Veronica, Chase, and Wash
to avert their faces from the brief burst of
heat that radiated from the rocket pack.
“We’re The Rocketmen. We’re here to get
you out,” the lead Rocketman said plainly
to Veronica. “Let me get a hold on you,
Ma’am.”
“Oh you betcha!” Veronica turned around
with a grin and allowed her to be enveloped
in the arms of the Rocketman.
Wash and Chase also allowed themselves to
be held by the other two rescuers (by the
underarms only) and soon they were soaring
up into the sky…just as a fireball of immense
proportions erupted forth into the air from
beneath the polar ice.
Soaring away from the blast like an insect
spat forth from an inferno was one of
the Nazi super jets. It desperately made
its attempt at escape, desperately for it
contained Re-Zal Evad.
e “Have you no decent footwear?” chided
“Hurry my friends!” Re-Zal whimpered to the
Nazi pilot and co-pilot. “If you can get us to
Argentina in an hour, I will pay you double!”
pl
Before the pilots could answer the sniveling
coward, three Rocketmen appeared in front
of the plane, causing the pilots to point out
of the cockpit window and shout nervously in
German. The Rocketmen aimed their laser
guns at the plane, motioning for the pilot to
ditch the jet in the icy waters below so that
m
he and his passengers might be apprehended.
“I would have liked to have met Betty
Grable,” Evad sniffled pathetically in defeat.
The other remaining Rocketmen delivered
their rescuees to the deck of a U.S. submarine
Sa
that awaited them in the waters off of
Antarctica. Veronica promptly commanded
her Rocketman to remove his helmet so that
she might give him a deep kiss of gratitude.
Chase and Wash told their rescuers that a
hearty handshake was all they were getting
from them.
“How is that for a rescue with style?” came
the voice of Sterling Westinghouse on their
wrist communicators.
24
“It’ll do, Boss,” Chase said with false
indifference.
“And the entrance?” interrupted a frantic
Doc Fleming. “Did the explosion seal the
entrance to Hyperborea?”
Chase and Wash exchanged dumb looks while
Veronica continued to make out with her
Rocketman.
“Doc, there’s no way we can know that. We
had to high-tail it out of there before we went
e
up with the place, too,” Wash replied.
“Yes, I understand,” Fleming sagged with
dejection. “But I fear we may get our answer
fil
to that question someday soon.”
Xan continuously lost his footing on the loose
rock of the tunnel, mainly due to the fact
that he was only wearing slippers on his feet.
He fell yet one more time onto his posterior
and uttered a curse in Hyperborean.
Colonel Leermeister who was ahead of him in
the tunnel.
“Royalty seldom travel this way,” Xan
growled. “Besides, what time had I to change
shoes before our work went up into flames?”
Leermeister could feel the heat from the
intense fire that burned above them and
would probably continue to burn for another
week.
“They shall all pay dearly for this,” Xan
swore aloud as he once more started
down the path that led into the Earth.
“Hyperborea shall again rise to the surface
and when it does…I shall first go looking
for Veronica Pentecost, Chase Danner…and
Washington Stuttz.”
 THE PULP WORLD
GAZETTEER
THE COLONIAL
WORLD
Globetrotting adventurers in the pulp era
are living in the end days of the great colonial
empires. Many European nations still had
significant empires, with colonies spread all over
the world. Great Britain, for example, could still
boast an empire upon which the sun never set.
The coming war will soon change this, rewriting
the world map for decades to come, but all that
e
lies in the future. During the pulp era, heroes will
often have to deal with colonial authorities rather
than local governments, and the differences in
pl
the relationships between the colonizers and the
colonized can lead to some tricky situations.
A list of 1930s colonies can be found in the book
on p. 26-27. Colonies are normally run by a
representative of the colonizing nation, who ensures
that their country’s best interests are protected. This
m
can mean anything from ensuring that business
interests from the homeland are giving preferential
treatment, to organizing outright slave labor. The
representative is usually back by the power of
a military garrison, and can make and unmake
laws as he sees fit, though the more enlightened
Sa
nations do at least pretend to be mindful of the
colony’s laws and the freedom of its people. Some
colonies are allowed a limited form of home rule,
in which the colonial representative takes on the
role of a counsellor or ambassador rather than a
ruler, allowing the colony more political and social
freedom.
Regardless of the nature of the colonial relationship,
the representative normally retains the power to
overrule the decisions of the local government.
In well-ordered colonies this power is only rarely
used, as experienced empires soon learn this leads
25
to unrest among the natives, civil unrest and even
open rebellion. Visiting heroes may find themselves
e
having to choose between supporting the rebels or
defending the interests of the colonial empire in
order to achieve whatever their current goals are.
fil
Rebellions tend to be scrappy, ill-equipped affairs
led by hotheads, fighting guerilla wars with little
thought for collateral damage, often using the
opportunity to settle old racial or religious scores
along the way, and are easily put down by the
military might and technology of their oppressors.
Communist infiltrators can often be found behind
rebellions, providing weapons and advice in their
attempts to destabilize the empires of the West.
Many pulp heroes gained their military experience
from putting down local rebellions, experiences that
may come back to haunt them in later years (and
make good adventure seeds!).
TRAVEL IN THE COLONIES
T
ravelers in Africa and Asia could often do
so without encountering anyone but Europeans,
such was the spread of European control. Those
locals who were encountered very often occupied
subservient roles, such as waiters, valets, clerks and
other functionary positions. This often leads some
American travelers to think of the world in the same
way they think of a distant state, somewhere distant,
but basically the same as home. Nothing could be
farther from the truth, and it is this blindness to
cultural differences that has created many of the
problems Americans face when travelling the world
of the 1920’s and 30’s.
Travelers in the colonies are expected to check in
with the colonial authority on arrival, who will
advise them on the current political climate and any
local difficulties they might encounter. If the heroes
are of high enough social prominence, the colonial
authority may choose to provide them with support