 
The Epic and Audacious Adventures of the

NAUTILUS!

and her Gallant Crew in the 19th Century
Part I:

On the Relationship Betwixt the Egyptian Space Program and the Failures of European Imperialism

[Fan Fiction For History]

By Jacob Bender & David Harris

(COPYRIGHT 2016)
Chapter 1. Time Travelers of the Mysterious Island

The End of the 19th Century, 10:04AM Intercolonial Time

Meanwhile, all was commotion aboard the bridge of the Nautilus.

"Receiving telemetry from the heads on Easter Island," bellowed Trip, "the Moon Cannon has zeroed in on target in the Indian Ocean."

"Atlantian shields be at full capacity," said Colonel Faulkner.

"Aye, lads and lassies, prepare for countdown," sang out young Sonny O'Reilly from the pilot's seat, "10, 9, 8, 7..."

"Everyone strap in," shouted Nathan Dunbar from the Captain's chair, his Union jacket hanging roughly from his shoulders as he stroked his black beard pensively, "we'll only get one shot at this, and the whole world is counting on us!"

As the gallant crew scrambled to secure themselves in their seats, Teddy Roosevelt stood behind Dunbar with a broad smile across his face, as he gazed out the front viewport of this submersible to behold the bright blue sky.

"Ha-HA! I'm looking forward to calamari tonight!" exclaimed the old Rough Rider.

"...6, 5, 4..."

Trip, strapped in securely in his seat, looked over at Roosevelt quizzically, for the latter simply stood upright with one hand gripping gallantly an over-hanging pipe. "Teddy, are you going to strap in...Teddy, the G-forces alone will...oh, never mind."

The Nautilus at this moment sat not in the sea as was her custom, but nestled in the front barrel of the massive Confederate Moon Cannon at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Palm Trees swayed calmly in the ocean breeze, as the waves washed quietly across the shore, , all while the mega-gun's fuse burned down to destiny, and O'Reilly completed the countdown:

"...3, 2, 1..."

___

Years Earlier. April 14th, 1865—Ford's Theatre, Washington, D.C., 10:02PM Intercolonial Time

Two Union soldiers, stalwart and impassible, stood guard before the door of a private balcony at old Ford's Theatre, their bayoneted rifles firm against their shoulders, their pistols loaded at their sides.

No matter. They were both immediately dropped to the ground by a pair of throwing stars that flew from the shadows and struck each poor soldier straight in the guttural, before either could utter a sound. So sudden and swift was this double-murder-most-foul that all Abraham Lincoln heard on the other side of the door was a pair of passive thuds, as their lifeless bodies crumpled to the carpet. He did not flinch, and in fact Mary Todd beside him was so enchanted by the player's performance down below that she did not even notice; nevertheless, Lincoln closed his eyes in weariness. With a slow and deep breath he readied himself for the inevitable.

And then, like thunder, John Wilkes Booth, famed thespian, dapper, debonair, and trained ninja assassin extraordinaire, kicked down the locked door from its hinges and, brandishing a revolver, cried out those infamous words that still echo across eternity: "Sic semper tyrannis!" In an instant, he emptied all 6 chambers at Lincoln's head.

Yet Boothe's pause for dramatic effect was crucial and ill-timed, for in that instant's delay, Lincoln had already leapt to his feet and pirouetted around to face his assassin with an outstretched hand, one wielding a metal, magnetized glove. He straightly caught all 6 of Booth's bullets in quick succession.

Booth dropped his smoking revolver and stared at the sight in wonder, while the rest of the theatre below erupted in a frenzy. Lincoln's free hand meanwhile reached for his belt-buckle, to turn an ornately-painted dial that read, "Reverse Polarity."

"Sic Semper Caniculam," growled Lincoln.

At once, all 6 of Booth's bullets flew back at his own face, such that the assassin had only an instant to lean back wildly at an impossible angle that near defied the laws of physics, all to avoid this murderous barrage of his own treacherous balls.

Nevertheless, avoid them he did, and when he bounced back to his feet, he now brandished his katana sword most fearsomely! But now it was Lincoln's turn to parry, who had already un-holstered and begun to empty his own revolver upon his would-be assassin. But Booth was equal to his opponent, and deftly deflected each bullet with his blade—in fact, one ricocheted in most tragic manner, and struck Mary Todd in the chest as she had turned in her seat to behold this frightful contest. In an instant, Lincoln's firm resolve to defend himself collapsed, and he dropped his gun and his stove-top pipe tumbled from his hoary head, as he dove to the ground to catch his dying wife in his arms. "Mary Todd! No-o-o!" he wailed in terrible grief, a single salty tear running down the crevices of his wrinkled and war-wearied face, as he clutched her dying head to his chest.

Booth silently sauntered up behind the mourning Lincoln, purposefully, dramatically, pitilessly, like unto an executioner. With a quivering sneer, Booth raised his blade high over the convulsively grieving Lincoln, directly over the neck. Yet when he brought down his blade, what was his surprise when the Lincoln suddenly grabbed his hat from the floor and blocked the blow with an unexpected "Clang!" In one swift movement, Lincoln rose to his feet and tore his hat half to reveal an impressively-long Katana sword of his own. Embossed upon the blade read the words, in English, Japanese Kanji, and Linear A: "The Great Emancipator".

By now, all this gun fire had sent the theatre crowd below panicking and scattering in every direction in a tumult of confusion, as Lincoln and Booth clashed steel in a whirlwind of swords upon the upper balcony. But one slack-jawed groundling, a denizen of the cheap seats, had the presence of mind to spy upon the Battle Royale above, and would later tell the tale of how Lincoln, who at first seemed the disadvantaged party as his back was to the railing and the perilous fall below, nevertheless pressed forward with a cold fury to avenge Mary Todd's death, till Booth was surprised to find his own back pushed back against the wall.

But the assassin was equal to his task and, with lightning quick reflexes, he executed a full frontal flip over Lincoln's head and landed adeptly on the railing behind him, ready to drive his blade in Lincoln's back. But Lincoln, no novice himself, countered with an immediate round-house kick that sent Booth falling to the floor below. Despite the perilous fall, Booth quickly recovered his bearings mid-air and landed upon the red-carpet below on his feet like a cat—but before he could fully recover himself, Lincoln had already slashed the fastenings of a nearby rope that sent a chandelier falling upon Booth's position. Booth dove clear of the crashing crystal in the nick of time, only to look up and behold Lincoln holding tight the other end of said rope, as he ascended rapidly to the rafters. In anger and desperation as his prey made his escape, Booth let fly upward a pair of throwing stars, each of which Lincoln knocked from the air disdainfully with his Emancipator.

A trio of Union soldiers had by now surrounded Booth with their bayonets amidst the pandemonium—but this but proved a brief distraction for the avenging southerner, as he in short order threw his blade into the chest of one, grabbed the fallen's rifle, then twirled the barrel like straight-stick as he quickly parried the thrusts of the remaining two, knocking one soldier out cold with the butt and driving the bayonet into the neck of the other. Swiftly he removed his bloodied blade from the chest of the first soldier, and looked up to behold Lincoln leaping nimbly among the ceiling support beams.

Booth, furious at the sight of his prey escaping, fired upward his grappling-hook and, as it mechanically retracted, he swiftly ascended to the rafters himself. He reached them just in time to spy Lincoln climbing through an open hatch to the roof. Booth followed him.

Climbing onto the roof of the Ford's Theatre, Booth beheld Lincoln, standing shirtless, erect, his sword at his side, and silhouetted by the full moon behind him and the Washington Memorial in the distance, waiting for him. "The world will little note what we say here," he said simply, as he and Booth slowly began to circle, "but it can never forget what we did here."  
"The South will rise again, tyrant!" shouted Booth, seething, "I come at you with the seething hatred of a thousand burning Atlantae!"

"Oh really!" said Lincoln coldly, "I myself come before you with malice toward none, with charity for all..."

Booth arched an eyebrow as his mustachioed lips curled. "Malice towards none, hm?"

And now Lincoln raised his sword in fury: "Towards none...except your head!"

And at once, both Lincoln and Booth leapt at each other in the full moonlight, their blades clanging with a terrible clash. Such was the force of their blow that, when they fell, they missed the roof, to instead fall several stories to the street below, landing atop the canvas of a horse-drawn munitions wagon.

The impact spooked the horses, who immediately began galloping madly through the streets of Washington, D.C. sans driver, whilst Lincoln and Booth resumed their furious combat atop the covered wagon.

A sharp turn as the carriage careened into the National Mall sent Lincoln off his balance and briefly gave Booth the advantage. With a kick to the chest Booth knocked Lincoln to his back, who in turn rolled to his side just before Booth's next blow cut a gaping gash in the canvas. Lincoln then side-swiped Booth to his back—but instead of Lincoln leaping back to his own feet, he instead reached into the open gash and grabbed a live grenade. He immediately threw it at Booth, who was already back to his feet. He deftly blocked the grenade, which detonated the front façade of the U.S. Treasury along the street. Lincoln then threw another grenade, which Booth again deflected onto the Whig Party Headquarters. Repeatedly did Lincoln throw these grenades at Booth to keep him off balance, which sent the panicked horses careening all the more wildly, until much of the National Mall was strewn with a series of brilliant explosions.

At last Lincoln leapt back to his feet, another grenade in his hand, staring menacingly at his opponent. "You know I can block that!" shouted Booth, his sword a-ready. But to his surprise, Lincoln did not throw the grenade back at Booth, but instead pulled the pin with his teeth and dropped it back into the canvas gash. With eyes widening, Booth leapt wildly off the wagon, firing his grappling hook to safety, while all the munitions wagon erupted into a fireball of unprecedented proportions.

Our leaping Lincoln was propelled sky-high and outward by the force of the explosion—and towards the Washington Memorial, straight ahead! Quickly flipping the dial on his belt-buckle back to "Magnetize," Lincoln stretched out his gloved hand, and caught the Aluminum capstone of that modern obelisk with his palm. With a grunt, he pulled himself up to the point of the monument, then sat there in a meditative pose, contemplating the flaming destruction before him.

None of this was lost on Booth, who beheld Lincoln's escape while he himself, sweaty and singed, ascended the roof of the U.S. capitol building. Driven mad with rage, Booth now fired his grappling-hook to the absolute limit of its length, clear across the reflecting pool and the National Mall, to lodge itself firmly into the granite just below Lincoln's feet. Lincoln made no attempt to dislodge it, but merely beheld it calmly.

Booth now hit "retract" on his grappling-hook, and straight-with flew across the National Mall at blinding speeds, silhouetted by the blazing fires behind him, his sword at-ready, as he sounded a barbaric "YAAAAAAAA!!!" But just as he reached his prey, Booth beheld Lincoln holding one last grenade in one hand, the pin in his other. Booth's scream immediately morphed into an "AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"

And then at once, a terrible fireball exploded a-top the Washington Memorial in the moonlight.

___

"Thus ended the tyrant," John Carter Sr. told his young son one night, by the fireplace of their rundown Southern Manor, some few years later, "As the noble John Wilkes Booth sacrificed himself to wreak vengeance for Dixie in the War of Northern Aggression."

"Upsy-daisy!" exclaimed a wide-eyed John Carter Jr., "And you say the South will rise again, pa?"

"As surely as the sun will rise in the morning," said Carter Sr. tenderly, ruffling his fine son's hair, "And as sure as your father's love..."

Carter Sr. disappeared the following morn'.

___

Such was the memory that flashed across John Carter Jr.'s now-adult eyes. He clenched his teeth and set his square jaw as he now sunk beneath the waves one last time, like the descent of his last end, into the cold embrace of the deep unknowable sea. Perhaps I shall at least see my father once more he thought dimly as his eyes fluttered closed in the salt water.

But then at once, an aged, sable arm wrapped around his torso, and with a sudden jerk brought him back to the surface once more.

Both John Carter Jr. and Colonel Faulkner gasped for air as they breached the surface, the flaming remains of a Confederate Zeppelin sinking into the ocean behind them in the rising sun. Regaining his youthful strength, Carter Jr. helped his old Uncle swim to the shore of a nearby and mysterious tropical island.

___

The Mysterious Island, South Atlantic—9:39AM, Falklands-Malvinas Daylight Time

"I do declare you have saved me again, Uncle Faulkner!" cried out Carter, wheezing for breath, as they washed up onto the shore.

"Oh, to lose you would be to lose my own soul, John Carter my boy!" coughed Colonel Faulkner, the sea-water dribbling from his white beard.

Sitting up at last on the sand, Carter remarked, "Twould appear, once again, that it be just you and me Uncle... I knew our navigator hadn't the capacity to survive long above the lawless seas."

"Oh, Charleston Montgomery survived too," said Faulkner, removing a piece of kelp from his nephew's shoulder.

"What? Really?" said Carter, incredulous.

It was at this opportune moment that Charleston Montgomery, a fine Southern dandy, strode up behind them in an impeccable white suit, fedora, cane, and an exquisitely trimmed goatee, all pristinely dry. "Mornin' gentlemen," he said genteelly with a tip of his hat.

"Charleston," shouted a soaked Carter, "how in Sam Hell are you not even wet?!"

Montgomery casually gestured his cane towards a large, mahogany wardrobe opened on the beach, with his formally wet clothing hanging out to dry on an impromptu clothes line. "I took the liberty of liberating my wardrobe before our airship's most lamentable demise," replied Montgomery.

"And you already changed into dry clothes?" demanded Carter.

"Well of course, I'm not a barbarian," said Montgomery, as he walked away while fanning himself with his fedora, "Now if you'll kindly excuse, I simply must find some shade, for this southern flower is wilting."

But then Montgomery stopped cold in his tracks, as Carter and Faulkner likewise rose to their feet, for a series of thin shadows fell across the beach towards them. "Well, 'Pears we have company," drawled Faulkner.

For who should appear but a cadre of Union soldiers—Nathan Dunbar, the goateed captain of this motley crew (that is, if his captain's insignia on his dripping Union uniform were any indication); Trip Rawlins, a proud son of escaped African slaves with a steam-powered cybernetic leg that squirted out sea-water as he walked along; Sonny O'Reilly, a wiry and strapping red-headed Irish lad; and Edith Nightingale, a young English nurse in a no-nonsense medicinal gown—all marched the beach, brandishing revolvers in the rising sun.

"You! You damned southern scum!" shouted Trip hotly, pointing at Faulkner, "you done shot down our zeppelin! You know how much work it took me to keep that damned airship runnin'?"

"Gentlemen," replied Montgomery demurely, "I do believe y'all got us back."

"Trip, wait!" shouted Dunbar, as Trip sprinted forward, his fist raised.

Faulkner simply stood up in stoic resignation, his palms outward at his side, as he allowed Trip to punch him in the face and knock him back to the sand.

Trip stood furiously over him while Carter helped Faulkner sit back up. "No, now I got you back!" shouted Trip.

"How dare you strike down an old man who harmed no one!" said Carter indignantly.

"I strike anyone who first strikes down me!" said Trip, getting in Carter's face, "If he gives an order, it be the same as if he shot those cannons himself."

"P'shaw!" sneered Carter, "Ol' Uncle Faulkner ordered nothing. I gave the order to fire!"

"You?" asked Dunbar, just now catching up to Trip.

"Indeed he did," said Faulkner wearily, still sitting down in the sand, "If the First Civil War taught me one lesson, it was that Aristocracy and Slavery have been the twin curses of the South. As such, I swore I'd never command another man again, slave or free.. My nephew John Carter Jr. here commands among us. I fund his many adventures with my old family fortune, but I myself am content to never strike or order another again."

"Indeed!" said Carter, jabbing his finger in Trip's chest, "I gave the command, so why don't you pick a fight on someone your own age, boy?"

In a moment, Carter was on the ground as well. "Gladly," said Trip, shaking his smarting hand, but in a moment Carter had kicked Trip's cybernetic leg out from under him, landing Trip on the beach as well.

"Stop it! Stop it, you swine, all of you," shouted the English nurse, as she rushed in between Trip and Carter before they could come further to blows, and began to treat the bleeding cut on Faulkner's forehead.

"Edith Nightingale, what are you doing? These men shot us down!" said Dunbar.

"I said enough! I came along your foolhardy cruise Nathan to actually help people, regardless of circumstance, not like my showboating sister Florence!" she cried indignantly. It was that consummate gentleman Charleston Montgomery who diffused this tense situation. "Ma'am, Gentlemen," he began, bowing first to Edith and then the other Unioners, "allow me to most humbly and profusely apologize in behalf of my comrades. Surely all of our trigger fingers have been a tad itchy since the most recent end of hostilities associated with the Second War of Northern Aggression. Truth be told, we were not expecting to encounter a Yankee airship so far into the South Atlantic."

"Indeed, sir," said Dunbar, somewhat apologetically as he re-holstered his revolver, "nor were we expecting a Confederate airship in these yon parts, either."

"It appears, gentlemen," piped up Faulkner, "that none of us were expecting such an encounter around such a mysterious island. Might I propose a small trade, one wherein you divulge the tale that brought you here, and we ours?"

Dunbar then gazed off into the ocean horizon, sighing long and wearily. "A man can only be ordered to attack so many a defenseless Indian village, before he begins to feel he be no better than the slave-owners he was supposedly battling the year before. So when a treasure map appears in one's possession without explanation, twould appear as good a time as any to steal an old, decommissioned airship and run away once and for all. A man might then bring with him whichever ladies and gentlemen are likewise weary of this wasted world, and are mayhaps looking for an adventure before they get old."

Faulkner now scratched his beard thoughtfully. "This treasure map," he began, "a one of a kind, was it? Carefully drawn on an old illuminated parchment, seemingly irreproducible by human hand, perchance? Was it mysteriously hidden among your papers one morning, without note or reason or point of origin?"

Dunbar suddenly put his hand back on his revolver, suspicious. "And what would you know of such a one-of-a-kind treasure map?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

Faulkner reached calmly into his suit jacket, "I might know," he said, pulling out just the parchment he had described, "that this same one-of-a-kind map likewise brought us to this self-same island."

___

Hours later, our Union and Confederate deserters were now working together, the men shirtless and sweaty as they digged deep a hole on some nameless beach of this Mysterious Island. Their frustration was palpable.

"Confound it," said Carter, wiping his brow, "why would someone produce two copies of an un-copiable map? What infernal jest brought us all together onto this forsaken rock to dig like fools?"

"Man, we've been diggin' all day and ain't found nuttin' but sand!" said Trip, throwing down his shovel angrily.

Dunbar, meanwhile, compared the two maps once more. "They agree to the minutest detail," he said, "from the water-marks to the tears in the parchment, and they both declare that here be the precise place of the treasure! Now, just where is it?"

"Aye cap'n, there ain't be a thing to be found anywhere here abouts!" said Sonny O'Reilly, adjusting his suspenders, "I've scouted out this entire little island and the only thing I could find was that giant submarine over there!"

"Wait, what?" said Dunbar.

And indeed, so focused had these twin crews been on seeking the correct treasure spot that they somehow missed the massive submersible sitting scuttled upon the beach just down the shoreline from them! But then, why would they even think to look for it? Submersibles of this mammoth size were unknown, nay, inconceivable at this point in history; and verily, though the vessel was draped in seaweed and kelp, nevertheless this marvel of modern engineering sat gleaming in the sunlight and dwarfed both our little party and all their expectations.

___

Needless to say, in short order all seven of our erstwhile treasure-hunters were aboard the steel bridge of this submarine, examining its wonders. Daylight poured in through the port holes, illuminating the dials, meters, levers, pipes, bolts, artificial lights, and tele-screens that covered the walls like some New England factory. "What devilry is this?" said Carter in wonder.

"I've never seen a thing like it..." enthused Dunbar.

"The combined wealth of the British Empire could barely produce such a..." said Nightingale, trailing off.

"But surely we would have heard of such a mammoth vehicle if they had," mused Faulkner.

"The French, then?" posited Carter.

"I do believe Cyborg-Napolean would have flaunted such a show of power," said Dunbar.

"But then who?" asked Montgomery, tapping the steel walls methodically with his cane.

Trip suddenly appeared in a doorway, excited. "Guys, I know this is going to mean nothing to you, but this here submersible is nuclear powered!" he exclaimed.

All the other six blinked at him blankly.

"Huh?" asked Dunbar, confused.

"Nevermind."

Nightingale went to explore the next room over while Carter scratched his chiseled chin. "And it's certainly neither Yankee nor Confederate, for either side would have used it to bring a swift end to the most lamentable Second Civil War...but again, who?"

"Gentlemen," called out Nightingale, "I have encountered a cadaver in the parlour."

"Is she speaking English?" exclaimed Carter.

"The lady located a corpse in the state room," said Montgomery.

"Say again?" asked Sonny.

"She found a body in the foyer," explained Dunbar.

The party gathered around this recent corpse, still in the early stages of decomposition. The poor soul was dressed in what appeared to be the fine robes of the aristocratic caste of the Hindus, and had passed away while hunched over some papers and sea-charts of some apparent importance strewn across a grand cedar table.

"Rigor mortis has barely even set in," said Nightingale, examining him, "this man has only recently passed on."

Dunbar pulled out his revolver, cock-eyed. "What in All-Merry Hell is going on?!" he demanded of no one in particular.

Meanwhile Montgomery, more calmly, picked up a journal from the table and began translating the Sanskrit therein. "'I, Captain Nemo," he began, "'Of the most Noble House of Nemo, seeking the liberty and freedom of my beloved India from the yoke of the British Empire, did pour the whole of my families' most entire and venerable fortune into this, the Nautilus, the most advanced and powerful submersible upon Vishnu's green Earth.'

"For 10 years did I and my loyal crew scour the bottoms of the seas, seeking ancient Atlantis and her technology beyond dreams that I might raise the mighty force sufficient to rend the great empires of this world, and bring peace and freedom to all the oppressed peoples of this world.

"But the great powers in turn hunted us, and though our submarine was powerful, we were but mortals, and throughout our many engagements and adventures, each of us one by one ended the cycle of Samsara and joined the Brahma-Atman, grand and ineffable as the mighty ocean itself.

"I alone am left, and my years have caught up with me. I leave the Nautilus here on this lost island, trusting alone in the wisdom of Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu, that the Great and Evil Empires shall not find her, but only those who shall carry on her great work of saving the world..."

The party paused in quiet contemplation. "Well, that was convenient exposition," noted Carter.

"Aye laddie, and that was convenient lamp-shading," said O'Reilly, "Montgomery, where did you learn to read such chicken scratch?"

"I dabbled in Sanskrit in my school days," said Montgomery, casually tossing the journal back onto the table.

"Nemo...Nautilus...India...Atlantis..." muttered Dunbar, pacing around in deep thought, "what on earth can this all mean?"

Without warning, there was a blinding flash of light, and all present shielded their eyes from this most unexpected phenomenon brighter than the noon-day sun—indeed, this was turning out to be a most eventful day.

As swiftly as this bolt of light appeared, it dissipated, to reveal a mechanism even more unprecedented than that of this massive submersible—it appeared to be an enlarged sled of some sort, decorated with elaborate cogs and mechanisms of all sorts whose functions could only be guessed at, and a oversized Grandfather clock face forming its backside, against which butted up a velvet chair, one which contained a slightly-disheveled yet still impeccably dressed Victorian gentleman of middle-age. At once this interloper hopped gingerly and happily out of his contraption to greet our treasure-hunters.

"I believe I can answer that!" he said jovially, "Ah, good! Dunbar, Faulkner, Trip, Sonny, Montgomery, and the lovely Edith Nightingale, you are all gathered here already, excellent, we can begin!"

But he stopped short his introductions when he beheld the combined pistols of Dunbar, Carter, Trip, and O'Reilly all drawn at once and pointed directly at his face.

"Now, just who the hell are you?!" shouted Dunbar, "You have precisely 10 seconds and 24 bullets."

Quite nonplussed, this peculiar new gentleman continued on despite all the revolvers near his face: "Oh, yes, that's right, now is actually the first time we have met! I quite forgot, the twisty-topsy-turvey turns of time-travel can be quite discombobulating a-times, you understand. Anyways! Where are my manners? I am HG Wells, and this is my Time Machine. Please excuse my shameful appearance..."

"You are excused," said Montgomery.

"...but I have just arrived from a most war-torn and dystopic future.You see, within this next year, the Martians shall land and begin their conquest of Earth. During this horrific War of the Worlds, I shall construct this Time Machine you see before you now, in hopes of somehow changing the past to save the future. I have been traveling back and forth, attempting various alterations of past history, endeavoring to encounter the time-line wherein Earth at last vanquishes the overwhelming Martian invaders."

Dunbar cocked an eyebrow. "Come again?"

"Patience my colonial friend, this is where you all come in," explained Mr. Wells, "For you see, of all the time-lines I have explored, the only one in which a united Earth is able to at last defeat the invading Martian menace, is one involving a cadre of disaffected Union and Confederate expatriates commandeering the abandoned remains of Nemo's Nautilus and therewith discovering the location of the lost continent of Atlantis, the legendary civilization that last defeated the Martians during their first Earth invasion, ten millennia ago."

"Mr. Wells," began Faulkner, "am I to understand that you are the one that—"

"—planted the mysterious maps with you and Captain Dunbar that drew you to this Mysterious Island?" said HG Wells, "Yes, good sir, twas I. I do apologize for the subterfuge, but of all my time-travel experiments, this is the lone stratagem that appears to get you arch-antagonists working together like civilized men before you can even hope to commandeer the Nautilus."

HG Wells then pulled out a pipe and puffed it thoughtfully as he paced back and forth across the Nautilus Bridge, like a university professor on lecture. "And dear me, you simply have no idea," he continued, "of the sheer number of permutations of disaffected Union and Confederate soldiers I had to experiment with until I found 1) the ones who would actually make it to Nemo's Nautilus, and 2) would actually use the Nautilus to find Atlantis and defeat the Martians! By Jove, in one time-line the crew spent their entire time cruising for young ladies and throwing parties, right up till the day the Martians blew them out of the water! Utter waste, that one."

"So wait, Mr. Wells," interrupted Edith, "what you are telling us is—"

"—that the entire fate of the world rests upon your capable shoulders, correct."

HG Wells silently puffed his pipe while the crew gaped in shock. It was young Sonny O'Reilly who at last broke the awkward silence with an excited fist to his palm. "Excellent!" he shouted happily, "I was waiting for an adventure to start!"

"Sonny!" reprimanded Dunbar.

"Oy, and what, Cap'n?" said O'Reilly, exasperated, "I came with ye to have an adventure, not blow up Southron zeppelins! Enough of this moody, brooding nonsense, let's get this party started!"

"For an unwashed Irishman, I admire your pluck," observed HG Wells, "So what say ye, men? Are you prepared to hunt for the Lost Continent of Atlantis—" he then swiftly bowed gallantly at Nightingale, "—oh, and my lady?"

It was Carter, then, who stepped forward, waving his arms in the air incredulously. "Wait, wait, just hold on one minute, one thrice-damned minute!" he began, "Why is there a time-machine? Why are there Martians? Why is there a submarine?"

"Nuclear submarine," cut in Trip, "guys, again, you have no idea how much that should blow your mind!"

"My point, gentlemen," said Carter, pointing angrily at HG Wells, "is how are we to believe a word this man says? He comes in a blinding flash, like the devil disguised as some angel of light, and just what makes us think he isn't dragging us all down to hell with his honeyed words?"

"Oh very well," said HG Wells, rolling his eyes, "if it's evidence you desire..." and at this he pointed to each individual in turn, "John Carter, Jr., you have suffered abandonment issues ever since your father mysteriously disappeared at the age of six. You carry a daguerreotype within your bill-fold in remembrance that you have revealed to naught but your closest acquaintances.

"William Faulkner, you have raised John Carter as a son ever since said John Carter Sr.'s mysterious disappearance. You freed all your slaves following the First American Civil War and donated most your fortune to charity in self-inflicted penance. Your favorite color is blue and your favorite Bible passage is Matthew 19:16-22.

"Nathan Dunbar, you have been guilt-ridden ever since the slaughter of that Sioux village. You went to Tibet to learn meditation and the art of Kung-Fu, where you achieved the twin-awards of black-belt and best attendance.

"Trip Rawlins, you escaped the antebellum South whilst still a child with your Mother. You took a bullet to the leg during the escape over the Potomac. In Massachusetts, you received a cutting-edge steam-powered cybernetic leg from the NAACP: the National Association for the Advancement of Cybernetic People.

"My dear Edith, you have had a chip on your shoulder ever since your elder sister Florence became rich and famous as the 'Angel of the Crimea' whilst you still struggled with student loans.

"Sonny O'Reilly, you are an Irish immigrant to America from County Cork, and sweet mercy, do you ever need to bathe.

"And Charleston Montgomery, you are what some may refer to as a, *ahem* 'confirmed bachelor.'"

"A confirmed what?" asked Carter.

"Nevermind," stated HG Wells as Montgomery smirked.

"How do you know all this about us?" demanded Edith Nightingale, with equal measures of anger and shame, "I have told none of my student loans!"

"Why you told me," said HG Wells matter-of-factly, "In the future, once you get to know me better."

"Alright, alright, so let's just say we believe you for now that we're the new crew of this here Nautilus," said Dunbar, "just how do we go about finding this Atlantis before the Martians land?"

"Excellent question," said HG Wells, "I haven't the foggiest. You were supposed to figure that out."

"What?!" shouted Carter angrily, while HG Wells trotted back to his Time Machine.

"I will take a brief jaunt into the future to check on your progress," said Wells as he re-seated himself, "then return and report to you."

"Wait," said Dunbar, "you mean that..."

"The timeline is in constant flux my good chap, anything can happen!" replied HG Wells from his velvet chair, adjusting his instruments, "I know there exists at least one time-line where you succeed and I know that you all must first meet here, but between points A and B the details are rather hazy and require some untangling. Now, don't you worry, I do promise to deliver any intelligence I receive from the future historical records, and that post-haste. Welp, cheerio chaps! Best of luck and Godspeed."

And then, just as brilliantly as he appeared, HG Wells and his Time Machine disappeared again in another blinding flash.

After a moment of staring uncomprehendingly at the empty space left behind, Dunbar at last stammered, "Well, uh...so what do we do now?"

But then suddenly, the entire ship lurched wildly as it came to life, almost sending Dunbar tumbling. The control panels lit up, the artificial lights flickered on, the engine roared, and steam pumped through the warming, overhanging pipes.

"Neutron control rods disengaged, Captain!" said Trip excitedly from Bridge's engineering console.

"What in tarnation?" shouted Dunbar.

"Um...found the on-button," said Trip, dumbing it down for Dunbar.

Already Sonny O'Reilly had hopped happily into the pilot's seat, gripping the throttle and gleefully flipping every switch he could find. "And I found the reverse-switch!" he said, "Look, we're already backing into the water guv'ner!"

And indeed, in the high-tide, the powerful propellers on the rear of the nearly scuttled Nautilus caught the sea-water, and dragged this massive submersible back out into the open ocean, its true home! The kelp and seaweed fell into the salt water once more, while a steady "Beep! Beep! Beep!" signaled to all sea-creatures behind them that they were moving in reverse. It quickly became clear that their gallant vessel was sea-worthy.

"Ha-ha, I'm a natural at this, ain't I?" said O'Reilly, practically bouncing in his seat, "Can I be the pilot, Cap'n Dunbar, oh can I, can I?"

"I totally call chief engineer!" called out Trip, "I will fist-fight anyone who thinks he wants it more than me."

"Hold a sec," said Dunbar, flustered, "we don't even know where to..."

Montgomery nonchalantly brought in some maps from the next room. "I have been examining these sea-charts, gentlemen," he said, "and twould appear that before his final scuttling, that the late Captain Nemo had discovered a possible hint as to the location of Atlantis may lie among the pyramids of Egypt."

"Excellent!" said Faulkner, "I shall serve as ship's cook while we travel. I'll cook us up a big ol' pot of jambalaya."

"Course laid in for Egypt, cap'n!" said O'Reilly excitedly.

"Well, I shall inspect the sick bay," said Edith, holding her dress as she sashayed across the bridge, "it is doubtless in shambles..."

"Now, just hold a..." began Dunbar.

"Engines at full power," said Trip, examining the meters before him, "And if I read these right, the torpedo tubes are fully loaded and automated, captain."

By now, Dunbar was too caught up in their disembarking to be able to think of any valid objection. And indeed, so much of his life of late (after the rather stultifying and over-scheduled monotony of the Army) had been defined by impetuousness and spontaneity, that he frankly saw no real need to cease to behave by both principles—indeed, of such and none else are adventures made of!

Finally Dunbar and Carter exchanged significant looks.

"Well, I do need a first mate," Dunbar shrugged.

"Wait, wait," said Carter, his honor piqued, "now just why does a Yankee scoundrel like you get to be Captain?"

"Alright, fair enough," said Dunbar amiably, "let's put it to a democratic vote. All in favor of Carter being Captain of this here Nautilus?"

All on the bridge was suddenly silent, save Carter who alone raised his stubborn hand.

"All in favor of me?"

All arms on the bridge (minus Carter and Montgomery's) shot up with a resounding, "AYE!"

"Uncle Faulkner, you voted against me!" cried out Carter, wounded.

"Sorry son, but you tend to shoot first, which gets us into a whole heap o' trouble!" said Faulkner grandfatherly, "That sunk zeppelin cost me a fortune, I'll have you know."

"But, but..."

"Hey, hey, just saved your life this mornin', no complaints!"

So Carter instead aimed his ire at Montgomery. "And you, Charleston Montgomery! Why didn't you vote, you heathen scoundrel?"

At this, Montgomery showed off his impressive wardrobe in his fine mahogany dresser: "Many apologies, my dear boy, but I was indeed far too occupied in moving my most extensive wardrobe onto the ship."

Momentarily defeated, Dunbar and Carter exchanged looks again. "I still need a first mate," said Dunbar.

"I never thought I'd live to salute a damn Yankee."

"Excellent, then we understand each other," said Dunbar, taking the Captain's chair, "Give the word, Mr. Carter."

"Excuse me?"

"I said, give the word, Mr. Carter!" said Dunbar jovially, his first genuine smile in months.

"Ah!" said Carter, now understanding. He stood forth gallantly on the bridge and bellowed, "Full speed ahead, Mr. O'Reilly! Set sail to Egypt."

"Aye-aye, First Mate!"

Dunbar leaned forward in his chair, expectantly. "Let's see what this ship can do." And at that, the proud Nautilus and her gallant crew sailed into the open sea and the setting sun, to experience such wild adventures, great mysteries, dangerous enemies, profound pains and exultant joys that they could scarcely anticipate or even imagine at this moment, all to the resounding song of Edith inquiring, "So what shall we do with the cadaver in the parlour...?"

"The what now?" asked Carter.

___
Chapter 2. The Lasers of the Egyptian Moon Pyramids

The East Mediterranean—7:59AM Co-ordinated Alexandria Time

Down in the darkest depths of the Mediterranean, some shadows in deep-sea diving suits shoveled the mud over a six-foot hole in the sea floor. The iron grates over their helmet-ports glimmered in the dim yellow light of a single Edison lampheld aloft in the eternal night of ocean depths. A crab scuttled and an eel slithered away as a small granite tombstone, encrusted with barnacles and reading simply "NEMO," was raised to its head by Sonny O'Reilly. Edith Nightingale laid upon it a bouquet of roses, while Charleston Montgomery placed a tastefully-woven garland. Trip Rawlins then leaned against his shovel and began to belt out in a baritone so deep it was audible in the ocean itself: "When Israel was in Egypt land, let my people goooo....Oppressed so hard they could not stand, let my people goooo..."

Soon thereafter they were all back aboard the Nautilus, removing their helmets and peeling off their diving suits. "Beautiful singing Mr. Rawlins," said Faulkner, "Near brought a tear to my eye."

"Old Spiritual from my youth, learned on my Mommy's knee..." said Trip, almost more to himself.

"I can only hope that when I am put to pasture, that I too shall receive as moving a memorial," said John Carter Jr. somberly.

"We can honor him only as much as we carry on his work," said Dunbar as he strutted back to the bridge.

"Speaking of which, may I change into my summer clothes at last?" inquired Montgomery.

"Quite right," said Dunbar, taking his Captain's chair once more, "O'Reilly bring us to surface."

"Aye, now we be talkin' laddies!" said Sonny.

In short order, the Nautilus gallantly breached the surface, rising from the darkest depths to the blazing light of the afternoon sun burning over the Greater Alexandria-Cairo Metropolitan Area. The wondrous Pyramids of Giza filled the city's horizon, visible from the shoreline.

"What a sight!" exclaimed Carter, admiring through the viewport.

"May I also express how relieved I am that we finally removed that rotting corpse from off our ship?" added Edith.

"I do declare ma'am, his scent shall haunt the icebox for months," said Faulkner.

___

While the others manned the Nautilus, Dunbar, Carter, Trip, and Montgomery elbowed their ways through the streets of Cairo, amidst all the out-door markets, the beggars, snake-charmers, street magicians, fire-breathers, insurance agents, stock-brokers, hedge fund managers, and grad students, as they made a bee-line towards the ancient Temple of Osiris before them.

"Well, here's the Temple of Osiris," said Dunbar, "which is where, according to Nemo's map, the directions to the Lost Continent of Atlantis lay enshrined."

"And an audience with the Pharaoh himself is required to even glimpse at such a sacred artifact," said Montgomery, dabbing his brow with an immaculate-white handkerchief.

"Man, just how we goin' to get an audience with the Pharaoh himself?" asked Trip.

___

Minutes later, our quartet stood before the throne of Pharaoh. "Well, that was easy," noted Trip.

They stood in a great throne-room, with towering brick walls embossed with many an ancient symbol and hieroglyph; High Priests and Priestesses clad in bright white robes lined either side of the red carpet that led up to the golden throne, and sentinels bearing great and ornate ceremonial spears stood guard before the entrance. A gong was struck, and the Royal Ringer called out in voice strong and clear: "For 5,000 uninterrupted years have the Pharaohs ruled this land of Egypt, staving off invasions from the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Mayans, Mohamaddeans, Ottomans, British, and now the French. All hail our absolute and supreme ruler, the direct descendent of Ra Himself, the Pharaoh of Egypt!" Noble Pharaoh, nigh-entombed in colorful royal regalia, emerged from behind his curtains and sat erect upon his golden throne. He addressed his visitors thusly: "Welcome, foreign travelers, to the Kingdom of Egypt. I grant thee audience, for thy magnificent vessel in our port is sufficiently awesome that I permit thee into mine own awesome presence. Speak!"

Dunbar bent to one knee respectfully as he addressed his Highness. "Pharaoh, I am Nathan Dunbar, captain of that self-same magnificent vessel, the Nautilus," he began, "We wish to behold among your most holy treasury, in the Temple of Osiris, the map to Atlantis, the Lost Continent."

"Nathan Dunbar, all that lies within the Temple of Osiris is most sacred, scarcely viewable by mine own eyes and that of mine highest priests," said Pharaoh severely, "What is the cause that you come hither to test blasphemy?"

Montgomery now stepped forward, pulling out a copy of Nemo's map. "Well, your most tastefully dressed majesty, we have in our possession a map that indicates possibly that— "

Pharaoh gasped! He stood up from his throne in astonishment, and reached forward in wonder at the map in Montgomery's hand. Around him, Pharaoh's High Priests fell to their knees, clasped their hand, and raised their arms in joy and thanksgiving. "Behold, could it be?!" cried Pharaoh. "At long last, tis returned to us in our most dire hour!" wept one High Priest. "We are delivered!" sobbed another. Soon, all the Egyptian court had fallen to their knees and bowed their faces towards our motley heroes.

"So, uh...we might maybe be able to work something out?" asked Dunbar at last.

"Brave crew of the Nautilus," said Pharaoh, rising back to his feet, "behold the hieroglyphics upon the opposing side of your cartography!" And indeed, there were in fact faded hieroglyphic figures on the other side of Montgomery's map, which he had erroneously assumed was just scrap paper. "The script is ancient and worn, of a dialect ages old yet still discernible to ourselves! Unbeknownst to you, you have in your possession..."

"...the Sacred Warranty!" cried the High Priest ecstatically.

"Pardon?" asked Carter.

"Many centuries past," explained Pharaoh through his tears of gratitude, "the Kingdom of Egypt and the Roman Empire were engaged in a Space Race to the realm of Khonsu himself, that is, The Moon! Upon the surface of the moon we constructed mighty pyramids to mirror our own in Giza. To further protect our holy realm from Roman invasion, we capped each pyramid with amplification-crystals of the purest ruby. Our own Giza Pyramids would fire lasers directly up at their twins upon the surface of the moon. The amplified laser-fire would be re-doubly returned to Earth to smite upon our enemies. In this manner did we keep our land free from the mighty Roman Empire. But when the Roman Empire collapsed and fell to the Barbarians, we thusly abandoned our space program during a round of ancient budget cuts. Our moon pyramid lasers fell into disrepair...

"We had no need of them you see, as our coastal defense forces was more than a match for any other foreign expeditions. Thus, when Cyborg-Napoleon sent his vast airships, numberless like the locusts, to conquer our fair land in these latter days, we found we could no longer activate our key defense. Our conventional military has thus far kept him at bay, but the long decades of Napoleon's rule across Europe have worn our Navy down to the verge of collapse. Desperate, we scoured through the entire library of Alexandria for the warranty information, but alas! The Ancient Priests of Ra had scattered that Warranty to the four corners of the Earth, to ensure its safety!"

"Wait, how the hell would scattering it ensure its safety?" asked Trip.

"Eh, seemed like a good idea at the time," shrugged Pharaoh, "Hindsight's 20/20 and so forth. But now, as Cyborg-Napoleon prepares his final Naval assault upon our shores, the key to reactivating our Egyptian moon-pyramid lasers has been restored! All praise Ra!"

"Praise Ra!" came the echoing chorus of the court.

But then, most importunately, explosions rocked the outer walls of the palace; all instinctively took cover as the dust and small stones rained down over them. "Curses!" cried out Pharaoh, recovering himself, "Cyborg-Napoleon has begun his Naval bombardment sooner than anticipated!"

Anger and resolve briefly flashed across his face, but then Pharaoh slouched back onto his throne in sad resignation. "Oh, whom do we fool?" he cried out in despair, "For centuries have our pyramid-lasers sat in disrepair, for even longer have our moon pyramids. And that assumes they even work work anymore! We are doomed, abandoned by the gods!"

Yet Dunbar had already turned back to his crew, ignoring the laments of Pharaoh. "Nautilus huddle!" he called out. Dunbar, Carter, Montgomery, and Trip all gathered around him. "Gentlemen, Egypt is about to be thrown into chaos by Cyborg-Napoleon's invasion. In the confusion, we might be able break into the Temple of Osiris and steal the map!"

"Like a common Yankee carpet-bagger? I'll never hear of it!" said Carter indignantly.

"All things considered John, I'd agree with you," said Dunbar, "but our options are limited in this regard, and Pharaoh ain't exactly throwin' the Temple doors open to us right now. Our priority right now is the Martians, not Cyborg-Napoleon."

"I am a proud Southerner, not a thief!" said Carter.

"Except from the sweat of a black man's brow!" said Trip.

"Hey, that was a long time ago and slavery was totally abolished in the Confederacy..."

"Not willingly!"

Their exchange was briefly interrupted by another French naval assault rocking the palace walls.

"Gentlemen," said Montgomery, "if I might suggest we expedite our decision making process..."

"Yeah, yeah, calm down everyone," said Dunbar, "quick, a strategy...um..."

But Trip had already left the huddle and now addressed Pharaoh directly: "I'll fix them pyramid-lasers for ya, Pharaoh!"

"What?" said Pharaoh, looking up.

"Pharaoh, I've kept a run-down Union airship running from Indiana to the South Atlantic," declared Trip proudly, "I've fitted a steam-powered cybernetic-leg to full functionality. I've built howitzer machine-cannons from scratch, and I'm currently running a nuclear submarine. Let me fix your pyramid-lasers using the warranty information. If I do this, will you grant us entrance to the Temple of Osiris?"

Pharaoh brushed some debris from off his arm. "Brave fellow son of Africa, if you could perform this miracle and vanquish Napoleon's armada, I would grant your every desire," he said.

"Every desire?" said Trip, suddenly very thoughtful, "Hmmm! Well, while I'm thinking of it..."

Another explosion rocked the palace. "Trip!" shouted Dunbar and Carter in unison.

"What?"

"Just what do you think you're doing?" demanded Carter.

"Saving my fellow Africans, what are you doing?"

"Trip, that's highly commendable," shouted Dunbar, "but just what makes you think you have enough time to repair pyramid-lasers before Cyborg-Napoleon comes?"

"The scoundrel is practically at the doors," noted Montgomery

"Easy! Just hold 'em off with the Nautilus," said Trip.

"Young man!" lectured Carter, "The Nautilus is but one ship, we hardly have the firepower to stave off Cyborg-Napoleon's entire armada!"

"Wait, wait," said Trip, almost laughing, "you guys tellin' me you haven't examined the ship specs while we was travelin'? Leave it to the white folks to never read the directions! Guys, the Nautilus has a titanium-osmium alloy hull. She's nuclear powered. She has repeating-revolver torpedo launchers. Lordy, gentlemen, she can actually go underwater!"

"Trip, I'm afraid all that jargon means nothing to us—" began Dunbar.

"Gentlemen!" said Trip, exasperated, "what all that means is we here gots the most advanced military vessel in the history of humanity! She's at least a century ahead of her time! That Nautilus there is easily an overmatch for the most advanced ship in the French Empire."

"Yes, but are we an overmatch for their entire fleet?"

But Trip was already exiting the hall towards the Pyramids. "Cap'n, I don't need you to defeat all of France," he said, "we gots moon pyramids for that. Just buy me some time to get 'em recalibrated."

"I shall accompany the young man," said Montgomery, trotting after Trip, "I can translate ancient Egyptian. Dabbled in school, you see."

Dunbar and Carter, with nothing much else to do but exchange glances, took cover from another explosion and then sprinted through the pandemonium-stricken streets back to the Nautilus.

___

Trip and Montgomery stood before a massive console inside a Pyramid of Giza; this here was one of those old style computers, an ancient Egyptian UNIVAC that ran on vacuum tubes and curses, and that filled up an entire warehouse. Ancient hieroglyphs covered walls, a cobwebbed computer terminal sat carved in stone, and sticky-notes with more hieroglyphs were plastered around the computer monitor, along with clippings of ancient news-papyrus cartoons. Montgomery studiously examined the Sacred Warranty.

"Translate for me," said Trip, as he removed the stone-panel of the motherboard.

"*Ahem*" began Montgomery, "Many Felicitations and Blessings Upon Your Posterity for your purchase of these twelve one-of-a-kind pyramid-lasers aparati. If properly maintained, your pyramid-lasers will provide centuries of..."

"Skip that part."

"To register your product, first..."

"I'll register later, dammit!"

___

Back on the Nautilus, the Red Alert siren bathed the Bridge in blood-light, while Dunbar barked orders from his Captain's chair and the rest of the crew scrambled to their positions: "Man battle stations! Red Alert! Weapons to ready! Prepare to engage the Napoleonic Armada!"

"Enemy fleet dead ahead!" reported O'Reilly.

"Please don't use the word dead," said Edith Nightingale.

Dunbar peered through a periscope. "Enemy fleet has not yet acknowledged us, they are still concentrating fire on the Egyptian shore." And indeed, in the distance, the French Fleet numbered near as locusts indeed upon the Mediterranean, as they focused their fire-power upon the collapsing Egyptian shore defenses.

"Oh, I'm sure they've acknowledged us," said Carter, "they merely do not regard us."

"Well, they will soon enough," said Dunbar, grimacing, "Alright, it's now or never. Fire all weapons!"

All waited on the bridge with baited breath.

Then, one by one, they began to look upon one another. "Um...do we, do we have a weapon's officer?" asked Dunbar finally.

Faulkner then entered the bridge, carrying a big ol' pot of jambalaya. He stopped, noted everyone's indecision, and then said, "Ah hell, I'll be weapons officer." He handed the pot of jambalaya off to Carter. "Here, hold this." Faulkner then thumbed his suspenders as he meandered to the weapons console, carefully examined all the menagerie of controls, dials, metres, switches, and levers before him, and them at last pressed down his index finger upon a large red button in the exact center of the console that red "FIRE!"

At once, a pair of massive revolver-style launch-tubes (modeled upon the venerable designs of Smith, Wesson, and Browning) emerged from each side of the mighty Nautilus, and began firing multiple torpedoes in rapid order, in such a display of weaponry that none present had ever before witnessed. Presently, in the distance, a trio of French Ironclad warships exploded in astounding balls of fire.

Back on the bridge of the Nautilus, Carter dropped the pot of jambalaya in shock. "Holy Shi—!" he began. "Watch your tongue John, you're a gentleman," admonished his Uncle Faulkner.

"Never in all the Second War of Northern Aggression did I behold such firepower..." continued Carter, more to himself, "why, if the Confederacy did have then just this one ship, then we could have...Lordy, we really do have the most advanced ship on earth..."

"The French have ceased firing on the Egyptian coast!" said Dunbar jubilantly.

"...aaaand appear to be turning their attention to us," said O'Reilly, pointing out the front view-port.

And indeed, amongst the wreckage of the other ships, the remaining French Navy (who still numbered quite impressively), prepared broadsides in the Nautilus's general direction.

"...and are firing on us all at once..." noted Carter.

At once, Dunbar's jubilation turned to terror: "Dive! Dive!" he shouted, "Damn you O'Reilly, dive!" And right at that moment, the entire French fleet simultaneously opened fire.

__

Meanwhile, back in the pyramids, Trip was on his back, half-inside the console with various and sundry ratchets and wire-strippers, whilst Montgomery adjusted his reading-spectacles to continue translating the Sacred Warranty. "First attempt ceasing energy-cycles and reinstating said processes once more..." he read.

"No, no, we already did that man, read the next part!" said Trip.

"Hmmm... 'For technical support, please contact...'"

"I guaran-tee that number has been out of service for centuries, durn it man, ain't you ever learned how to skim instructions in Egyptian?"

___

Back in the Mediterranean, the Nautilus was weaving under water between the sinking wreckage of French Iron-clads, as she continued her awe-inspiring rapid-fire assault upon the French armada above them. "Ha-ha! Trip was right, we got dem Frenchies right where we want 'em!" shouted Dunbar exultantly, "Excellent piloting, Mr. O'Reilly! Fire at will, Colonel Faulkner!"

Carter likewise stood forth gallantly, proud at their success, when something caught the corner of his eye. He looked out a side port-window to behold a rather innocuous French barrel sinking near them. "Curious...?" he muttered. But before anyone could hear him, the barrel exploded terribly, and rocked the Nautilus mightily. All the crew fell off balance. Dunbar grunted as he gripped his arm-rests and climbed back into his Captain's chair, as further such sinking barrels exploded about them. Steam began to blow from the pipes. "Depth charges! Damn, how'd they invent those so fast?!" he shouted.

___

Back at the pyramids, Trip stood before the computer console, staring into it intently as though conjuring some lost and ancient mystery from the depths of the Sphinx and his own soul. All around him dangling wires vomited from the console, some re-routed through others, others with stripped insulation, all of which still resulted in nothing but this apparent blank screen, as empty as the day it was forged in the fabled glass-mines of the Hebrews. Montgomery began to venture a suggestion, but Trip immediately silenced him with a wave of his hand. Intently he stared at the console, the only noise the quiet ticks of his pocket watch, and an occasional cough from Montgomery.

Finally, Trip jiggled one of the cords.

The console screen lit up at last. "Ah, now we're gettin' somewhere!" said Trip.

___

Back on the Nautilus, water spewed water from the steaming pipes, the bridge had flooded ankle deep, and all the main lights had gone out save the red-alert from the ever-shrieking siren. Cuts and bruises criss-crossed the faces of all, as they were yet again thrown to the ground again by yet more explosions.

"Those aren't just depth-charges, those be bona fide torpedoes!" shouted Dunbar.

O'Reilly gripped the throttle as he shouted back, "Their airships can see us more easily from above and can shoot directly upon us!" And indeed, although much of the mighty French Armada was now wreckage, the blue, white, and red French Zeppelins in the sky were firing their torpedoes directly upon Nautilus, while the surviving ships (of which there yet remained many) continued to drop their improvised depth-charges after them.

"Those airships appear to be outside our jurisdiction," drawled Faulkner.

A soaking wet Dunbar gripped the sides of the Captain's chair as yet further explosions rocked the Nautilus. "Stop hitting my ship!" shouted Dunbar in frustration.

"Your ship?!" shouted back Carter.

___

Meanwhile, back at the pyramids, Montgomery and Trip had hit a slight hiccup. "And behold, thus speaketh the most high Osiris," read Montgomery, "thou shalt insert rod A into slot C, and rotate 45 degrees from east to west, yeah verily, even as the sun moves across the sky..."

"Wait, wait, is the warranty saying I need to rotate rod A in a clockwise motion," asked Trip, "or do I actually turn it in synchronous movement with the sun?"

"I'm just readin' it, son."

"Don't call me son, honkey!"

"Do you want me to translate this here papyrus or not?"

"Man, we'll be here all day at this rate."

___

The Nautilus now lay at the bottom of the Mediterranean, damaged and dented. "They've quit firing on us," whispered Dunbar, looking up expectantly.

"They think they've sunk us," sighed Faulkner.

Edith Nightingale cupped her ear carefully. "Listen: they're resuming their bombardment of Egypt..." she noted. And in actuality, if all strained their ears, they could faintly make out the booms of the mighty French Armada returning the full force of their bombardment back upon the decimated Egyptian defenses.

"Those poor Egyptians," said Carter solemnly, shaking his head.

It was O'Reilly, then, who broke this somber mood with a loud shout and a sudden jerk of a lever. "Not if I have anything to do about it!" he cried out.

Dunbar fell back into his chair as the Nautilus roared back to life. "Sonny, what are you...WHOA! WHOA!"

O'Reilly's face contorted in sheer maniacal joy as he piloted the Nautilus nearly straight perpendicularly upwards at full speed. "Come at me, ya French bastards!" he shouted in glee, "And don't think the lads of Ireland have forgotten the betrayal of 1798! Ha-ha! HA-HA!

And before anyone could say otherwise, the Nautilus, almost completely vertical at a slight angle, pierced through a French Ironclad, breaking it in half as she flew straight-up into the air. The Nautilus' parabolic trajectory had them amongst the Zeppelins almost immediately. The forward viewport framed a bright blue sky... and three invading airships. Dunbar, still gripping desperately the sides of his chair, had just barely the presence of mind to shout out, "For the love of Vishnu, fire at those airships!"

And while the Nautilus was still briefly in the air like a leaping dolphin, Faulkner, hanging on for dear life himself, swung his arm around to the "FIRE!" button, and a barrage of torpedoes sent those French Zeppelins erupting like fireworks. The Nautilus landed back horizontally onto the surface of the sea with a mighty splash, then immediately began driving forward at full throttle again. "May ye be in hell a half-hour before the devil even wants ya, ha-ha-ha!" shouted O'Reilly merrily, as they rammed straight into another Ironclad and split her in half.

___

Meanwhile, back at the Pyramids, Trip carefully examined the console, intrigued. In the corner, Montgomery sat on a stool with his leg crossed, as he smoked a pipe with satisfaction. "Ah, I see how this here contraption works," said Trip, "Quite ingenious, really. All we have to wait for now is..."

Suddenly an angry voice crackled across the speaker of one of those new-fangled wireless radio-transmitters that were in style in London that year. "TRIP! MONTGOMERY!" crackled Dunbar's voice, "Where the hell are my moon lasers?!"

Trip smiled broadly and proudly as he responded, "Why cap'n, speak o' the devil and the devil shall appear. Fancy you should call me in right about now, I think I've just about got these lasers figured out."

Back on the Nautilus, a bruised and bleeding Dunbar practically throttled his radio-transmitter while Faulkner tried to put out a fire behind him with a pot of jambalaya. "Then fire them! Fire them now!"

"Whoa, whoa, hold yer horses there cap'n," said Trip, leaning back in his chair, "I said I had 'em 'bout figured out, not ready."

"TRIP, can ya fire 'em or not?!" screamed Dunbar.

"Well, I can Cap, but the tangent plane of the moon pyramids needs to be perpendicular to the..."

"Dammit, quit hitting my ship!" shouted Dunbar as the Nautilus rocked once more.

"You're ship?!" said Trip, annoyed.

Trip, unaware of the full extent of their current predicament, tried to patiently explain astro-physics into the static-ridden radio. "The moon isn't in the right place yet, so if we fire now, them lasers won't hit the broad side of a barn."

"TRIP! We've got the entire French fleet firing on us at once and we've just lost ballast and submersion abilities, now fire the damn lasers!"

"Cap'n, if you can just be patient a couple..."

"That's an order!"

"Ah, hell." Trip rolled his eyes and frowned as he flipped a switch on the stone console.

And then, in the late-afternoon sun, the ruby capstones atop the proud pyramids of Giza lit up for the first time in centuries and fired brilliant red laser beams directly into the sky above. In a second and a quarter, these beams hit the capstones of their twins upon the surface of the Moon, which in turn refracted their laser beams onto a central pyramid, larger than all the rest combined, which then refocused and amplified them all into one massive fiery-orange laser beam as wide and large as the base of this pyramid itself. This super-beam returned to Earth in a brilliant show such as generations of man had never before witnessed, where it promptly cut a swath across the Sinai Peninsula,carving a canal from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf of Suez adjoining the Red Sea.

"Trip, that was amazing!" shouted Dunbar in sheer awe as this brilliant laser faded, even as his face fell once more, "but you totally missed the fleet!"

"I warned ya, stupid-ass honkey!" admonished Trip.

But Dunbar had more pressing concerns in that moment. "O'Reilly, full reverse, get us out through that new canal!" cried Dunbar, looking through the front view port at the massive French fleet that had already recovered itself from their shock and awe at this great light show, and was focusing fire back at them once more, "Faulkner, fire everything, everything!"

The smoking Nautilus backed away from the fleet into the new (and rapidly inundating) canal as fast as it could (admittedly, not as fast as it could have just a few scant hours earlier), as the entire French fleet pursued spitefully after them, hardly deterred by the rapid torpedoes that Nautilus still fired at them.

___

Back at the Pyramids, Montgomery and Trip sat in their chairs, lounging like it was the Old South, smoking their pipes silently and contentedly. At last Montgomery asked Trip, "So, how much longer do we need to wait till the moon be in correct position?"

"Oh, just a couple minutes, like I was tryin' to tell Cap'n."

Montgomery checked his pocket watch. "Tis been two minutes already."

"Well then, I reckon it be time to fire again," and Trip casually reached over from his seat and flipped the switch again with the stem of his corn-cob pipe.

Once more, the pyramids of Giza fired their combined might of their lasers, which in mere seconds was once more refracted and reflected back to Earth with the brightness of a thousand suns. Even in the full glare of the setting sun, the lasers of the Egyptian Moon Pyramids dwarfed all around for brightness. All aboard the Nautilus shielded their eyes against the lasers' red glare, powerful enough that they could feel it in their skin through the forward viewport.

This time it hit its mark; and with the Nautilus safely ensconced near the mouth of the Suez Canal, they beheld, in an instant, the totality of the impressive French Armada reduced to charred and sinking ruins, ironclads and airships alike. The rain of artillery bombardment was replaced with a storm of falling metal and burning canvas as airships crashed into the sea. The Grand and Innumerable Napoleonic Armada, the plague of Europe and the world for just short of a century, was suddenly no more. Egypt was saved.

"Trip...you...you did it!" said Dunbar at last into the radio, weary yet relieved.

"Damn straight I did it," said Trip, slightly annoyed, "Now, what in sam hell have you done to the Nautilus that she can't submerge no more? Do you know how long that's gonna take me to fix?!"

___

Before the week was through, Dunbar and crew once again stood before the throne of Pharaoh, who reverently and personally passed the Osiris Map to Atlantis into their hands. "This map is now yours, henceforth and forever, as an eternal token of our gratitude, brave crew of the Nautilus!" Pharaoh declared, "Thanks to your intelligence and bravery, our pyramid-lasers function once more, and Egypt, again and forever, shall never be slave to a foreign power. Ra bless thee!" All the court erupted in applause, as the bruised and bandaged crew bowed respectfully.

"Great Pharaoh!" Dunbar intoned, "Will you now seek to turn the tides of war against the French? Use your Moon Lasers to go on the offensive?"

The Pharaoh looked down upon Dunbar from his dais, "No, unfortunately not. My soothsayers and oracles tell me that the Moon Lasers' Optical Resonators are designed to focus beams only within an incidence angle of a few milliradians, providing protection only within a few hundred furlongs of the pyramids here in Egypt."

"Oh, I see," Dunbar lied.

___

Repairs were expedited agreeably by the Egyptian Army Corp of Engineers, and soon the crew was back on board the Nautilus. They gathered among the sea-charts, as Montgomery examined the Osiris Map. After careful study, Montgomery announced with a sigh, "Well, gentlemen, I'm afraid this map does not help us much at all."

"Wait, wait, what do you mean?" asked Dunbar.

"This map is but a fragment I'm afraid."

"Why, those lying, conniving Egyptians!" cried out Carter.

"Now, now, nephew," said Faulkner gently, "I'm sure twasn't nothin' intentional..."

But before Carter could rejoinder, a blinding flash aboard the Bridge diverted their attention, as HG Wells once more stepped forward from his Time Machine. He was dressed only in torn leather pleats, an open and sleeveless denim vest, knee-high combat boots, multiple piercings and tattoos, and his hair styled like unto a North American Mohawk, colored hot-pink.

"And indeed twasn't, my good John Carter!" said HG Wells.

"Sweet mercy, who on earth dressed you?" said Montgomery in disgust.

"Please excuse my dreadful appearance," began HG Wells, "Holiday costume party. In fact, twas over drinks at that very party that I learned of how the original Atlantian map exists not as a whole but in fragments. I came as soon as I learned this important tid-bit. You must, I'm afraid, gather all these scattered fragments to find Atlantis."

"And just where on earth are we supposed to find all these fragments?" shouted Dunbar in frustration.

"That, I'm afraid, is what I'm still attempting to uncover myself," said HG Wells, nonplussed, "I shall report back when I have gathered more intelligence..."

"Wait, you don't even have a guess?" asked Carter with some measure of exasperation, "This is a very large world for us to be hunting mere fragments, and we can't exactly battle an entire French fleet for every single piece."

"A just objection, my dear John Carter, Jr." replied HG Wells, "Although...I do have a theory..."

"Yes?"

"In ancient times," began HG Wells, contemplatively, "long before the Egyptians even had a space program, the dear realm of Ra had a rather significant slave population...of Hebrew origin..."

"And the good Lord did deliver them. Split the Red Sea for 'em," said Faulkner.

"And the Lord God said, 'Go down Moses, let my people go,'" recited Trip.

"Yes good sirs, you know your Bible," said HG Wells, "you might also then remember that as they made their Exodus, the House of Israel spoiled the Egyptians, bringing with them to the land of Canaan all manner of treasures..."

At once Dunbar knew what to do. "O'Reilly!" he called.

"Aye, sir!"

"Set a course for Jerusalem. Trip! How are repairs coming along?"

"We're back to full operation and are submersion capable!" said Trip proudly.

"Mr. Carter, do give the word."

John Carter Jr. stood forth gallantly on the bridge while HG Wells disappeared behind him in another blinding flash of light. "Full speed to Israel, Mr. O'Reilly!" he commanded, "And onward to Jerusalem!"

Amidst the cheers from grateful Egyptians crowding the docks of the Greater Alexandria-Cairo Metropolitan Area, the Nautilus sailed off east into the Mediterranean, while the sun set behind them.

Now, it is a fact commonly acknowledged that one must never stare into the sun directly, particularly a setting sun. Hence, none looked to see—indeed, none thought to observe—a dark silhouette against the setting sun off in the distance, observing this whole scene. The shadow was shorter than the standard European man, of a sort of stocky build, and was crowned with a French Admiral's cap. And if one had stared at this figure long enough (though again, one must never stare directly into the sun, even as it sets), a single glowing red eye would have been visible, gazing from beyond the darkness.

___

Chapter 3. "Jerusalem, If I Forget Thee..."

Jerusalem, Israel—8:03PM Israeli Kislev Time

Twilight, in the Ancient City Jerusalem! Orthodox Jews in traditional garb thronged down her busy streets. Prayer-shawls, tassels, yarmulkes and black coats, long skirts and grand, beautiful beards, demarcated the good people of Israel. But let not their clothing fool you into assuming this to be some colorless, joyless realm! This be a passionate people, who think and feel in equally profound measure. Their wonderful architecture is an astounding mish-mash of the ancient, the medieval, and the latest Victorian modern; they are a people known for their many and lavish holidays, their profound religious experience, their incalculable contributions to the arts and sciences, and of course for their theatre, dance, and song! Such was their reputation in the latter field that Montgomery Charleston sashayed across the main plaza in a fabulous black velvet dress, unwrapped the scarf from around his face, and, apropos of nothing, began to belt out a Broadway showstopper:

"Match-maker, match-maker, make me a match!" he sang, to which of course he was immediately joined by a fine Hassidic woman, "Find me a find!" and then a third, "Catch me a catch!" Merrily, Montgomery threw his arms over both their shoulders, to add, "Match-maker, match-maker, look through your books," to which the other two harmonized, "And make me a perfect match!"

Now a third, and a fourth, and a fifth all joined in steady progression, each adding a line: "Matchmaker, matchmaker, I'll bring the veil!"

"You bring the groom!"

"Slender and pale!"

"Bring me a ring for I'm longing to be..."

Altogether now: "The envy of all to see!"

Invariably, the entire street joined together, splitting intuitively between a woman's section and a men's, with our dear Montgomery dancing between them, such that could be heard:

LADIES: For Papa make him a scholar!

GENTLEMEN: For Mama, make him rich as a King!

LADIES: For me? Well I wouldn't holler...

MONTGOMERY: If he was as handsome as anything!

Soon all of Jerusalem had joined in together in this grand musical number.

___

So it appeared to Nathan Dunbar, as he observed the whole scene from a stealthy distance through his binoculars. "Well, I'll be bedeviled, it actually worked," he said.

"The people are distracted, we can sneak into the Temple now," noted Faulkner.

"Who would have thought that Charleston Montgomery would have an entire Hassidic wardrobe in his closet?" mused Carter.

"Man, what doesn't he have in his closet?" said Trip.

___

Soon our heroes were sneaking down the dark back alleyways of Jerusalem at night, deserted while the Broadway Review brewed in the main Plaza. "You know, perhaps that Moses the 28th feller was telling the truth," whispered Faulkner, "that what we seek really isn't hidden within Solomon's Temple."

"First rule of intelligence Uncle, never show your whole hand," said Carter, as he spied around a corner, "I learned that in the war. No, Moses did not even ask us what we sought before he shot our request down—that means he knows what we seek!"

"I don't like this, guys," said Trip, "Even the Egyptians barely let us into their Temple, what right have we to break into the Jews'?"

"That's just it, the Egyptians at least offered the possibility," said Dunbar, "Moses wouldn't even hear us out, not even when he heard how we defeated Cyborg-Napoleon's navy!"

"And besides," said Carter, as he at last spied the two Levites standing guard at the entrance to the Temple of Solomon, "the next fragment to the Atlantis Map ain't doing anyone a bit of good just sitting in that there Temple."

"Hmm," said Faulkner, stroking his white beard as he peered around the corner, "so how you figure we get past them there guards without raising a ruckus, Nathan?"

But as Faulkner, Carter, and Trip looked around, they suddenly realized that Dunbar was nowhere in sight. "Nathan? Now, just where in God's green earth did that Yankee disappear to?"

Suddenly they beheld a rope drop quietly behind one of the Temple guards without either noticing. Dunbar slid down it silently and stealthily. With a single Judo chop he took out the first one; as the other turned around, Dunbar knocked him out cold with a round-house kick to the head before he could utter a peep. He then signaled the others.

"I do believe you have some things to tell me, Nathan," said Carter, catching up with him.

"Later, these men are only unconscious, hurry!" said Dunbar, rushing them inside.

Our party of four now snuck their way along the torch-lit yet otherwise empty corridors of the legendary Temple of Solomon. "I must say, compared to the Temple of Osiris, these walls be positively bare," Faulkner remarked.

"Too bare, if you ask me," said Carter.

"Man, where could anyone even hide a map fragment in a place like this?" said Trip.

"Right...there!" pointed Dunbar.

And indeed, just around the corner at the end of a long hall, gleaming in all its primal glory and antiquity, sat the Ark of the Covenant—the covenant of Israel, the burden of Moses, the severe and awful power of God. Almost instinctually, these four ceased to speak aloud, and approached this inner sanctum of the Temple with careful and reverent awe. Nevertheless, they got to work quickly.

Dunbar and Carter slid a pair long wooden poles into the lid of the Ark. Grunting against its weight, they lifted it off, and carefully placed it upon the ground. Soon all four of them gathered around the Ark and gazed inside, curious.

At first, all they beheld was a deep and impenetrable darkness that belied the seeming shallowness of the box. But then, faintly, a distant light seemed to glow within...and then to glimmer...

And then to grow.

A tingling ran up and down each of their spines, as they all took an automatic step back. The light began to shine out of the open Ark into the room itself.

Yet though they had fair warning from how every hair on their bodies now stood on end, still they were unprepared for what happened next. For all at once a battalion of ghosts streamed out the Ark, swirled around them, flew through and filled the air. The Nautilus crew stood rooted to the floor, in enraptured wonder and awful terror at the beauty of the ghosts that danced and surrounded them.

One particularly lovely ghost floated up and hovered before the frightened face of Faulkner. He let himself smile briefly at her wondrous complexion. But then, all at once, her face transformed into an angry and malformed skull.

"AAAAAAAHHH!!!" Faulkner screamed in abject terror, as the malevolent spirit prepared to melt off his very face.

But then suddenly this ghost was struck by a sustained bolt of lightning, driving it back into the Ark. Indeed, a veritable hydra of lightning bolts seemed to strike each angry phantasm at once and drive them back into the Ark, as the crew of the Nautilus shielded their eyes in wonder. One final electrical strike flipped the lid back on top, and snapped it shut.

All four of the Nautilus crew snapped their heads to the source of their deliverance, to behold the stern visage of Moses the 28th, in long beard and the flowing red robes of Aaron, holding his staff angrily, as a final electrical charge arced from its head. "What are you schmucks even doing?" he demanded.

"Well, uh..." stammered Dunbar as Moses approached them.

"Did I not explicitly tell thee that what thou seekest is not here?!"

"Well, how do you know what we seek?" Carter tried to turn the tables on Moses.

"Thou seekest the lost fragment of the map to Atlantis!" Moses said.

"Ah-Ha! So you do know where—"

"The Temple of Vishnu up the Ganges in India."

"Oh."

"Wait, the Ganges?" said Dunbar, "Why didn't you just tell us?"

"You didn't ask!"

"Well, couldn't you have at least volunteered the..."

"You left immediately without giving me a chance!"

"Oh. Well, yeah..." said Faulkner, turning red.

"Yeah!" shouted Moses.

"Well, um...many apologies, sir."

"I should think so!"

"You know this wasn't even my idea?" said Trip.

"I guess we'll just, uh, um *ahem* skedaddle..." said Dunbar, awkwardly backing away.

But then such was their misfortunate timing that at that very moment, the two knocked-out Temple guards, having already regained consciousness, now suddenly appeared in the corridor beside Moses. "There they are!" they shouted, "They have trespassed the Holy Temple!"

"Ah, hell," said Dunbar, turning to run. Shortly, all four of our erstwhile heroes were holding their hats as they ran a full mad sprint down the Temple halls, as an entire cadre of Temple Guards gave chase to them with spears, torches, and sharpened menorahs.

__

"Traditiooooon...Tradition!" sang out Charleston Montgomery, his arms in the air and his fingers snapping in rhythm, as he led the crowd in another joyous Broadway review. Yet as he stretched out to his full wingspan for the grand finale, Dunbar and Carter broke through the crowd, hooked his each arm respectively, and took off sprinting with him.

"Gentlemen!" he protested, "Why, we haven't even begun the final medley yet!"

Just then the Temple guards arrived and cried out among the midst of this ready formed mob: "Stop them! They have trespassed the Holy Temple!" The Broadway Review at once transformed into an angry and vindictive mob, and gave them chase.

At that, Montgomery began to sprint alongside his fellow crewmembers as well. "Ah, hell," he said.

"Sonny!" shouted a running Dunbar into his wireless-radio, "Get the Nautilus ready! Now!" And not a minute too soon, for the Nautilus emerged at the end of a pier just in time for these 5 of her intrepid crew members to leap off from the docks and onto the Nautilus hull. They were followed closely by an exceedingly angry (yet kosher) crowd of Israeli citizens in the early morning twilight.

Straightway the Nautilus pulled away from the docks of Jerusalem, while the incensed mob shouted epitaphs and shook their fists at them. "I do apologize!" shouted back Dunbar awkwardly, just before he hurriedly closed the hatch and descended below.

"What a disaster," he said as he entered the bridge.

"Why, what happened?" asked Edith Nightingale.

"I do believe that we just offended every Jew on earth," declared Faulkner, running his fingers through his hair.

"Blimey! What'd you guys do?" asked Sonny.

"Just get us out of here, Sonny," said Carter.

"Aye-aye, first mate!"

But they weren't out of the woods just yet.

Back at the dock, the mob split like the Red Sea, as they allowed through the august and holy Moses the 28th, walking with his staff. The rising sun crested the Mount Carmel mountain range behind him as he watched the Nautilus speed away. At that, and without a word, Moses raised his staff, and the Mediterranean Sea parted before him, in a full horse-show shape around the Nautilus that trapped her on the wrong side of it. Towering walls of oceanic water, far greater than those of the Red Sea of renowned by Moses the 1st of yore, pulled apart from each other, and allowed the morning daylight just then cresting Mount Carmel to fall upon the mighty ocean floor thousands of feet below (easily dwarfing the proudest man-made buildings, the sky-scrapers of New York, the pyramids of Egypt, & etc), revealing the coral, the kelp, and the countless wreckages of all the other foolhardy navies that had sought to assault Israel over the millennia—the Persian, Greek, Roman, Spanish, Mayan, and French. Great whales and massive sea-turtles could be observed their heads through these great walls of water, before turning around to continue swimming along their way. The sea rumbled with an awful roar as these great walls of water were held apart by a power that exceeded human comprehension.

"Mercy me," enthused Faulkner, as he beheld the gaping chasm in the ocean through the port-holes.

"We can't escape!" cried out Carter.

"What in heaven's name did you boys do?" exclaimed Nightingale.

The Nautilus slowly beeped as she backed away from the split in the sea and back towards the dock, where Moses and the furious mob awaited them.

A flustered Dunbar barked at Trip at the consoles: "Um, Trip! Gimme full engine power!"

"Just did," said Trip, "I think you got the same damn stupid-ass idea as me!"

"Oh no..." said Nightingale, shaking her head slowly in dawning horror, "oh no you don't..."

"Full speed, Mr. O'Reilly!" shouted Dunbar.

At that, the Nautilus rocketed forward, spraying sea-water behind her upon the angry mob as she went, as she raced back towards the chasm. Moses, at first perplexed, then with sudden realization, raised his staff even higher, expanding the oceanic chasm wider.

No matter. The mighty Nautilus flying at full-speed crested the Mediterranean sea-wall and flew over the hundreds of feet of empty sea-floor beneath them, its many and sundry shipwrecks gleaming in the daylight. And at the steep angle at which the Nautilus was falling, it appeared they would soon join them.

All the collective crew could do was scream in abject terror.

But remember, this Nautilus was first and foremost a submersible—the world's first, in fact—and so though she missed the other side of the sea surface as so many other ships had done before, when she penetrated near the bottom of the opposing sea-wall, she merely leveled off immediately and rocketed away into the deep sea, scattering a school of fish as she did so. "Yeah-woo!" cried out Trip in jubilation.

___

Back at the Jerusalem docks, Moses the 28th lowered his staff back down and allowed the sea to close back in on itself with a gigantic crash. The angry mob disbursed, mumbling all the way as they got on with their respective days, with nary a word on the sea-split itself (such having become commonplace in Israeli history, particularly as of late). "Tis a shame," Moses said at last as he turned away, "I was going to forgive them and bless them on their journey."

___

Back on the Nautilus, all were silent. Each sat brooding and slouching in their seats as the Nautilus sailed along through the deep. So embarrassed were they that they scarcely noted the blinding flash that signaled this latest appearance of HG Wells in his Time Machine.

"Gallant crew of the Nautilus!" he said quickly, "I came as soon as I learned: the next missing fragment of the Atlantis map is not in fact in Jerusalem! No, it is in fact in—"

"India. Temple of Vishnu," Dunbar snapped, "We know."

"Oh, delightful! Who informed you?"

"Moses," said Carter.

"Oh, when did Moses tell you?"

"Right after we broke into the Temple of Solomon," mumbled Dunbar.

"Ah," he said—and then with dawning realization, "Oh. Oh. I see. Um..."

"You know what you honkey-ass cracka'," said Trip, "you have a friggin' time machine, why can't you just travel back to before we made a total ass of ourselves?!"

"Um...it's complicated."

Only awkward silence followed. HG Wells finally snapped his fingers, clapped his hands, leaned back on his heels and then mosied on back to his Time Machine. "Welp, uh, this fête has certainly died," he said, "I am, however, uh, a hundred percent sure on the India thing, I can, uh, totally back up Moses on that one. Well cheerio, catch you later!" And in another blinding flash, he was off. The crew continued to sit in silence.

"So, uh...to India then?" asked O'Reilly at last.

"Yes. Yeah. To India," barked Dunbar.

"Is, uh, *ahem* Mr. Carter to give the word?"

"Go. Just go Mr. O'Reilly," said Carter.

"Aye."

One by one, the rest of the crew showed themselves off the bridge. "Well, uh, I'm gonna go read my Bible..." said Faulkner, "the, uh, New Testament..."

"Yeah, I'll, um, check the engines..." said Trip.

"...change my clothing..." said Montgomery, still in a simply fabulous Hasidic dress.

"Uhhh... I'm gonna do something else too," said Carter, leaving only Captain Dunbar to slouch in his chair and stew in his humiliation.

That is, him and Edith.

Slowly she approached Dunbar. "Please tell me what you're thinking, Nathan," she finally asked.

He heaved a massive sigh, then said: "Edith, I deserted the Union army 'cause I was tired of violating the rights of Native Tribes in their native lands, understand. And now what do I go off and do? Just that. In Jerusalem itself, of all places. Permit me a moment or two of feeling like a bona fide jackass, if you please."

"Nathan..." she said after a pause, "do you know why I left the English Army for America, and then left America to follow you?"

"Wasn't it to one-up your sister Florence?"

"Besides that," she said, momentarily flustered, "Nathan, I just wanted to have some adventures. And so far, I've had plenty of those, more than I ever even hoped. And an adventure doesn't even have to succeed...my, it doesn't even have to make you look like anything but a flaming idiot...for it to still qualify as an adventure. Understand?"

Dunbar looked up at her, plaintively. She kissed him lightly on the forehead, then walked away.

"Don't beat yourself up...too much about it," she said at the doorway, "We need you fresh for new adventures in India." And she returned to her cabin.

Dunbar was left alone on the bridge, sitting a little more erect in his Captain's chair, a little more thoughtful.

Then suddenly Sonny spun around in his pilot's chair, faced Dunbar happily and raised his palm forward. "Excellent, cap'n!" he said, "I think she likes ya! High five me!"

Dunbar just stared at Sonny's hand in the air. O'Reilly just kept on smiling. "Don't leave me hangin', cap'n!"

Finally O'Reilly gave up, but kept on smiling as he spun back around to the throttle. "Alrighty then, full speed to India!" And the Nautilus continued its dark journey through the depths, cutting through the brand-new Suez Canal, then the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and onward to the Indian Ocean.

___

Chapter 4. Fetch Quest for Excalibur!

Ganges River, British India—12:33PM Shankargarh Solar Time

Slowly, leisurely, the Nautilus navigated up the Ganges. Too shallow to submerge effectively, the crew elected to treat this particular adventure like a much-needed pleasure cruise, and as such took turns on deck while others piloted below, admiring the passing scenes of India. They beheld the Holy Bathers reverently washing themselves in the river, the Yogis in their meditations upon the shore, the women washing their clothes and gathering their vases of fresh water, the men casting their fishing nets and carving their canoes, the vast British Imperial Estates, the mud huts and thatched roofs of the natives, all against the panoply of lush vegetation, wild life, and thick tropical Savannah. At this particular moment, in this fine humid heat, Charleston Montgomery elected to lounge on deck in a fine-woven lawn-chair under a generous umbrella, gingerly sipping a cocktail, shirtless in his dapper white shorts and Panama hat. Carter and Trip took turns at watch on each end of the Nautilus hull, while Dunbar and Nightingale merely leaned over the railing together to take in the sights.

"How positively delightful!" she enthused, "I have so longed to explore British India."

"It doesn't bother you that your native England conquers and colonizes them?" he inquired.

"Oh Nathan, you arrogant American you," she teased, "did it not occur to you that perhaps the natives here are grateful for the civilizing influence of England?"

"Such has never been my experience," said Dunbar, with a far-away look in his eyes.

"Well, that's only because you Americans are not actually civilized," she quipped.

But here their debate was cut short, for what was their surprise when most unexpectedly a set of spiked and iron bars shot up across the wide width of the Ganges river, blocking Nautilus in her path! Before the crew could react, the crackle of machine-gun fire broke the tranquility of the rainforest, and an exceeding army of insurgents emerged from the jungle canopy on both sides of the river, whooping and hollering and uttering terrible oaths, and able to back them up with canons, Gatling-guns, and Russian rocket launchers! Now Trip, Carter, and Dunbar, no wilting flowers themselves, immediately readied their revolvers, even as they perceived themselves vastly outnumbered. Montgomery, unsurprisingly, continued to sip his Manhattan nonchalantly.

"Do not attempt to escape below decks, do not attempt to engage your weapons," commanded one Hindu insurgent through a megaphone, "or we shall massacre you all. Your surrender is unconditional."

"What the holy hell?" cried out Dunbar, instinctively holding Nightingale close to him.

"Nathan, who are these savages?" she cried out in fear.

She did not have to wait long to learn. On the east river bank, the insurgent army parted reverently to allow their leader room. He was a small man but muscular, with a bald head, a bushy mustache, unassuming circle-framed reading glasses, and a humble white loin-cloth and sandals; he also sported two straps of ammunition wrapped over his shoulders, a military beret, a cigarette in one hand and machine-gun held aloft in the other. "My name Mahatma Gandhi the Terrible," he said in clipped Hindi English, "You are alive for only one reason. I desire to know why it is that you have dared trespass so brazenly into my country."

"Oh no, not Gandhi!" cried Edith in fear.

"You've heard of this man?" asked Dunbar.

"He is a fearsome, bloody, and vicious warlord," she said, while Gandhi took a calm drag from his cigarette, "infamous for his massacres of British soldiers!"

"I am a freedom fighter madam," said Ghandi evenly, "dedicated to the liberation of my nation, by any means necessary—including the elimination of occupying forces. So I repeat my demand: why are you here?"

"Ah, here be a manner of man after mine own mind! Stand aside, Nathan," said Carter, stepping forward gallantly, "Mr. Gandhi the Terrible, my name is John Carter, Jr., and I, too, have fought ferociously for the liberty of my land."

"Unless you're black!" said Trip.

"Trip, you're not helping," said Dunbar.

"Anyways!" continued Carter, "We are here, Mr. The Terrible, in search of the Temple of Vishnu..."

Here Gandhi casually flicked his cigarette away. "Ah, you wish to raid our people's holy Temples, as have the British. I have heard enough, execute them immediately."

It was with a little-less cavalier posturing and a little more panic that Carter waved his hands at Mr. Gandhi the Terrible, crying: "Wait! Wait!"

Gandhi serenely signaled his soldiers to hold fire.

"You seek the liberty of your people. We seek only the map to Atlantis," said Carter quickly, "You may massacre us, true, but we have men below decks prepared to return the favor—and the firepower to make a rather unpleasant mess here upon the Ganges. But why massacre each other, I ask? Surely we can work out a deal?"

Gandhi thoughtfully twirled his moustache. "Hmmm... interesting proposition, Mr. Carter Jr," he said, "I shall tell you what I have long desired, and that is to embarrass the British Empire that has so long humiliated my people."

"What do you desire?"

"The Sword of Excalibur, on Avalon!" he exclaimed, "If I could have that blade in my possession, I could wield it against my oppressors and thus make them feel how it is to be so robbed of their national treasures!"

"Why surely, the sword Excalibur is only in legend," scoffed Nightingale, "and Avalon only a myth..."

"Seven klicks due West of Vale of Glamorgan in southern Wales, Madam," piped up Montgomery, whom, it is worthy to note, moved neither from his lawn-chair nor spilled his cocktail throughout this entire debacle, "Sea-charts say so."

"Does nothing at all perturb you at all, Charleston Montgomery?" asked Carter in disbelief.

"Should it?" asked Montgomery, who calmly sipped his cocktail once more.

"Why, there you have it!" called out Gandhi the Terrible from the shore, "Bring me Excalibur, and I shall grant you safe passage to Vishnu. Do we have, as you say, a deal?"

"Deal!" called back Dunbar quickly.

___

Avalon, UK—1:31PM Greenwich Mean Time

This new twist in their adventure took a tad bit of backtracking, so after retreating back across the Indian Ocean, through the newly-formed Suez Canal, piercing the Straits of Gibraltar under cover of night, and sailing the open seas of the North Atlantic, the submersible Nautilus made her way incognito under British waters. After taking especial precaution by periscope that no Coast Guard did spy their arrival, the mighty submersible anchored near Avalon's shore. The crew took a rowboat to land upon the mist-hidden island of Avalon, a Royal Protectorate of the United Kingdom.

The crew did not long need to scour this seemingly-uninhabited British possession, for not far from the green beach-head stood Excalibur, the legendary Sword in the Stone, still protruding silent and erect all these long centuries out of a moss-covered outcropping of ancient hewn stone. Edith Nightingale, that loyal subject of the British Crown, pulled away some of the ivy to read the Old Aenglish inscription at the base of the stone.

"None but the Once and Future King of Britain may withdraw this sword..." she read in dreadful awe, "Mercy me, so it is real!"

"Problem is, none of us here, so far as I know, is the future King of Britain," said Faulkner, scratching his beard.

"Yeah, but we're something better," said Dunbar, slamming his fist to his palm, "we're Americans!"

Shortly thereafter, the Nautilus fired rapid torpedoes from the sea to the beach-head. This resulted in multiple and satisfying explosions—yet still when the dust cleared, though the formally-green beach was now covered in blackened ivy and charred craters, the Sword in the Stone stood as stolid and immovable as ever.

"Damn! Not even a scratch!" said Dunbar, examining the site through his binoculars from the Nautilus deck.

"Typical Americans, thinking you can just blow up your problems," said Nightingale with a roll of her eyes.

"You'd be surprised how often that normally works," observed Carter.

"We need something stronger..." said Dunbar.

"Agreed," said Faulkner, "but what on God's Green Earth do we have that's more powerful than this here Nautilus?"

"Tesla," said Trip abruptly, who up till now had been staring not at the island but broodingly at the open sea, and the distant storm forming on the horizon.

"Pardon?" asked Dunbar

Trip turned around, with a heavy look on his face. "Ms. Nightingale here is right," he continued, "a mere explosion won't be enough for this here type of magic stone. It'll require some...energy...that can shake that rock apart at the atomic level itself. Only one man on earth has that level of...control...over energy. And that man is Nikola Tesla."

"Well then, where can we find this Tesla feller?"

"I don't think you understand," said Trip, raising his voice, "In another era, another time, Tesla would've been called a wizard, or a heretic, and been burned at the stake, to no avail. Even today there are those who fear his power, and Tesla has been betrayed once too often to use his powers for good."

Some distant lightning flashed on the horizon as Trip uttered: "One does not simply make a deal with...Tesla."

Faulkner it was who finally removed his hat, spit, then scratched his head while he said: "Well, I reckon that since we've already made a deal with a Hindu Warlord, we mights as well keep our streak alive."

Trip turned back around to stare into the stormy horizon. "Alright. Set a course for New York..." he said, "and may God have mercy on our souls."

___

New York, New York—10:44PM Intercolonial Time

Our gallant heroes, after riding beneath the storm in their submersible, arrived back on North American shores for the first time since embarking on their initial date with destiny on the Mysterious Island. Not only were they back in what was left of the post-secession United States, but they went straight to the heart of her largest metropolis, New York City! They snuck into her harbor under cover of waves, then onto her streets under cover of night.

While the others guarded the Nautilus in harbor, Trip, Dunbar, Carter, and Faulkner marched down a gas-lit New York street near Times Square, weaving amidst the tourists and the weekend-warriors, checking the intersections and street signs against a note-pad in Trip's hand. Abruptly they came to a stop. "Yep, here's the address," said Trip.

And indeed, right here in the heart of Manhattan, amidst the cloth-lined immigrant apartments and the granite Wall Street buildings, stood a most singular and incongruent gothic stone castle in the moonlight. Fierce gargoyles seemed to guard the entrance. A wolf somehow howled in the distance.

"Um...ok," is all Dunbar could say.

With not some small amount of trepidation, our motley quartet ascended the stone stairs, and Dunbar raised a fist to knock on the ornate, dark-wooden doors. But before Dunbar could knock even once, the door slid open side-ways, quickly, with an audible "Swoosh!"

With the New York skyline behind them, our bug-eyed heroes stepped slowly into the lair of Nikola Tesla.

Inside, they beheld a dark, wide corridor, dimly illuminated by Tesla's legendary arc-lamps. Two Tesla-coils repeatedly zapped each other from across the room. Though their eyes may have been playing tricks on them, they could have sworn that there appeared to be a mist settled across the floor. The tall Gothic windows cast their intricate webs of shadows across the floor. And then, at the head of a wide staircase in the center of the room, a shrouded figure stood with his back to them.

A flummoxed Dunbar cautiously stepped forward. "So, is that...is he...*ahem*" he began, "Nikola Tesla! Um, I am Captain Nathan Dunbar!"

"Nathan...Dunbar..." hissed the shrouded figure as he slowly turned around, "what brings you to...trespass..."

"Um...the front door...it was totally unlocked..." gulped Dunbar, pointing over his shoulder.

"Mmm, yes...many a man has taken my unlocked door as open invitation to steal what is mine," he said quietly, floating uncannily over the staircase railing. He enunciated slowly over the hum of alternating current, descending towards the hapless four, already quivering in terror, "Edison... Marconi... and now..." and he gently touched down in front of them, "Nathan Dunbar."

Although he was now quite thoroughly possessed of the heebie-jeebies, Dunbar still had the wherewithal to feel his honor piqued, and began to defend himself: "Now hold on just one gosh darn minute, we didn't come here to steal anything!"

At this the cloak fell off of Tesla without compulsory means. "Indeed," he said. And with that, he ascended back into the air, as electrical charges began to charge betwixt his fingertips, like unto the Tesla-coils behind him. "And I shall ensure of that."

Without further warning, he fired a mighty and sustained electrical bolt directly from his finger-tips and into our hapless Dunbar below. The latter was thrown backwards to the floor by the force of the shock even as he writhed in unspeakable pain. His back arched, his limbs contorted, his voice screamed; so enraptured were his compatriots by the awful horror of it, that they could even note electric sparks jumping between his teeth.

Nevertheless, their response was automatic, and they all drew their revolvers and quickly aimed them at the floating Tesla.

But Tesla was not unaware. With virtuosic flair, he briefly suspended his torturings of poor Dunbar and threw a trio of quick bolts that knocked the revolver from each of their hands.

But here Dunbar's ninja instincts kicked in, and with this fleeting respite, though charred and weary, he let fly a pair of throwing-stars in one fluid motion.

To no avail either—with his same deadly elegance he blew apart each in the air with his lightning bolts, and then with one hand resumed his sustained shock-treatment of Dunbar. His other hand flung terrible bolts of energy upon Carter and Faulkner, repeatedly knocking them to the ground each time they reached futilely for their revolvers on the floor.

It was Trip who saved them. "Wait, wait!" he shouted, running under Tesla while waving wildly, "Edison's patents! Edison's patents!"

At those key words, Tesla ceased zapping his compatriots long enough to stare down upon Trip, though the bolts still charged in his clenched fists. "We need your death ray, Tesla," explained Trip rapidly, "But what you really want is your patents back, the ones Edison stole from you! The ones for the radio, radar, video-phones, AC/DC, ice cream—if we could get you back Edison's patents, could we borrow your death-ray?"

Tesla slowly descended back to the floor, his electricity charging down, his finger-tips touching contemplatively. "Such...would be an acceptable arrangement," he said darkly.

___

Menlo Park, New Jersey—11:11PM Intercolonial Time

The Nautilus needn't travel near as far this time, as they made but a hop, skip, and a jump down the Atlantic shoreline to New Jersey, home of Thomas Edison's famed labs at Menlo Park.

Once again under the cover of night, Dunbar, Carter, Trip and Faulkner hid behind a bush at the edge of the unfenced property, and gazed across what appeared to be an empty and benign green field, to spy the innocuous-looking Menlo Park Labs at the other side—really, it appeared more of a lowly manor than some fortified lab.

"Well, this looks much less ominous," said Carter.

"That's exactly why I don't like it," said Dunbar, "If a sorcerer like Tesla can't get his patents back from a place like here, then something must be up!"

"And guaranteed that them Edison labs don't leave no doors casually unlocked, either!" added Trip.

"Perhaps Tesla does not steal straight-way because such would be illegal, and so he needs outlaws such as ourselves to secure them for him," mused Faulkner.

"Perhaps we should wait till dawn," said Carter, "to face him like gentlemen!"

"Edison rips off other folks' patents," said Trip, "he ain't gonna deal like no gentlemen."

"Mayhaps we should first get the full specs of this here facility..." said Faulkner.

But Dunbar was already removing his Union army jacket. "Ah, hell, we're wasting time."

"Nathan, what're you doin'?" said Carter, "Nathan!"

But it was too late—with a single bound Dunbar cleared the bush and was off sprinting across the field. Suddenly, without his usual Union coat, and clad only in black, he looked uncannily like a ninja of the Sengoku period.

And good thing, too, for out of nowhere a rope-net suddenly sprung up in front of him. But not only did this not slow Dunbar down, but in one fluid motion Dunbar unsheathed the Katana sword strapped to his back and cut through the rope-net with a full front-flip.

Next, a pair of automated Browing Gatling guns popped out of the field, and began firing in unison upon his position. Dunbar re-sheathed his blade, then executed an impressive series of hand-spring flips into the air and across the field, effectively dodging the bullets. The twin Gatling guns followed him.

At last Dunbar's expert handsprings brought him in between the two rotating machine-guns, so that they now shot at each other and promptly blew each other into smithereens. Dunbar resumed sprinting once more.

A chasm in the Earth then abruptly opened up, revealing a shallow yet wide lake, chock-full of hungry alligators. Dunbar nimbly leapt off one alligator snout after another before they could snap their fearsome jaws at him, until he reached the other shore.

Then a pair of automated Howitzer cannons emerged from the ground, firing their repeated mortar shells at him. These required more acrobatic skill than before to avoid, as Dunbar ran through a series of cartwheels, tumbles, and dives in order to dodge the explosions now erupting around him.

These Howitzers were also better programmed, and thus seemed less likely to blow each other up if Dunbar crossed between them; hence, Dunbar elected to instead dive, flip, and thus slide on his back between them, throwing a pair of ninja-stars tied to grenades as he did so. The stars struck their targets, as both Howitzers exploded behind him. He hopped back to his feet and, without even a glance over his shoulder, and again resumed sprinting.

With another terrific leap, Dunbar then crashed through one of the large windows of Menlo Labs. Once inside, Dunbar drove his Katana blade into the face of a large, clunky steam-powered android hiding just aside the window, one which held an axe over its head, ready to strike Dunbar if the latter had not been quicker.

But there was no time to rest, as Dunbar then had to dodge a pair of ruby-red laser laser-beams shot from the chandeliered ceiling. While in the middle of a mid-air cartwheel, Dunbar uses his sword to simultaneously reflect back the beams of each laser into its twin, exploding them both at once into smithereens.

Dunbar then began running up the stairwell—and when it inevitably flattened into a slide, he simply leapt back and forth between the banister and the wall until he reached the lone door at the head of the stairs. With a mighty kick he knocked the door from its hinges, and without even looking to his side, drove his Katana sword into yet another android guard that stood in wait with its futile axe. It sparked and flailed and fell to the floor while Dunbar continued to march forward, pulling out his revolver.

For seated before him, the infamous Thomas Edison sat slumped over his desk, his back to Dunbar.

Dunbar didn't wait; with furious purpose, he roughly grabbed Edison's shoulder and swung him in his swivel-chair with one arm while the other aimed his revolver directly at Edison's forehead. "Tesla's stolen patents! Now!" Dunbar shouted angrily.

But rather than fright, rather than defiance or haughtiness or terror or shock or even arrogance as Dunbar might have expected, Edison merely wept pitifully, and begged, "Please, sir...just kill me now..."

"I will unless you give me Tesla's patents!" shouted back Dunbar.

Edison only began to sob all the more uncontrollably, and that right into Dunbar's shirt. "I don't care anymore, just kill me, nothing matters anymore!" he cried pathetically.

Dunbar then angrily pulled back Edison's head by the hair and pressed the revolver barrel-head directly onto Edison's forehead. "I'm not playing, Edison!" he screamed, "Tesla's stolen patents, post-haste!"

It was at this particular juncture that Carter, Trip, and Faulkner came tumbling into the room as well. "Cap'n!" said Trip, still in awe, "I mean, damn! How'd you..."

But they were all silenced as Edison continued his infernal sobs of: "Madeleine, oh my dear Madeleine!"

"Edison!" said Dunbar, still threatening, "I swear by all that is holy and sweet that I will..."

"Holy! *sniff* Sweet! *sniff* Just like my daughter Madeleine!"

Finally Dunbar lowered his revolver and let go of Edison's head, while Edison returned to sobbing into his own hands.

"What is this?" asked Dunbar in exasperation.

Faulkner then approached Edison, in a far more kindly and grandfatherly manner. "Mr. Edison, might I inquire, what has happened to this Madeleiene to which you allude?"

"Barbary pirates!" Edison cried out to Faulkner, "My daughter Madeleine, she has been kidnapped by those scoundrels while she vacationed in Venice! Oh, the horrible things they shall do to her!"

Dunbar grimaced, rolled his eyes, grunted, and then finally asked, "If we rescue your daughter from the Barbary Pirates, will you hand over the patents you stole from Tesla?"

Edison then looked up with his first glimmer of hope at our Nathan Dunbar. "Oh, would you? Could you? I'd give you anything, anything you want!" he cried out pitifully.

Dunbar sighed. "Well, then I guess we got a—" at this Edison blew his nose slobberingly into Dunbar's shirt, "—deal."

___

Tripoli, Libya—3:15AM Tripoli-Misrata Time

Once more the noble Nautilus, driven by her supercavitating propellers, crossed the Atlantic, pierced the Straits of Gibraltar, and were back in the south Mediterranean, almost right where they had began. They groused all the while about not only the redundant trips, but of who was least likely to keep their word: the infamous pirates, the thief Edison, the vengeful wizard Tesla, or the warlord Gandhi.

Twas not difficult to get the attention of the fearsome Barbary Pirates; nor to arrange a personal meeting aboard the flagship of Captain Blackbeard III, in their commissions as personal emissaries of that wealthy and ransom-paying American, Thomas Edison.

Dunbar and Carter came unarmed in row-boat at the bewitching hour as they had been instructed, and were then swiftly hoisted aboard one of the many 18th-century Galleons flying the Skull-and-Crossbones near Tripoli, here in the midst of a massive pirate fleet of skullduggery and villainy, rigged and ready to sail. On deck of this, the Pirate flagship, the notorious Blackbeard III stood on his peg-leg, a patch over one eye, a parrot on his shoulder, his hooked hand around the throat of poor, young, weeping Caroline Edison, while his other hand held a flintlock pistol to her head. A full crew of swash-buckling cut-throats and skullions stood behind him, dramatically brandishing their cutlasses.

"Aye, me maties, so ye wants the daughter of Mr. Edison do ye!" began the infamous pirate, "Well, we mays be able to strike a deal, we mays! In exchange for the life of ye ol' Madeleine Edison, we shall demand that ye first..."

"Oh, forget this," said Dunbar, shouting into his wireless-radio, "Faulkner, fire all weapons."

On cue, the submersible Nautilus fired a deadly round of torpedoes that sent multiple and sundry pirate ships ablaze in explosive fire-balls. Captain Blackbeard and his feared band of cutthroats all took desperate cover as they were showered in the ensuing debris and flames.

Desperately and futilely did Blackbeard attempt to press his flintlock back against Madeleine Edison's head all the more menacingly, demanding: "Stop ye assault at once, or I shall—" But then yet another exploding vessel distracted and affrighted Blackbeard, as he beheld in horror the potential decimation of his entire fleet.

Dunbar, meanwhile, simply glared impatiently at Blackbeard, while the fireballs lit up the night sky. Finally an increasingly frantic Blackbeard threw down his flintlock and handed off the young girl to Carter. "Alright, alright, here's the lass, take her, take her!" he shouted desperately.

"Good man," said Carter.

"Faulkner, cease fire," said Dunbar into the wireless.

And just as quickly as they arrived, the submersible Nautilus sailed away, weaving underwater amongst the sinking wreckage of the Barbary Pirates, the surface of above them lighting their way with the warm flow of the burning fleet.

___

Fortunately, all was soon returned to its proper order: Edison tearfully and joyously embraced his daughter Madeleine, who in turn regaled her father with tales of dashing pirates and wondrous explosions, while the crew of the Nautilus snuck away with the pertinent patents before the famously fickle Edison had a chance to renege on their deal; Tesla shortly thereafter thumbed through his returned patents with a certain satisfaction, while the crew heaved the Death Ray through the streets of Manhattan and onto the Nautilus in harbor; the Teslonian Death Ray did indeed shatter apart the Stone at the atomic level in a stunning display of electro-magnetic showmanship, liberating Excalibur from its ancient tomb upon Avalon at last, and into the hands of the Nautilus crew; which brought them once more to the Hindu warlord Mahatma Gandhi the Terrible on the banks of the Ganges.

"And here is your Death Ray, Mr. Gandhi the Terrible," announced Carter.

"Death Ray? I said I wished for Excalibur," said a briefly-confused Gandhi.

Dunbar face-palmed himself as he exclaimed, "Oh shoot, that's right! The Death Ray was for Excalibur and Excalibur was for Gandhi! Guys, where'd we put that sword..."

"No no, forget it," said Gandhi happily, running his hand across the polished shaft of the Death Ray admiringly, "I shall accept this marvelous Death Ray instead!"

Just then O'Reilly returned from the hold excitedly waving Excalibur: "Wait, wait, I got it right here!"

"*Psh* keep it," said Gandhi with a dismissive wave, "I much prefer this."

"So, um, can we continue up the Ganges, then, for the map to Atlantis?" asked Dunbar.

"Just take it now. I had it all along," said Gandhi, as he tossed a small roll of parchment over his shoulder to Dunbar.

"So, uh, then...I guess we'll just be on our merry way then?" asked Dunbar.

"Yeah yeah yeah yeah, see you later," said Gandhi, already walking off, lovingly stroking the Death Ray.

It did not take long thereafter for reports to appear in the London Tabloids of formerly-stalwart British Redcoats fleeing across the Indian rice-paddies in utter and abject terror, retreating before the lethal lightning storms conjured up by the maniacal warlord Gandhi the Terrible. "You must be the change you wish to see in the world!" he shouted at them as he fired his Death Ray wildly, "Ah-ha ha ha ha ha haaaa!"

___

Later, on the bridge of the Nautilus, Nightingale could scarcely contain her displeasure at these reports: "I'm not sure how I feel about us having provided a warlord with a weapon of mass-destruction to use against my own countrymen!"

"I for one will always be in favor of helping others raise the Rebel Yell," declared John Carter Jr.

Faulkner, meanwhile, hefted and admired the matchless fine-steel of the Sword in the Stone. "So then, what do we do with Excalibur here?" he asked, "Charleston, you want it?"

"Oh pray no, twould appear too gauche in my quarters," said Montgomery.

"Just stick in the storage room for now, I suppose," said Dunbar, "and hope it comes in handy later." And for the time being, Excalibur was indeed tossed into a storage room filled with moving boxes, crates, Christmas decorations, and a Menorah.

Soon the whole crew was gathered around the sea-charts once more. "So where to now, cap'n?" asked O'Reilly, "Can we finish blowin' up them Barbary Pirates? That was fun!"

"Please, no more death and destruction today," said Nightingale.

"Quite right," said Carter, "we only have but two fragments to the Atlantis map, and no idea where on earth to find the remainder."

"But we do under," said Montgomery.

"Pardon?"

"My dear Mr. Carter, this map fragment clearly indicates the presence of the next fragment to be in a Temple on an island...here," said Montgomery, laying his finger decisively upon the sea-map.

"Why, Mr. Montgomery," said Carter, examining the map, "there can't possibly be an island there, or an ocean, for that be the entire continent of Eurasia!"

"Exactly."

"Wait, wait, wait," said Dunbar, his eyes widening, "Charleston, am I to understand that this island and ocean is under the Earth?"

"Mm-hm."

And with unimpeachable timing, a blinding flash filled the room, and HG Wells made his appearance. He was dressed like a proper Victorian gentleman once more, though still slightly disheveled, his shirt a tad askew, and some pink smudged upon his shirt collar. "Quite right, Mr. Montgomery!" he declared, "Gentlemen, you must embark next to the Lost World, an underground region far beneath surface of the Earth, surrounded by an ocean below an ocean, where dinosaurs still roam free, and intelligent raptors have constructed Temples, but which is even now under conquest by the British Empire!"

"Mercy me!" said Nightingale, her hand on her chest.

HG Wells then promptly handed a packet of papers to Captain Dunbar. "Here are all the extant maps on how to access the deepest underwater caves that shall bring you to the Lost World."

"Mr. Wells, I do declare, there is lipstick on your collar!" said Nightingale at last.

"Ah yes my lady," Wells explained, "I have just returned from a rather rambunctious party you see, one where I ran into a slightly future version of myself. We were both quite inebriated, and, well, one thing led to another, and..."

He waved his hand expectantly; but when he was greeted with mostly blank stares by the mass of the crew (though he may have detected a slight smirk upon the face of the imperturbable Charleston Montgomery), he simply stopped short and trotted back to his Time Machine.

"Well, cheerio then," he waved goodbye, "best of luck and don't get eaten by Raptors! Vicious critters, those." And in another brilliant flash he was gone.

Not that it mattered—the rest of the crew were soon back on the bridge, Dunbar in the Captain's chair, Sonny O'Reilly at the pilot's throttle, and the rest manning their stations once more.

"Well then Mr. Carter, please give the word," declared Nathan Dunbar.

"Mr. O'Reilly, set course for The Lost World!" called out John Carter Jr. gallantly.

"Aye-aye, Mr. Carter!"

And with that, the Nautilus exited out the mouth of Ganges River, and into the great Indian Ocean, as they prepared to descend even further into the deep than they ever had before.

___

To Be Continued!

So ends Part 1 of The Audacious Adventures of the NAUTILUS! and her Gallant Crew in the 19th Century, surnamed Pertaining to the Relationship Betwixt the Egyptian Space Program, Israeli Theater, and the Failures of European Colonialism.

The Nautilus's dealings with the intelligent Raptors, fearsome Tyrannosauri Rex, rampaging Triceratops, majestic Pterodactyls, and British Imperialists of The Lost World—not to mention further escapades amongst Teddy Roosevelt, Brigham Young, the Greatest Wall of China, Mecha-Samurai, Godzilla, and the Loch Ness Monster: British Super-Agent, can be read in Part 2: On The Cryptozoological Origins of Scottish Secession, MI6, and East Asian Warfare.

