Welcome to the third episode of The Commandos of Operation Plato!
This is an original Indiana Jones story and commission set. The story will be told in 6 parts, with one image per part. You can see development work for this series at these links:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Thanks to Adam for commissioning this story and set of images!
Get your soundtrack cued up. Here we go . . .
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Two days earlier . . . October 9th, 1944 . . .
Indy felt a hand on his shoulder, jostling him awake. A Russian-accented voice spoke to him: "Wake up, Professor. We are here." He pushed the brim of his fedora up and let the daylight into his eyes. He looked out the window of the military transport plane in which he had slept and then over to his comrade-in-arms, Polkovnik Anatoly Petrov.
"Where is here?" asked Indy.
"I do not know. Somewhere in the South Pacific, I believe," replied the Red Army Captain as he collected his gear and headed for the door of the plane.
Indy grimaced and looked down at his right forearm, which was bandaged. Blood bled though the fresh wrappings from an injury he sustained on a mission just a few days in the offing. That was how the last two years had been for him, moving from one spot of the globe to the next and licking his wounds on the go. He rarely knew where here was from day to day, he simply kept moving forward at the service of the Allies. The war had to be won.
Indy grabbed his backpack and satchel and followed the Russian out of the plane. The air outside was moist and warm. Indy could smell sea air, but he saw no coastline, just palm trees and the jungle beyond the small makeshift airtrip that the Army engineers had cleared for military use.
They were met at the edge of the airstrip by Army Colonel Robert Ross, the commander of their small unit, which was affectionately known as "Corner's Commandos". Ross had been given the nickname of "Corners" by the team due to his buttoned-down nature. To them, he was Mr. Hospital Corners, his by-the-book nature dictating his every move.
Ross had personally recruited Indy for the team based on his previous experience seeking out unique items for the U.S. government and dealing with the German threat to the world. Indy remembered Ross's exact words when he asked him to join his unit; "We're going to be up to our necks in Nazis and nonsense. Are you in?"
Nonsense, thought Indy with a smile. That was Ross's code word for things that couldn't be explained. It was as close as he came to speaking openly about a world that Indy knew too much about. "Corner's Commandos" would be tasked with countering Hitler's obsession with the occult and that's why Indy was there. The team called him "Professor", the man they looked to for an explanation when nonsense was in evidence.
"Welcome to nowhere, gentlemen," said Ross, stone-faced as always. He pointed to a large tent nearby. "You're the last ones to arrive. We only have an hour to get briefed up, so let's move."
The three of them ran to the tent and entered through the main flap. A table stood at the center of the tent. Around it sat two men that Indy immediately recognized and standing in the corner stood one man that he didn't. Commander George "Mac" McHale, MI6, flashed a wide smile when he saw Indy.
"Jones!" exclaimed the British agent. "Good of you to finally join us. Sorry I missed you in Egypt, mate."
"Tunisia," Indy corrected him.
"Whatever. I'm sure it was a corker of a good time," Mac replied, chewing on his ever present unlit cigar.
Indy nodded to the other man he knew, Captain Barnabus "Barnshack" Shackleford, U.S. Navy. "Captain," he said, as he and Petrov took seats at the table.
"Professor," replied the seaman.
The roster of Corner's Commando's changed from mission to mission, but Mac and Shackleford had been mainstays of the group through most of Indy's time of war. He had only served with Petrov once before, the Red Army only recently having decided to contribute to Ross's unit. And Indy certainly had never served with the other man in the tent, who was wearing a Nazi uniform. If that wasn't enough to make him stand apart, he had a face like an Easter Island statue. No emotion eminated from his features and he stared straight ahead, not making eye contact with any of the others.
Ross secured the flap to the tent and looked at the men sitting around the table.
"This is going to be the briefest of briefs, boys. You'll get the bullet points now and I'll flesh out the details once we're under the waves. Korvettenkapitän Hartzler . . . care to bottom-line it for my boys here?" said Ross, turning to the German.
The four other Allied commandos turned to the Nazi standing in the corner and finally Hartler's eyes moved to meet their.
"Atlantis exists and der Führer will use its power against the Allies if we do not stop him," said Hartzler, barely registering any emotion at all.
Mac slapped his hand on the table before him and exclaimed, "Bloody brilliant! I knew this outfit would be worth my time. Atlantis, indeed! Dare I hope to catch me a mermaid on this run?" He laughed at himself with glee. No one joined in.
Indy leaned forward and looked Hartzler in the eye, ignoring Mac's antics. "Atlantis," he said. A statement and a question, all at once.
"Yes," Hartzler replied. "Hitler's occult division has been there for a week mining its secrets."
"And you know this how?" asked Indy.
"I have been there," replied the German, flatly.
"Hartzler here defected and provided the Allies with some tasty intel. It checked out and we have no reason to believe that he's wrong about this bit, no mater how crazy it sounds," said Ross.
"We've all seen some nutty stuff in this outfit, Colonel. But even I have some doubts about this one," said Captain Shackleford. He turned to Indy. "Professor? Got any tidbits to share on this one?"
"Well, the lost city of Atlantis is considered by most archaeologists to be pure myth," replied Indy. "There is nothing in the historical record that speaks to it being anything but the fantastical musings of Plato. It's a bedtime story that only crackpots talk about with any seriousness. That being said . . . when do we leave?"
Indy cracked a smile and the others soon joined in.
Ross stepped forward and held up his hand, "Not so fast. This isn't going to be the usual hit and run raid. Our mission, as always, is to put the kibosh on Hitler's more extreme antics. But this time we have something extra to throw at the Gerries. The Army Corps of Engineers have been working on a new weapon, something we've never seen before. A real hush-hush deal. They've sent us a prototype and they want this mission to be the first test of this new bomb."
Indy furrowed his brow. "Bomb? Wait, they want us to-"
"Affirmative," Ross interrupted. "We have orders to destroy Atlantis so that any technology it contains can't get out into the open."
"Colonel, we can't just destroy the lost city. If it actually exists, it could be a goldmine of historical and archaeological information that-"
Ross cut him off again. "Jones, we'll collect as much intel as we can. When we get there, keep your eyes open and soak in all the history all you want. But we have our orders. This is war and you knew the game when you signed on."
Indy sat back in his chair and nodded, "Yes, sir."
The mission comes first, Indy thought, and not for the first time during his service.
"We'll be entering the city on the opposite side that Hartzler says the Germans made their way in, but just in case we run into any of them right away, he'll take point and try to talk to them long enough for us to do our thing. Oh, and we're bringing along a German mini-sub, in case we have to ditch the sub and the weapon in the city. Hartzler here was kind enough to have extracted himself from his former pals with one of their newest toys and we're gonna make use of it if we have to", said Ross.
"Hmmph," grunted Shackleford, "Can't say I'm thrilled having that thing on my boat, Colonel."
"Look in my eyes, Captain, and notice that I don't give a damn. Now get to the supply tent and load up," barked Ross. "We leave in 45 minutes, gentlemen."
The commandos began to file out of the tent, but Indy stayed a moment and approached Hartzler. He looked the German in the eyes and he could tell that Hartzler knew what he was about to say.
"Why?" Indy asked.
Hartzler looked back into Indy's eyes for a moment and his face softened slightly as he said, "My fiance'. She was Jewish."
Indy nodded and turned to exit the tent. He thought about the intelligence reports that he had been privy to, containing information about atrocities that had not yet become common knowledge among the Allied civilian population.
This would be a mission to remember, thought Indy. For so many reasons.
****
The commandos walked through the Atlantean tunnel toward the bright light ahead of them. Their weapons were raised, but that had not yet seen or heard any signs of life in the lost city.
"Where are all the Gerries?" whispered Mac to Hartzler.
The German shook his head, looking as confused as everyone else.
"Keep moving," ordered Ross, as they pressed on.
A few minutes later the group had reached the end of the tunnel and entered into an enormous open area. The domed expanse was miles wide and just as high with columned walls that arched above them convening at a point that was somehow emitting a light like the noontime sun. The area was made up of stone pathways, bridges and platforms. There were tunnel entrances like the one they had just emerged from all along the outer wall.
"Look," said Indy, pointing off into the distance.
The group turned to look at what Indy had seen. There were lifeless bodies lying on the ground, just a few hundred feet away. The bodies wore Nazi uniforms and were surrounded by the debris of excavation equipment and vehicles. There were deep scratches in the stonework all around the dead Germans and some of the walls had somehow been damaged. Debris of one kind or another lay everywhere.
"Bloody hell," exclaimed Mac.
Upon closer inspection the bodies seemed to form a path, leading toward what looked like a massive pool. It was a circular area near the center of the domed room in which they stood. Calm sea water filled the pool, which had a diameter of hundreds, maybe thousands of feet. The commandos saw the same strange scratches all along rim of the pool that they saw along the walls.
"What the blazes happened here?" asked Indy.
"I do not know," replied Hartzler. "When I left, my people had just finished unloading the equipment and vehicles. We had not yet begun to investigate the interior of the city."
A sound suddenly caused all of the men to turn and look toward one of the many tunnel entrances along the wall. It was the sound of running footfalls. Someone was there with them and was approaching fast.
The commandos raised their weapons just as a young Nazi officer emerged from the tunnel. He ran toward them, wild eyed. His uniform was torn and damp and he had clearly been through some sort of ordeal.
Hartzler stepped forward to speak to the Nazi, but before he could, the young man grabbed hold of Hartzler's coat and shrieked in his native tongue, "Help me! For the love of God, you must get me out of here!"
"Be calm, Lieutenant," replied Hartzler in German. "We will help you. But you must first tell us what happened here. How did these men die?"
"Kraken," whispered the young German, his voice shaking.
Mac leaned over and looked at Indy, perplexed. "What did he say?"
Suddenly, the group's attention was diverted by the sight of a series of large bubbles forming at the center of the pool. The bubbles quickly multipied and grew in size. Something was rising from the seawater below and it was rising fast. The group stepped back from the rim of the pool and raised their weapons, pointing them at the water. Mac and the Petrov pulled their bazookas from their backs and loaded them.
The young Nazi repeated the word he had just spoken, this time with a scream, "Kraken!" He broke from the group and ran, disappearing down a tunnel into the darkness.
"What is kraken?", asked Petrov, to no one in particular.
All eyes turned to Indy, who simply shook his head.
The pool was now filled from one end to the other with gigantic bubbles and sea foam. The water began to churn, forming waves that increased in size as the seconds ticked by. Suddenly the water seemed to rise all at once and a gigantic creature with three long appendages erupted out of the water and landed on the rim of the pool.
The commandos immediately opened fire, unloading their weapons at the creature. The bullets seemed to simply bouce off of the rough hide that covered it. The beast was all mouth, teeth and arms. It was a massive sea creature that was clearly built for one thing; feeding. It was fifty feet high and at least three times as long, but it moved with the speed of an animal half its size.
The kraken reached out with one of its long arms and took hold of Hartzler.
The German continued to fire his weapon even as the monster pulled him toward its gaping maw. Indy and the others watched in horror as the beast dropped Klaus Hartzler into its mouth and closed its voluminous rows of teeth down upon him . . .
****
To be continued tomorrow in Episode 4!
