Cogs in Time Anthology (The Steamworks Series) by Catherine Stovall, Cecilia Clark, Amanda Gatton, Robert Craven, Samantha Ketteman, Emma Michaels, Faith Marlow, Nina Stevens, Andrea Staum, Zoe Adams, S.J. Davis, D. Dalton Page A

demanded.
    “Major Henric von Eisen, at your service. And you are?”
    “Captain Charles Billings, Her Majesty’s Royal Army. And you are trespassing.”
    Von Eisen smiled. “It would seem we are all trespassing. However, I have laid claim to this planet in the name of Kaiser Wilhelm.”
    “You can't do that! We were here first. That's our portal in the jungle,” Billings insisted.
    “And very convenient it was for us to travel back to Berlin. There was no portal when we first arrived, only your expedition. Oh, do not concern yourself over those men. With one exception, they are all now guests of the German Empire in Berlin, as you soon will be. True, your people were here first, but no one will dispute our claim.”
    “Last time I checked the papers,” Pierce said, “Germany and England weren't at war.”
    Von Eisen looked at him. “And you are?”
    “Harrison Pierce.”
    “Ah, yes. The name is familiar to me. I have read one of your books, the one on your exploits in East Africa. And the young lady?”
    “Elizabeth Fletcher,” Liz said.
    “American? How quaint.” Von Eisen looked into the sky. “And such an amazing craft. How in God's name were you able to bring it here? Obviously not through a Tesla portal, unless England has built a very large one. The Kaiser will be fascinated when he sees it. I am, of course, confiscating it in the name of Kaiser Wilhelm.”
    “Not on your life, mister!” Liz said. “That ship is the property of Fletcher Industries.”
    “Not any longer. Doktor Himmel!”
    A small man in a rumpled dark suit came out from the building, wiped the perspiration from his face with a handkerchief, and squinting against the brightness. “ Jawohl, Mein Herr ?” He looked into the sky, fumbled in a pocket, and pulled out a telescope. He extended it and aimed it at the airship. “ Gott ! Herr Major, there are Faraday coils running along the superstructure. The airship is its own portal.”
    “I suspected as much,” von Eisen said. “An invention of Fletcher Industries?”
    Liz stepped forward. “I–”
    “Yes,” Pierce said, interrupting her. He grabbed her arm and tugged her back. She glared at him, but stayed quiet. If she so much as hinted at being the inventor herself, she would never see America again. The Germans would lock her away and drain every bit of knowledge from her, and not in a pleasant way. “Miss Fletcher is a representative of the company. She has loaned the ship to Her Majesty's government for this expedition.”
    “Where are my two men who were the first to land?” Billings demanded. “Did you kill them as you did Peterson?”
    “No,” von Eisen said. “They are safe for the moment.”
    “What is that thing?” Billings asked, motioning toward the bulky device that had vaporized his soldier.
    “Ah!” Himmel said, grinning with crooked teeth. “My own invention. A modification of the Tesla portal. Where the portal transmits a person to a destination frequency, this merely transmits…to nowhere. The soldier is still here, his atoms dispersed. He has floated away on the breeze.”
    “So you took a tool that has bettered mankind,” Liz said, “and turned it into a weapon.”
    “Of course,” said the little man.
    “And,” von Eisen said, “it was a convenient tool to use in forging a path through the jungle. We hid the starting point near the portal clearing, so that other explorers would not so easily find it. It did not occur to me that you British would be so resourceful as to bring an airship.”
    “What do you want here?” Pierce asked. “How did you even know about this world?”
    Von Eisen motioned to the door. “Come inside. The air out here is stifling. To answer your first question, Captain Pierce, we came for the same reason you have. Exploration and expansion.”
    They were surrounded by the armed Germans and escorted into the building, where the air was noticeably cooler and without the musty, decaying odors of the jungle.