Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin, Book One) (35 page)

“Captain on deck!” Banerji announced.

Kellie was there, hopping from paw to paw between De Quincey and Dunn, tail wagging a crazy jig, starting into a long, soulful howl of joy. Buckle tapped his chest and she bounded up into his arms. She was not a small dog, perhaps forty pounds, but Buckle did not have time to let her circle his feet and dance,
so he opted to carry her. She licked his grimy cheek as he strode forward into the cockpit.

Buckle eyed the sky through the nose dome—the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
had cleared the fog bank, and was now plowing through the clear layer of evening sky sandwiched between the cloud bank above and the sea of fog below. The interiors of the clouds glowed a weak silver white, illuminated from above by the hidden orb of the moon.

Max turned from the bridge and Buckle saw her gaze snap to his bandaged head, the aqueous humor in her goggles glimmering faint green—concerned—even though the rest of her demeanor was pure business. But her eyes, her Martian eyes that he found both so transparent and so unreadable, seemed strangely sad as they scrutinized him. “Welcome aboard, Captain Buckle,” she announced. “We are bound north by northwest, all ahead standard at forty knots and accelerating, one hundred feet and climbing. No sign of pursuit.”

“Very good, Max,” Buckle replied, handing Kellie to her as he strode forward. Kellie licked Max’s striped chin. Buckle knew that Max considered dog kisses undignified, and smiled inwardly as she gently lowered the dog to the deck.

“Maintain battle stations,” Buckle said, planting his feet as his eyes scanned the sprawling emporium of bioluminescent instruments around him in the gondola. His bridge crew quickly reorganized around him: Max moved to the engineering station on his right, replacing Garcia; Sabrina stepped to the navigator’s post as Welly moved aside; Banerji hurried to the rear of the gondola, passing Nero at the ballast station.

The cabin boy, Howard Hampton, stepped forward from alongside the hammergun turret, cradling Buckle’s
extraordinary top hat. Howard’s eyes were wide and worried. “Are you hurt, Captain, sir?” Howard asked.

“I am fine. Thanks, Howard,” Buckle answered, collecting his topper. “Let’s get the hell out of here, mates! What do we say?”

“Aye!” the crew replied as one.

Buckle tucked his hat on his head and plugged in. “Navigator. Set a course. Helm—north by northeast—straight home,” he ordered.

“North by northeast, aye!” De Quincey said, spinning the rudder wheel hard to the right, letting the clattering spokes spin through his hands as the nose of the great airship slowly swung to starboard.

“Aye!” Sabrina said, drawing lines across her map with ruler and pencil. “Setting course for the Devil’s Punchbowl.”

“Three hundred feet altitude,” Buckle ordered.

“Three hundred feet. Aye!” Nero repeated, turning the wheels on his ballast boards.

Buckle watched the water compass on the binnacle. Once the swinging needle pointed north by northeast, De Quincey spun the rudder wheel back to neutral. “All ahead full,” Buckle ordered, switching the chadburn dial. He was going to get the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
out of there as fast as he could.

“All ahead full,” the engine room answered, switching their dial to match the bridge dial.

“Come starboard four degrees,” Sabrina said.

De Quincey thumbed the rudder wheel to the right, until Buckle’s water compass slipped four ticks to the east.

A heavy pair of boots rang down the staircase. It was Kepler, still carrying Lady Andromeda.

“Lady Andromeda!” Buckle exclaimed. “You should be in sick bay. Kepler, take her immediately. Howard, show them the way.”

Andromeda gathered her wonderful smile. The blood had been cleaned away from her face—though it still hung in coagulated smatterings in her hair—but she still looked frighteningly pale. “I shall place myself in the care of your good surgeon presently, Captain Buckle, but first I must thank all of you for the daring rescue that saved your Balthazar and I. I know you lost good people in the effort.”

“Thank you,” Buckle said. “But we are not out of trouble yet, Andromeda, my dear—not by a long shot.”

“Do not refer to Lady Andromeda as ‘my dear,’” Kepler said in a gruff but not unpleasant manner.

Andromeda patted Kepler on the chest as one might pat a beloved horse. “No need to be a stickler, my stalwart Caliban. We are beyond formalities at the moment.” She returned her attention to Buckle. “I understand the nature of the situation, Captain, which is why I wished to express my gratitude to all of you now.”

“You are quite welcome, Lady Andromeda,” Buckle said, with a respectful nod of his head.

“Welcome for nothing!” Katzenjammer Smelt bellowed down the stairwell, marching down in his tall black boots, halting alongside Kepler and Lady Andromeda, where he straightened his tunic with wrist-snapping tucks. “I will have you know, Lady Andromeda, that the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
is mine. It was stolen from me—stolen from me by Captain Buckle.”

“All is fair in love and war, is it not, Chancellor?” Andromeda said.

“We were not at war,” Smelt answered, glowering at Buckle. “Balthazar had engineered a nonaggression pact with my clan.
Little did I know that it was no more than a smoke screen to obscure their blackhearted treachery.”

“We can all argue at a later time. We are at battle stations now,” Buckle grumbled, watching the clouds below. “Clear the politicians from the bridge.”

Howard jumped alongside Kepler and Andromeda. “Follow me to sick bay, please,” he said, climbing the stairwell. The Alchemists departed.

Smelt scrutinized the black stripes on Max’s face. “A Martian? You have a
Martian
aboard my zeppelin?”

Max raised one eyebrow. “Katzenjammer Smelt, I presume?” she said dryly.

“Mister Banerji,” Buckle said, drawing his pistol from his belt and tossing it to the apprentice navigator. “Take this sidearm and accompany Chancellor Smelt to the library. Remain with him there until you are relieved.”

“Aye, Captain,” Banerji said, tucking the pistol into his belt as he stepped up to Smelt.

“Library? What library? This is an Imperial ship of war,” Smelt grumbled. “This is my flagship!”

“Lead the way, Chancellor,” Banerji said, motioning for Smelt to take to the stairs.

“Wait!” Sabrina shouted, stunned, peering down her drift telescope.

“What is it?” Buckle asked.

Sabrina’s response was incredulous. “The fog bank…it’s opening…a gap just opened directly beneath us. I can see the ground!”

Buckle stared down at the observation window under his feet and, sure enough, he could see black earth appearing under a massive, expanding chasm in the fog bank.

“There are train tracks, a locomotive…” Sabrina said. Suddenly she stiffened with such a jerk that her boots squeaked on the deck. “Cannon flash! A big cannon flash!”

Buckle saw the locomotive: at this height it looked like a black beetle speeding along the tracks, spewing a billowing trail of gray steam. And he saw the huge muzzle flash. “Evasive maneuvers!” he yelled.

De Quincey lunged into the rudder wheel, spinning it to port with all of his might.

The lumbering
Pneumatic Zeppelin
responded well, making a slow bank to port, but she wasn’t built for quick maneuvering.

The cannonball came at them with a shriek. Everyone cringed.

“Brace for impact!” Buckle shouted. He saw the cannonball coming, shimmering with white phosphorus that flowed behind it in a sparkling tail; it looked more like a meteor than a huge ball of iron. It struck somewhere amidships with a severe
rip
of canvas, a blast of shattering wood, and the screech of shearing metal.

No explosion followed. All Buckle could hear were the noises of the healthy engines and propellers churning away.

“That was one hell of a cannonball—a hundred-pounder at the very least,” Sabrina muttered, leaning into the hard left turn of the airship, her eyes lifted to the gondola roof like everyone else. “If the stockings had not held, I wager we would not be here anymore.”

“Well,” Welly gasped. “We got lucky as a—”

A massive explosion cut him off.

A hydrogen cell somewhere in the airship exploded, detonating with the apocalyptic, thunderous
whoosh
of burning gas. Buckle saw the fog and clouds light up momentarily illuminated
by the fiery geyser that had just erupted out of the port flank of his airship.

The force of the blast rippled along the rigid frame of the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
and threw everyone in the piloting gondola to starboard. Had he not already established a firm grip on the binnacle, Buckle would have been dashed to the deck like nearly everyone else. Two pressure meters on the hydrogen board burst in fiery pops of splintering glass.

Nero lunged back to his station. “Compartment nine no reading! Hydrogen cells sixteen and seventeen pressures at zero! Fire teams responding!”

“Seal all feeder valves to compartment nine,” Buckle ordered. He could see De Quincey and Dunn straining as they fought their shuddering rudder and elevator wheels. The
Pneumatic Zeppelin
groaned along the length of her great body and pitched over dangerously to her port side.

The whole world rolled to the left.

Buckle, clambering to keep his balance on the tilting deck, leaned into his chattertube mouthpiece. “All hands! Emergency stations! All hands! Emergency stations!” he yelled. Welly wound up the crank on the klaxon siren.

Buckle jumped beside De Quincey, throwing his strength into the rudder wheel. “Max!” Buckle yelled.

Max jumped across the deck to lend her strength, as they tried to force the wheel to the right.

Buckle pulled his left hand free and slammed the chadburn handle forward. “All ahead flank!” he yelled into the chattertube. He heard no response, but he knew from the vibrations of the deck that the engineers had followed his order, firing the engines up to dangerously high, and unsustainable, levels of power.

The ship still continued to roll to port. Why could he not compensate? Why could they not swing the elevators and rudder around to counter the drag and bring the airship level again? The
Pneumatic Zeppelin
was foundering, starting to fall—the blow to her left flank must have been catastrophic enough to cripple both her equilibrium and positive lift; Buckle needed lift and he needed it now.

“Blow odd water tanks one through twenty-seven!” Buckle ordered.

“Blowing water ballast, odds one through twenty-seven!” Nero shouted, whirling control wheels on the ballast board.

The ballast scuppers roared with waterfalls outside. Buckle felt the airship lighten, start to rise. “Damage report!”

It was then that the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
shook with a mighty groan, shivering so hard it rattled Buckle’s teeth, and plunged toward the fogbound earth with such a violent spin that Buckle was suspended in a weightless state.

Buckle knew that he only had a few seconds to act.

THE LOCOMOTIVE CANNON

T
HE UNIVERSE CAME UNHINGED IN
the dark. Buckle planted his boots against the bulkhead as Max clenched the rudder wheel with him, her lithe body pressed hard against his side. The
Pneumatic Zeppelin
spun, blurring the eyes under a cacophony of noise, her superstructure groaning, spars screeching, wires snapping asunder and switching through the girders and firewalls, ropes parting with violent pops, lanterns lurching at oil-splashing angles, their flames staggering. The bridge crew, pulling themselves back to their instrument panels, hung on for dear life.

Buckle fought off vertigo, his muscles screaming, as he, De Quincey, and Max strained as one mass, trying to steer the ship in the direction of the spin—it was prudent to recover by turning with the zeppelin’s own momentum and catapult out of it, rather than tear the fragile airship to pieces by forcing it back against its own spiral.

“Uncontrolled spin!” Sabrina shouted. “Two hundred feet and falling! one hundred and fifty!”

“Null out the turn!” Buckle howled, shaking off a sense of blacking out.

“Helm is not responding!” De Quincey shouted back.