“All hands aboard. Ready to up ship, Captain,” Sabrina said.
“Up ship, five hundred feet,” Buckle ordered.
“Up ship, five hundred!” Sabrina shouted into the chattertube.
Buckle felt the wonderful weightlessness of his huge airship as she escaped the earth.
“We are away,” Sabrina said. “Guns are loaded, tompions in. Sixty-eight souls.”
Sixty-eight souls, Buckle thought. Five killed, ten wounded—three seriously—in the battle with the Bellerophon. “All ahead half,” he ordered.
“All ahead half, aye!” Valkyrie repeated, clapping the chadburn dial and ringing the bell.
“All ahead half, aye!” Yardbird responded from engineering, ringing the daughter bell.
Buckle folded his hands behind his back as the ascending Pneumatic Zeppelin’s turbines launched her driving propellers into gargantuan, chopping whirls. “Helm, bear due west.”
“Bearing due west, aye!” De Quincey answered, turning the rudder wheel a few tocks.
The propellers whirled up to a comfortable hum as the airship smoothly accelerated. Buckle heard the slow whoosh of the water ballast pouring from the scuppers, and felt the upward surge of the extra press of hydrogen into the cells. The snowy mountain ridges fell away below the nose dome as the Pneumatic Zeppelin rose, filling the night horizon with the great expanse of overcast sky and the black mass of the ocean.
Buckle turned and looked at Penny Dreadful, the little-girl machine, who stood behind the ball turret of the hammergun, her eyes glowing under their copper lashes. She looked at him but did not speak.
“I have our speed at twenty knots against the headwind, Captain, correcting for drift,” Sabrina said, looking back at Buckle from the nose. “What is our destination?”
“Why, you know our destination, Navigator,” Buckle said wryly, as he looked down at the dark, glittering, endless sea. “We are headed to Atlantis.”
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
EVERY NOVEL IS A LABOR of love, and there are many wonderful people who have shared this journey with me. I am fortunate to be the son of Richard and Janet Preston, my stalwart patrons, whose inexhaustible love and support have always fueled my sense of who I am and what I must do. I am lost without my wife and eagle-eyed reader, Shelley, whose love, positivity, and enthusiasm keep me afloat, and our two daughters, Sabrina and Amelia, who inspire every word I write. I must also thank my sisters, Marsha and Joanna, and all of the family and friends who have lavished me with encouragement along the way.
Special thanks go out to Julia Kenner, a tremendous writer and friend, who generously opened doors for the first manuscript. I must also thank Trident Media Group and my first agent, the fantastic Adrienne Lombardo, who championed the first book and believed in Romulus Buckle as much as I did. Heartfelt thanks go out to my new agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin, my brilliant caretaker, who is currently constructing ambitious plans for our future. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to my wizardly and most patient editor Alex Carr and everyone on my 47North team, and also to my incomparable development editor, Jeff VanderMeer.
I must also express my thanks to Kellie, a little dog whose memory, in some lovely, wonderful way, inspired the writing of this steampunk series.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RICHARD ELLIS PRESTON, JR., IS fascinated by the steampunk genre, which he sees as a unique storytelling landscape. Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War is the second installment in his new steampunk series, The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin. Richard has also written for film and television. He lives in California and haunts Twitter @RichardEPreston.
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