A Century Turns by Tabac Iberez

Author:Tabac Iberez [Iberez, Tabac]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RO:SF
Publisher: Sea Lion Press
Published: 2018-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

Elizabeth Cook, Ink print from plate, 1899

Part Trois

Looking out over the table the next day, I hit my head on it rather dramatically. The route to Vienna was up in arms, with the air over Bayern reputedly full of Swiss privateers and other mischief, while there wasn’t any cargo headed to Rome right now. The only remaining solution would be direct to the Bosporus, followed by a de-Aether and hoping we weren’t too confused on re-entry to reality. A night’s sleep had cleared my head admirably, but reality seemed to reinforce the fact that safety had abandoned my life long ago.

“Captain,” a voice said from the door. Turning, I looked at Lauri.

“Yes?”

“Thank you for the extra crew. I hope this time we can have a gunnery drill before the battle,” he said, formally. I just nodded.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I replied, looking back at the table. Shaking my head, I raked back my hair, thinking of conflict. We might have weapons to outfight pirates, but I still hated it. I’d passed on one war, back when I was offered a berth on the Chesapeake during the Cuban War, and so far it hadn’t hurt me at all to decline to the topic. I was dawdling, though. Time to see Elizabeth.

--

It was a bit of a climb to the central bow station, but once I was there it was fairly easy to make my way to the Navigator’s Perch. A fairly large room trapped under the curvature of the dorsal envelope and the bowmost lift cell, its rear border was the ammunition elevator to the spinal mount and the struts that connected the first proper lateral frame of the ship. Volume was cheap on an airship, but structure wasn’t, and this was one of the few areas that had both.

Elizabeth’s lair wasn’t too far off from the few other Navigator’s Perches I’d scene over the years. Once I got through the door, I had to step carefully around numerous piles of… well, stuff, for lack of a better word. On the walls, nearly a half-dozen charts sat, their hand-drawn majesty showing in how red and blue inks clashed. String pegs littered them, showing routes potential and actual. A low dresser near the room’s prominent master gyrocompass was stuffed full of taped-together sheafs of paper, while a skull grinned macabre from the top. I shuddered quietly, keeping an eye on the leering smile it gave; most Navigators had an unearthly fascination with the remains of the dead. Considering they rarely died, and even more rarely left a corpse, it was almost understandable. Almost.

“Eeep!” Elizabeth yelled, jumping out of an unseen hammock and dusting herself off hurriedly before she looked at me. “Captain!”

“Easy, easy!” I said carefully, walking up to her. “I’m sorry if I startled you, Elizabeth.”

Shaking her head carefully, Elizabeth just nodded carefully and moved briskly over to the gyrocompass. Tapping one of the mounts carefully, she grabbed her octant off a table and looked at me. “So, Captain… what do you need?” she asked, shyly.

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