Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War

by Richard Ellis Preston Jr.

  “The Russians have plenty of war zeppelins,” Washington said. “What they wish is to confirm your support.”

  Bismarck hugged Valkyrie, and she kissed his cheek. “Be careful, sister.”

  “And you, brother,” Valkyrie said. “Be cautious—the Founders will be on their way.”

  “Cautious, but never faint of heart,” Bismarck replied. He turned a serious eye to Buckle. “Take good care of my sister, Captain Buckle. Our hopes and dreams lie with her.”

  “I shall protect her as one of my own, sir,” Buckle answered. “You have my word.”

  Bismarck smiled. Buckle glanced at Smelt, who looked like an old man in that moment, a tall, gaunt old man placing one hand on Valkyrie’s shoulder and the other on Bismarck’s. “Be brave, my children. Be brave!”

  Bismarck shook his father’s hand and hurried away with Rainer at his side.

  Valkyrie patted her father’s cheek, then turned to Buckle. “Let us fly,” she said, striding out the door. Buckle, Sabrina, and Washington quickly followed her down the hall of antlered elk.

  Rest one more moment, my zeppelin, Buckle thought, for I am coming, coming to fire up your furnaces, run out your guns, and take you to war.

  THE CAPTAIN’S TABLE

  THE MEAL WAS OVER, BUT Captain Buckle still wanted to talk. Sabrina watched him, ruddy-faced from laughter, thrice ready for the havoc of battle, an oiled cog ready to click into whatever gear was in action. His empty plate and grinning face stood in sharp contrast to the haphazard and nervous smiles worn by others at the Lion’s Table, whose visages were pinched and serious over their barely touched bully beef and potatoes. Ambassador Washington seemed the most unsettled by Buckle’s enthusiasms. Valkyrie—sitting where Max should have been—was nonplussed. Ivan, Surgeon Fogg, and Sergeant Salgado of the marines joined in Buckle’s bravado, soaking it into themselves. Howard Hampton was also present, given a plate once the serving was done, and passing most of his beef to Kellie under the table.

  “What can we do now but live forever, despite ourselves?” Buckle laughed. “Lads and ladies, we have defeated the kraken. What other thing could possibly strike fear into one’s heart after one has smelled the breath of the kraken? We are immortal now.”

  “Infamous is more the term I would use,” Surgeon Fogg said, grinning.

  “By the skin of the dog,” the marine sergeant Salgado groaned. “I would have given my firstborn and my second to have been out there with you!”

  “Perhaps the time requires a more serious approach,” Sabrina said, oddly distressed by Buckle’s upbeat mood. Even the captured steampiper helmet, a bit of a macabre centerpiece in the middle of the table—fished out of Buckle’s locker by Ivan—seemed to be suggesting a more solemn approach to the mission.

  Buckle slapped Ivan’s good shoulder—Ivan was seated on his left—and Ivan spilled his grog. “A crew fights best when it is happy, Sabrina,” Buckle said. “And they are happy when their markers are paid and their stomachs are full.”

  “Damn it, Romulus,” Ivan moaned, wiping rum off his chin.

  Buckle laughed again. Sabrina watched him. He appeared a bit stupefied in his looseness, but he had barely touched his own glass. He was fired by a heat of expectation, and confident, for he was no captain if he did not overflow with confidence when action loomed. Buckle leaned back or lurched forward in his chair, as the conversation demanded, the great nose window of the Pneumatic Zeppelin ablaze with the illumination of the western afternoon clouds, the sun a molten forge at his back.

  “Unfortunate, though. Old Valentine will lose that leg,” Fogg said.

  “Yes,” Buckle replied, somber for a moment. “But what a story he has to tell at least, eh?”

  “The beastie pretty much took a piece out of each of us,” Sabrina said, poking her fork at her potatoes and turning a cold chunk over, leaving an uneven grease spot of condensation and butter on the china. “May the dead rest in peace.” She said the last bit and she felt it, but her heart was not quite in it at the moment. They were hurtling toward Spartak at seventy knots, furnaces and propellers roaring, altitude one thousand feet, visibility excellent, a light crosswind coming south by southwest, compensating for drift. They were perhaps twenty minutes out from Muscovy, and the bridge crew should really be on the bridge.

  She did not understand Buckle’s dillydallying.

  “Do not fret, Sabrina,” Buckle said, reading her mind. “We are finishing up. Not a good idea to leave the junior lieutenants and midshipmen in charge on a battlefield, is it?”

  “No, Captain,” Sabrina replied. “I am itching for action, is more of the matter.”

  “Action, harrumph!” Washington—overcautious old Washington, the hoary legend, the stick in Buckle’s craw—complained as he cleared his throat at the same time. “Battle? This is most aggressive, coming in at full speed.”

  “There is no other way to arrive, Ambassador,” Buckle answered, still grinning at Sabrina. “There may be Founders in the clouds.”

  “I agree,” Sabrina offered. “If the Founders are there, then our only chance is to blast them before they blast us.”

  Washington placed his knife on his plate with a loud click. “May I remind you, Captain Buckle and First Lieutenant Serafim, that regardless of whatever situation we find, even if there is an engagement under way, we are bound to stand off and observe until the matter is resolved.”

  “Stand off and observe,” Buckle repeated with a disapproving tone. “What an unfortunate set of words.”

  “Stand off and observe, yes,” Washington pressed. “The Cartouche is ahead of us to deliver our message of alliance. The Pneumatic Tirpitz is only an hour behind us. We are here to show the Crankshafts as a part of the Grand Alliance, not to fight in the Imperials’ stead.”

  “If we are all members of the same alliance, are we not then bound to fight for each other?” Fogg posited. Sabrina liked Fogg; if he had not been a surgeon, he would have made for a fine zeppelin officer.

  “If the documents were signed and sealed, of course,” Washington replied. “But the Russians have made an offer to the Imperials only. We have no sense of what they may offer us as terms.”

  “They are under attack, Ambassador,” Buckle said quickly. “The fat is in the fire. A plea for assistance has come at great price from the battlefield. The time for negotiating fine points is over.”

  “That is not your decision to make, Captain,” Washington answered.

  “If the Russians are attacked, I shall not stand off, sir, with all due respect,” Buckle said.

  “Damned right,” Sabrina said, earning a glare from Washington in so doing.

  “Cheers to that,” Ivan grumbled, tapping the metal fingers of his glove against his glass.

  “Stop it, Ivan,” Sabrina said. “Bloody annoying.”

  Ivan stopped tapping.

  Washington folded up his napkin and placed it on the table. “I know you, Captain Buckle, you and all of our young lions. I have known you since you were brought in to us, a brat at Calypso’s knee, and while your independent streak has always been one of your greatest assets, it has also been one of your greatest challenges. It bears repeating that although we may have just inked an alliance with the Imperial camp, we have no such commitment to or from Spartak. And we are not—we are not—in a state of war with the Founders.”

  “Well elucidated, Ambassador,” Buckle replied. “I think we all know Balthazar’s position on the matter.”

  “I say we blast the Founders out of the sky before they blast us,” Salgado offered. Sabrina feared the sergeant might offer up a toast—he was an egregious toaster. “Why keep the gloves on when war is inevitable?”

  “Because we need the time, Sergeant,” Washington responded. “We are not prepared for war. We need time for the alliance to organize and assemble. There is a possibility, though perhaps remote, that the Founders might allow us some space if we do not provoke them.”

  Buckle was on his feet; Sabrina felt t
he anger rising in his mood. “If Spartak is destroyed, if the Imperials are destroyed, then all of our organizing and assembling will not save us.”

  “I expect you to obey Admiral Balthazar—your father’s—wishes, sir,” Washington replied.

  “My father—” Buckle started, then bit his tongue.

  Realizing that the argument was about to take a negative turn, Sabrina hopped to her feet, and in the same moment Fogg did the same, their chair legs scraping across the deck.

  “I think we are all finished here,” Sabrina announced pleasantly.

  “Yes,” Fogg concurred. “My thanks, Captain, but I must be on my way to finalize preparations in sick bay.”

  “We should make our way to the bridge, sir,” Sabrina added quickly. “We should be within sight of Muscovy’s eastern outposts in a matter of moments.”

  Buckle turned around to the window platform, folding his hands behind his back as he scrutinized the towering vault of the sky. “Very well. I thank all of you for your gracious attendance. Please report to your stations.”

  Everyone offered a chorus of “Thank you, Captain” and filed out of the cabin—everyone except Sabrina and Washington.

  “Captain Buckle,” Washington began.

  “Please confine yourself to your quarters, Ambassador,” Buckle interrupted. “In the remote possibility of action, you are best protected there, under the armor line of the envelope.”

  “Captain,” Washington pressed.

  Buckle reached up and tapped his pearl-colored fire horn—the one he had brought back with him from the Tehachapi Mountains—so it swung lazily on its leather strap at the side of the window. “That will be all, sir,” Buckle said harshly, watching the arc of the horn.

  Washington glanced at Sabrina, and she saw many things in his eyes—frustration, worry, regret. “Thank you for the lovely meal, Captain,” he said quietly, and made his exit.

  As soon as the door shut behind Washington, Sabrina turned to Buckle. “You should be more gracious with him, Romulus. He is an elder, after all.”

  “I take it that you are of the same mind as I, Sabrina?” Buckle asked.

  “If you mean how to approach the Founders? Yes,” Sabrina replied. “They are nothing if not creatures of treachery. Do not trust them to respect treaties or statements of neutrality.”

  Buckle turned around, his eyes alive with their wild expectation again, and snatched up his hat. “Come with me, Serafim,” he enthused. “I doubt we are going to want to miss a second of this one.”

  Sabrina followed Buckle out the door, bubbling with a bloodthirsty expectation and dread that she was not accustomed to. If there was any sort of fight to be had that day, it seemed likely that Romulus Buckle would soon have the Pneumatic Zeppelin in the thick of it.

  The Seasonal ball, with all its silk and joy and yearnings, seemed like a thousand years ago.

  RUN OUT THE GUNS

  “CREW AT ACTION STATIONS, CAPTAIN,” Sabrina announced.

  “Very well,” Buckle replied, standing on the bridge with Kellie seated at his toes. It was all beginning to feel real now. He could smell a hint of bloodlust on Sabrina, a thread of the gung ho in her voice. It was odd. She and Max were normally the calming hands on the wilder tendencies of his tiller…but, then again, soon the clouds might be raining blood.

  “Visibility remains excellent,” Sabrina continued. “No sign of the Cartouche.”

  “Aye,” Buckle answered, detaching his telescope from his hat as he stepped over the dog and into the nose alongside Sabrina and Welly, who already had their glasses trained straight ahead. There was no reason to expect to see the Cartouche; the fast Imperial scout ship was probably already docked in Muscovy by now. Buckle scanned the horizon, with its undulating brown-and-white mountains, and the hazy glimmer of the dark-purple sea beyond. Muscovy, one of Spartak’s southern strongholds, had yet to be sighted. If Rostov had truly been captured by the Founders, then Muscovy would be the next target.

  The bridge was silent for a moment, in a way that Buckle enjoyed—filled with the unbroken, reassuring drone of the forward maneuvering propellers, and the steady rip of the wind running through the rigging and against the massive envelope overhead. The guns were ready, the crew tense. Since the day Buckle had won the captaincy of his zeppelin, this was the first moment she felt like a war machine to him.

  “Bridge! Airships sighted!” the lookout cried down the chattertube. “One point off the starboard bow! Silhouettes and smoke!”

  “Good eye, nest!” Buckle shouted into the chattertube. Finally the barrelmen had seen something first. He peered into his telescope and heard Sabrina suck in air at his shoulder.

  “Sighted!” Sabrina said. “Two airships, no, make that three, at thirteen hundred, just northwest of the city.”

  Buckle caught the small dots in his eyeglass and, flipping down the trigger on his magnifying lens from his hat, could make out three big war zeppelins, the middle one bracketed by smoke, the tiny flashes of cannon muzzles sparkling along their gondolas.

  “We have got an engagement,” Buckle shouted. “Battle stations.”

  “Battle stations!” Sabrina shouted into the chattertube. “All hands to battle stations!”

  “Gunner to the turret,” Assistant Engineer Geneva Bolling shouted, leaving her station alongside Valkyrie to clamber into the hammergun pod just behind the helm.

  “The stronghold is afire, sirs,” Welly said.

  Buckle swung his glass to the ground—the view was rapidly improving, with the Pneumatic Zeppelin coming on so fast. He saw great columns of black smoke, drifting westward, low across the earth, flowing from the pale-brown walls of Muscovy.

  “Aye, she is burning up,” Buckle muttered under his breath.

  “Mortar barges to the south of the city!” the lookout shouted on the chattertube.

  Buckle swung his lens to the south and quickly found the lumbering, squarish envelopes of two mortar barges, the Founders phoenix visible on their flanks, bombarding the city with their huge guns.

  “No sign of an escort with the mortar barges, Captain,” Welly said.

  Welly was right. The slow-moving mortar barges should be protected by a fighting sloop or scout, but he could not locate any other airship nearby.

  “Watch for him. He is surely there,” Buckle said. Already the scenario felt slippery. Either the Founders were very sloppy, or he was charging into a trap.

  “Aye,” Sabrina said, swinging her telescope at Buckle’s side.

  Buckle observed the three war zeppelins battling it out over the city. The middle vessel was a big Spartak warship, holed and afire, bracketed on both beams by two Founders war zeppelins of similar size. The Russian was doomed—doomed unless Buckle joined the fray.

  “All ahead flank,” Buckle shouted.

  “All ahead flank, aye!” Valkyrie repeated into the chattertube as she cranked the chadburn dial, ringing the bell. The engine room shouted its response as the stokers hurled coal into the fireboxes. The propellers drove up to a higher roar, the overdriven boilers rattling so hard that they vibrated the airship’s decking.

  “Run out the guns, Mister Considine!” Buckle shouted into the chattertube.

  “Run out the guns! Aye, Captain!” Considine answered from the gunnery gondola.

  Buckle figured that all three of the war zeppelins ahead had him outgunned—the Pneumatic Zeppelin’s armament of four twelve-pounders on the gun deck and a long brass four-pounder bow chaser were respectable, but just average. Her hammergun and the handful of swivel guns on the roof did not add much punch in a scrap between heavies. But Buckle knew that his gun crews were crackerjack—they would make every shot count.

  “Mister Windermere, take us down to two hundred. Fifteen degrees, down bubble. Crash dive.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Windermere replied, spinning the elevator wheel, depressing the Pneumatic Zeppelin’s massive fins. “Down ship! Crash dive!”

  “Hydro! Vent twenty percent,” Sabrina s
houted. “Across the board.”

  “Venting twenty percent, aye!” Nero replied, cranking the master wheel on the hydrogen board.

  The Pneumatic Zeppelin plunged, nose level on an even keel. The stomach-lifting suddenness of her drop exhilarated Buckle, with all her unhappy creaking and groaning as she exceeded her specifications for rate of vertical descent. Buckle was daringly testing her constitution. He was not worried, not one whit.

  Kellie yelped, circling around Buckle’s knees—she did not like crash dives overmuch. Buckle patted the dog, feeling the hard edges of her vertebra through his gloved fingers as his mind’s eye observed his zeppelin from outside, checking her trim and line. He was going to duck down, come in low and fast. It was not hard to spot a zeppelin, but the best way to approach an enemy unobserved—especially when that enemy was preoccupied in an air battle—was low against the ground, from behind, and as fast as the devil might let you lash your boilers.

  “Captain Buckle, I must insist,” Washington barked at Buckle’s back. “Battle stations? We are on an ambassadorial mission!”

  Washington. The kraken wound on the back of Buckle’s neck prickled painfully. How did Washington get on the bridge? He should have posted a guard on his door.

  “Not now, Ambassador,” Buckle said, then leaned into the chattertube. “Gunnery! Double-shot your guns!”

  “Double-shotted, Captain! Aye!” Considine’s voice careened back up the tube.

  Buckle raised his telescope to his eye. The battle above was emerging in detail as the Pneumatic Zeppelin closed the gap. The Russians built big warships, ponderous behemoths with heavy cannons, famous for their ability to absorb copious amounts of punishment. That durability was something the Spartak zeppelin badly needed at the moment, for the two Founders war zeppelins flanking her were hammering away with broadside after broadside, the flashes of the individual cannons now visible as tiny red licks of flame, instantly followed by rivers of black powder smoke that drifted under their keels.

  “The Russian is being peppered, Captain,” Sabrina said at Buckle’s shoulder. “Not a good place to be alone.”