There was another long pause. “What do you think, Gabe?” Mallick asked.
Gabe stared over the prow of the ship, deep in thought. Reyes held her breath. She was still technically in charge of this mission, but it was mostly Gabe who had kept them alive so far. Building a spaceship was probably impossible anyway, but with Gabe on her side, she’d be willing to give it a shot. Without him on board, they were doomed from the beginning.
Gabe shook his head. “I think it’s insane. I’m no engineer, but I have some idea of the kind of infrastructure it takes to build a spaceship. Airplanes had been flying for half a century by the time the U.S. started its space program, and it still took them years to put a man in orbit. That’s in the wealthiest country on Earth, with twentieth century technology. Doing it here, now, in secret, no less… the idea is nuts.”
Reyes’s heart sank.
“That said,” Gabe went on, “this whole thing is nuts. We shouldn’t be here in the first place, and as for satisfying our original mission, we have zero options. I mean, we’re seriously talking about sending a ship across the galaxy to rendezvous with humanity two hundred years after we’ve lost the war. It seems to me we’re talking about degrees of insanity here.”
“So you’re on board with Reyes’s plan?” Carpenter asked.
“Look,” said Gabe. “We’re the last hope for humanity, and Reyes is the reason we’re all still here. She rescued me from Harald and she kept signaling you guys after I’d given up. To be perfectly honest, all I’ve been doing for the last year is trying to stay alive for another day, and it’s fucking exhausting. We can’t go on like this, just surviving. I’ve never been much for faith, but we’ve got to have something to believe in, some reason to keep going. So if Reyes wants to build a spaceship, I say we give it a go.”
Reyes breathed a sigh of relief.
“Understood,” Mallick said. “O’Brien, anything to add?”
“I’m with Gabe,” O’Brien said. “These two are the only reason I’m still breathing. If Reyes tells me to build the tower of Babel, I’ll start making bricks.”
“Seems like we’re all in agreement then,” Mallick said. “We’ll give it a shot. No guarantees, but we’ll see where we are a year from now. God help me, we’re going to teach the Vikings how to build a spaceship.”
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The Dawn of the Iron Dragon follows the crew of Andrea Luhman as they establish a secret facility in Iceland and then trade, negotiate and pillage their way across Europe, contending with power-hungry kings and devious Cho-ta’an agents, with one goal in mind: to build a ship capable of reaching space.
The Dawn of the Iron Dragon will go on sale on Amazon in May 2018, but you can get an advance copy by pre-ordering in hardcover, paperback or ebook. Unless you got in on the Saga of the Iron Dragon Kickstarter, this is your only chance to get a hardcover. I’ll even sign it for you!
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Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the assistance of:
My technical advisors: Dr. Lucy Rogers, author of It’s Only Rocket Science, who helped me with the space travel stuff; Jackson Crawford, translator of the Poetic Edda, who kept me from mangling Old Norse too badly; Michael Carpenter, who checked my chemistry; Jake Steinman, who assisted with the sailing parts; and Charles Morello, who helped me with the railgun specs and combat tactics;
My beta readers: Suzy Cilbrith, Bill Curtis, Mark Fitzgerald, Lauren Foley, Brian Galloway, Mike Hull, Scott Lavery, Christopher Majava, Viktor Nehring, Paul Alan Piatt and Mark Thompson;
And the Saga of the Iron Dragon Kickstarter supporters, including: Tom Cannon, Chris DeBrusk, Rick DeVos, Christopher Finlan, Brian and Donna Hekman, Tom Hickok, Aaron James, Andrea Luhman, Arnie M., Matthew J McCormick, Steven Mentzel, Kristi Michels, Cara Miller, Kyle “Fiddy” Pinches, Chad and Denise Rogers, Justin Schumacher, Thomas James Slater, Johannes Stauffer, Christopher Turner, and Gabe Zuehlsdorf.
Any errors in this book are the fault of the author. I did my best. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Cover Art
Snowy mountains painting by Artur Zima: http://arturzima.com/
Crashed spaceship image by Ricky Xie: https://www.artstation.com/rickyxie
Titling by Steve Beaulieu: https://beaulistic.wordpress.com/author/stevebeaulieu/
Images used with permission.
More Books by Robert Kroese
The Starship Grifters Universe
“The Chicolini Incident” (short story, included in Out of the Soylent Planet)
The Yanthus Prime Job (novella, included in Aye, Robot)
Out of the Soylent Planet
Starship Grifters
Aye, Robot
The Mercury Series
“Mercury Begins” (short story)
Mercury Falls
“Mercury Swings” (short story)
Mercury Rises
Mercury Rests
Mercury Revolts
Mercury Shrugs
The Land of Dis
Distopia
Disenchanted
Disillusioned
Other Books
The Big Sheep
The Last Iota
Schrödinger’s Gat
City of Sand
The Foreworld Saga: The Outcast
The Force is Middling in This One
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