Romulus Buckle and the Luminiferous Aether (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin #3) by Richard Ellis Preston Jr. Read Free Book Online Page B

her forward from her last position, perhaps a quarter knot, by my calculations.”
    Felix nodded and made eye contact with Buckle, who saw Felix hatching a desperate plan, the kind of plan requiring Lady Fortune’s good graces to work. Buckle grinned, feeling his bravado fueling up. Felix offered a smile back, a wild, we’re-in-this-mess-together kind of grin.
    Gustey discarded her listening equipment and crouched beside her chair.
    Felix also crouched, clamping one hand around the helm wheel stanchion. “I would suggest that you all find something solid to grab ahold of,” he said. “But stay away from the bulkheads—the force of a depth charge blow against the hull will kill you.”
    Taking a firm grip on the periscope housing, Buckle knelt. Sabrina and Welly tucked in beside him. Penny Dreadful huddled with them, its eyes glowing in the dark.
    “I am quite frightened,” Penny Dreadful said.
    “As are we all, Penny,” Sabrina answered, patting the automaton’s metal shoulder.
    Everyone looked up at the piped ceiling, cringing, waiting. Water trickled and sprayed but the wetness of clothing and skin was forgotten now.
    “I hope somebody sold the Founders a nice set of duds,” Welly whispered, his voice hoarse.
    They listened and they waited. Time for Buckle became suspended in the wavering dark. He felt the approach of the unseen depth charges, fuses burning inside watertight barrels packed with explosives, falling upon them at great speed. A group of strange underwater creatures floated past the bridge windows, their near transparent, jelly-fleshed bodies glowing a faint purplish-red, propelling their fragile bodies by thrusting water out of dozens of tubular appendages. Buckle did not know if they were earth animals or alien transplants.
    The dull thud of an underwater detonation made Buckle tense, with Welly and Sabrina clutching alongside him, but the distance of it took the bite out of his apprehension. The Dart rocked gently, pressed down from above.
    “Too shallow,” Kishi muttered. “Maybe this captain thinks we didn’t have the brass.”
    “He’d never suspect we’re this deep,” Felix said.
    “There are two canisters,” Gustey said. “And they have probably dropped more. I’d suspect that first charge’s fuse detonated prematurely.”
    “Always the pessimist, Gustey,” Kishi said.
    An elephant—at least, that was what it felt like—landed on Buckle’s back and if he hadn’t been holding on to the periscope he would have been driven flat to the deck. In the wallop of sound and pressure that hit him, the bridge shuddered so violently that everything blurred. Metal screamed and braces twisted. Pipes burst, spraying water and steam. Instruments cracked, firing splinters of glass and fountains of green glowing boil.
    “Fire in the engine room!” a voice shouted from the chattertube.
    “Damn it to hell!” Felix roared, throwing himself to the chattertube hood. “Shut down all boilers! Shut them down!”
    “We’ve lost all internal pressure readings,” Rachel shouted as loose mercury wiggled across her instrument panel. “All gauges are shot.”
    “Stand fast,” Felix answered. “We’re either dead or we’re not.”
    “Fire extinguished,” the voice on the chattertube rang out.
    Felix leaned back into the hood. “Good show!”
    “Brace yourselves,” Gustey said, back on her headgear. “Two more coming down!”
    “We’ve got to move, Felix,” Kishi said, clicking her stopwatch, her face etched with fright. “They’ve got us on the hook, you hear me? We’ve got to move!”
    “We can’t move,” Felix snapped. “We sit here and take it. We take it.”
    Gustey placed her headgear aside and crept under the map table.
    “We’re between the devil and the deep now,” Felix muttered, eyes shining, looking up.
    Buckle took a good hold of the periscope housing. It was dripping with boil and now his hand glowed with little green rivers. Thick smoke crept onto the bridge,