“Yes, sir.” She caught the key he tossed her and unlocked the cabinet doors, hoping all the bottles and vials of medicines and chloroform were intact.
Before she could begin her inspection, the sick bay door banged open and a crewman rushed in—a junior mechanic judging by his close-fitting cap, goggles and boilersuit. His gaze locked on the doctor. “Where’s Kenward?” he asked in a breathless voice, as if he’d run the length of the ship.
“Here,” she said.
He motioned frantically for her to join him and was halfway out the door already when he told her “Mr. Jupiter needs your assistance in the forecastle. We have engine trouble.”
Lenore gawked at him for a moment before glancing at the doctor who waved her out. She raced to keep up with the crewman as they flew down the gangway, up a ladder to the deck above the gasbag deck and across the hull to where an exterior shaft connecting hull to gondola allowed the mechanics access to both places during shift changes. Bless Nettie for insisting her female crew members dress like pit lasses—trousers under skirts tucked at the waist—otherwise she’d never been able to keep up.
The mechanic stopped her before the shaft’s entrance. From her place at the top, she had a good view of the gondola. Part of its housing was torn off, exposing some of the engine to the elements. She wondered if they’d been hit by either friendly fire or a horrific’s strike.
The wind blasted an icy howl up the shaft, nearly drowning the mechanic’s shout. “Do you have a cap?” He tapped his head, encased in the tight-fitting cap everyone entering an engine gondola wore. She shook her head, and he stripped his off to hand it to her. “You’ll need it,” he bellowed. “That braid of yours will get you killed down there.”
Thanks to her father, Lenore understood engine design, even if she’d never been allowed to work on a physical one. Jewelry, hair, ties; anything hanging loose in an engine gondola was dangerous. Getting hair caught guaranteed a fatal scalping.
She tucked her braid into the cap and buckled the strap under her chin. He steadied her as she got her footing on the shaft ladder and descended toward the gondola. The wind that had blown into the shaft now gusted hot and smelled of burning metal.
Artillery fire and wind howl were nothing compared to the mechanical roar of the engine in the gondola’s tight, enclosed space. Mr. Jupiter, the Terebellum’s master mechanic motioned her to where the engine’s crankshaft spun in fast rotation. The acrid metal smell was especially prevalent here.
With the noise and her cap covering her head, his shouts directly into her ear were the thinnest whispers, and she had to strain to hear.
“You know this engine’s design from your father.”
She nodded and yelled her reply. “Yes, but I have no hands-on experience.” She couldn’t imagine why the master mechanic had summoned her for help when he had a junior mechanic waiting at the top of the shaft.
He enlightened her posthaste. “One of the other ships took damage from a horrific. Sent out a shrapnel blast that tore off some of this gondola. A metal splinter lodged in a gear in the speed reduction unit and froze it up.”
Lenore inhaled sharply. These mechanics were lucky to be alive and not sliced to bloody remains. It was one small thing to be grateful for in the face of impending disaster.
She glanced around the engine toward the propeller exposed by the rip in the gondola’s side. The massive blades spun much faster than they should have. Without the propeller speed reduction unit working, the powerplant’s rotations per minute would rise to critical failure levels. What damage a horrific didn’t manage to inflict on a ship, her engine’s torsional vibration would.
“Why is the engine still running? You’ll lose the prop if it keeps going or break the crankshaft.” Her voice was a thin echo felt more than heard. She wondered if Mr. Jupiter could read lips.
“Orders from the helm.”
He was halted from saying more by cannon blast from under the keel. The ship dipped into a steep yaw, slamming him and Lenore both against the gondola’s undamaged wall. A high unearthly shriek made Lenore cover her ears, even beneath her protective cap. Mr. Jupiter did the same, his craggy features drawn in until they were a grimacing map of rutted roads. The ship leveled and swung sharp to port. Lenore gripped the hand bar bolted to the wall to keep from losing her feet and tumbling against the engine. Jupiter held her arm in a vise grip that numbed her fingers.
“Are you well?” he shouted. She nodded. He pointed in the general direction of the exposed sky. “That’s why we’re still spinning. There’s a horrific just about on top of us.”
She nodded, understanding. Stop the engine and propeller, and they’d lose not only speed and power but maneuverability. The Terebellum’s formidable arsenal didn’t work alone. She still needed to get out of the way and to do so she needed all her engines running.
“Why do you need me?” she asked.
Mr. Jupiter raised one hand and wiggled his fingers before shouting again. “The opening to reach the splinter is too small for any of us to get in there and pry it out. We need someone with small hands who knows the engines and don’t need a lot of instruction. That’s you.”
Lenore’s stomach lurched as she turned to look at the crankshaft and gearbox, the spinning rotation of a hundred metal teeth that notched and turned tooth over tooth in constant motion. They’d stop the engine so she could dislodge and retrieve the splinter. She tried not imagine the impossible scenario of the engine somehow restarting on its own. Those teeth would chew her hand off, pulp it into a bloody hunk of crushed bone and shredded muscle. Her fingers twitched at the gruesome thought.
For one moment, she wished herself back home, safe in the parlor, drinking tepid tea and listening to her Aunt Adelaide abuse their pianoforte. She’d hated every second of it, craved adventure and freedom from the strictures of stifling society.
Be careful what you wish for.
She nodded to Mr. Jupiter. “Whenever you’re ready.”
A shout traveled down the shaft. The master mechanic slipped past her to stare up at his junior still hovering at the top of the shaft. He nodded and returned to stand next to her. “The helm’s taking the engine down now.”
“What about the horrific?”
He grinned. “Seems that bonekeeper might have made a kill shot. The monster fell back into the rift.”
Lenore closed her eyes and tried not to think of Nathaniel. All of her focus needed to stay here, in this tight, damaged, vulnerable gondola.
She and Mr. Jupiter waited several tense minutes. The engine’s noise abruptly changed, slowed and finally whirred to a stop on a mechanical exhalation. The slowing rotation hum of the propeller followed until it was just the wind and the endless boom and vibration of gun and cannon from the Terebellum and the other ships around her.