Page 50 of Storm to Victory
Dacha stood behind the wheel as the morning sunlight beamed bright through the bridge windows and glinted on the strands of his silver-blond hair. He glanced over his shoulder and nodded to Fieran. “Good morning, sason.”
“Morning.” Fieran drifted toward the chart table and checked their location. Everything seemed to be in order.
Dacha waved a hand to the bank of dials and gauges in front of the wheel. “We appear to be losing altitude, and I cannot seem to make us regain it.”
Fieran grimaced and headed for the dials, checking the altitude gauge. “I suspected as much last night, but I was hoping I was wrong. I’m not an experienced airship pilot so for the first couple of days, I didn’t think anything of the fact that we kept losing altitude. I could adjust the heat to the balloons and raise us again. But now even that isn’t working without raising the heat to dangerous levels.”
“What’s that about dangerous levels?” Pip strode into the pilot house carrying a tray piled with bread and hardboiled eggs for breakfast.
“Heating the gas balloons more to regain altitude.” Fieran tapped the glass top of the altitude dial. “Any ideas why we’d be slowly losing altitude?”
Pip set the tray on the corner of the chart table and crossed the room to join him, her mouth pinched in a flat line. “There could be a small puncture in one of the gas balloons. Or possibly multiple of the balloons. Despite how careful everyone was, this airship might have been hit by some small pieces of shrapnel. Or there could be a leak in the steam pipes that run through the dirigible, causing some of the balloon not to get enough heat to provide lift.”
The Mongavarian airships were designed with two main methods of lift. Most of the gas balloons were filled with helium while a few near the bow and stern held regular air. For quick descents, these gas balloons were emptied, and for an ascent, they were refilled.
The air in the balloons and within the dirigible’s outer skin could also be heated using the steam pipes running between theballoons. More steam, more heat, and the airship rose. Cut off the steam, and the gas cooled, lowering the airship. This was better for smaller adjustments.
“The steam pressure gauge seems to be all right, but I’m not sure how accurate the gauges are here.” Pip nudged Fieran aside to take the primary spot before all the dials. “And if there was a leak in the steam, then we probably would have noticed. So I’m leaning toward a leak in the gas balloons.”
“Can it be fixed?” Dacha’s grip on the wheel had turned white-knuckled, even if his overall expression hadn’t changed.
“I might be able to track down the holes, but it could take a while. If I ever find them. If the holes are small, they will be nearly impossible to find in the miles of canvas gas balloons up there.” Pip shook her head and turned from the gauges to face them. “And even if I find the leaks, it’s a multi-person job to patch them. There’s a reason that maintaining the gas balloons takes a whole crew.”
“The good news is that we aren’t losing altitude fast enough to jeopardize getting to Ludin.” Fieran grimaced again and turned to better face both Pip and Dacha. “But unless we fix the leak, this airship won’t be able to carry the rescued prisoners for long, if at all.”
Pip frowned and pointed upward. “There are rumors that Mongavaria has gotten desperate enough to start using hydrogen in their gas balloons despite the risk. Helium is rare, and you’ve destroyed a lot of their airships.”
Right. That meant any leak could potentially be pouring flammable gas into the dirigible where any spark or static could set it off. The gas balloons themselves were magically coated to prevent such things normally.
With a swallow, Fieran stuffed his magic deep within his chest. Best not to take any chances.
Dacha’s hard expression cracked with a grimace of his own. “This airship is sounding like an inadvisable risk of death.”
Uncle Edmund strolled into the pilot house, halting and glancing around at each of them. “I missed most of that. Which inadvisable risk of death are we talking about?”
“The airship slowly sinking. And, quite possibly, becoming a giant bomb filled with hydrogen gas.” Fieran shrugged and crossed his arms. “So…is attempting to find that leak the priority?”
Uncle Edmund halted by the chart table, then shook his head. “Perhaps it would be worth spending a few hours searching for the leak, but we’re nearing where my contacts reported strengthened Mongavarian air patrols. I’d like everyone on the bridge in case we run into trouble.”
Fieran shared a look with Pip.
She nodded back. “Fieran and I can spend this morning looking for the leak.”
Hopefully they could find it and patch it before any other trouble found them. Otherwise, they were sailing with a bomb strapped over their heads.
Pip clamberedthrough the hatch onto the catwalk inside the dirigible. She rolled to her feet, getting out of the way as Fieran climbed up after her.
She peered around the inside of the dirigible. “Where should we start?”
“Maybe over there?” Fieran pointed upward and toward the stern. “Does that part seem a bit brighter than elsewhere?”
“Yes, it does.” As if sunlight was shining through a hole in the outer skin of the airship. Pip set off down the catwalkin that direction. Even though she was walking normally, her boots rang against the metal, the sound echoing hollowly in the cavernous space formed by the airship’s outer skin. Fieran’s bootsteps, too, reverberated far too loudly.
It was eerily quiet and empty in here. On the airship she’d flown on before, this section had been bustling with activity. An airship was supposed to be alive with men and women, not this shell so stripped of life.
It was almost sad, even if this was an enemy airship. But if all went well, she and Fieran would fill this airship to the brim with rescued ogres and Alliance pilots. It wouldn’t feel so dead then.
The two of them climbed up several ladders, went down a few catwalks, and finally reached the upper balloons in the stern section.
