Page 45 of Storm to Victory
He stepped into the engine room, the noise assaulting his ears. He should have thought to put in his moss earplugs.
“Pip.” Even shouting, he could barely hear his own voice over the noise.
No answer.
Not too surprising. She probably couldn’t hear him any more than he could hear her.
He wandered deeper into the labyrinthine engine room, ducking under pipes and around the line of large boilers that heated the steam for turning the drive shafts.
Near the wall that divided the coal storage from the engine room, he found Pip perched on top of a contraption, sweat dribbling in rivulets through the coal dust and grease smeared across her face.
Dacha lay underneath the contraption, holding a piece into the place as Pip worked her hands into the center, using her magic to attach it.
Fieran halted, staring. Pip and Dacha were here. Working together. And Pip wasn’t frozen in terror. Was this a hallucination from staring at the sky too long?
He cleared his throat. “I…brought lunch.”
“Linshi.” Pip tilted her head. “You can set it down over there. I’ll grab the sandwich once we have this piece secured.”
“And after we have had a chance to wash up.” Dacha shifted the piece of metal slightly, giving Pip a better angle for attaching it. “Eating with our fingers now would be highly unsanitary.”
“Exactly. All this coal and grease can’t be healthy.” Pip’s mouth went lopsided as she stretched her arm a few inches farther to continue melding the metal. “Could you fetch me a ratchet with a three-eighths socket? There’s one bolt I need to finish tightening after we get this in place.”
“Could you also fetch that metal panel?” Dacha pointed with his foot at a piece of metal sheeting leaning against the wall. “That needs to go on next.”
Dacha and Pip were bonding. He couldn’t believe it.
Fieran set the plate with the sandwiches down on the floor, stepped around it, and found the toolbox to search for Pip’s ratchet. It took him far too long to concentrate enough to locate first the ratchet, then the correct socket.
Grabbing the metal panel, he approached the contraption, handing the tools to Pip and setting the metal next to Dacha on the floor. “What are you building?”
“An automatic distribution system for coal so that we don’t have to be constantly shoveling.” Pip took the wrench and climbed farther onto the contraption to tighten a bolt holding a bundle of wires in place. “It was your dacha’s idea to use the temperature of the boilers to regulate the coal distribution.”
“It was Pip’s experience with trains that made the design feasible.” Dacha took the panel and started wedging it into place.
Fieran studied the contraption more closely, following the various parts and pieces.
At one end, a system of shovels on a track scooped coal through the hatch that led into the coal bunker next to the engine room. The coal was then dumped into a series of metal chutes with gates that were opened and closed based on those temperature sensors. Each of the chutes led to one of the boilers, feeding the insatiable fires.
“I assume the two of you have taken into account the risk of fire traveling from the boilers to the coal bunker?” Fieran stepped back to wait for the next request for a tool or part from either Pip or Dacha.
“We’re going to rig a way to open and shut the hatches on the boilers as part of the system.” Pip reached through the contraption to secure the next metal panel in place.
“But there is an increased risk of fire due to the automation instead of shoveling manually.” Dacha shifted as he held the panel in place over his head. “As long as we do not engage in battle, the risk is marginal.”
“And if we get into battle, we’ll have other problems to worry about.” Fieran nodded and leaned against a section of pipe that wasn’t scorching, ready to be Pip’s and Dacha’s tool-fetcher if it meant he could watch them bond like this.
Chapter
Fourteen
Fieran carried a tray laden with the food he had scrounged from the galley, a red-and-white-checked tablecloth looped over his arm. The food wasn’t anything fancy: some kind of canned meat with gravy that he’d dumped into a pot to heat, mixed vegetables also from a can, and a box of powdered potatoes that he’d managed to make unpowdered with judicious use of water and heat. It was hardly tasty, but it would be filling.
He stepped onto the bridge where Dacha was at the wheel. Uncle Edmund stood out on the walkway, taking a few star readings, before he returned to the bridge, going straight to the chart table and scribbling notes in the log book. Only once that was done did he glance up. “Looks like we’re still on course. And food is here.”
“Food might be a generous word.” Fieran headed for the back of the bridge, where he found enough space to set down the tray and lay out the tablecloth on the floor. “The options are limited without spending more significant time in the galley.”
“If we’d wanted better food, I guess I should have included a cook on the mission.” Uncle Edmund made one last note in the log before he headed across the pilot house and sank onto theedge of the tablecloth across from Fieran. He swept a glance over the spread. “Actually, this doesn’t look half-bad. Though your dacha will likely disagree.”
