Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin, Book One) Read Online Free PDF Page A

floating a mere three feet off the ground.
    And then the shooting started.

BLACKBANG MUSKETS AND HARPOONS
    B UCKLE, HEART RACING, JUMPED TO the port gunwale and looked out. Scattered puffs of black smoke erupted from the blasted ruins surrounding them, bursting from rubble piles, burned-out vehicles, and doorways. Blackbang musket balls left long, sparkling tails of burning phosphorus and corkscrewed as the projectiles lost speed, and they looked to Buckle like a swarm of burning bees. Sharp
plinks
and
tonks
snapped against the gondola as musket balls bounced off its bronze-plated flanks. A kerosene lamp hooked to the gondola prow shattered with the high crash of breaking glass, its kerosene falling loose of the fuel canister in a wobbling pancake of liquid.
    And there was another sound, a far worse sound for the soul of a zeppelin captain—the rip of puncturing fabric. Bullets punching through the envelope overhead. Bullets coated with burning phosphorus.
    Buckle ducked back into the gondola. “Ambush! Port and starboard! Gunners let them have it!” he shouted into the chattertube mouthpiece.
    Buckle did not actually have to say the last bit—the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
crew, weapons at the ready, were already returning fire, aiming at the sources of the telltale smoke puffsand phosphorus streaks. He heard the low, burping
bumpf
of his crew’s muskets replying to the attackers, combined with the sound of the Ballblasters triggering their firearms in a measured response outside.
    “Lower the nets!” Buckle ordered, his hand instinctively reaching to the polished brass butt of the pistol in his belt. This was the perilous window of opportunity for the Scavengers, who could attempt to board and seize the earthbound air machine. That is, if the Scavengers had any desire to charge the ship rather than take potshots at it.
    “Lowering nets! Aye, Captain!” Sabrina shouted, reaching over her head to pull down a lapis-lazuli-handled lever.
    Reels of chain-mail netting rattled as they unrolled down both flanks of the gondola, driven along slender rails by metal pulleys spewing steam. Within thirty seconds, the antiboarding netting would seal the underside of the airship, making a ground breach rather difficult.
    It would also strand any of Pluteus’s men outside if they had not made it aboard yet.
    “Ivan! Thirty seconds!” Buckle shouted into the chattertube. His chief mechanic and brother, Ivan Gorky, another one of Balthazar’s orphans, would be manning the open rear hatch of the engine gondola at that very moment, a blackbang pistol in one hand, his other yanking Pluteus and his troopers aboard into the narrow gangway corridor.
    “Ten seconds, Cap’n!” Ivan’s voice, tinged with a Russian-throated grumble, returned in the chattertube. “Ten seconds and you’re good to go!”
    “Ten seconds!” Buckle repeated, his voice suddenly sounding loud in his ears—the racket of the gunfight had quieted: muskets were being hastily reloaded on both sides. His nosestinging with the punch of gunpowder, his blood a cavalry charge of adrenaline, Buckle paced the deck. He needed to get his zeppelin up and off the damned ground. He glanced over the port gunwale, his view partially obscured by drifts of black-bang-powder haze. Not a Scavenger could be seen, but there had to be at least fifty of them.
    Buckle didn’t want any more of the Scavenger’s muskets.
    But the thunder of the firearms started up again. Buckle heard another ball zip through the fabric skin somewhere above his head,
chink
against something metal, and drop at his boots, a deformed and smoldering lead orb.
    Ivan’s voice rattled in the chattertube: “Everyone aboard!”
    “About time,” Buckle muttered. “All ahead flank!” He snatched the chadburn handle and slammed it back and forward three times, ringing the bell three times. “Now, Nero! Up ship! Emergency ascent. Increase hydro twenty percent across the board. Jettison ballast five and