I bit back a smart retort, not wanting him to change his mind, and hurried down the stairs. My unanswered question left me tense with apprehension as he opened the door with a hiss of compressed air. It was shockingly loud with machines churning and metal clanging against metal. We walked into a wash of oppressive heat, and I paused for a moment to look around the boiler room with avid fascination.
The room stank of smoke and metal, an iron grate acting as a catwalk between massive turning gears and tanks. Copper boilers lined the narrow walls, rattling under the strain as bolts and screws were tested against the force and pressure. Valkyrie ducked under low hanging pipes, disappearing for moments into the thick and putrid steam. At the end of the room there was another door, glossy black with gold markings on it.
The Captain waited for me, his hand on the door; my pulse was racing as he opened it for me. The room I walked into was like nothing I’d seen before, even as an engineer. The wood floors had been replaced with glass, perfectly crystal clear, as if there were nothing between us and the sky below.
I took a startled step back, dismayed to find Valkyrie in my way. He looked down at me with an air of superiority, pushing me forward slightly. “Now now, don’t be insulting. This is the heart of the ship after all.” He winked, leaning in to whisper, “Don’t look down.”
I gritted my teeth, allowing the burn of indignant anger to drive me out onto the glass. It was slow for a moment, testing; when it stayed solid beneath my feet, I found my courage, and my steps were more confident.
His words had been condescending, but I found them helpful as I focussed on the rest of the room, distracting me from the fear of falling through the floor. The ship’s machinery converged across the walls in a maze of pipes and gears. Large loops of shining copper were suspended from the ceiling, gears rotating slowly as they captured the red glow of the power source beneath them.
There was no fear left in me as I approached the middle of the room, my eyes on the dais raised on tempered glass steps. A pillar carved from shimmering marble rose at its center, the surface alive with delicate silver cogs and gears kept spinning by the heartstone above them.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Valkyrie give me a faint nod, encouraging me to get closer. Hesitantly, I climbed the glass steps and my breath caught as I stopped before the heartstone. I was awed by the vibrancy of its color, only small veins of rich black disrupting the deep red of the crystal. I reached out, my fingers hovering inches from it; its size was more obvious compared to my hand, larger than any heartstone I’d seen before. I knew that if I reached out to hold it, I'd barely be able to close my fist around the large jagged shape of the heartstone… and I ached to touch it, to learn the extent of its power. Only the knowledge that even a small imbalance could drastically affect the ship kept me from succumbing to that temptation.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed, unwilling to look away as I asked, “How did you manage to get your hands on something like this?”
Valkyrie ascended the steps to stand beside me, gazing at the stone. For the first time it was not with arrogance or satisfaction; it was with a humbled awe. The look faded quickly as his eyes met mine, saying smugly, “I have friends in high places.”
“I guess I need to make better friends,” I muttered, my mind already whirling with possibilities as I looked at the heartstone. An engineer was limited only by their tools and their knowledge, and I knew I could make incredible things happen with a stone like that. “The Marauder… I mean, with this she’ll easily accommodate any improvement I could make.”
The Captain folded his hands behind his back, giving me his full attention. “Good. Then I have a proposition for you.”
That dragged my attention away from the machinery, new hope sparking in my chest. “Does that mean you’ve considered my offer? You’ll escort me to Antinau?”
“I will, if you’re able to increase the velocity of the Marauder and enhance her cloaking at high altitudes. If your destination really is Antinau, we’ll need it.” He outstretched his hand to me, face bathed in a red glow from the heartstone. “Do we have an accord?”
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