Iron and Blood Read Online Free

over the Atlantic.”
    “Captain Adair.” The voice sounded over the airship’s speaking tube. “You’d better get up here. We’ve got company.”
    Cullan’s smile vanished. “You might want to hang on,” he said. “This could get bumpy.”
    Cullan sprinted for the bridge, while Jake and the others ran to the lounge’s observation windows. Through the clouds, they could make out dark shapes, too big to be anything but pursuing craft.
    “There!” Nicki cried, pointing. Jake caught a glimpse of a one-man dirigible, much smaller than the Allegheny Princess . Instead of a passenger compartment under the dirigible’s balloon, the smaller craft had what appeared to be a gunner’s seat. A second later, fire flashed from the pilot’s underslung mount.
    “What the hell was that?” Rick strained to see what was going on.
    “Looks like a Gatling gun to me,” Jake observed.
    Rick ran to the other side of the lounge. “There are two more on this side, closing fast.”
    “I see one... no, two more behind this one,” Nicki reported.
    Jake frowned. “Those can’t possibly have the range to follow us across the Atlantic. It’s suicide for them to come after us. Their ships can’t carry Tesla cells powerful enough to fuel them that far.”
    “They don’t have to,” Rick replied, his voice cold. “Not if they can dock with that.” Jake and Nicki turned in time to glimpse a full-sized airship that was easily as big as the Allegheny Princess , partially hidden by the clouds.
    The Princess lurched, and Jake nearly lost his footing, saving himself by grabbing the railing that ran along the windows. A bullet cracked against one of the windows, sparking against the aluminum frame. “Damn,” Jake muttered. “That’s too close for comfort.”
    “Get down!” Rick ordered as he pulled Nicki to the floor and Jake dropped. A shot embedded itself in the thick glass. New Pittsburgh was well known for its glass industry, supplying fine housewares that were the envy of the world. But the city’s captains of industry invested in more practical products, like the bulletproof glass that had become all the rage since the Braddock riots a few years earlier.
    Rick found himself tangled in Nicki’s skirts as she turned and gave one of her dazzling smiles. “Rick… really you shouldn’t have.”
    “Nicki! I…” Rick blustered as his face turned bright red. Fortunately he was saved by a lurch of the ship.
    The hiss of steam and the hum of gears grew louder as the Princess pulled ahead, and Jake guessed Cullan was attempting to draw their pursuers out over the Atlantic, where there would be more room to maneuver, and fewer prying eyes. The deck beneath them began to vibrate, and from below, they could hear the whirr of cables and the clank of metal.
    “What’s Cullan doing?” Nicki shouted above the din. She had braced herself behind one of the large leather chairs, which were bolted to the floor. Rick and Jake had done the same, trying to avoid sliding across the lounge as the airship banked and turned.
    “Just a guess, but I’m betting he’s launching those,” Rick said, pointing toward the windows. “Damn it, Adam… holding out on me again! I helped with the specs for those and he never told me he put them into production!”
    Several brass and aluminum saucers hovered outside the windows. Gears and pulleys covered them like sinews, and Jake could make out the rounded domes of aluminum-shielded balloons. Each was as wide as the passenger compartment of a carriage, but only a few feet high, and slung under every one of the contraptions was the unmistakable barrel of a Gatling gun.
    The saucers opened fire on their pursuers, pushing the attacking mini-dirigibles farther away as Cullan banked the Princess hard to port, and Jake felt the engines rev, picking up speed. What he dared glimpse from the windows looked like lightning sparking in the clouds as the smaller craft battled each other. With a brilliant flare, one