Powell glared out the windscreen of the Steel Comet, the cityscape sliding by below, his ill mood evident to all who looked his way.

All, that is, except for the two annoying 12-year-old twin girls on either side of him.

“Look down there, Allison! The wee people on the street are moving like ants!”

“Oh, how I wish we could have arrived at Ethinium during the daylight hours, Abby! Why couldn’t you have gotten us here faster, Mr. Powell? This old ship of yours is terribly slow!”

Powell said nothing, but the tips of his ears grew a darker shade of red. His knuckles, in contrast, grew white. He gripped the ship’s wheel even harder, biting back several choice words that sprang to mind.

“Girls! Be nice to Mr. Powell! Would you prefer we were on a train instead? This is much faster, believe me.”

The voice came from the passenger area, where Sir Garrison O’Reilly and his wife Olivia sat in the wicker bench seats reading. Olivia, on occasion, would call out a reprimand to the girls, which they studiously ignored. Just like this one.

She returned to her book. Sir O’Reilly never looked up from the morning edition of the Dublin Sentinel. He seemed determined to read every word in every article.

Powell wished the twins stayed in the passenger compartment with their parents, where they belonged. The two girls’ nurses followed them around wherever they went, and with an additional four people up front, Powell felt particularly crowded.

Nonetheless, he said nothing. O’Reilly had paid the passage for all six of them from Dublin to Ethinium, even despite the exorbitant fare Powell quoted. For this one-way trip, he charged the wealthy aristocrat his daughters’ weight in gold.

Well, at least in silver, he thought.

And, Powell reflected, he would have allowed himself to be negotiated down on the fare, at least somewhat. After all, he was headed to Ethinium anyway . . .

But O’Reilly evidently needed to return home as quickly as possible, and paid the steep fare without batting an eye.

“Look at that, Abby! Look up ahead over to the left! I think there’s more airships taking off!”

But if I had known how downright irritating taking along these adolescent terrors would be, I would have quoted the man double.

“I declare!” Abigail’s nursemaid said. “I do believe it is more airships! That first one is certainly big. Look at the size of it!”

Powell recalled this nurse’s name was Helen.

At last, he turned his attention toward where the girls were pointing, and where the nurses were now convinced something was truly occurring.

Powell squinted in the dimming light, focusing on what his eyes told him he was seeing.

Then his expression changed. The perpetual scowl disappeared, replaced by wide-eyed astonishment.

“Those aren’t just any airships. They’re black airships! Darhaven is going on a raid, right over Ethinium!”

He spun his wheel, slapping down on the pedals. The Steel Comet slanted hard left, making the nursemaids stumble a bit before they caught themselves. Powell opened up the throttles, increasing speed. The sound of the engines in back increased to a deeper roar.

He glanced worriedly at his fuel levels, tapping the gauge on the dash to make sure it gave an accurate reading.

“We should have enough to engage these in the back, at least. While those two are still rising, they’re not adding speed, yet. That gives us an advantage.”

The girls jumped up and down in excitement.

“We’re gonna get ’em!”

“Kill them! Kill the Darhavan, those bastards!”

“Allison! Such abhorrent language!”

This reprimand came from Beatrice, the other nursemaid. Powell ignored them, focusing instead on the ships rising out of the ground.

“Are we positive they’re Darhaven, Mr. Powell?”

O’Reilly himself came to the top of the steps leading down into the bridge. He looked out the front window at the rising ships, and the larger one in front now picking up speed.

“Aye, they’re black, alright,” Powell said. “And they’re coming out of the steam vault. That’s more than enough evidence for me, sir.”

O’Reilly’s face tightened. They were fast approaching the two ships, which had now attained nearly the same elevation as the Steel Comet. Their propellers began spinning faster, their long sleek rigid frames cutting through the air.

“What do you intend to do about all this, Mr. Powell?”

“Shoot them down if I can, sir.”

Allison said, “Yes! Shoot the bastards down! Come on, Abby! To the machineguns!”

Abigail, standing to Powell’s left, excitedly ran to the gun turret off the bridge on her side. Allison ran to the one on the right.

Helen said, “Girls! Girls! Get away from those guns! You can’t possibly—”

She was interrupted by the sound of a bolt pulling back. Allison squeezed out a long, heavy burst as the 9-50 spewed out a string of bullets at one of the fleeing airships.

“Girls! Stop! Stop this instance!”

Olivia O’Reilly, at long last, jumped out of her chair in the passenger section and pushed aside her husband, rushing onto the bridge.

“Wait a minute, milady!” Powell said, standing up and holding his hand out to keep her from running over to the right-hand turret.

He grabbed a pair of binoculars hanging from a hook on the back wall and gazed out the windscreen.

The approaching twilight made things even dimmer, but he could just make out details on the end of the ships.

“Aye . . . Aye! She hit the propeller. And she damaged it! Keep firing girls! Let loose on those bastards!”

Allison and Abigail cheered and the Steel Comet’s forward guns spat out long lines of lead at the two black airships.

The nurses stared at him, aghast, but Powell continued ignoring them. He put the binoculars’ strap around his neck and sat down again, adjusting course.

The girls kept firing, gleefully screaming as they let loose long bursts of heavy rounds.

“Take that! And that! Haha! Die you filthy scum!”

The nurses looked even more appalled, if that were possible.

“Oh! I have the vapors!” Helen said.

“Aim for the propellers, girls!”

“Garrison! Do something!”

O’Reilly looked at his wife from the top of the steps, then at his pilot who had a determined expression on his face, pulling his throttle open even more.

Finally, he looked out the front window in the rapidly dimming light. Tiny sparks flew off the propellers as his daughters hit them again, and again and again.

“Let them be, dear,” he said, his voice rumbling through the cabin. “Mr. Powell needs them right now.”

The girls laughed and kept shooting.

“Besides, they seem to be having fun.”