Well here we come on the run
Our coal fires are burning
Here we come fife and drum
Propellers in the dawn
Here we come on the run
Our coal fires are burning
Here we come fife and drum
Under the radar we crept on

...Abney Park 'Under the Radar'


A Dubious Promotion

Captain Vesuvius Targonis tied off the knot in his Navy cravat and studied himself in the mirror. What the hell the damned Naval officers saw in him he didn't know, but they evidently saw something, because they'd summoned him to an interview. The card had said invited, and promotion, and Vesuvius checked his calendar, hysterical laughter bubbling into his throat from a chest cold and fast siezing up with panic.

It was not April 1st. Nor was it any other day on which practical jokes were not only acceptable, but mandatory, such as Canned Frog Day, or Pantaloon Pantry Day. The origins of those, he suspected, were the Airforce, and he had never taken part in them. Anyone would think the Airforce didn't need the Navy, the way they carried on.

'Twenty-to-ten, Cap'n,' said a cheerful voice at his elbow. He glanced down.

'Thank you, Billy,' he said. 'Hand me my eye-glass and I'll be on my way then.'

'Aye, Cap'n.'

'And whilst I'm gone, Billy, perhaps you could see to my laundry? A pastime preferable to the one you usually indulge in, I'm sure you'll agree.'

Billy's hand froze, halfway to the seat of his pants. He dropped it again. 'Aye, Cap'n,' he said, his tone sullen. Vesuvius rounded on him, one slender dark brow rising almost to his hairline in annoyance.

'Your hands, Billy, will be nowhere but in a tub of hot suds! Am I understood?'

'Aye, Cap'n!'

'Wish me luck, Billy,' he said grimly, adjusting the cravat yet again and wishing it was all over, whatever it was. He had a feeling luck wasn't going to come into it.


But that, Vesuvius reflected, was a past he couldn't quite lay any rightful claim to. Perhaps, he thought, there was another Captain Targonis out there, in another world, and he'd stumbled on that man's life quite by accident and without invitation, a serious social gaffe if ever there was one. Had that man stumbled upon his life in return?

'Navy, hah!' he muttered as he dangled his torso over the bulwark of his ship. An Airforce ship. Not a Naval one.

Not that Genevieve was an unsightly cow like some of them were. She was old, it was true, but despite having the bulk of one of the Leviathan airships built more than thirty years ago and now decommissioned, she posessed a kind of lethargic grace that was really quite endearing. And she was built of copper, mainly, not tin. She looked warm. Above him, two huge propellors whirred a deep drone in harmony with the higher-pitched whine of the tail-copters.

He took out his compass.

North-north-east. That was his bearing. His destination lay farther from his home than he'd ever travelled, and he didn't like it, not when he was travelling by air.

'A promotion, hah!' he snapped at a seagull who'd landed on the bulwark. The bird fixed him with one beady eye, and crapped on the deck. Vesuvius fingered his raygun. 'A transfer, and to the Airforce! Piss off.'

The book hadn't been any bloody help either. Whoever had decided that writing about Aeolia was a good idea had also decided they didn't need to actually know anything about that land, and so the book was full of drawings of dragons and maps that mostly just said here be dragons, and speculated about mountains full of gold and dragons. There was something about some shape-shifting nomads, but apart from their name, there wasn't much information.

'If there are indeed dragons, I'll eat my hat,' he said. A horrible thought occurred to him. 'What if the yechaman can turn themselves into dragons? Billy! Bring me wine, immediately.'

Billy appeared at his elbow like an oil slick gone septic. Vesuvius' lips twisted. 'Very quick, Billy, and you are to be commended for it, but you forgot something. I asked for wine.'

'Aye, Cap'n. But we ain't got none,' said Billy. 'We got licker though, Airforce rations, Cap'n.'

'Airforce rations? Are they...is it rum, Billy?'

'Dunt know, Cap'n. I ain't tried it.'

'Bring it here, then.' Any drink was better than no drink, though at ten thousand feet it might not be the best idea. He was willing to risk it, however. There were worse things than being sick at ten thousand feet.

There was Aeolia.

And the yechaman.