Chapter 3

The Daultless makes a long and lazy circle of San Francisco bay, large portions of which are blanketed in a thick fog. You can see the narrows at the mouth of the bay clearly as well as Alcatraz, the tip of Angel Island sticks up above a thick white blanket of mist and and you can see a number of sailing and steam ships tied up at docks at Sausalito. The docks closest to the Preciado are visible but everything from Fisherman's Warf East is blanketed in fog.

A number of ships, steam and sail powered are visible in the clear areas of the bay either moving from place to place or fishing and a thick plum of black smoke rises through the fog where a steam powered ship is making it's way from Oakland towards the Pacific.

Napoleon notices that there seems to be a number of artillery batteries along the shore controlling both the narrows and the bay itself.

Despite having an excellent view of the bay and the surrounding lands you cannot see the zeppelin, or what you think the zeppelin you're looking for looks like. The dense fog doesn't help but you get the impression that the fog itself is only perhaps a hundred feet thick from the surface of the water.

The Reliant slowly makes her way down towards the aerodrome in Oakland across the bay from San Francisco proper. There are two zeppelins here but they're small, very traditional crafts, single gas bag and a relatively small gondola suspended beneath by wires. Both of these craft are attached to mooring masts at the aerodrome and there are a handful of other aerial vessels at the port, one of which is clearly has a large aether propeller attached to the rear. This vessel is long and smooth, with wood finish on the exterior and large domed greenhouse down the middle. There's a shiny brass solar boiler and mirror array mounted midships and it appears to be held aloft with a combination of liftwood and a hydrogen gas bag.

Captain McAdams looks over at the Aether Flyer and nods towards it pointing out the Russian Imperial Eagle flying from it's stern, "That's Russian, one of the Tzar's ships."

Buford looks over at the ship, "Never seen an Aether propeller before, looks bloody complicated."

Mariette looks the Russian ship over carefully, "What would the Russians be doing here?" She asks McAdams.

"Stocking up no doubt," McAdams says with a grin, "you can only last so long on tinned fish and vodka."

"As opposed to biscuits and rum?" Helen asks.

McAdams nods, "Touché."

The linesmen near the bow and stern begin dropping ropes for the ground crew as you hear the steam engine slow and reverse bringing the large vessel to a halt.