An airship without fuel was merely an expensive wooden barn.
Lord Giles Croft stood on the fuel staging platform of Wharf Three, inspecting the newly installed high-pressure bunkering pipe hub.
Around him, thirty southern merchant airships were moored in neat rows. Their boilers cooled in the afternoon mountain air.
The smell of warm lubricating oil and sulfur steam hung in the air. It mixed with the crisp mountain wind.
Beside Giles, Guildmaster Raymond Barlow paced along the granite curb, his fingers twitching against his gold-stitched velvet sash.
“Lord Giles,” Barlow pleaded, his voice thick with mercantile distress.
“My captains are growing wild.
In the southern ports, bunkering sixty tons of high-grade coal takes three full days of manual shovel crews.
