Iron was the traditional emblem of royal naval supremacy, but in an airspace seeded with magnetic closeness mines, iron was a fatal debt.
An royal warship lined its hull with three-inch wrought-iron armor plate. Then, it transformed into a huge floating magnet. It drew every explosive charge within fifty paces straight into its ribs.
Lord Giles Croft stood in the central assembly bay of Timber Yard One. He held a bronze moisture gauge and a curved drawknife.
The air in the cavernous hangar was rich with the sharp, pine-scented perfume of freshly planed mountain white pine and boiled linseed oil.
Above the workbenches, low-pressure steam pipes circulated seventy-degree vapor through copper radiators. That kept the air at the exact heat needed for the thermosetting resins to cure.
Before Giles rested the forty-foot load-bearing backbone of a new vessel. A composite glued-layered timber keel, clamped within a curved wooden jig under thirty heavy bronze screw presses.
The keel was made from twenty-four nonstop laminations of three-quarter-inch pine planks, each layer thoroughly impregnated with waterproof resorcinol resin glue.
Beside Giles, Master Caleb Thorne-Wood ran his calloused palm along the smooth, curved timber, his eyes shining with skilled wonder.
