The iron hull of the Vanguard lay dark in the gray swell two miles off Point Sentinel.
Without her steam dynamos thrumming beneath her deck, the four-hundred-foot warship seemed smaller, diminished by the immense gray horizon of the Southern Ocean. Dead steam escaped from her brass exhaust funnels in thin, white wisps that vanished instantly into the cold morning mist.
A small wooden launch cut through the oily sea, its small gas engine chugging steadily.
Prince Bastian stood near the bow, a long coat pulled tight around his broad shoulders, his dark eyes fixed on the black-iron vessel ahead. Beside him sat Elara Vance. Her charcoal frock coat was neat, her dark hair pinned into its customary severe knot, and under her left arm she held the thick, red-leather volume of her grandfather's ledger.
Behind them, four union riflemen sat with their lever-action rifles resting across their knees, their faces quiet and grim.
