An Airship Named Desire (Take to the Skies Book 1) by Katherine McIntyre

“I love a wicked storm, gladly take another.”
    The rain continued, but mere rainfall we could handle. Uncomfortable, yes, but nowhere near as dangerous as those ozone-crunching, climate-changing thunderstorms. I plucked my sodden shirt from my chest, and the material flapped back with a sloppy plunk. My nose wrinkled in distaste. After I’d just put on fresh clothing too. At the helm, Spade’s blue eyes focused straight ahead with an intense sort of focus.
    “Rough patch, eh?” I called to him, much too lazy to stand.
    “Aye.” His muscular forearms tensed back and forth with a rhythmic sway of the ship while he guided our path. I rummaged through my pack and pulled out my smaller pouch with the telescope. Peering through the eyepiece, I gazed off in the distance. Rain streaked through my vision, and droplets clung to the lens, but I could still see clear enough. My toes curled within my boots.
    A Union Jack flag rippled in the distance.

Chapter Five
     
     
    Shit. Shit. Shit.
    The red against blue glared on the flag, and the hulking ship penetrated the expanse between us.
    “Enemy ship on the horizon!” Jack, the overseer, called out. Blunt interference from the residual rain garbled his voice.
    The monolith of a ship must have stayed hidden via cloud cover since the redcoats had enough tech aboard to track us through that storm. At the sight of the behemoth, a shudder rolled through me. I whipped my head towards the steering rig where Spade stood by the helm and Morris at the aether regulators.
    “How far away are we from port?” Morris called to me. “Check in with Geoff as fast as you can and return here. We’re going to move faster than a hooker on a time crunch and leave this freighter eating our dust.”
    I stifled my grin. The captain always kept calm, even under this siege which would begin in mere minutes. With a salute, I raced towards the navigation chambers. My feet pounded against the dewy floorboards, and drops of rain pattered across my back. 
    Gusts of wind whipped past me, and the deck careened under my shaky view. I threw myself headlong towards the cabin, meters away. Geoff needed to plot our course and quick, because once we had our bearings, we’d have a better chance of outmaneuvering the Brits. Desire was smaller and faster than most ships among the skies, but speed didn’t matter if we had no direction. My hands fumbled with the doorknob. Aimlessness created more danger than any landlubber would understand since the skies abounded with storms and atmospheric pockets. After I got a grip, I yanked the door open and hurled myself inside.
    Geoff sat at his desk, surrounded by stacks of maps. With his compass in one hand and a marker in the other, he scrutinized the map before him. I leaned against the wall and tried to appear calm—at least as calm as I could manage while puddles formed by my feet.
    Even though my entrance had been anything but quiet, Geoff didn’t look up. A thick curl of chestnut hair swung over his eyes, and I resisted the urge to walk over and brush it from his face. He blew it away but didn’t stop maneuvering the compass. My heart beat faster watching him work, and warmth spread through my extremities despite the rain soaked cold. As much as we teased him, our ship would be a duck sans tail feathers without his navigation.
    Besides, Geoff kept me sane. He’d introduced himself with a warm handshake and a gorgeous smile on the first day my life started over. Every time I’d gotten into trouble for running my mouth, he sat with me and helped me calm down so I didn’t land even more busywork from the captain. I coughed into my hand to get his attention. At the sound, his head swung up to greet me.
    “Bea, please tell me you’re here to announce a change into balmy weather and a surprise beacon signaling a treasure trove.” He scratched away at the papers in front of him even while sparing me a glance.
    I tried running my hands through my hair but gave up