The Avenging Magnetivistic Tempest Machine by Mark Adam Thomas

This piece was initially written in response to a call for submissions to a Steampunk Shakespeare Anthology. The story, based on The Tempest, was not accepted into the anthology. I submit it here for your enjoyment. Please feel free to comment. 

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Ferdinand abruptly awoke to the heavy listing of the ship, and to a tumult of panicked voices without his cabin. He had been in deep slumber, dreaming again of his sister's recent wedding. Shame filled him, for envy clutched his heart like a clamp, rendering him unable to fully savor the joy in her happiness. His loneliness and longing for a love of his own overbore all jollity for Claribel and her husband.

Ferdinand's hammock arced once again, this time striking the wall, banishing away the last vestiges of the nightmare. Although an old stager at sky travel, Ferdinand had weathered many an aether storm, but the prince had never before encountered such a vivid or intense a squall as this. These violent kinetics were unique, to be sure. The sheet metal table across the small cabin, in its design, was riveted to the heavy bronze floor, yet his personal effects – journal and stylus, the beloved brass-bound edition of Shakespeare's sonnets, his far-sight goggles, and other sundries – had been thrown to the floor, where they presently clattered and slid across the shiny decking. They retraced their skittering to the near side of the cabin as the hulking ship, with a fury, pitched back again.

A brilliant yellow and pink wash flooded the cabin through the porthole window. Shadowy forms, obscured by the sheer brilliance of the light, rushed past the sidescuttle, outside.

"Heigh my hearts," bellowed a shipman beyond. "Quickly! Quickly! Take in the upper sail..."

The vessel lurched, losing altitude, and metal protested under the stress. His father's royal airship, the Le Sage, was taking a severe hiding from this storm. Dread filled Ferdinand as he thought of his father, aged and frail, and how terror would be taking the King, on account of this terrible tempest. Setting his jaw, Ferdinand banished all fears from his mind. He pushed thoughts of his petty loneliness away, and mustered himself for the task at hand. He extricated himself from the wild throes of his cocoon-like hammock and set his feet firmly on the heaving cabin floor.

Now, to brave his way to his father, the King's, cabin. Outside his cabin, the noise of the storm was fierce, indeed. It nearly obliterated the never-ceasing bass thrum of the Parsons Turbines and the low whine of the ship's gears and propellers. The sky was ablaze with bright, ionic energy that painted the heavens with tinted hues. The lightning-charged buzzing of the storm stung Ferdinand's skin and made his hair stand on end.

The narrow railing outside the cabin was a river of sailors rushing fore and aft, with barely enough room for them to pass by one another. The gale buffeted the men, threatening to toss them overboard like so many cloth dolls, a certain death, to be sure. Some of the sailors were lashed to the rails by way of safety harness hooks. Others, those who manned the sails and climbed the masts, Ferdinand could see, were wearing heavy magnetic boots. All Ferdinand had for safety was the da Vinci pack he'd grabbed and thrown over his shoulder. If it had not been part of the ship's safety regulations, positioned near the door, he'd not have thought to grab it. If the wind were to take him now, however, he'd not be able to activate the wings. Slung over a shoulder, as they were, they were not properly fastened, and wouldn't deploy.

Best, he thought, to get to father's cabin sooner than not. He clung even tighter to the iron rails as he made for the royal cabin.

He was climbing up the black ladder to the aft deck, clinging to the rungs as he would his religion, when he spied his uncle Sebastian above him, arguing with the boatswain.