From the very moment nineteen-year-old Yuki Sakamoto arrived at the Ashford estate pursuing the offer of employment she’d read in the local broadsheets, she knew that to find herself in peril was not merely possible, but quite likely. Honesty was one of Lady Ashford’s many positive qualities, after all, and she’d made it clear from their first meeting that she was not hiring a simple domestic servant to change her linens and prepare her bath, but a true companion willing and able to participate in the globetrotting adventures for which she’d gained such public renown and the generous patronage of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Danger was part and parcel of those adventures, naturally, and in the year she’d been in her Ladyship’s employ, Yuki had faced the threat of imprisonment or death on more than one occasion. That encounter with the savage Dahomey had been a particularly close call, and even months later, the beautiful Japanese woman still frequently awoke in her cabin aboard the Aeolus in a cold sweat, her sleep disturbed by the memory of the vicious slavers seeking to claim both the airship and its occupants as their property.

Yet such experience did nothing to make her current predicament any easier to endure, and beneath the stifling leather panel gag, she gave a frightened moan, any hope of escape squashed by the metallic hands carrying her through the corridors of the Aeolus, the brass digits clenching her so tightly through her fabric of her long black gown that bruises had begun to form upon her upper arms, slipper-clad feet dangling helplessly above the deck. The coils of rope tightly wound beneath her breasts and securing her wrists behind her back were but overkill, insurance in case the clanging monstrosities holding her malfunctioned, and even if she managed to free herself, well… there were only so many places to run on an airship in flight.

How long the automats had been waiting to ambush them, she’d no idea. One bright June morning, Lady Ashford’s wanderlust kicked in with a vengeance, and on the pretense of putting the airship she’d designed through its paces, she and her companion set out to circumnavigate the globe. By the standard set by her previous adventures, it had been oddly dull, their leisurely twenty-six days of travel enlivened only by a gun battle with greedy prospectors seeking gold in the densest Amazon and a failed boarding attempt by sky-pirates above the vastness of the Sahara, positively pedestrian occurrences where her Ladyship was concerned. No sooner had they returned to the Ashford estate in Cardiff and set down in its great airship hanger did the automats storm the vessel; baroque robotic creations of brass and steel, clambering over the mooring lines and onto the gondola like great metallic apes, shrugging off bullets all the while. Lady Ashford had ordered her to hide in the cargo hold, an order she’d obeyed only with the greatest reluctance, and her last sight of her mistress had been the adventurer standing defiantly on the Aeolus’ bridge, blasting away at the invaders with an elephant gun. As for Yuki herself, she’d made it no further than the gangway leading to the lower decks before a pair of automats cornered and seized her, the fire from her pistol no more than an irritation to the robotic attackers. Gods, please be kind and make sure she made it out all right, Yuki prayed inwardly. The Aeolus was definitely moving again, her time as Lady Ashford’s servant making her intimately familiar with every stray motion of the airship, and privately, she dared hope that her mistress had managed to fight off their attackers, get the Aeolus out of danger, and was even now coming to her rescue.

Then a muffled groan sounded from beyond the next hatchway, and Yuki’s heart sank as she was forced through into the main cargo hold, where the other woman was already present… and a prisoner, six more battle-scarred automats clustered around her. Born a clockmaker’s daughter and raised to high nobility by virtue of her scientific marvels and feats of exploration, the Lady Katherine Ashford was now reduced to a helpless, squirming hostage on the deck of her own airship. A decade older than the Japanese woman, she cut a striking figure in her more masculine garb, long legs highlighted by tight fitting breeches and a pair of thigh-high boots of supple leather, while a white silk shirt accentuated her feminine endowment in ways that Yuki found oddly pleasing, the effort bolstered by the corset of brown leather she wore over top. Generous scarlet lips had been sealed beneath a leather gag of her own, while above, wide green eyes peered through ebony locks to meet Yuki’s brown, radiating concern. She was Yuki’s employer and comrade and friend, a woman she admired and worshipped above all others, and fury raced through the servant’s blood like a steam pumping through an engine, the sight of her so diminished and at the mercy of their robotic captors simply beyond endurance.

“Mmmpppgggghhh!” Yuki howled in outrage, futilely kicking out towards the nearest automat, heel of her foot slamming with a dull thud against the armoured breastplate protecting the vital clockwork mechanisms in its torso. Behind the gaudy porcelain masks that served as their faces, Yuki heard the Babbage cogitators in their skulls clack and whine as each automat ran through their predetermined list of actions to conduct in response. Moments later, the robots made their decision, and the Japanese woman grunted as she was pinned down on her stomach beside her mistress, fresh ropes cinching tight around her ankles and knees. “MMMPPPGGGHH!” As one, the automats stepped backwards, taking up positions around the cargo bay, and Yuki tried the force the first frustrated tears back, despising herself for her weakness. Her Ladyship trusts me, and I’m not about to let her down!

And then a ninth automat clanked towards them, made distinct from the others by the new-fangled phonograph built into its chest. A cylinder was produced and inserted into the machine, and after a brief crackle, a man’s voice emerged from the horn jutting out of its right shoulder where its arm should have been. “Good day to you, Lady Ashford. This is your old enemy, Cornelius Lemmon, speaking to you. If you are hearing this recording, it is because my automats have succeeded in capturing your precious airship, and taken yourself and your charming Oriental companion in the bargain. After so many long years of slaving away in your shadow, I have finally won.”

“Mmmpppggghhhh!” the two women protested, giving each other a concerned glance. For many long years, Cornelius Lemmon had served as Lady Ashford’s chief rival in the sciences, a spiteful, envious creature who could not bear the fact that someone had overtaken him as the British Empire’s greatest inventor, and a woman at that. Jealousy had led to madness and then to treason, his cruel genius now bent towards the destruction of Katherine and all her works, and fear sent a shudder racing through Yuki’s slender frame at what he might intend for them now. “MMMPPPGGGGHHHH!”

“As I speak, the Aeolus is being flown to its rightful place at my workshop in Yorkshire, where I mean to take it apart and unlock every secret in its design. You too will remain a guest there, for though I loath to debase myself by seeking a mere woman’s counsel, there might be some small shred of knowledge in your mind I can make use of. Escape is pointless, for I know you’re quite fond of Ms. Sakamoto, and would never allow her to come to harm.”

The implicit threat was enough to fracture Ashford’s stoic reserve, and the ropes creaked as her struggles intensified, her mistress’ display of fear only amplifying Yuki’s own. “MMPPPGGHH! MMMMPPPPGGGGHHHH!”

“For the moment, take your ease and enjoy your flight aboard that wonderful machine you’ve constructed. For very soon, both it and you will be all mine…”