Well, it looked as if no one was going to help her after all. Still, Simnia lingered in the hallway, at the same time determined to get this ship and everyone on it as far away from the dock as possible, and unwilling to take the full weight of responsibility on her shoulders. But!

She rolled up her sleeves, took a deep breath, and stomped her way down the hall. She would do it! She would move the ship!

But who was steering?

The thought occurred to her just as she entered the engine room and looked up at the walls of pipes and gaskets. Even if she made the ship move, was the captain ready at the helm? Could the captain even drive this thing? What if she launched the ship right into a mountain?

"Argh! Get ahold of yourself!" she hollered to the empty room, and with thoughts of those injured comrades whose well-being now rested in her hands, Simnia followed the lines of piping with her eyes. She ran to the back of the room, found the rotors and the steam tanks, and when she turned a crank the room began to heat up. Steam! They needed more steam! Just like the train engines, after all.

The pipes began to clink and hiss. Simnia increased the heat, found another steam tank and turned that on as well with a spin of a wheel. This was easier than she'd expected! In her confidence, she rushed to another part of the room and yanked on a lever -- and metal all around her began to groan and strain. That wasn't a good sound.

"Uuhh . . ." The dwarf's eyes widened and she put the lever back to the original position -- apparently it didn't do what she thought it did -- but the groaning didn't stop. Was it supposed to do that? But slowly the odd sound stopped, replaced with the familiar hiss of steam, and Simnia ran to find the switches that would turn on the engines.

They were labeled with words she couldn't read.

A string of eloquent curses issued from her mouth, while steam hissed and the room grew hotter. She thought about going back to find someone who could read, but a part of her knew that any second those bandits could come crashing in and killing everyone onboard. So, she chose the switches in a highly scientific way:

"Eeny meeny miney moe . . ."

She flipped a switch, then another, and yanked on another lever . . . and held her breath.