The morning broke with pale sunlight over the Portsmouth Dockyards, glinting off still water and the wooden hulls of inactive frigates. The tide was calm, but the atmosphere was not.
Today, Phillip Wellington was not here to observe.
He was here to begin.
Commander Vale escorted Phillip, Henry, and the engineering apprentices into a long brick structure that smelled of coal dust, metal, and fresh timber. Inside, dozens of Royal Navy engineers stood waiting — uniforms neat, expressions skeptical, curious, or outright cautious. They had heard whispers of steel hulls and ships that could outrun the wind. Most of them did not believe it.
Not yet.
Phillip stepped forward and laid his rolled blueprint onto the long drawing table. The officers watched.
He unrolled it.
A silence fell.
The drawing stretched nearly six feet — an early draft of what he had tentatively named Project Ironclad.
Commander Vale crossed his arms. The naval engineers leaned in, slowly, silently.
